I pulled Cinderbrand out of the chest of the last Bladeblood vanguard. My lungs burned. My arms ached. I had 4,700 HP and an Energy Shield, but I was running out of breath.

  Then, the battlefield went dark.

  The wind vanished, replaced by a suffocating, toxic heat. The ground trembled as tons of scaled muscle slammed into the melting cashmere moss directly in front of me.

  The Emerald Dragon.

  It was close enough that I could smell the sulfur and rotting meat on its breath. The beast lowered its massive, horned head, its reptilian eyes locking onto me. Green fire began to bubble in the back of its throat.

  Sitting atop the saddle, Veratrix Bladeblood sneered down at me. Her red armor was immaculate, her eyes alight with sadistic glee.

  "The Golden Merchant," Veratrix purred, her voice dripping with venom. "I hear you are very expensive. Let’s see what color your gold turns when I melt it to your bones. Any last words? Make them loud. I like the screams."

  I raised my sword, my mind racing for a spell, a trick, a way out.

  "I have a few words," a quiet, perfectly calm voice said from my right. "But they are not loud. Shouting is highly inefficient."

  Veratrix blinked. I turned my head.

  Walking out from behind a burning lace-tree, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his polar-bear hoodie, was Morvin Whitefield.

  The nine-year-old boy didn't look at the massive, terrifying dragon. He didn't look at the green fire bubbling in its maw. He looked directly at Veratrix, his silver eyes completely devoid of fear.

  "A child?" Veratrix laughed, a harsh, grating sound. "Did you bring me a snack, Merchant?"

  "I am the heir to the Duchy of Woolhaven," Morvin stated flatly. He stopped ten feet from the dragon’s snout. "And I am here to offer you a promotion, Veratrix."

  Veratrix stopped laughing. The dragon’s jaw snapped shut, the fire swallowing itself back into its gullet. "A promotion?"

  "Look up," Morvin commanded.

  He didn't point. He just tilted his head.

  Veratrix glanced up at the red, ash-choked sky. Above us, the Obsidian Dragon was struggling. Queen Helga Bladeblood was fighting to keep the beast airborne, its left wing bleeding heavily from Malachia’s lucky shot.

  "Your sister is weak," Morvin said, his voice carrying the chilling, detached logic of a seasoned sociopath. "She is honorable. She is sentimental. She stopped you from burning the Falken girl because she cares about 'rules'. Rulers who care about rules do not survive."

  "Watch your tongue, boy," Veratrix hissed, gripping her lance. "That is my Queen."

  "For now," Morvin corrected smoothly. "But look at the board. The Obsidian Dragon is crippled. The Emerald Dragon is currently the undisputed apex predator of this airspace. You have the tactical advantage. You have the ambition. The only thing you lack... is the funding."

  I stood there, my sword lowered, watching a nine-year-old casually negotiate a coup d'état in the middle of a warzone.

  "What are you proposing, little fluff-ball?" Veratrix asked, her eyes narrowing. She was sadistic, but she wasn't stupid. She smelled the opportunity.

  "A hostile takeover," Morvin said, kicking a piece of burnt moss. "If you kill Helga right now, the Firelands belong to you. The Bladeblood army will follow the strongest dragon. You will be Queen."

  "If I kill my sister, the other Great Houses will unite to crush me," Veratrix countered, leaning forward in her saddle. "I will have no allies."

  "You will have me," Morvin said without missing a beat.

  He took his hands out of his pockets and folded them behind his back.

  "House Whitefield possesses infinite resources. We weave the economy of this world. But we lack hard, abrasive power. We lack teeth." Morvin looked up at her, a terrifyingly serene smile forming on his lips. "You have the teeth. We have the gold."

  Veratrix stared at him. "You are offering an alliance?"

  "I am offering a dynasty," Morvin corrected softly. "I am nine years old. You are twenty-one. In seven years, I will be of age. I will marry you. We will unite the Firelands and Woolhaven. With my intellect and your cruelty, we will not just rule our Duchies."

  Morvin looked past her, toward where the King's carriage was parked in the distance.

  "We will drag the Bear off his throne."

  The silence that followed was heavier than the dragon.

  I felt a cold sweat break out under my collar. Morvin wasn't just offering her a crown; he was mapping out a geopolitical masterplan that would reshape the entire continent, all while standing in the mud. He was offering himself as a political pawn, completely detached from any human emotion about marriage or love. It was pure math.

  Veratrix looked at the boy. Then, slowly, she looked back up at the sky.

  She watched her sister, Helga, desperately trying to rally the retreating Bladeblood soldiers, unaware of the treason brewing below.

  A slow, wicked smile spread across Veratrix’s face. The sadism in her eyes was replaced by raw, unadulterated ambition.

  "You are a very strange little boy," Veratrix whispered.

  "I am merely efficient," Morvin replied, putting his hands back into his pockets. "Do we have a deal, future Queen?"

  Veratrix didn't say yes. She didn't say no.

  But she pulled sharply on the Emerald Dragon's reins. The beast roared, turning its massive head away from me and Morvin.

  "Let's see how the wind blows, little genius," Veratrix called out. "If my sister should suffer a... tragic accident in the smoke... I will know where to send my bridal registry."

  The Emerald Dragon launched itself into the air. The downdraft nearly knocked me off my feet, but Morvin stood perfectly still, his white fur coat barely rippling.

  We watched the green dragon soar into the ash, flying not toward the Royal Army, but upward, trailing directly behind the wounded Obsidian Dragon.

  I exhaled a breath I didn't know I was holding. I looked at the nine-year-old.

