“Are you ready?”

Aurelia’s wintry gaze bore into Elonia’s own as she stared in stunned awe upon the crimson battlefield depicted upon the overhead display, littered with countless bodies gazing sightlessly into the void, before blinking eyes wide with death’s promise, lurching back to their feet, and fighting once more.

“Elonia! I need you to be ready!”

Elonia flinched a the sound of her mother’s voice. The pair of them were now alone in their de facto command center of burnished hardwood and massive theater-sized electromana screens that somehow displayed the tactical interface that only Contenders normally had access to, displaying it in living cinematic color for all who attended their meetings. Even Lady Valorn and Lord Drevyn, the only other surviving Contenders of their imperiled faction, were dismissed under the pretext of organizing their troops, reinforcing their position, and preparing for a soon to be announced counter-assault.

But Elonia just shook her head, hands squeezing the rests of her recliner as she forced herself back to her feet, jabbing at the display with her finger, furiously wiping away the tears in her eyes.

“For months… months! We had been fighting a losing battle of attrition against those goddamned bastards! Doing our best just to make them bleed as they slowly ground us to dust under overwhelming numerical superiority, with over 10,000 musketeers and countless platoons of Berserkers at their disposal. And how many cannons did they have at the end? Dragging cannons by slave, mule, and conscripts for hundreds of miles, cannons that the Accords supposedly declared locked to individual orc keeps? Nearly a hundred!”

She squeezed her eyes shut, rubbing throbbing temples. “We knew someone was paying off a shitload of penalty fees, bankrolling those goddamned orcs to make as short work of us as possible. And just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, those shithead goblins broke their own vaunted contracts, their sworn accord not to strike at us, at you, until after Earth’s fate was decided one way or another. And you only found out after the first assassination attempt by plasma rifle of all things!”

Elonia choked back a sob. “Those goblin snipers managed to cut me off from the only thing I was ever truly good at. Protecting any territory we had claimed with storms of ice, lightning, and fire.” She flashed a bitter smile. “And I was good at sending them fleeing, burning with all the pain I suffered ever since I first learned what pain really was, while going through withdrawal. And then, later, the horror and agony of being burned alive. A pain that never truly left, even after Eric, god bless him, actually got me into that cursed pod.”

Elonia shuddered at memories she wished she could forget, shaking her head. “A pain that broke even the most stalwart Ogre sentinels who once thought they could crack our walls. A storm of fire and ice so bitter that no orc dared step foot in any territory we had claimed!”

Her hot gazed peered at the display showcasing her brother’s savage expression as blood sprayed across his face.

It was a sight that sent chills down her spine.

“And there was nothing I wanted more than to make those goddamned snipers who were taking out our scouts, our lieutenants, anyone who so much as stuck their head past the walls, to feel that pain, my pain, until they blew their own brains out, trying to escape it!”

She choked back a sob, glaring at her trembling hands. Once so pretty, in so many close-up hand cream commercials, now dry, blotchy, covered in scratches from her own broken fingernails, the bitter weight of being trapped like an animal forced in a cage as her home was slowly whittled down to nothing had been too much for even her to endure.

“But I was pinned. Those fuckers were the perfect counter to all my strengths. And we had no way to trump that. And now the entire Bloodtear Syndicate happily laughs in our faces as their pet administrators block any Planetary Council motion to punish those little backstabbing fucks! Forcing the deferral of any and all payments until after Earth’s fate has been decided, with the complete forgiveness of any penalty whatsoever, if we’re no longer around to collect! A two billion credit penalty they can flaunt with their middle finger, bringing a full squad of assassins to take us out with that fucking corrupt ass Administrator Narri’s blessing!”

Elonia swallowed, tearing her eyes away from the monitor, forcing her gaze to meet her mother’s. As if she were an equal. A queen before a fellow queen. No matter how much her heart raced whenever she dared to do so.

“When the sun first kissed the horizon this morning, I thought we had done all we could. That the fucking game was already over, and I was going to do all I could to get off one goddamned ritual spell, no matter how much lead, or plasma, those Bloodtear Syndicate bastards filled me with.” She shook her head, rubbing her eyes with a bandaged wrist, looking as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Only for my unbelievable, clueless, goofy, adorable brother to charge the field with a herd of undead pigs or whatever the fuck they are and...god, mom, how did he even manage even half the things pulled off today?”

She jabbed her fingers at the display, ordering it to highlight the strikingly hideous abomination of eyes and slimy slithering ropes of bright pink flesh all winding together in a massive sentient Gordian knot with a humongous and horrifically perfect human mouth even now giving Elonia a shockingly bright smile. As it looked right up at her with about 75 blinking eyeballs, which should be utterly impossible.

It was just a System interface projection, after all.

