Relentless Conqueror
Synopsis: Sylus had stepped into your world and now you learn first hand why his standard Myth companion is called Relentless Conqueror. Characters: Sylus x Non-MC!reader Warnings: fluff. Lonnggg. A/N: Hahaha. Synopsis is weeeird. Also also probably inaccurate description of whatever Sylus was doing to build back his power. And yes, I used the name of his standard myth companion, shoot me~
You thought you were going insane. Completely and utterly insane. There was no other explanation for why you kept seeing him. Someone who should not have been there. Someone who could not have been there.
You were sitting in the corner of your favorite café, with your back turned toward the rest of the room. On the surface, it probably looked like you were simply fixing your hair or checking something on your face. In reality, you were doing something far more ridiculous. You had a pocket mirror angled just enough to catch the reflection of the man sitting a few tables behind you.
And oh, you knew that man.
You knew the lazy tap of his fingers against the tabletop. That infuriatingly composed posture. That shirt with the feather pattern and the jacket draped over his shoulders like wings. The silver-white hair, unruly and impossible, and those crimson eyes that had ruined your ability to think straight far too many times for someone who did not technically exist in your world.
Sylus Qin.
In the flesh.
Somewhere he absolutely should not have been.
Your first guess was that he had to be a cosplayer. That was the only reasonable explanation. A very convincing cosplayer, admittedly, but still. Except there was no event in the city. No convention. No staged shoot. No photographer lurking nearby. And this small, ordinary café was a completely absurd place for a photoshoot for a man like Sylus anyway. Besides, cosplayers wore masks. For health reasons, but also because people could be cruel. Because strangers did not always know where fantasy ended and reality began.
No.
That man behind you did not look like a cosplayer. He looked exactly like Sylus. You caught his reflection shifting. His gaze had lifted. He was looking right at you now. Your breath caught, and you snapped the mirror shut so quickly your fingers nearly slipped.
Think.
You needed proof. You grabbed your phone, unlocked it with trembling hands, and opened the game. The loading screen appeared. You almost laughed at yourself for how ridiculous this was, but then the game music burst out too loudly and you had to fumble to turn the sound off before anyone noticed. When the main screen loaded, you were expecting to see him there. In some ridiculous outfit, maybe. Probably sporting that awful scarf from one of the promises, that you actually regretted buying now. That same maddening expression he wore as if even in game he knew something you didn’t.
But the screen was empty.
You frowned and checked the settings. He was selected. You exited and reopened the game. Still nothing. Then you went through the other Love and Deepspace men, one by one. They all appeared exactly where they were supposed to.
You returned to Sylus.
Nothing.
Just the café background. Blank. Empty. Wrong.
Your pulse began to race. This did not make sense. None of this made sense. You started a game repair with shaking fingers, as if that would somehow help. It did not. When the screen finished loading again, the spot where Sylus should have been was still empty.
Your stomach dropped.
This was impossible.
This was…
“Looking for someone?”
You jolted so hard your shoulder hit the back of the chair. Your head snapped to the sound of his voice. And there he was.
Sylus sat down across from you like he had every right to be there, like he had merely stepped over a line no one else could see. His crimson eyes rested on you with that same amused, knowing look that had made your brain short-circuit a hundred times before.
You stared at him.
Then at your phone.
Then back at him.
His gaze flicked to the screen, and your face went hot enough to set the café on fire. You shoved the phone face-down onto the table and locked it.
You wanted to ask how he had gotten here.
You wanted to ask if you were hallucinating.
You wanted to ask if this was real.
But the words would not come.
Sylus tilted his head slightly, the corner of his mouth lifting.
“Not going to ask anything?” he said.
You swallowed hard.
“This…” Your voice came out small. Frayed. “This isn’t real.”
His brow lifted. “Is that so?”
“I probably ate something strange,” you muttered, staring at your own hands now because it felt safer than looking at him. “This is probably some kind of stress-induced hallucination.”
Then you felt it. Warm fingers covering your hand. Solid. Real. You sucked in a sharp breath. Sylus’s hand was larger than yours, warm and steady and undeniably there. His thumb brushed once over your knuckles, and the sensation sent a shock of awareness through you.
“Does this feel like an illusion to you?” he asked quietly.
You shut your eyes for a second and shook your head. Your heart thudded painfully.
“How…” You swallowed. “How are you here?”
Sylus leaned back slightly, though he did not remove his hand.
