Five Sky Punishment Mortars stood on the deck — triangular altars topped with transparent orbs, each one a weapon of devastating power. Fifty thousand attack points. Hundred-kilometre range. Ten thousand crystals per shot.
Eliane recognised them instantly. "The Sky Mortar? You can't be serious."
On the enemy flagship, Captain Voirel — a Tier-3 Beast Master with beast tattoos covering his face — ordered his fleet to board rather than bombard. He wanted Essim's cargo.
He never got the chance.
Five columns of white-gold light erupted from Essim's ship, each streak finding its target with the brilliance of a miniature sun. The explosions were catastrophic — mushroom clouds a hundred metres tall, shockwaves that rattled every bolt on Essim's vessel.
[Killed (Gazer — Alpha Command): EXP +123,900 | +1,000 Contribution] [Congratulations. Ruler Level increased to 21. +250 Attribute Points.]
Five hundred enemies across ten ships. Most Tier-1 and Tier-2 Beast Masters, wiped in a single volley.
But Voirel survived. A massive white Griffin emerged from the wreckage, fifty metres long, carrying the captain and a retinue of bonded beasts. His protective turtle-spirit had absorbed the blast.
"That's Tier-3," Grey warned.
Essim remained calm. "Grey, Eliane — thank you. But you should leave."
Grey opened a portal. They vanished as fire erupted behind them.
Essim and Aisha evacuated to a manifested island — deploying a core from storage, merging blocks into a flat arena. On one side, two siblings. On the other, a Tier-3 Beast Master with an armoured gorilla (Str 2,400), a fire-maned lion (Str 2,484), and a hundred-metre python.
Essim countered with numbers: a thousand Golden Warrior puppets, each one duplicated from Tou Pavilion originals, spread across the island in a gleaming tide.
The battle erupted. Voirel's beasts carved through puppets by the dozen, but there were always more. The Griffin dove for Essim — he dodged by centimetres. Aisha's Sun Core Arrow cracked Voirel's turtle-shield. The Golden Shield Talisman absorbed his retaliatory strike.
Then Essim activated Area of Light. Attributes doubled. Sky Shattering Slash erupted — and Voirel's desperate dark aura was exactly the wrong choice against the Sacred Human class's passive: double damage to dark-aligned targets.
The sword of light carved through Voirel like tissue paper.
[Killed (Voirel — Alpha Command): EXP +141,500 | +1,000 Contribution] [Dropped: Silver Storage Ring]
"We killed a Tier-3," Aisha said, breathing hard.
"With a lot of help from the talismans," Essim said honestly. "And his dark aura was a gift."
"Still. A Tier-3."
They'd come a long way from ten goblins on a five-metre island. -e • • •
They extracted the beast corpses — python skin, lion mane, gorilla bone — materials that would make Gusti weep with joy. Then Essim examined Voirel's silver storage ring: ten thousand cubic metres of space, locked behind a "soul barrier" he couldn't breach. A mystery for later.
The small boat carried them back through the void. The journey was quiet — the kind of quiet that settles after adrenaline fades.
Aisha sat at the bow, her gaze fixed on the darkness ahead.
"Brother," she said softly. "Is it possible to bring the dead back to life?"
The question came from nowhere and everywhere. Essim remembered picking her up from school, one week after their parents' funeral. Her voice, small and hopeful: "When is Mum coming back? I miss Dad." She'd been ten. He'd been eighteen. And he'd lied — gently, the way you lie to protect someone you love more than the truth.
She knew now. Had known for years. But the question wasn't really about resurrection. It was about loss — the kind that surfaces at unexpected moments, triggered by a void that looked too much like the absence she'd carried since childhood.
He sat beside her. Put his arm around her shoulders. Said nothing.
After a while, she leaned her head against him, cheeks damp. They sailed through the dark like that — two siblings holding onto the only family they had left.
At the War Office, the receptionist awarded a five-thousand-point bonus for destroying the enemy fleet. Essim's badge read 11,200 — fifth on the global leaderboard, achieved in six hours.
The alliance chat erupted. This time, Essim accepted the congratulations with grace. He wasn't chasing first place. He was doing what he did best: leveraging his talent for disproportionate results.
"What about opening a store here?" he asked Aisha.
She smiled — small, genuine. "The smartest thing you've said all day."
"Just today?"
"Don't push it."
The battlefield went silent. Bonded beasts, severed from Voirel's will, fought on mindlessly. Essim and Aisha dispatched them methodically — sword strokes and explosive arrows clearing the island in minutes.
They extracted the corpses: python skin, lion mane, gorilla bone — materials for Gusti's forge. Then Essim picked up the silver storage ring from the scorched earth where Voirel had fallen. Ten thousand cubic metres of space, locked behind a "soul barrier" that yielded nothing to his attempts.
Soul Power. A concept he'd never encountered. The ring went into storage alongside questions that would need answers eventually.
Aisha looked at the wreckage around them — the shattered puppets, the scorched stone, the fading energy signatures of creatures that had been alive minutes ago.
"A Tier-3," she said. "We actually killed a Tier-3."
"With preparation," Essim said. "Talismans, puppets, mortars. Without them, we'd be dead."
"That's the point, brother." She met his eyes. "Your talent isn't about being the strongest fighter. It's about making sure we never fight fair."
He considered this. She was right. His power wasn't in his sword arm. It was in the ten thousand Sky Mortars in his storage ring, the hundred thousand Golden Shield Talismans, the infinite supply of everything the universe had to offer.
Other rulers fought with strength. Essim fought with logistics.
And logistics won wars.