Wincing, Gwen injected herself with a second Healing Potion while simultaneously drinking an Elixir of Restoration, burning past her alchemical limit for the day. With an unbearable itch, her wounds healed and her arm popped back into place, though as for full mobility, that would take dedicated physiotherapy.

"Golos, hold on!" she hollered back. "Keep up your lightning!"

"AARRGH!" Golos hooted like a madcap baboon as it lost another chunk of armour.

"Caliban, keep me covered!"
"SHAAA!"

"First this one, then you!" the Tyrant bellowed, punctuating its threat by puncturing Golos's rump. "Have patience!"

"Dimension Door!" Gwen appeared behind their enemy, just out of reach of the Naga's heads. Caliban stood directly in front, ready to serve as her meat shield or to take its master away from danger. "KEEP IT PINNED!"

"RAWAAAR!" Golos exploded, flaying scales from the Tyrant's neck and back, beating at the Naga with its wings and its tail, raining scales and dark blood.

Gwen forced herself to calm. She recalled Walken's story of Sobel's spell in Sydney. For all her feelings of vitriol, there was no denying that the bitch's mastery of the Void was second to none. According to Walken, Sobel's elemental swarm had been the most horrific and practical demonstration of the Void's consumptive abilities he had ever seen.

If so, she had an inkling of what she had to do.

Sensing imminent danger, the Tyrant pushed back.

With a supreme grunt of supernatural effort, Golos pressed forward, pounding the earth with his massive thighs, taking several envenomed strikes to the neck, back and torso as he attempted to immobilise the Naga.

"VOID SWARM!" Gwen finished her Conjure Elemental with a single breath.

Her shadow distended.
The space around her shimmered, then began to tear as her incantation invited Caliban's fellow-fiends from the otherworldly expanse of the Quasi-Elemental Plane of the Void. The first time she had used the spell, it was in the presence of her Uncle, against the herd of unsuspecting deer. She had been hungry then, far weaker, less practised, green as a sapling.

Now, she'll plague them all, even to roaring!

From one lamprey came two, from two came three, and from three came a midnight tide of screeching, crawling, sucking things without noses nor lips, only teeth, pouring toward the sole source of concentrated vitality not clad in lightning.

Caliban exalted in the display, barking sing-song repetitions of "Shaa!" and "Shaa!" as its tentacles writhed, bathing in the caress of its numberless siblings.

Beware! Beware! Gwen felt as though the Abyssinian maid in Coleridge's epic, strumming her dulcimer of arcanistry as she invited the thousand young from the wending woods where the stars glimmer darkly. With all her vitality thus committed, she would eat the fucker like air!

"Father's whiskers!" Golos sucked in a breath of fetid air, heeding Gwen's advice in cladding his scales within a sheath of electricity.

"Asura!" the Tyrant bellowed, attempting to untangle itself from Golos. "USURPER!"

The carrion swarm of darkling lampreys reached Astaka's thrashing body; then as one, the hive latched on like a tide breaking over the entangled statue of a Wyvern and Naga amid a titanic struggle.

One by one, the lampreys latched on; with each mote they stole from Astaka, the leech-like abominations bloated and swelled, growing to twice, thrice their usual size! Even when Astaka rolled its brutal body, crushing Golos and leeches alike, smearing the ground with Void-tinged ichor, the creatures came on with the relentlessness of the Void's insatiable hunger.

A trickle of renewed vitality entered into her body, hot against her abdomen, gorging her mortal vessel with the milk of paradise.

Her breath caught in her throat, her limbs quivered.

Without reserve, she fed these dangerous, mind-numbing motes back into the Conjuration Sigil, attaining an epiphanic realisation that this was how Sobel had maintained her magic. As one, her creatures reared their phallic, eyeless heads, then redoubled their efforts, slithering up the Naga's body with renewed vigour.

"INSOLENCE!"

For the second time, there was a groundswell of raw mana.

As though a quickened toadstool after autumn's rain, the Naga grew yet again in size, doubling its girth. Like a child wrangled by an adult, the twenty-meter Golos fell backwards, shanked by fangs the length of broadswords. As a sixth head dipped, Caliban attacked, but with a violent snap, it cleaved Caliban's upper torso, head and all, from its stalwart lower body.

_Pssshk!_

A small microburst of acidic venom hurled forth from the seventh head.

"Shaa!" Spider-Caliban burst from the remains of the stag, expanding its torso to shield its master.

"DIE!" The final head descended, shaking lamprey-leeches from its scales. The Tyrant's maw unhinged. No matter which direction Gwen or her creature fled, they would soon enter its gullet to be digested.

Still channelling her thousand young, Gwen renewed her Void Skin, then performed a quick hypothesis in her head.

Here was an opportunity.
If the acid and the creature's internals proved impenetrable, then she would find herself back in Chengdu, or possibly Sydney. If she could survive long enough for Caliban to do its terrible work, then she would be one half-millennia Naga richer and Caliban may very well attain the gift of garb.

"TONIGHT, I FEAST ON THE FLESH OF THE YINGLONG."

She prepared her body for the worst.

"NEVER!"

To her chagrin, a Thunder Wyvern foiled her plans, placing itself between the Naga and herself.

"Golos!" she screeched, but how could she complain? It wasn't as though Golos could read her masochistic mind and deduce that she wanted to skinny dip in acid.

"Flee! You'll perish instantly!" Golos's rescue had arrived a little too late, meaning the Naga caught him by the neck before he could dodge the blow intended for Gwen. When the Tyrant's jaws snapped shut, it caught Golos right in the middle of his serpentine neck, crushing scale and bone alike.

A look of strange elation overcame Golos' face as his wingtips grew limp. "That's t-three times—"

Gwen felt an upwelling of emotion. Though Golos owed her, her chest nonetheless constricted. Staring at the skyscraper-sized Naga, she wondered if she could Dimension Door into the Tyrant's body, for the thing was now the length and girth of a blue-whale, so massive that her lampreys appeared as though aphids.

What could she do to save Golos? Should she save Golos?
Back when they first met, he had tried to maim her, hell, he even threatened to rape her. Then she had probed him with Caliban, but still-

"Gurrrrk!" Golos gurgled, a spurt of blood rained over Gwen and her shrieking Caliban, sizzling her Void Skin. At once, her lampreys rejoiced.

