[LitF] 60. Undercover Mission (Patreon)

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[A/N: Happy New Year!

\o/

Ensuring this chapter came out this year was tough, but here it is, as promised!

As stated in the author's notes for the previous chapter, this is the last chapter I owe you.

Vacations, here I come!

Notice: The next Lost in the Future chapter will be on 01/13. In other words, I'll take a week off. I feel more tired each day and believe it's the right thing to do. It's been forever since I took a real vacation to decompress.

If you want a refund this month, just comment below or DM me. No questions asked, no hard feelings.]

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The two guards beside the voidsteel door didn't hide their lust as Sophie approached.

Their eyes were visible through their militarized riot gear's helmet visor. The equipment contained little square-shaped voidsteel pieces everywhere, including the visor, making it highly resistant to mana. It wasn't to the level of an armor made entirely of voidsteel but good enough against most awakeners these days.

Head Maid Lauquenbur had taught Sophie to expect male attraction and how to disregard it to a point, but the stares were purposefully disrespectful, their gazes freely running through her body while they touched their privates over their clothes. The situation enraged her almost as much as the reason why they didn't assault her where she stood. They didn't fear her; they feared touching their boss's "plaything."

The thought of belonging to anyone other than Arthur kept Sophie in a permanent state of sheer rage. She wished she could kill these pathetic little monsters as slowly as they deserved or at least control them as she did their master. Sadly, that would increase the odds of her being discovered. As things stood, only investigating her or the only man she controlled in that place would reveal anything was wrong, and she wanted to keep things that way.

In other circumstances, she would have risked it anyway to take back at them, but her capture would make Archie do something stupid. Ironically, as much as he would hate the situation as much as she did, she had to withstand this for him.

So, instead of directly killing them, she smiled provocatively as she grabbed the door handle. She had considered using a gait or revealing clothes before, but that would be disrespectful to Archie. Facial gestures—without physical contact—were the extent of the bodily manipulation she allowed herself.

Her plan was straightforward: if they dared to reach for her, their master would see it as the door opened, and she would have an excuse to have them executed.

Alas, the two guys merely released more pheromones when she smiled. They had learned from the previous three who were killed for overreaching. They would live another day.

Sophie entered the office, which had the worst taste in decoration she had ever seen. Animal hides covered the walls except for the spots on the opposite wall where a deer and a lion head were mounted. The magitech light bulb on the ceiling had no chandelier, which was distasteful. The big cheap plastic table with cheap plastic chairs were the only other pieces of furniture in the room. The table was littered with reports and cheap pens.

In other words, no object was made of any element an awakener could use.

More importantly, every single brick on the room's structure had been cast with voidsteel and bobby-trapped to explode at a single command. For all that Team Leader Alfonso Berger was easily manipulated by her vampiric powers, he was willing to die for the cause.

Her provocative smile turned slightly amused when she saw that man; the thought that these people wanted to get rid of half-monsters but had no real idea on how to defend themselves against a strong half-vampire like her always made things slightly less revulsing for her. The day she noticed modern people had become overly dependent on voidsteel and magitech while simultaneously forgetting all about half-monster threat management and anti-monster tactics was the day she formed her plan. Everything had gone smoothly since then.

The plan's most significant issue was cutting contact with Archie, but he dealt with her unexpected absence as the man she knew him to be: with love and measured fury. It filled her with gratitude and made her job even easier.

The added chaos and destruction made Terrell act as Lady Brimstone had trained Sophie to expect: with panic. Every report Berger received pointed that way. In a few weeks, her presence here would either pay off or end with her killing everyone and leaving, which was its own sort of payoff. Either way, it would feel good.

"Ma'am," Berger said as soon as she closed the door. He stood up and bowed. He had liked calling her mistress at first, but the idea of owning such a disgusting creature made her sick. "The latest orders have arrived."

Sophie gestured with her hand to the ground, and he started licking it clean.

She found the sight as disgusting as the man himself but had him do it as a minor punishment for the men and women whose lives he had destroyed. He abused his physical beauty—for unawakened standards—and confident charisma to "scout models" for Terrell's now-diminished slavery business. He had been appointed Team Leader of this bunker for his service and fanaticism in the cause. It also helped that the psychopath was believed to be immune to being charmed by or feeling sympathy for any victim.

