News of a monster's death travels differently depending on who's listening.
Villagers hear it in the sudden quiet after screams.
Hunters, in the moment birds start singing again.
But dragons know it in the bones of the world. A sovereign weight falls out of the weave, and the earth grows a hollow where power used to sit.
When the Sovereign Venom Serpent at the foot of Emerald Peak fell, seven hollows turned their heads.
Tempest breathed deeper inside a thunderhead.
Stonejaw shifted, gravel spilling from his hide.
Seawing rose until ships on the horizon swayed.
Flarefang stoked coal into flame.
Nightshade let her shadows taste the air.
Sunscale bent light into data.
Thundermaw rumbled once, and the grass lay flat.
Their tamers—Vera, Kael, Saphira, Rashan, Nyra, Lira, Joren—felt it through the bonds. Seven who had taught themselves to call appetite order and victory weather. Each stopped, listened to the absence, and stepped into the circle.
Not wood or stone, but a room braided from dragon-breath: sky, stone, sea, flame, shadow, light, thunder.
Vera's voice came first, clipped as stormwind. "Another fall. At the Peak's foot."
Rashan rolled a coal, and it glowed because he willed it. "Sovereign venom. I'd been saving that one for a siege. Someone spent my toy."
Saphira's smile was saltwater. "Not ours. No song in that death. Just a thud."
"Not us," Joren agreed, lazy, delighted. "Which makes it interesting."
Lira set a prism down; light split obediently. "Residuals: cold in threads, not cones. Localized numbing, brittle failure. An interior frost event—contrary to phoenix fire patterns."
Kael's tone was heavy stone. "Phoenix?"
"Atypical," Lira said. "Ice-blooded. Tier Two. Wing damaged near the end."
Nyra's shadow curled around her words. "And still the serpent died. To what?"
"Something small," Lira answered. "Micro-projectiles. Scales. Cold-latticed. Not bird. Not man. Something that bounces."
Saphira clapped once, tide-quick. "Our little koi again."
The word sank like a coin into deep water. They all remembered the prism of White Dragon's fall: a fish in a lake, absurd and then—twice. Patterns are harder to dismiss than jokes.
"Not alone this time," Vera said. "There's a man. And a bird. Good discipline in the cold. Someone trained the air."
"Then the koi's found its Tamer," Joren said, grinning. "And a phoenix. I like this game."
Rashan's coal cracked. "The serpent was a gatekeeper. If the koi stands at the gate—" He didn't finish. Maps don't need full sentences.
"Intention," Nyra supplied smoothly. "The fish points upward."
Kael dismissed it with a polite rumble. "Let it point. Emerald is Tier One. You break a serpent with luck and leverage. You don't break Tier One with whimsy."
"You don't," Saphira said, amused. "But I would enjoy watching someone else try."
Vera folded phantom arms. "We already said the koi is a mistake the world will correct."
"Two dragons ago," Nyra murmured. "Now it has a man and a bird. The world forgives mistakes. Patterns, less so."
"Patterns don't kill Tier Ones," Rashan cut in.
"Confidence," Lira observed, mild, "is just certainty from one angle. Blind spot from another."
Joren laughed aloud, gambler's joy. "Call it what it is: luck. Twice now. I'm not done laughing."
"Luck is what you name variables you failed to measure," Kael said.
"Luck," Saphira countered, "is the notch on the blade that makes the cut when your hand slips. I do not dislike it."
Vera let the air settle, then sliced it clean. "So. A koi, a man, a bird. A sovereign corpse. At Emerald's base. Therefore it climbs."
"Therefore," Rashan said, "we watch it break like foam on rock."
"Therefore," Saphira corrected, "we watch."
Nyra's smile bent shadow. "Or help it up, to make the watching more likely?"
The circle tilted—rules tested, lines prodded.
"We do not help," Vera said flat. "We observe. Interference ruins the experiment."
"We are not scientists," Kael mused, "but the principle holds."
"Then bets," Joren said brightly.
Lira sighed—half exasperation, half indulgence. "If you must, wager silence."
"Done," Joren grinned. "I bet it reaches the lake."
"I bet it touches the dragon," Saphira chimed.
"I bet it dies below the treeline," Rashan growled. "The mountain doesn't let mistakes climb."
Nyra declined, whisper-soft. "I'm curious if the ladder is the only way up."
Kael turned to Lira. "Probability?"
"No odds," she said, rotating the prism. "Shapes. The man bends choice—belief field. The bird's cold is precise. The fish is stubborn—pain makes commas, not periods. Together, they interfere, signatures bleeding into one another. That's how you get ice from scales."
"In plain words," Joren pressed, grinning.
"In plain words," Lira allowed, "the fish can learn from allies in real time. It writes hybrid techniques on its own body. The serpent died not to luck, but to an algorithm: pain, cold, timing."
Kael's interest opened like a door. "Hybrid."
"Hybrid," Lira confirmed.
"And that algorithm beats Tier One?" Rashan pressed.
"No," Lira said. Clear, no hedge. "Not now. Maybe never. Tier One isn't just size—it's contract. History. Mountain itself. Tricks don't cut that deep."
"Impossible," Kael declared.
"Impossible," Rashan agreed, blunt.
"Impossible," Vera said, anchor-true.
"Impossible," Saphira echoed, but smiled as she said it.
"Impossible," Joren repeated, lightly, as if it were negotiable.
Lira set down her prism. "Not never," she said quietly. "But impossible now."
Nyra's shadow smiled. "That's the sort of sentence the world likes to prove eccentric."
Vera drew the circle shut. "Conclusion: koi cannot defeat a Tier One dragon. We observe. We do not intervene."
The dragons breathed. The room agreed.
But corners hold thoughts no one assigns. One lingered, shaped from curiosity, gentleness, mischief: If it climbs, the mountain will not be the only thing watching.
Wind carried rumors uphill: a grounded phoenix, a poisoned man, a fish cracked but singing with cold.
The Seven told themselves a safe word: Impossible.
The mountain lowered its clouds as if listening.
[Legendary Task: Objective Two — Pending]