[Location: The Imperial Throne Room - Winterhold]
Silence.
The kind of silence that usually precedes an execution.
Empress Freya stared at the Black Gold Card in my hand. Her diamond sword lowered slightly.
"You..." she hissed. "You are bluffing. You cannot 'buy' an Empire."
"Watch me," I said.
I tapped the card.
[Transaction: Purchase Imperial Debt Bonds.]
[Amount: 500 Million Gold.]
[Status: Processing...]
The magical wards protecting the castle; runes carved into the stone that drew power from the National Treasury flickered and died.
The heat turned off. The lights went out.
"My wards!" Freya gasped. "How?!"
"I just bought the power company," I explained. "And I cut the line."
I took a step up the stairs.
"Now. Get off the chair."
Freya's eyes flashed with humiliation.
"Guards! Kill him! Kill the traitor Sylvia!"
The Imperial Guards hesitated. They looked at the Dragon drooling on the carpet. They looked at the flickering lights. They looked at their paychecks (which I now effectively controlled).
"We... we can't, Your Majesty," the Captain of the Guard stammered. "Our weapons... the enchantments are fading."
"COWARDS!"
Freya screamed. She raised her sword.
"If you won't do it, I will!"
She didn't aim at me.
She aimed at Sylvia.
"You ungrateful brat!" Freya shrieked, launching a wave of ice spikes. "You brought this plague to my door!"
Sylvia stood frozen. She had spent 18 years terrified of this woman. The conditioning ran deep.
"Move!" I shouted.
I didn't block it.
I grabbed Sylvia by the waist and [Shadow Stepped] to the side.
The ice spikes impaled the spot where she was standing.
We reappeared ten feet away.
Sylvia was shaking. "She... she really tried to kill me."
"She's been trying to kill you since you were born," I said into her ear. "She sent you to the Academy to die. She sent assassins to the ship."
I turned her around to face her mother.
"Stop being a daughter," I ordered. "Start being a Mage."
"But... she's Level 50! I'm only Level 26!"
I pressed the Void Ring against Sylvia's back.
"I'm giving you a loan."
[Skill: Mana Transfer.]
[Amount: 50,000 Units.]
"AAAAGH!"
Sylvia screamed as raw, violet power flooded her circuits. Her eyes turned purple. Her hair floated as if underwater.
"Fight her," I commanded. "Take your birthright."
Sylvia looked at her hands. They were glowing with power she shouldn't possess for another 20 years.
She looked at Freya.
The fear vanished. Replaced by the cold anger of a neglected child.
"Hello, Mother," Sylvia said, her voice distorted by the mana overload.
Freya sneered. "You think borrowed power makes you strong? You are nothing! I made you!"
Freya charged.
[Boss Fight: Empress Freya (Ice Monarch)]
She moved fast. A blur of diamond and frost.
[Skill: Absolute Zero Slash.]
She swung her sword. The air froze in a cone.
Sylvia didn't dodge.
[Skill: Glacial Wall (Void Enhanced).]
She raised a wall of black ice.
CRASH.
The sword hit the wall. It didn't break through.
"What?" Freya gasped. "Black ice? That's Forbidden Magic!"
"It's New Magic," Sylvia retorted.
She pushed her hand forward.
[Skill: Icicle Gatling.]
Hundreds of purple ice shards shot from the wall.
Freya deflected them, dancing around the throne room. Clang. Clang. Clang.
"Is that all?" Freya laughed. "Child's play!"
She leaped into the air.
[Ultimate Skill: Winter's End.]
A massive blizzard formed inside the room. The temperature dropped to -100 degrees.
Seraphina and Ahri huddled behind Glacies for warmth. Even the Dragon looked annoyed. "CHILLY."
Sylvia's skin began to crack. The cold was overwhelming.
"Master!" she cried out. "I can't hold it!"
I watched from the sidelines, leaning against a pillar.
"Don't hold it," I shouted. "Steal it!"
"Use the Passive I gave you!"
Sylvia remembered.
[Passive: Cryo-Stasis (Corrupted).]
