CHAPTER 154: THE SCARS OF THE PAST

Vasa, ever the analyst, was the first to ask a practical question. "The Puppet Master’s army is now leaderless. What is your command?"

Nox looked down at the confused mass of players in the schoolyard. "They are a resource," he said, his voice cold. "We will absorb them into our own forces. We need every soldier we can get."

He turned and started to walk toward the edge of the roof. "Let’s go. We have a city to rebuild."

As they made their way down into the school, they passed the spot where Mark had died. The memory hit Nox like a physical blow, a ghost of the helpless, angry boy he had been. He paused for a second, his hand unconsciously going to the hilt of the sword he no longer carried.

Serian, who had joined them on the roof, noticed his hesitation. "Are you alright?"

"I’m fine," he said, and kept walking. But he wasn’t fine. The past was not as dead as he had thought.

The next twenty-four hours were a blur of consolidation and preparation. Nox, with a ruthless efficiency that unnerved even Vexia, absorbed the Puppet Master’s broken army into his own. There was no negotiation, no offer of alliance. It was a simple command: "Swear fealty, or die."

Most swore. Those who refused were made an example of.

The city of Portentia was now truly his. He had the largest army, the most Flags, and a reputation that was more terrifying than any monster.

He spent the final hours before the scenario’s end in his Territory, not training, but thinking. He sat in the quiet dark, the events of the past few weeks replaying in his mind. The school, the forest, the lich’s spire, the auction, the battles.

He had become a king. He had power. He was no longer a victim.

But he was also more alone than ever.

Serian was afraid of him. Mela respected him, but it was the respect one gives to a dangerous, unpredictable animal. Elisa saw him as a rival, a whetstone to sharpen her own strength against. Vexia saw him as a tool, a powerful but unstable weapon to be wielded for the good of her people.

And his first party... Kendra, Yeda, and Vasa. They had looked at him not with the awe of his new subjects, but with a quiet, sad distance. He was their leader, their savior, but he was no longer their friend.

’Is this what it means to be strong?’ he thought, the silence of his Territory a heavy weight. ’To be so far above everyone else that you can’t even connect with them anymore?’

The final countdown for the King-Maker scenario appeared in his vision.

[00:00:10]

[00:00:09]

...

He stood up and walked out onto the balcony of the courthouse, where his companions were waiting. They all looked up at the sky, at the invisible clock that was ticking down the final seconds of the world’s first great trial.

[00:00:01]

[THE FIRST SCENARIO, ’THE KING-MAKER’, HAS CONCLUDED.]

[CALCULATING FINAL RANKINGS...]

A massive, golden leaderboard appeared in the sky, visible to every living being in the world. At the very top, in shining, bold letters, was a single name.

[RANK 1: NOX - THE VOID MONARCH.]

[FINAL FLAG COUNT: 512]

[REWARD: TITLE ’THE FIRST KING’.]

[REWARD: MYTHICAL-GRADE WEAPON - ’REGULUS, THE KING’S DECREE’.]

A faint, shimmering light coalesced in front of Nox. It solidified into a weapon. It was not a sword or an axe or a pair of gauntlets. It was a scepter, a simple, elegant rod of black, star-flecked obsidian, topped with a single, massive, pulsating purple gem that seemed to drink the light of the dawning sun.

He reached out and took it. The moment his fingers closed around the scepter, he felt a power that dwarfed everything he had felt before. It was not the raw, chaotic power of the void. It was the power of authority, of law, of a king’s absolute will.

A new screen appeared in his vision, a final message from the System.

[CONGRATULATIONS, FIRST KING.]

[YOUR REIGN HAS BEGUN.]

[THE AGE OF PLAYERS IS NOW.]

Nox stood on the balcony, the scepter of the First King in his hand, his new kingdom spread out before him. He had won. He had everything he had ever wanted. Power. Respect. Fear.

He had never felt so empty.

The story was just beginning. The real game, the one for the fate of this new, broken world, had just started. And Nox, the boy who had been nobody, was now its first, and most terrible, king.

And as he looked out at his silent, waiting army, a single, quiet thought echoed in the silent, clear space of his mind.

’I wonder if they have coffee in the next scenario.’

---

The week after the King-Maker scenario was, for Nox, mind-numbingly boring. There were no monsters to fight, no dungeons to clear, no rival kings to overthrow. There was just... paperwork.

Or, the fantasy-world equivalent of paperwork, which mostly involved Vexia handing him magically-scribed scrolls and asking him to make "royal decrees" about things like grain distribution and sewer maintenance.

"The eastern district’s aqueduct has been damaged by the recent conflicts," she would say, her face a mask of grim seriousness. "We require a decree to allocate resources for its repair."

Nox would just stare at the scroll, which was covered in elegant, unreadable elven script. "Can’t we just punch the aqueduct until it fixes itself?"

Vexia would just sigh, a long, weary sound that conveyed the full weight of her disappointment in her new king.

His new scepter, Regulus, was a magnificent weapon. He had discovered that it could amplify his Monarch’s Dominion, allowing him to enforce his will over a much larger area. It could also shoot devastating beams of pure void energy, which was awesome. But it couldn’t fix a sewer system.

His new subjects, the players who had sworn fealty to him, were a constant source of annoyance. They would bow whenever he walked by, their faces full of a terrified reverence that made his skin crawl. They would come to him with their petty squabbles—"King Nox, he took my share of the loot!", "King Nox, her summoned goblin keeps eating my rations!"—and he would just stare at them until they got uncomfortable and went away.

"You need to be more... kingly," Serian told him one afternoon, as they watched two players get into a fistfight over a slightly-dented helmet.

"What does that even mean?" Nox grumbled. "Should I sit on a big chair and make speeches? That sounds boring."

"It means you need to be a symbol," she explained patiently. "A leader. They need to see more than just your power. They need to see your wisdom."

"I’m not wise," he said. "I’m just a guy who’s good at breaking things."

The only bright spot in his newfound royal life was his training sessions with Elisa. She had, as per their bet, become his personal training dummy for the week. And she took her new role very, very seriously.

"Your form is still sloppy, ’master’," she would say, after he’d just barely dodged one of her glowing, silver-gauntleted fists. "You rely too much on your void-tricks. You have no foundation."

She would then proceed to beat the ever-living crap out of him.

But he was learning. He was learning how to really fight, how to use his body not just as a vessel for his power, but as a weapon in its own right. He was learning footwork, balance, and how to read an opponent’s intent not just with his magic, but with his eyes. And with every bruise, with every cracked rib that his Shadow Mend had to stitch back together, he was getting better.