In the Hall, Gorr started laughing. It started as a rumble, then turned into a full-blown, tectonic roar. She slammed her hand on the table, cracking it in half.

“BWAHAHAHA! HE BOUGHT YOU A STATUE! HE PAID FOR YOUR BILLBOARD!”

The Druid looked at Red with genuine terror. “You… you beat his algorithm.”

Aurelius turned slowly to look at Red. His face wasn’t… red, it was… purple. The veins in his neck bulged. His perfect composure was shattered into a million pieces.

“You…” Aurelius shrieked, pointing a trembling finger. “YOU TRICKED ME!”

Red finally stood up. He buttoned his jacket. Iron-Scale handed him his cane, which Red didn’t need, but it looked cool.

Red walked up to Aurelius. He looked up at his own giant statue, then down at the seething Golden King.

“I didn’t trick you,” Red said calmly. “I just existed.”

He leaned in close.

“Thanks for the donation, ‘Prodigy’. Your plaza needed a centerpiece.”

The Hall of the Pantheon was frozen in a tableau of absolute shock. The massive statue of Red, looking bored and flipping a coin, cast a long shadow over the weeping Aurelius.

[ SYSTEM MANDATE: ACHIEVEMENT PROTOCOL ]

[ APEX THRONE AUTHORITY TRANSFERRED TO: RUBEDO (RANK 3) ]

A beam of violet light descended from the ceiling, illuminating Red. The System wasn’t asking, it was ordering. The one who held the “Fastest Ascension” record was the MVP of the session.

Red sighed, buttoning his suit jacket. He tapped his cane on the floor. “Iron-Scale. Hold my drink.”

He began the long walk up the floating marble stairs toward the Apex Throne.

Halfway up the stairs, Red met Aurelius. The Golden King was shaking, his fists clenched, tears of pure rage steaming on his face.

“YOU!” Aurelius screamed, spittle flying. “You rigged it! You hacked the System! There is no way a swamp-rat climbs faster than the Sun!”

Red stopped on the step above him, looking down. “I didn’t rig anything, Aurelius. I didn’t even place the bet.”

“You stole my moment!” Aurelius shrieked. “That statue cost me 500,000 DP! That was my war chest! That was my legacy!”

“And it’s a beautiful legacy,” Red said calmly. “You paid half a million Divine Power to prove that I’m better than you. That’s not theft, Aurelius. That’s a donation.”

He leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper that only the Golden King could hear.

“Next time, check the leaderboards before you bet the house. Arrogance is an expensive hobby.”

Red walked past him, his shoulder brushing against the golden armor.

He walked up the final stair and stood before the Apex Throne. It was a seat of blinding white light, reserved for the Administrator.

He sat down. He crossed his leg over the other and leaned to the side with his hand on the armrest and his face resting on them.

Aurelius stood there, hyperventilating. He looked up at the Apex Throne, now occupied by the man in the black suit. He looked at the Low Floor which was filled with the ‘peasants’ he had mocked.

He couldn’t go down there. The humiliation would kill him.

So, he floated sideways. He drifted toward the High Balcony (Rank 11-20). He hovered next to Sylara, who shrank away from his boiling aura.

“I will stand here,” Aurelius hissed, trying to regain a shred of dignity. “I am still a King. I belong on the High Floor.”

Red, now seated comfortably on the massive golden throne, tapped the armrest interface.

[ ADMIN COMMAND: SEATING ARRANGEMENT ]

“Actually,” Red’s voice boomed through the hall, amplified by the throne. “The Balcony is for registered High Rankers. You, Aurelius, are currently the… ‘Court Jester’ of this session.”

Red pointed a finger downward.

“The basement is waiting.”

[ GRAVITY INCREASE: TARGET AURELIUS ]

“NO! YOU CAN’T—”

WHOOSH.

Aurelius dropped like a stone. He didn’t float down gracefully; he plummeted. He slammed into the marble floor of the Low Ranks, right between the Pebble God and the Magma-Kin.

The Low Ranks backed away, but their eyes were shining with vindictive glee. “Welcome to the mud,” the Pebble God whispered.

Aurelius stood up, his cape tattered, his face burning. If this weren’t a Truce Zone—if the System didn’t disable all combat abilities—he would have gone supernova. He would have vaporized the entire Nexus. But he could do nothing. He had to stand there, shoulder-to-shoulder with the very trash he had insulted, vibrating with impotent fury.

From the high throne, Red looked down at the balcony. Sylara was still trembling slightly, her large black eyes wide with shock.

Red leaned forward, his voice softening. The amplification cut out, leaving a gentle, conversational tone.

“The Sun is gone,” Red said to her. “It’s just the Shadow now. Better?”

It was a casual remark. A polite check-in. But to Sylara, the Queen of Fungi who lived in the dark damp forests, who had been hounded by the blinding, burning Aurelius for years… it was poetry.

Her cheeks flushed a deep, bioluminescent blue. She looked up at Red, clutched her spore-shawl, and nodded frantically.

“Much… much better,” she squeaked. “Thank you… Lord Rubedo.”

Down at the bar on the Low Floor, Gorr watched this interaction. She was holding a new stone tankard.

CRACK.

The handle snapped off in her hand. Powdered stone drifted onto the table.

“Careful, Stone Mother,” the Rotting Druid muttered, eyeing her. “You’re leaking gravel.”

“Shut up,” Gorr grumbled, staring daggers at the balcony. “The air conditioning is too strong in here. It makes my joints brittle.”

Red sat back in the Apex Throne. It was comfortable. It molded to his spectral form.

But inside his mind, he was screaming.

‘I am sitting on the Throne of Gods. I am presiding over a meeting of 50 Deities. And I have absolutely no idea how this game works.’

But the view from the top was terrifying.

He looked down at the sea of faces. Gorr. The Druid. Aurelius. Sylara. Fifty gods looked up at him. Fifty players with decades, maybe centuries, of experience. And Red was just a guy in a suit who had read a lot of wiki pages about logistics.

‘They are Players. They know the meta. They know the patch notes. They know the lore… if it existed.’

But Red was a guy who got kidnapped from a reunion party and was winging it with a PhD in Logistics and a lot of repressed anger.

‘If I mess this up,’ Red thought, sweating under his suit, ‘they’ll realize I’m a noob. They’ll eat me alive.’

He glared down at Aurelius, who was currently kicking a pebble in frustration.

‘Damn you, Goldilocks. I wanted to stay in the corner and trade paste. You forced me into the spotlight.’

He took a deep breath. ‘Fake it till you make it. Act like the CEO.’

Red picked up the obsidian tablet attached to the throne. He swiped past the “Statue Protocol” notifications.

“Alright,” Red announced, his voice steady and commanding. “Let’s get this over with. We have a schedule to keep.”

He read the next line on the glowing screen.

“Agenda Item 3:” Red paused, raising an eyebrow. “The Northern Glitch and… Sector Boundary Disputes.”

Red leaned forward, resting his chin on his hand. He channeled his inner boardroom executive.

“Since Aurelius’s ‘Grand Alliance’ was obviously a pyramid scheme,” Red said dryly, “let’s discuss actual solutions. Who has intel on the pixel-loss in the North?”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep