Jennifer stared at the mana-phone screen like a life-saving treasure. As the Hand of the Red King, she was tasked with handling situations that required non-diplomatic solutions. The newest version of the old smartphone contained an application that helped to keep her sane.

Mana Aligned Positioning System (MAPS) was the single most valuable technology piece to Jennifer that had replaced its electronic counterpart, GPS. When the Portals came, the Primal Energy Source of Mana made physics have a slight hiccup. Cars and planes worked for barely twenty-four hours after the Portals opened before degradation started to show in their systems from mana. Scientists leaped onto the problem, racing against time to discover a way to keep humanity’s technological advantage intact. Other races had spell crafting traditions that went back millennia, and beasts had bodies that only grew stronger with age. Humans, at the start, had only technology to keep them safe. Murray Gelman, a leading physicist, was the first to make a breakthrough from a series of mana crystals he acquired from the Red King.

Jennifer’s master had given free samples of mana crystals to any scientist willing to take up the task of rescuing humanity. Along with the generous financial reward, that task had caused leapfrog progress from one evolutionary step to another. From discovering the mana field affected technology to understand how to shield technology from the effect, scientists pulled human civilization from the brink. Guilds rapidly formed to farm the very Portals that had almost destroyed humanity to gain the resources required to continue living. Mana crystals flowed from the Portals into runic arrays that powered things like the MAPS.

Once human civilization required oil like the human body required water, now mana crystals stole the spotlight. While the Red King couldn’t save everyone, Matt Smith did his best to save almost eighty percent of the population of Canada, the United States, Mexico, and South America. He closed all Portals with a higher danger rating than Tier Two, preventing any breaks from occurring. For those that had managed to break before he arrived, the Red King annihilated any non-Earth lifeform around the broken Portal before closing it.

The formation of the Red Kingdom was fun. Jennifer thought as she followed the application on her phone not to get lost. While she was perhaps one of the few true scions of power in this new world, her sense of long-distance direction had grown terrible. Sit all the politicians in a single room and tell them to create a functional Kingdom or die. Strangely enough, I don’t think I’ve ever seen people compromise quite that fast in my life.

The creation of the Red Kingdom was based on the absolute power of the Red King himself. Other than the Golden King in Europe, the Bear in Russia, the Monk in India, and the Jade Emperor in Asia, he had no competition. Humanity had five rulers now, and anyone looking at the oceans, Artic, or Antarctica with a mana satellite knew which side the bread was buttered on. Where the five absolute powers of humanity didn’t claim sway, Dragons, Demons, or worse, took hold.

As she was known these days, Jennifer Red took care of her master’s Kingdom in all but name. She was the iron fist in the silken glove that handled things that didn’t require soft words and paper treaties. When she received orders, they were simple and to the point.

Handle the problem.

Things like budgetary concerns didn’t apply to Jennifer, and property damage was merely another word for eminent domain to be applied. Granted, she did her best to make sure innocents were out of the line of fire and limited her power only to those who actually committed crimes. This wasn’t out of a misplaced sense of justice, though. It was to keep the lectures from her master down.

Unlike a normal teacher, the Red King liked to do his lectures while clearing upper-tier Portals to close. Jennifer felt that being placed in life-threatening danger when a simple application of precision could avoid it was a great life lesson. When she started training, control was the first milestone she aimed for. A glittering light announced her arrival, along with a ping from the MAPS on her phone. Looking up, words flashed in bright multi-colored pictograms in several different languages.

Portals have opened throughout the world, their depths containing untold wonders!

Delvers are those who plumb the Deeps searching for treasure, Skills, or Spells!

We are the elite of Earth who comes from the most common origins to the highest echelons of power!

The world is witnessing the rise of those who are more than human. Join today and be one of the legends in the making!

Join the Northern Blades, a rising superstar!

Jennifer stared at the flashing advertisement outside the second strongest guild in the Red Kingdom. The territories of Canada, the United States, and South America had all been conquered and consolidated to form the kingdom by the Red King. The surrounding area she stood in was a well-established metropolis, previously known as New York before the Portals arrived. Flanking the mansion, the guild had taken over were everything from skyscrapers to palaces. With the advent of Spells and Skill, construction was a breeze. The power of those with mana and those without was like night and day. Jennifer’s patron, the Red King, ensured she was a goddess in all but name alone. According to reports in the Red Kingdom’s spy network, even people were worshiping her in remote parts of the Rocky Mountains. At least it wasn’t as bad as the tribes in South America who quite literally had built an entire religion around her.

