The battlefield was chaotic.

  We had crashed into the First Division like a meteor. The front line buckled, but it didn't break.

  The sea of black helmets parted. A giant man stepped forward.

  He stood seven feet tall, muscles bulging under armor. He wielded a greatsword.

  "Dino!" the soldiers chanted. "Dino! Dino!"

  Dino, the First General. A Realm 1 Sword Cultivator.

  He laughed.

  "You little fool!" Dino roared, swinging the greatsword with one hand. "You think you can topple the mountain? You think two men can defeat White Hill?"

  I met his strike.

  My Sword clashed against his blade. The impact sent a shockwave through the ground, shaking the ground beneath my boots. My arm vibrated, but I held my ground.

  "I don't," I grunted, parrying the heavy blade. "I don't believe I can beat White Hill."

  Dino blinked, his grin faltering for a second at my honesty. "Then die like a coward!"

  He swung again.

  While I locked blades with the commander, Bells was in the periphery. He was managing the crowd. He fired precise wind scythes into the front ranks of the non cultivator soldiers, keeping them off my back.

  "Kaz!" Bells shouted. "They're circling!"

  I glanced to the side. The First Division was moving to flank us. If I stayed here trading blows with this brute, we would be buried under bodies.

  Dino raised his sword for a killing blow.

  "Too slow," I whispered.

  I stopped testing his strength and I relied on my Realm.

  I was Realm 2. He was merely Foundation. The gap in physical specs was massive.

  I stepped inside his guard before his sword could descend.

  My blade flashed.

  Dino’s laughter died in his throat as his head slid off his shoulders and hit the ground.

  The giant body collapsed.

  The First Division froze.

  There was no time to breathe.

  "Forward!" a voice commanded.

  The Second Division advanced immediately. Ten thousand men in unison.

  Stepping out from the ranks was the Second General, Lebo.

  He was clad in armor.

  Lebo held up a hand.

  "Fire," he ordered.

  He didn't mean guns.

  Lebo’s hands ignited. He was a Realm 1 Fire Cultivator. He hurled fireballs into the melee, not caring that his own men were in the splash zone.

  "Charge him!" Lebo screamed. "Drown him in bodies!"

  The ten thousand soldiers rushed me.

  It was a meat grinder.

  I cut. I slashed. I killed. My armor was chipped by bullets, scorched by Lebo’s fireballs, and battered by rifle butts.

  My body was a furnace of regeneration. It worked overtime, knitting skin and bone together as fast as it was destroyed. I was an immortal engine of violence, but I was getting bogged down. There were just too many of them.

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  "Bells!" I screamed.

  "Incoming!"

  Bells dove from the sky and slammed his palms together.

  Vacuum Sphere.

  A massive bubble of low pressure expanded over the battlefield. It sucked the oxygen out of the air.

  Lebo’s fireballs died and the soldiers gasped, clutching their throats.

  Bells landed behind the enemy lines, right in front of Lebo.

  Lebo sneered, trying to reignite his hands. "You think wind beats fire?"

  "Wind feeds fire," Bells grinned. "But a vacuum chokes it."

  Bells moved faster than the fire mage could react and he unleashed a compressed blade of air.

  Lebo tried to block with his armored gauntlets, but the wind blade was too sharp. It sliced through the armor, through the flesh, and through the spine.

  Lebo fell in two pieces.

  The Second Division broke.

  I stood amidst the carnage, chest heaving. Steam rose from my regenerating wounds. Bells landed next to me, looking exhilarated.

  "Two down!" Bells yelled. "We’re crushing them!"

  I smiled. Maybe this was possible. Maybe we really could bleed them.

  The remaining soldiers stopped screaming and shooting. They retreated, clearing a massive circle around us.

  The Third General stepped forward.

  He wore the same white colors as the first two, but he was different. Eight glowing jewels were embedded in the chest plate.

  His name was Adan.

  Bells stopped smiling.

  We both felt it. The pressure.

  "Realm 2," I whispered.

  Adan raised his hand.

  A talisman paper materialized out of thin air, floating in front of him. A brush appeared in his hand—ink-tipped.

  He wrote a single character on the paper with fluid grace.

  Dragon.

  The talisman burned gold.

  A roar shook the earth. A force that rattled my teeth and forced me to brace my feet.

  The clouds above the Arsenal parted.

  Something descended.

  It was flesh and scale.

  A White Dragon. A real, living, breathing mythical beast the size of a jumbo jet slammed onto the pavement behind Adan.

  Its claws crushed a tank like it was a soda can. It lowered its massive head, smoke drifting from its nostrils.

  Adan floated up, landing gently on the dragon's neck.

  He looked down at us.

  Behind him, seven other figures stepped out from the main army. They all wore White Armor. They all flared their auras.

  Realm 2. Every single one of them.

  And above them, on the command platform, Axehill finally leaned forward.

  "Nice of you to make it, Tomato Man," Axehill said. "I see you brought a friend."

  I gripped my sword.

  "That was a masterful execution of my two weakest generals," Axehill continued.

  Bells and I exchanged a look.

  "Weakest?" we said in unison.

  "However," Axehill said. "The warmup is over. These are my best. The Eight Generals of White Hill."

  The seven figures on the ground drew their weapons and the dragon roared again.

  "That is not including my two Lieutenants, who are guarding the rear," Axehill added. "And then, of course, there is me."

  My heart stopped.

  I looked at Adan on the dragon, the seven Realm 2 warriors waiting to rush us, and the ocean of guns behind them.

  "What do we do, Kaz?" Bells asked.

  "We retreat," I said, my face draining of color. "Run. Now."

  "Run?"

  "WE RUN!" I screamed.

  I turned and sprinted toward the Terramotta.

  My mind shattered.

  The 'Sovereign' persona—the cool, calculated CEO, the ruthless warlord—evaporated.

  I wasn't a Sovereign. I was a loser who had read too many fantasy novels.

  I worked in middle management for 10 years. The fuck do I know about warfare. I barely know my own field. I never even saw my CEO in person.

  I underestimated them.

  I thought White Hill was a gang. A paramilitary group. An empire.

  They weren't any of those things.

  They were a Superpower.

  "Bleed them?" I thought frantically as I vaulted into the driver's seat, fumbling with the keys, my hands shaking so hard I dropped them twice. "What nonsense. What absolute nonsense."

  You can't bleed a superpower. You can only get swatted by one.

  Bells dove into the passenger seat as the dragon let out a stream of white fire that incinerated the spot where we had just been standing.

  I slammed the gas and the Terramotta spun out, tires smoking, and roared back down the road.

  "They have ten!" I shouted. "Ten Realm 2 cultivators! Plus Axehill! He might be Realm 3! He might already be a god!"

  "Drive, Kaz! Just drive!" Bells yelled, firing wind blasts out the window to blind the dragon.

  I realized then, as we fled into the darkness, that the game had changed.

  I wasn't playing for dominance anymore.

  "Change of plans," I whispered, watching the lights of the fortress fade.

  "What?" Bells gasped.

  "The goal isn't to bleed them," I said, wiping sweat from my eyes. "It's to withstand them."