The Supreme Monarch of Continuum

The two readied for battle, standing at opposite ends of the cracked park walkway. A small crowd began to gather, mostly early risers, elderly walkers, and a few joggers slowing to watch with bemused curiosity. The air was still crisp, the sun not yet fully risen, casting long shadows beneath the trees.

Then, the match began.

Klaus raised a hand, summoning a fireball with ease. Flames swirled and pulsed in his palm, glowing bright against the early dawn. But Emily only grinned and vanished.

Gone.

Not even a flicker of wind remained where she had stood. Klaus blinked, his instincts flaring.

A blow came from his right.

He barely turned his head before a fist collided with his ribs, compact and brutal. The impact echoed in his bones. Then she was in front of him, materializing out of thin air, face calm, stance perfect.

He raised his arms to block, but it was useless. The punch crashed through his defense like it wasn't even there. It felt like forty percent of his resistance had simply been... ignored.

He was launched backwards.

Trees cracked around him as he flew, smashing through branches and splintering bark until he finally hit the ground in a graceless, bouncing heap.

---

[System Warning]:

Status Effect Applied: Bleed

You will take continuous damage for 5 seconds.

---

"What the fu—" Klaus wheezed, breath caught halfway between a cough and a curse. His limbs felt like pudding. He stared up at the sky, dazed, bleeding, and mildly offended.

Then she appeared.

Emily squatted over him casually, her face painted with a smug, mocking grin that dripped with disdain. Her elbows rested on her knees, her head tilted slightly like she was admiring a mildly amusing painting, or a raccoon she'd just hit with a broom.

For the first time in ages, Klaus felt genuine fear. Not panic. Not dread. Something deeper. And strangely... he liked it. His cheeks flushed. This, some distant part of his brain whispered, is exactly what I needed.

"May I look at your stats?" Klaus asked, polite as a man requesting tea in a hurricane.

Emily shrugged. "Sure. Knock yourself out."

He already had.

But when her stats appeared before him, Klaus forgot the pain, forgot the crowd, forgot he had nearly been turned into tree mulch. All he could do was stare.

---

[Character Information]:

Name: Emily Donaldson

Race: Human

Age: 42

Level: 143

Class: Locked

Title: The Feared One

[Attributes]:

HP: 800

MP: 503

STR: 200

AGI: 382

DEX: 290

INT: 134

PER: 189

WIL: 200

VIT: 495

[Unused Stat Points: 40]

[Skills]: 

[You currently own: 4 Active / 1 Passive / 0 Unique System Skills]

[Active Skills]:

Shadow Drill (A-rank)

Spiral forward at high velocity, piercing through multiple enemies, ignoring 40% defense, and causing Bleed (5s).

MP: 100

CD: 6 seconds

Predator Blink (B-rank)

Instantly blink up to 10 meters in any direction. Gain 3 seconds of invisibility post-teleport. Next basic attack deals bonus crit damage.

MP: 94

CD: 8 seconds

Aether Cut (SSS-rank)

Slash through magic, space, or concepts. Ignores all defenses.

MP: 500

CD: 1 day

Void Lancer (S-rank)

Hurl a spectral spear that phases through barriers and enemies, deal pure damage.

MP: 260

[Passive Skills]:

Focus Lock (B-rank)

+30% crit chance and +10% crit damage while under 25% HP. Gain short evasion buff when dropping below threshold.

[Unique Skills]:

[Equipment]:

Head: None

Body: None

Weapon: Rapier

Accessories: Thread of Mending Grace (Epic)

---

Klaus closed the window, his fingers twitching. There was a very particular kind of fear that came when a predator knew it was caged with something higher on the food chain. This wasn't a spar anymore. It was survival theater.

The old folks had backed off now. A few joggers stopped to record. A homeless man had climbed a tree for a better view. Klaus, hunched over with dust and blood caked onto his shirt, cracked his knuckles and stood up straight. His joints screamed. His vision was still flickering. But he smirked.

