“Hmph, we’ll see about that.”

Devin and Crow readied their weapons as they could see that Maria wasn’t planning on leaving. They were right to be confident in their own abilities, but unfortunately, the two of them weren’t prepared at all for what came next.

“Crow, disrupt her magic and I’ll–!”

Before Devin could finish his words, Maria flicked her hand and launched the sun that was floating above her palm towards the player named Crow. The sun disappeared and reappeared in front of Crow’s chest and although he tried backing up immediately, the powerful gravity that was being emitted by the sun forced him to stay.

His chest was already burning and this caused Crow to panic a little bit because his movements were sealed. He tried swinging his weapon at the miniature sun, but before he could even strike it, a notification window appeared in front of his eyes. The window notified Crow that the durability of his armor and weapon were rapidly depleting until they were now close to breaking and this shocked him even further.

‘W-What kind of spell is this?!’

“Hold on!”

Before Devin could do anything, Maria waved her hand upwards, causing the sun to quickly fly high up into the sky along with the restricted Crow that was entangled by its gravity.

“I think I’ll give this spell the name… [Solar Flare],” Maria said as she looked down at the horrified Devin, who guessed Maria’s next intention after hearing her words.

*DING*

Due to your incredible magical insight, you have successfully created the custom spell [Solar Flare]. It has been listed as a sub spell under your existing [Fire] spell.

“No, wait–”

“Too late.”

Maria snapped her fingers and a soundless explosion ensued the next instant. After the explosion, a devastating shockwave came next which struck the land below. Since the town was just beneath the area where Maria had used her new custom spell, [Solar Flare], the shockwave that ensued completely devastated the place. The gate to the town was blown away while the houses closest to the explosion had their roofs come flying off.

When Maria noticed this, she quickly reacted and set up a massive [Barrier] spell that protected the town so the resulting shockwave from her spell didn’t completely destroy the place. If she had let it be, the town would’ve been completely leveled to the ground and its inhabitants would definitely have been in great danger.

“Y-Your Majesty!!!” Lucille called out in worry. She didn’t think that Maria would use such a devastating spell so close to the town.

The shockwave nearly blew her away and the rest of Maria’s team, but luckily, Raiju was there and she erected a lightning barrier that offset the shockwave so everyone didn’t get hurt.

“Sheesh, if only Master warned me ahead of time that she would be using a disaster-class spell, I would’ve had time to prepare myself,” Raiju said with a nervous smile. Even at her level, she didn’t expect that the shockwave from Maria’s spell would cause her lightning [Element Barrier] to falter.

“T-The town!”

“Don’t worry about it, little Wolf Missy, Master is protecting it with her [Barrier] spell.”

“O-Oh!”

Once the shockwave subsided, Devin quickly got back onto his feet and looked up at the sky. All of the clouds nearby had been blown away so it was completely clear, but when he looked around, there wasn’t even a trace of his friend left up there. His entire being had evaporated the moment Maria exploded her miniature sun.

“C-Crow…”

He quickly checked his [Friend List] menu and noticed that his friend had been sent to the graveyard. You needed to die 3 times before receiving the logout penalty, but if you did die, you would be trapped in a soul-like state for about 15 minutes before you could respawn at your last respawn point.

The fact that from just one spell, his friend, Crow, had been killed, caused Devin to not know how to react. Not even his leader, Hecate, could kill him or his friend in a single move so easily like that, but this girl in front of him had been able to do so and it didn't even look like she broke a sweat.

“W-Who…Who are you?”

“Oh? Did I forget to introduce myself? I guess it’s because I was a little too angry by what I saw earlier,” Maria said as she floated down and landed a few steps away from Devin. “I’m Maria, the Dire’s Empress.”

“!”

“I don’t normally get emotional like this but what I saw earlier was extremely appalling. I made sure to even abolish it in my Empire, though I didn’t think the lycans and werewolves still used it. I’m a bit disappointed in you since you’re a player like me.”

Devin didn’t understand what Maria was saying and so he questioned her after a slight moment of hesitation, “...What are you talking about?”

“What am I talking about? I’m talking about your territory’s appalling mine situation–well, I guess it’s going to be my territory now, but you know what I'm talking about, right?”

“The mine?”

Seeing the confused look on his face, Maria frowned and replied, “You didn’t know? You’re using werewolves as slaves in the mines…as a person from a more civilized era, why are you condoning such inhumanity?”

“I-It’s just a game…”

After hearing his reply, the look in Maria’s eyes turned extremely bone-chilling and she said emotionlessly, “Ah, I see, so you’re one of those people, huh?”

“Wha–”

Before Devin could reply, Maria raised her arm and quickly froze him with a new variation of her [Blizzard] spell which she called [Ice Coffin]. She then sent the coffin of ice with Devin inside of it burrowing into the ground. After burying the poor man, she used her [Terra] spell to cover up the hole her previous spell had made as she clicked her tongue in distaste before saying, “Bastard, I don’t know who you are, but if I ever see you again, I’ll kill you.”

Just like his friend, Devin was also sent to the ‘graveyard’ a minute after he was buried alive. He couldn't escape the ice coffin and had to painfully wait until his HP bar zeroed out due to the spell's damage over time. He just floated there in his soul-like state, staring blankly ahead of him because he couldn't understand how the spell was able to last so long and it was powerful enough to completely make him immobile.

