Kaiser of the New World

12 minutes and 37 seconds later.

It was all set.

The distraction was prepared, and Kai was still shivering after setting it up. He still wasn't really sure about what he had gone through, all he knew was that he had to get out of here, and quickly at that.

Kai had left Remy behind, the rat running off to fulfill their second role. They had done incredibly well in their first role, making Kai extremely pleased. When he unlocked a second contract slot for Contract of Artemis, maybe contracting the rat wouldn't be so bad, especially if he could help it evolve into something special...

Still, Kai was running on a timer, he only had a few minutes until everything went to hell and he would have a short amount of time to get to Anastasia's and Castillian's chambers.

While Kai had been setting up the distraction, the whole castle ended up going into lockdown, guards running around everywhere.

It was the worst timing it could have possibly been, but Anastasia ended up paying him a visit this sleep, only to be greeted by her so called incredible collar hanging limply from the wall.

After that, guards started patrolling the castle and the city, expecting Kai to make a run for it and hide out in the city somewhere.

None of them knew that Kai knew there was a portal in the King and Queen's chambers, so they were all expecting to attempt to escape, none of them were going to be prepared for what was about to happen.

Luckily, Kai had been hidden when Anastasia found out he had escaped, so he hadn't been seen yet, but that was about to change as now Kai had to fulfill his actual role.

Setting up the distraction was a side role, it would help their escape, but he had a much harder job ahead of him.

Kai dashed through the hallway on the second floor of the castle. His eyes were constantly scanning ahead, trying to spot any guards coming around the corner before they could see him.

It was lucky that he was, because he saw the spear of a guard pop around the corner at the very next second.

Hopping to the side, Kai opened a door and quickly closed it, pressing his ear to the door in the process.

The room he entered ended up being a dimly bedroom. There was a small desk in the corner, and a maid outfit hanging off the wardrobe, but luckily the room was empt-

Kai's eyes widened as he spotted a black haired woman lying in the bed, pulling the duvet cover over herself. Her eyes were wide open, and just as she opened her mouth to scream, Kai brought a finger to his lips in a shushing gesture.

The woman complied, staying completetly silent as Kai heard the hurried footsteps of the guards pass the door he had entered.

After waiting a couple more seconds just to be safe, Kai turned back to look at the woman, giving her a quick thumbs up before saying:

"Thanks. Have, uh... have a nice nap."

After that, he quickly opened the door again and peeked his head outside. Seeing that no one was in the hall, Kai emerged from the door, only to see two guards that had been lagging behind the main group come around the corner of the hallway.

Cursing to himself because of the fact that the door had already swung shut and he didn't have enough time to get back inside before he got spotted, Kai broke into a dash towards the two guards.

As soon as the first one turned the corner, they spotted Kai and opened their mouth to shout something, but Kai launched himself at the guard, his knee connecting with their face with a sickening crunch, sending them flying backwards into the wall as blood got on his pristine tunic.

The wall ended up caving in on impact, the guard creating a massive hole in it as they started rolling along the floor in the room they just burst into, instantly knocked out.

Whipping his head to the left and having to momentarily forget about the incredibly cool thing that he had just done, Kai saw the other guard point their spear at Kai, their hands gripping the shaft just as they thrusted it forward.

Cursing again, Kai dodged to the side and grabbed the body of the spear as the tip shot past him. He then pulled the spear towards him, knocking the guard off balance just as Kai's free hand connected with their face, breaking their nose instantly.

Sadly, this one did not get knocked out from the first attack, probably due to the fact that Kai was still a lower level than the average guard here, but that didn't mean his stats were lacking.

Plus, he also had an incredibly useful skill that he was still yet to test properly.

Soul Flame wrapped around Kai's hands, burning the shaft of the spear and breaking it in two, one half being in the guards hands and the other half in Kai's own, the end with the tip being in Kai's hands.

Kai grinned as he twirled the half of the spear in his hand around to face the guard, his other hand running over the head of the spear, igniting it in a vibrant multi-coloured flame.

"Sorry about this."

Unable to do anything with the worse half of a broken spear, the guard was not able to dodge Kai's attack as the head of the flaming spear was thrust through their armour and into their abdomen, making them instantly cough up blood as their insides started burning.

Kai instantly grimaced. He wasn't really a fan of blood, but he would rather have them be the one lying on the ground bleeding instead of him.

Luckily, he didn't have to see much as Soul Flame burnt it before it could spread too far.

...

It was the little things that mattered.

Deciding to keep the flaming spear for now, Kai took a quick peek into the room that the first guards body and been blasted into, only to see another bedroom with another woman hiding beneath the duvet.

Smiling weakly, Kai gave the woman a small wave before saying:

"Sorry about that."

Before they could even have the chance to respond, Kai broke out in a sprint again. That fight had only taken a couple of seconds, but those were precious seconds that he would definitely need.

