The day of our next war came. This was an important day, and we had to win. Our portal had switched to another barren planet, and we had to wait another 2 days for it to switch again. By then, our stores of food would be depleted, and Morbid was most likely going to start eating the Spawns.

In preparation for this one, we researched all our closest neighbours and found out that some of them were also losing protection today. Unfortunately, none of the ones losing protection were the type of prey I was interested in.

Although this place is dog eat dog, and everyone is fighting to create their own world, that doesn’t mean that everyone is completely uncivilised about it. Most people are actually quite happy just with their domain and have no ambition to create a bigger world.

Those kinds of people are numerous, and they are more or less the majority amongst the Domains of every rank. The people with ambition also weren’t completely lawless and usually waged their battles in a mostly fair manner.

The type of people I was looking for were those backstabbing bastards who simply wanted to gain as much as they could as fast as they could. I was also looking for people that dropped in on other people’s raids right when victory was near so they could claim the win.

These type of people would race over as soon as they spotted a battle start then create a bridge and rush forward to kill everyone. Because the two forces locked in battle had depleted each other, it wasn’t unusual for scavengers like these to appear.

They very frequently ghosted domains they knew would be dropping protection soon and then quickly raced in after the war started. This allowed them to force the primary raider away before they could take the victory and gave them close to a free meal. They were despicable.

The other main type of nefarious Controllers I was looking for were the people who swooped in after a battle to an undefended domain before the protection could restart. That way they could claim a raid bonus and steal some land.

This was slightly more difficult, but there were certain domains that specialised in it. As long as they ‘docked’ with the defending domain before the primary raiders left, then they could claim raiders rights and stole a little extra percentage of land as spoils.

These domains usually had hardly any land to begin with, so they had the huge speed boost. They would then go and ‘lose’ a raid to sell the land to someone else for experience points.

This was how Juwan had lost his domain so quickly. All three times he was attacked, he was killed, and his territory was swarmed by vultures before the raiders had left.

This sort of unfair playing style, although very much not against the rules, was nonetheless dishonest and something I was not a fan of.

It was one thing if they were weaker Controllers teaming up to try and take down a huge opponent, but if they were just going to be vultures and pick apart the corpse of someone else’s foe, that was unsporting. At least in my opinion, which in the end is the most important.

Perhaps that may seem arrogant, but I had long since accepted that if I planned to try and be a hero and help people, I couldn’t please everyone. As long as it felt like I’d done the right thing, that was what mattered.

Heroes of one people are the devils of others.

In another sense, helping someone is always going to have selfish motives. I admit that my desire to help others is also for the selfish motive of making myself feel better. If I’m going to be selfish in helping others, then I may as well accept it and help people as selfishly as I damn well please.

It took a while, but with the help of some of my Clever Spawns, we compiled a list of potential targets. Most of them were still in their protection period after finishing a raid, but they would no doubt be eyeing the Domains that had just lost protection.

The target I had in mind for this raid were a pair of domains that always worked together to gang up on smaller domains. They also often had a group of vultures mulling about them. They would send in a Vulture with speed to lock down the enemy domain till they could close in.

They would then strike from two sides with greater forces and overwhelm them. After the raid, they let the vultures dock to steal some extra land and then bought it from them after the battle. Usually leaving the target domain in shambles and having lost more than 30 or 40% of their domain.

For the moment, we were following them as they closed in on a fresh domain that just lost protection. From our information, this domain was actually brand new, and this would be their first battle.

To not be detected, we had to set the light on our domain to nothing, so everything was engulfed by darkness. Although we could sustain this for a while, after a day, it would start costing experience to remain ghosting. Now that our targets were moving in on a domain though, we wouldn’t have to worry about that.

Not that we could afford it anyway.

It happened just as we’d expected. A vulture domain raced forward to freeze the fleeing domain, and the other two moved in to try and dock. Which was about the same time that we decided to reveal ourselves.

The moment they’d split apart and were about to dock, we flicked the lights on, and a handful of ballista bolts shot through the sky locking one of the raiding domains down under raid status.

The fresh domain looked like a yellow safari grassland and had some form of humanoid Wear-lions as inhabitants.

The two raiding domains that we were hunting were both like mirror images of each other. They had biomes similar to a dark and eerie forest. The trees towered above the domain and inside was filled with darkness.

The inhabitants of these islands was another pet hate of mine. Forrest Goblins. Sinister and evil little bastards at the best of times. Give them a domain and let two of the creatures meet up, they would follow their natural instinct and band together to gang up on weaker creatures.

The two goblin domains were both larger than the defending domain and even my domain. Their radius was probably close to 4 or 5 kilometres each. They were also swarming with Forest Goblins. The moment chuckles Ballista struck, he and the dozen Shadow Spawn all used concealing arts and blend into the darkness of the forest.

I controlled the domain to fly in and dock so that we slid into the gap between the raiding domain and the target domain. Unfortunately, we could only directly dock with one enemy domain and defending domain. That said, I wasn’t planning to leave the defenders high and dry.

I planned to simply send Seelie into the forest mounted on a little saddle I made for Morbid. It was probably going to be somewhat gruesome which is why I heroically led the rest of the spawn into the grassy plains.

The first thing we met was the Wear-Lions. A huge Wear-lion stood at the front of a pride of about 90 other Wear-lions. They clearly didn’t have the numbers to properly defend themselves. But they did have power. Just from a cursory glance, I could tell they would most likely be able to give my Spawn Army a run for their money based on their stats.

If my army wasn’t so diverse, I might have had trouble if I had to fight them. Luckily, they had shit resistances so the poison, curse and luck demons would take the advantage in the end. However, this time around we weren’t here to fight them.

Luckily I’d brought along my diplomat. I may despise his silver tongue, but even I couldn’t deny that it had its uses.

Juwan stepped forward looking very gallant and heroic in a shiny silver armour that the Spawn all converted and had tried to steal numerous times. His plus 43 charisma stat, which was almost as high as my endurance stat, came to the fore as he described the situation.

“Lion man, I am Juwan of Murphy’s Domain. We are hunting the nefarious Forest Goblins that have been plaguing the freshly spawned domains and request your assistance. You may not trust us, but I assure you we are here to help.

“Right now, you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. If you try to fight us off, you will only exhaust yourselves and make it easier for our prey to escape. If you let us assist you, we will let you escort us around the edges of your domain and remain as distant as possible from your Lion den.”

