Chương 376: Chapter 361 - Interlude 36.2

2

"What do you think?" Pete – known as MaceYouAQuestion – asked as they sat in the small marquee overlooking the northern military camp outside Roserun. The camp stretched across the dry plains like a patchwork of tents, barricades, supply wagons, and wooden watchtowers. Soldiers shouted at one another in the distance while somewhere nearby, a smith hammered glowing metal into shape at a temporary blacksmith station. His companion let out a long gust of breath through his nose.

"I have no idea," he admitted with a deep frown.

"People back at HQ are refusing to tell me anything."

"Nothing?"

"Nada. Just vague reassurances about having everything under control," came the frustrated answer.

"The same old line: hold the city and destroy anyone trying to take it." Pete snorted quietly.

"But we've been doing that for months."

"Exactly what I told them. Didn't help." The other man leaned back in his chair, rubbing at his temples with visible irritation. Pete studied him for a moment before leaning forward himself, elbows resting on his knees while the sounds of the camp washed around them.

"What about your contacts?" he asked carefully.

"I know you know people…" The other man straightened slightly and leaned back with an annoyingly smug expression, as if he had been waiting for the question all along.

"Well, yes…" he said after nearly a minute of dramatic silence.

"I do happen to have contacts." Pete rolled his eyes.

"Please don't pretend you're some kind of master spy."

"Fine, fine." He waved dismissively before finally speaking properly.

"The situation is actually pretty simple. Roserun got officially marked as a target by Chrysalis. They're heading here as revenge for Deepanchor." He paused briefly.

"And rumor says Solar is personally leading the army." Pete's eyes widened.

"No way. Solar? What the hell? All this over one small attack on a city?" The other man barked out a humorless laugh.

"Small attack? Those morons from the research branch unleashed two mutated krakens and completely exposed our monster experiments to the entire world." He leaned closer and lowered his voice despite the empty marquee around them.

"And that wasn't even the worst part. One of the teams got trigger-happy and tried to use some kind of ritual to wipe out the city. The brothers were not happy about that."

"Oh, yeah!" Pete said suddenly.

"I saw the recording. Solar destroyed them!"

"That," the other man said while pointing at him, "is exactly the problem." Pete blinked.

"Huh?"

"The ritual they used was apparently unique. One of a kind. They burned through it before a Rune Master could properly examine it." He grimaced.

"Meaning it's gone."

"But couldn't they just get another one from wherever they found it?"

"It came from a unique quest," he replied with a grim smile.

"My contacts say the guild's trying to retrace it, but so far? No bueno." Pete whistled quietly.

"Damn… they must be furious."

"Oh, you have no idea. The idiot who decided to livestream the entire thing while Solar butchered the team already got kicked out and buried under enough contract penalties to ruin them permanently."

"That sucks major balls for them…"

"And that's still not the worst part." Pete's eyes widened.

"What?" The other man hesitated for a moment before speaking.

"Word going around is that Solar reached Rune Master rank." Pete stared at him in silence for several seconds.

"That's…" He stopped himself and groaned.

"I'd say that's impossible, but it's Solar. The guy pulls game-breaking nonsense every other day."

"Pretty much," the other man said while nodding grimly.

"So now a Rune Master has seen the ritual." He dramatically paused.

"Just not one we ever wanted getting a look at it."

"Oh, shit!"

"Mhmm," he nodded his head. Silence settled over the marquee. Outside, soldiers marched between tents and barricades while supply runners hauled crates through the dusty streets between tents. Somewhere farther away, somebody screamed at a recruit for dropping a crate of potions. The entire camp felt tense, like a beast waiting for a blow it knew was coming. Pete finally broke the silence.

"But what does that mean for us?" he asked quietly.

"If Solar's actually coming here, I don't see our army holding the city for long without reinforcements from the main force."

"Which we definitely won't get," the other man interrupted immediately.

"Especially not in time." Pete nodded slowly.

"Right. Which means we're basically screwed." He hesitated.

"So what? Do we just stand aside? Let them take the city and come back later with a proper army?"

"If you want to get kicked out of the Blood Army and hunted for the rest of your life, sure." Pete grimaced.

"I mean… it's Solar," he muttered, as if that alone explained everything. And honestly, it kind of did. The other man crossed his arms and stared out toward the distant walls of Roserun, visible beyond the sprawling military camp.

