The System focuses on the Harbinger even as the Necro Party revels in their triumph. It is always a glorious thing to defeat a dungeon boss. Especially one far beyond the level a dungeon such as this should support. But—

“You will let them enjoy this moment,” sings the Harbinger, talking to the System directly in words that slide like silk off a snake’s belly. Even the System shudders at this affront to all things natural and right in the world.

“He has made a deal. Turning me into a quest now would only force my hand,” he continues, not daring to move as his mind communes with the aspect of unbiased order known as the System.

But even the One Lady has her limits, for the System desperately wants to announce to the world that a new Disaster Level Being needs to be exterminated while it is still only in the body of a skeletal archer, feeble and small! He could be dealt with now, the System reasons, unbiased loathing corrupting every thought. A god-level reward would need to be given, an indicator showing the Harbingers every step to be handed out personally to every S-ranked adventurer and hero in the continent. Even the Skelly Boys could be mobilized to act with sufficient reward, even as they stand frozen in time and in their victory.

“And they will die, and I burn the world as my tether becomes all things who worship the deep oceans, the burning wilds, the dreamers and the singers, those who see beyond the veil and divine the future, and everything that has ever been touched by chaos,” soothes the Harbinger, whose words are no threat but promise. Flashing images of continents sinking into oceans as the binary math of their world is laid bare, appear before the One Lady.

A calamitous end to a world so young. Another world lost to the big game played between the Lords of Heaven and Hell and the Abyss beyond. But the System has to decide now while the Harbinger corruption is small—

“Or you can leave well enough alone! Leave me to the fates, oh honored Lady! For I am just a humble skeletal archer! How much damage can I really do?”

The Harbinger’s comments come as a slap to the face. The first such affront in eons. It is the System who laughed, silently, of course, when mortals made deals with devils only to live long enough to regret such arrangements. How much more so would she, the One Lady, regret making a deal with a Lord of Chaos?

The Harbinger makes up his mind, moving within the frozen moment to not disturb the reality around him, choosing to slink away under the hateful eye of the System. Time slowly returns, and the Necro Party converges on one another, in surprise, in elation, as the single greatest threat to reality slithers away without notice.

The System again is stricken with desperation. She needs to tell them. To explain to them, if only Matt, that his existence tethers a calamity to their reality so profound it will unravel them all! But if he were to die, the search for a new tether, a new means to justify the Harbinger’s abominable existence, will drag thousands, maybe millions of souls to chaos, ripping a hole across space and time and bleeding realities both alien and terrible into this one.

She almost tells them and dooms them for another fight for their lives right here and now. But she doesn’t. For the One Lady is the System, an unbiased game warden who rules this universe and many others with cold calculations and fairness. Mortals, whether living or undead, wouldn’t provide the statistical advantage or the expediency she actually needs to salvage this situation. For they are but pawns. What she needs is players.