"Hahaha!" Astaka savoured the blood from Golos' throat. "Delicious!"

_You should go._ A voice of reason called out to Gwen. _Kitty's dead, Mayuree's saved, what more was there to do?_

But her body refused to move. Was it because of her spell? No, the thousand young were doing their job; the Tyrant was beyond her lamprey's abilities, her theft of its Essence was a drop in the bucket against the ley of the landscape itself. If so, how could she hope to usurp the life of Kachin, Nagaland and all its flora and fauna? She may as well run a pump into the Bay of Bengal to stem the tide.

"Be patient, insect. You're next," the Tyrant commanded her, and that's what she did, caught between spectacle and indecision, unable to leave her ally, neither wanting to flee nor knowing what else to do.

_Walken would slap me,_ Gwen thought unpleasantly.

Another head approached.

The Naga was getting impatient.

Her confidence crumbled.
She was at her limit.

Was Golos right? Could her worms eat this thing from inside out? Or would half of her instantly dissolve, sending not enough of her to Gunther to be revived? How much would an acid bath hurt?

"!"

Her useless Divination pinged. Could a Sigil be sarcastic?

Her world grew dark.

Then it suddenly grew white.

Not the white that one would expect to see at the end of the tunnel.
Nor the silvery-white flare of Conjuration from her Contingency Ring.
It was instead the alabaster of ionised plasma, the retina-searing white of unadulterated power drawn from the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Lightning.

"VHIRA, VILKLVI!" Came a fulmination of thundering bolts so turbulent that the ground shook, the heavens split, and the dusk turned to midday.

"BROTHER!" Golos' jubilance was drowned out by the cacophonous discharge sundering their ophidian enemy. Above the duo, one of Astaka's offending appendages suddenly erupted, blazing blue and green from its eyeless sockets.

A great trumpeting of agony erupted from a chorus of cobra-headed tubas.

Fighting the revolt in her conduits and the dizziness assailing her trembling innards, she forced herself to focus. If she tarried any longer, she would be the first Mage to be sent out of the IIUC as a result of being sandwiched between a Naga and a hard place.

"Never overextend." A belated piece of advice penetrated the noise.

It wasn't silvery Conjuration that enveloped her, but a pair of arms with the stiffness of steel cables, cradling her waist, pulling her away from the Tyrant, wading through her mass of Void-spawns as effortlessly as a lightning-charged scalpel through bible-black butter.

_Gunther?_ A déjà vu of Blackheath struck. _Or could it be Uncle Jun?_

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

But she was wrong on both accounts. The man that had pulled her from certain teleportation was a being of paradoxical intimacy, a stranger she already knew. His presence, or the "Stink", as Marong would say, was all too familiar. She had inhaled it many times already, on her Uncle, on Ayxin, on Golos, from all the fauna she had consumed on the Yellow Mountain. It was the same Essence held captive within her mortal body.

She craned her neck to regard the saviour of Gunther's Contingency Ring.

A pair of soft eyes the colour of pale water met her halfway, half-covered by a head of shocking silver.

"My prodigal niece." The dragon-kin had a baritone voice, deep like lowering tempest. "I had expected to meet you under better circumstances."

_CRACK!_

A spear of vertical lightning pierced a second cobra-head, penetrating the offending ophidian mass from snout to neck, blowing out the back of the serpent's brain like a too-ripe melon.

"HISSS!"

Astaka reeled, suddenly afraid as any intelligent Naga would be when an enemy effortlessly disabled two of its eight heads.

"Astaka, you're looking worse for wear." Ruxin's voice filled the clearing even as he cradled his niece with the earnest affection of a young man and his golden goose. "For offending our father, I've come for you and everything you own. So that you know, your palace has fallen, and the Pillar of Jade is mine as well."

"YOU!" Astaka tossed Golos aside, folding the Wyvern's body into a groaning heap. "IT WAS YOU!"

"Watch out!" Gwen pushed against her captor's arms, though she may as well be striking concrete.

Ruxin took the hit head-on.

A semi-sphere barrier protected Gwen and Ruxin from the assault, though it failed to dissipate the force of the blow.

_KLANG!_ There was a sound of metal-on-metal, then the humanoid dragon was sent flying.

Gwen's world twisted and turned while they spun, feeling as though trapped in the violent tumble of a drink driving commercial, only ending when Ruxin righted himself some fifty meters away.

"That was embarrassing," the dragon apologised to the girl in his arms. "Are you alright?"

"Can you let me down?" she demanded with the sourness of a tart. Though she was safe, her suffering was exquisite. Kitty was dead, and she had seized up like a deer. In the end, she couldn't drink danger as though it were the wine of life. She could not jest as a Naga swallowed her whole. She had called her own bluff and had found herself wanting.

"Are you hale?" Ruxin's patience was perplexing.

"I am." Gwen answered her self anointed "uncle", paying no heed to the dragon's semi-divine visage. For the foreseeable future, she was out of shits to give.

"Good." Ruxin made two gestures. One toward Gwen, and one toward Golos. "Keep safe and keep away. I'll be along shortly."

Before she could retort, there came yet another groundswell of mana, the very same that Astaka had employed twice over.

Her stomach lurched. When she blinked again, she had been translocated into an untouched clearing, stranded beside Golos' broken body.

Ruxin assumed his natural form.

Had he not sent his niece away, she would have witnessed the awe-inspiring sight of a pure-blooded Thunder Dragon forty-meters from whisker to tail. She would have awed at his lion's maw and tiger's claws; gaped at his handsome head upon which sat a mane of vibrant feathers, marvelled at his stag horns, as majestic as they were potent.

Twisting and turning, Ruxin caught each of the Tyrant's heads within the confines of his coiled length, paralysing his opponent with blue-green bolts of electrical discharge.

"How!" The Naga thrashed, its body shrinking rapidly, deflating like a punctured balloon as the mana from the ley flowed from its body into his opponent's. "W-WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"

With a swipe of a five-fingered claw, Ruxin crushed one of Astaka's heads against a tree, toppling both.

"You still don't sense it?" the dragon appeared thoroughly amused. While Astaka diminished, his form seemed to grow not in size, but majesty. "You're no longer tethered to Nagaland, Astaka. I am your new lord and master."

"Impossible!"

"Oh, it's possible. Watch."

