Chapter 27
It wasn't defiance, and it wasn't a parting shot at the loser. Blaise simply had news too good to sit on.
"Those two? They're leaderboard famous." A knowing look. "Honestly, you're lucky you got to fight them at all."
Rowan slowed. Leaderboard famous — since when? The upper ranks belonged to Alliances; that was common knowledge. Whatever Blaise was playing at, it didn't add up, so he ignored him and kept walking toward the tree house.
Which was, of course, the one response Blaise couldn't tolerate. His big reveal, brushed aside like small talk?
"Hold on. You're really not curious? I promise you've heard their names."
"Then say it." Rowan didn't bother hiding his irritation.
Blaise sighed, put-upon. "The white-haired Angelkin Lord — that's HaloGrace. One of the most famous Lords in our channel." His finger swung toward Lilith. "And the blonde Undead Lord goes by God of Light. Current number one."
Rowan stopped walking.
"Impressive, right?" Blaise was grinning now. "Like I said, you should be grateful you even got the chance to—"
"Never heard of them."
Obviously Blaise was embellishing. Anything to make the loss cut deeper.
Blaise stared at him for a long second. "You've never— are you serious?
" So much for accepting defeat gracefully; now he was going to pretend he didn't know who'd beaten him?
Before Rowan's patience ran out entirely, Blaise waved him back over and pulled up the leaderboard. "Quit pretending. Look for yourself."
Halfway through the gesture, another thought landed. "...Although. The Wood Elves handled most of your development, basically. Maybe you just never followed Lord events."
He kept rambling, entirely missing the way Rowan's eyes widened at the interface.
A moment later his shout rang across the settlement.
"What? You're from a different channel?!"
Inside the tree house, Lilith and Auriel traded a glance. Hard not to hear that.
Lilith stood. "Lady Seer, I think that covers what we needed for now. Auriel and I should return to our Territories and prepare before nightfall — we can settle the battle plan this evening."
"Of course," the Seer said.
"Before we go, we'd like a word with Rowan."
"Please do."
Out in the plaza, Blaise was practically vibrating with his discovery, but a flat look from Auriel held him in place.
"You yelled loud enough for the whole settlement to hear," Lilith told him.
Rowan was still staring at the two of them. "You're—"
"We can talk on the way."
And so they did. Rowan walked them out of the Wood Elf settlement, trading information the whole way.
"Other channels actually exist," Blaise kept saying, as if repetition would make it less strange.
"As far as I can tell, they exist to cap how many Lords share a group.
Nothing more." The same events had reached both channels, the same System functions, the same rules of progression — everything identical except the Lords themselves.
Rowan glanced over at the pair beside him.
"I didn't expect independent Lords. Reaching the top of the rankings without an Alliance behind you... that's real strength."
No resentment in it this time. And the math held up: transplant their current scores into his channel untouched, and both would still sit in the top ten. Whatever the System was balancing, the level of competition seemed to hold steady from channel to channel.
"Nobody else solo near the top of yours?" Blaise asked.
"I'm the highest-ranked independent Lord there is. Even at my strength I barely scraped into the top hundred — everyone above me has an Alliance."
So Lilith had guessed right. Wood Elf backing or not, Rowan had stayed a solo Lord to the end. She and Auriel at least had a Party member apiece; he didn't have even that.
Somewhere along the road, the last of the tension between them wore away. Rowan wasn't cruel, as it turned out. Proud, sheltered — and underneath all of it, oddly straightforward.
At the spot where their roads would part, Auriel delivered her verdict on the match.
"You lack combat experience. The Wood Elves protected you too well."
"Rank isn't everything," Lilith said. "Lords grow through battle, and we've had to fight for every step of ours."
"I'll change." No hesitation in it. "And I look forward to fighting you again."
"See you then."
They split at an unmarked bend in the Verdant Forest and went their separate ways.
The road home brought Lilith's backlog all at once: Bonnie's report, a string of System casualty notifications, and the messages from Giles. She read them without panicking — Giles had already told her how the story ended.
The battle at Frostbound Bastion was over. Eldran, Morwen, and Varkhul had driven Simon off, and the immediate danger with him.
A Tier 9 Veteran didn't feel untouchable anymore. Killing one alone might still be beyond her — but neither was she guaranteed to lose.
"Simon. You really don't know how to stay dead."
Had Giles not explained himself, betrayal would have been the natural conclusion; nobody could have guessed at what actually happened to him. But the guilt in his messages was unmistakable, and so was his resolve — he would die before he let Simon use him to hurt anyone else.
He had helped her once, when it counted. Letting him take his own life would be the worst possible ending.
"Angels are supposed to be good at purification." Lilith turned to Auriel. "Think you could help him?"
Two consciousnesses in one body — she had no idea how to pry something like that apart. If no answer turned up, she'd have to honor Giles's request and end him with her own hands. So on the walk back to Verdant Spire she laid the situation out and asked.
Auriel took her time with it. "I don't know if it will work. But I can try."
"Good. I'll compensate you."
They weren't allies, after all. Cooperation, when interests happened to overlap — that was the extent of it, and Lilith preferred not to owe favors.
"Oh, come on." Blaise cut in at once. "None of that. We're friends. Friends don't bill each other for every little thing." His boss had never been good at saying this sort of thing herself, so he said it for her — then looked over. "Right, boss?"
Auriel nodded. "Yes. We're friends."
Lilith stopped and held out her hand.
"Then let's make it official."
Auriel regarded the offered hand for a beat, then took it.