How to survive in the Romance Fantasy Game

Chapter 641: Spirit Kings Interlude

What was a Spirit King?

They were not mere spirits, nor familiars, nor guardians.

They were the physical embodiment of nature itself—a consciousness naturally born from the world, shaped by the element they ruled.

A primordial existence whose very presence warped reality, whose authority carried the conceptual weight of their domain.

If one said water, then a Spirit King of Water represented all bodies of water in the world.

If one said fire, then their authority was tied to every flame in existence.

To stand before such a being was to stand before the laws that governed life.

And to form a contract with one wasn’t a pact—it was like willingly accepting the full weight of the ocean, the sun, or the storm onto a human soul.

Humans were not meant to even perceive them, let alone withstand their presence.

Yet here in front of Stacia... stood a Sea Dragon—a Spirit King.

”Ugh...!”

Stacia’s breath tore out of her lungs as her knees slammed against the heated stone.

Her body bowed forward uncontrollably, fingers scraping the stage as if she were being dragged beneath an unseen tide.

Her lungs burned.

Her bones creaked.

Her heartbeat staggered.

It felt as if she had been thrown into the deepest, blackest abyss of the ocean where light could not reach—where the crushing weight of the sea devoured everything.

But she was still on the stage.

She could see it.

She could hear the roaring crowd.

She could feel the heat of her own flames licking her skin.

And yet the pressure was real. Overwhelmingly real.

What’s going on!?

Her vision blurred as she forced her head up.

Above her was the colossal serpent.

Scales that resembled a shifting sea.

Golden reptilian eyes that glowed like twin suns beneath the ocean.

A head as massive as a mountain, rising and falling with the slow, suffocating rhythm of ancient tides.

And that gaze...

It was looking right at her.

Her heartbeat skipped—then stuttered.

Can they not see it...?

She forced her gaze sideways, struggling to focus on the audience.

The crowd watched with widened eyes—not in terror of a Spirit King but purely at her, at Stacia, who had been dominating moments ago and was now unexpectedly crushed to the ground.

”W-Woah! What the heck just happened!?”

”Stacia—! She suddenly collapsed!?”

”She was clearly winning a moment ago—why did she fall!?”

The announcer’s panicked voice echoed loudly:

”Stacia, who had the overwhelming advantage just seconds prior, has suddenly dropped to her knees! What is happening!?”

They didn’t see it.

They didn’t feel it.

They didn’t hear the suffocating roar shaking her very soul.

Am I the only one...?

She tried to scream but no sound came out—only a strained gasp as more blood dripped from her lips and onto the ground.

It became clear.

She alone could see the Sea Dragon.

She alone was being crushed beneath a Spirit King’s authority.

’Looks like the battle is over...’

A voice—her voice, yet heavier, older, soaked in experience she had not yet lived—echoed through the empty, collapsing corners of Stacia’s mind.

’If only you lent me your body for a bit, things might have played out differently. All the advice I gave you beforehand—how to counter Flamme’s unpredictable nature, how to read her mana when she shifts into stealth—seems to have been wasted. But then again... even if I did interfere, I doubt the outcome would change. After all, even you can’t handle me properly.’

”Tch...”

Stacia clicked her tongue inwardly. Even thinking hurt. Her skull felt like it was being crushed by the weight of a dying ocean, her breath squeezed out of her lungs by the sheer divinity pressing her down. She wanted nothing more than to collapse and fade out.

’...Why didn’t you use the technique I painstakingly hammered into your body? The one I bled to engrave in your soul?’

Her future self’s tone sharpened. Stacia winced.

She knew. She really did.

If she had opened with the Hidden Blade technique—if she had used that one move without hesitation—the entire fight would have tilted in her favor.

She would have carved through Flamme’s defenses before the spirit even had time to react.

But...

It would’ve been disrespectful, she whispered back in her mind. I wanted to win with my own strength...

’You learned the technique from me. That makes it part of your strength. You are me. I am you. There is no cheating involved.’

I know...

She knew that too.

She knew it painfully well.

Every moment she spent practicing that technique had nearly broken her—mentally, magically, physically.

She had pushed herself through sleepless nights, through mana backlash, through the mental ”engraving” that the future her had forced into her mind.

She had secretly endured hell.

And yet...

Even with all that suffering, that didn’t change the truth.

It still isn’t mine...

Those engravements—those memories of a world destroyed, that future self who had lived through calamity—belonged to an existence far beyond what Flamme had experienced. Beyond what anyone here had lived.

And even though those memories did not physically alter her body... the experience they provided was monstrous in scale.

Deep down, Stacia felt it.

Using that knowledge freely—relying on experiences from a world that no longer existed—felt like cheating.

Like she was using a weapon no one else even had the chance to comprehend.

And Stacia... hated the thought of that.

She wanted to win as herself, not as a shadow of what she might become.

