“Good afternoon, Admiral.”

  In the opulent hall of Soulnaught, there sat the notorious tyrant upon his grand throne—a marvel of craftsmanship, remi of both splendor and dread. His youthful visage, strikingly handsome and radiant, bore seemingly no imperfes, as though the creator had sculpted him from the fi marble.

  Yet there he perched, slightly hunched, leaning sideways in a posture that spoke of nonce, as if he regarded the affairs of mortals with the utmost indifference.

  “You must’ve heard about me.”

  Propping his on his arm, with his elbow led against the ornate armrest, he exuded a sense al apathy. His golden eyes flickered with a disarming charm, yet beh that veneer y a frosty disposition, dark and bottomless.

  The shadows danced on his abaster skin, cast from the harsh light that poured through the grand hall's floor-to-ceiling windows, imbuing him with a menag aura that one could only describe as delightfully terrifying.

  “But this marks our first official meeting, so allow me to extend the courtesy of an introdu.”

  Despite the grandeur surrounding him, his expression was a study in ironic detat. “I am Caliburn Pendragon.”

  “How dare you… Do you know who I am?!” a man yelled, his voice taut with indignation. “I am the son of Marquis Blitzen! I was born a noble from the Fifth Heaven! You dare capture me, you low-born tyrant—”

  The tyrant interjected with a throaty chuckle as one of his men, garbed in the heavy armor of his knights, presented a white traption, just uhed from the struggling man’s private ship.

  The oting ohrone immediately cradled the traption like a precious treasure, finally toug and examining it up close. “Another White Dwarf! How delightful.”

  The older man on the s in front of him frowned, his visage tightening.

  After losing one of those formidable p-destroying ons to this tyrant, he had been rag his brain for a strategy to recover it. Yet here was his junior, unwittingly tossing another on into the mix, all while getting himself captured.

  “Caliburn Pendragon, what is the meaning of this?” the old man on the s sharply asked, his voice a deep rumble, cloaked in wariness yet tinged with frustration.

  Letting his junior coct a solution had been quite the miscalcution. Asking for the return of the lost on? How quaint. They were dealing with a tyrant, a man infamous for single-handedly decimating the first wave of the Alliaroops.

  He should’ve known.

  “Oh, please,” the tyrant mocked, his voice a deep, teasing growl. “Didn’t you lose a White Dwarf to a gaggle of meraries i on g my life? And now you have the gall to send your little junior on a retrieval mission?”

  “What do you want?” the senior asked, his tone a simmering cauldron of fury.

  The tyrant shrugged with an air of un. “There’s nothing you provide that could possibly intrigue me. It was you who lost the on, after all. Why are you so surprised that I have zero iion of returning it?”

  “Well, yes, it wasly a heartfelt handoff from you to me, but still, you lost it, I found it. Seems fair enough, wouldn’t you agree? A’s not fet it was meant to terminate me,” the tyrant remarked, handing the on back to his men.

  The senior opened his mouth to unleash a retort but was interrupted by a woman, who stepped forward, now fag the s.

  “I uand now,” she said. “It seems our fleet mispced the treasure we so generously entrusted to them, and it vely found its way into your hands.”

  Behold, a vision of the future, as if someone finally figured out how to blend the ic with the avant-garde. Draped in a midnight cape, the woman resembled a walking piece of the os, with glistening steltions woven into the fabric—who needs a night sky when you wear it?

  Her skihereal silver, was a subtle trick of the light, because pale was just to for deep-space aesthetics. The spaceship and the surrounding void made her glow like a ic bea, drawing attention from admirers and enemies alike.

  Gaze into her swirling bck gaxy eyes, where mischief danced like a pyful et. Those orbs were not just deep; they could easily pull unsuspeg souls into aential debate—if only they could keep up with her wit.

  “You may keep the on. It’s not as if we’re running low on such tris,” she said suddenly, leaving the senior and the others in stunned silence.

  “Lady Mahkato—”

  She raised a hand, sileng him. “But my dear barbarian, might I inquire about yrand design behiaining our admiral and dug a raid on his personal vessel?”

  Her hair, iridest bck, cascaded in tendrils that looked like liquid shadow. Surrounding her were elite space guards, adorned in ornate armor that could only be described as “fashionably lethal.”

  And when her words dripped with me was a threat den with substance—a far cry from mere bluster. Proven by how that subtle ge made the guards around her immediately shift, ready for and.

  Sure, the tyrant took the on they’d lost, but detaining an officer of the Alliance who’d e to iate? Bold move.

  “Oh, this guy?” the tyrant chuckled, a humorless spark in his eyes. “If you wao return both White Dwarfs, give me the right to kill him.”

  The man rose slowly, a striking figure, his sword floating gracefully into his waiting hand, glimmering ominously. Each step he took down from his throne resonated with the sharp ks of his metal-heeled shoes, eg through the hall like a death knell.

  “What?!” the senior admiral couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You dare!”

  “It seems he thought he could wreak havo this world with the shiny tri he brought the moment I refused to return the first one you mispced,” the tyrant said. “Isn’t he the problem, then?”

  “Who let you all mispce the first one? Could it be him too? Since he is so eager to kill me along with this world, of course, it was him, yes?”

  At that, the junior’s expression morphed, his eyes bugging out like someone caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Shame, anger, and a dash ance flickered across his face. “It was you who rejected the Alliance’s generous offer! I suggested helping you quer the nd, and you—!”

  “Do I look like I need help?” the tyrant shot back, his tone so cold it could freeze fire.

  The woman’s eyes became cold.

  “But it seems you really don’t care about this world, do you?” he tinued, a hint of mockery g his words. “After all, what could possibly captivate the minds of people like you in this barbarian’s realm? A’s be ho, you wouldn’t have bothered with a world-destroying on like the White Dwarf if your iion was merely to set up shop here.”

  There was something the outsiders desired in this world. And the deployment of not o two White Dwarfs made it abundantly clear just how much they valued this little phe tyrant was all too aware of its significe, and now, she khat he knew.

  The very presence of that world-destroyer roof that their ambitions weren’t merely about g dominion—oh no—they were prepared to obliterate this pce if their grand desig awry.

  They were uandably cautious about the source of power they sought, yet the allure of it was evidently too intoxig to resist.

  This world existed merely as a pop-up in the rger saga, but the junior admiral appeared blissfully unaware of his supp role.

  “Nonsehe junior howled, his indignation ricocheting off the walls. “Even if I were remotely tempted to raze this world to the ground, it’s obvious it’s doomed anyway! These backeasants—how dare they question the great Alliand capture me, the illustrious offspring of Marquis Blitzen!”

  Yet here stood a barbarian tyrant, an audacious thorn in their grandiose pns, someoh enough audacity to challehe universe’s most formidable army.

  He uhed his sword. “You waltzed into my peaceful little backyard, and even after I silenced your ramblings once, you think tain? Clearly, you’ve not grasped the cept of ‘lesson learned.’”

  The junior’s bravado crumbled as the man strode doweps of his throform, bck swleaming ominously. “No… no! You ’t be serious! I am Rudolf Blitzen! My father is—”

  Burn lifted his sword high, i on delivering justice personally.

  And the bde desded.

  SLASH!!!

  Blood spilled.

  And the junior admiral’s head rolled to the ground.