KING’S LAND

King descended the last staircase into the second sublevel, his boots clicking against the squeaky clean floor. The corridor ahead glowed with white light, the lower levels looked eras after the Victorian era architecture of the main building, more modernized.

King was still walking calmly, when..

CRASH!

BoOoOMMM!!!

The sound hit him.

King’s senses heightened. He knew those sounds, collapse and destruction, something violent was going on in there.

His thoughts raced immediately...

"Maya!" King’s voice ripped out of his throat as his legs launched him into a sprint.

He slammed through the training room doors, ready for blood, enemies, or anything, except what his eyes actually registered.

The training room looked like a war crime.

Giant dummies lay in fractured pieces across the floor. Their reinforced bodies hadn’t just broken—they’d burst. Purple steam curled upward from the wreckage, thick enough to warp the air. And that liquid... a viscous, purplish fluid dripped from the remains, hissing as it ate into the stone beneath.

King’s head snapped left, then right. Searching for a threat.

There was nothing,

Just little Maya.

The child stood in the center of the devastation, untouched. Her left hand gripped a dagger—black and gold metal, sleek as a serpent’s spine. Purple cracks ran along the blade, glowing with the same toxic color as the fluid corroding the floor.

Maya spotted King in the doorway. She turned her whole body toward him, gave him a bright, innocent smile, and lifted her right hand in a small wave.

King stood frozen for a heartbeat. Then two.

His brain finally accepted what his eyes were telling him.

She did this. A seven-year-old had just dismantled training equipment built to survive various tiers of attacks.

King stepped carefully over the debris, wth slow, careful steps. He stopped a few feet from Maya and kept his voice soft.

"Maya," King said. "Can I see that?"

Maya nodded once and extended the dagger toward him, handle-first.

King wrapped his fingers around the grip. The blade weighed almost nothing, but the balance was perfect, top tier craftsmanship. The black metal swallowed light like a void. Gold accents spiraled along the hilt and crossguard in patterns that looked almost ceremonial. The purple cracks shifted beneath his palm, synced to some energy source he couldn’t identify.

King focused on the weapon, observing it carefully but it was unfamiliar.

In over a hundred playthroughs, he had never identified that item. Either this weapon was so rare it existed outside all his tried paths, or it had dropped specifically for Maya’s build.

Either way, King had never held anything like it.

He handed the dagger back. Maya took it with both hands, her small fingers curling around the grip before she stowed it carefully in her inventory.

"That’s... quite a weapon," King said.

Maya smiled again, her whole face bright with pride.

King studied her for a long moment. Then he made a choice. If Maya already hit this hard, she needed guidance. And he needed to test what his own upgraded body could do.

"Come here," King said, gesturing.

He carried Maya across the room and set her down gently behind a reinforced pillar, several meters from the remaining intact dummies. The stone column would shield her from any stray force.

"Stay there and watch," King said. "I’m going to train. You can learn by watching."

Maya sat down cross-legged and nodded with enthusiasm.

King turned to face the training area with the Gauntlet of Ruin.

The dark steel plates crawled across his left hand, layer after layer, until the legendary armament locked into place. Filled with energy.

He walked toward a training dummy and raised the gauntlet.

The combatant class was two ranks stronger. Time to see what that meant.

King threw a straight punch. His fist connected with the dummy’s reinforced torso.

CRACK.

The chest caved inward. The entire construct folded backward and slammed into the floor, dead before it landed.

King examined the damage. He hadn’t activated Ruin’s Touch. That meant the increased force came purely from his stats and class progression. His raw strength had jumped higher than he’d expected.

He moved to the next dummy stretched his hands, and when his fingertips touched the dummy, he activated Ruin’s Touch. The dummy simply disintegrated, and this time, nothing was left, not even ash, it just seized to exist.

King smiled at the sight, the dummies weren’t accurate scales. Still, this was a positive test.

Then he progressed to another, running through combinations. Jabs. Crosses. Hooks. Uppercuts, manifesting weapons and actually fighting with them. Every strike landed like a wrecking ball.

King dismissed the gauntlet and switched to bare hands. He wanted to feel his speed. He weaved between dummies, ducking imaginary counterattacks, pressing forward without pause. His body moved faster now cleaner, and more adept in physical combat.

The Combatant class enhanced more than weapons. It sharpened his reaction time, his spatial awareness, his combat instinct. He could read attack patterns before they fully formed. He saw openings like cracks in glass.

King trained for twenty straight minutes, cycling through techniques, pushing his upgraded body to its limits.

Maya watched the whole time. Silent. Her eyes tracking every move.

King was mid-combination when a notification flickered across his vision.

[Eli: I’m back. At the estate entrance.]