That's how Sophie found this place. After Archie saved the people in Margrave, Berger went looking for replacements—and high-quality ones to appease the anger of some of Terrell's key clients. Head Maid Lauquenbur had taught Sophie to anticipate petty enemies' moves, and using the people Arthur had saved to make up for a loss he caused was one of the most basic plays in the Book of Pettiness.

She had positioned herself amid the victims. A few weeks after the casinos were destroyed, she was one of the attractive North Lake victims the League relocated "for their own safety." This facility wasn't used for training slaves, but Berger was known to take pets now and then, usually "wild" ones that he proceeded to break, so no one found it strange how Sophie could come and go, nor her antics with the guards.

She approached the table and picked up the sheets of paper currently in a centralized position. The Human Resource Acquisition Department of the Bluesky Corporation was located in the middle of nowhere. It had almost no magitech tool because, surprisingly, printed paper left less of a trail than digital documents, not to mention their greater ease in being destroyed.

The five-page document told Team Leader Berger where and how to store the few crates of undisclosed material that would arrive in a couple of days. More importantly, it told him to prepare a section of the bunker for a VIP prisoner and their wardens, who would arrive in four days.

Orders like these weren't supposed to reveal anything about the VIP. However, because Berger was known to hate any awakener, the orders disclosed the VIP would be an awakener escorted by a team of five awakeners and five unawakened. They were to be led to their corner of the underground base and then forgot. Bothering them for any reason would be very bad for Berger's career.

Sophie's smile became legitimately happy. Terrell would be coming to spend a day here if she was right. That was why she was there.

Right or wrong, that would mark the end of Sophie's stay in this place. She had used her vampiric powers to pass up as an unawakened, as no awakeners were stationed in that bunker. She could make anyone see what she wanted them to see and then forget about it. It left faint traces that disappeared in a few weeks. Unlike standard magic mind control, vampiric powers didn't break anyone's mind. Therefore, using it brought no issues in a closed place like this, but if Terrell wasn't among the visitors and she peacefully subdued them, they would leave this place, and the traces would be detected.

Moreover, she had to prepare to subdue them in a fight. The episode with the League's SRT unit in North Lake was still fresh in her mind, not to mention the nuclear explosion.

She wouldn't underestimate the enemy.

In fact, they might be coming for her. Terrell's diviners might have figured out she was there and expected the place to be used as a temporary base for the man. She would remain on high alert.

After reading everything, she ordered the vermin on the ground, "Enough. Get back to work."

Sophie was forced to mess her hair up and make her clothes less than pristine. She slightly lowered her jeans and made it look like she had just put her black T-shirt back on. She also hated it, but she was in a good mood.

Terrell was likely coming.

The time for revenge against those guards—not necessarily for what they did to her, but what she knew they had done to others—was near.

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Learning to remain alert during her sleep was one of the first things Head Maid Lauquenbur taught Sophie in the dungeon. Now, she woke up in her solitary cell as soon as her senses detected a moving big chunk of mana nearby—an approaching awakener.

Sophie was glad for her decision to lay low until the VIP prisoner was scheduled to arrive because this surprise visitor had come one night before. They would've left the base as soon as they noticed anything wrong with the guards. They had left checking on Berger for last for safety reasons; a trap was more likely to be set up close to the base's leader. Before that, they were ensuring the rest of the base was safe and free of suspicious elements.

Sophie asked Fate to reveal the level of the awakener she saw through the walls thanks to the Blood Sight given to her by the necklace Archie had gifted her. Fate answered.

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| Human — Level 40

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The fifteen-level gap calmed her slightly. They might have a skill to hide their level as she had, or even have a portable nuclear warhead, but it was still better than seeing a level 70 awakener or something of the kind. She might escape a nuclear blast, but a strong enough awakener would be her end.

Sophie was behind bars in a small corridor containing five similar cells. The door was kept open, and there were no guards, but it was still a prison. The newcomer was coming this way to investigate what was there.

They stopped at the corridor's door, and their heart beat faster once.

That's all it took Sophie to conclude they had detected her. Their uncontrolled cardiovascular system flowing faster was proof. Her cover was compromised.