A burst of raw mana suddenly infused Ruxin's twisting form, healing his wounds and suffusing him with the same energy that the Tyrant had abused earlier to overcharge Gwen's darkling swarm.

"GARRGH—"

With a sickening crunch, another of the Tyrant's heads burst.

"Stop!" the Tyrant was in full panic now. The loss of each head afforded an experience of mortality in its purest form. "No more!"

"A pitiful thing like you, stealing the essence of the land- how droll," Ruxin remarked. "You are far from ready to join the Vaeri di tobor vur marfedelom. I am beginning to doubt if it is even worthwhile making you my consort. Perhaps serving as my nourishment would be better."

Each of Ruxin's claws now grasped the remaining four heads effortlessly. Though the Jade Pillar was far more suited to an earthen drake, the power of the land nonetheless flowed pure and unsullied from hitherto undespoiled by man.

"Well?" His claws tightened. "Do you yield?"

"I—" Astaka choked, comical in that all four heads hesitated as one.

"Tir wux tyrtrol dout pliso?" Rux demanded in the dragon-tongue, cementing his offer of mercy. Once agreed, there would be no challenge except if Astaka were to outstrip Ruxin's power, or if Ruxin perished before the Naga. "Serve me, or nourish me."

"S-si vield, ekess qe dout katima!" The Naga lowered itself.

Ruxin exalted. Finally, after decades, his plan had come to fruition. For paltry beings with a century's life-span, human sages were wise in ennobling the simple virtue of patience. Now, he had a brother and a niece to tame.

Eyeing his rear, Caliban skulked in its serpent form, warning Golos that one wrong move and it would revisit their last rendezvous.

"Why didn't you run away?" Gwen sat with her back against the Wyvern's neck, stroking its ear ridges. Despite the good news from Ariel that Mayuree was safe, Kitty's absence made her melancholic and apprehensive, which led to the unusual choice of making Golos her conversation partner.

"Dragons never run," Golos grunted. "We triumph, we yield, or we die."

Gwen nodded, pressing her palm into the Wyvern's scales so that it prickled her flesh.

"I wanted to run," she confessed.

"Yet, you stayed." The Wyvern groaned, then to her surprise, Golos shat out a nugget of wisdom. "We are responsible for our own lives. The weak die, because they are not strong."

Gwen chuckled, recalled what she had conjured up against the Naga, then thought about her master's wife. If might made right, what did that make Sobel?

"I wonder about that." She smiled weakly. "Even so, thanks for saving me."

"I did it for myself," Golos reprimanded her with a silvery iris, its gold-on-obsidian slit browsed her pale face. "If I died, I died for myself."

"Well, I couldn't save my friend," Gwen castigated herself, more so because Golos' simple philosophy was brutally rational. For some reason, she just wanted to tell someone or have someone tell her off. "I watched her die, or maybe I killed her by accident, I don't know."

"She human?"

"Yeah."

"Then it doesn't matter," Golos said. "Humans die so easily. Even if she lived, she would be dead in a century. She is not like us."

"Us?"

Golos snickered. "What manner of a Calamity could you be if you perished with time? Father could nap, and you would be dust. What are you, a Calamity for gnats?"

"Will you suffer this Calamity to live?" Gwen picked at a piece of debris stuck between Golos' scales. Even now, his wounds wept. "What does the Yinglong mean by it?"

"Why don't you ask Ruxin?" Golos growled threateningly. "I've paid my debt."

"Shaaa!" Caliban wiggled its faceless, bullet-shaped head.

Golos grumbled.

"I see the two of you are getting acquainted," came a voice from above.

Gwen looked up to see Ruxin in all his silver and mithril glory. The dragon appeared to have a thing for the divine, evident in his chiffon lungi, pearlescent robe, silvery hair and alabaster skin, punctuated by slitted, golden eyes.

"Ru—" Gwen paused. Should she be addressing a five-hundred-year-old dragon as such? What was a viable honorific? The man had arguably saved her, maybe not her life, but certainly from much suffering. "Lord Ruxin, is the Tyrant defeated?"

"Quashed and gone." Ruxin dipped his pointed chin. "The Tyrant rule these lands no longer."

"Brother, I can't move," Golos whined. "And you're late."

"I came as soon as I could," Ruxin apologised, surprising Gwen with the brothers' cordial relationship. "Dislodging the Pillar and subverting its power proved a challenging task."

"Why are you in Kachin, Lord Ruxin?" Gwen continued carefully, trying to digest the brother's dialogue. "You know, I had thought you were the Tyrant."

"Me, the Tyrant? Ha!" Ruxin laughed. "Oh, and call me Uncle Ruxin. Or just Uncle, if you like that."

"Lord R—"

"Ah-ah." Ruxin wagged his slender fingers.

Gwen felt her lips curl.

"Unc—" The title stuck in her throat. "Ruxin."

"There, isn't that far more comfortable?" Ruxin chuckled. "Golos, relax your defences."

Wyverns did not sweat, but whatever Golos did was enough to make Gwen wince sympathetically, sweating in his stead.

"Irisv!" Ruxin muttered a draconic power word. To her amazement, a Lightning of renewal, not of death and destruction, washed over the Wyvern. "There, let it do its work. Do use your human form, Golos, how do you even hope to talk to Gwen looking like that? What if you sat on her? Mortals are malleable, you know."

Golos grunted as bones popped back into place, flesh mended, and scales grew back.

"Care for a jolt?" Ruxin pointed at Gwen's shredded suit.

"What was that?" Gwen hid her shame with both hands, the potion had worked, as did her worm's theft of the Tyrant's vitality. She didn't need the healing, though she remained enthralled by Ruxin's display. A healing Lightning? Could such a thing exist?

"An old magic…" Ruxin teased her. "Something you might acquire one day."

The dragon glanced at Caliban, then gave her a wink.

Gwen looked around, feeling flustered. With Ruxin acting strangely human and Golos accusing her of being inhuman, she wasn't sure how to proceed, and so she did what was right, considering the circumstance. "Look, um… thanks, Ruxin, for saving us."

"If the Tyrant ate you, Ayxin's nagging would rot my ears," Ruxin said. "But, to answer your first question, I had no idea of your coming until Golos here told me of his dilemma. As for myself, I had planned for some time to subvert this Tyrant from his lair, to think you would be involved, how serendipitous, hmm?"

