[22 POV] Year 5, Day 71 (During Null's dragon fight)

  Spy appeared in 22's quarters.

  Not gradually. Not politely. Just—there. Manifesting through the seed network. Panicked. Desperate.

  ?True dragon! Null's fighting a true dragon and it's trying to eat me! Peer-level threat, she's actually fighting it for me, we need help NOW!?

  22 was on her feet instantly. The books she'd been reading—theory, underground surveys, hot springs research—scattered across the floor.

  All irrelevant.

  Someone had threatened the Divine One.

  Her expression transformed from clinical focus to absolute fury.

  "Where."

  ?Sweetwater. Kingdom territory. She's—?

  "I know the location." 22 grabbed her staff. Calculations running through her mind. "Teleportation anchor nearby. I can replicate the key spell."

  Spy processed this. ?You can use the anchors without the keys??

  "Archmage-level technique. I've studied the keys Twins are using—they're just fancy stored spells that jump to pre-defined anchor. Anyone else needs physical key device. I can replicate the spell." She channeled magic through her staff. "The anchors themselves nobody can modify. But the keys? Those I can copy."

  Magic gathered around her. Complex weaving. Powerful. The spell forming layer by layer.

  ?How long?? Spy asked.

  "A minute or so. Stay close."

  Through the seed network, 22 broadcast to everyone.

  Not just those panicking. All of them. Her voice cutting through the chaos with cold authority.

  ?This is 22. Null is fighting true dragon to protect the Divine One. The energy drain is necessary. Stop panicking. Remember your training. Don't shame Master with this pathetic display. Maintain positions.?

  The network chaos didn't stop completely. But it lessened. Enough.

  ?What do you need from me?? Kira sent, sharp and clear.

  ?Nothing. Stay there. Keep the maids calm.?

  Pause. Then: ?Null won't harm them—she's competent, cares in her own alien way. But their panic adds burden during fight. Don't give her more problems. Keep them stable.?

  Brief silence through the network.

  ?Loss would be bad. Very bad. Don't add to her load.?

  ?Understood. I'll handle it,? Kira confirmed.

  The energy drain had stopped. Suddenly. Completely.

  22 processed this. "The fight ended."

  ?Who won?? Spy's voice was tight.

  "Unknown. No response from Null. Network silent on her end."

  They didn't say the other possibility. The one where Null lost. Where she was unconscious. Or worse.

  The spell completed. Activation point glowing, ready.

  "Going." 22 activated it without hesitation. Spy followed through the connection.

  Space folded. Reality bending. One point becoming another.

  They appeared in the desert—closest anchor to Sweetwater, still many miles away.

  22 pulled her staff, already channeling magic through it. Flight spell forming rapidly.

  "Hold on. Fast long-distance flight like this burns energy fast. Let's hope the fight is over when we get there."

  22 felt Spy attach to her magical framework. Divine presence. Perfect. Comforting. They launched skyward.

  Flying toward Sweetwater. Kingdom territory. Where the dragon fight was happening.

  They found the Twins first.

  Huddled together in fox form. Both bodies pressed close, shaking, traumatized. Miles from the valley. Just sitting there, staring at nothing.

  22 descended, landing hard enough to kick up dust. Deliberate impact.

  The Twins looked up. Their eyes were wide, terrified, still broadcasting pure fear through every channel.

  "Get up." 22's voice was flat. A command, not a request. "We're going back."

  "No no no can't go back dragon dragon—"

  "The Divine One needs to know you're safe. You're coming with me. Now."

  "Can't can't too scared—"

  22's expression hardened into something dangerous. "I don't care how scared you are. Transform to human form. We're flying back together."

  The Twins whimpered but didn't move.

  22 stepped closer, her voice dropping to something cold and cutting. "The Divine One was threatened. Null fought that dragon to protect him. Alone. While you ran away and hid."

  A pause. Then the killing blow:

  "You will come back with me. You will face what happened. Or I will tell the Divine One exactly how cowardly you were when he needed you."

  The threat worked. Barely. The Twins transformed to maid forms, still shaking violently, still terrified. But standing.

  "Good. Hold on tight."

  They launched again. Three passengers now instead of one. Heading toward the valley.

  22's energy depleted rapidly. Fast flight, multiple passengers, extreme distance. Her reserves draining.

  [Not much left to fight dragon if needed. Even escape would be challenge. Better hope fight is over. Better hope Null won.]

  They saw the destruction before they even arrived.

  The crater. The ash. The complete erasure of everything.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Where Sweetwater had been—where an entire valley community had celebrated just hours ago—nothing remained. Just wasteland. Devastation on a scale that defied comprehension.

  22 processed it with clinical detachment.

