The pastel sky of Woolhaven didn't just turn red. It shattered.

  From the East, the Bladeblood Exiles descended like an Annunki plague.

  70,000,000 SP of Dragon-Fire and Scaled Hate crashed into our 89,510,000 SP Coalition.

  Usually, numbers win wars. But numbers don't account for Close Air Support.

  ROAAAAR.

  The Obsidian Dragon, ridden by Helga Bladeblood, strafed the left flank. A torrent of liquid magma vaporized three hundred Moonclaw soldiers instantly. The soft cashmere hills turned into sticky, burning tar.

  HISS.

  The Emerald Dragon, ridden by Veratrix Bladeblood, dusted the right flank with green fog. The Whitefield Porcelain Knights didn't die; their armor melted into their skin.

  "Anti-Air!" Brandan roared, swinging Thunder-Fall at a fireball. "Where are my scorpions?! Someone shoot those lizards!"

  I didn't have time to look at the sky. I had a problem on the ground.

  A figure in red-scaled armor was carving a path directly toward me. He moved like a blur of violence, wielding two serrated magma-blades.

  "The Golden Merchant!" Eryndor screamed, his voice distorted by his helm. "Your head is worth a Castle!"

  He lunged.

  I raised Cinderbrand to parry.

  He was too fast. Before I could even lift my blade, his magma-sword slashed across my chest.

  SSHHHHK.

  My Black Pyre Cuirass held, but the heat seared my skin underneath.

  The Vial glowed red, instantly transferring blood into my veins to knit the burn. I didn't flinch.

  "Is that it?" I taunted, stepping back. "I've been hit harder by a pillow!"

  I needed distance.

  I fired a thick white line at a burning felt tree behind him and yanked myself backward. I swapped to the Aurean Glassbow mid-air.

  I activated [Eye of the Shedding Serpent]. The world slowed slightly. I saw the weak point in his scale armor a thin gap at the neck.

  "GLASSLINE SHOT!"

  CRACK.

  A spear of solid glass exploded from my bow. It flew true, bypassing his parry and slamming into his shoulder pauldron.

  The glass didn't just hit; it shattered inside the armor, turning into shrapnel.

  Eryndor roared in pain. Blood sprayed from the gap in his armor.

  The red mist was ripped from the air. It swirled into my necklace.

  SLURP.

  "Infinite Blood," I grinned, feeling the rush. "Keep bleeding, Eryndor! You are my Income!"

  Eryndor was furious. He activated [Dragon-Rage]. His muscles swelled.

  He slammed the ground. A shockwave of magma knocked me off my feet. I rolled, swapping back to Cinderbrand.

  He was on top of me instantly, raising both blades for an execution strike.

  I didn't block. I attacked.

  "THERMAL SHOCK!"

  I drove Cinderbrand into his gut.

  First, Super-Heat. His armor glowed white-hot.

  Then, Flash-Freeze.

  CRACK-BOOM.

  Physics took over. The rapid expansion and contraction shattered his breastplate. It exploded outward. Shards of red scale and dragonbone flew everywhere.

  Eryndor gasped, staggering back, his chest exposed and bleeding heavily.

  Eryndor fell to one knee. He was bleeding, his armor was gone, but he was smiling.

  A sphere of blue energy formed around him.

  "You cannot touch me, Merchant!" Eryndor laughed, spitting blood. "I will regenerate, and then I will "

  I looked at my HUD.

  My Vial was full. My HP was (mostly) full.

  And I had a new toy.

  "Eryndor," I said, my voice turning into the cold drone of the System. "Your subscription to Time has expired."

  I reached out my hand. The blood in my veins turned black.

  "CHRONO-HEMORRHAGE."

  The world didn't stop. He stopped.

  A sphere of grey, distorted reality expanded around Eryndor.

  He tried to swing his sword. It moved... so... slow. It was like watching a fly trapped in amber. I could count the beats of his heart.