"I see." Gwen mulled over Ruxin's words. "So, what happens now?"

"Well, first, we need to greet our voyeuristic friends."

"Our what?"

"Excuse me." Before she could react, he cupped her skull with both hands.

From her scalp, a queer sensation spread, draconic in origin and older than anything Gwen had ever experienced, suffusing her mind. After the first second of mild panic, her mind began to turn inward, shifting her consciousness until she was floating above the clearing, above the landscape, then scurrying East until she saw an encampment where several astounded proctors sat beside an array of wires connected to boxes of carefully arrayed HDMs and storage crystals.

"Which one of you is Gwen's Chief Proctor?" Ruxin's voice resounded in her head.

"By the Magi! Is it talking to us?" One of the Proctors leapt from his seat, tearing the Ioun Stone from his head.

"You hear it too?" The second checked his device, punching in a series of glyphs.

"I, Ruxin of Huangshan, is speaking to you. Are you not trained in speaking to your betters?" the voice in their heads continued.

"Is it piggybacking off Magister von Schlabrendorff's Eye of Providence?!" the first Magister opened his mouth like a hungry carp. "Astounding!"

"Lord Ruxin?" one of the Magisters was quicker on the uptake. "H-how can we serve?"

"Finally," Ruxin continued. "As you have deduced, I am utilising Gwen Song's contract glyph right now, so I'll make this short before her brain burns out."

"What?!" a female voice intruded.

"I am now the undisputed ruler of the Wildlands known as Manipur, Nagaland and Kachin." Ruxin's voice blasted across the communication devices. "Bring me your leader. We shall negotiate for the future fate of Burma, as well as discuss your trespass of my domain."

VOOMP!

The box of storage crystals suddenly ignited, as did the Divination Engine.

Ruxin's mind retracted.

"You're the ruler of what now?" Gwen shook off the queasiness that came from simultaneously existing here and fifty kilometres away. With great humiliation, she realised she'd been drooling.

"Of everything!" Golos's human voice was like sandpaper.

She turned, only to be confronted by an enormously exposed Golos, mostly man, some dragon, looking like a bruiser found outside a fantasy pub on Oxford St on a Friday night. He was very well equipped. Wyverns have spiked clubs for tails, after all.

"Shaaa!" Caliban wiggled its tail.

Ruxin snapped his fingers, and Golos was suddenly wearing a longi.

"The ruler of a modest kingdom, from the tip of Arakan to its northernmost edge and then some." Ruxin laughed expansively, joined by Golos, whose laughter came with a half-second delay. He then regarded Gwen with a grin. "I am, as of today, a landed dragon."

_Was that-_ Gwen swallowed. _A human joke?_

"But…" Gwen glanced at the handsome dragon sceptically, struggling to link everything. Golos, Ruxin, the Yinglong, the Tyrant, the House of M? Was Maymyint somehow involved? That would be absurd; they were completely unrelated. "How?"

With great benevolence, Ruxin placed a hand on her shoulder, and another on Golos, as one would a pair of prized hounds.

"Why." The dragon savoured the words as though they gave him the greatest pleasure in the world. "With the help of my family."

Richard, Lulan and Jiro flew as fast as their spells, affinities, and items could afford, speeding through the darkness as they made for Lea's essence vial.

Some fifteen minutes ago, the northern tip of Kachin, near the Nagaland border, lit up as though day, signalling what could only be a cataclysmic event in its near vicinity.

Could this be Gwen? Richard's cynical-self informed him that of course, who the hell else could it be? The blast of light wasn't a Barbanginy, but some similarities were unmistakable.

For a while more, the trio flew in silence, each conserving their focus to maximise locomotion.

Ding!

A pale blossom of light bloomed beside Richard's ear.

"Hello? Richard?" came the sound of Mayuree's voice.

Oh, thank fuck! Richard adjusted the trajectory of his flight.

"Mia! Where are you? Where's Gwen?"

"EE EE!" came a sound from Ariel in the background. "Ee! Ee! EEE!"

"What's happened?" Lulan's face was a mask of anxious worry.

"Gwen's finished fighting the Naga," Lea translated for her companion, whispering in his ear. "She was getting all kinds of beat up, but she's safe now."

Richard turned to the others.

"She's fine, apparently," Gwen's cousin informed their companions. "I think that... er... she fought off the Tyrant?"


"I fear there's no trace of her,” Ruxin explained with great patience.

At her behest, Ruxin returned the trio back to the spot where he and the Tyrant had concluded their titanic struggle. Where previously a primal landscape thick with Banyan, moss and tendrils of tropical creepers existed, now she bore witness to a barren apocalypse worthy of Vietnam.

When Gwen explained the House of M's involvement with the Tyrant and her stake in the matter, Ruxin informed her that the Tyrant's rivalry with Me Nu was likely a bastard-on-bastard form of tribal cannibalism. The first few generations of the Mon and Pyu would have done well, he explained, but the life-spans of consecutive scions would have diluted until, twenty-centuries later, they became vermin.

“But your ties to the House of M interest me.” Ruxin cocked his flawless mien. “Very soon, I shall have a vast and dire need for mineral resources. Nephrite and jadeite are useless to me. I need precious gems and crystals imbued with Water, Air or Positive elements. Are you familiar in the ways of human barter?”

“I am." Gwen found the cooperative dragon an amicable listener. “Though first, I have accounts to be balanced with their eldest.”

“Spoken like one of us,” Golos added on the sly, struggling to catch up with the duo’s conversation as their topic teleported from conspiracy to politics to blood-grudges.

“Surely nothing so savage.” Ruxin furrowed his brows. "Is there something to gain?"

Gwen winced. There was indeed much to gain: her Centurion profits being the least of it. Fooling oneself was much harder than prettying up her intentions, but she nonetheless persisted. “We can't have suffered for nothing, and Kitty can't have died for nought.”

“Shaa!” sensing her intentions, her Familiar enquired if she was hungry.

Her response was to stroke Caliban’s carapace in apprehensive silence. Anyone would be hungry after an expenditure of vitality like that, but her appetite wasn't for physical nourishment.

The dragon observed his niece with an indecipherable expression before looking to the north.

_Ding!_ A Message bloomed beside Gwen’s ear, bringing welcome tiding of Mayuree, Richard and her friends.