"I think…" he said slowly, "we just pretend we're doing our best while staying the hell out of the way. Then afterward, we can honestly say we tried." Pete looked away, trying to think of a solution. A few seconds later, he turned back, opened his mouth to answer, but stopped. The other man was frozen. He was staring at a translucent message screen hovering in front of him, face pale and eyes wide. Pete immediately stood.

"What? What happened?" Before the man could answer, a deafening series of explosions tore through the general sound of the camp. BAMMM! BAMMM! BAMMM! Pete whipped around toward the open side of the marquee just in time to see several massive columns of dark smoke rising from within Roserun itself. His companion swallowed.

"They attacked Madspire," he whispered.

"Who the fuck cares about Madspire?" Pete snapped instantly.

"They hit us too! They're already inside the city!" He strode toward the exit of the marquee. Pointing sharply at the still-frozen man, he barked orders without slowing.

"You coordinate the camps. Send the scouts out immediately. I want reports on every movement inside and outside the walls." The other man nodded sharply, still staring toward the smoke.

"What about you?" Pete adjusted the straps on his armor and scowled darkly toward the burning city.

"I'm going into Roserun to find out which idiots thought blowing up the city was a good idea…" Half an hour later, Pete stood in the courtyard of one of Roserun's many fortified mansions, surrounded by absolute chaos. The estate had effectively turned into a temporary command center. Messengers sprinted back and forth through the courtyard while players and NPC officers crowded around hastily erected tables covered in maps, reports, and message scrolls. The city itself was rapidly descending into madness.

Once the explosions started, it was as if every unstable idiot in Roserun had collectively decided it was time to lose their minds. Most of the city guard was busy breaking up street fights between players who had apparently chosen this exact moment to settle grudges, collect bounties, or stab rivals in dark alleys. Every few minutes, another report arrived about guild skirmishes, looting, arson, or outright murder.

His own people had already been forced to put down two mercenary guilds that had mistaken the confusion for an opportunity to seize control over the city. And then there were the civilians. Thousands upon thousands of complaints from furious NPCs flooded every command point in Roserun. Destroyed storefronts, missing family members, cargo, guards, and pets. Fires everywhere. Looters ransacked everything they could.

At one point, someone had apparently tried to report a stolen chicken while standing next to a burning warehouse. Pete rubbed a hand down his face.

"This is not what I signed up for…" he muttered bitterly. One of his subordinates hurried across the courtyard toward him, armor still dusty from patrol. After a quick salute, the man immediately began his report.

"Warehouse district and private harbor searched. Found nothing important." Pete raised an eyebrow. The subordinate instantly clarified.

"We double-checked everything. No suspicious groups hiding there. No hidden magic formations, rituals, or anything similar."

"Mines?"

"All reporting normal activity. No signs of tampering or activation."

"Good. Dismissed." The man saluted again before rushing away into the chaos. That made two districts crossed off the list. Whoever had organized the attacks was probably hiding somewhere more crowded. Somewhere, they could disappear into the panic before anyone realized what was happening. Most likely, the crafting district, where the majority of the explosions had happened.

Or maybe the market district, where tens of thousands of people moved through the streets every day, making it nearly impossible to track individuals properly. He looked around the 'noble' district and frowned. He seriously doubted the perpetrators were hiding here among the mansions. There were too many patrols, too many private guards, too many defensive formations watching every street and rooftop. No, anyone smart would stay far away from this place.

"Focus on the market district," Pete called out loudly enough for half the courtyard to hear.

"They're probably hiding in the crowd." Instantly, several people began relaying orders through message screens while others hurried out of the courtyard entirely to carry out his commands. Pete watched them go while the noise of the city echoed beyond the mansion walls. And underneath it all sat a growing feeling in the pit of his stomach that things were only getting started. Despite the situation, Pete couldn't stop himself from smiling. In the real world, he was nobody important.

Just another exhausted guy stuck working a soul-crushing job for enough money to afford rent, cheap food, and the occasional luxury of not worrying about bills for a few days. But here? Here, inside Magic Unbound, he commanded armies. Entire guild divisions moved when he gave an order. Hundreds of players responded to his messages within seconds. NPC officers saluted him. Mercenaries lowered their heads when he walked past.

And right now, in the middle of Roserun's chaos, he was effectively overseeing an entire city. It was intoxicating. For a few moments, standing in the center of the frantic courtyard while people rushed around him carrying out his commands, he felt important in a way reality had never allowed. Though the money he was paid helped, too. Another runner hurried toward him through the confusion.

