Ragnar Vhagar's domain had found a new, comfortable rhythm. It was the rhythm of a well-oiled machine, designed for the sole purpose of grinding down the hopes and dreams of university students into a fine dust of experience points.
The first floor, his meticulously planned "Farm," operated like clockwork. Every six hours, a new party of twelve aspiring heroes would enter, kill some slimes, get roughed up by goblins, and leave with one ugly, but magical, D-Rank sword.
It was a stable, predictable, and profitable business. It was also becoming mind-numbingly boring. Ragnar, now a Level 4 Demon King, sat on his painfully uncomfortable obsidian throne, idly watching the latest batch of invaders get chased out of the Goblin Playground on his phone.
"Another successful transaction," he murmured to the empty Throne Room. Gary the kobold, who was trying to teach a newly spawned kobold how to chase its own tail, looked up and barked happily, as if he understood.
Ragnar felt a familiar itch. It was the same feeling he used to get in his old life after grinding in a video game for too long. The feeling that he was missing the real action. He was the king of his little pond, but he knew there was a whole ocean out there.
Out of sheer, curiosity, he closed the dungeon map and opened the public web browser. He navigated to "HeroGram," the social media platform that had become the number one place for heroes to post flashy victory selfies and brag about their new gear.
He typed in a name he had seen mentioned more and more often. Isabelle Thorne.
Her profile was the first result. The main picture was the same one that had made her famous: a shot of her from that first disastrous raid on his dungeon, her face a mask of fierce determination, her katana a blur of silver light. The caption beneath simply said, "The Blade of Aethelburg." Her follower count was in the hundreds of thousands.
He scrolled through her posts. They were a curated collection of heroic deeds. A picture of her and her team, "The Liberators," standing over the smoking crater of a defeated Demon King's domain. A short video of her cutting down an Orc with a single, perfect strike. A candid shot of her meditating in a dojo, the sunlight catching the polished steel of her blade. Each post was flooded with thousands of comments.
"You're our only hope, Isabelle!"
"The Sword Saint of Aethelburg! So cool!"
"Please come to Sector 9 next! The Demon King here is a giant frog and it's really gross!"
Ragnar scoffed. "Propaganda. It's all just brand management."
Then he saw the most recent post, uploaded less than an hour ago. It was a formal announcement from The Liberators. A picture of the team, looking serious and ready for battle. The text below made Ragnar's cold, vampiric blood run even colder.
"The Liberators have successfully purged the Blight of the Western Docks. Our fourth victory for the light. We thank the people of Aethelburg for their support. After a short period of rest and re-supply, we will be moving on to our fifth target. The time has come to cleanse the city of the cancerous growth known as 'The Farm' in Sector 7. Its master preys on the young and the desperate, using them for its own twisted growth. We will deliver justice."
Ragnar read the post again. And a third time. They were coming. Not just any heroes, but the heroes. The best in the city. Led by the one person from his old life who represented everything he wasn't: successful, respected, and good at things.
"Pixia!" he yelled.
The tiny pixie librarian zipped into the Throne Room, her huge glasses perched precariously on her nose. "Yes, my Lord? Is there an organizational issue with the new bookshelf placement?"
"Forget the bookshelves! Give me data!" he commanded, showing her the phone. "Isabelle Thorne. The Liberators. What do we know?"
Pixia floated closer, her eyes scanning the screen. Her expression turned grim. "My Lord, this is… problematic. Isabelle Thorne is currently listed as Level 13 on the public Hero Rankings. Her two main lieutenants are both Level 11. They are the highest-level party in this region."
Level 13. Ragnar was Level 4. The gap was a chasm. The fear he had worked so hard to bury began to stir again, a cold snake in his gut. "So they can walk in here and turn my entire dungeon into a parking lot. Fantastic."
"Not necessarily, my Lord," Pixia said, her academic tone cutting through his panic. "While the level gap is significant, you have a crucial advantage. I have analyzed the System's reward mechanics. Heroes gain levels, but their Bonus Point acquisition is far lower than ours. For every level you gain, you receive five BP. A hero only receives one. You are weaker now, but your potential for growth is five times greater. You are a Demon King.
You are designed for exponential growth. They are not."
The fear receded, replaced by cold, hard calculation. She was right. He wasn't just a monster in a dungeon; he was a different class of being entirely. He was a player character in a world full of NPCs.
"So I'm a late-game carry," Ragnar mused, the gamer terminology coming naturally.
"But the problem is, the enemy team is trying to gank me in the early game before I can farm my items."
He stood up from his throne, the boredom and complemacy was gone, replaced by a sharp, urgent focus. The days of passively running his little Farm were over. This was no longer a business. It was a war.
"Chloe," he sent the command through his mind, a focused pulse of will that he knew would cross the ruined city in an instant.
"Your expedition is over. Return to the Domain. Immediately. We have guests coming."
He looked at the sprawling map of his kingdom on the table. For weeks, Chloe and her elite squad had been out there, scouting the territories of other, weaker Demon Kings.
He had been planning a slow, methodical expansion. Now, that plan was in flames. All his resources, all his attention, had to be focused on one single, overwhelming threat.
Isabelle Thorne was coming to deliver justice.
Ragnar Vhagar looked at his army of monsters, at the strange, chaotic dungeon that was his fortress, and a slow, wicked grin spread across his pale, fanged face.
"Let her come," he whispered to the stone walls. "Let's see how her justice holds up against a sonic boom to the face."