“For a dragon,” he said, “sensing abnormalities in a world is not particularly difficult.”
You blinked at him.
“What does that mean?”
His expression shifted, becoming more serious.
“At first, it was subtle. I started hearing things.” His gaze remained on yours. “Voices. People talking to me. About me.”
You stared.
“Voices?”
He nodded once.
“At first, they were fragmented. Hard to understand. But the more I listened, the clearer it became.” His thumb stroked slowly over your knuckles. “There was a collective desire behind them. Not one voice, but many. A pull.”
Your breath caught. He glanced down at your phone, then back at you.
“The players.”
The word landed heavily between you.
Sylus continued, calm and matter-of-fact in that way he had when explaining something extraordinary as if it were completely ordinary.
“The concentration of so many thoughts, so much attention directed toward me… So much desire… it created pressure. Enough to reveal weaknesses.”
“Weaknesses?” you murmured before you could stop yourself.
He looked at you a moment longer, and the expression on his face made your chest tighten.
“Cracks between worlds,” he said. “Small ones. Unstable, but usable if you know where to look. I slipped through.”
You stared at him. Your fingers curled slightly beneath his. You suddenly became aware of how quiet the café had gone for you. The espresso machine hissed in the background. Cups clinked. Somebody laughed near the counter. Life went on around you as if you were not sitting across from a man who had stepped out of a game and into your reality. Then the thought hit you so hard it nearly made you dizzy.
“Why me?” you asked.
Sylus said nothing. That made the ache in your chest worse. You gave a small, helpless laugh that did not sound like laughter at all.
“I mean… if this is really possible… if you really crossed over because of all of that… then why did you come to me? There are so many other players.” Your throat tightened. “So many people who probably know more, or are prettier, or have better reactions, or have spent more money, or have loved you longer…”
He narrowed his eyes slightly. You were spiraling now, and you knew it. But you could not stop yourself.
“Why me?” you whispered again, quieter this time. “I’m just one player.”
Sylus went very still. Then, very gently, he took your other hand too.
The gesture was careful.
Deliberate.
Like he was grounding you before you floated too far away from him.
“Sweetie,” he said, and there was something far softer in his voice now, “you are not just one player.”
Your breath caught. You looked at him, and he held your gaze without flinching.
“You asked questions. You looked at me as though I existed even when I was only a collection of data on a screen.” His eyes softened, just slightly. “That matters.”
You stared at him, stunned. And then the insecurity came rushing back, because of course it did. Your voice dropped to a whisper.
“But there are other players who care more.”
Sylus’s brow furrowed.
“More?”
You looked down. “There are people who know every detail about you. People who have played longer, spent more, made more art, written more, loved you harder. I’m just…” You swallowed. “I’m just me.”
The words felt stupid the second they left your mouth, but they had already escaped. For a moment, Sylus only looked at you. Then he exhaled slowly.
“I do not measure value by how loud someone is,” he said.
You blinked. He squeezed your hands once, briefly.
“Nor by how many times they repeat my name into the void.”
That almost made you laugh. Almost.
“You’re impossible,” you muttered.
“And yet, you are still here.”
You glanced up at him. The amused softness in his face had not changed, but something deeper lay under it now. Something steady. Certain.
“I heard many voices,” he said, quieter. “Many desires. But yours was the one I could follow.”
Your chest tightened painfully.
“Mine?”
“Yes.”
He looked at you like the answer had always been obvious.
“Because you didn’t look at me like a fantasy to be consumed,” he said. “You looked at me like I was real long before I ever became real to you.”
You forgot how to breathe for a second. You looked down at your hands, still in his, and suddenly you felt too warm, too aware, too small in the face of something huge and impossible and entirely real.
“That’s unfair,” you murmured.
“What is?”
“You say things like that and expect me not to freak out.”
His eyes crinkled faintly. “I am not expecting anything.”
That, somehow, was worse. You let out a shaky breath. Across from you, Sylus continued to hold your hands like this was the most natural thing in the world. Like he had not crossed between realities to sit in a café with you.
It made your chest hurt in a completely different way. Because if he had chosen you…Then he had seen something in you.
Something the others had not.
Something you were not sure you could even see in yourself.
“You really mean it?” you asked quietly.
Sylus’s expression softened.
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
No teasing.
No games.
You stared at him for another long moment, then looked away again because your eyes were beginning to sting and you absolutely refused to cry in a café over a fictional dragon.
