Jeong took a calming breath as his video cut. He hadn’t expected Mason to stop, or accept the treaty. That hadn’t been the point. The point was to see which of the players under his command would waver, break, or turn.

But they’d hardly flinched, save for the older chancellor.

It seemed living in the west had truly hardened them. It would be a true waste to kill them all. Jeong hoped to spare most after he killed Mason. Especially those who’d completed the first Nexus—they might be useful to complete the second. And they were powerful enough to threaten his main players as possible replacements.

“Um, lord emperor?”

Jeong blinked and turned to see the civilian captain looking particularly sweaty. His knife hand shook, and he stood behind his target looking even more rabbit-like than usual.

“Are we supposed to…that is…did you want us to…proceed?”

The various friends and family of the western players all wept and blubbered like the weak, useless civilians they were. Jeong did his best to keep any contempt off his face. Hostages would be very useful later to keep the powerful players in line. Once their patron was dead, and Jeong was their new lord.

Best to show them his fatherly side.

“Of course not,” he snapped as if disgusted, walking to the old chancellor’s daughter and kneeling down. “I’m sorry, my dear,” he said, waiting until she met his eyes. “You were never in any danger. I’m trying to stop the violence. And these people…” he shook his head sadly. “They just won’t listen to reason.”

“My father is a good man,” she said, mewling voice close to breaking. “If you let me go, all of us, I mean. He’d see you mean well.”

“I believe you.” Jeong smiled sadly. “But it isn’t your father, it’s this terrible warlord. This ‘Wolf of the West’. He has to be stopped. And then we’ll have peace.”

He patted her knee as he expected a good father might. Then he walked out to his gathered council and key people waiting around his meeting table, closing the door behind him.

“Are they squabbling?” he asked, voice bouncing around the room. “Any arguments or discussion about what to do?”

Erik the Swede stared with white eyes, two or three of his wizard lackeys behind him assisting with their own divination. Jeong’s chest ached from his patron’s artifact, the cold spreading and reminding him of the need to kill. He had the urge to beat the frustrating casters all to death with his bare hands, and laced his fingers to still them.

“The players are all already approaching the wall,” said the tall, annoyingly handsome, perfect specimen of a human. “The goblins remain outside.”

Jeong took another steadying breath. He wasn’t surprised, merely disappointed. It seemed the little games had come to an end. The result required wasn’t complicated. He had merely to drive the tip of his divine spike through Mason Nimitz’ heart.

All he required was chaos, confusion, distraction. There would be no final duel. No grand spectacle of champions clashing like in the arena. Jeong would attack his overconfident enemy, and end it with a single moment of surprise. Then the real work would begin.

“Go down to the wall,” he said, voice silencing the murmuring of his court. “Resist the attackers. Kill them if you can. But your goal is distraction and delay. Do not risk yourselves unnecessarily. Fight until I tell you otherwise.”

You might have heard a pin drop on the marble-floored room. Jeong almost laughed at the fools and cowards who served him. Erik, he had no doubt, had already betrayed him, or would soon. Michael the now dead spymaster had been replaced with a young, ambitious player. He pretended to be less intelligent and powerful than he was, which was a good sign. He might even be useful in the future.

If the holy city’s players gathered and fought, Jeong had no doubt they would easily defeat the western attackers, save perhaps Mason himself. They were weaker, certainly, but they were far too many, and had some talent.

There were a few players of some small note and power who’d proven themselves in the Neutral Zone. Some capable of challenging Mason’s people individually. Many capable in their pre-arranged, co-ordinated teams.

But the truth was, Jeong didn’t really care. He only had one rival. One enemy. And one ally.

He walked past Damian, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Lead them down, my friend. But please be careful. You mustn’t face Mason personally.”

The Brazilian stood with a nod, staring out at the others with his always delightful sneer. Jeong had found long ago, in his time in the criminal world, it was always wise to have an attack dog on a short leash. A creature that seemed at all times ready to snap and kill, held back only by your control. It could make even a man like Jeong seem like the reasonable one.

“Move,” Damian growled, forming a blade reflexively in his hand. “Gather your players. I don’t care about the cowards who hide or won’t come. We’ll deal with traitors later.”

We’ll deal with traitors later.

How true. It was exactly right. Jeong smiled politely as his council stood and went for the door. Then he opened his profile and flipped through the defences he’d pre-selected from the system list. He’d been saving points for some time. Tens of thousands. Many settlement’s worth.

He overrode the safety protocol of activating the construction, not caring how many peons died if they were too stupid to move. The system would flash a warning and red light over the areas. If that wasn’t enough, the idiots deserved whatever happened.

Activating selections, the system intoned in his mind before the world flashed red with warnings.

He expected the expensive defences and mass of players would have Mason busy trying to keep his people alive. Soon the outer city would be a messy, swirling melee of blood and death—everything he’d need to distract his enemy. To make him think Jeong had no intention of coming himself.

He walked to his private rooms where his sister waited. He thought perhaps she’d like to watch the fighting on his system video. They could drink tea and see the highlights.

Then Jeong would run her somewhere safe near the fighting, and take the largest boost she could give. And then he would bring the beginning of a new, better world, with a single thrust of his divine blade.

**

A few of Blake’s brain Partitions screamed in frustration. A few more in agony. He lay in the dark of the Maker’s ‘anti-magic’ room, trying every conceivable way to mask or channel his magic in a way that might avoid the suppression. But the second he used mana outside his body, the room shredded it apart.