Which didn’t stop the creature from waving its one tiny arm up at her, before turning its attention back to the milling mass of desperately fighting orcs and revenants as it scuttled forward on a thousand or so pseudopods while lashing out with not one but a full dozen braided tongues, roping in shrieking orc after shrieking orc, swallowing them all down like candy as it cherry picked particularly plump looking musketeers across a chaotic battlefield of wild skirmishes that now stretched a good half mile.

“What… what is that… how did Eric… It’s still growing!” she shuddered. “Mother, there are thousands of orcs still on the field. Why, when we’re finally free of those assassins, do you want me to hold off on the one thing I can do?”

Aurelia flashed her daughter a strangely sympathetic smile, gently stroking her cheek.

“Look at the field of battle. Look at your brother approaching on his company of Spirit Boars.”

Elonia frowned. “Spirit boars?”

Her mother nodded. “You need but look at the tattoos on his arms to see that he dares a cultivators path.” She chuckled softly. “One based on quick growth and explosive power, eschewing all grace, all true… cultivation, in favor of ascension that can only be fueled in the crucible of combat. Fortuitous encounters within whatever shadow realm he dared has revealed to him at least the rudiments of a warrior’s crimson path.”

Aurelia frowned thoughtfully. “His aura already makes it clear he ascended to power not through meditation, cycling pristine Heaven and Earth energy, or the more spiritual forms of cultivation, but through killing. No doubt hunting and devouring the essences of the guardians of that realm.”

She patted her daughter’s shoulder. “But that is neither here nor there. Gaze upon your brother’s madness, and see why I bid you hold in unleashing power that would obliviate even your twin, did not familial love stay your wrath.”

Elonia frowned, doing her best to suppress the constant pain and cravings for release she only escaped completely when lost in the rapture of her art. Only when she had achieved a certain mental stillness, a crystal clarity too long forsaken, did her eyes slowly widen with comprehension as she beheld a sight that both captivated and sickened her, the air ringing with ancient words that echoed strangely through their command center.

“Surge, centuria! Imperator imperat tibi!”

“Rise, soldiers. Your emperor commands you,” Elonia whispered as first a few dozen bloody heaps of mangled flesh began to twitch and writhe upon the ground. And just seconds later, an entire regiment’s worth of submerged bodies in the mud-drenched battlefield suddenly burst from the muck.

Undead hands clawed at what were now shrieking orcs, already clearly unnerved to be fighting the zombified remains of their kinsmen. It was clear even to Elonia’s inexperienced eyes that seeing their fallen companions of just minutes ago now rise up trying to kill them was the final straw that had just broken their will to fight.

Morale shattered, all sense of unit cohesion instantly vanished, each orc now just desperately fighting for their own survival, squealing like the savage beasts they were, Elonia thought, as they tried to break free, before being stabbed by the still disciplined phalanx of undead spearmen that had pincered and pinned so many orcs in place while the shambling masses of liquified flesh and bone slipped between the ranks before forcing their watery limbs down the throats of multiple musketeers.

Elonia winced just a bit at the ghastly expressions made by scores of orcs as their eyes bulged and they clawed desperately at their own throats. Then her eyes widened with concern, seeing the rictus grin on her brother’s face, sensing so viscerally the surge of dark power now shivering through his soul.

“Fuck, he just leveled up. Eric just leveled up!” She whispered in awed disbelief as his expression tightened, raising a trembling arm, as if he was pushing himself beyond exhaustion, daring to whisper those words a second time.

“Surge, centuria! Imperator imperat tibi!”

And this time, to her wide-eyed disbelief, almost twice the number of revenants as before, or every single body on the field of battle, pulled themselves from the muck before chasing down the surviving orcs, the air now ringing with their own odd, discordant cries.

“Ave Imperator Abedimus!”

That was when Elonia’s breath hitched in horror. “Mom! Eric fell off his mount! He’s in trouble!”

Yet much to her surprise, her mother just patted her shoulder. “And look how well trained his spirit boars are, surrounding and circling him so no foe can get a clear line of sight on him.” She nodded approvingly. “Any approaching enemy will be stampeded by multiple rings of those furiously racing beasts.”

Elonia blinked, slowly nodding. “I… your right!” She gave a happy little cheer. “And look. He’s getting up!” She chuckled ruefully. “He looks just as fucked up as I feel right now. I’m surprised he has the strength to even crawl up on that thing again! He’s wheezing for breath!”

“Yes. He depleted all his reserves, though Mana, at least, should tick back rather rapidly, being as this is a killing field, and he is an Elite tier summoner.” She furrowed her brow thoughtfully. “No, that’s incorrect. To summon and control so many dead at one time…” She flashed a strangely delighted smile. “Why, I do believe our dear Eric has actually managed to claim a Master Tier Class. How utterly unexpected!”