  He looked at me in panic. His eyes darting around, but his body refusing to obey.

  I walked up to him. Calmly.

  I stepped inside the Energy Shield (it blocked damage, not movement).

  I placed my hand on his chest.

  "THE LEDGER OF HANDS."

  I felt his soul. It was a messy ledger of fire and rage.

  I found the skill I wanted. The blue sphere.

  "I'll take that," I whispered.

  I ripped my hand back.

  Blue light was torn from his chest and absorbed into mine.

  Eryndor’s shield vanished.

  He stood there, frozen in time, defenseless, stripped of his protection.

  "Transaction complete," I said.

  I drew the Heavy Diver’s Knife (+3 STR).

  And I ended it.

  SHINK.

  Eryndor collapsed as the Chrono-effect wore off.

  He looked at me with fading eyes.

  "What... are... you?"

  "I'm the Broker," I said, wiping my blade. "And you were expensive."

  I stood over the corpse, breathing heavily. My HP was at 3,950. My Vial was empty.

  But as Eryndor’s body pooled blood onto the cashmere moss...

  I was fully reloaded.

  I looked up at the sky.

  The two dragons were still circling. King Brandan was screaming. Livia was fighting in the mud. The battle was far from over.

  I touched my new Energy Shield.

  "Next," I whispered.

  The battlefield of Woolhaven was no longer soft. The cashmere hills had melted under the dragon-fire, turning into a sticky, bubbling tar of burning polyester and wool.

  Astrid Falken was screaming.

  She wasn't screaming in fear. She was screaming in frustration. Her single boot was trapped. The melted Memory-Foam Moss had cooled rapidly around her leg, hardening into a plastic-like vice. She pulled, she twisted, but she was stuck fast in the middle of the kill zone.

  "Father!" Astrid cried, her needle-sword useless against the ground.

  Duke Gutrum Falken saw her. He was fighting three Bladeblood soldiers. He didn't hesitate. He dropped his shield. He abandoned his guard. He turned his back on the enemy and sprinted toward his daughter.

  "I am coming, Scorpion!" Gutrum roared.

  He reached her. He grabbed her waist and pulled. "Heave!" It wouldn't move. The ground held her like a predator.

  Then, the sun vanished.

  A shadow, vast and terrifying, swept over them. The Emerald Dragon. Riding upon it was Veratrix Bladeblood. She looked down at the struggling father and the one-armed girl. She didn't see people. She saw targets.

  "Burn the trash," Veratrix commanded, her voice amplified by the wind.

  But beside her, the Obsidian Dragon hovered. Helga Bladeblood pulled on her reins. "Veratrix, no!" Helga shouted. "It is a child! A cripple! There is no honor in ash!"

  "Honor is for the dead, sister!" Veratrix laughed.

  The Emerald Dragon opened its maw. A green light began to gather in its throat a concentrated beam of toxic, melting fire.

  Gutrum looked up. He saw the death coming. He looked at Astrid. He stopped pulling. He knew he couldn't free her in time.

  So he did the only thing a father could do. He threw his body over hers. He wrapped his arms around his daughter, burying her face in his chest, shielding her with his own flesh.

  "Close your eyes, Astrid," Gutrum whispered, his voice shaking. "Do not look."

  "Father, no!" Astrid sobbed into his coat.

  The Dragon fired. FWOOOOM.

  A column of green fire, hot enough to melt stone, crashed down toward them.

  But it never hit.

  A figure sprinted into the light. She didn't have a shield. She didn't have heavy armor. She wore a torn, soot-stained dress of white silk.

  Livia Whitefield.

  She threw herself between the Dragon and the Falkens. She planted her feet in the burning tar. She raised her hands, not in surrender, but in a gesture of blooming.

  "PRISMATIC AEGIS: ROSE OF THE MARTYR!"

  A massive, translucent flower made of Hard-Light Glass erupted from her hands. It spiraled open, forming a barrier of petals.