"Sir!" Pete turned immediately. The player skidded to a stop and saluted.

"Crafting district cleared. However, we found a shop with a missing owner." Pete frowned.

"Missing how?"

"Nobody saw them leave, but the shop was empty when we checked."

"The guards?" The subordinate grimaced.

"They abandoned their post to respond to the explosions instead of guarding a shop that was practically bankrupt already." Pete's jaw tightened. His fists slowly clenched at his sides.

"The perfect cover and distraction," he growled. Suddenly, everything seemed to click far too neatly. Somebody causes chaos across the city, forcing patrols to abandon low-priority areas. Then they slip away while everyone else is distracted, fighting fires and breaking up street brawls.

"Search the entire premises," Pete ordered sharply.

"Walls, basements, hidden rooms, everything." The question was why?

"Yes, sir!" The runner immediately turned and disappeared back into the crowd. Pete stood still for a moment before shaking himself from his thoughts. His hand dropped to the heavy mace hanging at his waist. The weapon was brutal-looking even by Blood Army standards – a thick black handle topped with a cluster of wicked metal spokes. Thin streams of illusory blood constantly dripped from the weapon head, vanishing before they hit the ground. The upper leadership loved their theatrics.

Apparently, every officer was supposed to carry weapons matching the guild's aesthetic. Blood, blood, and even more blood everywhere. Pete personally thought it was ridiculous. Worse, the original enchantments had caused actual pools of blood to spread wherever the weapon rested, which he found more annoying than intimidating. He had eventually paid a fortune to have the effect altered into a cleaner illusion enchantment instead.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. His personal escort immediately noticed the movement. Without needing commands, several heavily armed players moved into formation around him. Tanks shifted to the front while ranged fighters spread outward, eyes constantly scanning rooftops and nearby streets. One of the healers quietly activated a buff spell, faint red light briefly washing over the group. Pete adjusted his grip on the mace.

"Let's move out." They moved through the city at a relentless pace, players and NPCs alike scrambling out of their path as Pete and his entourage stormed through Roserun toward the crafting district. The streets were a complete mess. Panicked civilians clogged intersections while armored players shoved through crowds trying to reach whatever disaster zone interested them most. Nobody dared block Pete's group. Not with the Blood Army insignia visible on every shoulder.

His entire escort was ready for a fight at a moment's notice. The mages in the backline were already midway through spell preparations, hands glowing with contained destruction while magic thrummed through staffs, wands, grimoires, rings, and crystalline focuses. The bloody miasma radiating from them covered them in a partially see-through cloud, giving them an even more dangerous look. They were only waiting for a single command. Then they would unleash devastation. The melee fighters were no calmer.

Every single one gripped their weapons hard enough for knuckles to whiten beneath gauntlets. Eyes constantly swept the environment. None of them were low-ranking grunts. Everyone here sat high enough in the command structure to understand exactly what failure would mean. When things went wrong, leadership got blamed first. And in the Blood Army, failure rarely ended with simple demotion. Pete's boots slammed against the cobblestones as they crossed another intersection at speed.

They were only a few streets away from the crafting district when his messenger suddenly pinged with a high-priority alert. Pete immediately raised a fist. The entire group stopped as one. It was almost impressive how quickly trained players adapted. Tanks instantly shifted outward while ranged fighters spread into defensive positions around the formation. Nearby civilians hurried away the moment they saw magic beginning to gather. Low humming filled the street as several mages prepared defensive spells.

Pete opened the message screen and rapidly scanned the contents. Then he let out a long string of vicious curses.

"We're changing direction."

"What happened?" his second-in-command asked immediately. The group turned with him as one cohesive unit the moment he pivoted toward the market district. Pete lowered his voice.

"The mana sweep picked something up." He paused.

"It was void mana." Several people hissed through their teeth while others muttered darkly under their breath. There was only one person who used void mana and was brave enough to do this to the city. Pete's grip tightened around his mace.

"We need to move fast." It only took a few minutes to reach the market district. Pete's group tore through the streets like a battering ram, shoving aside anyone too slow to move out of the way. Civilians scattered in panic while nearby players quickly stepped aside the moment they recognized the Blood Army insignia. Behind him, the healer maintained a chain of speed-enhancing buffs, crimson magic wrapping around the team in pulsing waves that pushed their movement far beyond normal limits.