To my surprise, the leading lion talked in a manner I could easily understand and communicate with.

“ ... talk so much ... what do you want?”

I stepped forward to take over these discussions seeing as it was sometimes a bad thing to have too much charisma.

“ ... gonna kill the goblins ... let us through...”

“ ... sure...”

Ahh. Things are so much easier when everyone has a shared understanding. Turned out Juwan was completely useless and I should have just left him at home.

Things rapidly developed from there. The lion leader and I hit it off straight away and had a long conversation as we raced to the other side of the domain to help his kin.

“ ... goblin hunters?...”

“ ... sure ... Wanted help ... right?...”

“ ... sure ... not gonna? ... you know...”

“ ... nah...”

It was very informative for the both of us, and we understood everything, which was great. It was rare to meet someone I found it so easy to talk to. When we reached the other side of the plains, the Spawns didn’t even wait for orders as they just raced forward banging their shields with their little black daggers while screaming war cries.

Curses were being launched everywhere and a few recent evolutions, Alchemist Spawn, were busily throwing explosive potions all over the place.

The green-skinned goblins were shocked to discover that they were suddenly being pushed back. The sudden reinforcement was very much against their expectations. Soon the raid status from the goblins was gone, as they were forced back onto the bridge.

The moment we reached the bridge, I saw a particularly fat and ugly goblin turn and start wobbling back into the woods. I could tell he planned to break the bridge and run. With me here it essentially maintained raid status on the lion domain so they wouldn’t be able to disengage my domain and pursue.

Seeing him hobbling off. I called a few Curse Spawn over and a couple Shadow Spawn. I then received a number of strength buffs with various negative effects, both from my own spells and also my curse spawn.

I then started picking up shadow spawn and launching them across the bridge like missiles. The goblins clearly wouldn’t let that happen and started firing arrows into the sky to try and kill them in flight.

The only problem was, one of my Shadow Arts was missile deflection. It was something that the Spawn trained in daily because they all get some sick sense of enjoyment out of trying to hit each other with arrows.

The goblins clearly weren’t the most skilled archers, and the few arrows that got near were intercepted by deft dagger slashes and wild body movements. Even I was curious how they were moving around like that in mid-air.

Some of them even had a skill I didn’t, that let form a mist of shadows which they could dive through and teleport nearly 10 meters. In a few minutes, I had about 10 shadow spawn blending into the shadows of their forest, letting me set raid status so they couldn’t escape.

Thanks to them desperately trying to hunt down my underlings, the bridge defence lost some focus, and we started pushing even more fiercely. Spawn daggers were flicking about like little black blurs. The Wear-lions, seeing the unexpected reinforcements going absolutely ballistic and ripping into the goblins, refused to be outdone.

They all started releasing some kind of innate ability. Their bodies grew in size, and all their muscles bulged out like taught springs. Every swing killed numerous goblins. The green little bastards were starting to feel the heat, and after half an hour of bloodshed from both sides, the goblins were finally pushed onto off the bridge completely and fell back into the forest to regroup and defend from the more advantageous terrain.

Seeing this, I let out a loud whistle and all my Spawns starting running back towards the bridge as if their asses were on fire.

Seeing this, the lion leader gave me a look but seeing me give him a reassuring thumbs up, also pulled his forces back.

My little Alchemist Spawn all flicked their hands. Having been given semi-player status because they were citizens of my domain, they naturally received some of the perks. For example, they each had a player inventory.

With the flick of their clawed little hands, strange little suits started falling onto the ground, and they quickly started equipping them. The suit looked like some kind of miniature hazmat suit and had an odd little container on the back with a spray nozzle.

These had cost me a bit to get my hands on, and they were actually designed by and for dwarves. But they suited my needs perfectly, and when I discovered the Alchemy Spawn, I purchased them. It was due to expenses like this that I now had no experience points left.

As soon as my spawn and the wear-lions retreated to the bridge, the Alchemy Spawn stepped forward and started pumping a little handle connected to the container on their backs. After which, a strange green mist poured out.

As soon as the mist touched the grass, trees or shrubbery, a huge explosive green flame came out of nowhere and started engulfing the forest. As it spread, the Alchemy Spawn followed behind it lighting up more of the forest to keep it going.

Everyone watched on as the huge forest was slowly enveloped in one of my most devious and cruel potions. The Burning Acid. Those huge green flames let off no smoke or heat, and instead just seemed to slowly disintegrate everything.

It didn’t last forever of course. The further the flame travelled, the weaker it got. That was why the Alchemy Spawn kept moving along keeping it going in their little hazmat suits.

The glorious forest became like a huge green torch. Domains far off in the distance were horrified when they saw an entire domain suddenly light up in green flames that spread their eerie, sinister light like some kind of declaration.

Saying; “come over here ... and die”.

I watched on, quite impressed with how fast the Burning Acid was working. I knew it could dissolve a corpse in less than a second. But I didn’t expect it to dissolve something the size of these trees in such a short time.

Making it even more vicious than a normal fire, was that unlike climbing the tree and trying to burn it all in one go, it dissolved the truck first making the tree fall into the forests, spreading the fire even faster.

The little Alchemy Demons had to run just to keep up with it. It was a tough job seeing as there was only about 20 of them.

After watching this unsettling scene for about half an hour, more than half the domain had been obliterated and become a barren wasteland. The Spawn had run out of juice and returned to let everyone else march in and finish clearing the enemies.

The rest was very anticlimactic. Half of the remaining population had been eaten by the corrosive flames of the Burning Acid and with our overwhelming firepower and numbers, clearing out the last of the goblins was quick work.

We had essentially won the raid when more than half of the forest had been burnt away. Long flat landscapes were the hunting ground of lion type beasts, and the Spawn were so adaptable the last bit of forest was easy for them.

At last, the raid was cleared, and we stood at the centre of the Domain looking at a hole in the ground that was presumably the cave which was home to the Controller Goblin.

When we entered, it appeared he’d either died in the fires or escaped through a portal to avoid losing time and experience when he died. What he didn’t realise though, was the reason I picked him first as my target.

He had 3 portals. Which was rare for such young domains. Presumably, he and his friend had also been selling land for experience to higher rank domains, which was why they had no qualms buying it cheaply from the low-rank vultures.

Two of the portals were random cycling portals similar to the one I had. The last was a fixed portal and led to a huge quest world called Six Star. It was formed from 6 smaller worlds joining forces to make a coalition and later leaving the Warz together to form a single planet with 6 Controllers.

