Above the burning fields of Woolhaven, the two dragons circled.

  "You went too far, Veratrix!" Queen Helga Bladeblood shouted from the back of the Obsidian Dragon. Her voice was sharp, cutting through the roar of the flames. "There is no honor in slaughtering unarmed girls! We came for the hostages, not to burn the world!"

  Veratrix Bladeblood laughed from the Emerald Dragon. It was a cruel, melodic sound.

  "Oh, Helga, you are so boring. Look at them! They melt so beautifully. Why take hostages when we can leave ash?"

  "Because we are Queens, not butchers!" Helga roared back. "Recall your fire! Target the soldiers, not the wounded!"

  "You rule your dragon, sister," Veratrix sneered. "I'll rule mine."

  Down in the mud, Dr. Fenris Vulpine was ignoring the dragons entirely, his hands buried in Livia Whitefield’s shattered side.

  "Hold still, you vain idiot," Fenris barked, pulling out a shard of glass. "I can fix the bleeding, but you're going to have a scar. Try not to cry about it."

  Livia coughed, weakly gripping his coat. "Make it... symmetrical..."

  I didn't have time to worry about Livia’s aesthetics. I was surrounded.

  Four massive soldiers in heavy, red-scaled armor advanced on me. They wielded dragonbone halberds, their visors down.

  "One Merchant against four," the lead soldier grunted. "Easy bounty."

  "I love bad math," I said, drawing Cinderbrand.

  The four soldiers attacked simultaneously. A classic box formation.

  I couldn't dodge all four. Two halberds came from the left, two from the right.

  "ENERGY SHIELD!"

  A sphere of crackling blue light erupted around me.

  CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.

  The four heavy halberds slammed into the shield. The blue energy rippled and groaned under the weight.

  "My turn," I whispered.

  "UNRELENTING FORCE!"

  "FUS RO DAH!"

  The kinetic shockwave blasted outward in a 360-degree radius. It hit them point-blank.

  All four soldiers were thrown backward, their formation shattered. They tumbled into the burning mud.

  One soldier scrambled to his feet faster than the others. He lunged, thrusting his halberd like a spear.

  I swapped to the Aurean Glassbow.

  [Eye of the Shedding Serpent] activated. I saw the joint in his armor the armpit, where the scales overlapped.

  "GLASSLINE SHOT!"

  CRACK.

  The glass spear punched straight through the gap. It didn't just pierce him; it shattered the joint. He screamed, dropping his weapon, blood fountaining from his arm.

  SLURP.

  I didn't stop. I fired a Spider Web at the wounded man.

  The web hit his chest. I yanked hard.

  I ripped him forward, using him as a meat shield just as Soldier #2 and #3 threw throwing axes.

  THUNK. THUNK.

  The axes hit their own comrade. He died instantly, bleeding out over my boots.

  Soldier #4 was smart. He didn't throw axes. He activated a [Magma-Core] rune on his chest plate.

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  He charged like a bull, leaving a trail of fire.

  He slammed his shoulder into my chest. The impact was like getting hit by a Dragon. My Energy Shield shattered instantly.

  The raw kinetic force transferred to my body. I flew backward, crashing into the trunk of a burning Lace-Tree.

  I coughed. Blood tasted like copper in my mouth.

  My Vial was empty. The auto-heal had burned the entire 1,000 ml to fix my cracked ribs.

  The soldier stood over me, raising his halberd for the killing blow.

  "Got you, Merchant."

  I looked up. My HUD flashed red.

  "I hate math," I grumbled. "But I love physics."

  I didn't swing my sword. I slapped the ground beneath his feet.

  "SHEET ICE!"

  A patch of zero-friction ice erupted directly under his heavy, magma-charged boots.

  He tried to swing the halberd, but the momentum, combined with zero friction, betrayed him.

  His feet flew out from under him. He went airborne, entirely horizontal, carried by his own heavy swing.

  While he was mid-air, I thrust Cinderbrand upward.

  SHIIIINK.

  Gravity did the work. He impaled himself on my blade. The super-heated ash of the sword boiled his insides.

  I kicked his body off my sword and stood up.

  Soldier #2 and #3 were backing away, looking at the pile of their dead comrades.

  "He's a Monster!" one screamed. "He just keeps healing!"

  "I'm a Broker," I corrected, wiping Cinderbrand. "I just manage my liquid assets very efficiently."

  "LIGHTNING BOLT!"

  A crack of blue electricity shot from my hand. It arced perfectly into their heavy metal armor. They spasmed, dropped their weapons, and collapsed, twitching in the mud.

  I stood in the center of the carnage.

  Four Elite Level 23 soldiers. Dead in under two minutes.

  The Loop was perfect. The system was broken. I was an engine of perpetual violence.

  I looked up.

  Helga and Veratrix were still circling. The dragons roared.

  "Alright, you overgrown lizards," I growled, drawing an arrow. "Who wants to be a wallet?"

  The sky above Woolhaven was a canvas of ash and fire.

  While I danced a bloody waltz with the Vanguard on the ground, Pontifex Malachia was trying to wage war on the sky.

  She stood on the back of a half-melted supply wagon, wrestling with a Sanctified Arbalest a heavy, mounted crossbow meant for two grown men. Malachia was entirely the wrong size for it. She was sweating, glitching furiously as she tried to crank the heavy iron winch, infusing the bolt with her bright pink, pixelated mana.

  High above, the Obsidian Dragon banked through the smoke.

  "Target acquired, you scaly firewall!" Malachia yelled.

  She slammed her fist onto the release lever.

  THWUMP.