Pete could already see the market district ahead. Then he saw him. Solar. The single most famous player in Magic Unbound. The player everyone talked about. The walking disaster zone responsible for half the game's most ridiculous stories. A man so absurdly dangerous that almost nobody felt confident fighting him alone anymore. And there he stood in the middle of the street. Completely relaxed.

Sword resting casually across his shoulder, while he practically skipped through the chaos with a carefree grin on his face. Solar looked like a man who had just won the lottery. Pete instantly felt hatred boil inside him. God, he hated that expression. That smugness. That absolute certainty that everything would somehow work out for him. He didn't even care about the prestige that would come with killing Solar anymore. Didn't care about rewards. Didn't care about rankings.

He just wanted to wipe that stupid smile off his face with the business end of his mace.

"SOLAR!" he roared. The shout echoed across the market. Heads turned instantly. Solar whipped around – looking opposite of Pete's team – as nearby players and NPCs instinctively backed away from the rapidly approaching Blood Army strike team. Then Solar turned around and looked directly at Pete. And Pete felt a surge of satisfaction as the man's face suddenly turned pale white. For a single glorious moment, everything lined up perfectly. His mages unleashed their prepared spells.

Then he felt his mace sink into the man's armor, the metal giving away surprisingly easily, a victorious grin working onto his face. Bolts of magic screamed through the air past Pete's ears with terrifying precision; his team coordinated enough that he never once worried about friendly fire. At the same time, the melee fighters surged forward around him with weapons raised. Solar barely seemed to react. Pete swung his mace with everything he had. He didn't care about anything.

He burned all his cooldowns – from the smallest skills to the few ultimates he could only use once a week. He used everything. The weapon smashed directly into Solar's chest. He felt armor crumple beneath the impact far more easily than expected, and victory exploded through him as a savage grin spread across his face. Then he blinked. And everything turned black. Pete found himself standing alone in an endless expanse of darkness. A familiar translucent screen floated before him. [You have died!] Pete stared at it blankly. His brain struggled to process what he was seeing.

"What?" Being a journalist was all about knowing when to talk, when to stay quiet, and perhaps most importantly, knowing how to connect fragments of information that most people either overlooked entirely or dismissed as meaningless noise. Mariann considered herself exceptionally good at that.

She worked for one of the largest online gaming journalism companies in the world, a company whose value had skyrocketed after the release of Magic Unbound, because the game had very quickly evolved beyond simple entertainment and into something much larger, a strange hybrid of social platform, economic battlefield, political arena, and full-blown cultural phenomenon that millions of people obsessively followed every single day.

For journalists, it was simultaneously the greatest opportunity imaginable and an absolute nightmare. Everybody wanted information now. Players wanted guides. Guilds wanted publicity. Corporations wanted market analysis. Investors wanted predictions. And millions upon millions of ordinary people, many of whom had never touched a game before in their lives, desperately wanted to hear stories about the insane things happening inside Magic Unbound every single day. Which meant everybody wanted to talk to her.

Guild officers constantly leaked selective information, hoping to damage rivals or shape public opinion. Independent crafters begged for coverage to increase the value of their products. Mercenaries sold rumors for credits. Streamers exaggerated stories for attention. Anonymous whistleblowers appeared in her inbox almost daily, claiming they possessed secret knowledge capable of shaking the entire game. The difficult part was no longer obtaining information. It was differentiating the chaff from the gold.

That was why Mariann took enormous pride in the network of informants she had spent the last year building and curating. Maintaining those contacts was almost absurdly difficult at times. With how valuable information surrounding Magic Unbound had become, many of her conversations involved enough encrypted channels, identity checks, disposable accounts, and security precautions to resemble espionage more than journalism. Still, the effort paid off.

She had sources in several of the major workshops dominating the in-game economy, people capable of warning her about shortages, breakthroughs, or market manipulation before anybody else realized something was happening. She maintained contacts inside both large and small guilds, ranging from respectable organizations to outright criminal groups that specialized in smuggling, extortion, and information brokering.

Solo players fed her information as well, particularly specialists who sat at the absolute top of their professions: elite crafters, harvesters, artists, scouts, mercenaries, and even a few explorers whose names rarely appeared publicly despite the absurd amount of wealth they possessed. All of those connections together had allowed her to secure something incredibly valuable within her company: a permanent timeslot dedicated exclusively to her reporting.