The most important part though, was that this world was very rich in raw materials and game. And something that stroked my fancy was that it was covered in all sorts of sinister types. It apparently had all sorts of black markets which dealt in things like land, assassinations and all manner of underworld trade.

It wasn’t that I wanted to particularly interact with them, but more that ... well ... the spawns had to eat something, right?

Apart from the portals, it looked like most of the rest of the good stuff had been stuffed into the Controller’s inventory and taken with him to prevent it being looted. That didn’t matter though. I took off my left glove and reached out my hand towards the swirling blue mist.

The mist then started to coagulate and form into a sparkly light. Slowly, it all started surging forth and soon became a little crystal in my hand. My deprive skill was truly monstrous sometimes. With it already at level 6, I could deprive more than just mana now.

If I used enough mana myself, my deprive skill could take nearly anything from someone. It was almost like an overpowered ‘steal’ skill. If I put in the effort and mana, I could take just about anything. Even the special traits and attributes of enchanted weapons and equipment could be stolen and stored into a gem.

I couldn’t use them myself yet because to use the gem I needed something like the Imbue skill. Luckily I had Seelie, so those few times I’d accidently deprived my gloves of their trait she could re-imbue it. Otherwise, a great many terrible accidents would have happened by now.

I then reached out and stole another portal. Once I was done, I took a mana potion and then tried to steal the last random portal. Turns out, there are still some things I can’t steal. Even after pouring all my mana into the skill, I couldn’t take the portal that came with the domain.

I felt it starting to loosen, but I just didn’t have enough mana. Instead, I sent myself into Mana Depletion, and all my special traits kicked in. Even now, after training my endurance so high, pain from the soul was almost unbearable.

Luckily, as my soul seemed to be tearing apart from complete exhaustion, Please Sir started patching it back together, and my Mana Demon title sped it up to 4 times the normal speed. Fortunately, the process was quicker than it used to be and I was guaranteed not to die from it. Unfortunately, I now had disordered mana, and it would be fluxing all over the place for the rest of the day.

With the portal stones in hand, and having regained my senses once the withdrawal was over, I turned to the lion leader.

“ ... thanks ... don’t need the rest ... seeya...”

“ ... sure ... next time...”

“ ... sure ... no problem...”

“ ... seeya...”

I then called all my Spawns and quickly returned to make sure my domain hadn’t been invaded. What I saw when I arrived left me slightly stunned. Almost like the other goblin domain, half this domain had been demolished.

Morbid was still running around chomping heads off panicking goblins, and Seelie was occasionally pointing at stuff only for it to explode into flames or huge vines to grow out of the grounds and squeeze everything to death.

He repertoire of magic spells was almost endless. I even watched on horrified as a goblin got a lucky shot with his bow only for the arrow to stop motionless in mid-air less than a foot from the back of Seelie’s head. The horrifying part wasn’t her omnipresent sixth sense or ability to freeze an arrow while still casting another spell.

The horrifying part was when she turned her attention to the goblin, and I witnessed someone casting a Spell Model for the first time. I’m not sure what the original spell was, but the results of the full Spell Model was a huge flaming meteor suddenly forming out of nowhere and falling directly onto that goblin.

The shockwave proceeded to completely disintegrate his nearby companions, and the entire domain seemed to drop slightly in space from the force. It was like having two floating boards nailed together in water and dropping something heavy on one of them. My domain was also dragged down slightly as if following a wave motion while floating in the sea.

The whole domain was engulfed in a huge dust storm, and bits and pieces of debris from stones and trees were shot everywhere like bullets. She was absolutely godlike in her casting abilities. It was too abnormal.

I could also cast a spell model, but it was only the Ain’t No Rest curse which would most likely only send a single person insane forever. I wasn’t sure though because I’d never actually tested it. Just the curse from the chant or spell pattern was already so cruel I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemies. If I actually used the full spell model, who could say what exactly would happen?

It wasn’t long before the dust cleared and I saw Seelie sitting atop the huge silhouette of Morbid, like some kind of queen of destruction. She looked valiant and powerful, and for the first time without her giving me an implant, something stirred.

Which I quickly stamped to death, lit on fire and spread the ashes into the four winds. Those sorts of feelings. I didn’t deserve to have them.

Juwan stood beside me and gazed off towards the powerful and regal looking Seelie with an odd look in his eyes. He then looked at me with even stranger eyes, after which a shiver went up my spine. Whatever he was thinking about was beyond me.

If he planned to do anything to Seelie, even if I didn’t have the powers of the system, I would kill him.

Things on the goblin domain calmed down, and all the spawns excitedly rushed in and started looting everything that wasn’t obliterated by the flaming rock. I also went and looted the spare portal this domain had, which was made increasingly difficult by my fluxing mana.

With our raids finished, we pulled back to the castle.

The Spawn all threw a huge blood festival which was quickly followed by a huge fertility festival. Before we broke away, the Wear-Lion came to visit us.

“ ... create party ... for land spoils ... then ... bye...”

“ ... sure ... later...”

Our fluent and precise method of communication left Juwan and Seelie both looking at as in a strange manner. We didn’t care though. We understood. I entered my Domain Control Space and looked through all the domain options.

I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but the lion man seemed to because I received an alert for a domain alliance. After accepting, we both broke off from the goblin domains. All the vultures nearby seemed to want to come in and steal a piece of the pie, but after the green flames and meteor, they decided against it.

Even if we couldn’t catch them with our domain. We could just drop a big flaming rock on them from a distance. On top of that, they’d just seen us swoop in and rescue someone from two huge domains twice the size of us. They weren’t willing to piss us off just for some quick gains.

As we broke away, a huge chunk from both domains disintegrated into dust and swirled through space like a stream before building up along the edges of our domains. We both gained just over a kilometre from the two domains.

In an instant, my domain had doubled in size. Space seemed to distort weirdly, and the biomes all seemed to grow and shit in a very strange manner. The altar and the buildings all seemed to stay where they were relative to the biome they were in.

The Green grassy hill became a bit taller and wider covering nearly a kilometre in radius. The sinister land grew wider to about 600 metres, and the smog had the smallest growth in width but the most in actual square meters reaching 400 meters in radius.

The twisted trees and tail flowers all seemed to rapidly multiply to fill the new space as if by magic, which presumably it was. With all the new dead stuff in the smog, it seemed to grow even more potent and vile.

