The board was cleared. The pieces were set.
I stood in the center of my office, surrounded by holographic screens displaying the health of my empire. It was a beautiful sight.
First Prince Valerian: Contract renewed. Addicted to Halo. Second Prince Lysander: Discredited. Market share dropping. Princess Isabella: Financially shackled. Sovereign debt secured.
The Civil War had become a Vayne Corp subsidiary.
"We are projecting a record quarter," I said, swirling the ice in my glass. "I might actually take a vacation. I hear the Southern Isles are nice this time of year, provided the pirates have paid their tolls."
"Boss," Seraphina said. Her voice wasn't celebratory. It was tight.
She was looking at a secondary monitor—a security feed from the Industrial Salvage Yard on the outskirts of the city.
"We have an anomaly in Sector 4. The bone pit."
I frowned. Sector 4 was where we kept the picked-clean skeleton of the Leviathan. We had stripped the scales for armor, sold the heart to the Mages, and bottled the blood. All that remained were the massive, house-sized ribs and the skull. Trash waiting to be ground into fertilizer.
"Is it looters?" I asked. "Send a drone to scare them off."
"It's not looters, Lucas. It's... him."
I looked at the screen.
Standing amidst the towering white ribs of the dead sea-god was a lone figure in a tattered cloak.
Kaelen.
He wasn't hiding in the shadows. He stood in the open, his arms raised. He held a jagged obsidian dagger in his right hand.
He slashed his own palm.
Black, Void-infected blood poured from the wound, sizzling as it hit the ancient bone of the Leviathan's skull.
"What is he doing?" Seraphina whispered.
Kaelen began to chant. It wasn't a spell from any grimoire I sold. It was a sound that made the speakers crackle—a guttural, hateful language of the Deep Void.
Rumble.
The ground shook. The massive ribs of the Leviathan rattled.
Purple fire erupted from the empty eye sockets of the skull. The bones didn't just move; they fused. Shadows solidified between the ribs, forming phantom wings of pure darkness.
The Void Leviathan shrieked. It wasn't the wet, gurgling roar of a sea creature anymore. It was the dry, dusty scream of a lich.
It hauled itself out of the mud, debris raining from its skeletal frame. It spread wings that spanned three city blocks.
Kaelen leaped onto the skull, his sword drawn. He looked directly into the security camera.
"You sold its heart!" Kaelen screamed, his voice amplified by the monster's magic. "You sold its skin! But you forgot to sell its rage!"
The dragon took flight. It didn't head for the army camps. It didn't head for the palace.
It turned its burning purple eyes toward the tallest structure on the horizon.
Vayne Tower.
"He's invoking the Return Policy," I muttered, setting my glass down.
The building shook as the sonic boom hit us.
"Seraphina," I barked. "Activate Protocol: Pay-to-Win."
"Authorization?"
"Unlock the budget! Spend it all!"
Location: Vayne City Airspace
The city defenses unfolded like an intricate puzzle box.
Panels on the skyscrapers slid open, revealing banks of Magitech Missile Launchers. Laser grids hummed to life, turning the air above the city into a kill zone.
"Fire," I ordered.
WHOOSH-WHOOSH-WHOOSH.
Hundreds of tracking missiles streaked into the sky. They cost ten thousand gold pieces each.
They slammed into the skeletal dragon. Explosions blossomed like fireworks.
"That was a penthouse," I winced, watching the gold count drop on my screen. "That was a yacht. That was a small island."
The smoke cleared.
The dragon was still flying. The Void-shadows knitting its bones together had absorbed the impact. It opened its jaws.
A beam of Null-Fire—a black beam of absolute erasure—swept across the sky.
It hit a squadron of my defensive drones. They didn't explode. They simply ceased to exist. Matter turned to dust instantly.
"The shields!" Seraphina screamed.
The beam hit the Vayne Tower forcefield.
CRACK.
The entire building groaned. The lights flickered. The hexagonal barrier turned red, then shattered.
Debris rained down onto the streets below. The dragon roared, circling for another pass.
"Standard munitions are ineffective!" Nero reported, stepping out of the shadows, his blade drawn but useless against a target that high up. "It regenerates too fast. It feeds on the mana of the attacks."
I looked at the monster. It was an endgame boss. And I was stuck in a cutscene.
"I can't budget my way out of this," I realized. "I need the nuke."
I walked to the wall behind my desk. I placed my hand on a blank panel.
[Biometric Scan Accepted.] [Vault Opened.]
Inside sat a single, heavy black briefcase.
I opened it. Inside was a jagged crystal that pulsed with the light of a dying star.
The Star-Fall Beacon.
It was a legendary consumable item I had been saving for the final war. It summoned an orbital magical bombardment capable of leveling a mountain range.
I grabbed it.
"Seraphina, charge the Beacon!"
She plugged it into the console.
[Charging... 10%... Estimated Time: 5 Minutes.]
"Five minutes?!" I shouted. "That thing will turn this tower into gravel in two!"
I looked at the dragon diving toward us. I needed a distraction. I needed a meat shield.
I looked at my contact list.
I hit Conference Call.
Connection Established. Participants: Prince Valerian, Princess Isabella.
"Vayne!" Isabella screamed over the video feed. "We can see the dragon! It's attacking your tower!"
"I noticed!" I yelled back.
"This is your mess, merchant!" Valerian laughed, though he looked terrified. "You dug it up, you kill it!"
"Listen to me very carefully!" I roared, cutting them off. "That dragon is going to destroy my servers! If my servers die, the Sovereign Debt Ledger defaults instantly! The Imperial Economy collapses to zero!"
Isabella's face went pale.
"And you, Valerian! If the factory is destroyed, the Halo supply chain breaks! Your army turns into ghouls by sunset!"
I leaned into the camera.
"Save me to save yourselves! Send everything you have! Now!"
There was a moment of silence. They hated me. They wanted me dead.
But they needed me alive.
"Launch the gryphons!" Valerian roared to his generals.
"Mobilize the Royal Guard!" Isabella commanded.
Location: Vayne City Skyline
From the north and south, the skies filled with reinforcements.
Imperial Gryphon Riders dived at the skeletal dragon, their lances sparking with lightning. Royal Battle-Mages cast chains of light to bind its wings.
They were flies buzzing around a hurricane.
The dragon snapped its jaws, crushing a gryphon rider in mid-air. It lashed its tail, swatting a dozen mages out of the sky.
But it slowed him down.
[Beacon Charging... 80%...]
"Hold the line!" Valerian's voice crackled over the comms as his men died for my profit margins.
The dragon shrieked, annoyed by the pests. It ignored them and slammed its massive skeletal claws into the side of my tower.
CRUNCH.
The building listed to the left. The glass of my office window shattered. Wind howled into the room, scattering papers and money everywhere.
"90%!" Seraphina yelled, holding onto her desk.
The dragon reared back, preparing to breathe Null-Fire directly into my office.
Then, a figure leaped from the dragon's skull.
Kaelen.
He crashed onto the balcony, rolling and coming up with his Void-sword drawn. He was bleeding, manic, and terrifying.
He looked at me. I stood behind my desk, the Star-Fall Beacon pulsing with blinding white light in my hand.
"It ends here, Lucas!" Kaelen roared, stepping over the shattered glass. "No more deals! No more contracts!"
"You're right," I said, looking at the charging bar.
[99%...]
"Nero!" I commanded.
Nero stepped between me and the Fallen Hero. Shadow against Void.
The dragon loomed outside, opening its maw. Kaelen charged. The Beacon hummed.
"Now," I whispered. "We see who has the better ROI."