Ascendant of Shadows: The Monarch and The Eminence

The air in the ruined ramen shop crackled with imminent violence. Four factions stood poised on a knife's edge, a tangled web of aggression and misunderstanding. In the center of it all, Cid Kagenou, cowering behind the overturned ramen counter, was having the time of his life.

'This is it! The moment where the unassuming mob character gets caught in the crossfire!' he thought, practically vibrating with excitement. 'My goal is simple: survive, but in the most pathetic, luck-driven, and completely unbelievable way possible. I must not show a sliver of power. My triumph will be in my utter weakness!'

The Knight Captain, emboldened by the sheer number of his troops, made the first move. "Forget the others! Seize the boy! He's the key!" He and two of his best knights lunged forward, their blades aimed not to kill, but to capture Cid.

Alpha's eyes flashed with cold fury. "Insolent fools! To lay a hand on Lord Shadow!" She moved to intercept, her own blade a blur of motion.

But she wasn't the fastest.

A figure of pure, unrestrained rage shot past her. It was Delta, her broken wrist forgotten, her good arm's claws extended and gleaming. "NO ONE TOUCHES THE BOSS!" she roared, her target the charging knights.

A cultist assassin, seeing an opening, materialized from the shadows behind Cid, a poisoned dagger aimed for his kidney. "The false shadow dies!"

It was a chaotic, multi-directional attack, all converging on the single, "helpless" boy.

Sung Jin-woo watched from the entrance, his arms crossed. His glowing purple eyes analyzed every trajectory, every surge of power. He could end this entire farce in less than a second. A single pulse of his aura would put everyone on the ground. But he held back. This was not his fight. He was here to observe his new, infuriating "ally." He wanted to see the god who hid behind the face of a fool.

Cid saw it all. The knights from the front, Delta intercepting, the assassin from behind. It was time for his master move.

"Waaaah!" he screamed, a pitch-perfect cry of terror. He "panicked," spinning around and tripping over his own feet with sublime clumsiness. "I'm gonna die!"

This single, pathetic action was the catalyst that turned the entire battle into a divine comedy.

Cid's "accidental" trip caused him to fall backwards, directly into the path of the cultist assassin. The assassin, expecting to bury his dagger in flesh, instead found his target collapsing away from him. His lunge carried him forward, off-balance, just as Delta crashed into the two knights.

CRUNCH! Delta's claws met the knights' enchanted armor. The armor, which could withstand an ogre's blow, crumpled like tin foil. The two knights were sent flying, crashing through the far wall of the shop and into the department store proper.

The third knight, the Captain, managed to swerve, his blade now redirected from Cid to the rampaging Delta. "You monster!"

At the same time, Cid, having successfully dodged the assassin, continued his "clumsy" fall. He flailed his arms wildly, his hand knocking over a large, industrial-sized pot of scalding-hot tonkotsu broth that had somehow survived the initial explosion.

The entire cauldron of boiling, greasy soup went flying, arcing through the air in a perfect parabola.

The assassin, having missed his stab, was now trying to regain his footing. He looked up just in time to receive several gallons of boiling pork-bone soup directly to the face. He let out a muffled scream, his stealthy attack ruined by a culinary facial.

The Royal Mages, who had been chanting a powerful joint-spell, were the next victims. The splash of hot soup hit their hands, breaking their concentration and causing their spell to fizzle in a shower of harmless sparks. "Agh! It's hot! My hands!" one of them cried, shaking his broth-covered fingers.

Alpha, who had been moving to intercept the Knight Captain, was forced to leap back to avoid the wave of soup, her beautiful face a mask of elegant annoyance. Her pristine slime suit was now dotted with bits of scallion and chashu pork.

In the span of two seconds, Cid Kagenou, through a single "accidental" trip, had:

Dodged a fatal assassination attempt.

Used the assassin as a human shield against Delta's charge.

Taken out the assassin with a soup-based attack.

Disabled an entire squad of elite mages.

Forced the leader of his own organization to reposition.

He landed on the floor with a pathetic thud, whimpering, "Oww... my head..."

Sung Jin-woo's expression, hidden within his cowl, was one of utter, profound bewilderment.

He had seen it. His eyes, which could perceive the flow of time itself, had not missed a single detail. That was no accident. The trip was perfectly timed. The spin had a flawless rotational axis. The arm flail was a precision strike that had calculated the weight and trajectory of the soup pot to the millimeter. The landing was soft, absorbing all impact.