After testing it, I discovered that the more the biome grew, the more poisonous it became. Before I could just barely withstand it. Now, it was actually almost painful. I determined that I’d slacked off in my training lately and hadn’t bothered much with my own skills and stats since we moved to the domain.

A new addition to the domain was a stream. It seemed to be some kind of magical spring that started in a little pond near the castle and flowed through all three biomes down towards space, where it just poured off the edge.

After some investigating, I determined it poured off the edge and then seemed to become mist that was sucked back into the huge rocky spike that was the base of the island which was our domain.

Unsurprisingly, it seemed to become more and more corrupt the further it got from the castle. The moment it entered the sinister lands it started to become slightly murky. It was like catnip for the Spawn though. They went swimming the moment they discovered it.

By the time it reached the Smog Marsh, the water had become very vile looking. After it left the smog biome, it looked like toxic waste. It actually glowed as it floated out into space and evaporated, which I’m pretty sure it shouldn’t normally be doing.

Just out of curiosity, I tried some at the very edge before it went into space. Turns out, even my endurance can’t handle everything. After spending nearly 7 hours in the castle slowly dying, I was logged out and slapped with my first 12-hour suspension.

I’m not sure who got experience if I accidentally killed myself. I half expect it to just go straight into the communal account of the Domain, since technically, the domain killed me. At least, that was the case when the tail flowers all planted themselves everywhere and started eating scorpions.

More importantly, I’m not certain how exactly I died, seeing as I can’t die from poison and I should have some immunity to sinister mana attacks. That could only mean the mixture of the two things had created something else? It’s probably something like a disease or virus if I had to guess.

With having died, Murphy was now trapped on earth for 12 hours before he could log back in. That meant that Seelie was now in charge and had to take care of everything while he was gone. Which was probably better since she was a little more level-headed than Murphy and didn’t just stare off into space now and then.

It had been a while, so she ended up deciding to take Morbid out for a walk. She saddled him up and called chuckles and Juwan over. Unlike Murphy, Seelie didn’t seem to think too badly of Juwan. She knew Murphy was guarded against him though, and definitely wouldn’t want him left here alone in his domain without someone keeping an eye on him.

Certainly, the Spawn could probably do it, but they had a pension for distraction, and all it would take is one Curse Spawn firing a curse somewhere, and a festival of fertility would suddenly explode on the island.

That being the case, she didn’t have much other choice than to bring him with her. Chuckles, of course, had long since expressed the need for him to accompany her if she ever left the domain without Murphy. He understood that the two people cared for each other in different ways and Murphy would definitely be displeased if he failed to protect her while she was walking the dog.

Morbid, being saddled up, immediately knew that he was going to get to go for walkies and so his excitement was unquantifiable. He almost couldn’t stop himself from jumping around madly as Seelie put his saddle on.

Chuckles pulled together a contingent of 2nd evolutions with Shadow Arts to join him in protecting Seelie. This group of 24 was Murphy’s most frequently used group when he chose to move about and quest for experience. They had a variety of different evolutions, some Curse Spawn, some Clever Spawn and even an Alchemist Spawn and 2 Luck Spawn.

But each one of them had Shadow Arts as their other evolution, and it made them perfect for hiding away and protecting the Queen from harm. Queen being the title they gave Seelie themselves. After all, Spawn weren’t complete animals and could at least pick out the most obvious of signs.

Which says a lot about where Murphy’s head space was at in regards to this topic.

After some preparing, Seelie chose the fixed portal. They now had 3 portals, with one of the plundered portals still in crystal form because it was another fixed portal to Six Stars Planet and they planned to sell it. Of the three they had, two were random, and following Murphy’s luck, 1 was still stuck on barren lands, and one was on a lava planet.

Just as they prepared to leave, two fat goblins walked out from the fixed blue portal, obviously not expecting to find themselves face to face with a giant Hell Hound on someone else’s domain.

An awkward silent moment followed in which the two parties stared at each other and then Morbid seemed to realise that these creatures were food and chomped down. Biting one in half.

Green blood sprayed everywhere, and the other goblin controller was just about to turn back and run when three Spawn suddenly appeared out of Morbid’s huge shadow and their pointy little black daggers stabbed into the goblin.

The corpse and what was left of the other were left for the others to loot and Seelie urged her party on, acting as if nothing had happened.

When Morbid’s huge head made contact with the comparatively tiny little mist portal, the mists surged wildly until it completely engulfed Morbid. Quickly following through was Juwan, Chuckles and the Shadow Squad.

The moment they passed through, the shadow squad split up, some of them jumping onto Morbid’s fur and blending into his shadow while others scurried about into the shadows of nearby trees and landscape.

They came out into a rather lush dark forest, not unlike the forest goblin’s domains. The terrain was covered in old downed trees and huge boulders here and there. It was a great place to take Morbid for a walk. They eventually planned to tear as many of these trees down as possible anyway.

Seeing the endless expanse of trees in every direction, Morbid raced off with Seelie on his back and started jumping around and sprinting all over the place. Like any other dog, he would find ubiquitous places to urinate on things, which more often than not had the power behind the stream to cut most plant life in half.

Only the stronger and older trees managed to suffer the water jet attack from Morbid. He would then race off further into the forest to smell some other things and destroy some more flora.

Seelie didn’t seem particularly phased by Morbid’s jumping and sprinting. She’d long since activated a spell to allow herself to freely change her inertia in tune with Morbid and didn’t even appear to suffer the slightest of bumps.

After about an hour of pointless walkies, which Seelie took advantage of to scout around their portal, Seelie sent one of the Spawn back to start setting up some resource points and dragging things back through to the domain for building and construction.

She then told Juwan to get up, and the rest of the Shadow Squad joined him. Seelie then patted Morbid’s head and he took off in a dead sprint to go exploring even further out.

The Spawn absolutely loved the experience. An exciting ride on a huge killing machine was something they dreamed about in their sleep, the fact that the huge killing machine was also fluffy was just a bonus to them.

Juwan, on the other hand, seemed to nearly lose his lunch numerous times and had already lost count of the number of times he was almost thrown off when Morbid suddenly stopped or changed direction on a dime. Which for such a big creature should have been close to impossible.

After almost 2 hours of travel by Morbid, the group found the ends of the forest and entered onto a huge grassy plain that stretched out for as far as the eye could see.

