Time froze.
Or so it felt to Yuan Lin.
The sound of his colleagues' keyboards clicking.
The hum of the air conditioner.
Even the buzz of the fluorescent light above his head.
Everything faded into a muffled white noise.
There was only him.
His cheap office chair that suddenly felt like an electric throne.
And that message, burning in his field of vision.
[My Lord...? Your first command? We have waited ten thousand years for it.]
Xue's words were elegant, but they were as heavy as a thousand rocks, crushing his soul.
Ten thousand years.
They had been waiting for ten thousand years, and he didn't even know what he was going to eat for dinner tonight.
A wave of cold panic began to crawl up from the base of his spine, spreading to his limbs.
He felt a coldness in his fingers.
A sharp, metallic taste in his mouth.
He tried to swallow, but his throat was as dry as sandpaper.
The beat of his heart was deafening in his ears, the frantic rhythm of a war drum announcing his imminent end.
"This isn't real", was the first, desperate thought he clung to, like a drowning man grasping at a straw.
"It's a hallucination. Eye strain. Maybe a minor stroke. Yes, that makes more sense than a demonic chat group in my head."
He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping the image would disappear when he opened them.
But the gothic interface remained there, fixed in the darkness behind his eyelids.
He opened his eyes. It was still there, glowing with its malicious purple sheen.
He tried to shake his head violently, a small, crazed movement. Maybe he could "dislodge" the image from his field of view.
It didn't move a millimeter.
It was stuck to his consciousness, a part of his sight, a part of him.
He moved from denial to anger.
A helpless, frantic anger.
He was Yuan Lin, IT support expert. The man who could dismantle a complex computer virus in minutes. The man who understood logic and code.
How could his mind be hijacked this way?
He felt a deep violation, as if someone had broken into the most sacred place in his existence—his mind—and left their muddy shoes on the carpet.
"Alright, alright, you genius hacker!" he screamed in his mind, directing his anger at the unknown System. "You win. Great prank. You can stop now. Give me back my brain and I'll install whatever stupid promotional software you want."
No reply came.
Only that message from Xue, waiting.
And the small cursor blinking beside it was like the ticking of a clock approaching midnight, the night of his execution.
Then came the despair.
A cold, black wave that completely submerged him.
A million Chaos Points.
One year.
Or soul erasure.
They weren't just words. He felt their truth, their absolute coldness.
Death was something he knew. But "soul erasure"? "Soul disintegration"?
This meant he wouldn't just die, but his entire existence would be wiped clean, as if he had never been.
There would be no afterlife, no reincarnation, nothing. Just an eternal void.
He thought of his boring life, of his parents whom he visited once a month, of the dying cactus on his desk.
Even these small, miserable things, he now felt a painful nostalgia for them, a nostalgia for something that was about to be snatched away from him forever.
This was the real terror.
The terror of becoming just a 404 error in the records of the universe.
"Calm down. Think," he whispered to himself, his voice barely audible. "You have to think."
He had to reply.
Silence was not an option.
A long silence from a lord who had been gone for ten thousand years might be interpreted as wisdom.
But silence from a new "vessel" might be interpreted as a malfunction.
And they might decide to "reboot" the vessel, a term he did not want to know the meaning of.
What to say?
What is the first command a demon lord issues after a long slumber?
His mind, in its panic, began to display absurd options.
"My first command... is for all of you to take a mandatory cybersecurity training course?" He mentally slapped himself. "Stop thinking like an IT support guy!"
"My first command... is to invade the world of the Seven Heavens again?" No, that's impossible.
He knew nothing about that world. What if Wu Tian asked him, "Great, my Lord! From which gate shall we begin the attack? The eastern gate guarded by the light nymphs, or the western gate protected by the celestial war hounds?" He would be exposed in seconds.
He realized he couldn't issue any command that required prior knowledge.
His command had to be vague, general, and something that sounded wise and strategic, but in reality, meant absolutely nothing at all.
Something that would buy him time.
Time. That's what he needed.
Time to understand. Time to learn. Time to find a way out of this nightmare.
With trembling hands, he began to scroll up in the chat log.
He ignored the new messages and focused on the old conversations he had read at the beginning.
He wasn't reading now; he was analyzing.
He was looking for a pattern, a clue, a weakness in their logic that he could exploit.