Flamme’s eyes widened as the sudden surge of heat washed over her like a living inferno, scorching the air itself.

The suffocating pressure of Neru’s aura still crushed Stacia’s lungs... and yet—

Despite kneeling, despite bleeding, despite being a heartbeat away from collapsing—

She laughed.

A low, distorted laugh—layered, echoing, as if two voices were speaking through one trembling body.

”Kekeke... well would you look at that,” Stacia replied, her tone no longer her own.

Her head hung low at first, hair shadowing her face, before she slowly lifted her gaze—

revealing eyes that had shifted from crimson to molten, blazing gold.

”I never knew... the snake already chose a child.”

A chill stabbed Flamme’s spine.

”Huh?”

What—child? Who?

Her confusion lasted less than a second before she instinctively took a step back. In that instant, right behind Stacia, she saw it—

A massive wolf-like silhouette.

A towering beast of flames and moonlight, with fangs jagged like broken stars.

Its presence flickered for a mere heartbeat—yet it felt like the world trembled.

’Master, GET AWAY IMMEDIATELY!’

Neru’s panicked roar exploded inside Flamme’s consciousness.

But she was too slow.

FWOOOOM!!!

Stacia’s flames burst outward in a violent wave—no, not flames.

This was something far beyond the crimson fire she’d been using before.

This was heat so intense it warped space, golden-white in color, molten and divine, surging upward like a newborn sun erupting from the earth.

The stage trembled. Steel barriers bowed inward.

Even the spectator wards flickered violently, nearly shattering.

Flamme shielded her face with her arm as her skin blistered just by proximity.

”W-What the hell—?!”

The mana sphere in her hand evaporated instantly.

Stacia slowly stood, no longer trembling—

no longer suffocating—

no longer weighed down by the Sea Dragon’s pressure.

The pressure was still there.

Brutal. Crushing. Enough to kill any human on the spot—

Yet the girl stood straight.

Because the thing inside her...

the entity that had spoken...

was pushing back against Neru’s illusionary might.

The golden flames swirling around Stacia roared like a feral storm, forming the faint shape of a wolf’s maw behind her.

She stepped forward.

The ground melted.

She exhaled.

The air ignited.

And with a grin far too sharp and wild to belong to the Stacia everyone knew, she whispered—

”Let’s continue the fight... little snake.”

Flamme’s blood ran cold.

Neru’s presence behind her screamed.

And the entire arena braced as the duel shifted into something far more terrifying than anyone expected.

...

”My~ my~ this is getting out of hand~”

A whimsical, echoing voice drifted into the frozen atmosphere, followed by the sudden pop of a floating cat’s head appearing beside Alice.

Wisps of grey smoke curled around its form like lazy tendrils of mist.

”Cheshire...” Alice muttered, exhaling as though she had been waiting for him.

”Hello, master~” the cat spirit chimed, grinning wide enough for his sharp teeth to glimmer. His tail—despite the fact that he currently had no body—somehow swayed like a phantom silhouette. ”Seeing as how absurd the situation is right now, I assume Riley did something again?”

”No... hah... surprisingly, this entire unexpected scenario is because of my two juniors over there.”

”Hoh~? Well, that is truly a surprise.” Cheshire’s grin widened with genuine amusement. He rotated in the air like a spinning coin before stopping, eyes narrowing mischievously as he observed the chaotic battlefield. ”If you called me out immediately... do you want me to go have a little chat with those two idiots?”

”Please do,” Alice sighed. ”I can’t use my authority any more openly than this. I don’t know how badly I’ll influence everyone nearby if I keep reality frozen for too long.”

Indeed—at the moment, the entire arena was caught in an artificial silence.

Every spectator, every student, even the announcers... all frozen mid-breath.

All because Alice had quietly force-activated her Authority over Reality, weaving a delicate stasis that prevented the partially summoned Spirit Kings’ presence from crushing the entire audience to death.

With the Sea Dragon’s spiritual pressure and the Burning Wolf’s flames creeping across the stage, the bystanders wouldn’t have survived even a second without Alice’s intervention.

Cheshire floated closer, examining the scene with a dramatic squint.

”Hmmm~ freezing the whole world for just two little rascals—how loving of you, master.”

”Just go,” Alice said with a tired laugh.

Cheshire nodded once, then his grin grew feral—stretching unnaturally wide as cracks of crimson light split across his form.

His fluffy head rippled like molten wax, melting and reshaping until—

A crimson-red feline silhouette stood floating upright in the air, claws extended like blades forged of pure authority.

”Alrighty then~”

His voice deepened, resonating like overlapping echoes.

”I’ll go talk to the lads.”

With that, he vanished in a smear of red light.

Alice, still in her Red Queen state—her eyes glowing with absolute dominance—watched the two partially summoned Spirit Kings looming over the stage.

’Looks like all my juniors are absurd geniuses...’

A faint, proud smile tugged at the corner of her lips—even as reality itself trembled around them.