All sorts of strange dumb looking beasts were meandering about eating grass, giving credence to Seelie’s postulation that these meadows must belong to someone and were used for grazing livestock.

The somewhat shabby wooden fence along the edge of the meadow and forest was also more evidence, and she made sure Morbid didn’t crush it under foot as he passed over it.

Her eye glittered slightly as she considered what this meant. Most likely, there was civilisation nearby. If that was the case, she could abuse these twelve hours Murphy was gone for and complete some quests for experience and loot.

It would also give her a chance to level up some spells that wouldn’t completely obliterate their domain when she cast them.

I can say without doubt, that little brother’s taste in women is exquisite. That Seelie girl, although I’ve only met her a few times, she is in a league of her own. I also readily acknowledge my loss to little brother in this regard.

Unlike all the women I’ve known on earth, she has not once glanced at me or even seemed to acknowledge my existence. Apart from taking me on this journey with her, which I suspect was more to appease the shrewd and suspicious mind of Little Brother, she hasn’t even spoken to me.

That said, the regal and noble bearing with which she holds herself is almost like she isn’t even actually human but some celestial. No matter what, I will protect Little Brother’s girlfriend! Well ... it is probably wrong to call her his girlfriend.

For starters, little brother seems completely obtuse to her constant advances. The only time I’ve seen her act like anything less than a goddess is when she is interacting with Murphy. Regardless of her open as a book affections though, Little Brother remains oblivious. If I hadn’t known him for six years, I would think that he deliberately ignores her affections.

I will help this young couple along! I must find a way for Little Brother to realise future sister-in-law Seelie’s feelings. At least in this, I have a comrade in arms. Although Chuckles is very brash and would normally be a creature I would immediately slay on sight, I have come to learn that he is a huge romantic at heart.

He, like me, cares greatly for Little Brother, and as two kindred spirits we have already gravitated towards one another and begun devising some kind of method to push Murphy forward, so he’s forced to recognise the feelings he has in his heart!

Even at the cost of our lives, we two, brother and minion, have sworn by blood pact to ensure this happens.

On the mention of Chuckles, I have learnt a great deal about Murphy from him. For starters, I was rather worried when I first came into the game to join him and play together. This was thanks to an endless onslaught of rumours I’d heard about him from all sorts of people.

When I first came to his domain, it only reaffirmed some of those rumours, and worried me even more when I saw what direction his domain was leaning in. I’d thought I would have to put on a solemn big brother act and step in to try and correct him.

It was only after Chuckles and I first met that I discovered what Little Brother was doing here was completely different from my expectations. I also had to scold myself ruthlessly because I’d let something as petty as appearances cloud my judgement of my wonderful Little Brother.

It turned out that he actually suffered through all this for the purpose of helping a dying race restart fresh and anew. Giving these creatures on the brink of extinction not only a home, but teaching them important life values and ethics as well.

The cost of doing this deed was that he would look like a supporter of evil and a sinister overlord that enslaved this race. The truth was so much different from what anyone, even myself, would have expected.

Unfortunately, even after I explained this to the Spawns, they refuted me in arguing that, how their culture looks to others isn’t their concern, and that was something that even Murphy agreed with. They technically weren’t doing anything wrong.

Just because another race or society is pedantic about respecting the dead by burying them, the Spawn respect their enemies who died in bloody battle against them by painting walls with their blood and hanging their cracked skull everywhere.

If anything, their respect for their dead and even the dead of their enemies was on a whole other level beyond just burying them somewhere they would likely forget about them. For as long as their remains survived the ravages of time, the Spawn would show their respect to those they fought in battle by keeping them insight and showing them off like trophies.

It seemed Murphy had been teaching them a lot of similar things, because every time I wanted to refute the methods with which they did something, they would argue back like skilled theologists and philosophers. It was almost as if every spawn raised by Murphy had the sub-class Philosopher.

In the end though, the argument that always struck me down the quickest was; As long as we feel what we’re doing is right, what does it matter what everyone else thinks?

Although it’s a selfish way to live, in the end, I had to agree that every motive is selfish. That is the whole purpose of being a ‘self’. Otherwise, you are just a thing. Something used for someone else’s self. It is like the underlying law of all sentient life.

It seems I have become too philosophical as well. I’ve only spent a few day with these creatures, and they’re already starting to rub my Little Brothers ideals off onto me. I don’t mind though. I’ve always thought that little brother was out of his natural habitat on earth. I am certain, Little Brother is really a King in spirit, and has only been waiting for this chance to step into the role he was born for.

Haa ... alas, if only he would acknowledge his queen. For that to happen, Chuckles and I are most likely going to have to step in.

When we finally stopped for a break, Chuckles went and had an animated conversation with Morbid. He’s such a good dog, and in my opinion, the perfect mount for Little Brother. His ferocious combat potential is second only to his huge heart ... well third perhaps, seeing as the only thing bigger than Morbid’s heart is his stomach.

Morbid seemed to mostly understand the gist of our plan, and after a great deal of persuading and assurances by Chuckles and myself, he hesitantly agreed. Now we had everyone in on the plan.

We naturally couldn’t tell Seelie. If we did, she would most likely decline to participate. She seemed to think the only way to steal Murphy’s affections was through power and patiently wearing him down.

Although I somewhat agreed with that prospect, and acknowledged that perhaps the only way she would be able to snatch Little Brother was by raping him, I didn’t fully endorse such a method.

As the day dragged on, we finally reached a huge city. It was about half a day’s journey south of our portal. The moment we got there, the mixed inhabitants all quickly parted like commoners venerating the majesty of a Queen.

It was either that, or the huge vicious looking demon beast, Morbid, frightened most people out of the way. Due to his size, we were forced to mostly use the larger roads in the city to get around. Shadow Spawns left for missions from Chuckles and returned intermittently only to race off again and collect more information.

In about an hour, we managed to accumulate a pretty good list of all the Quest’s currently being offered in the city. Seelie chose a few quests to go and investigate after reading through the list.

Naturally, the quest she chose first had the best rewards but was also the most dangerous. Dragon Slaying.

I had always thought, from all the old stories, that dragons were so rare you would be more likely to die from breathing air than encounter one. Turns out that they’re actually something akin to a plague in this dimension.

They turned up a few hundred years ago, and ever since, half the Quest Planets have been overrun by the vermin. They’ve claimed endless amounts of land and lives. Even the 6 Stars, the Controllers of this Quest Planet, had trouble dealing with them.

