Chapter 76: The Cage is Open
The victory over Queen Alyssa was absolute.
It was a conquest so total, so devastating, that a strange, almost unsettling calm had fallen over my newly expanded kingdom.
My remaining rivals, the lesser Demon Kings cowering in their isolated domains, had clearly seen the news. They went silent, pulling back their forces, hoping the new, terrifying monster of Aethelburg wouldn’t notice them.
For a week, I was a king at peace.
It was the most boring week of my afterlife.
I sat on my throne, now relocated to the much more comfortable, if slightly less imposing, crystal throne of my defeated rival, and tried to find something to do.
I had my goblins sort my vast, newly acquired library by the color of the book spines, a project that ended in a city-wide paper-cut epidemic.
I had my Orcs engage in a "strongest monster" tournament, which they loved, but it mostly involved them hitting each other with large rocks until one of them fell over, which lacked a certain tactical nuance.
I was a king. A conqueror. The undisputed ruler of my city.
And I was going slowly, existentially insane from the sheer, mind-numbing lack of conflict.
"This is it, isn’t it?" I said to Pixia, who was happily cataloging the different types of dust in the Crystal Spire. "This is the endgame. I’ve won the tutorial island. Now I just sit here and manage my resources until the heat death of the universe."