"Your humans?" Golos licked his chops. "I could eat."

The Wyvern rose from the floor.

"Golos, please don't," Gwen pleaded. For a second, she had forgotten that Golos’ primary diet was sentient Merfolk. The Wyvern wasn't a buddy to be chummed with; he was a bonafide man-eater.

“Be nice.” Ruxin raised a stern finger in warning. “No goading them. No eating them.”

"Thanks." Gwen nodded at her "Uncle".

"Niece," Ruxin addressed her with an overfamiliarity that drew her eyes. "Let me gift you with a little perspective. In the employ of your talents, how many creatures have perished? How many insects, how many flowers and fungi, had you consumed through your Void Beast? Where you had fought, the land is dead, empty, drained of all life. BLIGHTED. Did your heart shudder then? If not, why is it so indecisive now? Those creatures, in time, would have been a part of my being, each alive with vigour and the desire for multiplication and division. They were miniscule, yes, but a part of something infinitely greater than the singularities you mourn. So, my niece, if you must weep, mourn for million dead whose ascension you had quashed to save one."

Gwen paled. Having one's ambiguous hypocrisy explained in no uncertain terms was too staggering a blow.

"If you must act, exalt in your actions," Ruxin finished by poking her forehead before brushing back a strand of her wild, blood-matted hair. "That's our creed."

"But the rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance," Gwen retorted with a line she had stolen from her old world, the very same she had sprouted to Yuki and Ichiro. "Is that wrong?"

"Hahahaha..." A burst of burlesque laughter rebuked her aphorism. Ruxin shook his head, then gave her cheek a condescending pat. "Do you know why no one hunts true dragons?"

She nodded.

"That's right. We're a vengeful few." Ruxin's euphemism struck within her a dreadful cord. "If you truly believe in that human wisdom, then your Kitty has died a dog's death."

“Gwen!” came a chorus of voices.

Before her team could begin their draconic-encounter, Gwen flew out to embrace her teammates, then kissed Ariel for a job well done, receiving a tongue bath in return.

Mayuree stood expectantly, awaiting the good news.

What she received was Gwen bowing from the waist.

“I couldn’t save Kitty!” came her friend's voice, loud and clear, ringing across the clearing. “I left her to die on the plateau. I failed you. I failed the team.”

Mayuree’s lips parted, then closed, then embraced her saviour with a fierceness betraying the Diviner's tiny body, digging her face into Gwen's shoulders to stifle her broken-hearted groans. Ariel joined the huddle, nuzzling its master and her friend over and over.

"It's my fault," the girl moaned. "All my fault."

“Wocao! Kitty’s dead?!” Jiro blustered. "Was she a traitor then? Why?”

"Jiro!" Richard scolded the Fire Mage with his eyes.

"Sorry." Jiro bit his tongue.

"Richard." Lea appeared beside Richard. "Those two down there, they're dragons."

“Right. We'll talk later, and in private.” Richard coughed, wary of the demi-divine presence in white, accompanied by a half-naked barbarian brute. “Lea's right. Your friends look important... and impatient.”

Setting aside her tumultuous emotions, Gwen guided her troop below, where with great mindfulness, she placed herself between her draconic and human companions.

“Behold, Lord Ruxin, Thunder Dragon, first prince of Huangshan, now lord of this land,” she explained. “That’s Golos, I fought him before, for those of you who know of it. He’s the Thunder Wyvern who helped us with Seoul.”

Richard bowed.
Golos grunted.

“Your Eminence." Unlike the others, Richard had been schooled by Prince’s in addressing sentient, higher-tier demi-human beings. “Richard Huang, at your service. I am Gwen’s cousin from Sydney. This is Lulan Li of Huashan, and this is Jiro Peng of Shanghai. We are her Fudan University teammates.”

The others quickly fell into line, realising they were hinds gazing upon a momentarily satiated lion.

“Sir!” Lulan bowed mechanically.
“Lord!” Mayuree knelt in the mud, conditioned by Me Nu's teachings.
“Dragon Lord!” Jiro saluted, sweating from every pore.
“EE EE!” Ariel crouched, bowing to the superior presence.
"Shaa!" Caliban nuzzled the new arrivals.

“Be at ease.” Ruxin raised a hand. “I am not so mighty as you think. Do not mind the titles. Shamefully, it is I who is in my niece's debt.”

Richard took the news stoically, Lulan appeared pleased. Mayuree, meanwhile, had been conditioned to grovel on the forest floor, while Jiro was about to lose his shit.

“Gwen, you’re kin to a dragon?!”

“It’s a complicated situation, Jay.” Gwen motioned for the young man to calm himself. “And please, not a word.”

“Oh… of course! Ma’am!” The young man made the sign for silence.

After Jiro's outburst, the conversation ceased.

"What will you do now?" Gwen enquired of Ruxin, aware of the growing awkwardness. Simply put, the dragons had no interest in her human companions. Gwen wondered if an analogy would involve expecting her friends to baby-talk her cats.

“I believe this is where we part.” Ruxin waved at Gwen's companions before commanding Golos to stop flaring his nostrils at the quivering Mayuree. “I shall return to the palace in Nagaland to oversee the transition."

“Come with us.” Golos murmured at Gwen. "We'll populate the mountain, you and I—"

_Slap_!

Ruxin smacked his brother over the horns.

"I have requested a meeting with your Chief Proctor," the Thunder Dragon reminded her. "Some good news for this competition of yours should disperse your looming cloud, I would hope."

Gwen turned her eyes up toward the dragon's ivory face.

“Ah-ah, not a frown further.” Ruxin poked her where her brows knitted, finding great amusement in the act. “Likewise, I shall prepare reparations for your service. Look forward to it!”

_Crack_!

A beam of white lightning caught the dragon’s divine figure. To Gwen's eyes, it appeared as though Ruxin had been beamed up by the USS Nagaland.

The team turned to Golos expectantly.

Grumbling, Golos broke into a sprint, leapt, then transformed into a resplendent Thunder Wyvern, making for the peak in the distance, leaving a trail of vibrant sparks.

With the dragons gone, the tension burst like an overflowing meniscus.

"Phew, shall we head back?" Richard unwound.

"Cao, my heart almost exploded." Jiro exhaled.

Gwen helped Mayuree from the floor.

