Nicolas had become a famous figure in the country. Nothing seemed the same again with news about him. Mia had made his presence known to powerful enemies. The exchange hall in the capital’s central mercantile spire processed the haul in under an hour. Fifty million high-purity crystals and gems, still faintly glowing with residual Legendary energy, were weighed, graded, and converted through the Serpent Vault’s highest tier. When the final figure locked onto the crystal ledger, even the vault masters paused.
500,000,000,000 imperial gold.
Five hundred billion.
Nicolas and Mia walked out of the spire with the wealth of a mid-sized branch city now tied to their names. By the time they reached a quiet terrace café overlooking the main imperial avenue, the news had already detonated across every network on Nur.
Phub News : Breaking Ticker
“TWO UNKNOWN HEROICS CLEAR CAPITAL LEGENDARY DUNGEON IN UNDER THREE HOURS. 400 LEGENDARY IFRITS, 3000 KING GHOSTS, 1000 BEHEMOTHS, GOLDEN ORC BOSS : ALL PURIFIED. IDENTITY OF FEMALE RANKED ‘HEROIC QUEEN OF THE LIGHT’ STILL UNOFFICIAL.”
Y Media : Live Panel
A Jokai anchor with fox ears and a too-bright smile leaned toward an Asura guest whose six spectral arms gestured wildly.
“I’m just saying, an Asura war-chief would have needed a full raid party. She walked in with one partner and turned the whole dungeon into a cleansing ritual. That’s not hunting. That’s judgment.”
The Asura grunted. “Purification spirits that strong don’t appear out of nowhere. Either the Jormun family is hiding a new bloodline or something older just woke up.”
Mytube : Trending Clips
A goblin streamer in a stained tank top screamed at the camera: “FIVE HUNDRED BILLION? I CLEAR RARE DUNGEONS FOR RENT MONEY AND THESE TWO JUST BOUGHT A CONTINENT? UNFOLLOW ME IF YOU’RE NOT MAD!”
A Sun Elf noble on a verified account posted a single line: “Mixed blood and a Phoenix Light queen. The academy expulsion list just became relevant again.”
A vampire influencer filmed herself sipping crimson wine: “I’m not saying I want to date them. I’m saying I want to be in the next dungeon they enter so I can die beautifully.”
Public Forums : Weird Corners
A Jokai conspiracy account claimed the female was actually a reincarnated Athena fragment.
An Uruk veteran posted: “I fought Behemoths for twenty years. She purified a thousand like she was doing laundry. I’m retiring.”
A human user from the outer branches simply wrote: “She used to be one of us. Remember that.”
Irony ran thick. The same capital that had watched Elias Vorn try to recruit her now watched five hundred billion move into two private accounts. Speculation about Nicolas’s missing martial spirit reached absurd heights. some claimed he was a hidden Jormun bastard, others that he was a walking dungeon core in human skin.
On the quiet terrace, none of that noise reached them directly. Nicolas had pulled Mia into a deep, unhurried kiss the moment they sat down. When they finally separated, her luminous eyes were half-lidded, sacred fire soft under her skin, Q-cup breasts rising against his chest.
She rested her forehead against his and spoke first.
“They’re all talking. The whole capital.”
“Let them,” Nicolas said. “Talk is the first stage of recognition. Next comes fear. Then negotiation. Then surrender.”
He opened a projected map of Jupiter’s major branch-cities across the table—fifty lights scattered across Nur and the connected continents.
“These are the nodes that matter,” he said. “Kyoto, Seoul, Xi’an, Bangkok, Hanoi, Taipei, Ubud, George Town, Kathmandu, Thimphu, Varanasi, Samarkand, Mumbai, Lahore, Almaty, Cairo, Marrakech, Isfahan, Muscat, Damascus, Jerusalem, Sana’a, Istanbul, Timbuktu, Addis Ababa, Stone Town, Lagos, Dakar, Antananarivo, Lalibela, Rome, Athens, Prague, Reykjavík, Saint Petersburg, Seville, Edinburgh, Ragusa, Cusco, Oaxaca, Havana, Rio de Janeiro, Cartagena, New York, Montreal, La Paz, Sydney, Auckland, Suva, Apia.”
Mia studied the map, eyes reflecting the projected lights like ten thousand tiny suns.
“They kept the names,” Nicolas answered. “The Jormun family never erased the old cities—they simply grew new branches over them and claimed the result. Each one is a commercial, cultural, or military hinge. Control the flow between them and you control the tempo of the entire empire. We won’t take them by open war first. We take their dungeons, their markets, their top hunters, and their debts. One city at a time if necessary.”
Mia’s fingers traced the light of Kyoto, then jumped to Istanbul, then to Cusco.
“And when the Light Continent and Sora finally notice?”
“Then we decide whether they join the Sons of Jormungandr under new management… or become the next examples.”
She leaned in and kissed him again, slower this time, the sacred fire in her blood warming the air between them. When they parted, the five hundred billion sat quietly in their accounts, the capital continued to invent theories, and the fifty cities on the map waited like unclaimed pieces on a board only two people could currently see.
Nicolas closed the projection.
“Dinner,” he said. “Then we plan the next dungeon. The planet is large. We have work to do.”
Mia smiled, radiant and sharp.
“Yes, my emperor. Your orders are my kinks. Order me.”
Alr! I expected more than this. Respect the ranks: the king just arrived.
Thank you for reading!