To think I laughed when the Red King told me divinity was only a few missteps away. Jennifer thought, walking towards the guarded entrance of the Northern Blades. As the second strongest guild in the Red Kingdom, they had special licenses and many plenipotentiary powers. Guilds were corporations, nobility, and government all in one easy-to-handle package. Since the world was in an age of might made right, those with the most power made the rules. There were voices of discontent, but if you couldn’t express your discontent in any meaningful way, it was nothing but whining in her opinion.

Several guards managed to identify her from the thick scarlet red aura that streamed off her form as she approached the entryway. Jennifer was clad in form-fitting deep red plate mail armor with a shield of the same color on her back to cut a devastating figure. A single iconic sword, also red, on her left hip made sure Jennifer was nothing less than a grim specter of combat. Her aura was a red shroud of color that clothed Jennifer’s form like an obedient dog. The aura wisped off her like fire-given form, cycling endlessly around her body within her Domain.

The Red King had told her that such a display of visible aura was nothing less than atrocious, representing a complete lack of true control. After watching a demonstration of a real aura used by her master from up close when the Red King dealt with a Portal break, Jennifer never tried to argue the point again. Secretly she felt it gave her a much-needed thrill to see people quail as her scarlet aura cloaked form marched towards them like death itself.

See the red tide before you die. Jennifer Red, servant of the King, never a Princess, never a Queen. Jennifer thought, remembering the opening lines to a song about her that had recently grown popular. She couldn’t figure out why it popped up all over the damn map like a plague until her patron mentioned it. The Red King had found it amusing enough to spread to the other Four Emperors, which had caused the song to go global. That blasted bard is lucky I can’t find them yet!

“Halt! This area is under the control of the Northern Blades! Approaching any further will be grounds for self-defense!” A guard dressed in shinier gear than the others shouted at Jennifer.

Jennifer raised one eyebrow and softly said, “For the crime of communing with Demonic entities, this guild is now sanctioned by the Red King’s Decree. Resistance is death. All those who are Tainted by Demonic mana will be cleansed with death.” While her voice was barely a whisper, it echoed like thunder to every ear within the guild. The bright electric lights that kept the night at bay seemed to dim with the announcement as if they dared not draw attention to themselves.

After the portals first arrived, humanity had discovered it wasn’t alone in the universe.

At all.

Demons, angels, fey, fae, faerie, beastkin, dragonkin, and Dragons were all quite real. The Red King, by and large, didn’t mind those who were willing to live peacefully in his territory. Angels, Fey, Fae, Faerie, Beastkin, and Dragonkin, were all part and parcel of Bloodlines' addition to the world. A powerful Bloodline granted lucky individual abilities that allowed for smooth leveling. It was the difference between cutting a trail in a jungle outback and walking a paved road. For many, a Bloodline was more important than anything except innate talent in a specific Element.

Demons and Dragons, though, were the darker side of reality that arrived with the Primal Energy Source of Mana. As such, Matt Smith, aka the Red King, had been forced to Decree their extinction wherever they were found within his lands. In the case of Demons, Jennifer was commonly sent to clean up the mess. The power granted by the Red King’s Shard made her one of the few humans able to crush demonic influence without being affected herself in the process.

Dragons required the Red King to intervene personally.

In the brave new world that had arrived with the Portals were always those who felt rules were for the weak. The Northern Blades were not the first nor the last guild to try to Pact for greater power. By informing everyone in the guild’s main office that they were now under sanctions from the Red King, those who were clueless could flee.

However, the leadership and those tainted by Demonic influence had only one recourse.

Death.

Glancing at the guards as she strode forward, Jennifer said, “Flee or die.”

When the guards readied their weapons to fight, Jennifer’s red aura spread out to encompass the guards, ripping the blood-colored life essence directly out from their bodies. Like puppets with their strings severed, they fell with dull sounds. A flex of her aura ensured their souls departed to whatever reward awaited them. Scarlet aura streamed out from her body, encompassing the entire mansion in a bubble of pure power.

I can’t wait till the negotiations are finished, and we can actually get a System here. Jennifer thought as pushing the door open with a single blow before moving through the building as she had been inside a thousand times. We barely know the difference between a Skill and a Spell, between a Level and a Tier. It’s practically the Dark Ages for our species right now.