Not fictional, your traitorous brain reminded you. Real. Very, very real.
Sylus seemed to understand the direction of your thoughts without you saying a word.
“You are overthinking,” he said.
“I am not.”
“You are.”
You glared at him, and this time he actually looked pleased with himself. That familiar amusement tugged at the corner of his mouth, grounding you just enough to breathe again.
Then he stood.
The movement startled you.
Your head shot up. “What are you doing?”
He glanced at the untouched cup beside your hand, then back at you.
“Leaving before you decide to vanish into that spiral of yours,” he said. “Unless you would prefer to stay here and continue interrogating me.”
You blinked up at him.
“You say that like I have a choice.”
His mouth quirked.
“You do.”
That single answer made your chest ache all over again. You looked at his hand still resting lightly over yours.
Then at his face.
Then back down.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with you,” you admitted.
Sylus’s smile widened just a little.
“That makes two of us.”
He reached for your hand and lifted it from the table, brushing his thumb over your knuckles before letting go.
“Come on,” he said.
You stared at him. “Come where?”
His red eyes gleamed.
“Anywhere you want.”
And after everything, after the disbelief, the fear, the insecurity, the impossible reality of him sitting across from you… you found yourself standing too. Because maybe you were still scared. Maybe you still did not understand why he had chosen you over anyone else.
But Sylus was here.
And for the moment, that was enough.
The first thing Sylus did after stepping into your apartment was look around as if he were assessing a hostile territory.
The second thing he did was ask, very calmly, “How does one acquire money in this world?”
You choked on your own air.
He stood in the middle of your living room like he had somehow already decided this was now his domain, red eyes sweeping over your tiny apartment with cool, exacting focus. He had taken the answer to “you can stay here for now” with alarming seriousness. Not even an hour had passed, and he already looked less like a man displaced from one world and more like someone preparing to conquer another one from the ground up.
You stared at him.
“You could start with a job,” you said carefully.
Sylus’s brows lifted a fraction.
“A job,” he repeated, as if the word itself were mildly insulting.
“Yes. Employment. Welcome to Earth.”
He looked at you for a moment, then gave a thoughtful hum.
“How much money does this world consider acceptable?”
You blinked.
“That depends on a lot of things.”
“And how quickly can I acquire enough of it to be useful?”
There it was. That familiar tone. You had heard it before in the game when he was planning, maneuvering, deciding. The same cold efficiency. The same absolute refusal to accept helplessness. Only now he had no power, no money, no network of loyal people waiting at his call.
You should have found that amusing. Instead, a strange little warmth curled in your chest. Because he looked offended by the very concept of starting from nothing. And Sylus Qin, apparently, did not intend to stay at nothing for long.
He adapted too quickly.
That was the first alarming thing you learned. The second was that his version of “adapting” did not involve slowly learning how to survive like a normal person.
No.
He treated your world the way he treated everything else: as a system to be understood, mapped, and eventually mastered. Within the first day, he was already analyzing local business trends with unsettling speed. He read everything. Job listings, investment articles, corporate structures, property values, tax laws.
You found him at three in the morning, sitting at your kitchen table in silence, one of your spare laptops open in front of him while he read through financial articles.
You stopped in the doorway.
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t even look up.
“Learning.”
“Learning what?”
“How this world works.”
You narrowed your eyes.
“You’ve been awake for four hours.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not even blinking enough.”
He lifted his gaze then, one brow arched.
“Do you need me to be less efficient?”
You made a face.
“No, but I do need you to sleep.”
“I will. During the day. I thought you knew I’m nocturnal.”
You stared. Then groaned and went to make tea. Because somehow, despite everything, he still looked unfairly good sitting at your kitchen table while dismantling modern society one website at a time.
By the end of the second week, your apartment felt like the beginning of something.
He had folders stacked neatly on your table, notes organized by color, a second laptop of his own already ordered and somehow delivered with suspicious speed. He knew the transit routes in your city. He had memorized the names of half the relevant companies. He had probably already identified three people who could be turned into allies, two who could be pressured, and one who would likely become a problem later.
You should have been alarmed. Instead, you found yourself watching him from the kitchen doorway with a coffee mug in both hands, a little helpless and a little in awe.
He looked up.
“You’ve been staring.”
“Can you blame me?”
“No.”
You smiled faintly.
“Do you ever slow down?”
Sylus’s expression softened at that.