  [Peer-level combat. Neither held back. Collateral damage: complete.]

  They descended, flying over the crater's edge. Searching through the ruins.

  Looking for Null. For the dragon. For any sign of who won.

  And found them.

  Center of the destruction. Two figures standing in the ruins.

  One: Null. Unmistakable even from a distance. Still in her maid uniform somehow. Rapiers sheathed. Alive. Intact.

  The other: a woman in a maid uniform. Dark hair. Strange eyes that caught the light wrong. Small horns curving from her head.

  A slave collar around her neck.

  22 landed hard, deliberately, the Twins stumbling off behind her as the flight spell ended.

  Null looked up. Saw them approaching. Her expression was neutral. Tired, maybe. But alive.

  The horned woman looked terrified. Desperate. Like a trapped animal.

  22 approached slowly, assessing the scene.

  She saw the collar first. High-quality archmage work. She recognized it immediately—her old equipment, the one she'd brought from her tower when she'd joined.

  Then the horns. Small but distinctly draconic.

  Then the eyes. Sunset and blood. Dragon colors.

  Understanding clicked into place.

  "You collared it." Not a question. Observation. Certainty.

  Null nodded. "Servitude. It offered. I accepted."

  [Null POV] Year 5, Day 71 (Minutes earlier)

  The dragon lay broken in the ruins. Bleeding from hundreds of wounds. Making sounds no creature should make—pain, dying, desperate whimpering.

  Null stood over it. Rapiers ready. One strike through the eye, one through the throat. Clean ending. Efficient.

  But she hesitated.

  Not from mercy. Not from guilt. Just cold calculation.

  [Kill it: problem solved. No pursuit. No revenge. Clean.]

  [But... waste? Peer-level entity. Powerful. Ancient knowledge. Potentially useful for Master's operations.]

  The dragon's eye opened. Ancient and aware. Focused on her with desperate hope.

  And it spoke.

  "Wait."

  The voice was weak. Strained. Desperate.

  "Mercy. Please. I yield."

  Null didn't respond. Just stood there watching. Listening. Waiting.

  "I offer—anything. Favors. Treasure. Information. Service."

  "Ancient knowledge. Dragon secrets. Access to my hoards. Whatever you want."

  Still nothing from Null. Just silence and those black eyes staring down.

  The dragon's desperation grew.

  "Eternal service. I swear it. Binding oath. I will serve you. Absolutely. Forever."

  Null processed this carefully.

  [Mad. It wanted to eat Spy. Threatened my friend. Deserves death for that alone.]

  [But... pragmatic value? A peer-level entity offering eternal service?]

  She considered pulling a corruption seed. Offering it. Binding the true dragon absolutely through divine corruption the way she'd bound the maids.

  [Her instincts screamed: NO.]

  [Wrong. That would go wrong. Somehow. Seeding a true dragon feels dangerous. Not physically dangerous. Metaphysically dangerous. Like breaking something fundamental about reality itself.]

  She rejected that option immediately.

  Then she remembered something. 22's explanation about slave collars.

  [They affect everything in this world. Even true dragons. Even archmages. Magic suppression is absolute.]

  [Exception: beings like me and the Twins. Our magical signatures don't register properly. Collars can't lock onto us.]

  Null had a collar. High-quality archmage work. One of the pieces from 22's old equipment, stored safely in her item box.

  But there was a problem. The dragon was massive—two hundred meters of ancient scaled power. The collar was human-sized.

  [Problem.]

  "Can you transform to human size?" Null asked. Clinical. Direct.

  The dragon's eye widened. Panic showing.

  "I... I never learned that useless skill."

  "Why would I need—it's not—dragons don't—"

  Rambling now. Fear overwhelming coherence.

  "Then I'll kill you." Null's tone didn't change at all. Just stating a fact. A simple, inevitable conclusion.

  "WAIT!"

  The dragon thrashed weakly, desperately, injuries screaming.

  "I can learn it! I can try! It's possible!"

  "It's tricky—only one human form ever, can't change after selecting—"

  "Need a clear image, a good image, it's hard to—"

  "But I can try! Please! Please let me try!"

  Null considered this for exactly two seconds.

  Then pulled a maid uniform from her item box. A spare—one of the three hundred originally ordered, never used.

  Held it up where the dragon could see.

  "Use this as your image."

  The dragon stared. At the uniform. At Null. At the sheer absurdity of the situation.

  "Are you insane?"

  But the choice was brutally simple: death versus insanity.

  Death was permanent. Insanity was survivable.

  "I... yes. Yes. I'll use it."

  The dragon gathered what little power remained. Focusing everything on this one desperate spell.

