[Null POV] Year 5, Day 71

  The dragon's attack launched.

  Null moved—not away, not defensive. Directly into it.

  The spell hit like the end of the world. Fire and lightning and pure force converging, the kind of magic that erased armies. The heat should have vaporized her instantly.

  Her rapiers flashed, carving through the elemental chaos. Deflecting streams of fire. Redirecting lightning that screamed past her head. Her small form twisted through impossible angles, legend-class weapons singing as they split magic itself.

  She emerged from the blast unharmed, already moving faster.

  The dragon's expression shifted. Surprise. Reassessment.

  "This won't be easy."

  The valley began dying immediately.

  Null closed the distance in a blur. Her rapiers struck dragon scales—most deflected with metallic shrieks, but some found purchase. Shallow cuts. First blood drawn.

  The dragon retaliated with everything. Claws raked the air where she'd been. Tail whipped around like a building-sized club. Magic condensed and exploded. Overwhelming power focused on one tiny target.

  Null dodged most of it. The hits that landed sent her flying—cratering ground, demolishing buildings on impact. She stood from the rubble already healed and moved again.

  [The Twins hit way harder during play. Actually made me cry a few times. Panicked them completely when it happened. This dragon? Probably first time facing something like me. Still learning. The Twins had five years of practice.]

  She struck again. Deeper cuts this time. Dragon blood spraying. The ancient creature's fury intensified.

  "Impossible!"

  Fire breath erupted. Point-blank. Heat that should have vaporized her instantly.

  [Too fast. Way too fast for something that massive. How does it even move like that?]

  The maid uniform's enchantments held—barely. She felt the heat. Intense. Dangerous. The legend-class durability proving its worth, but the flames tested its limits.

  [Better not push this further. Move. Now.]

  She struck back while the dragon was still breathing fire. Both rapiers driving forward, precise and clinical, finding the gaps between scales that only her life sense could detect.

  The dragon screamed. Rage and pain and utter disbelief mixing together.

  The valley burned around them.

  People died in the crossfire.

  Not targeted. Not even noticed. Just collateral damage from a fight between monsters.

  The dragon's tail swept through the celebration area—dozens crushed instantly, bodies pulverized against buildings. Null's deflected magic scattered in every direction. Fire. Lightning. Pure force. Hitting everything. Everyone.

  Screams cut short. Buildings collapsing. More deaths adding to the count.

  Life essence flowed to Null. Passive absorption she couldn't turn off even if she wanted to. Dozens. Hundreds. Everyone caught in the destruction feeding her automatically.

  [Good. Need it. Fight's expensive.]

  She fed while fighting. Efficient. Practical. No guilt. No hesitation.

  [Just more fuel. Keep going.]

  The pink trees ignited across the valley. Beautiful blossoms burning, centuries of careful cultivation destroyed in minutes. Buildings collapsed under stray impacts. The ceremonial pot—the one Null had poisoned just hours ago—shattered, its poisoned contents spilling out to mix with blood and ash.

  The coca storage buildings: buried under rubble. Crushed. Burning.

  Everything Null had tried to preserve, everything she'd spared the valley for—destroyed anyway in the fight to protect Spy.

  But she didn't stop. Didn't slow. Didn't care about the irony.

  [Not my friend. That's what matters. Only that.]

  The dragon adapted mid-fight.

  Fast strikes? Null dodged through them. Area attacks? She tanked what she couldn't deflect, and those rapiers cut through the rest. Raw overwhelming power? The blades carved through it like nothing.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  [Happy the devs made such good work with these.]

  The dragon switched strategies. Different approach—not overwhelming force, but trapping. Immobilization.

  Magic barriers erupted around her. Containment spells trying to trap her, limit movement, remove her advantages.

  Her rapiers shattered them. Each barrier breaking like glass under the blades strikes. Each containment spell dissolving as the weapons carved through it like it wasn't there.

  Her small body proved perfect for this—agile, responsive, able to exploit openings the dragon's massive form created just by existing.

  [Monster versus monster in true forms? Chances wouldn't be nearly this favorable.]

  The dragon's annoyance spiked. Extreme. So intense its surface thoughts leaked.

  [Who the hell trained a Divine Rejection this extensively? They're supposed to be broken brutes, not—this is actual skill. Combat evolution against peers?]

  Null caught that. The dragon's thoughts, clear as speech. Annoyed. Baffled.

  She noted it, filed it away, and launched herself onto the dragon's back. Both rapiers drove down with her full weight behind them—penetrating scales that had turned aside lesser weapons for millennia. Reaching flesh beneath.

  The dragon roared and thrashed, trying desperately to dislodge her. Like a horse trying to throw its rider.

  She held on. Pulled the rapiers free with wet sucking sounds. Struck again—different location, exploiting the thrashing to reach new vulnerable points. More damage accumulating.

  "IMPOSSIBLE! YOU CAN'T—"

  She could. She was.

  Twenty-seven times upgraded. Game-tier legendary weapons in a world where Legend-class was supposed to be the peak. They cut what shouldn't be cuttable. They penetrated what should be impenetrable. They killed what should be unkillable.