“Not when I have a reason not to.”
You went quiet.
Because you knew what he meant.
You.
You were the reason.
And now Sylus was already making himself into something larger. Because he was determined to make a place for himself here, in your world. And because, as always, he had decided that if he was going to love you…
Then he would do it properly.
The shift wasn’t obvious at first.
It didn’t happen in one dramatic moment where everything suddenly clicked into place.
It started with names.
At first, Sylus mentioned them casually over breakfast, while scrolling through his phone, or when you passed by him in the apartment.
“This one is useful.”
“That one is predictable.”
“He’ll fold under pressure within a month.”
You had assumed he was still studying people. You didn’t realize he had already started moving pieces. His phone rang more often. Short calls. Precise conversations. Meetings that he didn’t even bother to explain to you anymore. He started leaving the apartment more and coming back later with that look in his eyes, the one he had after a successful move. Satisfied. Focused.
Then came the news.
You weren’t even looking for it. It just… showed up. A headline on your phone. Something about a shift in ownership. A company restructuring. New investors entering the field.
You wouldn’t have paid attention. Except the name.
Qin.
Your heart skipped. You opened the article. Read it once. Then again. Then a third time, slower.
There it was. Buried in the details. A newly established entity. Minimal public information. Rapid acquisition of influence. And at the center of it him. You swallowed.
“No way…”
You found him at home that evening.
Calm as ever. Like he hadn’t just quietly inserted himself into your world’s power structure. You stared at him. Really stared this time.
This wasn’t just adaptation anymore. This wasn’t just him trying to get by. He was building something. Faster than should be possible.
And the worst part?
It didn’t look like luck.
It didn’t look like coincidence.
It looked like control.
Like he had done this before.
Like he knew exactly what he was doing.
“You’re going to take over everything, aren’t you?” you asked quietly.
Sylus’s gaze softened slightly at your tone.
“Not take over.”
You waited. He tilted his head just a fraction.
“Establish myself.”
“That sounds like the same thing.”
“It isn’t.”
You let out a breath.
“It feels like it.”
Silence stretched between you. Then you stepped closer.
“Sylus.”
He looked at you immediately. You swallowed.
“You just got here.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have anything here.”
“That’s temporary.”
“That’s my point,” you said, voice tightening slightly. “You’re acting like you’ve been here your whole life. Like this is just another game to win, another world to conquer.”
Something flickered in his eyes.
“I don’t lose,” he said simply.
You exhaled shakily.
“I know.”
And that was the problem.
You looked down at your hands.
“You’re moving too fast.”
“No,” he said quietly. “I am moving at the speed required.”
You shook your head.
“You don’t even know if this world will let you…”
“It will.”
You looked up at him.
And froze.
Because he wasn’t guessing. He wasn’t hoping.
He knew.
Sylus stepped closer. His hand lifted, brushing lightly against your cheek.
“You’re worried,” he said.
“Yes,” you admitted.
“Why?”
You let out a small, helpless laugh.
“Because this is insane! Because you’re doing things people take years to do in weeks. Because I don’t even understand half of what you’re doing anymore. Because…”
Your voice caught.
“Because I don’t know where I fit into all of this.”
That made him pause. Really pause. His hand stilled against your cheek.
And for the first time since all of this started he looked not like a strategist. Not like someone calculating his next move. But like himself.
“You,” he said quietly, “are the reason I am doing any of this.”
Your breath hitched.
“Do you think I crossed worlds for power?” he asked softly.
You didn’t answer.
He huffed, almost amused.
“I had that already.”
His thumb brushed lightly under your eye.
“I am rebuilding it,” he continued, “because this world does not give me the means to take care of you the way I intend to.”
Your heart twisted.
“Sylus…”
“And I will not accept that.”
Silence.
“You’re terrifying, you know that?”
A faint smirk returned.
“I’ve been told.”
You shook your head, but your hand found his anyway.
“Just don’t forget to live here too,” you murmured. “Not just conquer it.”
Something in his expression softened again.
“I won’t,” he said.
Then, quieter:
“Not when you’re here.” And after a small pause he added as the familiar red mist gathered around him. “Now, what do you say to having three more guests here?”
@mrsqins @moonlightindeepspace @dandy-lads @quill-for-glory @satansdaughter123 @chubbymochi123 @animegamerfox @sylus-kittenpaw @mitsukichiis @thehyperfixationgirly i think i tagged everyone...
