They had finally brought down all three Warden Captains. The hall still vibrated with the echo of spent magic, the metallic tang of blood, and the drifting haze of shattered stone. That victory was the result of sheer effort and willpower. Luke knew full well that not long ago it would have been hard for them to face even a single Warden Captain, but now they had defeated three.

Evangeline sat slumped against the cold stone wall, breath coming shallow and quick. Her fingers trembled against the blood-stained fabric of her kimono while Jack knelt beside her, wand pressed close, a ribbon of green light crawling over her skin to seal cuts. Across the hall, Ronan remained standing before the fallen Warden Captain, eyes locked on the corpse, lost somewhere between shock and the flickering notifications lighting the air.

[Special Event "Third Fortress Mission" Completed]

[You have successfully defeated the three major threats! The Great Serpent, the Fallen Stone Angel, and the Three Warden Captains!]

Luke flipped open his interface. More notifications scrolled past his eyes. One flagged Princess Charlie's mandatory class evolution. It would take a careful decision later, not now. Choosing a new class required strategy and a cool head.

Another message popped up:

[Your Rank Skill is currently being forged. It will soon be ready…]

He blinked, reading it twice. This was real. At last he had unlocked his epic class skill and, soon, a Rank Skill would follow. For a heartbeat he felt the weight of every risk they had taken click into place and become worth it.

"Looks like we all survived," Eleanor said, voice raw but steady, glancing from face to face.

Ronan kept staring at the dead Warden Captain. "That thing fought hard," he muttered.

The hall resembled the other fortresses: mirrored corridors, high columns, shredded tapestries, scorch marks everywhere. Each detail stood as a silent record of the war they had just waged. Allison stepped closer, boots whispering over the stone.

"Nothing's stopping us from going back to Earth now," she said, eyes fixed on the corridor's gate.

"Except, of course, for the damn castle and whatever's inside it," Evangeline answered as she rose carefully, bracing against the wall. Her kimono was soaked in red; she wiped her fingers clean before cinching the sash tighter.

"She's healing up," Jack murmured, still watching the faint glow on her skin.

"Dying now, this close to home, would be darkly funny," Evangeline said, gaze sharp but weary.

Luke drew a deep breath. The biggest walls had finally fallen, Bartholomew, the fights with rival survivors, the hunt for three mechanisms. All of it behind him. He was closer to home than ever.

Evangeline scanned the group. "So… anyone here hit Rank cap?"

"I did," Luke answered without hesitation.

"I'm almost there," Mason added from where he leaned against a column.

For a heartbeat, silence thickened, everyone feeling the same thing: destiny lining itself up before them.

"Shall we head for the third mechanism?" Luke asked.

"Absolutely," came the reply, all at once.

***

They left the hall without looking back. None of them wanted to stay another second. Interfaces flicked shut, weapons vanished into inventories, and the sound of boots striking stone echoed down the corridors as they moved toward their goal.

At the main door, Luke pressed both palms against it and pushed. The hinges groaned with a metallic shriek, opening into the chamber beyond.

"So this is the mechanism room? Looks the same as yours?" Ronan's eyes swept the space, sharp and searching. He'd never seen the inner chamber of either of the other two fortresses.

"Exactly the same," Evangeline answered.

Ronan let out a low breath. "Five years I lived in a place with one of these mechanisms right under my nose…"

"Two years for me," Eleanor added quietly. "At least now we know the truth."

They stepped toward the center. The mechanism itself was stone and steel, like a ship's wheel laid flat, gears humming with a faint blue glow.

While the others approached, Luke lingered near the wall beside Charlie. Carved into the stone were ancient, cracked reliefs telling some long-forgotten story. Flakes of rock littered the floor, but one section remained intact: two angels kneeling before a throne. Whoever sat on it had been deliberately erased, leaving only a void where the figure should be.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Midnight King… or the Architect? Or were they the same thing? The thought cut through Luke's mind as he stared at the carving.

Beside him, Charlie radiated happiness. Through the mental link, he felt her happiness like a warm current.

"We made it, Charlie," he murmured. "We started out falling through the ice, and now we're here."

She lifted her hand. He met it, sealing the moment with a quick slap of palms.

"Don't forget I'm still here," Artemis whispered in his mind. "We're all in this together."

Luke drew in a steadying breath. True enough. Alongside Charlie there was the chatty, ravenous soul and the Beast Lord bound within the stone—echoes of every step they'd taken to reach this point.

"Let's join the others," he said, and the two of them walked toward the mechanism.

Evangeline was pressing the moons on the wall in the correct order.

"Hard to believe you infiltrated that place just to get this password," Eleanor remarked, one brow arched.