  Transformation magic. Ancient and difficult. Once human form selected, that appearance is permanent. Forever. Can shift between dragon and human forms after, but the human appearance itself never changes. One selection. One chance. Locked forever.

  Null heard the thoughts leaking. Desperate. Panicked.

  [Need a human image. Clear image. Perfect image.]

  [What human have I seen clearly lately? Only one. During the fight. Too close. Way too close.]

  [The Rejection. Standing right there. Her face. Her form. Only clear reference available.]

  The dragon pulled that image desperately. Locked it into the spell structure. Used it as the template.

  The uniform as clothing. As visual structure. As framework for the transformation.

  Magic gathered around the massive broken form. Light erupting, surrounding everything.

  Shrinking. Reshaping. Reforming reality itself.

  Two hundred meters collapsing to human scale. Ancient dragon becoming woman. Impossible power compressed into a fragile-looking vessel.

  The light faded slowly.

  Standing there: a woman. Maid uniform already materialized on her body. Dark hair cascading down. Eyes like sunset and blood—dragon colors preserved even in this form. Small horns curving delicately from her head, distinctly draconic markers.

  Face: nearly identical to Null's. Same bone structure. Same features. Only the eyes and coloring different.

  The only clear human image the dragon had possessed: its opponent's face.

  The result: Null's near-twin. Marked by dragon heritage. Human form locked to this appearance for all eternity.

  The body itself retained dragon durability—near dragon-level resilience even compressed into human form. Could take incredible damage without breaking.

  The dragon-maid looked down at her hands. At her body. At the uniform she was wearing.

  Horror dawned. Full realization of what she'd done.

  "This is my human form. Forever. No changing this appearance ever again. Trapped in HER face. Wearing this ridiculous—"

  Null moved while the dragon was still processing.

  Fast. Clinical. Brutally efficient.

  The slave collar appeared in her hands. High-quality archmage-grade suppression work.

  She snapped it around the dragon-maid's neck before there was time to react. Click. Locked. Activated.

  Magic vanished like someone had cut power. All of it. Access to draconic abilities—gone. Fire breath—blocked. Flight—suppressed. Ancient power—sealed completely.

  The durability remained. Dragon body compressed into human form retained its resilience. But the strength, the magic, all the actual power that made dragons terrifying? Suppressed utterly.

  What remained: an incredibly durable woman with no strength to use it. Weak. Helpless. Collared.

  The dragon-maid gasped, feeling the suppression slam down. The loss. The absolute helplessness of having millennia of power just... erased.

  "You said servitude," Null stated. Matter-of-fact. "I accepted. This ensures compliance."

  "But—this is—I meant—"

  "You offered eternal service. I'm enforcing that offer. Efficiently."

  The dragon-maid looked at her. At the collar. At the impossible situation.

  Null felt the thoughts pouring out. Panic. Horror. Realization.

  [No escape. No escape. Can't break the collar. Can't use magic. Can't transform. Can't flee. Can't fight.]

  [No freedom. Forever. This is forever. Eternal servitude. She meant it. She actually meant ETERNAL—]

  [No power. Nothing. Just this weak body. Just durability. Just... just a punching bag. That's all I am now.]

  [Servitude. Real servitude. Not bargaining position. Not temporary. REAL. Enforced absolutely. Trapped completely. Forever—]

  [Unnamed Dwarf Slave POV] (Same time - Away from valley)

  Stopped. Finally stopped. Had to. Exhausted. Lungs burning. Legs failing.

  [How long been running? Don't know. Lost track. Fight sounds made me run faster. Explosions. Light. Fear. Just: ran. Didn't count time. Didn't measure distance. Just: away. Fast as possible.]

  Listened. Silence. Complete silence behind. No battle sounds. No explosions. No screaming. Nothing.

  [Fight is over. Whoever won... no mortal could survive that. Gods fighting. Explosions that shook mountains. Valley probably erased. Everyone dead. No one left to send Bloodhound. No pursuit. No tracking. Freedom actually possible?]

  Couldn't see valley from here. Too far. Too dark. Distance and night making everything invisible. Just: silence. Horrible silence. Empty silence.

  [Whoever won—probably not interested in escaped slave. Probably not noticing. Probably not caring about useless dwarf who just collected bark for century.]

  [What would they even want with me? Just bark collector. Helped make drinks when owners too busy. Century of useless work. Nothing valuable. Nothing special. Nothing worth pursuing.]

  [Unless... no. Nobody fights dragons over drinks. That's insane.]

  [Freedom. Real freedom. After century. After multiple failed attempts. This time worked. Finally escaped. Finally free.]

  Started running again. Can't stop long. Need distance. Need safety.

  [This is real. This is freedom. Soon.]