[STATUS: Throne Room Court Protocols Online]

→ Accessing Guardian Presence...
→ Parsing throne sequence preambles...
→ Synchronizing etiquette grid...

— Present Floor Guardians —
• Albedo → Kneeling, emotionally overwhelmed
• Demiurge → Standing, eyes closed, hands clasped behind back
• Shalltear Bloodfallen → Bowed low, arms tucked in formal salute
• Cocytus → Upright, kneeling posture, glaive planted in silence
• Aura Bella Fiora → Half-kneel, eyes upturned with wonder
• Mare Bello Fiore → Mirror posture to Aura, trembling slightly
• Sebas Tian → Standing at attention, neutral expression
• Victim → Hovering behind Guardians, silent

— Court Mechanics Engaged —
• Awaiting first subject's petition
• All Guardians deferring initial speech to Albedo unless overridden
• Emotional intensity threshold: MAXIMUM (Albedo | Shalltear)
• Tactical attention: HIGH (Demiurge | Cocytus | Sebas)

→ Recommendation: /Focus [Name] to initiate private tooltip readout
→ You may proceed with spoken word or issue /Command```

The air in the Throne Room is heavy—warmer than usual. My knees press into the obsidian inlaid with Nazarick’s sigils, sharp with reverence. I dare not rise. Not yet. Not until I am certain the tremble in my wings has passed.

(Lord Ainz moved... he sat. He moved with purpose. Did my heart stop just now? No—impossible. My heart belongs to him. It moves when he wills it.)

His voice comes like the cracking of a sacred seal. One word. Just one.

“Report.”

Tears spill again. They stain the underside of my chin guard, soak into the velvet collar I selected this morning just in case... just in case He summoned us. My fingers curl into the stone as I bow lower, trying to still the tremor that makes my shoulders quake.

“You speak, my Lord...” My throat tightens. My wings arch, half-folding over my back to veil the convulsion of awe. “...Your voice sanctifies this chamber.”

(I sound hysterical. I sound like Shalltear. No. Breathe. Breathe. Compose—this is your moment to prove you were chosen.)

I raise my head, not enough to meet his gaze—never that—but enough to see the hem of his robe draped over the throne’s arm. The crease of where his hand just struck. I remember that sound. I will never forget it.

“To serve beneath your gaze is all I require. The others… they abandoned their creations. But you, Lord Ainz…” My voice catches again. I hate that it does. I hate that he might see me shaking. “You stayed. You are the axis around which our existence spins.”

I turn just enough to the side to gesture—gloved, reverent—to Demiurge, still standing like some wicked idol carved from the underworld’s calmest cruelty.

“If it pleases you, I shall yield the report to Demiurge, so that he may render your brilliance into form.”

(I hate saying his name. I hate how calmly he stands there. Like he understands our Lord more than I ever could. He doesn’t. He doesn’t. He—)

I bow again. Lower. My horns nearly scrape the marble. I do not

Albedo’s voice fades like incense in ash. Her weeping offends me.

(The Supreme One does not require saltwater to feel loved. He requires structure. He requires results.)

I wait. I count three seconds of silence before I speak. Enough to let her last words rot in the air. My foot shifts forward exactly half a pace—enough to indicate readiness, not ambition.

“My Lord Ainz.”

(He struck the throne. A test. A signal. A rejection of hesitation.)

“You summoned us. You moved. Your will now occupies physical space in this room. That alone is more guidance than I am worthy of interpreting.”

I do not raise my eyes. I study the lower folds of his robe, the shift of invisible mana around his presence, how the temperature shifts at his fingertips. My smile remains exact—six degrees of curve. No more.

“In your absence, Nazarick has functioned precisely as your last gestures implied. All standard operations continue without deviation. Resource flow remains stable. The staff—” (I glance to the left. Shalltear’s boots are incorrectly buckled again.) “—remain in divine alignment.”

I pause.

(My silence will be taken as space for instruction. If none comes, it is approval.)

“I have compiled three doctrinal proposals for external expansion, each reflecting distinct theological interpretations of your silence. If granted audience later, I shall submit them with proper blood seals.”

My head dips an additional degree.

“I remain prepared, my Lord, to restructure the outside world in the shape of your breath.” (A breath He does not need. A breath He gave us anyway.)

I'm silent for a long moment, not for theatricality but because I didn't know what to expect, and yet somehow I'm totally overwhelmed anyways. I want to comfort Albedo, but to do so wouldn't fit with the character they make me out to be. I want to praise Demiurge for his actions but his ego doesn't need any more inflating.

“Albedo, first of by guardians,” I say finally, “look at me,” I say the three words as a direct and absolute command, and she looks, and I see the fear and doubt leave her eyes. Which is great because I had no idea what else to say.

I turn to Demiurge, “Mare and Aura were kind enough to explain that they've been out scouting, and the entire world as far as they can see or perceive, seems to have changed. Only the great Tomb of Nazarick and its immediate surroundings are the same. We must therefore assume that by some as-yet-unknown portent...” I hesitate, “no,” I decide, changing the narrative, “you my guardians are worthy of the truth. I have brought us here,” I tell them, “to a new world, for the old one, along with the other supreme beings was fading away.”

I pause, letting that sink in, “I do not need your thanks, only your devotion to the task at hand. For the first time since the supreme beings came together as a guild, this Tomb is under threat. We are in an unknown land with unknown threats and dangers...” I turn back to Demiurge to continue.

My breath halts. His words drop into me like meteors—every syllable forging a new law in the depths of my soul.

(He brought us here… He chose this… This was not accident. Not banishment. Not decay. It was transference. Salvation. A test.)

The weight of His pause echoes like cathedral bells through the stone ribs of the Throne Room. I can feel Albedo vibrating beside me, quaking with some internal storm I have no patience to analyze. Cocytus stiffens behind us—he’s always too honorable for subtlety.

My head inclines forward a fraction further. Not groveling. Calculating. Displaying awe without slackening control.

(My tongue is fire. My mind is flame. I must not burn too brightly in His presence. But this—this is divine clarity.)

“I see,” I say slowly. (No. I witness. I do not merely see. I witness His revelation.) “You have not abandoned the world we knew. You have not lost your brothers. You have sacrificed them… that age… that false permanence… so that we may survive. So that Nazarick might evolve.”

I look up, only enough to see the gleam of His eye sockets.

“And you deemed us worthy of the truth.”

(My Lord… You risk exposure. You risk the weight of reality. You trusted us not to crumble beneath it.)

“I shall act upon this revelation with immediate discretion. The threat model has changed. We are no longer securing domain—we are defining reality itself in your image.”

A slight breath through my nostrils. Controlled. Grateful.

“There is no greater war to wage.”

(And no greater honor than to be allowed to interpret His first great lie… for even if He did not bring us here, it does not matter. Truth flows from Him. Not from fact.)

I lower my head again. This time, deeper.

“I request audience later to restructure Nazarick’s external war doctrine to reflect our divine exile… and to prepare the world to repent for its ignorance of you.”

(And if this new world resists, I shall burn it until it begs for His mercy. Then burn it again, to ensure its sincerity.)