At the same time, they were excellent sources of experience, and they tended to gather huge amounts of loot, so other players were often relentless in trying to attack them. The dragons actually didn’t even need to move most of the time.

They just set up in some dungeon or took over a castle then adventurous, ignorant or foolishly brave players would race over to slay them, only to be devoured instead. The worst part was that Dragons were huge cowards who would fly off the moment they felt danger, and they had an innate talent called ‘Looting’. If I’m honest, they aren’t ancient and noble creatures as I’d heard in stories, and were just petty thieves.

They may be one of the most powerful races in the Domain Warz, but their characters were more akin to filthy bandits that robbed and cowered the weak while simultaneously robbing and fearing the strong.

Usually, the former would result in someone weak being eaten, and the latter would result in the huge scaly winged bastards flying away as fast as they possibly could, while laughing and counting the gold they’d ‘looted’ from the adventurer’s pockets before fleeing.

Anyway, we mostly expected her to jump into the most rewarding and dangerous mission first. For our plan to work out, Chuckles, Morbid and I would need to do some ingenious deception so that everything was set up just right.

Murphy should be logging back in within the next 24 game hours, which hopefully will be enough time for us to set everything up properly.

I was curious as to why Juwan was so insistent we wait for a short while before going to slay the dragon. I also felt that something was odd when Morbid didn’t race at full speed to get a chance for some huge bones to gnaw on.

I became incredibly suspicious when we reached the dragon’s lair and Chuckles somehow ended up tied down by weak creatures in the beginning. Then Juwan somehow got tied down by some lizard people that I’m pretty sure he could kill with a sneeze, and finally Morbid somehow couldn’t keep the dragon at bay and was knocked unconscious.

Just as I was preparing to cast a Spell Model and simply obliterate everything, I felt a little prick in my thigh, and suddenly all my Mana drained out of me in a matter of seconds. Without Mana, I essentially became useless and powerless.

The oddest part of everything was that my defensive spells were almost flawless and the few weak spots they had where the size of a penny and could be counted on both hands. The only way to pick them out would be if you were to already know they were there.

Before my suspicions could become full blown paranoia though, I was captured. Chuckles and his Spawns were, ‘somehow’ fought off and Juwan disappeared in the midst of battle. Morbid was the least convincing of everyone as he silently played dead while constantly looking up just to make sure I was still OK.

If I didn’t know how protective the Spawn and Morbid were of me, I would most surely have suspected them of having set some kind of trap to deliberately hand me straight to the dragon. Instead, the only other conclusion I could find was that they were setting a trap for Murphy, which made even less sense.

It seemed I was somewhat doomed now. The huge red dragon was busily gloating and ogling me with perverted eyes while roaring proudly for beating a little human girl like a huge asshole. Things then started happening rather quickly as the Dragon declared it was going to trap me in a tower to use as bait.

When I first entered the game, and I was asked if I wanted to change my race or image, I somewhat hesitantly agreed. I simply asked to be beautiful enough that Murphy could never resist me. After having met Jasmine, the Game Master, I came to realise that she was quite prideful of herself and so gave me an image very much similar to her own.

This was more or less claiming that Murphy would never be able to resist her. Although the thought of anyone else making a move on Murphy pissed me off, I couldn’t deny the fact that she, and now I, was a stunning beauty.

That was also the reason that I was now being used as bait by the Dragon to lure in stupid hotheaded adventurers that thought with their dicks. They were usually the stupidest of the stupid ones, and more often than not, they were loaded with loot. Perfect for the Dragon.

I wasn’t too pleased my new arrangements. For starters, I could already tell that the moment some oaf in shiny armour with more muscles than brains storms in here, if he somehow gets lucky enough to kill the dragon, he would immediately claim all the loot, which presumably includes me.

One of two things will generally happen in this situation. He will insist, and will try to abscond with me back to his domain where he’ll hold a huge gallant wedding and then ‘claim’ me. Or Morbid will stop fooling around and eat said gallant knight.

With no other choice, I was locked in a tower above a dirty old abandoned castle, and the dragon stalked about looking menacing while pretending not to see Morbid occasionally looking up at the tower now and then just to check on me.

I was now thoroughly confused by the motives of my adventuring party. I had some inklings of an idea what they might be trying to accomplish, in which case, if I were correct I would be training them all in dodging skills the moment Murphy came and rescued me.

Haa ... rescued me ... it sounds so romantic, and it would definitely be a lie if I said this wasn’t a little fantasy of mine. At the same time though, I have much stronger fantasies. None of which involve me being some distressed damsel in need of rescue.

My top fantasy would be an actual real date! Just a simple stroll. A chat. Dinner. Sharing feelings ... kiss ... oh and then...

Well ... nowhere in that fantasy was there a need for Murphy to rescue me from anything other than the torment of waiting forever for him to stop being so dense. I could just openly admit my feelings to him, but there are so many reasons that held me back.

While I’m no social butterfly, of the two of us, I am definitely the one that can communicate more easily. In that case, it wouldn’t be unnatural for me to confess my feelings. The only problem is ... he never fucking listens! If I made a fool of myself confessing and he was busy day dreaming, I would die of embarrassment!

Then there are all these other reasons. Chief amongst them, and the reason everyone is afraid of confessing. Fear! I’m too afraid to say it because what if I say it and he says nothing at all. Or even worse, directly shoots me down!

If I admit what I feel, especially to a person like Murphy, and he rejects those feelings...

I would rather wait! I’ll wait for fucking ever if I have to! Slowly, day by day, I’ll wear away at him until he has no choice but to admit his feelings. Or at the very least ... to acknowledge mine!

Haa ... but then, perhaps I am being too arrogant? Perhaps he truly has no other feelings for me, like what I feel for him...

Oh ... Is he finally here? Murphy’s always fucking late. He better be ready for a long lecture! I’m gonna lecture him to death! But what if he comes and he finally...

And then...

And if...

Bang!

A huge battle raged down in the dilapidated castle that was now the dragon’s lair. Magic was flying everywhere and the sounds of swords and shields clashing echoed across the dreary looking landscape around the castle.

Seelie couldn’t see what was going on, but the dragon appeared to be losing. The strange part was that she could hear shouting, which was something that would only happen if there were multiple people, as opposed to a single Murphy and his Spawn.

Soon quiet enveloped the castle. It didn’t take long to discover that the dragon had looted half the adventurers and fled into the sky like the cowardly beasts they are.