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‘I was killed immediately…without being able to do anything…’

He was still in disbelief from what happened earlier. This was the first time he had experienced such a one-sided defeat. He could wrap his head around it if he lost in a match against his leader, since he knew just how powerful Hecate was, but he didn’t think he’d lost to anyone else. What more, the loss he experienced from Maria was even more devastating than any of the losses he had experienced from fighting with his alliance master.

Crow was also experiencing the same feeling. It all happened way too fast and it wasn’t like they had been ambushed or anything. Maria didn’t hide her presence or attack. She openly displayed it and, despite seeing it, they couldn’t do anything before being killed almost instantly.

Devin and Crow were confident in fighting against another player, especially if that player was someone who had previously lost to their leader, but they didn’t think that they’d have to fight against the force of nature itself. When Devin thought back about that, he began to helplessly chuckle before saying to himself, “...How were we supposed to be prepared for that? That wasn’t a player, that was a freaking calamity in human form…just how was our leader able to even fight against someone like that…and win?”

'You can’t fight against nature, and that girl was practically wielding the strongest force of nature itself, the sun!'

The attack that took down his friend was comparable to a literal nuclear missile explosion. If the barrier hadn’t appeared when it did, Devin believed that the town he was managing would’ve been wiped off the map.

He wanted to report this to Zhuge Lan as soon as possible, but Devin had to wait another few minutes before he could respawn and send a message. The only slight problem was that his respawn point was in the town where he had just died.

‘Crow’s going to respawn ahead of me. I hope he’s smart enough to quickly run away and send a message to Zhuge…’

Unfortunately for them, however, Maria had been waiting, so the moment they respawned, which was at the town hall, she immediately captured them and prevented them from accessing the system's communication function by sending them straight to jail. Since they respawned separately, it was pretty easy and she locked them up in the town’s jail. Once they were inside, they couldn’t send out any messages to anyone, so her secret arrival on Vanhal was still kept as such, a secret.

Maria made sure to lock them up with the maximum duration, which was 3 in-game days, or 1 IRL day, but she wished she could lock them up until her business was over. She knew that Crow and Devin were likely being supported by some kind of organization, otherwise, they wouldn’t be so powerful.

She didn’t want the two players to leak any information about her being on Vanargand, but with the secret being out now, it was inevitable that whoever was behind these players would eventually find out.

Maria hadn’t wanted to be so flashy when she took over the territory, but before attacking the town, she saw something pretty horrible in the gold mines. Lucille had guided her and the rest of her group there first in order to meet up with the town’s previous mayor. When she saw the state the mines were in, Maria grew extremely angry because the players who were managing the land were using slaves.

Previously, the Blood Faction also had slaves, but Maria quickly abolished slavery after she took power, so the Dreyra Continent was completely free of slavery now. The Vanargand Continent still had slavery, but Maria never saw it herself though she knew that it was definitely there since her continent previously had it.

When Maria saw that a player-owned land actually had slaves, she was extremely livid. The slave drivers in the mines also treated the slaves very cruelly, but she didn’t do anything right away.

She first met up with the previous mayor of the territory. Maria thought that it wasn’t the player’s fault but the previous mayor instead, since she didn’t believe a fellow human being would be so wicked. The explanation she got, however, was disheartening.

The previous mayor didn’t lie when he told her that the slaves had only been brought to the mines after he had been replaced by the player and Maria could see that he was telling the truth because among the slaves, there were both lycans and werewolves. With how divided the lycan and werewolf communities were at the moment, the mayor–who was a Lycan and believed in equality of the two communities–would in no way be willing to have Lycan or werewolf slaves among the slaves that were working for him.

Since he also believed in equality, it would be even less plausible for him to have any slaves that were his kin, so the only conclusion was that the previous mayor was telling the truth and it really was the players that brought those salves in.

Maria didn’t think a player would use slaves when it was such a horrible thing in the real world, but she was severely wrong. They didn’t know any better because, to them, this world was ‘just a game’.

When Maria heard those words come out of Devin’s mouth, she was angry and disgusted, which made her kill him immediately. The moment Devin respawned, Maria killed him again and it wasn’t until the 2nd time he respawned did she order her people to arrest him and send him to jail. She wanted to vent her anger a little bit more, but if she killed the poor guy again, then he’d be logged out and out of her reach.

As much as she wanted to punish the guy, Maria didn’t know what to do and just imprisoned him as she wasn’t a cruel person. She somewhat regretted her decision to not bring Ash with her to Vanargand. If he was there, he would definitely punish all of her enemies for her if she asked him to. Actually, she didn't even need to ask. Her enemies had made her upset and that alone was enough for Ash to act and punish the people that made her that way.

“Next time, I’m bringing Ash along,” Maria mumbled in dissatisfaction.

The entire territory had been quickly conquered, since the people who wanted to rebel were too scared to make a move. Their lives had nearly been erased by the sun earlier and the person who caused all of that was currently sitting around with an upset expression on her face. No one wanted to know what would happen if they continued to antagonize her any further because the next time, their town might really be destroyed.