Three weeks after the game added its quick-travel teleportation service, Leah, Lyla, and Blanc sat in a sunlit forest clearing, finishing what Leah privately called an "elegant tea-time-slash-information exchange."
The table between them was laden with porcelain cups and delicate pastries. Leah had shared some crucial tactical intel regarding regional resource spawns, though she kept far more of her high-level strategic secrets firmly to herself. Lyla had offered a moderately useful piece of trade-route information of her own, leaning back in her chair looking immensely pleased with her contribution. Then Blanc ruined Lyla's smugness completely.
"Okay, okay, listen!" Blanc had squeaked, practically bouncing out of her chair, nearly knocking over her tea. "If two monsters are reborn at the same time, really close together, they can merge! Into something way bigger!"
"Merge," Lyla repeated, raising an eyebrow with deep skepticism.
"Like, fuse! Into one super-monster!"
"That doesn't explain the mechanics at all," Leah said, setting down her teacup, "but I'd like to test that immediately."
"Test it now?" Blanc asked, her eyes widening.
"As soon as humanly possible."
That was how the three of them ended up gathering at sunset deep within Trae Forest, standing in the shadow of the colossal World Tree. Its ancient trunk loomed above them, glowing with a pulsing green light. Leah had ordered the local treants to step back and clear a wide radius, creating a vast open clearing.
In the center of the grass, she had set up a Philosopher's Egg—a giant, glowing crystalline egg hummed with volatile energy, designed to swallow monster components whole and force-fuse them into higher-tier entities. Its very first trial run earlier that afternoon had consumed a handful of skeleton knights and condensed them into a towering skeletal warlord the size of a two-story house.
Now, Leah wanted to see what would happen if she pushed the item to its absolute limit and fed it thirty skeleton knights at once.
At that exact moment, in another world entirely, a skeleton dressed in elaborate black and gold robes sat motionless upon a massive throne carved of pure black marble. Ainz Ooal Gown was trying his absolute hardest to look like a supreme being lost in profound, world-altering contemplation.
He was, in fact, panicking about whether or not to cast a single high-tier spell.
For hours, Albedo had been pleading with him to open a [Gate]—a spatial doorway capable of transporting the Guardians anywhere—so they could begin scouting the unfamiliar lands beyond the Sorcerer Kingdom. Demiurge had already presented a neatly organized, multi-page list of strategic justifications. Shalltear had eagerly volunteered to step through first to slaughter anything in their path.
I have no idea what is waiting out there, Ainz thought frantically behind his stoic skull. I don't know if this world has level-100 threats. I don't know if it's safe. But if I keep making excuses and refusing, they will start to think their absolute ruler is a coward.
Because I AM terrified!
Before his anxiety could spiral out of control, a faint, ice-cold green wave rolled through his soul, forcefully flattening his emotions into absolute stillness. His sudden surge of panic vanished like a coin tossed into a bottomless lake.
"Very well," Ainz declared aloud, his deep, resonant voice echoing off the marble pillars. "Albedo. Shalltear. You shall accompany me. We will observe the outer world firsthand."
"Yes, Lord Ainz!" Albedo gasped, bowing low, her face radiant with pure, unadulterated joy.
"At once, Lord Ainz!" Shalltear chimed in, stepping forward and gripping her blood-red spear tighter.
Ainz raised a dark, gauntleted hand into the air, focusing his magic, and spoke the word that opened the rift.
Back in Trae Forest, the Philosopher's Egg began to violently vibrate.
"Is it supposed to shake like that?" Blanc asked nervously, taking a small step back.
"I have no idea," Leah admitted, her eyes glued to the blinding light radiating from the shell.
"Because I think it's... humming," Blanc added, tilting her head.
"It's gone from humming to an ear-splitting whine," Lyla corrected deadpan, covering her ears. "Lealea, did you feed it too many skeletons?"
"Thirty is a completely reasonable and controlled sample size," Leah insisted.
"The egg clearly disagrees."
It did. With a sound like a heavy bronze bell cracking in half, the glowing crystalline shell fractured. The concentrated magic inside burst outward, swelling into a thin, unstable seam of dimensional tear. The anomaly reached out across the void, searching frantically for something massive, skeletal, and highly magic-compatible to fill the skeleton-shaped void in its fusion formula.
In a black-marble throne room far away, a spell was cast. A [Gate] opened.
A seam of dimensional nothingness met another seam of dimensional nothingness. The two spatial tears snapped together like magnetic puzzle pieces.
In the middle of Trae Forest, the sky split wide open. Blinding purple and golden light poured out of the rupture.
And out of the rift, with a sudden, thoroughly ungraceful clatter of bones and a heavy swirl of dark silk robes, tumbled an imposing skeletal wizard—followed immediately by a stunning succubus in a white dress and a red-eyed vampire clutching a massive spear.