“Will you spill the beans already?” Chao Feng said and Avatari broke out of her deep thoughts and said “He calls it Reign, I call it Kingdom but it is still the same technique. In simple terms, you expand your energy zone in a way that brings out the world in your energy organ… The process is really hard to explain but it creates a space that lasts for a certain amount of time where everything is under your control and your words become law”.

Yu said “That sounds broken”. Avatari said “It’s better if you just see it in action” and pointed toward the hologram.

…

Zivon said “Thank you, no really thank you for making me exert myself to this level. I could have used other types of magic but they wouldn’t be effective enough against you”.

Mira smiled and said “You’re talking like a movie villain now that you have me in this thing. The fight is far from over” but she didn’t really believe her own words; her instincts had gone silent as well as her intent sense. Whatever he had done she wasn’t sure she could survive it.

Zivon smiled and said “Oh I know you don’t really believe your own words. I can read your mind if you haven’t noticed. Just to show you how bad your situation is I’ll do this”.

Zivon was silent for a while before he said “Relax”. Mira felt it. Unlike the previous times he spoke, his words were different, they were power. The condensed space was released and the diamond fused with her skin was absorbed back into her energy zone.

Her diamond that had listened to her and her alone was behaving like a complete stranger. But she understood why this happened as she released her defensive stance and dulled her senses; Zivon was in total control of everything.

Mira shuddered at the sheer potency of the skill; it gave no room for her to resist, turning Zivon’s words into her thoughts and turning those thoughts into decisions that turned into firm resolutions that she would accomplish by any means.

Zivon said “That should be enough for theatrics. Faint”. The words again turned into thoughts that turned into decisions but on the way to becoming a resolution it disappeared. Where it went to no one knew… no one except the organizer.

…

The organizer watched in anticipation as it thought ‘She sparked’.

…

Zivon stared wide eyed at the still lucid Mira. Avatari had the same expression on her face and a mind filled with confusion wondering how she ignored the command. It didn’t matter whether Mira understood or heard what Zivon said, the word should have worked.

Zivon stretched out his arms and the 4 floating arms of his armor and said “Here me oh heavens. Heed my instructions oh earth. Tremble and quake at my breath for I am the crystallization of order. Kowtow and melt at my voice for it is Zivon that speaks”

Space and time twisted and became chaotic as the plants growth rate rose from slow and lazy to rapid and frantic. The word that Zivon said rang again through Mira. All she could think of was fainting; how it felt to faint, how people looked when they had fainted, how she would fall from where she was if she did, how peaceful it would be to just turn off.

Zivon continued “MY WORD IS ENGRAVED IN POWER. IT WILL BE DONE! LET IT BE DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

The air turned to an alien gas that sapped the energy out of Mira’s mind. The light turned into darkness that reminded Mira of the empty of sleep. Mira’s body rapidly lost energy, draining her mind of all its resources. The word didn’t go through her mind anymore; it went through her very being.

Part of it disappeared but most of it remained. Mira’s eyes closed and her body dropped through the air as she lost control. The space of Zivon’s reign retracted back into his head and he looked toward the host.

The host said “Zivon wins”.

The crowd cheered, especially his fans. They were a little worried when Mira didn’t drop the moment he showed his lance but he had won regardless. The host said “Chao Feng will be giving out the prizes soon so-“

But his speech was cut short as he stared at the people teleporting in the stands. Zivon flew up towards the sky and vanished from sight as he teleported out of Wangin. Mira woke up some seconds later from her fainted state; her body had revived her the moment she left Zivon’s Reign.

She fulfilled her contract like the other people in the stands. The host started wide eyed at this phenomenon before teleporting out of the city; he had also made a deal.

Three fourths of the approximately 400 million inhabitants in Wangin had teleported out of the city. This number only reached this high because most didn’t know that others had also made deals to leave the city until the day before the final match.

Chao Feng’s face turned solemn as he witnessed this. Wangin was one of the largest cities in the world in terms of population. This was because two Rank 29 monsters protected the people instead of hunting them and due to the originally high population of China. Population didn’t matter much in terms of military power now. As he was, Chao Feng could slaughter the entire human civilization even if it had the same population it had before the apocalypse.

But population was still not pointless. It affected economy and innovation greatly since more people meant more thinkers, more chance discoveries in the area of science, magic and martial arts. It provided a more secure future against any threat for those who benefit from it.

But in the blink of an eye almost all that population had vanished. They were not forced, they were not tricked. They could come back after an hour. The loyalty of the population had been tested and they had failed marvelously. Although in their defense, most didn’t know the magnitude of people leaving so they hadn’t anticipated that it would have such an effect.

Regardless, now was the deciding hour. Chao Feng smiled as he thought ‘The time for tricks and manipulation is over. Whoever did this is will have to harvest the rewards of all their hard work now. You’ll have to come out in the open’.

….

A swirling circular portal opened just before Wangin’s borders. A woman clad in a flamboyant outfit walked out of the portal. Her curly pink hair dropped down the sides of her face covering her ears. It seemed as if she wore clown makeup but upon a second inspection it was clear that the color of her skin was identical to a clown’s makeup.

She had an actual spherical red nose above her unnaturally thick red lips curved in a toothy smile. Her arms had two elbows and were longer that a regular human’s arm.

She stepped on the ground with her red shoes with curled tips but the way the shoes moved betrayed that they were shoes; they were her feet. She looked around for a while as the portal swirled and said in a whisper “Show Time!”

…