Moments after Seelie spotted the huge silhouette of the dragon disappearing into the skyline, the door of the tower was busted open with a vigorous kick.

“Young lady, you needn’t worry. I’ve come to ... rescue ... Great Heavens ... you’re beautiful.”

“Sighh ... Yes yes. Move aside then, I’ll be on my way.”

Seelie knew it was a long shot, but she decided she would try anyway. As she expected, the gorgeous looking blonde haired prince, who was in every way a cliché damsel rescuer/dragon slayer, stepped forward into the room of the tower, grasped Seelie by the waist and forced her into his embrace.

“Princess of the Tower. I have travelled endless days and nights to rescue you at the behest of your loyal entourage. You needn’t worry any longer. I will be your shield for a lifetime. Your sword for an eternity. As long as stars fill the sky, I will protect you.

“I have heard of the dark prince that locked you away here to force you to marry him, and I will stop at nothing to destroy him.”

Seelie simply stood there limply, making no effort to escape but also making no effort to try and become closer. She knew she didn’t have the strength to resist until the toxin that had emptied her mana wore off, and she could restore it.

She just looked at the knight in shining armour like an idiot as he professed his love at first sight.

“I can tell at this single moment’s glance. In fact, before I even came. I knew I was destined to meet my true love. The only one in this world that could possibly captivate my gaze. I am now more certain than ever, that my true love is you!”

“Who the fuck even are you? I don’t want your love. Keep it.”

Seelie made no bones about ruthlessly stomping the shit out his heart. At the same time, she was trying to work out where all this shit about a loyal entourage and dark prince was coming from. Also days? She’d only been locked in here for a few hours.

It then clicked, and she seemed to realise what sort of terrible plot line Juwan had created to convince some schmuck to rescue her before Murphy and take her away.

The whole thing would create a sense of urgency and loss for Murphy. If he truly had feelings for her, the thought of some loser in shining armour that looked like he was born with a stick up his ass trying to take her away and marry her would drive him into desperation.

He wouldn’t be able to stop himself from racing forth to rescue her. At the same time, even if his feelings weren’t so inclined, his code of ethics would force him to come and help Seelie, and Juwan would be hoping that in the following escapade of adventures that Murphy would have to recognise her feelings for him, and likewise eventually develop similar feelings for her.

She just let out a sigh of exasperation.

The prince charming gave her a strange look then let go and humbly bowed.

“I am Prince Charming of the Whitest Teeth. From the domain of Seventh Heaven in the vast Merithal Star Plain. Apologies my Princess for not introducing myself, I was simply mesmerised by your beauty and I couldn’t...”

“Yeah. OK, that’s great. So what do you want exactly?”

The Prince held his head up high with a straight back and flashed his remarkably impressive pearly whites.

“Naturally, I will rescue you, and take you back to my land to be wed together, where you can bear my young. Those hips will be fine childbearing...”

“Fine. Let’s go get married or whatever and live happily ever after. Here are a few gifts from me that will help you out along the way.”

Among the things she pulled out of her inventory were a broken dagger, a rabbit’s foot and some little wooden carvings of animals. Also, there were all sorts of actually useful things. About three skill books, some instant recovery potions, and some cure potions along with various other equipment or consumables.

Prince Charming was so happy he was wordless. He collected up all the things and wore them on him like lucky charms. At the same time, he started opening the skill books.

Seelie reached out a hand to stop him.

“You should wait. These are for when you need them most.”

With that, the Prince Charming rather aggressively picked her up in the customary princess carry and took her down to the entrance of the castle where his comrades were busily swearing into the sky about how the dragon looted them then ran off.

He placed her on the back of a magnificent white steed and made no delays in racing back to his kingdom.

As it goes with all adventures for a Prince Charming and Beautiful Princess, all sorts of sinister forces began to operate in the darkness to try and hinder him. They met another prince who became exceedingly jealous, which resulted in the two princes fighting over Seelie like children.

After Prince Charming managed to defeat this foe, he accidentally cut himself on the broken old dagger and got an infection, leaving him slightly crippled for the rest of the journey.

The rabbit’s foot attracted a strange beast that remarkably and very coincidentally happened to enjoy rabbit’s feet. Even if the thing was stuffed.

Prince charming lost half his retinue in the ensuing battle. They then met with an old witch who took exception to a pair of boots he had. During this battle, he was beaten back severely and was forced to open one of the skill books in hopes it was useful.

Turned out to be a skill book for doll making. When he opened the next one, it was a skill for gymnastics. The final one was a skill for the dog paddle swimming style. How these kinds of things were even considered skills was beyond him.

Nonetheless, being a heroic prince, he took advantage of these skills. To level something like dog paddling up to level one is akin to swimming a thousand kilometres with the dog paddle. What kind of masterful dog paddling would that be?

The prince used his gymnastics to evade spells and lured the witch towards water, where he then became like a dog and started paddling around. His doll making skills remained useless, but after accidentally splashing some water on the witch she just seemed to melt, and the problem was solved.

By the time they reached the portal to his domain, nearly every creature that was within 20 kilometres of their travel path had attacked them at least once. Not to mention that there was an endless number of innocuous traps that appeared to be like everyday things which coincidentally happened to all target the prince.

It was almost the next morning when they finally reached the Prince’s portal. The moment they got there, the rest of his party all let out relieved sighs. Just as they started moving through the portal. Seelie stopped and looked back with a very strange expression.

She’d slightly enjoyed the trip. Apart from the prince constantly leering at her and describing how he planned to put babies in her, the parts where he faced an endless onslaught of danger was quite fun. Everything Seelie gave him was something that Murphy had either accidentally or intentionally cursed with bad luck.

Seelie kept a hold on some of them now and then just in case she ever found a use for them.

As enjoyable as it was watching the pompous ass that was Prince Charming fight for his life to bring her to his domain and claim her as his, Murphy never came. She’d thought to just go along for the trip and have a chuckle now and then. If Murphy showed up, which she was pretty sure he would, then she would go home with him.

It wasn’t that she needed the rescue, her Mana had started to restore just as she was leaving the castle. It was that she wanted to know that he cared. Now that he hadn’t turned up at all, she was somewhat upset.

Thanks to that, she simply turned around and started to walk home again. Not giving the first thought to the Prince who was expecting her to simply come with him and make some babies like some sow.

Turned out, the Prince was every bit the man Seelie had known he was. She was quite the good judge in character, and the moment she started to walk off, the prince finally lost his shit!

“Oi! You little bitch! Where the fuck are you going? Aye?”

“I’m going home Mister Charming. Your character may project well onto others, but you smelt like hypocrite and lust from the moment I saw you. Good day.”

Although she wasn’t a princess, she’d been acting like one all day for shits and giggles, and had a little trouble not politely telling him to fuck off. Plus, she rather enjoyed the pleasant way these nobles spoke. It was perfect for speaking down to people with. Like it was invented for just that purpose.

“Like hell! You’ll be coming with me, you little tower whore! I’m going to enjoy pillaging you. Then when I’m done, you’re going into the pen with the other breeders!”

As he said this, his body began to twist and morph slightly. Bit by bit, his muscles bulged out and expanded to the point that his shiny armour started to crack and the chainmail on his arms split apart.

Slowly, his body grew in size until he looked like a hulking, hairy, pig-faced man.

“Oink! Oink oink! Get ready ‘Princess’. This prince charming is gonna oink you into submission. Oink!”

Seelie watched on, completely unsurprised apparently. Which also shouldn’t surprise anyone else, seeing as the girl is like a walking encyclopaedia. If she didn’t have abilities that could see through this sort of concealment spell then what kind of Scholarly Mage would she be?

She let out another sigh as if this was more trouble than it was worth. She readily admitted now that she was most likely being a hypocrite and fooling herself this whole time. She actually really, really wanted Murphy to come and rescue her. Even if she didn’t need it.

She went to summon her spell tome to clear this pig man from the face of the planet only for her body to suddenly grow numb. She reached around behind her and flicked her hand, causing a little spider to land in the grass and scurry off towards Prince Charming.

‘Shit, a paralysis familiar of some kind? When did he set that on me? Back at the tower? That was the only time I let him touch me! He was planning to simply abduct me from the beginning? Fuck!’

Seelie’s body grew numb almost instantly. Her mouth grew numb, and she couldn’t chant. Her hands grew numb, and her spell tome fell to the ground before vanishing into sparkly lights and returning to her status space. She couldn’t even lift her arms, and slowly her entire body became limp and fell like a noodle to the ground.

The huge pig man stomped forward with grunts and oinks. His big rough hands reached out and grabbed Seelie’s waist as he lifted her up.

Her muscles were so relaxed that her body simply arched backwards in the grasp of his huge hands, with no power to resist or even straighten her back. She now truly felt helpless.

While one hand stayed on her waist, circling around her completely with a vice-like grip, the other hand of the pig man started rustling around out of sight. She then heard the ripping of her robes as they were torn from her limp body and some huge, round, hot object started moving along her thigh towards her sacred place.

Tears fell from her eyes, and her heart was filled with bitterness. She knew that she had been cocky thanks to the power level of her spells and she was resentful that Murphy hadn’t shown up yet, so she enjoyed herself tormenting the sick bastard all the way here.

Because of that, she now really was a damsel in distress.

The pig man reached out and grabbed her by the neck, lifting her up to watch as he took that something special from her. When he lifted her up, he was surprised to find that Seelie’s teary face wasn’t filled with the distressed panicking look he loved so much.

Instead, her eyes were angry and filled with resolve, while a sinister smile arched up the corner of her mouth as if she was secretly laughing at the pig man.

I was rather upset. Actually, I may be understating my level of ire. Upset perhaps couldn’t cover it. Juwan, I expected nothing less from. The scheming bastard no doubt had a part to play in all this.

Morbid was a fucking dog, and even at the best of times, I can’t rely on him to make intelligent decisions.

Chuckles, however, I truly felt betrayed by. He was my most loyal subordinate and like a close friend. I personally raised him up from a little level 1 Spawn to where he is now. A Demon Commander. The epitome of current Spawn Evolution.

I also instilled in him all my values and expectations. As one of the few endurance evolved spawn that managed to get the ‘Young Forever’ trait, my expectations for him were high, and the tutelage and trust I placed in him even higher.

Now though, I returned to my domain only to find out they’d gone off on a raid, and fucking lost Seelie.

How does one just lose someone? It’s quite simple. They think they’re being clever, and then they make a huge fuck up! From the story I got from them when I returned, after some douchebag raced in and ‘rescued’ her, he wandered off with her while my loyal minions followed.

Then, all sorts of strange occurrences started to happen. Witch attacks and beast hordes. I could tell just from the way they described it that Seelie was throwing cursed luck item all around the place.

Thanks to that, these idiots lost track of them in the middle of some haunted woods and now they were here sobbing and crying because they knew they’d fucked up. They also knew that the moment I find Seelie and bring her back, I was going to spend every experience point I had on a Resurrection spell so that I could kill them all, bring them back then kill them again.

I would then continue that trend until, and probably after, the next raid. Most likely also the raid after that for good measure.

I didn’t have time to play house though, and mounted Morbid before racing off to Six Star Planet with great haste.

Nothing stood in my way. Anything that did, if Morbid couldn’t kill it in a single hit, I promised him that I was going to push him off the edge of the domain and watch him float off into space where he could suffocate to death.

With every minute that passed in my frantic pursuit, my heart grew tenser. Hurts So Good had collapsed in almost the same instant I heard the news from Juwan and Chuckles. It was like a dam wall under the tide of a tsunami that reached into the stratosphere ... useless.

Although my mental fortitude was powerful, the thought of anything happening to Seelie was unbearable. So I refused to think it. I begged and pleaded with every deity from every religion even going back to before the new order.

I urged Morbid on until even his robust body was on the verge of collapse.

‘Ping! Murphy’s Law has created a happy accident. +2 Luck.’

With a system prompt that made me happy, the wind changed slightly, and Morbid caught their scent again. Morbid’s big wet nose sniffed furiously, and with a howl, he charged forth once more.

Perhaps he felt the growing urgency in my heart, but he pushed his body beyond its limits and then some. After crossing the haunted forest, we reached a lush forested area where it was clear someone had been harvesting resources. Trees were cut down in places and piled in high stacks ready for processing. Stumps and roots riddled the ground and dirt was ripped up everywhere from stones being dragged out.

As we passed through the high stacks of logs, Morbid rounded a bend, and the portal was in sight. His huge paws ripped through the dirt of the forest floor, and his body rocked to stop.

My heart lurched in my chest, and it ached. As if all the pain I’d felt in my life had been stockpiled here for a single catastrophic release.