In this small room with a round table sat three people I never expected to see. The pope of the Holy Dragon church, the king of the Holy Dragon empire as well as the king of the Narith dynasty, were positioned at the head of the round table conference. Was this some elaborate trap designed to thwart the princess? No, it was just a meeting for the true rulers to command their puppet government and I walked straight into it. In hindsight, it explained why they bothered gathering in the first place. It would have been simple to communicate with magical projections, so appearing in person could only be viewed as a display of loyalty.

As for why I did not see them enter, it was because they used the gates, not the main entrance. After all, what good is a puppet government if the puppet master is shown in the light? The only reason I did not see this coming with energy sense was laziness or overconfidence. The vast increase in stimuli brought by my recent skill fusion made it hard to use and I had not adequately adjusted to it, believing I could put the arduous task aside for later. The end result was walking straight into a clusterfuck.

Instantly deciding that talking would definitely be off the table, I activated my backup plan. Space folded, turning a room inside the palace into a forest while turning a section of the forest into an internal room. Luckily for me, the pope was carrying an artefact that prevented space shifting. In most cases, this would help him, but this time, it left him alone in the now internal forest while the others were translocated.

Arriving at the destination, I activated another formation teleporting the known loyalist dukes to a farmhouse near the princesses camp or at least should have if she set it up correctly. They still teleported but the signal ritual was misaligned causing them to end up teleporting straight into a pond. The end result was that I was left with the eight remaining dukes and two kings. Knowing the pope would not be too far behind, I informed them that the princess was alive and would return before leveraging my newly expanded mana pool to pressure them. The fat elf remained defiant and drew a wand casting a wind blade spell. Relying on energy sense, I kept my eyes on the kings while I dodged the attack. I retaliated by attempting to remove the dukes head with a combination wind and void blade. Due to the discrepancy in perspectives, the blade bisected him at the waist instead of taking his head but the message was clear.

While patting myself on the back for a profound display of power, I was blasted into the forest by a beam of light. The pope had arrived much faster than I had expected. It was easy to tell based on the earlier attack that the pope was a light magic specialist, it also explained his unexpected speed. Despite the attack knocking me back, it barely did any damage due to my Total Resistance. Unlike in the dungeon where it seemed every enemy had spell or damage penetration, it appeared the pope did not, focusing on pure power instead.

Dusting myself off as I walked out of the pit and looked over at the pope. “We can either do this the easy way where you give me the kingdom and I fulfil an oath or we do this the hard way and I commit regicide before assassinating a pope”

Looking at me as one would a bug, the pope replied. “I will never submit to a human. Alex, Markarth lend me your aid and we will kill this insolent fool”

The remaining dukes began to scatter as Markarth, the king of the Narith dynasty, drew a greatsword from a spacial void and Alex, the king of the Holy Dragon empire, burst into flames. In a flurry of movement, I expanded my wings and took to the skies to match the pope while sidelining the kings. Despite the surprise on his face, the pope acted swiftly, firing multiple beams of light from orbs that were originally hidden behind his back. Alex began chanting something about a dragon and with an unamused look Markarth stabbed the sword into the ground before summoning a bow.

The beams of true light arrived instantly giving me no chance to dodge. It was easy to see how this man would be feared because without my ridiculous defences this would be a one-sided beat down. Seeing that each individual beam did nothing but the sustained focus from multiple beams was enough to breach even my resistance, I couldn’t just let this continue. Shields would also not be an option because unless they blocked all light leaving me blind, they would not stop these attacks. Deciding that abusing my rare affinities was my best option, I created a time displacement barrier in front of a space barrier. It was a small half-sphere, the size of a door, where time flowed at one one-thousandth its regular rate followed by a spatial lensing field to divert the now slowed light back at the caster. I could only maintain these two spells in one direction and was thus unable to provide myself with complete protection, but as long as it was between me and the pope, I was safe.