"Mia, there's more," Gwen invited Mayuree to stand beside her. "Here is where I fought the Tyrant. My Void Elementals... may have consumed Kitty's body."

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Two days after Kachin's draconic seachange, the handover from Mandalay to Hpakan was complete. The roads were cleared from the mines all the way down to the old capital, and its people returned to the labour of extracting precious stones from the earth.

Thanks to the newly arrived machinery, supplies and medicines, industry returned to the region, regaining the vigour it had enjoyed before the monsoonal deluge.

At their quest's conclusion, a grand speech was given by the proctors, curiously missing their leader and his assistant.

When the others received news of Kitty’s passing, the celebratory mood grew tragic. The team's grief, however, was fleeting. That Mages died executing their duties was a tale as old as time. Everybody, explained Tei, knew of loved ones who died to monsters. Mages, whether in fable or in reality, died not from old age or disease, they died fighting.

"Celebrate her life," Tei offered his condolences after performing a brief service, plying the trade of his family business. "Do not dwell, if you are right, her final act was to save Mayuree, let us remember that instead."

"May Kitty be reborn to a better life," Yuki and the Kyoto team proffered sympathy and praise in equal measure. "You made the right choice. Mayuree is safe, our quest is completed, and the Tyrant is defeated. Isn't that enough, Gwen-san?"

Was it enough? Gwen's response was one of ambivalence. Since their return, she had spoken to Mayuree many times, though each and every time, her friend plied her with platitudes and kind words of forgiveness, serving only to exacerbate her guilt.

On the day of their southward return to Mandalay, a servant brought a Message from Marong.

“Me Nu is dead,” Marong's voice came through. “Maymyint has murdered our 'mother' and usurped the House of M. I should have sensed her ploy when Mia was suddenly offered to the Tyrant. She's after our Centurion program. That's how this whole fiasco began."

Was that it? Gwen again found herself astounded by the greed of her own kind. Since this began, she had wondered what Minty stood to gain, why the woman wanted to inherit Me Nu's shitshow. Now she knew.

“Mayuree and I are at the end of our line,” Marong explained, his voice heavy with desperation. “Gwen, I am afraid Mayuree is going to remain in your care for the foreseeable future. If an opportunity arises, I am going to end Maymyint's tyranny over us, once and for all.”

Mayuree’s eyes widened. "Marong, no!"

“Don’t fret.” Gwen patted her on the shoulder. “Let me speak to Walken when we get to Yangon. If Marong wants to do this…”

The room grew suddenly cold.

“… then we do it together.”

Magister Lutz von Schlabrendorff wrinkled his nose.

Though the NoMs had gone and scrubbed the underground palace thoroughly, there was no doubt in his mind that a great deal of violence had soaked the stones as of late.

“Sir, shall we proceed?” Magister Hass straightened her dress uniform.

They were, after all, meeting with a being who had existed a hundred years before the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. A pure-blooded Thunder Dragon, first Scion to the Yinglong, and "Uncle" to Fudan’s Void sorceress.

The last title made the Magister splutter with indignity, exhaling a lungful of frustrated air.

After reviewing Ruxin's demands and communicating with his superiors from the Mageocracy, it had been decided that Lutz von Schlabrendorff would be their negotiator for the control of lower Burma. His orders from above were to secure Mandalay and Yangon, with the added proviso that a Tower was built in Yangon as soon as possible.

Which meant that, after negotiations with Ruxin, he would continue south with his team of newly minted diplomats to meet with Me Nu about the possibility of re-establishing a Mageocracy-controlled faction, a prospect infinitely complicated by unseen foreign interests in Yangon.

“Right, let’s go.”

The proctors-turned-diplomats entered the sanctum, following a hundred-meter long seam of jade polished to perfection, then stepped into an underground hall bright with mother-of-pearl.

“The remodelling is going to take some time,” a voice called out from the throne, a giant circular divan carved from a single piece of jadeite. “I am an open-air dragon if I do say so myself.”

“Your eminence, Lord Ruxin,” von Schlabrendorff reverently intoned, then bowed. “The Mageocracy stands in awe of your victory over the Tyrant.”

A man in white stepped from the raised platform. A single glance was enough to discern that indeed, the regal specimen was the scion of a mythic being.

“You must be Lutz von Schlabrendorff, Gwen told me about you,” Ruxin nodded. “And you must be Evelyn Hass. Welcome to my new domain. Allow me to apologise for the lack of servants, we are in the process of reorganising.”

From behind the divan, emerged two men, naked from the waist up and colourfully tattooed, with complexions the colour of caramel. They were followed by a third, an elderly man with a formidable bearing.

“Bring our guests some tea and food, whatever’s in the storeroom,” Ruxin commanded the younger two. The young men bowed, then they were suddenly gone, leaving nary a trace of mana.

_The Shadowmen of Manipur!_ Von Schlabrendorff’s brows twitched. Which meant the older man was the Vairagi. Are these rustic hermits now working with Ruxin? What did the Meitei people hope to achieve by allying with a dragon?

“Well then.” Ruxin looked around. “Tika, bring us a table and some chairs.”

Lutz von Schlabrendorff blinked. There was a woman in the room as well, but Ruxin's presence was such that he had scarcely noticed her. She looked to be a local, a serpent folk, with half-moon eyes and thick, sensual lips, possessing an androgynous allure. From her petite frame, she was likely a Meitei.

The woman called “Tika” moved between the two parties, then muttered an incantation in dragon-tongue under her breath. At once, the jadeite floor shifted.

Four chairs; von Schlabrendorff counted with dismay. One for Ruxin, one for himself, one for the Meitei of Manipur, and one other.

"Am I the last to arrive?" a voice boomed across the hall.

Von Schlabrendorff turned, confirming his hypothesis.

"Magister, I am sure you're acquainted with Magister Wei Lin from the People's Liberation Army."

"I came as fast as I could." The Magister bowed deeply, then grinned at his Mageocracy counterpart. "Surely the Mageocracy isn't thinking of drafting new borders without our consent? This isn't 1973 all over again, is it?"

Von Schlabrendorff laughed.
Wei Lin laughed.
Ruxin and the Vairagi both joined in the merriment.

“Gentlemen, take a seat." Ruxin made himself comfortable as the servants arrived with rice paper, dried meat and well-water. "Let us partake in this communion of mortal sustenance, then I shall tell you of how things came to be, and where hence they shall go.”