  The massive bolt shot upward, leaving a trail of pink static. But the recoil was violent. The arbalest kicked back, throwing Malachia off her feet. She landed hard on the wooden planks.

  The bolt sailed harmlessly fifty feet below the dragon’s belly.

  "Error 404! Aim not found!" Malachia screamed, kicking the wooden frame of the weapon. "Stupid analog garbage! It’s lagging!"

  "It isn't lagging, Little Holiness," a smooth, maddeningly calm voice said from the smoke. "You are just anticipating the recoil. You close your eyes right before you fire."

  Malachia froze. She looked up.

  Ser Alexander Shadowgrove stepped onto the wagon. His golden armor was pristine, somehow completely untouched by the soot and tar of the battlefield. The wind caught his white cloak perfectly.

  "Get away from me," Malachia hissed, her pixels turning sharp and jagged with rage. "I don't need help from a corrupted file. I don't need help from my father's murderer."

  Alexander didn't flinch. He didn't look angry. He just looked... tired, but with a perfect smile painted over it.

  He walked up to the arbalest. With his real hand, he grabbed the crank. With his newly bought golden hand, he locked the mechanism in place. He began to draw the heavy bowstring back with effortless, terrifying strength.

  Click. Click. Click.

  "Your father," Alexander said casually, loading a fresh bolt into the groove, "had the exact same terrible stance. He stood too wide. It made him a very easy target."

  Malachia felt a cold spike of fury in her chest. She glitched forward, grabbing the collar of his pristine white cloak.

  "Admit it!" she screamed, her voice breaking. Tears of pink light threatened to spill from her eyes. "Just admit you did it! Nobody is listening! The world is burning! Just tell me you killed him!"

  Alexander looked down at the tiny, glitching girl holding onto his cloak. For a fraction of a second, the mask of the 'Golden Lion' slipped. He didn't look like the Apex. He looked like a man who carried a mountain of bodies on his back.

  He gently, but firmly, pried her hands off his cloak.

  "Why would I do that, Malachia?" Alexander asked softly. "Why would I admit to killing the holiest man in the Realm?"

  "Because it’s the truth!"

  "The truth," Alexander sighed, looking out at the burning sky, "is a terrible weapon. It is messy. It stains. And I am the Golden Knight. The Realm doesn't need the truth. They need a hero. They need someone flawless to look at when the world turns to ash."

  He tapped his golden breastplate.

  "If I am a monster, little glitch, I am a monster who is loved. I will not break their hearts. And I will not break my House. My image is the shield that protects my family. I would slaughter a thousand Popes before I let a single scratch ruin that gold."

  He looked back at her. The fatherly warmth in his eyes was completely at odds with the chilling sociopathy of his words.

  "Now," Alexander said, turning her by the shoulders to face the arbalest. "Are you going to cry about dead men, or are you going to shoot that dragon?"

  Malachia sniffled. She wiped her nose on her sleeve. She hated him. She hated his perfection, his logic, his golden hand. But she looked up at the Obsidian Dragon, carrying Queen Helga.

  "I'm going to shoot it," Malachia muttered.

  "Good," Alexander said. He stepped right behind her, wrapping his arms around hers, guiding her hands to the weapon. His golden hand covered her small, pixelated one on the trigger.

  "You are aiming where the beast is," Alexander murmured, his cheek near hers, his voice entirely focused on the geometry of death. "A dragon is not a fortress. It is a ship in the sky. You must aim where it will be."

  Malachia took a shaky breath. She channeled her magic. The bolt began to glow with blinding, unstable pink energy.

  "Feel the wind," Alexander instructed calmly. "It is blowing east. Smells like burnt wool. The Obsidian Dragon is heavily armored. It is heavier than the Emerald. When Helga banks left to avoid the smoke, the beast will drop exactly twelve feet."

  He adjusted the elevation of the arbalest, tilting the heavy barrel upward.

  "Wait," Alexander whispered.

  High above, Queen Helga pulled the reins. The massive black dragon banked left to dive.

  "Now."

  Malachia squeezed the trigger.

  THWUMP-CRACK!

  The recoil was massive, but Alexander’s chest was right behind her, acting as a flawless, immovable wall. The shockwave rattled her teeth, but her eyes stayed open.

  The glitch-infused bolt tore through the sky like a Arcane Beam. It didn't aim for the dragon. It aimed for the empty air below it.

  But as the dragon banked, it dropped. Right into the path of the bolt.

  KRRAAACK!

  The heavy iron bolt struck the Obsidian Dragon exactly on the joint of its left wing. The pink pixel-magic exploded on impact, shattering a cluster of impenetrable black scales.

  The dragon let out an earth-shattering roar of pain. Black blood rained down on the cashmere hills. The beast lurched wildly, its left wing spasming. Helga had to cling to the saddle to keep from being thrown.

  It didn't fall. The beast recovered, stabilizing its flight, but the damage was done. The invincible monster was bleeding.

  Malachia stood there, her hands shaking, her eyes wide. She had hit it. She had actually hurt a Mythic-class monster.

  Alexander stepped back. He dusted a single speck of ash from his golden shoulder.

  "Better," Alexander nodded approvingly. "Your release is still a fraction of a second too late, but the elevation was passable."

  Malachia turned to look at him. The man who had likely orphaned her. The man who just taught her how to kill.

  "I still hate you," Malachia whispered, her pixels stabilizing into a hard, cold resolution. "One day, I'm going to put a bolt right through your golden chest."

  Alexander offered her that perfect, infuriating, flawless smile.

  "I expect nothing less, Your Holiness," Alexander said, bowing slightly. "But until then... reload. We have a war to win."