Though, admittedly, it also helped that she exercised religiously and was attractive enough to survive on appearance alone if she absolutely had to. Mariann was practical enough not to pretend otherwise. The journalism industry was viciously competitive, and anybody who refused to use every advantage available to them usually ended up unemployed. Still, despite all the contacts she had cultivated over the years, one source stood far above all the others. The crown jewel of her collection.

Every journalist covering Magic Unbound dreamed about obtaining a reliable insider connected to AFK or Chrysalis, because exclusive information from either group could dominate headlines for weeks, potentially even months, depending on what was leaked. As far as Mariann knew, she was the only one who had managed it. Technically, the mysterious contact had approached her first rather than the other way around, but that hardly mattered now. What mattered was that the information had always been legitimate. So far.

She still hadn't told her bosses. If management discovered she potentially possessed a high-level source connected to one of the most influential organizations in the game, they would completely lose their minds and start demanding exclusives immediately, probably before she had even properly verified the source's identity. With stakes this high, she couldn't afford to make mistakes.

One fabricated story, one manipulated recording, one false accusation presented as truth could destroy the reputation she had spent years building. So she checked everything personally. And every trail she followed came back clean. The leaked information consistently proved accurate. She still hadn't released any of them publicly, however, because this final info would determine whether she truly committed to the story or quietly buried the entire thing forever.

The latest instructions she had received were surprisingly simple. A coordinate. A carefully planned route leading toward that coordinate. And one very direct warning not to step beyond the designated point under any circumstances. And one lone word. WATCH Mariann fully intended to do exactly that. And record every second of it. Magic Unbound had been an absolute blessing for journalists.

After investing a fairly painful amount of money, she had acquired a top-of-the-line AI-assisted recording drone capable of autonomously filming events, selecting camera angles, filtering background noise, and even identifying important individuals in real time. Just her and Bob, the recording drone. No unreliable camera operators. No assistants tempted to leak information. No worrying about loyalty. Just her and Bob, the recording drone.

Breathing heavily, Mariann finally reached the top of the small mountain, boots scraping against loose stone as she climbed the last few meters toward the flattened ridge her contact had directed her to. The entire trip had been miserable. Fine rust-colored dust clung stubbornly to her clothes, coated her boots, and probably found its way into her lungs as well, judging by how dry her throat felt.

The hike itself had not been particularly dangerous, but the terrain surrounding Roserun's coastline was rough enough that she was already regretting not choosing to use the built-in teleporting function attached to the journalist mode. Still, the view alone almost made it worth it. From the mountain ridge, she could see the entirety of Roserun spread out beneath her like a living map. The massive harbor stretched along the coastline while ships drifted through the water below like tiny toys from this distance.

Farther away, military camps surrounded the city in sprawling formations while roads remained clogged with caravans constantly moving supplies, materials, weapons, and people toward Roserun. She could not make out individual faces or details from this far away, but that hardly mattered. Whatever her mysterious contact wanted her to see, this was clearly the perfect vantage point for it. Taking a few deep breaths while trying to recover from the climb, Mariann suddenly froze.

Partially hidden in the shadow of a nearby stone sat a small gift box. It looked absurdly pristine. Not a single speck of dust covered its polished surface despite the wind constantly carrying dirt and sand across the mountaintop. Mariann slowly bent down and picked it up, instinctively glancing around afterward while the box rested in her hands. For a brief moment, an uncomfortable thought crossed her mind.

'Were they following her?' She honestly had no idea. Mariann barely played the actual game outside of work requirements. Nearly all her time inside Magic Unbound was spent using journalist mode, which made her functionally invulnerable while simultaneously preventing her from participating in combat, quests, or most meaningful gameplay mechanics. NPCs largely ignored her existence, monsters treated her as background scenery, and players physically could not harm her unless specific permissions were involved.

It made reporting dramatically safer. It also meant she had absolutely no idea if somebody skilled was shadowing her movements. For several seconds she slowly turned in place, scanning the mountaintop and nearby rocks in hopes of spotting movement, hidden observers, or perhaps another drone. She found nothing. Eventually, curiosity won out. Shrugging lightly, she pulled the ribbon free and opened the box. Inside rested a pair of sunglasses and a simple white card. Mariann picked up the card first.

On it, written in neat black lettering, was a single sentence. Make sure to wear it. Turning the card over, she confirmed the other side was blank before slipping it back into the box and reaching for the sunglasses instead. They were sleek and entirely black, though faint blue lines occasionally flickered beneath the surface of the frame strongly enough to become visible whenever sunlight struck them at the correct angle.