  BOOM.

  The dragon fire slammed into the glass flower. The heat was unimaginable. The glass began to crack. The air screamed.

  "Hold!" Livia shrieked, her voice raw.

  But Veratrix wasn't done. "Archers!" Veratrix signaled. "Loose!"

  The Bladeblood soldiers on the ridge fired a volley of black arrows. Livia couldn't move. She was holding the shield against the dragon. She was a stationary target.

  THWACK. An arrow pierced her shoulder. THWACK. Another hit her thigh. THWACK. A third struck her side, just below the ribs.

  Livia convulsed. Blood bright red, human blood sprayed onto her white dress. But she didn't drop the shield. She didn't step aside.

  "I am not..." Livia gasped, blood bubbling between her teeth. "...a decoration!"

  She looked up at the Emerald Dragon. Her blue eyes, usually so vain, burned with a terrifying, suicidal resolve. She gathered every ounce of her 1.2 Million SP. Every ounce of her mana. Every ounce of her life force.

  "BLOOM... AND DIE!"

  She clapped her hands together. The glass flower didn't just block. It Exploded.

  It shattered into a million razor-sharp shards of magical glass, launching upward like a reverse hailstorm.

  SHING-SHING-SHING-SHING.

  The shards tore into the Emerald Dragon’s underbelly. They pierced its scales. They shredded its wings. The beast roared a sound of genuine pain. Veratrix was thrown back in her saddle as the dragon bucked, bleeding from a thousand tiny cuts.

  "Retreat!" Veratrix screamed, pulling the beast away from the glass storm. "Pull back!"

  The dragon flapped its tattered wings and fled into the red clouds.

  The silence returned. The fire faded.

  Livia Whitefield stood there for one second longer. She looked like a pin-cushion. Three arrows in her body. Her dress burned away at the edges. Her skin blistered from the heat.

  She swayed. "Did I..." Livia whispered to the empty air. "...did I ruin my dress?"

  She collapsed.

  "Livia!" Gutrum roared.

  He scrambled out from the mud, pulling Astrid with him (the heat had melted the trap enough to break free). They ran to her.

  Gutrum fell to his knees. He turned Livia over. She was a mess. Her face, once the pride of the Whitefield House, was smeared with soot, blood, and burns. Her breath was coming in shallow, wet rasps.

  "You foolish girl," Gutrum choked out, pressing his hands over the wound in her side to stop the bleeding. "Why? Why did you do that?"

  Livia opened her eyes. They were hazy. She looked at Astrid. Astrid was crying, holding Livia’s hand with her one good arm.

  "You..." Livia coughed, flinching as pain racked her body. "You are... the Scorpion. You have... legs to run."

  She looked at Gutrum. She tried to smile, but it was a grimace of pain.

  "Was I..." Livia wheezed, grabbing Gutrum’s wrist. Her grip was weak. "Was I... tough? Like the North?"

  Gutrum looked at the broken girl. He saw the arrows. He saw the burns. He saw a warrior who had stood against a dragon to save a child she barely knew.

  Tears streamed down the Wolf’s face. He didn't wipe them away.

  "Yes," Gutrum whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "You were tough, Livia. You were harder than iron. You were the toughest soldier on this field."

  Livia let out a breath. A tear leaked from her eye, cutting a clean line through the soot on her cheek.

  "Good," she whispered. "I hate... being... soft."

  Her head rolled back. Her hand went limp in Astrid’s grip.

  "Medic!" Gutrum bellowed, his voice cracking the sky. "MEDIC! GET FENRIS! NOW!"

  I watched from a distance, my heart hammering in my chest. I had seen heroes before. I had seen monsters. But I had never seen a porcelain doll walk through fire and come out looking like a legend.

  Livia Whitefield wasn't dead. Not yet. But the Knight of Beauty was gone. In the mud and the blood, the Knight of Thorns was born.