  "Remind me," I said, my voice hoarse, "to never, ever play chess with you."

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Morvin didn't look at me. He just watched the two dragons circling each other in the bloody sky.

  "Chess is boring, Merchant," Morvin murmured, a cold, dead light in his silver eyes. "The pieces never scream when you take them off the board."

  I watched the Emerald Dragon ascend into the ash-choked sky.

  High above, the Obsidian Dragon was struggling. Queen Helga Bladeblood pulled desperately on the reins, trying to keep her massive mount airborne. The beast's left wing, shattered by Malachia’s glitch-bolt, was bleeding thick, black blood that rained down on the battlefield like oil.

  Helga saw her sister flying toward her. "Veratrix!" Helga’s voice echoed down to the ground, filled with relief. "Form up! Cover my flank, we are falling back to the"

  She never finished the sentence.

  Veratrix didn't form up. She didn't flank. She drove the Emerald Dragon directly above her sister.

  "Long live the Queen," Veratrix’s voice drifted down, cold, amplified, and dripping with venom.

  The Emerald Dragon opened its jaws and unleashed a point-blank torrent of super-heated green plasma directly onto the Obsidian Dragon's crippled wing.

  It was brutal. It was absolute. The green fire melted the black scales instantly, burning through muscle and snapping the dragonbone joint. The Obsidian Dragon let out a shriek that shattered the sound barrier, a sound of pure, agonizing betrayal.

  "VERATRIX! NO!" Helga screamed, clinging to the saddle as her mount lost all aerodynamics.

  The massive black beast folded in on itself. It plummeted from the sky like a dying meteor, trailing black smoke and green fire. We watched it fall, a terrifying silhouette against the red clouds, until it crashed miles away, deep in the distant cashmere mountains of Woolhaven. The impact sent a tremor through the earth.

  Veratrix hovered in the sky above the stunned battlefield.

  She raised her dragonbone lance. "The Queen is dead!" Veratrix’s voice boomed over the valley. "I am the Queen of the Firelands! Those who wish to live, form on me! We march home!"

  The battlefield froze. The Bladeblood Army looked up in horror. Half of them, the loyalists, dropped to their knees in despair, staring at the distant smoke of Helga's crash. But the opportunists? The mercenaries? They didn't hesitate. Thousands of red-scaled soldiers broke ranks, abandoning their comrades and running toward Veratrix’s retreating shadow.

  The chaos was absolute. The enemy formation was entirely shattered.

  King Brandan saw the opening. The Bear did not hesitate. He raised Thunder-Fall high into the air, lightning arcing violently across the iron-oak head.

  "THEIR LINE IS BROKEN!" Brandan roared, a sound so thunderous, so impossibly loud and full of triumphant fury, that it shook the ash from the trees. "NO MERCY FOR THE FIRE! TAKE THEM ALL!"

  The Grand Army Coalition surged forward like an avalanche of grey steel and suppressed rage. The Moonclaw soldiers, fueled by the sheer adrenaline of survival, crashed into the demoralized, abandoned Bladeblood loyalists.

  It wasn't a battle anymore. It was a harvest. Swords clashed, shields shattered, but the enemy had no heart left. Within ten minutes, thousands of Bladebloods threw their weapons into the mud and fell to their knees, surrendering.

  We had done it. We had broken the greatest military power of the East. The Bladebloods were defeated, their leadership fractured, their army captured.

  Brandan stood on a pile of melted armor, laughing a booming, joyous, Kingly laugh that I hadn't heard since the Tourney of White-Gold. Gutrum leaned on his sword, exhaling a long, steady breath of relief. Gerald and Mary were hugging. Even the depressed Moonclaw soldiers were looking around, realizing they were alive, a strange, unfamiliar feeling of victory washing over them.

  And me? I was getting hit by the greatest dopamine rush the System could provide.

  The sky above me literally rained golden notifications.

  I felt the energy slam into my chest, a warm, pulsing wave of absolute power.

  "Oh, sweet mother of inflation," I gasped, falling to my knees as the power rewired my muscles.

  "Ten points," I whispered, my eyes wide. This wasn't a minor buff. This was a biological overhaul. I didn't need to do efficiency math anymore, but I needed to build my foundation.

  "System! Distribute to Base Stats!"

  I stood up. I felt like I could punch a hole through a castle wall. I wasn't just a squishy merchant relying entirely on gear anymore. My base body was becoming a monster in its own right.

  But the System wasn't done.

  The battlefield around me began to glow. Thousands of glowing white, blue, and purple orbs hovered over the fallen Bladeblood soldiers.

  I pressed [Bulk Trade Crates].

  Before my eyes, the hundreds of pieces of heavy, epic-tier armor dismantled themselves into digital light, flying toward me and compressing into neat, perfectly organized wooden crates that dropped into my Merchant Inventory.

  If I sold these in Kynoboros... the profit margin would be astronomical. I was looking at millions of gold in raw material and epic gear.

  I stood in the center of the battlefield, the red sky finally beginning to clear. My army was cheering. My stats were stacked. My inventory was overflowing. My Vial was full.

  I pulled out a Smokeleaf (Value: 50 Gold), struck a match against the still-smoldering armor of a fallen enemy, and took a long, deeply satisfying drag.

  "Vasco," I called out to the Master of Liabilities, who was picking his way cleanly through the mud.

  "Yes, Wilhelm?" Vasco smiled, eyeing the loot crates I had just hoovered up.

  "We need a bigger vault," I said, blowing a ring of smoke into the Woolhaven sky. "And someone get me a map to the Firelands. We have a new Queen to evict."