Elonia froze, slowly turning her head, catching her mother’s considering gaze. “I think I understand now. Why you wanted me to hold back.”

Her mother quirked a carefully sculpted eyebrow. “Do you?”

Her daughter nodded. “Eric. He isn’t just killing our foes. He’s raising them back from the dead! Which means he’s taking our enemies’ pieces, and making them his own. And then when those enemies fall...”

Her mother gave a tight hard smile. “Exactly. For all that most elves consider necromancy anathema, few players are more effective at this stage of the game than those who walk the paths between life and death.” She sighed, shaking her head. “Of course, the foolish superstitions of our sister tribes are just one reason why our empire has failed to blossom as brightly as it should in any but the most well-established regions.”

Elonia furrowed her brow. “But, wait, from what I recall from my lessons, the System frowns on unorthodox arts like, well, necromancy or shamanism. It’s only because it’s deeply embedded in the cultural history of our...” she paled, eyes widening as she glanced at her mother’s bemused smile with something bordering on horror. “You...fuck. You knew. You always knew! You… you didn’t seriously… that’s why Eric and I are...”

Fists clenched, Elonia glared at her mother with disbelief. “Is that why Eric and I are half-breeds? Why you so conveniently arranged for me to stumble and rescue that adorable girl I crushed so hard on, who just happened to be a necromancer? Why you completely ignored the protests of pretty much everyone under our command, saying we were ‘better than that.’”

Elonia snorted, shaking her head. “And that’s why, the moment you figured out that I had neither interest nor inclination in feeling that foul tainted art slithering through my soul, you had Mimi shipped off to Freetown! Right after or first fight, hardly more than a spat. And she was gone before we could even make up!”

Her eyes crackled with long suppressed ire. “And there you were with your icy little smile, saying she had proven to be nothing more than a perilous distraction. Declaring that I had neither the maturity nor the discipline for a true relationship. After earlier promising me that she could stay by my side for as long as I liked!”

Elonia swallowed the painful lump in her throat. “You just wanted heirs who could control the dead. You were hoping that one of us would to be able to do...well, whatever the hell it is that Eric’s actually managing to do.”

Elonia blinked as the monitor suddenly zoomed in on her brother’s countenance, his present focused stance giving absolutely no hint of the shudders that had wracked him just minutes ago as he took aim at the mass of several thousand orcs now rapidly fleeing from the battlefield, now picking them off with blasts of superheated plasma. One by one.

She shook her head in disbelief. “And why the fuck is he using one of those goblin sniper rifles of all things? I thought they were illegal even to touch!”

Aurelia frowned thoughtfully, gazing at the screen, completely ignoring her daughter’s earlier line of questioning. “Not if it’s claimed as a Prize of War, or if one has earned a Master Criminal Perk which, after Blue’s successful seizing of half a trillion credits worth of my son’s gold, I believe it’s quite obvious that he has. As for his present source of amusement, I do believe… oh yes, I’m now certain of it, he’s title-poaching!” Aurealia gave a throaty chuckle. “Well done, my son. Well done indeed.”

Elonia furrowed her brow. “Wait… you mean like the boost I got when I spiked 100 kills with my fire wand?”

Aurelia nodded. “to say nothing of the boons you received with ice, and eventually lightning. No matter how you originally blanched and trembled before duty’s call. And how sweet were the boons they provided?”

“A massive increase to my Arcane Potential. Over three level’s worth!”

“Precisely,” Aurelia concurred. “And that’s because your class has ascended to the Tier of Adept. An average Classer would be overwhelmed by the boon of five equivalent levels in power.”

Aurelia’s eyes widened. She gazed at her mother in awe, before gazing back at a now silently whooping Eric.

“He did it,” she whispered. “I can feel it. Eric’s been infused with something. A… potency. One that will serve him well on the killing fields.”

“Correct. For titles, unlike levels, are boons that the world itself grants. And you hold this territory in your hands.” The look she gave Elonia made her flinch. “Are you ready, my daughter? Your brother has once more raised the dead, and his trap is about to be sprung.”

Elonia’s eyes widened at the sight of her brother, despite having looked so exhausted just minutes ago, now chanting once more with a fierce, twisted smile. Not flinching in the slightest when every single orc that had fallen on the field of battle rose as one, slamming fists to chests

“Ave Imperator Abedimus!” they roared. And why this summons, bringing to life far more fallen orcs than any other casting, didn’t seem to do anything but energize her brother, she couldn’t even begin fathom. Maybe it was because the survivors had fled the battlefield, and it was his to claim?

He was, for the moment, out of combat, and perhaps that made it easier to seize the souls of the fallen.

She shook her head, having no real idea.

