*DING* *DING* *DING*
A loud fanfare rang in Maria's ear that signified a world announcement being broadcast throughout the entire planet. In the next moment, a system window screen appeared in front of Maria that announced her incredible accomplishment of defeating the continent's Blood Lord and essentially taking on the position of the continent's ruler for herself.
*DING*
*DING*
*DING*
Maria was paralyzed so she couldn’t dismiss the system window which allowed her viewers to see it.
Maria raised her hand and strained herself to dismiss all of the important notification windows that appeared in front of her, but despite being a world announcement, no one else heard it except for her and the people tuning into her stream because she was literally the only person on the planet.
It was a World Announcement and not a System/Server Announcement, so it wasn't broadcasted throughout the entire game's server. Maria thought that perhaps others in the game would hear about it, but when she didn't receive any messages from any of her friends asking her about it, she assumed that the announcement was limited to only the planet she was on, Vanhal. She thought that this was a good thing because it bought her some time for now.
Her rule over the continent still wasn't completely cemented despite what the world announcement said. There was bound to be some rebellious people out there that wouldn't acknowledge her rule, so she needed some time to deal with them and firmly establish herself as the continent's Blood Queen.
It would be bad if the game's entire player base found out and tried to disrupt her plans by finding some kind of way to get to the Vanhal continent ahead of time. The only known way to get to the next Main Scenario Planet was to complete the previous Main Scenario Planet's main quest line.
At the moment, the entire player base on Gaia was taking it easy, but if they heard the system announcement, everyone, especially those pioneer players, would do everything they can to quickly clear Gaia's main quest line so that they could arrive on Vanhal a lot faster. If they arrived too quickly, it could disrupt some of Maria's future plans and she couldn't have that happen.
Of course, the players in her stream saw and heard the World Announcement, but since she set the stream to members-only, this meant that the ones watching right now were those that were her loyal viewers, so she hoped that no one would speak about it. Of course, this was a na?ve wish and sooner or later, the cat would be let out of the bag. The only thing she could do was tell her viewers to keep silent about what they saw and pray that they listened to her.
"E-Everyone...please... keep...what you all...saw today...a secret...th-thanks..."
Maria smiled at the chat before turning her head over and calling out to Ash, “A-Ash…”
Ash immediately appeared next to Maria and carefully picked her up, “M-My Queen, that was far too reckless!”
He wanted to support his Queen earlier, but everything happened so fast that he couldn’t keep up. Instead of dipping his hand into the fast-paced battle, he decided to just wait and not mess up Maria’s rhythm.
“I…I know…but I did it… Ehehehe…” Maria said with a strained but happy smile. “…go check your wife’s…condition. Maybe…she can still…be saved.”
He hesitated for a moment before answering, “...Yes.”
Ash didn’t have much hope for his wife’s condition. Garm had used her body as a vessel to manifest its true form into the world and after being ruthlessly executed by Maria, he just didn’t think that there was anything left of his wife’s body. Naturally, the sword that held Garm’s evil spirit was an exception because he doubted that the Progenitor’s ancient artifact could be destroyed so easily.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
At least, that’s what he thought, but things turned out to be much different from his expectations because after searching through the crater that was caused by Maria’s skill, he was able to find Elizabeth’s body completely intact while the demon sword that held Garm’s evil spirit laid a few meters away from her, surprisingly in poor condition. It was like all of the damage that should’ve been done to Elizabeth was transferred onto the demonic sword.
Ash approached Elizabeth cautiously but after noticing that the connection between her and the evil spirit, Garm, had been completely severed, he quickly went over to her side. He pulled out a large piece of cloth from his inventory and laid it onto the ground before gently placing Maria on top of it.
“Just hurry up and go to her, I’m fine,” Maria said.
“Yes, my Queen…”
Ash rushed over to Elizabeth’s side before taking her into his arms extremely carefully. He checked whether she was still alive and, thankfully, he was able to feel her lifeforce.
“Thank goodness…”
Just as Ash let out a relieved breath, something unexpected happened. The demonic sword, Garm, suddenly began to stir before it shot towards Maria, who was lying defenselessly on the ground.
“No, my Queen!”
“Ugh!”
Maria couldn’t move at all, so she could only watch in horror as the sword rapidly approached her. She tried raising her arms to block it but the sword stabbed right through them and pierced right into her chest.
“AHH!!!”
*DING*
The notification window that appeared right after the sword embedded itself into Maria’s body was off. Her HP was only 1% but she didn’t die from being stabbed by the sword.
“W-What’s going on?”
The demonic sword continued to pierce into Maria’s body but, after the initial pain, she didn’t feel hurt anymore.
“Huh?”
The sword disappeared into her chest as it didn’t come out of her back, so she couldn’t understand what happened.
“W-Where is it?”
*DING*
Maria was puzzled to see this notification window. She had to quickly dismiss it because Ash had come running over to her with Elizabeth in his arms.
“M-My Queen! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Ash…”
“But the sword, it stabbed you just now. Are you sure you’re fine?” Ash worriedly asked.
“Stop…”
Maria was still weary from her battle and with all of the debuffs she was suffering from her penalty, she couldn’t say too much but that one word immediately stopped Ash from trying to inspect her body. The injury she received earlier after being stabbed by that sword had disappeared as if it was an illusion. It was good that nothing happened to her and she just obtained something at the end of that heart-dropping experience.
She saw her life flash before her eyes that moment earlier and thought she was going to die. Thankfully, that didn’t happen and she was able to keep her life. Whether obtaining this soul weapon named Syn was good or not, Maria was going to figure that out later because, right now, she just wanted some rest.
“Ash…”
“Yes, my Queen?”
“Tell everyone… to occupy…and secure the castle.”
Ash wanted to protest but seeing the look in his queen’s eyes, he wasn’t able to refuse her, so after setting down Elizabeth next to Maria, he teleported out of the hall to go pass down Maria’s orders.
*DING*
*DING*
*DING*
Maria was a bit confused by the [Vengeance and Justice] completion rate, but after remembering that the goal was to help Ash kill Siegfried, she understood why it was only 75%.
Siegfried had already been killed, so Ash wasn’t able to fight him. Instead, he had to fight his wife, who was possessed by the evil spirit, Garm. The rewards were calculated and distributed together, so despite having only a 75% completion rate, Maria was still able to receive an abundant amount of rewards thanks to her other quest’s completion rate. She dismissed all of the windows in front of her before looking wearily up to the ceiling.
“E-Everyone, I'll be...ending...the stream now. I'm...exhausted...” Maria said, completely out of breath. She said a few parting words and thanked them for supporting her and promising to keep everything they saw today a secret. She promised her viewers that she would stream again later after a few days once she got some rest to read the donations and thanking everyone for supporting her. She also informed them that the stream's VOD would be deleted for safe measure.
"The VOD...will be reuploaded...once I've settled my matters...here on Vanhal. Thanks...for understanding, everyone... Good bye for now~" With those parting words, Maria tapped on the 'End Stream' button.
Once the stream ended, David quickly deleted the stream's VOD as per his lady's orders and informed her that he would keep an eye on the game's forums to make sure that no one was talking about what they saw on her stream and deleting any threads that was trying to discuss what happened.
Maria tiredly thanked him and closed her eyes in exhaustion. After a while, she opened them and just stared dazedly up at the ceiling before mumbling to herself, “I should get some sleep after this...or else I'm going to get a headache later…”
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