When his eyes eventually adjusted to the dark, he’d also managed to see a faint light not far from where Jeong had left him. He stared and stared, then forced himself to wiggle his way through the agony towards it. He thought about what Jeong had said…

I keep it outside my private dungeon. The place you thought to destroy me. It wouldn’t have worked, I’m afraid.

When he’d finally reached it, he saw a thin covering of wallpaper over a glowing surface. He reached out a broken arm to touch it, forcing himself through the pain. He pulled off a corner of the covering, and touched the wall, hoping for a dungeon prompt.

It did nothing.

And as he stared he started to realize it was a trick. Some kind of installed panel to look like a secret door. He rolled over and laughed, hearing the sound of his own voice and thinking it crazy.

He passed out or slept after that, waking with a whimper of pain as he’d apparently shifted and touched a broken bone. He started thinking again, trying his useless magic. He even tried prayer to a dozen human gods. Then his patron Psion.

About then he heard footsteps coming towards his door. Jeong had promised to send a healer, but it seemed too so0n for that. Had the ruthless man changed his mind? Was he coming back to finish the job?

Blake turned over to face the door, his Partitions unable to stop enough of the pain to keep him from moaning. Little pulses of agony shot up and down his broken limbs like electric current. He was breathing fast, sweat dripping down his face. The locks started clicking, far slower than before. Like it was someone who didn’t know what they were doing.

A million thoughts flooded his brain, but none of it mattered without access to his magic. For that moment he was just Blake from Earth. Helpless and trapped and useless as some physical brute came to beat him in the simplest way possible. No Mason to hold them off.

When the door opened, soft light was still enough to make him squeeze his eyes shut until he could squint and try to see. He saw a solitary figure in silhouette. It looked tall, big, the broad shoulders of a powerful man. It wasn’t Jeong. Was it Mason? Could it be possible?

“I heard it was you. I didn’t believe it. But here you are.”

The voice was familiar somehow. Blake blinked and tried to see, his eyes still focusing as the man rushed forward. The figure leaned down and sneered with a barely visible, square jaw, waiting as if for Blake’s eyes to adjust.

“Remember me, wizard? My name is Stephanos,” he said, his voice and face still familiar but not snapping to Blake’s memory. “I told you in the Neutral Zone. One day you’d pay. How does it feel when you cant fight back?”

The image of a player with a hammer finally appeared. Blake had beaten him in the very first duel in the Neutral Zone. He’d toyed with him, more or less, killing him with constructs. But he hadn’t been cruel about it. And he hadn’t even used his mind powers.

“We had no choice,” he said, trying not to sound afraid. “It wasn’t personal. I had to fight, same as you.”

“We’re not the same!” The man roared, trembling with rage. “Losing to you like that…in the first round. I lost my position. My career in this city. Now I’m just some guard. Some whipping boy, no prospects, nevermind that I could crush my captain’s skull!”

Stephanos grabbed Blake’s hair and yanked hard. He cried out and tried to numb it away, but his Partitions could only do so much.

“There’s not much left of you,” the big man said with contempt. “Breaking what’s left will have to be satisfying enough.”

Blake’s brain told him to try intimidation. To tell him Jeong would kill him for this, that he’d spared him for a reason and the emperor would be enraged. But finding him like this, here, the man would know that. He either thought he could get away with it, or he didn’t care.

Blake was in so much pain. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t summon the will to imagine himself past this. A part of him almost welcomed some final blow—an escape from the physical suffering, and also the storm of thoughts that all circled failure.

It was a dismal end, though. A whimpering finale to all his grand plans. As Stephanos lifted his huge hammer, Blake tried one last time to use his necklace. Telekinesis. Primordial Making. None of it worked.

“Most of my powers don’t work either,” said the giant of a man. “But I don’t need them to crush your brittle little skull with a hammer. Goodbye, coward.”

He raised said hammer up for a swing, then jerked and spun with wide eyes. He twisted and spun his weapon as if at an attacker, and some tiny dark figure leapt aside and waved an arm. Blood sprayed Blake’s face, and all he could do was stare.

Another tiny silhouette stood in the door. It made a ‘tok’ sound before something struck Stephanos in the chest. The big man shook like he’d been hit by a taser. The close attacker pounced, shanking the man as fast as a prison thug.

By the time he fell, his face was going slack. He looked at Blake with the same wide-eyed expression he’d had in the arena, like he couldn’t believe this was happening. And then he was still.

“Quick-quick,” hissed the voice of the goblin assassin, and the other figure came running from the entrance. Blake honestly had no idea if the creature was here to save him. For all he knew, it was told to kill him if he was weak, to take his necklace. Who the hell knew with a Greenblood assassin.

Pliny’s horrible smile emerged from the dim light. He was like a green cheshire cat hovering in the darkness, goggles covering his eyes. His breath stunk like rot.

“Don’t worry, Patron,” the engineer said, rummaging through a bag. “Pliny has much experience with broken things. Mostly corpses…but, those are even worse. He’ll fix you right up. No problem.”

“Thank you, Pliny,” Blake hissed through the pain. “But that’s….not very….comforting.”

Pliny gave him one last smile, then held up a cartoonishly large needle.

“Close door,” he hissed at the assassin. “Sorry, Patron. But this will hurt. No drugs for corpses, hmm?” He laughed like this was hilarious, then sobered. “Yes, hurt a little. But necessary.”

Blake tried to protest, or at least say something clever. But all he managed was terrified noises. The door closed, and the world went dark except for the red of the undead goblin’s eyes.

The needle drove into his chest, and filled him with liquid fire.

It hurt more than anything he’d ever experienced, including four broken limbs. His mental suffering was instantly gone. In fact, he couldn’t seem to think at all. All he could do was scream.

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