With the new forge operational, a new kind of energy filled my kingdom. The rhythmic, percussive sound of dwarven hammers became the new heartbeat of my empire.

But I needed one more demonstration. A final proof of concept.

I brought Isabelle to the new Great Forge. The heat was a physical thing, a dry, baking wave that made the air shimmer.

"Akira," I said, my voice echoing in the vast, fiery chamber. "My commander's blade. Dáinsleif. It is a B-Rank weapon of considerable power. Can you improve it?"

The Dwarf Queen looked at the dark, humming sword. She took it in her small, calloused hands, her golden eyes tracing the faint, glowing runes I had etched into it.

"It is a fine piece of work, for an amateur," she said, a statement that was both a compliment and a profound insult. "The core is strong, but the balance is… emotional. It was forged with passion, not precision."

She looked at me, a challenge in her eyes.

"I can reforge it. I can make it… perfect. But the process will be long. And it will require the rarest of my materials. A Heartstone, a Star-Iron ingot, and the tear of a fallen angel."

"We don't have a fallen angel's tear," I said.

"A Lilim's tear will suffice," she grumbled. "They're close enough."

Lillith, who had been observing from a safe distance, was not pleased. After a great deal of bribery, threats, and a very sad story about a lost puppy that Yori made up on the spot, she produced a single, perfect, shimmering tear.

The reforging took twelve hours.

It was a masterpiece of artisanal violence.

Akira was a dervish of focused, creative fury. Her hammer rose and fell in a rhythm that was both a song and a battle cry. The forge roared, the bellows wheezed, and the sound of metal being tamed echoed through the mountain.

Finally, she plunged the glowing, white-hot blade into a trough of enchanted quenching oil. A great hiss of steam erupted, and the work was done.

She held it up.

It was still Dáinsleif. But it was also… more.

The dark metal seemed to drink the very firelight from the room. The runes glowed with a new, colder, and more powerful light.

Isabelle took it.

Her breath hitched.

The sword was no longer just an object in her hand. It felt… alive. An extension of her own arm, her own soul. The divine power of her Blade Saint class flowed into it, and the sword hummed in response, a low, deadly thrum of pure, unadulterated power.

"It is… perfect," she whispered, her voice filled with a quiet awe.

Akira, her face slick with sweat, her small body trembling with exhaustion, gave a tired, satisfied nod. Then, she promptly collapsed into a snoring heap on the floor.

I looked at the magnificent, reforged blade.

I looked at my exhausted, brilliant new quartermaster.

My kingdom had its shield.

It had its sword.

But my gaze drifted to the map of my empire, to the vast, unconquered territories to the north. They were mostly human lands, dotted with small, insignificant towns and villages. They were not a threat. They were a resource. An untapped ocean of potential labor, skills, and, most importantly, tax revenue.

A war of annihilation would be wasteful. I needed a new tool. A new method of conquest.

How does a Demon King conquer the hearts and minds of mortals without just, you know, eating them?

The question hung in the hot, sulfurous air of the forge, a new, tantalizing, and deeply complicated problem.

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The question of how to conquer a human territory without reducing it to a smoldering, unprofitable crater was a new and fascinating puzzle.

My entire existence had been defined by brutal, direct solutions.

Problem? Punch it.

Rival? Absorb them.

Annoying hero? Vaporize them.

But you couldn't punch an entire town into submission. At least, not if you wanted them to be productive, tax-paying citizens of your new, glorious, and probably very high-tax-rate empire afterward.

I needed a new approach.

I needed a tool for a different kind of war.

"I require a new ability," I announced to the throne room. "Something… diplomatic."

The assembled commanders looked at me as if I had just sprouted a second head.

"Diplomacy, my Lord?" Sarah, my former Demon Queen, asked, an amused, condescending smirk on her beautiful face. "Isn't that just a fancy word for 'arguing with your food'?"

"The ability is called [Reign]," I explained, ignoring her. "It allows me to claim human territory. But the System, in its infinite and infuriating wisdom, has provided a user manual that appears to have been written by a dyslexic goblin on a very bad acid trip. It's useless."

My gaze settled on the holographic screen floating in the center of the room. The minimalist, intimidating interface of {Laplace}.

"So," I purred, a slow, dangerous smile on my face, "I'm going to ask for help."

The idea of me, Ragnar Vhagar, the Tyrant of Aethelburg, asking for advice was so profoundly out of character that even Chloe looked momentarily surprised.

"We will use my… unfortunate… online handle," I said, the name 'Saburo' tasting like ash in my mouth. "And we will post a query in the Upper-Class Lounge. A simple, elegant, and completely anonymous request for information."

Pixia, looking deeply uncomfortable with the idea of asking a den of liars and rivals for honest advice, did as I commanded.

Under the name 'Saburo', she crafted a post:

Subject: [THEORYCRAFTING] The [Reign] Ability - Optimal Usage Strategies?

Body: Greetings, fellow Lords of the Abyss. One has recently acquired a significant amount of human-occupied territory and finds the standard 'slaughter and conquer' method to be… inefficient for long-term resource management. Has anyone had success with the [Reign] ability? The documentation is frustratingly vague. Any insights would be appreciated.

We posted it.

Then, we waited.

The replies came surprisingly fast. They were, as expected, cryptic, arrogant, and almost completely useless at first glance.

The first was from a user named 'Sati', whose icon was a roaring, bestial maw.