Sophie moved; she used all her speed, fueled by her stats and skills, to flow as fast as possible toward the intruder. Simultaneously, she opened her spatial storage ring and used her Fast Armor Doning skill to put her battle-maid armor on. She also controlled dozens of litters of blood to leave the jugs in her ring.

The enemy noticed her and started running. By their speed, they specialized in agility like her, but their level and stat points were lower, and their skills weren't as good or as high-tiered. They might be pretending, but she guessed not, making her more confident. By the time she got to the corridor's door, the target was only a dozen yards away in the other concrete corridor outside.

Sophie had never seen a picture of the woman before her, but she recognized her from a few tell signs: Terrell's Head of Security.

Farrah Collier was even harder to locate than Terrell. The issue with the latter was arriving where he was before he left, but Collier seemed not to exist. If not for Berger insisting Collier existed, Sophie would've believed her to be a ghost employee meant for misdirection.

The fact that Collier was here evidenced how important the VIP prisoner was. Sophie was more confident than ever that Terrell was coming.

The Head of Security looked like someone who had built her body from the ground up to fight the world and win. She wore a heavily enchanted, tight-fitting black leather robe that did little to hide her body of pure muscles. Her body's build, the fact she was female, her level, her current location, and her magic element evidenced her identity.

Her element was darkness, and she used it as soon as Sophie started running her way.

Shadows enveloped Collier as she tried to escape, or so a shadowbender would describe. The ability, in fact, made her resistant to light. It was almost like becoming invisible as light bent around her. It also muffled the sounds and smells she released.

Alas, the shadows didn't stop whatever made Sophie's Blood Sight work. She sometimes forgot that it was the reward for killing the final boss of a level 95 dungeon, but moments like this revealed how powerful it could be.

Sophie could catch Collier just by running, but it was better to start using probing attacks at this distance. She focused on that part of herself that always begged to be free. On that corner of her mind that constantly repeated the thoughts of control, power, and dominion over all that existed. It was always so easy. So close. She only needed to reach for it...

Her body shook and released pheromones and mana all around her.

Terrell's Head of Security evidently had skills to protect her mind and didn't fall under Sophie's control. However, the sudden attack on all her senses and mind slowed her slightly. As importantly, Sophie's influence in the area would prevent anyone who approached from sounding the alarm. A voidsteel enclosure could stop her ability, but the gaps between the small pieces they used wouldn't be enough.

Collier only slowed down briefly, but it was enough for Sophie to reach her faster with a mythril dagger in one hand and an enchanted one in the other.

Sophie had been trained as a battle maid. Still, she expected Collier to be a tough nut to crack. Fifteen hundred years of evolving killing techniques and battle abilities didn't mean as much for awakeners as it did for the unawakened because awakeners in the past had faster and better minds, but it still counted. You could develop superior killing methods on top of existing ones. That's how everything progressed.

Sophie's expectations proved partially correct.

Collier turned to Sophie when she realized there was no escaping, and her eyes widened. Whatever she had detected before wasn't the whole picture. Now, as she saw an awakener in silvery and golden battle maid armor, surrounded by floating blood, the Head of Security finally understood what she was up against.

"Parley!" she screamed, hinting at her also having the skill to pierce through the Fate Veil's skill that partially hid Sophie's level.

Sophie didn't stop her attack. Any delay would work to Collier's advantage. Sophie was alone behind enemy lines and knew nothing about who might be coming or how some magitech worked. What if Collier had sent a distress signal? Theoretically, no signals couldn't leave the bunker, much less go through the few hundred yards of earth, stone, and enchanted metal until the planet's surface. However, Graham's teleportation skill was also theoretically impossible, as far as Sophie was concerned.

Moreover, no matter what Collier might want to offer in a parley, everything would belong to Sophie after she lowered the woman's mental defenses and controlled her, too.

Her decision was the right one again. Collier had only been trying to distract her enemy. She extended her arm sideways to get a weapon from her spatial storage ring while pulling a long metal wire from the folds of her leather clothes. She also drew the shadows in the room closer to her.