He saw Wu Tian's words again: [The Lord's throne is empty... his signature has vanished... unnatural.]
And he saw Xue's words: [It has found a new vessel... we must see if it is worthy... or if it will meet the same fate as the last one.]
"The same fate as the last one... so, the previous Lord didn't just disappear peacefully. He was killed or trapped."
"And they are in a state of weakness. Worried. Uncertain."
This was the key.
A true, wise leader who returns to find his kingdom in a state of disarray wouldn't rush into war.
No.
The first thing he would do is assess the situation.
He would take inventory.
He would know exactly what he has, and what he's up against.
He would rebuild his foundation before thinking of building his empire.
It was a plan.
A plan born from the logic of IT support and management, but he would wrap it in the language of epic fantasy.
He felt a sort of cold calm replace the panic.
He had found his first lie.
He opened the mental writing window.
His phantom fingers hesitated for a moment, then began to type.
He deleted and re-wrote several times, choosing each word with care, as if he were writing the most important email of his life.
Which, in fact, he was.
First, he must assert his authority and acknowledge his absence.
[Lord of Eternal Chaos]: "Ten thousand years... is but a blink of an eye in the ocean of eternity. My slumber has ended"
Then, he must show that he is aware of their current situation, to prove that he is always watching.
[Lord of Eternal Chaos]: "The realms have changed. And the stench of decay is strong on the winds of the cosmos. Our enemies have grown bold in my absence, and our people have forgotten the meaning of true strength"
And now, the command. The command that would buy him time.
[Lord of Eternal Chaos]: "The new era does not begin with a reckless assault, but with silent calculations. My first command is this: Assess. Report"
He added details, to make it seem organized and well-thought-out, and to give each of them a specific task.
[Lord of Eternal Chaos]: "@Demon Monarch Wu Tian, give me a report on the current strength of our legions, and the exact locations of our known enemies"
[Lord of Eternal Chaos]: "@Dark Fairy Queen Xue, give me a report on the state of our alliances, and of the whispers you hear in the shadows among the other factions"
[Lord of eternal Chaos]: "@Grand Treasurer Mo, give me a report on the state of our treasuries, and our sacred lands that are still under our control"
Finally, he set them a deadline to seem decisive.
[Lord of Eternal Chaos]:" I want a full accounting of our diminished glory. You have three cycles of the gray moon to present me with your reports"
He took a deep breath and sent the messages.
A dead silence fell over the chat for three seconds that felt like three eternities.
Yuan Lin wasn't breathing, waiting for his death sentence.
Then, the chat exploded.
[Demon Monarch Wu Tian]: At your command, my Lord! Immediately! This is unparalleled wisdom! Understanding the situation before the attack! I will gather the information at once!]
[Dark Fairy Queen Xue]: A full accounting... how wise. A true leader gathers his intelligence before he strikes. Your humble servant obeys.]
[Grand Treasurer Mo]: Every shadow crystal and every inch of cursed land will be inventoried and presented to you, my Lord! We will finally know how weak we are so that we can build our strength again under your guidance!]
Yuan Lin felt a wave of relief so powerful it almost made him faint.
He had succeeded.
They had bought his lie.
A bright, blue system notification appeared before him.
[The first command has been issued successfully. The Lord's dignity and strategic prowess have been demonstrated.]
[You have successfully delegated tasks to your subordinates, initiating three new faction quests.]
[You have been rewarded with +500 Chaos Points for exceptional leadership performance.]
[Current Balance: 501 Chaos Points.]
Yuan Lin collapsed in his chair, his whole body trembling from mental exhaustion.
He was drenched in sweat, but a pale, tired smile was on his face.
He had survived.
He looked at his new balance. Five hundred and one.
It was a tiny number compared to the million points he needed.
But it wasn't zero.
It was a start.
But the feeling of relief didn't last long. It was replaced by a new kind of anxiety.
"I've bought myself some time. Three 'cycles of the gray moon'... how long does that mean? A week? A month?"
Then came the most terrifying thought.
"And what will happen when they present their reports? I'll then have to make a real plan based on real information about a real war."
He realized he hadn't solved his problem.
He had only postponed his execution.
And in the process, he had given himself a mountain of cosmic homework.
The clock was still ticking.