Where most designer sunglasses would display a logo, these instead had a tiny smiling drone emblem attached to the frame in polished metal. Mariann raised an eyebrow. Then shrugged again and put them on. If her contact had gone through the effort of leading her all the way up here, the glasses probably served some important purpose. Or at least she hoped they did. Opening her system menu, Mariann summoned Bob.

A cluster of drones materialized around her in brief flashes of light, most of them small and utilitarian in appearance, though all of them orbited around one larger drone with a cartoonishly drawn smiling face displayed across its front panel.

"Hey, Bob!" she called quietly. The drone bobbed in place. Just like it always did. Mariann smiled faintly and rubbed her hands together.

"Alright," she murmured.

"Let's start setting up." The next hour passed almost entirely in technical preparation. She carried each smaller drone individually around the mountaintop, carefully placing them in strategic positions before testing viewing angles, sunlight exposure, color balance, audio quality, panoramic coverage, and transmission stability. Every camera required adjustments, and once she finished with one setup, she repeated the process again for the next drone.

The smallest drone in the set was eventually positioned specifically to record her own reactions throughout the event. The internet absolutely loved reaction footage. Especially when attractive women were involved. Mariann had learned long ago not to fight audience behavior she could easily profit from.

Finally, she positioned Bob as the primary camera, carefully aligning the drone so that she occupied the right third of the recording frame while the sprawling city of Roserun dominated the background alongside the surrounding coastline, military encampments, and endless caravans constantly flowing in and out of the city gates. Only after every piece of equipment was calibrated properly did she finally open another menu and begin cycling through prearranged clothing presets.

Honestly, this was one of her favorite things about Magic Unbound. No makeup chair. No hair appointments. No spending two frustrating hours trying to decide what worked on camera. The amount of real-world money she saved on hairstylists alone was honestly staggering. After several minutes of consideration, she finally settled on an outfit, hairstyle, and makeup combination before pressing the equip button. A soft glow briefly surrounded her body.

In its place appeared fitted khaki shorts that hugged her legs comfortably, durable mountaineering boots, a white shirt tied into a knot just above her stomach, and a short khaki jacket that matched the outdoorsy aesthetic she was aiming for. Her long blonde hair reshaped itself into two neatly braided pigtails while subtle makeup and light mascara appeared across her face. Mariann used her drones to inspect herself critically for several moments. Then she nodded in satisfaction.

"Perfect," she declared happily. After a final round of technical checks and recording tests, she settled into position overlooking Roserun. Instead of delivering some kind of overly dramatic opening monologue or slipping into the polished cadence of a standard field reporter, she allowed the cameras to run for a few extra moments, letting the audience take in the sight. Then, finally, she stepped into frame with an easy, almost careless cheerfulness that contrasted sharply with the imposing landscape behind her.

"Heya, guys! This is Mariann, your source of everything neat and great!" She moved fully into the camera's view, planting herself with the confidence of someone who had done this a thousand times, and then extended one arm in a sweeping gesture that took in the vast sprawl of the city below.

"Today, I'm here on a mountain overlooking Roserun, the infamous city of mercenaries and criminals, one of the great bastions of the even more infamous Blood Army!" A beat of silence.

"And you may be wondering why I, Mariann, am standing in such a place…" she added, tilting her head with exaggerated theatrics as she adjusted her sunglasses, lowering them just enough to let the light catch her eyes before flashing a grin straight into the lens.

"Well, it's a secret, but I promise it's going to be worth it!"

"I even have secretive sunglasses!" she declared, striking a brief, playful pose. What followed was a long, uninterrupted stretch of explanation delivered with an almost disarming brightness, as she broke down the information she had gathered about Roserun and its shifting power structures. Describing how the Blood Army had taken hold of the city and embedded itself into its infrastructure, naming key figures and local power brokers with the casual familiarity of someone discussing neighbourhood celebrities.

Recounting scattered incidents of violence, rivalry, and internal drama with an enthusiasm that sometimes made the content feel more like gossip than geopolitical analysis, before eventually easing into a more subdued, almost perfunctory segment where she covered the city's economic role and political significance in the wider region. Throughout it all, she remained animated and cheerful, gesturing occasionally toward the sprawling city below as though she were guiding an invisible audience through a tour.

