Online Game: Starting With SSS-Ranked Summons

What they had yet to realize was that their queen no longer needed saving. She was dead. Worse still, she had been reborn in Arthur's service.

He glanced at the companions arrayed beside him. Pride stood tall, the legendary golden mane glowing. Beside him, the Cackle Queen waited, her once-loyal expression now twisted into one of unwavering obedience toward her new master. And then there was Aether, returned to his normal size.

He was longer in rage at the Cackle Queen; she had become one of his master's summons after all.

Arthur's voice rang with clarity and command. "End them. All of them. Quickly."

The summons responded instantly.

Pride leapt into action, his movements too fast for the eye to follow, a blur of golden death that ripped through the nearest cluster with absolute grace and violence. The Cackle Queen followed, her illusions turning the battlefield into a nightmare. The hyenas she once ruled now saw their deepest fears made real, their minds cracking under the weight of her manipulations.

The most bitter twist of all was that the very creature they had rushed to protect was now the architect of their destruction. They had run to save their queen, only to be slaughtered by her hands under another's command.

The psychological aspect of the betrayal crushed any last fragments of resistance. The few who realised the truth too late attempted to flee, but there was nowhere to run. The pack was already ensnared in a trap they could not have predicted.

Their cries grew quieter, more desperate, more confused. There were no heroes left among them.

No rallying calls. Only fear. Only chaos.

Until nothing was left.

The battle, if it could even be called one, lasted only minutes. When it ended, silence reclaimed the forest. Arthur stood at the centre of it all, surrounded by fading echoes of power and the scent of crushed earth and blood.

Meanwhile...On Earth.

The dimensional crisis had fundamentally reshaped the global power structure in ways that no political scientist or military strategist could have predicted. What had begun as a universal threat to human civilisation had evolved into a stark division between those who possessed protection and those who faced extinction alone.

The difference was like the day and the night.

The Fallen Nations

Across the globe, weaker countries and small, unknown nations had already succumbed to the demonic invasion with heartbreaking swiftness. Their limited military capabilities, outdated equipment, and lack of awakened individuals had made them easy targets for creatures that operated beyond conventional understanding.

The Republic of Moldavia had fallen within the first week, its capital city now nothing more than a smoking crater where sulfurous rifts poured endless streams of lesser demons into the European countryside. The government had evacuated what civilians they could before the final collapse, but most of the population simply vanished into the chaos that consumed their homeland.

Small island nations in the Pacific had disappeared entirely from satellite imagery, their territories now showing only dark water where thriving communities had existed for generations. Whether the demons had sunk them beneath the waves or transformed them into something unrecognisable remained unknown.

Nobody had the time or manpower to send their troops on reconnaissance missions to these areas. They had simply become barren land, forgotten and not to be looked at until months or perhaps years later.

In Central Africa, several nations whose names had rarely appeared in international headlines were now marked as "communication lost" on United Nations status boards. Chad, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan had gone silent within the first rifts opening, their governments either destroyed or forced into exile while demonic forces claimed vast territories.

The tragedy wasn't just governmental collapse. It was the complete erasure of cultures, languages, and peoples who had survived for millennia only to be eliminated by forces from other dimensions.

Archaeological sites older than recorded history were now battlegrounds where ancient human heritage crumbled beneath the demon's terror.

Even some supposedly stronger nations had suffered catastrophic losses. Greece had lost most of its territory to the rift that opened near Athens, forcing the government to relocate to Crete while demons occupied the mainland. The historical significance of sites like the Parthenon and Delphi made their loss particularly devastating to global cultural heritage.

Portugal's northern regions had been overrun by aquatic demons that emerged from Atlantic rifts, forcing mass evacuations toward Spain and leaving entire provinces underwater. The demons seemed to thrive in coastal environments, making traditional maritime defenses useless against creatures that could operate both above and below the waterline.

In stark contrast to the global devastation, the countries that had chosen to align themselves with Arthur Fate experienced conditions that bordered on miraculous. Instead of destruction and despair, they were witnessing unprecedented growth in both military capability and civilian protection.

Among each other, the nations that allied with Arthur had started making nicknames for each other. China's nickname was The Serpent's Garden because of Sylvaris's presence.

President Feng watched from his command center as reports flooded in from across Chinese territory, each update more remarkable than the last. Sylvaris, the superior-rank serpent that Arthur had assigned to their protection, had transformed from a helper into something approaching the nation's ultimate guardian.

"Sir," General Liu approached with excitement, "the northwestern provinces report that entire military units are advancing multiple levels. Soldiers who were struggling with basic awakening techniques are now demonstrating capabilities that exceed our most optimistic projections."

The serpent's hunting methodology had created an unexpected benefit. Rather than simply eliminating demons, Sylvaris would wound them precisely and then guide Chinese military units to deliver finishing blows. This cooperative approach allowed human forces to gain experience and levels at rates that would have been impossible through conventional training.

"Regimental Commander Zhang reports his unit has gained an average of six levels each in the past hours," Liu continued with obvious amazement. "The commander is reporting faster rift closures. After the first rift closed, Sylvaris had headed to the second...then third, and so on. We have already closed five rifts and made hundreds of new awakeners capable of fighting those demons in pairs."