It was Day 18 before the team deigned to reply to me. It was obvious before they did that they were coming, since as I was territory-hopping myself (basically, conquering in a certain direction then abandoning territories behind me) northeast toward their main nation, a single square of Team FOXHOUND’s territory was also moving towards me.

Since they’d replied, the dialogue now took the form of a chat:

[Hound: We will give you the death you deserve, human. Our empire will see the truth, the truth that has been obvious to everyone watching from the very beginning: that you never had a chance.]

Unlike the FOXHOUND I’d known of, apparently this one’s leader was named Hound instead of Fox. Presumably they saw whatever rebels or fugitives they’d be hunting after graduation as the foxes. That is, if I wasn’t crashing the party.

Since I had that reply, I stopped my own advancement. I made sure to camp down in a castle in a territory that had lots of forest near the castle and elsewhere.

Even with how OP Team FOXHOUND was compared to most even at this stage of the game, there was still only so fast that their territory could approach me. So, it wasn’t until Day 20 that they came.

The other teams that could have attacked us who were closer didn’t. I think word had spread that I was FOXHOUND’s prey, or maybe they didn’t want to risk their own high positions. Either way, it was coming down to me against the final boss team, and I definitely preferred it that way.

The alert came that my territory was under attack. The game screen indicated that they had indeed sent troops rather than coming at me themselves. In fact, they had sent almost 1/3rd of the maximum they possibly could—in other words, 30,000, since the individual player army size capped with Duke at 10,000.

I wasn’t surprised, just disappointed. I did figure this would happen. After all, team FOXHOUND couldn’t be certain that I was a dire enough threat to require them to attack me personally.

Well. After what I was about to do, they’d damn well be certain, that was for sure.

I hadn’t always straight-up rested every 12 hours, in the pod. Every 3-5 or so times, I’d been privately conducting more Power of Imagination experiments instead. Some of those experiments were based around seeing how far I could push the power given that I’d leveled it up to 2 as well as having several thousand points of stamina to draw from.

Almost as soon as my briefings on the 4th Floor started, I recognized one such experiment as something that could potentially be very useful in an overwhelming numbers situation. I hadn’t told Arvallei about it, of course.

I went out of the throne room and stood on a corner parapet of the castle’s outer wall. I faced the direction that the enemy troops had to be marching from—the game didn’t allow for directing them to do things like circle around to approach an entire territory from a different direction.

I waited until I could see the frontmost line of troops emerging from the tree line. Then, I tapped into the Power of Imagination.

And set the world around me ablaze.

Based on my experiments, I didn’t have it in me to set fire to the forest in every square mile of a single territory, but at nearly a hundred stamina per second, I could definitely cover the entirety of the ground that the 30,000 troops could possibly be in right now. I let the flames continue for about 30 seconds, until I was fully confident that no one would be left alive, then stopped them.

Then, I concentrated again, and dumping about 1,000 more points, I restored the forest to the way it had been before, sending the same area I had covered before backwards in time. I keeled over, hands on my knees, gasping for breath.

But I was once again alone in my Territory. I had purposely disabled my combat suit’s Stamina potion injectors before starting the stunt, so I wasn’t recovering quickly. However, I wasn’t so spent that the Tower’s notification went unnoticed.

[Congratulations. You have made an exceptional achievement.]

[Achievement Type: Monster Hunting]

Massacred 10,000+ members of a single intelligent species within 1 hour.

Genocide as an achievement, right. I will blacken my soul so that Mewi won’t blacken his, but that doesn’t mean I’ll just let you turn me into a monster!

I wasn’t about to refuse the reward, obviously. But I had to take the moral stance.

[Calculating...]

Well, that was strange. Nobody I’d ever discussed Tower mechanics with mentioned the Tower having to take time to decide on a reward, no matter the circumstance. It didn’t take too long though.

[Class Evolver Upgrading Rune]

Unclassified Consumable

Use to upgrade your Class Evolver by up to 200%. Expires in 60 seconds.

The rune appeared in my hand, glowing with brilliant white fire. I scrambled to take out the Class Evolver marble from spatial storage and shove the rune into it. It glowed white hot, then grew to the size of a golf ball. Still glowing, it grew again, this time to the size of a billiard ball, before finally settling down.

[Class Evolver (Gold)]

Use to evolve your class to a comparable one of the indicated grade. Cannot be further upgraded. Only usable in the Neutral Zone.

I finally went back to the castle throne...and when I sat once again, I felt a chill. I would have no time to bask in fully completing the Class Evolver. There was an alert that a teammate’s territory was under attack. But a moment later, that alert canceled and a new one started for a different Territory.

An enemy force was traveling through Firebrand’s main nation without bothering to attack territories that were only occupied by truth. It could only be one or more of the members of Team FOXHOUND.

And they were heading straight for Darril, and fast. I immediately triggered Ally Teleport:

[That territory is under attack. You will not be able to egress until the attackers are repelled. Are you sure you want to proceed?]

“Yes!”

[You have no troops stationed in your present territory. This will abandon this territory. Are you sure you want to proceed?]

“Yes, yes yes for @#$%’s sake yes!”

I appeared next to Darril on his own throne—it widened enough to accommodate both of us. Good, I made it in time!

“Lheticus? Boss, what’re you doing here? And what was that business of you going territory-hopping on your own?”

“Team FOXHOUND is on its way here, right now,” I said, “not troops, the actual super-soldiers. I don’t know how many.”

“What? Do you mean that attack alert glitch?” Darril paused for a moment, checking his game screen, “What the—it's right in this territory now. No troops have reported actually sighting an enemy so I thought it was just a glitch, but if it really is them...what do we do?”

“I’ll deal with them here, stop them short of the throne room.”

I reactivated my suit’s stamina potion injection as I stood up. “Are you insane?!” said Darril, “I know you’re strong, but even you can’t stand up to them directly! And if you think the idea of dying knowing that you’re dead too is somehow comforting to me, it’s not!”

I glared at him. “You don’t know that I’m strong,” I said, my voice quiet and dangerous, “you’ve barely seen the tip of the iceberg of what I’m capable of. And I have Team FOXHOUND at the same advantage.

I’m going to kill them. And the only thing you can do about it that involves you continuing to live is staying out of my way.”

“You are insane,” Darril breathed, “but then again, I’d bet all the prize money that I would have won as a Victor that FOXHOUND picked me to come after because I’m being viewed as a dangerous subversive now. After that little speech of mine.”

He shook his head ruefully, and spoke sadly. “I’ve finally gotten in too deep after all. So there’s nothing left for me to be but with you to the end.” He collapsed back onto his throne. “Go get ‘em,” then after a moment, “they’re surely almost here by now.”