Walken had prepared an hour-long scolding for his wayward student, but then Gwen arrived a day earlier than anticipated, with Marong and Mayuree in tow, enquiring as to the most practical means of murdering a certain Maymyint.

His first reaction was to wonder if his protégé had been replaced by a doppelgänger.

His second was to recall that Maymyint was an Enchanter.

His third was to deliver the summary report from the Examination Committee verbatim.

"So Kitty was glamoured..." Gwen's voice grew as frigid as the Void. "And I left her to die. Very well. I see."

"And she tried to save me in the end." Mayuree fought back choking sobs.

“… and you are certain Me Nu died to Maymyint?” Walken demanded of Marong, who nodded.

“I witnessed the deed, as well as her contacting the Master of Nagaland."

"And all of you are prepared?" Walken felt ten years younger. "Mentally and spiritually?"

"We are." Gwen spat between pearly teeth. Between Ruxin, Golos, Mayuree, Marong and Walken's report, there was now no doubt as to the source of all their woes.

“Then Maymyint must not be 'murdered',” Walken began with great sagacity. "She..."

"Shaaa!" Caliban complained.

“...I mean,” Walken continued. “That she must disappear. She must flee into the wilderness to live as a Wildland Rogue for the rest of her days.”

The three youngsters listened to Walken as he laid out the pros and cons of Maymyint’s decision to "relent" her place as the head of the House of M, escaping the consequences of her crime.

“... and there we have it. For vengeance, for justice, for profit and for the triumph of good, the deed should be done. Not to mention an Enchanter is our missing piece of the puzzle.”

He watched as Gwen's face flushed a dark crimson.

“Please.” Marong sank down on both knees. “We need this. Only you can make Maymyint retire beyond all trace of Divination.”

Gwen's breathing grew audibly laboured.
_The girl gets it,_ Walken rejoiced. _She understands._

"Think what Gunther would do," Walken distastefully advised. "Or Alesia."

He had already explained her circumstance very well.
In the psychomachia of virtue and vice, she had cause and justification.
In the ways of a lawless Frontier, she possessed both might and means.
In the secret court of her heart, her croaking Caliban roared for revenge.

"When?" the girl muttered.

"Why now, of course," Walken offered his most sympathetic presentation. "Strike while the iron's hot."

Yangon.

Kandawgyi Lake.

In Karaweik Palace, the late Me Nu’s pleasure barge had taken on a new mistress.

The news had yet to spread, for Maymyint dared not cement her place without first dealing with the loss of Mayuree, Kitty, and possibly Gwen Song and the subsequent fallout with the IIUC Committee.

There would be reprimands, which Maymyint was willing to accept. She had even readied scapegoats, Rogue Mages operating from Indaw, saboteurs she had long since set up to infiltrate Aung San’s mountain forces, ready to take the blame.

After that, came the real business, the cornerstone of her plan.

Her master from the shadows had it all mapped out.

As a real dragon and as a being of thunder and air, he had no need for earthly items like the Pillar of Jade to subsume the land. Therefore, the Pillar would fall to her, and she would grace the Mageocracy with an offer they could not refuse.

A Tower in Yangon.

She would be a hero, single-handedly responsible for returning a piece of fertile and populated land into the welcoming arms of humanity.

Maymyint chuckled to herself, eager for the good news from the north, delighting in the sound of her reverberating laughter. According to her Shadowmen, her master had been successful in retrieving the Pillar of Jade. All that's left was to seize her prize.

Knock. Knock.

She roused with a start, glancing at her side to ensure that her guards were present. Soundlessly, two elite Shadowmen melded into the half-lit gloom of the opulent palace.

“Come in.”

The massive golden doors yawned open. Slowly and with great deliberation, Marong entered.

“Marong, what a surprise.” Maymyint felt her fingers tingle. She had been awaiting the confrontation ever since Mayuree arrived with her guard in Indaw. “What’s the matter, Brother?”

Marong held the door for so long that, for a brief moment, Maymyint wondered if he had a whole platoon of Mages ready to storm the throne room.

Just as she was about to scold his tardiness, a second figure came through the door.

“Maymyint.”

The voice that spoke was sicky sweet, not at all like Maymyint’s own. She had always hated that voice, the innocence, the hope, the melodrama of it irked her to no end.

“M-Mayuree!” Maymyint bolted upright in her throne, her spine suddenly ramrod-straight. “H-How?”

“The Tyrant is no more,” Marong intercepted his sister’s speech. Together, the two began their advance. “Gwen fulfilled the prophecy.”

“I-impossible!” Maymyint’s eyes searched the room for her guards. “It possesses the Jade Pillar! Not even...not even…“

She swallowed. There was no way Gwen Song defeated the Tyrant; it had to be a bluff. She had seen Marong and Mayuree grow into adults. She knew them better than anyone. The siblings must be at the end of their wits, that was why they had forced this audience upon her, to threaten her, to gain their freedom.

And yet... if Gwen Song could defeat the Tyrant, then was it with help? Perhaps Ayxin? Her master’s sister, or even the Ash Bringer? The man had appeared formidable, but there was no way a mortal could beat down a dragon with an infinite supply of vitality and mana.

But then again, what did any prophesy matter? Her Master would soon return, and it was Maymyint who had the dragon's backing. If so, what need she fear?

“You lie.” Maymyint resumed a semblance of calm. “You’ve escaped, somehow, and now you’re trying to undermine my authority. Very well, I'll play your game. Your survival was an impressive feat. Marong, Mayuree, what do you want?”

“Vengeance for Kitty,” Mayuree snarled. “You glamoured her! Sent her to her death! There wasn’t even a body left!”

But the fool lived to die for you. Maymyint silently lambasted her dimwitted sister.

“An accident.” She remained calm, masking her disdain. “There are costs when progress has to be made. The Tyrant had to be lured from its lair, you understand. The House of M will only grow from here. With myself in command and no Tyrant and no Me Nu, do you have any idea how much we stand to make? How extensive our restaurants, auctions, consortiums—"

Marong disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"MARONG! YOU DARE? Guards!” Maymyint barked without hesitation. Marong was a fantastic Mage when it came to combat, but he had made the stupid decision to bring his sister. “Dominate!”

A blast of Radiance filled the room.