"You hit like a truck," he said.

Emily licked her teeth, bouncing slightly on her heels. "You take it like one too. That was cute, by the way, trying to analyze my age to cover your inferiority complex."

He breathed in through his nose. "Just stallin' for my cooldowns."

"I know," she said. "So I'm not giving you time."

She vanished again.

Klaus didn't even blink. His instincts screamed and he ducked low, just barely sidestepping a gust of air that sliced where his neck had been a second earlier. The moment he turned, her fist dug into his ribs like a metal spike. His body lifted off the ground and twisted mid-air before he slammed back-first into a park bench, snapping it in half.

Pain lit up like lightning bolts across his spine. He coughed blood, tried to lift himself, but she was already there, squatting beside him again like some cosmic school bully.

"Still cute," she said, tapping her knuckle against his forehead.

Klaus growled, "You're really enjoying this."

"Immensely."

He launched a flame burst point-blank, a snap-cast spell that ignited her arm and shoulder with raw magical fire. She flinched, backing up, swatting at her jacket as it melted in places. He rolled backward, scrambled up, summoned another two fireballs, and flung them both: one left, one right.

She blinked.

Literally.

Her body vanished in a dim shimmer, and the two fireballs exploded behind her last known location. Then he heard her voice from the shadows behind a nearby tree.

"You're slow. Cute, but slow."

He didn't respond. He was already forming a combustion mine under his feet, a delayed burst tied to proximity. The moment she came in close, he'd pop it like a landmine.

But she didn't come close.

Instead, from the trees, she spiraled downward like a drill missile, her body twisting in the air, coated in dark spiraling energy, descending at an angle he couldn't guard from.

"Shi—"

He barely got his arms up before the impact crushed him into the earth.

The dirt split. The park cracked. A small crater formed.

---

[System Warning]:

Skill Effect: Shadow Drill

Defense ignored: 40%

Bleed re-applied

Knockdown status: 2 seconds

---

His vision swam. Blood pooled at the corner of his mouth. Trees groaned from the force. Half the spectators had already started running.

"Do you want to give up now?" Emily's voice rang out, calm and chipper.

Klaus wheezed. "Do you... always flirt like this?"

Emily's eye twitched. "Flirt? I'm handing your ass back to you."

"Violently affectionate."

She clicked her tongue and stomped on his chest, not hard enough to kill, but enough to leave a boot-print.

"I could end it," she said.

"You could," he coughed, "but you won't."

"Why's that?"

"You like having fun."

She smiled again. "True."

Klaus grinned through the blood. "Then let me entertain you."

He jabbed his palm into the dirt. The combustion mine beneath them detonated, a delayed magic trap. The earth shattered under her feet, a burst of compressed fire and concussive force launching them both in different directions.

He tumbled through grass, coughing, but forced himself up.

Emily landed like a cat, one leg forward, one back, arms spread. Her eyes were alight now, amused.

"You actually made me jump," she said. "Maybe you're not entirely useless."

"High praise," Klaus muttered. His skin was flayed at the side. Blood soaked his arm. His mana was low. But his smirk never left.

Emily blurred forward again. This time, he didn't try to run. Instead, he condensed a flame so hot it turned white-blue and slammed it toward the ground. It exploded upward like a geyser, throwing up a smoke screen and ash.

He rolled into the cover, breathing hard. She wouldn't be able to blink in if she couldn't see his location. He pulled out a small mana shard from his inner pocket and absorbed it, just enough to cast another set of spells.

The moment the smoke cleared, she was right there.

But this time, he was ready.

He cast a double-layer barrier in front of him and detonated another fire burst behind it, sandwiching her in a kill zone.

Emily blinked straight through it.

Not using Predator Blink. Not teleportation.

She just moved, too fast, too smooth, breaking the air like a crack of thunder.

And then her fist connected.

Klaus spun mid-air like a ragdoll, crashed down, slid across the field like discarded trash.

