They will fight, here and now, in this sanctuary. The winner's master will be crowned the Supreme Commander of our new, unified forces."

It was a madman's plea. A fool's gambit.

But it was the only move I had left on the board.

The room was silent for a long, agonizing moment.

Then, Setanta, who had been quietly observing the whole thing, let out a whoop of pure, unadulterated joy.

"Now that's a proper party!" he roared. "I'm in!"

The ice was broken.

A slow, brutal, and deeply unsettling grin spread across the Golem-Master's stony face.

"I accept your challenge, little Tyrant," he boomed.

One by one, they agreed.

The tournament was on.

The fate of the world was about to be decided.

In a glorious, beautiful, and profoundly stupid cage match.

And I had a terrible, wonderful feeling that I was about to have a very, very good day.

But as I looked at the faces of my rivals, at the cold, calculating fire in their eyes, a new, unsettling thought pricked at my mind.

This was not just a tournament.

This was an audition.

And I had just volunteered to be the main event.

In a room full of killers.

This was a new, fresh, and exquisitely painful kind of hell.

I loved it.

---------------

The Sanctuary was no longer a hall of tense, quiet diplomacy.

It had become an arena.

The great obsidian table vanished, replaced by a wide, circular fighting pit, its floor a smooth, seamless expanse of the same pearlescent, reality-bending material as the walls.

The thirteen Zodiacs, the most powerful and paranoid Demon Kings in the country, now sat in conjured thrones of stone, fire, and shadow, looking down like bored, malevolent gods at a gladiatorial contest.

And I, Ragnar Vhagar, the Tyrant of Aethelburg and a being of exquisite taste, had just bet the entire future of my kingdom on a glorified dick-measuring contest.

It was glorious.

"The rules are simple," the voice of Laplace echoed from the swirling nebula above.

"One champion per Zodiac. No outside interference. The last one standing wins. The winner's master is declared Supreme Commander. Let the… festivities… begin."

The first matchup was a beautiful, brutal, and profoundly stupid display of overwhelming force.

The Golem-Master's champion, a ten-foot-tall behemoth of living, shifting iron that he called 'Juggernaut', faced off against the champion of a Beast King from the north, a massive, saber-toothed tiger the size of a school bus.

BOOM!

The ground itself seemed to shatter as the two titans clashed. The wind shrieked, a vortex of tortured air swirling around them as they tore into each other with a primal, beautiful fury.

CRACK!

Juggernaut's fist, a sledgehammer of enchanted iron, connected with the tiger's skull. The impact was an absolute detonation of force.

A massive shockwave of white energy erupted from its knuckles, and the great beast was thrown backward, its skull caving in with a sickening, wet crunch.

The fight was over in less than a minute.

The Golem-Master grunted in satisfaction, a sound like two boulders being rubbed together.

One by one, the champions fought.

The Spider Queen's champion, a graceful, eight-limbed assassin who moved like a whisper, was defeated by the champion of the Fire Lord, a raging elemental of pure, white-hot plasma.

It was a beautiful, chaotic, and deeply informative series of battles. I watched, my mind racing, analyzing each champion, each fighting style, every strength, every weakness.

Then, my name was called.

"The Tyrant of Aethelburg," Laplace's voice announced. "Your champion will face the champion of the Silent King."

I looked across the arena. The Silent King was the unassuming man in the gray business suit. He gave me a small, polite, and deeply, profoundly unsettling nod.

His champion stepped into the pit.

It was a girl.

She couldn't have been older than ten. She had long, black hair, and her eyes were empty, bottomless pools of pure, unadulterated void. She wore a simple, black dress.

She looked like a ghost.

"A child?" Setanta scoffed beside me. "This is an insult. I'll end this in a single strike."

"Be careful, boy," I said, my voice a low, dangerous purr. "The quiet ones are always the most dangerous."

Setanta leaped into the pit, his fiery red hair a beacon in the dim, swirling light of the Sanctuary. He propped his spear, Gáe Bolg, on his shoulder, a cocky, insolent grin on his face.