While I was fighting the giant flashlight, I noticed Markarth's body swelling. From the mana fluctuations and visual cues, I knew exactly what was happening, after all, I have the same skill myself. Using Titan Transformation, he had managed to bring an incredibly powerful bow to full draw. The arrow also appeared to be tipped in orichalcum and coated in poison for good measure, a true mage killer. On the other side, Alex had finally finished his chant and summoned a white-hot fire dragon avatar.

Their plan was obviously to use Mr sparkles to prevent me from teleporting while breaching my defences with the arrow and damaging me with the dragon. I could tell just from the appearance of the spell that Alex must be a fire specialist with a mutant flame similar to my void fire. In addition to that, he had used the Chant Casting skill that boosts power in exchange for lengthening and vocalising the spell casting process. The pressure emanating from it also warned me that this spell contained a spell penetration aspect, presumably gained from sacrificing spell boosting materials.

Allowing my shielding to fall just as the arrow was fired, I used the force from the light spell to dodge the arrow. As the projectile sailed past me, mere millimetres from hitting due to Markarth adjusting his aim, I used the Proto-Dragon Skin to invalidate the fire dragon spell as I directed my decent towards Alex. Driving my space blade coated hand into his chest, I heard a barrier shatter before he vanished and reappeared a few steps to the left. Despite the overwhelming stat difference, this was not an easy fight. Each of these fighters had worked their way up to this level of strength through blood, sweat and tears. Putting them leagues above me in experience and strategy. I was nothing but a toddler welding a sledgehammer in comparison.

They also had the entire might of a kingdom backing them, allowing them to all have powerful equipment and protective artefacts. Even the system rewarded orichalcum from achieving the near-impossible dungeon clear would have only been enough to produce five arrowheads, yet Markarth was drawing another one from his spatial treasure without caring. Upon closer inspection, the edge of his greatsword was also forged with the rare metal. This was the difference between years of collaborative hoarding and a single year of near solo levelling.

Having their first attempt foiled did not seem to worry these three and the pope shifted from an offensive role to a more supportive one. While summoning illusions of himself and his companions, he drew out an almost transparent blue chakram. As distracting as the visuals were, I was able to see through the illusion with energy sense. It was particularly impressive as the illusions themselves mimicked a mana signature meaning that if I only had mana sense, I would still be deceived.

I had two methods of victory with the first being to survive for ten minutes ending Markarth transformation and turning this from a 3v1 into a 2v1. While the other option was to go aggressive and abuse my stat advantage. Deciding to go with the second on the off chance they have a fail-safe, I teleported beside Markarth. With reactions not to be underestimated he released the bow losing the arrow somewhere in the forest as he grabbed the sword. I activated my own Titan Transformation surprising the man, allowing me the chance to punch him in the face. With the sound of two items shattering, I advanced, accepting the damage from chakram thrown by the pope and the firewall created by Alex as the price of eliminating one opponent.

Just as my fist was about to make contact, Markarth was replaced by a small rodent which quickly became a bloody pulp. This animal was a Shadow Rat and from the pained appearance of Markarth, it appeared to be his familiar. Knowing that sacrificing a familiar was an act of last resort, I was sure that at least one of my opponents had no more defensive cards to play. However, before I could capitalise on this, he threw a small ring on the ground. The ring expanded in an instant and the 'proud king' escaped through a single-use escape gate while guarded by Alex. The gate would only teleport him a hundred kilometres in a random direction but it was enough range to get him out of the fight.

This single act changed the flow of the battle. Without the third member and not willing to sacrifice their lives, the remaining dracon began to look for ways to escape. These wily old men knew that to live was to win and understood that fighting here was foolish. They could do retreat now and eliminate me on a battlefield of their own choosing with better preparations. With their advantage lost, it would be stupid to fight and in the grand scheme of things, this loss would mean nothing. At most, it would result in the loss of their puppet and the return of the real spirit wind kingdom but they had already raided the treasury of anything useful.

With a blinding flash, they began their escape scattering amongst the illusions.