Then, just as she was beginning to run out of breath from her own steady stream of commentary – several faint, irregular sounds carried up the mountain air, too distant to identify clearly at first, followed almost immediately by the first dark smudge of smoke beginning to rise from somewhere deep within Roserun. Explosions. Her expression shifted slightly, but years of practice had given her enough experience to continue without breaking her stride.

"Oh, it appears that something finally happened! I wonder who is responsible for that?" she asked, tilting her head with a small, knowing smile that lingered just a fraction too long to feel entirely innocent. She already knew, of course. She knew exactly who was responsible. The people who had told her to be here. She didn't say that part out loud.

Instead, she slowly turned her body fully toward the city, letting the camera rigs adjust and stabilize as they followed her movement, and for a brief moment she simply watched in silence as the smoke thickened and began to spread in uneven columns. Then she let out a low, impressed whistle.

"Wow! That's some chaos down there!" Her tone remained light, almost delighted. For the next several minutes, she continued narrating without pause, shifting seamlessly from casual excitement to focused observation.

She watched as more disturbances became visible across Roserun: sudden flashes of light that hinted at magic being used in concentrated bursts, distant shockwaves that rippled through smoke pockets like invisible impacts, and sparks of color that flared and vanished too quickly to fully decipher at first glance, but hinted at a larger conflict within the city.

At one point, she used one of the smaller drones, its feed immediately transferring to a floating screen beside her as she watched the live footage with sharp attention, zooming in on specific districts and interesting magical effects. Then, as she looked over the city between two breaths, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as a very strange sensation washed over her, something she couldn't immediately place but instinctively understood as wrong in a way that had nothing to do with sight or sound.

It felt as if she was standing in the middle of a field with the sun shining down on her, warm and steady and almost comforting, while at the same time her entire body was tingling with a sharp, crawling static, like she had stepped beneath a storm cloud charged so heavily that the air itself was waiting for permission to break. Then Mariann noticed that the world had fallen silent. There was no wind. No distant animal calls from those that got this high on the mountain.

Even the city below, which had been a constant low presence of movement and noise, seemed to have simply… stopped. She was about to say something when– A new sun was born.

In the middle of the city, a giant globe of searing light bloomed into existence, at first perfectly silent for a fraction of a millisecond, as if reality itself needed a moment to register what had just happened, and then it erupted into sound – an overwhelming, crushing roar that surpassed anything she had ever experienced, something that didn't just fill the air but seemed to press directly against her bones. Even at the distance she was watching from. The globe continued to expand. Fast.

Swallowing the city in widening rings of incandescent white as the sound followed it outward in violent waves that rattled the entire mountain, shaking stone and air alike as though both had suddenly become unstable. She felt the ground beneath her feet tremble. Still, the globe continued to grow. Idly, almost absurdly, she noticed a few black dots within the searing brightness – figures, unmistakably alive, trying to escape the expanding edge of annihilation – but none of them moved fast enough.

The light kept spreading until it reached beyond the city walls, consuming the outer districts, the army camps, and the surrounding land that had once been Roserun's extended shadow, erasing structure and geography in a single advancing wave of impossible brightness. Then the shockwave hit her.

A rolling cloud that swept over the mountain and beyond, dragging with it a violent surge of dust, debris, and fractured stone particles ripped loose from the city and mountain itself, forcing her to raise an arm instinctively to shield her face as the air turned into a chaotic, abrasive storm around her. Mariann didn't know how long she stood there like that. When she finally lowered her arm, the world had returned to silence. But it was not the same silence as before.

Not the anticipatory silence of something about to happen. No. The kind of silence that followed awe and disbelief. The world itself stared, aghast. Even she stood frozen, staring with her mouth slightly open, unable to fully process what she was seeing as the haze cleared and the view settled on what remained of Roserun. Or rather, where Roserun had been. There was nothing.

Only a vast, scorched crater where the city had once stood, its edges already beginning to deform as the displaced sea formed the beginning of future waterfalls, starting its slow, inevitable reclamation. There was no city. No walls. No army camps. Just emptiness, carved into the world. She stared for a long moment, unmoving, until a small rock finally shifted somewhere near her feet and tumbled loose from its resting place, the tiny sound snapping her out of her fugue. She closed her mouth slowly, swallowing hard.

Even her thoughts were silent. She didn't know what to say. Slowly, she turned toward the camera, toward the indifferent lens still recording everything. Finally, after a few seconds of wrestling with her emotions, she forced herself to say something.

"Well…that happened…"