Emily followed, standing over him once again. She crouched, fingers pressed against his bruised cheek.

"You're good," she whispered. "But not good enough."

He coughed again. "What gave me away?"

"You tried too hard. Cute, but sloppy."

Then she stood up and said loudly, to the now half-cheering, half-terrified early birds: "And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you fold a man in under three minutes."

Someone clapped in the distance.

Klaus groaned. "I still think you're forty-five."

Her eye twitched again.

"You want to die, don't you?"

"Not before breakfast."

Klaus lay in a crater of embarrassment and searing bruises, one leg twitching like it was still buffering the pain. His eyes fluttered open to a sky far too blue for the kind of beatdown he'd just received. His ribs hurt. His pride hurt worse.

Emily stood over him, arms folded, her boot resting casually on a rock beside his head like a hunter posing with a fresh kill. Her blue hair fluttered in the breeze, catching rays of sunlight like a damn shampoo commercial. She didn't even look winded.

Klaus groaned.

"So," she said with a smug raise of her brow, "do you want to join the guild now, or should I break the other hip too?"

He lifted one trembling hand, index finger pointed weakly skyward. "...I'll join."

Emily blinked. "Come again?"

"I'll join," Klaus said again, clearer this time, pushing himself upright with a wince. "Congratulations. You win. Guild me up. Train me. Exploit my trauma or whatever. Just don't punch me into a tree again."

Her face lit up like someone had handed her a birthday cake with her name spelled out in diamond frosting. The tension in her shoulders vanished. That usual smugness dissolved into something strange; warm, maybe even... earnest?

"You mean it?" she asked, a little too hopeful. "You're not just saying that so I'll stop kicking your pretty face?"

Klaus shrugged with a slight smirk. "Your foot's persuasive. But yeah. I mean it."

Emily's mouth stretched into a grin so wide it almost looked unhinged. Like she'd been waiting to hear those words for a long time. Not from him, maybe, but someone like him. She bounced once on the balls of her feet, fists clenched in a way that made her seem ten years younger.

"Oh my god," she said, looking off into the middle distance with childlike glee. "This is happening. I finally recruited someone who's not a meathead or a maniac!"

Klaus arched a brow. "Thanks, I think?"

She turned to him again, hair swaying, smile glowing like it had a +10 charisma modifier. "This is gonna be great! You and me, we'll get you trained up, build your rep, take down some dungeons, grab a couple world-ending relics—"

"—accidentally flirt to throw each other off mid-fight?" Klaus offered, amused.

She blinked at him, the corner of her mouth twitching. "Please. I would never."

He stood slowly, brushing off grass and bits of his dignity. "You're blushing."

"I am not."

"Your face says otherwise."

She stepped closer, poked him hard in the chest. "Shut it, pretty boy."

Klaus grinned. "You like me."

"I tolerate you."

"You're smiling like you just got proposed to."

"I'm smiling because I'm imagining punching you into a bus."

Their eyes met, brief, too long to ignore. There was something there. A tension neither of them were brave enough to name. A weird compatibility. Not romantic yet. Not not romantic, either. Somewhere in the weird crack between professional respect and mutual mockery.

Emily looked down. Then back up. Then, without warning, she smacked him upside the head with the back of her hand, not hard, but enough to make his head bob like a loose bobblehead.

"Ow! What the hell was that for!?"

"For thinking I was flirting."

"You were flirting."

She spun on her heel and started walking away, waving a hand behind her. "You're imagining things, Klaus. Now come on. The guild cafeteria has pudding today."

He blinked. "Wait, did you just bribe me with dessert?"

Her voice came over her shoulder. "Consider it an apology for the traumatic chiropractic realignment I gave your spine."

Klaus exhaled a soft laugh, then limped after her. Maybe being crushed into the dirt by a forty-two-year-old manhwa character wasn't the worst way to start a new chapter.

Maybe.