All that mattered was that her dear brother had given them hope when they had nothing but a feast of bitter crows to look forward to, forced to endure the constant reminder of folly’s clock ticking down to the inevitable demise of her faction, her clan, her life. And if her growing certainty that her mother wasn’t even truly here was correct, Elonia would have been the last of her people to perish, no doubt by the most twisted means imaginable.

Yet against all odds, where before there had been ten thousand orcs, half a dozen elite sniper assassins forever forcing her to hide before a single ritual could be cast, and nearly a hundred cannon shooting rune-marked shells at her walls, her once nerdy brother had actually come to the rescue. Having miraculously managed to change the tides of battle so utterly, so completely, that the surviving shattered and demoralized orc conscripts were now being chased down by undead horrors that had once been their brothers-in-arms.

Countless thousands of her foes had effectively been raised from the dead by arts that had felt so alien and strange to her, so completely beyond her comprehension or ken. It was the one field of magic she proved to have absolutely no aptitude for, when unexpected tutors embracing the ‘lost arts of her heritage’ had indicated an interest in teaching her. Even before Mimi had come into her life. And how surprised Elonia had been to find that her mother had been conveniently absent those days she had been enticed to dabble in such a tainted art, so alien to her Elementalist’s path.

And how utterly uncomfortable even touching that deathly taint had made her feel.

Poor Mimi. Elonia should have known that her mother had been setting them both up from the start.

But now? All Elonia had to do was gaze upon the tactical interface hologram to appreciate why her mother had been so willing to accept the corruption of Elonia’s so called perfect wizardly path.

Thousands upon thousands of fleeing orcs, terrified of the blond-haired boy whooping like an insane cowboy behind them. Their muskets long since fired, discipline fled, most having dropped their weapons entirely as they fled for their lives, Elonia’s sworn blood-foes now being hounded to death by her brother’s undead legions.

And there he was, eyes wild with glee as he alternated high tech arcane sniper rifle for a massive sling whipping about cannon balls and blazing shot into the backs of his fleeing foes, then switching out to braces of javelins in the blink of an eye, so many weapons hurtled through the air with a speed and power she doubted even the most athletic elven warriors could match.

Unstoppable, indefatigable, and absolutely ruthless.

His frigid gaze made it abundantly clear even to Elonia peering at him two steps removed through a System interface screen that there would be no quarter given, absolutely no mercy shown whatsoever. The Eric she now gazed upon wouldn’t stop his hunt until every orc that had trespassed upon Queensland rose to serve him in eternal undeath, as payment for their crimes.

She could see it in the merciless glint of his eyes.

She could feel it in the gentle connection she had always had with her once sweet, awkward brother, from near the day they were born.

She was still stunned that it had come to this. Not that she hadn’t known just how ruthless Eric could be. A truth she discovered firsthand, when the man she thought had loved her; so smooth, charming, and a treasure trove of forbidden delights… instead turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, ready and waiting to devour the silly sheep so quickly enslaved to his poison pills.

Until her brother had killed him. Shattering her ex’s jaw, and sending him crashing thirty stories to the ground, under the cover of midnight fireworks at their Tokyo premier.

One less wolf to plague the world.

Eric's wild eyes glittering with tightly contained savagery no different than they were now.

The eyes of the most ruthless of Contenders.

The eyes she saw on their mother’s face, glaring at her, judging her, every single day.

The eyes of the one that Elonia now knew, without a shadow of a doubt, their mother would choose to lead their faction in the conquest to come. For Eric had proven himself in ways no one could have imagined or predicted, save perhaps for their mother, who seemed to be a dozen moves beyond them all.

In less than three days, he had accomplished what an alliance of over two thousand elves had been unable to pull off.

She closed her eyes and sighed. For all that she might have her mother’s beauty, grace, and charm, it was Eric who echoed the ruthless fires of her soul.

And how ironic it was that he couldn’t even stand her.

Because in so many ways, they were mirror images of one another.

Even if he couldn’t act for shit.

“Elonia.”

She flinched at the sound of her mother’s voice, all maternal affection gone. Replaced by the voice of a queen who had once bathed in the blood of her enemies, and expected to be obeyed in all things.

“Do it.”

Elonia trembled and swallowed, biting back bitter tears, before finally bowing her head in acquiescence to her empress. Her ruler.

Her mother.

Because as much as she had hated the overwhelming stress and anxiety of a whole faction depending on her, counting on her…

For just a heartbeat in time, she had been a genuine Contender.

A champion upon the battlefield of Earth.

And now?

Now she would be nothing at all.

Nothing but a broken girl enslaved to a vice she despised herself for being trapped by, yet without it could never escape the constant price in pain a warped pod’s ascension had forced her to pay.