Chapter 65: PROCLAMATION OF WAR HAS BEEN ISSUED!

Chapter 65: PROCLAMATION OF WAR HAS BEEN ISSUED! Ragnar Vhagar was on a roll. He watched on his phone as the green icon representing Isabelle’s team flashed, confirming they had secured their third sector of Alyssa’s domain. On the other side of the map, Chloe’s Shadow Strikers had done the same, their silent, brutal campaign leaving a trail of chaos and confusion in their wake. His plan was working flawlessly. Alyssa was being dismantled, her kingdom carved up piece by piece while she was distracted by the heroes on her other border. It was a masterclass in opportunistic warfare. He felt smug. He felt powerful. He felt, for the first time in a long time, like he was actually winning this insane, cosmic game. "This is almost too easy," he gloated to the empty Throne Room. "She’s so busy playing checkers with the heroes, she hasn’t noticed I’m playing three-dimensional chess on a board she didn’t even know existed. It’s beautiful." That was when the entire world went red. It wasn’t a physical change. It was a System-level event. The calm, blue interface of his Demon King app flickered violently and was replaced by a single, stark, un-skippable screen. The text on it was written in angry, pulsing, blood-red letters that seemed to burn into his retinas. [PROCLAMATION OF WAR HAS BEEN ISSUED!] [ISSUER: Demon Queen Alyssa of the Crystal Spire] [TARGET: Demon King Ragnar Vhagar of the Ashen Fortress] [TERMS: 30-Day Siege. The Issuer’s CP Regeneration is Halted. The Target’s Domain is Besieged. All other external forces (Hero Faction, Rival Demon Kings) are barred from entry. The war ends only when one True Core is destroyed.] [The Proclamation has been accepted by the System. A one-hour pseudo-peace period will now commence. Prepare for battle.] Ragnar stared at the screen, his smug satisfaction evaporating like a drop of water on a hot forge. The triumphant smile slid off his face. "Pixia," he said, his voice dangerously quiet. "What, in the name of all that is unholy and bureaucratic, is a ’Proclamation of War’?" The tiny pixie librarian was in a state of academic shock. She zipped back and forth, her holographic screens filled with flashing red warning signs. "My Lord! This is... this is a Level 10 ability! I had theorized its existence based on fragmented data from the human forums, but to see it in person...! It is a final, desperate gambit! A duel to the death on a kingdom-wide scale! She’s locked the doors and set the house on fire with both of us inside!" "Level 10?" Ragnar’s blood ran cold. He had assumed Alyssa was Level 7, maybe 8 at a push. Level 10 put her in an entirely different league. She wasn’t just a rival; she was a major power. "She’s throwing everything she has at me in a single, suicidal charge. Why? She’s a mage, a schemer. This is a brute’s move." "Because you broke her, my Lord," Pixia squeaked, a note of awe in her voice. "You didn’t just attack her; you humiliated her. You used her own strategies against her. You turned her fortress into your playground. This isn’t a strategic move. This is personal. This is rage. She’s rage-quitting the strategy game and trying to flip the whole table." Ragnar ran a hand through his hair, the reality of the situation sinking in. A 30-day siege. No help from outside. No escape. And his opponent was a Level 10 magic-user who had just pushed all her chips into the center of the table. One hour. He had one hour to prepare his entire, sprawling domain for an all-out war. His mind, which had been lazily basking in victory, kicked into high gear. The panic was there, a cold, hard knot in his gut, but the gamer, the strategist, took over. "Get me a full domain map! Now!" he roared. The stone table in the center of the Throne Room lit up, showing all 51 of his sectors. "She can only attack from the sectors bordering her last remaining territory. That’s four points of entry," he said, his finger tracing lines on the map. "She’ll hit us everywhere at once, trying to overwhelm us." "Her forces, while depleted, are still significant, my Lord," Pixia warned. "And she herself is a formidable combatant." "She’s a mage," Ragnar countered, his mind racing. "She’ll want to fight from a distance. She won’t lead the charge herself. That’s our advantage. She thinks this is a siege. We’re going to turn it into a shell game." He began to issue commands, his voice a torrent of rapid-fire orders. "Chloe! Isabelle! All units are to pull back from Alyssa’s territory immediately! Return to the designated defensive sectors: 25, 26, 27, and 28! Those are our new front lines!" "Pixia! I need you to activate every single Transfer Array we have. I want to be able to move our entire army between those four sectors in under ten seconds. We are not holding a static line. We are a fluid defense. We will meet her wherever she attacks, crush her wave, and then teleport to the next flashpoint before she knows what hit her!" "The residential zones! Move all non-combatant monsters to the deepest levels of the library! Protect our breeding stock! Gary, you’re in charge of making sure the other kobolds don’t panic. And for the love of all that’s unholy, no sniffing!" "My Bloodkin! You are now my mobile command units. Isabelle, you hold Sector 25. Chloe, 26. Reina, 27. Fenris and Grunt, you take 28. You are my fire brigade. When the alarm sounds, you move. You crush. You hold." He stood over the map, the general of a desperate, last-minute defense. The one-hour timer on his screen ticked down with agonizing slowness. He had done all he could. He had turned his kingdom into a massive, interconnected trap. The final second ticked away. The pseudo-peace ended. Across his entire domain, a thousand alarms blared at once. Red warning icons flashed over all four of his border sectors simultaneously. Alyssa had attacked. The final war for Aethelburg had begun.