  The dragon's confidence shattered. Null felt it—thoughts pouring out, desperate and panicked.

  [I'm losing. To a Rejection. To a maid. To THIS.]

  [The barrier—can't maintain both. Can't fight at full capacity while holding it.]

  [Life or food? Life or food?!]

  [Keep the barrier, keep the divine fragment trapped, lose the fight and die anyway—]

  [Or drop it. Fight properly. Survive to hunt another day.]

  [Survival. Choose survival. Pride doesn't matter if dead.]

  The dome fractured. Not gradually. All at once. Reality snapping back. The barrier dissolving completely.

  Space returned to normal. Teleportation possible again. Seed network accessible.

  Spy didn't hesitate.

  Gone. Instant transfer. Jumping through the network. Away from here. Away from danger.

  The dragon barely noticed. Too focused on Null. On surviving.

  More thoughts leaked, desperate and fragmented.

  [Food escaped. Don't care. SURVIVE FIRST.]

  [Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Nothing matters if dead.]

  [This Rejection is KILLING me. Focus. FOCUS. Survive now, eat later, SURVIVE—]

  Null felt the barrier drop, felt Spy escape through the bond.

  [Good. Safe now. Mission accomplished.]

  But she didn't stop fighting.

  The dragon was still dangerous. Still powerful. Still trying to kill her.

  And she'd committed. Fully. Completely.

  [Finish this.]

  She pulled.

  Through the seed network. Through the bonds connecting her to every recipient. Every maid back at base.

  Energy. Life force. Power.

  Taking it. Drinking it. Fueling herself.

  The network convulsed. Panic spreading. Maids feeling the drain. The horror of energy being ripped away. The wrongness of it.

  Some screamed. Some collapsed. Some approached the edge—that boundary where consciousness faded, where the beast emerged.

  Null pulled carefully. Not too much from any one. Distributed. Controlled.

  But she pulled hard. Taking what she needed.

  The dragon didn't understand. Didn't know what she was doing.

  Just saw: enemy getting stronger. Moving faster. Hitting harder.

  "WHAT ARE YOU?!"

  [Eldritch horror. Divine rejection. Heaven-broken monster.]

  Wearing a maid dress. Fighting with rapiers. Protecting a friend.

  The dragon's rage intensified. Ego breaking. Pride shattering. More panicked thoughts spilling out.

  [I'm LOSING. To THIS. To a REJECTION wearing RIDICULOUS CLOTHES.]

  More attacks. Desperate now. Powerful but sloppy. Fury overwhelming tactics.

  Null exploited every opening the dragon's fury created. Every mistake from lost composure. Every moment when rage overwhelmed tactics.

  Her rapiers worked methodically. Strike. Withdraw. Strike again. Each cut precise and surgical, accumulating damage faster than the dragon could heal.

  [Tanky. Very tanky. Cuts healing, but slowly. Need to overwhelm the regeneration.]

  [Critical damage. Go for vital areas.]

  She adjusted tactics mid-fight. Wings first—those massive flight surfaces were vulnerable, hard to protect. Then joints. Then anywhere the scales didn't quite meet perfectly.

  The dragon's movements slowed as injuries piled up. Flight became difficult, then labored, then impossible.

  The dragon crashed.

  Not defeated. Not unconscious. Just grounded—wings too damaged, body too heavy, unable to maintain altitude anymore. It hit the ruined valley floor with impact that shook the mountains.

  It tried to stand. Legs shaking under its own weight. Blood pooling beneath it. Cuts covering every visible surface.

  Null landed nearby. Rapiers ready. Watching. Waiting.

  The dragon made sounds—low, agonized groans that no creature should be able to make. Pain. Extreme pain. Maybe dying sounds.

  Not dead. Not yet. But close. Very close.

  The valley around them was gone. Completely. Totally.

  Just a crater now. Ash and destruction spreading in every direction. No pink trees. No buildings. No people. No evidence that civilization had ever existed in this place.

  The coca supply: destroyed utterly in the crossfire.

  The sustainable plan: failed completely.

  The thirteen barrels in Null's item box: all that remained of her discovery. Finite. Limited. Never enough.

  All of it—the careful planning, the decision to spare them, the business deal—rendered meaningless. Destroyed in the fight to protect Spy.

  Null assessed this with clinical detachment.

  [Unfortunate. But acceptable. Priorities were correct. Not my friend. Worth any cost.]

  [But... the coca-cola taste. Already miss it. Stupid dragon destroyed something irreplaceable. Almost want to make it suffer more for that alone.]

  She approached the dragon slowly, carefully, rapiers ready for any final desperate attack.

  It didn't move. Couldn't move. Just lay there in the ruins, breathing raggedly, bleeding from hundreds of wounds, suffering.

  Null stood over it. Both rapiers positioned for killing strikes—one through the eye into the brain, one through the throat. End it cleanly. Efficiently.

  [Pragmatic answer: kill it. Ends the threat. No pursuit. No revenge. Clean resolution.]

  [But...]

  The dragon's eye opened. Ancient and intelligent and fully aware of its situation.

  And it spoke.

  Cliffhanger! I know, I know. But don't worry—next chapter drops tomorrow (Saturday), outside normal schedule.