[Effect: Absorbs Cold Damage to heal HP.]
She dropped her shield.
She opened her arms.
"Come to me," Sylvia whispered.
The blizzard hit her.
It didn't freeze her.
It fed her.
The storm swirled into her body. Her skin repaired itself. Her aura grew massive.
Freya landed, panting. She expected a frozen corpse.
Instead, she saw her daughter glowing like a supernova.
"Thanks for the mana, Mom," Sylvia grinned. A cruel, twisted grin that looked exactly like mine.
"My turn."
[Skill: Glacial Railgun (Point Blank).]
Sylvia pointed her finger at Freya's chest.
BOOM.
A beam of condensed ice blasted Freya backward.
She hit the Ice Throne.
The impact shattered the ancient seat of power. Freya slumped to the ground, coughing blood.
"Impossible..." Freya wheezed. "I am... the Empress..."
Sylvia walked up the stairs. The shards of the throne crunched under her boots.
She stood over her mother.
She conjured an ice sword.
Freya looked up, eyes wide with fear. "Sylvia... wait. I am your mother. Have mercy."
Sylvia hesitated. The blade hovered.
I walked up the stairs.
"Do it," I said softly. "Mercy is for the weak."
Sylvia looked at me. Then at Freya.
She lowered the sword.
"No," Sylvia said.
Freya let out a breath of relief. "Good girl. I knew you—"
"Death is too easy," Sylvia interrupted.
She placed her hand on Freya's forehead.
[Skill: Mana Leech.]
"NO! STOP!" Freya screamed.
Sylvia drained her. She drained the Level 50 mana core. She drained the Ice Monarch Bloodline.
Freya withered. Her hair turned gray. Her skin wrinkled.
In ten seconds, the Empress became an old, powerless woman.
Sylvia stood up. She looked at her hand, now pulsing with S-Rank power.
"Put her in the dungeon," Sylvia ordered the guards. "In the cell she kept me in when I was six."
The guards rushed to obey. "Yes, Your Majesty!"
"Wait," I interjected.
"Your Majesty?"
I sat on the ruins of the throne.
"Sylvia is the Governor," I corrected. "I am the Emperor."
The room went silent.
Sylvia knelt immediately.
"Hail Emperor Cain," she said loudly.
The guards, terrified and confused, followed suit.
"Hail Emperor Cain!"
I leaned back on the jagged ice shards.
[System Notification]
[Territory Acquired: The Northern Empire.]
[Resource Gain: infinite Ice, Star-Metal Mines, 1 Million Citizens.]
"Good," I said.
"Now. Open the Treasury."
——————————————————————————————————————————
[The Imperial Vault]
We walked into the vault. It was filled with gold, yes. But I ignored the gold.
I went straight to the back.
To a pedestal holding a blue, beating heart frozen in a block of True Ice.
[Item: Heart of the Ancient Dragon]
[Grade: Mythic.]
This was the battery that powered the Great Wall.
"Master," Sylvia said, walking beside me. She seemed taller now. More confident. "If you take that, the Wall falls. The monsters from the Wastes will flood in."
"I know," I said.
"Are you going to let them in?"
"No."
I picked up the Heart.
"I'm going to move the Wall."
"Move it? Where?"
"To the South."
I looked at the map on the wall.
"The Church of Light is getting annoying. I think they need a snow day."
I pocketed the Heart.
"Pack up, ladies. We're done here."
"What about Glacies?" Ahri asked. "He's eating the royal horses outside."
"Let him eat. He earned it."
I walked out of the vault.
I had conquered a nation in 24 hours.
But first...
I looked at Sylvia. She was glowing with her mother's stolen power.
"Sylvia."
"Yes, Master?"
"You leveled up."
"I did."
"Good."
I smirked.
"Tonight, we celebrate."
"Bring wine to my quarters."
Sylvia blushed deep red. But she didn't look down. She met my gaze.
"Yes, Master. I will wear the... outfit you like."
[End of Arc 2: The Northern War.]
[Status: Total Victory.]
[Next Arc: The Heretic and the Holy Grail.]