Sophie had already prepared to counter Collier's dark magic. The blood under her control had just finished coating the entire long concrete corridor they were in, with a few doors. She willed it, and her mana was expended to make the blood shine bright, dispelling every shadow inside. Magic shadow could continue to exist, of course, but it would cost Collier extra mana. The shadows between Sophie's own armor and body would be against Collier's reach because of her armor's anti-intent-string enchantments.

Collier's shadows disappeared almost instantly. She was no mage and had no energy to spare on that front. Sophie herself only had so much mana because Archie had increased her mana stats from 100 to 1,725. Before that, she only had speed going for her.

The Head of Security was still pulling her weapons when Sophie arrived and struck with her daggers. Collier activated a skill to form a barrier that stopped one dagger but was immediately shattered. Sophie's second dagger kept going but was pushed back by another skill.

Sophie used her Lightspeed skill and became 2.5 as fast as all her stats and abilities already made her. Even she couldn't see her arms moving as she stepped forward and thrust her daggers against her foe.

Collier wasn't Head of Security for nothing, and Terrell had invested in her. She used another skill, this one targeted at Sophie, who became blind and deaf. There was no dodging Fate's targeted skills, though her armor should've blocked it. Alas, that wasn't the case.

To make matters worse, even her Blood Sight ceased working. That skill was mighty indeed.

So, Sophie pulled all the blood in the room towards her. It allowed her to locate Collier and notice she had used another skill to move Sophie a few steps to the right. Sophie's Lightspeed lasted only half a second, but the fight was so fast that the skill was still active. She changed directions and kept attacking.

Theoretically, she was fast and strong enough that regular armor couldn't stop her current attack. Yet, she had already found a skill she couldn't explain, the one that changed her position without her noticing anything wrong. It should be one of the secret skills powerful families hoarded for themselves, and Head Maid Lauquenbur had been ignorant about. So, Sophie would take no chances.

She activated her Lightsplitting Strike to ensure her right blade would pierce through anything—it could even pierce grand knight armor with ease!—and her Precision Strike skill to ensure Fate itself helped guide her attack—she could even hit moving lightning elementals with it!

Fighting, Head Maid Lauquenbur had insisted, was all about taking precautions and acting with foresight.

Archie, for instance, was strong, but even he would be dead without all the training he had received. Sophie, too, was constantly amazed by the quality of the teachings she had received. She sometimes even thought such practical knowledge and training was countless times more valuable than the skills the powerful awakener Houses hoarded so jealously. Then again, she supposed that both together was what made their awakeners true forces of nature to be reckoned with.

Yet again, her precaution paid off.

Sophie felt her enemy was to her right but felt her arms move to the left. She didn't try to correct it. Collier's shadow skills could somehow bypass the battle maid armor to blind Sophie—or, more likely, stop before the eye openings without Sophie detecting it. Now, it was affecting her in another way she didn't understand.

Sophie couldn't trust her eyesight or physical senses, but despite Grand Knight Graham's misgivings, she knew to trust Fate—or, at least, its skills. At least, that's what she had been trained to do in such circumstances.

She could feel her enemy's location with her bloodsinging abilities. She was aiming at that. Fate guided her Precision Strike toward her target.

Her mythril blade pierced through enchanted leather and flesh.

Sophie immediately pushed her blood through the thin tube in the dagger's middle, only to find nothing. The body she had just pierced disappeared from her senses. Collier was gone from where she had been a moment ago.

Sophie made the blood under her control expand and didn't find the woman in the corridor. Her eyesight returned a moment later, and the place was indeed empty. But her Blood Sight was also back, and she found the Head of Security inside one of the nearby rooms.

The hand that had previously been pulling the metal wire from her leather armor now seemed to be holding something wider than a wire. Sophie guessed the wire was enchanted and had been used on the door frame, making her incapable of hearing anything inside. So, Collier had planned to retreat from the beginning. Now, she likely held a weapon in one hand and was pulling something else from her ring. Sophie knew that was the case because she could only see half the woman's extended arm; the other half was reaching for something in the spatial storage. The Blood Sight didn't pierce such spatial apertures.

Sophie's Lightspeed was on cooldown, but she could still strike hard and fast against the door. Yet, didn't. Instead, she moved away from the it and used her blood to hit the door like a wrecking ball.