Jennifer let her aura operate on autopilot, filtering those with demonic Taint out by the simple expediency of ripping the life essence out of them. As she moved deeper into the building, several stronger presences made themselves known to her senses. It never ceased to amaze her how a little power caused some people to lose their minds or sell their souls. Compared to the Red King’s Shard that had been given to Jennifer by the master for services rendered, the ones ahead were tiny sparks, while her own power was a blazing scarlet sun.

Kicking open the final doors with a mithril plated boot, Jennifer surveyed the large luxury that filled the room with a glance. Bookshelves lined the wall, with everything from pre-Portal literature to Spells and Skill books. Three men, two women, and several fawning sycophants took up space within the mansion’s final inner sanctum. The men held court at a small table in the center of the room, while the women held their own fiefdoms in chairs that flanked the sides. Couches were sprinkled liberally around, allowing those with power to sit while those without stood awaiting the chance to be useful. Holographic screens flickered her and there as several individuals had been using their own abilities to watch her arrive.

It’s like a vampire coven in here, except for the filthy stench of Tainted mana. Jennifer thought as she stepped inside the room. Her aura billowed outward, sealing the room inside a slice of reality that would prevent escape. Several flashes of light showed she managed to do so just in time as the more cowardly attempted to escape to no avail.

Her orichalcum shield and sword were suddenly in her hands, and Jennifer gave a feral smile at the arrayed enemies. “You should have kept your hands clean, idiots.”

“The Red King is merely a conquering usurper. My family has ruled this nation and many others well before his arrival. We will continue to do so even after he departs this planet. Bend the knee, and you could gain power greater than your wildest dreams, Jennifer Red.” The youngest man in the middle of the other two said calmly, sitting at the central table.

“As I live and breath, Mark Rockwell the North Blade himself. It is beyond amusing you think something from Below could have greater power than my liege.” Jennifer said as a portion of her aura settled into her body, turning her skin to mithril and her bones to orichalcum. The world around her slowed as her mind crystallized into a quantum matrix of mana.

Before the guild leader of the now doomed Northern Blades could open his mouth to speak again, Jennifer struck like lightning. Her sword's edge was effortlessly cleaved through a caster who had been starting to strike from the right while her shield deflected a blow from the left. There was a single pregnant moment of sanity as everyone realized negotiations were finished between both parties by fiat before the butchery began.

Jennifer was no Red King. She couldn’t slaughter an entire Portal break while drinking a cup of spirits and snacking on cheesecake. No, she was nowhere near her liege in power or its application. So, she had focused on what she was good at, melee combat. Her aura had been turned through patient endless training by the Red King into a weapon that served to enhance her most basic skills.

Chop. Block. Thrust. Move.

These were the words that defined Jennifer’s skillset. In a closed space, pound for pound, she was one of the most lethal anti-magic Domain users in existence. Tales were whispered about her by sadistic bards, drunken revelers sang songs, but they fell ever so short of her actual power. Her body, shield, and sword were extensions of her will and aura, bringing nothing but soul-rending silence to her enemies.

The Northern Blades struggled as Jennifer reaped red death among them. Mages cast spells that pulled on elements, or reality itself, and fighters attacked with their own brand of physical mayhem. A few even attempted to use their demonic allies as cannon fodder to delay her.

It didn’t matter.

Jennifer Red was the Red King’s right hand, the avatar of his displeasure, and there was nothing these fools could do that would allow survival. The red blade severed limbs, heads, and torsos with brutal efficiency. Her shield bashed both bodies and spelled aside as she moved through the room like a whirlwind blender of metallic destruction. Fire, acid, darkness, earth, it didn’t matter the Spell or Skill magic fell off her like water from an oiled bronze statue as she strode through the room dispensing red judgment.

In seconds there was only Mark Rockwell and his four lieutenants still alive. Jennifer watched dispassionately as the Northern Blade pulled the life essence of his four foolish subordinates into his own body using tendrils of dark demonic mana. It was a technique that she had seen many times before, practically the first thing any Demon-trained person learned to do. Such a trick allowed for a massive boost in power, yet like all Tainted abilities, it was a twisted gift. Absorbing others' life essence caused a deep abyssal hunger in the one who fed, forcing them to eat more and more to sate themselves.

Even though a portion of the boost was permanent, it was never enough, causing the Tainted person to require greater sustenance. Through this method, the Demon was able to obtain more souls as nourishment easily. Jennifer watched Mark approached his body rippling with unholy power, clad in a defensive Spell. A blade in each hand completed the picture, as the Northern Blade was known for his dual-wielding style.

Stepping forward with her shield raised, Jennifer grinned. It was time to put in the work once more.