It was the most advanced, most complex, most mind-bogglingly obtuse martial art he had ever witnessed. It was a combat style based entirely on appearing weak and clumsy, using sheer probability and environmental manipulation to defeat foes without ever throwing a punch.

The System, for its part, was having a meltdown.

[Analysis... Analysis... TACTICAL ASSESSMENT FAILED. Cause of enemy incapacitation: ??? … … Soup.]

[Re-evaluating target 'Cid Kagenou'... Power Level: F. Luck: SSS+. Threat Level: UNKNOWN. Recommendation: … … Avoid soup.]

While Jin-woo was experiencing a crisis of logic, the battle raged on.

"You'll pay for that!" the Knight Captain roared, now engaged in a furious melee with Delta.

"For Lord Shadow!" Beta yelled, entering the fray to support Delta, her own slime sword a blur of silver.

The cultists, recovering from their initial shock, began to chant again. "Death to all!"

Jin-woo decided he had seen enough of the sideshow. It was time to get a reaction from the main actor. The other factions were irrelevant. He needed to isolate his target.

He took one step forward from the entrance. He didn't release his aura. He didn't move fast. He just... moved.

But with that single step, he exerted his will.

"Silence."

It was not a command shouted. It was a fact stated. The Sovereign of Death had requested quiet, and reality complied.

The Knight Captain's sword stopped an inch from Delta's face. Delta's claws froze in mid-air. Beta's blade halted. The cultists' chanting died in their throats, their mouths hanging open. Every single combatant in the room was frozen solid, locked in place by an invisible, absolute authority. They were still conscious, their eyes wide with terror, but their bodies would not obey them. They were puppets whose strings had been seized by a new master.

Only two people in the room were unaffected.

One was Sung Jin-woo, the source of the power.

The other was Cid Kagenou, who was now slowly pushing himself up from the floor, brushing dust from his tunic. He looked around at the frozen tableau, the mid-combat poses, the expressions of shock and rage locked on everyone's faces.

His mind exploded with glee.

'He did it! The mysterious powerhouse, 'The Monarch', has made his move! He's frozen everyone to create a private stage for just the two of us! He's isolating me from the others to speak to me directly, as one shadow master to another! THIS IS SO COOL!'

Cid looked at Jin-woo, his eyes wide with perfectly feigned "what is happening" terror. But Jin-woo was no longer looking at him.

Jin-woo's gaze, burning with cold purple fire, swept over the frozen members of Shadow Garden, the Knights, and the Cultists.

"You are all... loud," he said, his voice echoing in the sudden, tomb-like silence. He raised a single hand. From the ground, a tendril of pure black shadow snaked out, wrapping gently around the throat of the Knight Captain. Then another wrapped around Alpha. Then a cultist.

"They are distractions," Jin-woo said, his glowing eyes finally locking back onto Cid. "My business is with you. Tell me what I want to know. Or I will remove them from the board. Permanently."

He was bluffing. He wouldn't kill them. But he wanted to see if threatening the pieces would finally make the player reveal his true face.

Alpha's eyes widened in horror, not for herself, but for her master. The enemy was threatening his subordinates to force his hand! How could Lord Shadow respond? He couldn't reveal his power here, it would shatter his mob persona!

Cid saw the shadow tendrils. He saw the "threat." And his chuunibyou brain produced the most epic interpretation possible.

'He's not threatening me... he's OFFERING! He's showing me that he can eliminate all my noisy enemies for me! He's proving his worth as a potential ally! This is a test of my own resolve! Do I allow another to clean up my stage, or do I handle it myself? A true Eminence in Shadow would...'

Cid put on a brave face, standing between Jin-woo and the frozen combatants.

"Stop!" he said, his voice trembling but determined. "T-these people... some of them are trying to protect me! You can't hurt them! If you have business with me... then... then leave them out of it!"

It was the perfect "heroic" line for a weak character trying to protect others.

Jin-woo stared. He had threatened the man's allies and enemies alike, and his response was to... protect them all? This being's actions defied all logic, all strategy, all reason. He was either the greatest fool in the universe, or his intellect operated on a plane so far beyond Jin-woo's comprehension that it was simply impossible to predict.

Frustrated, intrigued, and utterly baffled, Jin-woo let the shadow tendrils dissipate into nothing. He released his hold.

"As you wish," the Monarch of Shadows conceded to the Eminence of Misunderstanding.

The battle did not resume. Everyone, now free, simply stared, a new, deeper fear of the silent man in the entrance overriding their aggression towards each other. The game had changed.