The metal wire on the doorframe exploded, throwing out numerous voidsteel bits it had contained inside itself.

Multiple of those struck against Collier, making her armor useless. It also touched her storage ring. The opening to the spatial fold disappeared, cutting her arm off.

Sophie rushed to the room, finding the woman clenching her teeth and holding a katana firmly with her remaining hand. The enchanted weapon hadn't been hit by any voidsteel. The thing was a work of art; the handle was black interlaced with white, the guard was white, and the blade was black with white runes. It glowed softly with a dark shade of purple that gave it an eerie aura.

"Come, then, bitch!" Collier swore.

Sophie would like to fight, but her training had paid off until now, and she wasn't about to ignore it. She controlled half the blood in the woman's body to explode painfully and the blood in her brain to force her unconscious.

Collier fainted.

Sophie sighed. Indeed, she had been partially correct in her assessment of how hard this fight would be. The Head of Security was full of tricks that might have defeated anyone without Sophie's training or advantages.

She gratefully touched her enchanted ruby pendant over her armor and got to work. People came to investigate. She took control of the base and then took control of Collier to see what she knew. Depending on what the woman said, Sophie's little "vacation" in the bunker would be over in advance. Losing track of Terrell when he was so close would be unfortunate, but at least the man would lose his Head of Security.

It turned out that Sophie had been both right and wrong about Terrell using this place as a temporary quarters while he kept moving.

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The VIP's wardens arrived with arrogance.

Their leader was one of five level 30 awakeners clad in heavily enchanted red and black plate armor. They wielded futuristic-looking magitech rifles, also red and black, that glowed like slowly beating hearts.

"...will hear about this!" the man yelled as he was led by a local guard to Berner's office. "Your entire career is over! You stupid swine! I'm above your self-important pathetic Team Leader!"

He had demanded to be led to their wing as soon as they arrived. Instead, he was told they had to meet the Team Leader first. After a lot of shouting, he "forced" the guards to lead the others to the place prepared for them while he came to meet Berner.

Collier had ensured Sophie they wouldn't bring any tools capable of noticing her vampiric mental control. She had been right.

The voidsteel door opened, and the man saw Sophie sitting on the chair that once belonged to the now-disposed-of Berner. Simultaneously, Collier appeared behind the man, her katana cutting him in half on the waist with a single strike.

He fell under Sophie's control in a few moments.

Minutes later, the five unawakened wardens in voidsteel armor had been killed, and the other four clad in the same armor and wearing the same weapons as the leader were also under Sophie's control.

The more Sophie used her powers, the more tempted she felt to keep using them. Even thinking about letting go of these people was becoming challenging. She could understand how vampires had created a secret nation in the past and why they would rather do that than consume victims no one cared about. The dregs of society would be better fitted to feed—

She stopped that line of thought, slowly removed her helmet, and slapped herself in the face—hard.

The thirst was growing with each passing hour. She heard Collier's heartbeats and wanted to taste the sweet nectar inside. It would be so simple. So glorious. It would give her so much more power!

The world would be hers and hers alone. She would sit on a throne made of Terrell's bones and present his skull to Archie, who would rule beside her—

She slapped herself again. This time, she did hard enough to draw blood. It returned most of her consciousness to her.

Yet, as she saw the five thralls in the room willing to do whatever she commanded, she didn't feel the same repulsion she had felt when she first used the ability against Berner.

Sophie needed Archie. She needed him badly and fast. Her beloved would make the desire go away.

He didn't understand why she liked to lose herself in his arms so much in private, but this was partly the reason. He made her forget everything but them. Archie quenched her thirst for more because he was enough. He would always be. She only needed him.

Sophie double-checked the choker that kept blood away from her and approached the voidsteel room they had put the VIP prisoner in. She used unenchanted clothes to grab the handle and open it.

Inside, she found a woman in white restraint clothing, tied to a bed fixed on the ground, with a black hood over her head. Sophie commanded her to be taken from there and removed the hood, revealing a half-elf with thin white hair. She was ancient, her face full of wrinkles—and scars. Her teeth and tongue had been removed, and even then, her mouth was gagged. Her eyes were also covered.

Sophie removed the gag, and the woman kept her mouth open, waiting to be fed the magic drugs that kept the level 60 shaper emancipated.

