“How dare you… Do you know who I am?!” Rudolf yelled, his voice taut with indignation. “I am the son of Marquis Blitzen! I was born a noble from the Fifth Heaven! You dare capture me, you low-born tyrant—”

  “Oh, look at this!” Burn interjected with a throaty chuckle as one of Dirk’s men, garbed in the heavy armor of his knights, presehe sed White Dwarf, just uhed from the junior fleet admiral’s private ship. The figure's helmet glinted menagly in the dim light, a stinging trast to Rudolf’s blustering.

  Burn immediately cradled the on like a precious treasure, finally toug and examining it up close. “Another White Dwarf! How delightful!”

  Thaddeus frowned, his visage tightening.

  After losing one of those formidable p-destroying ons, he had been rag his brain for a strategy to recover it. Yet here was Rudolf, unwittingly tossing another on into the mix, all while getting himself captured.

  “Caliburn Pendragon, what is the meaning of this?” Thaddeus sharply asked, his voice a deep rumble, cloaked in wariness yet tinged with frustration.

  Letting his junior coct a solution had been quite the miscalcution. Asking for the return of the lost on? How quaint. They were dealing with a tyrant, a man infamous for single-handedly decimating the first wave of the Alliaroops.

  He should’ve known.

  “Oh, please,” Burn mocked, his voice a deep, teasing growl. “Didn’t you lose a White Dwarf to a gaggle of meraries i on g my life? And now you have the gall to send your little junior on a retrieval mission?”

  Thaddeus had reservations about Rudolf personally desding to recim the on, especially given the young man's hubris. heless, the d had insisted he could engage in a discussion with the tyrant—always the optimist.

  The senior admiral had to aowledge Rudolf’s audacity suited a mission like this, coupled with his knack for dising what others wanted. Yet, it seemed the tyrant’s shamelessness outstripped even Rudolf’s.

  The demands the tyrant made might’ve been so eous that not even the Alliance could possibly meet them.

  “What do you want?” Thaddeus asked, his tone a simmering cauldron of fury.

  Burn shrugged with an air of un. “There’s nothing you provide that could possibly intrigue me. It was you who lost the on, after all. Why are you so surprised that I have zero iion of returning it?”

  “Well, yes, it wasly a heartfelt handoff from you to me, but still, you lost it, I found it. Seems fair enough, wouldn’t you agree? A’s not fet it was meant to terminate me,” Burn remarked, handing the on back to one of Dirk’s ckeys. “You asked what I want? Isn’t it clear?”

  Thaddeus opened his mouth to unleash a retort but was interrupted by Mahkato stepping forward, her presence radiating an uling calm.

  “I uand now,” she said. “It seems our fleet mispced the treasure we so generously entrusted to them, and it vely found its way into your hands.”

  Thaddeus bowed his head, a statue of defeat. This was the epitome of disastrous outes, and he knew his days were numbered as soon as this video transmission cut off. Mahkato’s reputation for benevolence was well-know she was notoriously difficult to manage.

  “You may keep the on. It’s not as if we’re running low on such tris,” Mahkato said suddenly, leaving Thaddeus and the others in stunned silence.

  “Lady Mahkato—”

  She raised a hand, sileng him. “But my dear barbarian, might I inquire about yrand design behiaining our admiral and dug a raid on his personal vessel?”

  Her words dripped with menace, and it was a threat den with substance—a far cry from mere bluster. Sure, he took the on they’d lost, but detaining an officer of the Alliance who’d e to iate? Bold move.

  “Oh, this guy?” Burn chuckled, a humorless spark in his eyes. “Well, it seems he thought he could wreak havo this world with the shiny tri he brought the moment I refused to return the first one you mispced.”

  At that, Rudolf’s expression morphed, his eyes bugging out like someone caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Shame, anger, and a dash ance flickered across his face. “It was you who rejected the Alliance’s generous offer! I suggested helping you quer the nd, and you—!”

  “Do I look like I need help?” Burn shot back, his tone so cold it could freeze fire.

  Mahkato couldn’t help but marvel. This man harbored an unwavering belief in his own invincibility. Surviving the White Dwarf’s assault? Apparently, that was enough to elevate him to godhood in his own mind, infting his ego to grandiose proportions.

  But as, even with suidable power, he was merely a frog perched at the bottom of his own well, oblivious to the vastness outside.

  “But it seems you really don’t care about this world, do you?” Burn said, a hint of mockery g his words. “After all, what could possibly captivate the minds of people like you in this barbarian’s realm? A’s be ho, you wouldn’t have bothered with a world-destroying on like the White Dwarf if your iion was merely to set up shop here.”

  There were two deliciously pointed implications in Burn’s words. First, he uood that there was something the outsider desired in this world and, ingly, he didn’t pn to reveal that he k was Man. It was far more eaining to appear curious, to feign ignorance about their true iions.

  Sed, the deployment of not o two White Dwarfs made it abundantly clear just how much they valued this little p. Burn was all too aware of its significe.

  The very presence of that world-destroyer roof that their ambitions weren’t merely about g dominion—oh no—they were prepared to obliterate this pce if their grand desig awry.

  They were uandably cautious about the source of power they sought, yet the allure of it was evidently too intoxig to resist. This world existed merely as a pop-up in the rger saga, but Rudolf Blitzen appeared blissfully unaware of his supp role.

  “Nonsense!” Rudolf howled, his indignation ricocheting off the walls. “Even if I were remotely tempted to raze this world to the ground, it’s obvious it’s doomed anyway! These backeasants—how dare they question the great Alliand capture me, the illustrious offspring of Marquis Blitzen!”

  Yet here stood Burn, an audacious thorn in their grandiose pns, someoh enough audacity to challehe universe’s most formidable army.

  He uhed his sword. “You waltzed into my peaceful little backyard, and even after I silenced your ramblings once, you think tain? Clearly, you’ve not grasped the cept of ‘lesson learned.’”

  Rudolf’s bravado crumbled as Burn strode doweps of his throform, bck swleaming ominously. “No… no! You ’t be serious! I am Rudolf Blitzen! My father is—”

  Burn lifted his sword high, i on delivering justice personally. But just as the bde desded—

  “Enough!”

  Mahkato’s voice sliced through the tension.

  “Return the fleet admiral to us, and we’ll bury this little i. You keep the White Dwarf you sged, but I insist you return the one you pilfered from his personal vessel,” she cluded.

  Burn stopped, sword still poised for a performanly he could appreciate. Not just yet, it seemed.

  “Junior Fleet Admiral Rudolf Blitzen shall have his title and duties stripped. He was never saned to threaten or harm the tranquil world of hermere; he simply overstepped, wielding his status like a blunt instrument,” Mahkato stated, log her gaze onto Burn’s, uerred.

  tinuing, she added with a smirk, “Surely this should tickle yhteous anger enough to satisfy, my dear barbarian?”