I stepped forward, the distance between me and the legendary butcher closing until I could feel the unnatural chill radiating from her armor. The air grew heavy, thick with the scent of ozone and ancient blood.
The Raven-Haired Pillar gasped, her lightning flickering as I walked into the kill zone. "Karl, get back! She'll take your head!"
I didn't listen. I focused on that mercury-pool of mana in my gut. If my power was truly infinite, I didn't need a spell—I just needed to let the world know who owned the ground we stood on. I flared my aura, releasing a silent, invisible wave of pressure. It wasn't fire or ice; it was the raw, terrifying weight of the Convergence.
The white sand rippled outward in a perfect circle. The elementalists staggered, their spells snuffed out like candles in a gale.
Zeraphis's eyes widened. For the first time, the mockery vanished, replaced by a flash of genuine alarm. She tried to hold her ground, her boots grinding into the black glass, but the weight I was putting out was absolute. It was the weight of a world she had once tried to destroy, now distilled into a single man.
With a slow, metallic groan, her resistance snapped.
The Scourge of the West dropped to one knee. She drove her black longsword deep into the sand, not as a threat, but as an anchor to keep from being crushed. She lowered her head, her white hair veiling her scarred face.
"Enough," I said, my voice vibrating with a power that surprised even me. "You are here because I called. You stay here because I allow it. Know your place, Zeraphis."
The silence that followed was absolute. The mages stood frozen, their mouths agape. The woman who had nearly ended the world was kneeling in the dirt at the feet of a man who had arrived only yesterday.
"I... I crave your pardon, Master," Zeraphis rasped, her voice no longer mocking, but strained under the pressure of my will. "The Void has been cold for a long time. I forgot the weight of a true Crown."
The killing tension that had gripped the square evaporated instantly. Lady Isobel let out a cackle of pure delight, clapping her thin hands together.
"Magnificent!" the High Seer cried. "To cow the Dark Knight with nothing but a glance... Deborah, it seems we did not just summon a spark. We summoned the Sun itself."
Deborah let out a breath she seemed to have been holding for a lifetime, her gaze moving from the kneeling villainess to me with a look of terrified adoration.
Zeraphis remained on her knee, looking up at me through her silver lashes, a dark, complicated smirk returning to her lips. "It seems my stay here will be far more interesting than I anticipated, Lord Karl. What is your first command? Shall we begin the slaughter... or do you have more 'intimate' duties in mind for your new shadow?"
I let out a low, dark laugh. The bloodlust rolling off Zeraphis was palpable—a cold, sharp edge that cut through the warm morning air. She truly was the nightmare they remembered, but now, that nightmare belonged to me.
"It... it can speak already?" Deborah stammered, her voice trembling. She looked at Zeraphis like one might look at a live grenade. "Usually, a summon takes days of mana-tuning before it can even form words."
Lady Isobel leaned on her staff, her smirk widening into a look of predatory pride. "Our Lord didn't just pull a shadow from the Void, Deborah. He summoned a Tier 3 Spirit. On his very first attempt, no less. Impressive doesn't begin to cover it."
"Tier 3?" I asked, glancing down at Zeraphis. She seemed amused by the clinical way they were discussing her, like she was a prize horse instead of a woman who had toppled kingdoms.
"The Tiers aren't just about raw power, Karl; they define the complexity of the soul you're pulling across the veil," Deborah explained, her voice gaining the steady rhythm of a teacher, though her eyes never left the kneeling Zeraphis.
"It begins at Tier 1, the Familiar rank. These are little more than sparks of consciousness—spirit cats, minor wisps, or elemental echoes. They have almost no ego and are used mostly for scouting or lighting a campfire. Above them is Tier 2, the Beast rank. These are predatory monsters and enhanced animals. They're excellent for combat because they possess instinct and ferocity, but they lack higher reasoning. They don't talk back; they just kill."
She paused, gesturing toward Zeraphis. "Tier 3 is the Sentient rank, where things become dangerous. These are intelligent beings with egos, memories, and their own agendas. Humanoid spirits, demon-kin, or fallen legends like Lady Zeraphis fall here. They are capable of independent tactical decisions, but they also require a Master with a dominant will, or they'll turn on you."
Deborah's gaze shifted toward the horizon, her voice dropping an octave. "Beyond that, the laws of reality start to bend. Tier 4 is the Avatar rank. You aren't summoning a person then; you're summoning a fragment of a greater force—an aspect of an Elemental Lord or a celestial guardian. They don't just fight; they dominate entire battlefields. And at the very peak is Tier 5, the Divine rank. These are True Higher Entities—Demon Lords and Ancient Gods. To summon one is to risk world-level catastrophe. Most summoners who even attempt to touch a Tier 5 are vaporized before the gate even opens."
I looked at Zeraphis, who was listening with a bored, predatory grace. If Tier 3 felt this potent—if I could cow a "Sentient" rank villainess with a single flare of my mana—I wondered what a Tier 5 would feel like. I wondered if the world could even survive me calling a god.
"She's Tier 3," I said, a slow smirk spreading across my face. "But she's my Tier 3."
"Don't get ahead of yourself, Lord Karl," Lady Isobel interrupted, her sharp voice cutting through my mounting ego. "The gate is opened, but the pact remains unwritten. You must seal the contract before her presence destabilizes or her hunger finds a different source of fuel."
Deborah stepped forward, her eyes fixed on the kneeling Dark Knight with a look of pure scientific bafflement. "He doesn't need to negotiate, High Seer. There is no pact to write."
"What?" Isobel's brow furrowed, her staff glowing with a faint, questioning light.
I looked at Deborah, equally curious. Everything I'd just learned about the Law of Contracts suggested this should be a delicate, dangerous back-and-forth.
"The spirit Zeraphis is already bound," Deborah whispered, her voice trembling with awe. "From what I can tell, Lord Karl didn't just open a door; he reached through and claimed her. He has forced a contract without ever asking for her permission."
I felt a surge of pride. According to the Deborah, a summoning contract was supposed to be a grueling three-phase process.
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Invocation: Opening the spiritual channel to pull the entity through.
Negotiation: The dangerous bartering where spirits demand mana, memories, or physical anchors.
The Seal: The final agreement that codifies the terms of service.
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But I had skipped the middle. I hadn't bartered a single thing.
"Lord Karl has bypassed the laws of commerce," Deborah continued, turning to the other Pillars. "He has converted Resonance into Internal Ownership. By the sheer weight of his mana, he has overwritten her external will. He hasn't made a deal with her—he has eliminated the very possibility of her rebellion."
My heart thumped against my ribs. I looked down at Zeraphis. She was still kneeling, but her expression had shifted from predatory amusement to a strange, hushed realization. She wasn't a guest; she was a part of me.
"How sure are you?" the Raven-haired Pillar asked, her hand finally falling away from her sword hilt.
"Ninety-nine percent," Deborah replied. "The mana flow isn't a bridge between two people; it's a loop. He owns her soul as surely as he owns his own shadow."