The sight bothered Sophie less than it should. She knew intellectually that it should make her sick, but it didn't. Likewise, she felt okay at fixating her eyes on the woman's neck.

It would be so easy...

She bit her lower lip and left the room before she did something stupid.

What she did next might jeopardize her entire operation. However, her quickly diminishing rationality still had just enough pull to tell her Archie would rather Terrell live forever than lose her. So, she started killing. The more she used her powers and the stronger the targets, the greater the temptation to step deeper into the abyss. Decreasing the number of targets would help a little.

Vampiric powers had to be maintained, so more people under her control meant using her powers more. Killing them would prevent that. It would also decrease how many heartbeats kept whispering for her to have a taste.

Sadly, she still needed the most significant offenders to increase her plan's odds: the five level 30 awakeners, the level 40 Head of Security, and the level 60 prisoner. Even so, getting rid of ninety of the one hundred unawakened stationed in the bunker—she only left the bare minimum to keep it functional and guard the entrance—allowed her to at least think of anything other than her thirst while looking at the old woman.

Hours had passed when Sophie returned, yet the prisoner still waited patiently for her dose. The magic drugs were too effective. She was kept physically restrained just in case, but she had long accepted her fate. She was more likely to betray than assist any rescuer.

Sophie's original plan had been to also mind-control the prisoner, but she was forced to change it or risk falling into the abyss. Instead, she had the Head of Security introduce her as the one Terrell appointed to lead this operation. She kept the woman under drugs.

Sophie knew Archie. If what he had seen in the casinos was half as bad as what Berner had reported, he would hate to know Sophie was doing this. She hoped he would understand she had no alternative—except to give up, of course.

Well, he wasn't here, was he? He didn't need to know—

She punched herself so hard she cracked a tooth. That thought wouldn't be allowed. It was a slippery slope. The day she hid anything from Archie would be the day she set herself up to give in to her darker desires.

The only silver lining was that the operation the prisoner was here to potentially participate it happened a mere two days later.

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Sophie didn't sleep those two nights. She couldn't. She was afraid that letting go of her consciousness for a second would mean waking up over a bloodless corpse.

Every heartbeat she heard was a sweet invite to a world of power without any worries. A world of freedom. The pain would go away. The sadness would cease. She would rule over all, and no one would bother her ever again.

Who had said becoming a vampire would destroy her rationality? Why should she believe them? The Fated Races feared losing their pathetic world. They would obviously lie to protect themselves.

Didn't she have proof of how harmless her powers were? She had given in to the whispers and controlled the prisoner. Nothing had gone wrong. She was still herself.

Her seven subjects were kneeling before her, as they should. She fidgeted with her choker. A tool of control. Arthur said it looked good on her. But he was Fated. He was the enemy. He would subjugate her. Who wouldn't? She had seen the way everyone looked at her.

She had the beauty of a goddess—and the power to become one.

"Ten minutes, Your Imperial Majesty," her muscular Head Imperial Guard informed, interrupting Sophie's line of thought.

Sophie let go of the choker and nodded. "Very well. Let us stop this pretender who would take my world from me." Something felt wrong in that sentence, but she couldn't tell what.

She stood from her plastic chair and led her pets to the ritual room. Everything had been set up so Soophie's First Sorceress would bring her enemy here. Using Terrell's plan B against him would taste as sweet as the blood of a level 60 should. She might have to check it out later.

The ritual room was large, made of obsidian, with a round white marble piece in the center. Everything that was needed to open a temporary portal was there: the alchemical dust, stones, and flowers. They were precisely positioned, forming a circle surrounding a seven-point star and countless runes. Only a shaman's mana and know-how remained to activate it.

Terrell always had multiple plans B in place. Today, he would broadcast himself live but feared the satellite technology he had stolen from the elves despite his people ensuring it was safe after they combed through it. His live broadcast technology drank a little from the satellite magic, so he feared the elves could locate him.

His last line of defense was having his Head of Security with a few elite troops located elsewhere and ready to open a portal for him to escape if needed.

