The System was right. Subtlety was for cowards.
I stood on the dead plains of the Necropolis, a lone figure in a world of bone and sorrow. I reached into the conceptual vault where I stored the tithes of the gods I had conquered, and I pulled forth the brightest, most obnoxious toy I owned.
The very essence of the Solar Flame.
A miniature sun, a ball of pure, righteous, holy fire, materialized in my hand. It was anathema to this entire plane of existence. The very ground around me began to sizzle, the ancient, death-infused soil recoiling from the pure, life-giving energy.
"Let there be light, you sons of bitches," I said with a grin, and I hurled the miniature sun into the sky.
It didn't explode. It ascended, growing brighter and hotter, until it became a new, permanent, and utterly unwelcome star in the gray, sunless sky of the Necropolis. The entire continent was bathed in a warm, golden, holy light it hadn't seen in millennia.
Across the plains, the dead began to scream. Skeletons caught in the light crumbled to dust. Ghosts shrieked and dissipated. The entire undead ecosystem of the 77th floor was being scoured by the holy light of a god I had murdered and whose power I now wielded like a cheap party trick.
I had just declared war on the entire floor, and I had done it in the most beautifully arrogant way imaginable.
The response was immediate. From the black ice fortress in the distance, a wave of pure, negative energy, a psychic roar of absolute fury, washed over the landscape. The Lich King was awake. And he was pissed.
The ground began to tremble as legions of his elite, magic-resistant death knights and hulking bone-golems began to march from the fortress, their destination: me.
"Good," I said to myself. "Let them come. It'll be a nice warm-up."
But I was not going to face them alone. My time as a lone wolf was over. I was a sovereign, a king. And a king needs a court.
I opened my System's interface. My 'Sovereign's Domain', the pocket dimension that housed my empire on the Third Floor, was still accessible. But I wasn't going to summon my armies. I was here for a more personal project.
I went to the "workshop" I had established within my domain, a place where I had left my Echo, Lia, with a very specific, long-term task.
In the center of the workshop stood a perfect, blank, Prime Homunculus body, the "spare" Lia had so thoughtfully created. It was a masterpiece, even more advanced than her own original vessel.
"Lia," I said, my thought echoing into the workshop. "The project. Is it ready?"
It is complete, Sovereign, her voice replied, a calm, perfect echo of my own. As you commanded.
Floating in the air around the blank homunculus were two, perfect, shimmering soul-motes. One was a brilliant, fanatical gold. The other was a cool, analytical silver.
Elara Von Hess and Silvana.
Not the originals. Not exactly.
After the duel with The Champion, I had done something the Architect, in its cold logic, would never have thought of. I hadn't just left them behind. Before I departed for the Abyss, I had used the Creation Engine, combined with a sliver of their own soul-essence taken with the Void-Eater's Hand, to create perfect, loyal copies of their souls.
They were not the originals, with their troublesome free will and potential for betrayal. They were Echos. Just like Lia. They were perfect, loyal, and utterly subservient extensions of my own will, possessing all the skills and memories of their original selves, but none of the disobedience.
Elara's Echo would be my fanatical holy warrior, a perfect weapon against the undead.
Silvana's Echo would be my logical strategist, a perfect tool to analyze our new enemy.
"Install them," I commanded.
The two soul-motes flowed into the blank homunculus. The silver body shivered, then split, like a cell dividing, into two perfect, identical forms. One took on the appearance of Elara, her eyes burning with a pure, unwavering devotion. The other became Silvana, her expression a mask of cold, perfect, analytical loyalty.
I had just created the perfect court. A high priestess and a grand vizier who existed only to serve me.
I pulled them through the dimensional tear and into the dying light of the Necropolis. They knelt before me, their voices a perfect, two-part harmony.
"We live to serve, our Sovereign."
Now, I was ready for war.
But as my two new, perfect servants rose to their feet, and the legions of the Lich King darkened the horizon, a new, unforeseen variable made itself known.
The distress signal. The one that had lured me here in the first place. The plea for help from the 'Infinity Shard'.
It pulsed again, but this time, it was not a general broadcast. It was a direct, narrow-beam psychic message, aimed directly at me. And it contained not a plea for help, but a single, terrifying image. A memory.
The twist was not the message itself. It was the sender. The 'Infinity Shard' was not a mindless artifact. It had a consciousness. It had an Administrator. And the memory it showed me was of its own, previous wielder.
The image was of a young, powerful man, his eyes burning with a familiar, righteous fire. He was standing in this very same fortress of black ice, surrounded by the Lich King's hordes. And he was losing.
The man was not from Aethelgard. He was not from Veridia. But I knew him. From the deepest, most forgotten archives of my memories of Earth.
He was the protagonist of a different webnovel. A different, popular, power-fantasy story.
And the System, my System, provided the final, mind-shattering context.
[!!! CRITICAL DATA RECOVERED FROM DISTRESS SIGNAL !!!]
[The 'Infinity Shard' is not a native fragment of the Omnistructure. It is a 'rogue' Main Core from a completely different, rival 'System-Verse'.]
[Its Administrator, the man in the memory, was the 'Protagonist' of his own world. He successfully climbed his own Tower, but was defeated and captured here, in a cross-dimensional 'end-game' event.]
[The Lich King did not just defeat him. He consumed him. He stole his System.]
[CONCLUSION: The Lich King is not just a powerful, undead sponsor. He is a former 'Player' who has achieved a 'Final Boss' state. He is a fellow transmigrator. And the power he wields is not the magic of this world. It is the power of a stolen, complete, and fully operational Main Core System from another universe.]