The mine became a battlefield.
The Emerald Dragon's laughter cracked skulls, not sound but weight, pressing thought into submission. The koi ignored it. Blood shimmered faint through his scales as he surged forward, reckless, furious. Frostwing spread battered wings, frost scattering against emerald flame. Brandon's spear cut arcs of steel in the dark glow.
And together—they fought.
The dragon's size made every motion catastrophic. Each wingbeat collapsed scaffolds. Each talon strike shattered ledges into gravel. Emerald fire poured like rivers, burning stone to glass. Yet the trio did not break.
Brandon drove the rhythm, voice raw but steady despite venom gnawing at his arm. "Left hinge—now!" Frostwing obeyed, frost coating where he pointed, freezing scales until they cracked. The koi hurled himself into gaps, Blood Scales flaring, Bounce snapping him past swipes that could have erased him a hundred times.
For one impossible stretch of heartbeats, they matched the Emerald Dragon blow for blow.
Frostwing froze its wings mid-beat, grounding the mountain of green. The koi wrapped it in a vast bubble, straining until water quaked. Frostwing exhaled again, sealing the bubble in ice. Brandon struck the cracks, each thrust tolling through the cavern like iron bells.
The koi shed blood to ignite his scales. He burst them all at once.
The ice-bubble shattered with the dragon trapped inside. Emerald scales split. The beast roared, tumbling—falling into the abyss below the mine.
Silence. Miners sobbed. Han clutched his twins. Frostwing's eyes glowed with weary triumph. Brandon sagged but smiled faintly, breath shallow.
But the koi did not cheer. His Sense pressed downward, into the dark. He felt it—power not fading, but swelling. Stronger. Furious.
"No," he whispered into the bond. "It's not dead."
The mountain groaned. A surge of emerald fire erupted from the abyss, ripping air apart. The Emerald Dragon soared back into the mine, scales blazing brighter, aura suffocating.
"You all… must die!"
Its voice tore bone. Its jaws opened, emerald fire coalescing into a sun meant to erase everything—mine, town, every fragile life clinging to the mountain.
Brandon sagged, his arm blackened by poison. Frostwing's wings shook, edges charred. The koi's own scales bled red light, nearly gone. They had nothing left.
"System," he begged. "Anything left—anything to save them?"
The reply was merciless.
[Options exhausted. No survival routes.]
[Unless—miracle.]
The koi laughed bitterly. "Miracle? That's not an answer."
And despair struck.
He would resurrect. He always did. Death was punishment, not ending. He would wake again, weaker, heavier with the load the System forced on him. He would keep crawling forward, carrying a burden that grew with every fall.
But Brandon—he had no second chance. Frostwing—no resurrection waited for her. The miners—Han, his twins. May's unborn child, whose heartbeat he had felt faint and fragile. They each had only one thread. One life. One chance.
And reality was cruel. It gave him endless returns, but it offered them nothing. If the emerald sun fell, they would vanish forever, erased with no one left to remember.
Who deserved life more? Him—the anomaly, the mistake, the one bound to rise again? Or them—who still had futures waiting, who still had meaning beyond debt?
The koi's fins trembled. His voice cracked inside. Why do I live when they do not?
No answer. Only the roar of emerald fire swelling to consume all.
Maybe this was the end. Maybe that was fine. Better than watching another life erased while he carried on, pointless and alone.
The Emerald Dragon loosed its breath.
And then light split the cavern—not green, but white-blue.
Thunder rolled.
The dragon froze, mid-breath, as a lance of lightning punched through its chest. Scales cracked, flames sputtered. The cavern rang with stunned silence.
Above, wings scarred with storms blocked the emerald glow. Thundermaw.
And standing on its neck—Joren.
He did not look like a miner. Not like a villager. He looked like a god who had chosen, just once, to step into the mud.
His voice was not telepathy but thunder made into words.
"Greedy dragon," he murmured, as though disappointed in a bad wager. "Your game ends here."
The Emerald Dragon writhed, emerald flames spilling uselessly. Thundermaw's maw opened, stormlight boiling brighter than gems.
The strike erased roar, fire, and debt.
Silence returned—but this time it was relief, not tribute.
The koi drifted in his basin, stunned. He had fought, bled, burned. Yet in the end, it was another who delivered the killing blow. Should he feel gratitude? Shame? Or anger that his endless life meant nothing compared to one strike of thunder?
Above, Joren stood tall, lightning still dancing across his frame, and looked down at the survivors as though weighing dice in his palm.
The koi's heart ached, heavier than blood. For me, death is return. But for Brandon… every breath is a miracle he may not have tomorrow. His child waits. His story still matters.
He shivered.
And yet reality is cruel. It lets me crawl back endlessly, while those who deserve life most are offered none.
The game had changed.