King stopped mid-step. He dismissed the construct he’d been about to summon and turned toward Maya.

"Come on. Eli’s back."

They climbed the staircases together and pushed through the estate doors.

Eli stood in the entrance archway, one shoulder braced against the stone. He looked like he’d been dragged through a war.

Bandages wrapped his left arm and torso, dark with dried blood in places. His vest hung in tatters, singed and torn. His face was pale, his eyes tired.

But he was standing.

"Master King," Eli said, straightening with visible effort. "Mission complete."

King walked straight to him and scanned the injuries.

"You look like hell."

"Felt worse," Eli said, a faint smile pulling at his mouth. "The False Nephilim put up more of a fight than expected."

Vi appeared from inside the estate, took one look at Eli, and rushed forward.

"What happened to you?" Vi’s voice carried real worry.

"Occupational hazard," Eli said.

King turned to Vi.

"Can you heal him?"

Vi nodded without hesitation.

"Yeah. Come inside and sit down."

They moved to the common area. Eli lowered himself carefully into a chair. Vi knelt beside him and placed both palms flat against his injured torso.

A translucent barrier shimmered around Eli’s body, glowing with soft white light. The barrier pulsed like a second heartbeat, pushing healing energy into his wounds. Cuts knitted shut. Bruises faded. And color bled back into Eli’s face.

Several minutes passed.

Vi withdrew her hands, and Eli rolled his shoulders experimentally. The bandages still wrapped him, but the damage beneath had mostly closed.

"Thank you," Eli said.

Vi stood and smiled.

"Just try not to get that beat up again."

King opened his mouth to chip in, but a notification cut him off.

[GIFT RECEIVED]

[CELESTIAL VIEWER: StarGazer has gifted you 5,000 Runes]

[CELESTIAL VIEWER: Void_Empress has gifted you 3,000 Runes]

[UNIQUE VIEWER: Light_Salvatore has gifted you 2,000 Runes]

King stared at the screen.

Gifts. From viewers he’d never spoken to. Smaller than the Almighty’s gifts, but it was something for a change.

Vi gasped and grabbed King’s arm.

"King, I just got gifts. And my fan list just increased by a lot."

King closed his notification and looked at her with a warm smile, "That’s great".

The fan system was spreading. More viewers were engaging, picking players to support, sending resources that turned into real in-game currency.

That changed the game.

King then turned his attention to the world chat, opening it for his usual update on the world news.

Messages flooded his vision in thousands of lines, scrolling too fast to read individually.

[Did anyone else just get gifts from their fans]

[Yeah! Three people sent me runes. What’s happening?]

[The fan system is going live for everyone. Not just the top rankers.]

[This is wonderful. Free resources just for being entertaining?]

[Not free. You still have to perform. But yeah, it’s a game leveller.]

King scrolled up, searching for context. Then the tone shifted.

[Has anyone seen the bounty announcement?]

[Hunters Association is putting a bounty on someone. Hunt’s about to make it public.]

[Who’s the target?]

[Don’t know yet. Hunt said he’s disclosing details soon.]

King kept scrolling. And then he found it.

A message from Hunt_Starbuster. Posted twenty minutes ago.

__________________

[Hunt_Starbuster: Attention all players. The Hunters Association is issuing an official bounty. Target details will be disclosed within the next few hours. All players should be aware. This is not a drill. Stay alert.]

___________________

King read it once. Then again.

A bounty. The Hunters Association was publicly targeting someone.

King closed World Chat and looked up. Eli and Vi were both watching him, their faces filld with concern.

"What is it?" Vi asked.

King didn’t answer immediately. He checked the timestamp again.

Twenty minutes ago.

The disclosure was coming soon. Very soon.

King met Vi’s eyes.

"The Hunters Association just announced a bounty," King said quietly. "They’re going to reveal the target within the hour."

Vi’s expression hardened.

"A bounty? On who?"

"Don’t know for certain," King said. "But I have a hunch, we need to be ready."

Eli pushed himself upright, testing his healed body with a slow rotation of his spine.

"If they’re making it public," Eli said, "it’s someone significant. Someone who’s made enemies."

King nodded. His mind ran through the high possibilities of it being him, after all, it had just come after his last encounter with Blackcloak, who claimed to be from the Hunter’s Association.

But if they really knew who he was, would they dare come after the rank 1?.

King exhaled, then pushed the thought aside.

Time would tell.

"We wait," King said. "When they announce the target, we’ll know what we’re dealing with."

Vi and Eli nodded.

King turned to the window. His gaze settled on the reshaped horizon of King’s Land.

Somewhere out there, the Hunters Association was preparing to move.

And if they came for him...

...he would be ready.