And the worst part was, Kai still hadn't completed his role, he hadn't even found where it was.

Where? Where?.... where?

Dashing through the hallway, Kai glanced out the window and grinned.

He had accidently timed his escape perfectly, it was pitch black outside, the night and the constant snowfall the only two things able to be seen from the window.

Well, not really, but it sounded more poetic that way.

But that wasn't why he was grinning. Kai was grinning because he had spotted his target standing in the courtyard of the castle, all by themselves.

Reaching the painting that connected with the maid stairs, Kai jumped through it and practically threw himself down the stairs. He landed on his feet, his knees buckling slightly, but he didn't fall over.

When he used the Stat Bead to give him all his stats back, Kai assigned the majority of them into two stats.

Strength and Stamina.

This mission would be all about being quick, so what better way to do that then having the stamina to match and the strength to brute force his way through the majority of problems he could face?

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Kai jumped out the back of the painting and made a break for the door of the castle.

Luckily, there was no guards on his way to the door, so he was able to reach it and get out of it without being spotted.

Ignoring the cold of the snow as it stuck to his hair and his tunic, Kai threw his broken spear into the snow, ran to the left and ran through a small alley that connected to the courtyard. It was incredibly dark, but Kai made use of Soul Flame to help him see.

While he may have been lucky that it was the middle of the night when he ended up escaping, he wasn't lucky with the fact that the blizzard was incredibly heavy tonight. It was almost weighing down on Kai with how heavy it was.

As soon as he reached the courtyard, a happy grin grew on Kai's face as he waved his hand at the singular person standing in the centre of it, completetly ignoring the heavy snow.

"Ezekial, hey, you've gotta help me!"

Kai got ready to fulfil his role, wondering how the hell he was going to accomplish it.

"Castillian and Anastasia are crazy! They locked me in a cell and fed me basically nothing, I only managed to escape a few minutes ago."

Kai continued to run towards Ezekial, while the blue haired swordsman continued to stare at him blankly.

"We have to get out of he-"

Just as Kai was about to be in arms reach with Ezekial, he felt the tip of a sword pressing into his neck.

Kai swallowed nervously, his eyes widening as he looked at Ezekial.

"What, uh... what are you doing?"

Ezekial's eyes narrowed as he spoke.

"If you make another move, I will cut your head free from your neck."

*Author Note*

Hello any readers who have made it this far and have not given up. I know that the beginning of this volume was a little boring, and I agree, I even got bored writing it, my stockpile dropped to 4 chapters because I got bored writing it. Luckily, the rest of this volume will be much more entertaining (in my opinion).

But wow, a whole 200 chapters and roughly 230,000 views later (even though I'd say only a tenth of those views are still reading).  200 chapters is quite a large milestone.

In the beginning, I was only writing on Wattpad, and I had just found out that they had a 200 chapter limit, so I thought I'd be done within 200 chapters.

... It's very easy to tell how that turned out.

Still, it's been a very enjoyable 8 months of writing, even if it was a little slow at parts.

So to celebrate 200 chapters, I figured I would share some facts about this story, beginning with probably the biggest one.

1. Failure was never meant to be a character.

I know, I know. Such an important character, how could he not be one? Originally, he was just meant to be a tree spirit with that one appearance on the rock in that early chapter, 15 I think. Aldred was meant to be the ruler of the Dome and the tree of Ethania was really just meant to be Ethania.

But then I thought to myself, does that really make sense? It didn't really seem that probably that a random Princess would have all that conviction for no reason, so then I thought what if she had a knight, a knight that was protecting her? That was Failure's origin.

And to be honest, best choice I ever made. He was such a joy to write and I don't even want to imagine what the story would have ended up like without him.

2. Speaking of what the story would be like without something, Umbra's Stalker skill was something I came up with in the spur of the moment while collecting scallops with my uncle. Its become such a vital part of the story by now, it would be so much harder to write if I never came up with it, so good on me.

3. And finally, Kai and Noelle were meant to be a couple, be together, be more than friends.

...

I know, right, what was I thinking? I tried so hard to make Noelle likeable like that, and even though I think I succeed and making people liking her, it would have been way too forced to have them end up together. 

Then it was meant to be Sofia, but that also felt better as a platonic relationship.

It was then I realised that I was really bad at writing romance, that and proper fight scenes.

But there will still be romance in this novel, and I am going to try my damned hardest to make it a great one. In fact, it might be in the near future that I begin...

So, that concludes facts about the story thus far, now its time to move onto the elephant in the room.

Character arts are still a work in progress. Turns out, there's no good free art sites so I'll have to use AI. I also need to figure out a way to actually share them, so that's another issue.

But still, its been a great journey with you all so far. Reading your comments have been the main motivation for writing, so I have to thank you all for that.

Also to celebrate, if anyone has any questions, they can comment them and I will answer them.

So, thank you all for reading, and here's to probably another lot of chapters before this story actually ends.

-Kerplunkered.