Sophie approved such caution and wondered if Terrell would make a better consort than Arthur but decided against it. Something deep inside her told her she had to kill the man, then everyone around her, and rush to the closest desert. That decision was set in orichalcum inside her. It came from the same part that insisted she remain awake those two nights.

Even her current self could tell something was wrong with her. She didn't know what. But she accepted that her decision should be carried.

"Five minutes, Your Imperial Majesty," the Head of the Imperial Guard said.

Sophie nodded. "First Sorceress, get in position."

"Yes, Mistress," the old half-elf replied.

Sophie barely recalled not liking to be called that, but it felt good. She had been stupid to dislike it. She would rule over the world, wouldn't she? She would be everyone's mistress.

Everyone's owner.

"One minute, Your Imperial Majesty."

"Do it," Sophie commanded.

As she had expected, the Collier could contact her previous master even through the bunker's anti-communication blockade. The original tool she would have taken from her storage ring to use was gone, but a reserve one had been sent with the shamanic ritual's materials.

She grabbed the blue orb on the corner of the room and broke it. It released an invisible electromagnetic signal that reached the light bulb on the ceiling. Unknown to Sophie—and Berner before her—every bulb was an advanced magitech tool that did more than just give light. They were always listening for the signal that had just been released by the broken orb. They were also connected to a mercury network through which they sent the signal.

Previously, Collier had already sent another signal claiming the bunker was safe. Now, the one she sent informed Terrell that she thought he was at risk. That was it; only a belief, nothing set in stone. She was in the bunker, and comms were cut off since the VIP prisoner arrived, but she was also supposedly reviewing all their plans and previous reports and searching for anything they might've missed.

That let Terrell know the portal was coming so he wouldn't panic. Whether he would come through it or not remained to be seen.

Sophie had decided not to go to the other side if Terrell didn't come. It was supposedly safe, but the man should have other plans for his safety that Collier wouldn't be aware of. If Sophie's subjects died, but Terrell survived, Sophie would've lost her people, while Terrell would've learned a lot. That wouldn't do. She couldn't rule the world without a court.

"It's time, Your Imperial Majesty."

"Open the portal," Sophie commanded. "Everyone else, prepare yourselves."

Her First Sorceress obeyed at once. Massive amounts of spatial mana left her body and activated the ritual. A vertical purple line appeared in the air and swiftly widened into a temporary portal.

The five Royal Guards were pointing their highly advanced suicide rifles at the portal. The Head of the Imperial Guard got behind the portal, waiting for it to close. The First Sorceress was ready to act.

Time passed slowly. The seconds ticked.

No one came—

Suddenly, a massive wooden crate on wheels was pushed through the aperture.

"Bomb!" Collier yelled.

"Send it back!" Sophie yelled while turning back and running away from the room.

She was dozens of hundreds of yards away when the world became light and fire.

The shockwave came right after, throwing her against the wall. Yet, the light and heat disappeared the next instant. Sophie's armor didn't even break. Her order to send the bomb back had worked, and the nuclear warhead had exploded on the other side. The blast had disrupted the ritual and forced the portal to close.

Sophie recovered from where she was and rushed back to the ritual room. She only found a colossal churned sphere of nothingness where a big chunk of the bunker once had stood.

Thanks to her better armor and skills, half of Collier's corpse was all that remained. That close to the warhead's epicenter, everything else had disintegrated. Sophie checked everywhere for anything else but found nothing.

Had it worked? Was Terrell dead? Or had this been a trap for Sophie all along, and he had just sent the Head of Security to lower Sophie's defenses?

Whatever the case, she suddenly felt immense relief—and frowned.

Why was she feeling like that? A lengthy investigation revealed she was keeping her vampiric influence active all the time. With the people she influenced gone, the pressure on her significantly decreased.

The world still felt oppressive and slow, but she could breathe a little better. Yet, paradoxically, thinking felt sluggish, as if two different perspectives suddenly clashed. She felt bewildered about who she even was.

She only knew she had to do one thing. Kill everyone and go to the deserted. She had to do it.

Sophie was currently too weak-willed to do anything but obey her previous resolve—and it screamed just a little louder than the instincts telling her to drink.

She cut Collier's head off to prevent any secret life saving technique—

Collier's head and remaining body turned into Terrell's.

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[A/N: See you next year!]

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