The damp cellar air was thick with the scent of mildew and the metallic tang of fear. The Tax Minister, a man named Harkan whose belly was as bloated as his ego, leaned down to grab Riha's chin. He didn't see the emerald-haired girl as a person; he saw her as a bag of Solari gold.
Riha's green-haired disguise was matted with dirt, but her smile—wide, cold, and devilish—stopped Harkan in his tracks.
"I was going to wait," Riha thought, her Black Hole Core pulsing rhythmically against the poison still in her veins. "I was going to let them take me to the transport ship to see how deep this rot goes. But these girls... they don't have time."
She looked at the girl beside her, who was shaking so hard her teeth were chattering. If Riha waited, some of these girls would be on a ship to the Solari Dominion within the hour. They would be lost forever.
"The price of this item," Riha whispered, her jade-colored eyes beginning to swirl with a dark, violet light, "is your soul."
[The Outbreak]
CRACK.
The Magic-Suppressing Iron chains, designed to hold High-Rank masters, shattered like cheap glass. Riha didn't even use her mana; she used her 50-ton physical strength. The recoil sent a shockwave through the stone floor, knocking the mercenaries off their feet.
Harkan scrambled back, his face pale. "Kill her! She's a high-level deviant! Don't let her reach the door!"
Riha stood up, but her knees buckled for a second. The Spirit-Dampening Herb was still fighting her nervous system. Her vision doubled, and the room tilted. She wasn't fully awake—she was fighting in a half-dream, her movements instinctive and ferocious.
The first mercenary charged with an electrified baton. Riha didn't dodge; she stepped into the strike. Her hand shot out, catching his throat. With a sickening crunch, she threw him across the room like a ragdoll.
She was a whirlwind of black and red energy, even in her brown commoner rags. She moved with a "Drunken Master" style, swaying to avoid blades and then countering with strikes that shattered ribs and splintered shields. Every time she hit someone, her Black Hole Core flared, sucking the kinetic energy out of their attacks.
[The Brink of Exhaustion]
But the poison was persistent. Her breath came in ragged gasps. Every time she used her Level 1 Peak Mental Power to track a movement, a sharp spike of pain drove into her skull.
"She's tiring!" Harkan screamed from behind his guards. "Finish her!"
Four mercenaries lunged at once, their blades glowing with a sickly green light. Riha lowered her center of gravity, preparing for a devastating ground-pound that might bring the whole ceiling down on the girls. She was prepared to go all out, even if it meant exposing her identity to the world.
Just as her fist began to glow with the violet hue of the Abyss—
BOOM.
The ceiling of the cellar didn't just crack; it disintegrated.
A massive, SS-Grade metallic foot crashed through the stone, crushing a mercenary into the dirt. Dust and debris filled the air as a cold, oppressive aura flooded the room—an aura so familiar that Riha's body finally relaxed.
[The Arrival of the Eclipse Guard]
Through the hole in the ceiling, the Bermuda Puppets descended like fallen angels of death. Their metallic joints hissed as they landed in perfect formation around Riha.
Following them, Kaelen Vane materialized from the shadows, his form flickering with a murderous purple flame. Behind him stood the elite Eclipse Guard, their weapons unsheathed and glowing.
"Majesty!" Mina's voice rang out as she scrambled down the rubble, rushing to Riha's side.
Riha was leaning against a stone pillar, her green hair damp with sweat. Her disguise was failing; the emerald hue was bleeding away, revealing the regal, midnight black of her true form. Her jade eyes flickered back to a deep, terrifying violet.
[The Minister's Terror]
Tax Minister Harkan stood frozen. He looked at the Bermuda Puppets, then at the Shadow Lord's strategist, and finally at the girl in the brown tunic.
As the illusion fully dissolved, Riha stood tall. Even in her ragged clothes, the Sovereign's Aura returned with the force of a tidal wave. The crown wasn't on her head, but everyone in the room felt its weight.
Harkan's knees gave out. "E-Empress? Riha... Roy?"
Riha walked toward him, her footsteps heavy and deliberate. Each step felt like a mountain falling. She stopped inches from his face. The girls she had saved watched in stunned silence—the "commoner" who had fought for them was the woman on the coins in their pockets.
"You said you owned me, Harkan," Riha said, her voice a low, vibrating growl of power. "I am the Sovereign of the Umbral Empire. I own the air you breathe. I own the ground you kneel on. And right now... I own your life."
Harkan't eyes rolled back in his head. The sheer terror, combined with the crushing pressure of her Mental Peak Stage aura, was too much for his heart to handle. He collapsed into a dead faint, hitting the floor with a dull thud.
[The Return to the Palace]
Riha looked at the girls. "Kaelen. Ensure they are fed, clothed, and returned to their families with a royal pension. Anyone who laid a finger on them... find them. I want their cores extracted by morning."
"It will be done, My Empress," Kaelen bowed, his voice thick with respect.
Riha tried to turn, but the world finally spun out of control. The combination of the fight, the 50-ton exertion, and the poison was too much. Her eyes closed as she began to fall.
Mina caught her, but it was the metallic arms of a Bermuda Puppet that gently lifted her up.
"Take her home," Kaelen commanded.
The citizens of the Lower District watched in awe and fear as a fleet of Imperial Chariots rose from the sewers, carrying their Empress back to the palace. The news spread like wildfire through the streets: The Empress didn't just rule from a throne. She walked among them. She fought for them. And she was coming for the corrupt.