"Alright, little lady," he said, his voice laced with a thick, lyrical accent. "Let's make this quick. I've got a bet with a very large, very angry rock-man that I can win this whole thing in under an hour."

The girl, the champion of the Silent King, said nothing.

She simply raised a hand.

And the world went silent.

It was not just the absence of sound. It was an absolute, suffocating void. The low hum of the Sanctuary, the distant, cosmic whisper of the nebula above, my own, currently non-beating heartbeat… it was all gone.

And then, the shadows in the arena moved.

They were not just shadows. They were living things. They rose from the floor, long, grasping tendrils of pure, solidified night, their tips sharpened to a razor's edge.

Setanta's grin vanished. His eyes widened.

BOOM!

He moved, a blur of motion that was almost too fast to track. His spear was a whirlwind of death, a beautiful, deadly dance of steel and legend.

But the shadows were faster.

CRACK!

A single, black tendril, moving with impossible speed, lashed out and wrapped around his ankle. The impact was a sharp, focused detonation of force, and my legendary, gacha-pulled demigod was thrown off balance.

Another tendril shot out, wrapping around his spear, tearing it from his grasp.

He was disarmed. He was helpless.

The girl took a single, slow step forward. The shadows coalesced around her hand, forming a long, wicked-looking blade of pure, unadulterated void.

She raised it, her empty eyes fixed on his throat.

The duel was over.

It hadn't even been a fight.

It was an execution.

"I yield!" I roared, my voice echoing in the silent, horrified minds of everyone present.

The shadows receded. The sound of the world rushed back in.

Setanta stood in the center of the pit, his chest heaving, his face a mask of shocked, utter disbelief. He had been defeated.

Effortlessly.

The Silent King gave me another polite, unsettling nod.

My first round was a loss.

A humiliating, spectacular, and deeply, profoundly inconvenient loss.

The tournament continued.

The Golem-Master's Juggernaut was a wrecking ball, smashing its way through three more opponents.

The Fire Lord's elemental was a force of nature, incinerating everything in its path.

Finally, only two champions were left standing.

Juggernaut.

And the silent, terrifying little girl.

The final battle was a clash of titans.

A mountain of iron versus a whisper of shadow.

BOOM! CRACK! BOOM!

A constant, deafening symphony of sonic booms and shockwaves filled the arena.

But in the end, it was not a contest.

The girl was a ghost. A whisper.

She flowed around Juggernaut's powerful, clumsy attacks, her blades of shadow finding the weak points, the gaps in its enchanted armor.

She dismantled it.

Piece by bloody, painstaking piece.

The final blow was a silent, elegant thrust that pierced the golem's core, extinguishing its magical light.

The Golem-Master roared in frustration, a sound like a mountain having a tantrum.

The tournament was over.

The winner was declared.

The Supreme Commander of our new, glorious, and probably very short-lived alliance was the Silent King.

The unassuming man in the gray business suit.

The master of a little girl who could kill gods.

He stood up, a small, polite smile on his face.

"Thank you all for your participation," he said, his voice quiet, but carrying an absolute, soul-crushing authority. "I look forward to working with you all."

I stared at him. At this new, unexpected, and deeply, profoundly inconvenient power in the world.

The game had changed.

The rules were different.

And I had a terrible, sinking feeling that I had just been demoted from 'player' to 'pawn'.

This was a new, fresh, and exquisitely painful kind of hell.

I loved it.

My name is Ragnar Vhagar.

And for the first time in a long time, I was someone else's subordinate.

The taste was… unfamiliar. And deeply, profoundly unpleasant.

The Sanctuary, which had been a glorious arena of beautiful, pointless violence, was once again a hall of tense, quiet diplomacy.

The thirteen Zodiacs, the most powerful and paranoid Demon Kings in the country, sat around the great obsidian table.

But the atmosphere was different.

There was a new pecking order.

And at the top of that pecking order, sitting in a newly conjured throne of polished, black wood that was both simple and deeply, profoundly intimidating, was the Silent King.

He was still an unassuming man in a gray business suit.

But now, he radiated an aura of absolute, soul-crushing authority.

He had won the tournament. He was the Supreme Commander.

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