"By the way, who was the woman that slipped into Bastion?" Ronan asked, suspicion creeping into his tone. "It's not any of you… is it Charlie?"

For a moment all eyes flicked to Luke, then away again. Allison cleared her throat.

"Someone who isn't here," she said, cutting the subject off.

A new notification flared into the air, silencing any further questions.

**Final Tutorial Mission: Midnight War**

You've reached the final stage of the tutorial and now have access to the third and last mechanism. From your very first steps on this journey, much has happened, but don't think the end is near. The true challenge begins now.

The Midnight War is the ultimate event of this tutorial world. In the Capital, the heart of the Kingdom, lies the last fortress. But nothing comes without a price. Activating the third mechanism will shatter the castle's final barrier and put the exit within your reach. On the other side, however, waits the final army of the Midnight King, led by his most loyal and relentless guardian, the Midnight Lord.

Your objective is to survive the march of this army and reach the King for the final judgment. This event cannot be paused or reversed and will last exactly 6 hours.

When the War ends, no living creature may remain. Each mechanism you activated broke a seal of the castle and also a seal of the wall that kept the Kingdom safe. When the third mechanism is activated, the magic that kept the winter at bay will vanish. Eternal cold will sweep across everything. No warmth, no light, no life. Frozen death will consume every corner of this world.

You will have 6 hours to fight your way through the Midnight Lord's army, reach the castle, and return to your world. If you fail, you will perish along with everything around you.

Objective: Survive the Midnight War and return to your world.

Requirement: At least 51% of tutorial participants must be present in the third fortress for the event to start at midnight. Once the third mechanism is activated, it cannot be stopped and the countdown to this world's death begins. Duration: 6 hours.

Good luck!

When the last trace faded in the air, silence fell over the room. It was a tense, almost physical silence, forcing everyone to confront the reality written before them.

***

The group had gathered in the fortress mess hall, now an improvised camp. Tables had been dragged into barricades, and worn rugs doubled as beds.

Ronan broke the silence. "Bartholomew was right," he murmured, not looking at anyone.

Allison's head snapped up, disbelief flashing across her face. "Right? Locking everyone inside the tutorial out of cowardice? Abandoning Earth and dying in this dying world? That's what you think?"

"It's not that simple." Ronan finally turned to face them. "We have to march an army, kill a Lord, drag nearly two thousand people to the castle, fight a King and a witch who are probably stronger than the Lord, and then push through a portal. All of that in six hours. Do you even grasp the scale of that?"

Luke didn't answer right away. He watched the flickering flame of a lamp, lost in the numbers. The truth was everything had always been a gamble. Since the beginning, every step had meant lives at stake. He'd never fooled himself into thinking they'd all make it out, but there had always been a plan: hold the line, eliminate enemies gradually, use time as a weapon. Now there was no time. Six hours. Far too little for a world this big.

And yet his mind spun with the possibilities. An army in motion meant thousands earning experience, epic skills awakening one after another, professions maxing out, strategies taking shape. If organized right, it could work. But this wasn't a siege anymore. It was a sprint against the clock.

"I get the danger, I get the stakes," Evangeline said at last, breaking the heavy quiet. She leaned against a pillar, arms crossed, her tone calm but unyielding. "But nothing has changed except the deadline. Come on. Months ago, could any of you have imagined taking down a Warden Captain? And we did it. nd some of you haven't even reached peak rank yet."

Eleanor nodded slowly. "She's got a point."

Jack sat hunched on a bench, rubbing the back of his neck. "Still… six hours to do everything. I'm not saying I'm quitting. I have to get back home. But we're going to have to tear up half our plan and start over."

Mason leaned forward, elbows on the table. "It's still doable. We just need tighter prep. Gather the best, push everyone's levels as high as they'll go. At least their professions."

"Not most. All of them," Allison cut in. "That's the only way this works."

Luke raised his eyes. "We can still bring everyone here, can't we? The Capital's huge, crawling with threats, undead, and the Wild Zone. Two thousand people working together, grinding levels… we could build an army worth fearing."

Ronan exhaled and finally sat back, shoulders loosening as if the numbers themselves calmed him. "Two thousand at peak profession, all with epic skills… yeah. That's the baseline," he said, voice steadier now.

"The classes we can work around," Mason added. "Not everyone will hit the top, but professions? That's doable. Then we arm them, drill them, map strategies. We teach each person exactly how to spend their free points during the war. No one's going to have time to stop and think in the middle of it; they'll need to know it cold."

Their conversation began to settle the room. Ideas started to flow, strategies and counter-strategies spilling out as each person voiced their approach. For the first time since the notification, they sounded like a team again.

"The distance," Luke said, pushing himself up from the table. "I need to know how far it is from here to the castle now that the second mechanism's barrier might be gone."

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