Glamoured, Mayuree suddenly ran forward, opening her arms so that she became a human shield to protect Maymyint.

A moment later, Marong reappeared, a safe distance away with both hands raised.

“Changed your mind?” Maymyint chuckled. "Guards, kill him."

Marong’s expression, to her surprise, was one of ridicule.

Where are the Shadowmen? Maymyint's brows knitted, suddenly realising a fatal error. Are they refusing to attack a colleague?

"Guards!" she called out at once. "OBEY YOUR CONTRACT!"

Silence reigned.

Marong chuckled.

"Fool! I still have Mayuree," Maymyint hissed. "You—"

_SCHUNK_!

Mayuree turned to regard her sister with tear-stained eyes, seemingly free of her Mind Magic.

Maymyint blinked as her body grew weightless.

Below, a pair of scything blades had sprouted from her chest, one through her breast, the other through her abdomen. She opened her mouth to protest her surprise, though nought but frothy blood gurgled from her lungs.

With great effort, her eyeballs swivelled upwards.

"MAS—"

"SHAAAA!"

Two enthusiastic tentacles met her halfway.

Marong watched.
Mayuree turned away.
Outside the opulent throne room, a sorceress was sick all over the floor, simultaneously assailed by pleasure and revulsion.

On the 23rd of September, 2004, Maymyint, eldest of the House of M, fled into the Wildlands, never again gracing the material world.


"Very well." Magister Lutz von Schlabrendorff signed off on the tablet in front of him. "287 CCs for Jiantong."

"Poor sods." A second Magister winced. "In-fighting's the worst."

"It's an old story," another voice joined in around the table. "Comes with the territory if you're a tribal caster. Strong soloists, horrible teamwork."

"It's not as though we're immune," another snorted. "Swap out Sects for families, and what do you get? Europe's homogeny is incidental, I'd say."

"Quiet!" Von Schlabrendorff raised another slate. "Are we agreed on Seoul?"

"Since the Orientals have applied for 'withdrawal'." The third shrugged. "That's that."

"They've submitted a request for the memory crystals," Magister Hass reminded her supervisor. "Or at least for the lumen-crystals NOT to be widely circulated."

"If they're willing to do it, they're willing to show it." Von Schlabrendorff frowned unpleasantly. "No exceptions."

"Understood, sir."

"Seoul U, 0 CCs. Withdrawn. Remind Magister Kim that both our time and materials need to be repaid." The chief proctor signed off on the next slate. "Tell Brussels to keep an eye on them. All communique must be available on the public record."

"Yessir."

"Next, Kyoto. Any questions?"

The table collectively shifted their gaze to the final stack of documents and data-slates.

Where Kyoto's collated data generated a report the thickness of von Schlabrendorff's thumb, the volume beside it could be used to stop a Magic Missile.

"Very well, then, including penalties for illicit use of logged Magic Items, 2640 CCs to Kyoto."

"Next, Fudan—" Magister Hass retrieved the upper-most tablet.

The room broke out into a great clamour.

"Are you out of your mind, Lutz?" A Magister who'd awaited the whole tedious meeting was at the limit of his patience. "You may have convinced Brussels, but how are you hoping to convince anyone else? Japan will be in an uproar! Seoul will challenge! The Chinese will have their day and never let us live it down!"

"SILENCE!" Von Schlabrendorff banged the table. "We will examine an itemised list, and I shall explain. If you remain dissatisfied, you may appeal to Meister von Braun."

The protest died a slow death even as tensions remained high.

"First, we shall begin with Fudan's accomplishments," von Schlabrendorff began. "Hass?"

"Fudan University was the only team to stop and aid the local population, detouring to engaging in search and rescue operations in Takaung. One survivor was recovered and revive—"

The table exploded.

"SHUT UP!" von Schlabrendorff barked. "Another interruption and we are done!"

The others returned to their seats.

Magister Hass continued. "One survivor was recovered and revived. The village then received food and shelter, enough for aid to arrive from the larger townships closer to Mandalay. For Samaritanism in the spirit of the quest, 100 CCs."

"Fudan was the last team to arrive, landing at La War. Concurrently, Seoul U was involved in the construction of a dam which they used for flood control. As they have withdrawn, we will no longer contest this matter. During this incident, Gwen Song engaged and wounded Lee Si-Won, resulting in the collapse of the dam, and the partial destruction of La War. Subsequent evacuations and management of the village's damage yielded a total of 340 CCs for this event."

"What follows are events that lead to forfeit by Jiantong and Seoul U. You shall find these in sections 1.3.2 and 2.4.2. A comprehensive spell-list can be found in your appendix A. Items in appendix C. No CCs were awarded nor deducted for these events as they do not pertain to the given goals of the quest."

"Following their competitors' exit, Fudan repaired damaged roadwork to the jade mines. At the mine itself, Fudan implemented sanitation measures as well as introduced work safety for the local villagers. Wages and a reward system was established to punish laziness and catalyse responsible behaviour. Villagers from Kamaing were brought in through diplomacy. A local tribe of Wildland macaques was bribed to form a temporary truce with the human inhabitants, ensuring the safety of both La War's and Kamaing's citizens. Most importantly, discrepancy within the manager's statements and a new accounting system were implemented. In exchange for evading punishment, resources estimated at 40,000 HDMs are pending recovery. The itemised list is on appendix, section F. In total, 2,130 CCs were awarded."

"From Mandalay, Fudan's second team organised resource distribution through a point-duelling system alongside Kyoto U. For minimising conflict and enabling cooperation, 340 CCs."

"During the Indaw engagement, Fudan exterminated one hostile tier 8 Naga and five Rogue Mages, while minimising collateral damage to the township. With the total loss of two trucks and forty-eight NoMs taken into account. 250 CCs."

"Finally, Fudan's convoy arrived intact in Hpakan with 90% of all goods delivered without further incident. Taking into account critical goods and no other loss of life. 150 CCs."

"This brings us to 3310 CCs," Hass finished. "Now for the deductions."

"The Chief Proctor has previously detected the illicit use of Mind Magic on the Diviner, Mayuree. A warning had been given to Fudan's advisor, Magister Walken, who elected the party at fault to be Miss Maymyint, our point of contact for Yangon's central administration. During the competition, an incident occurred. Miss Kitty Liang fell under the control of a mid-tier Embedded Agenda Enchantment, a highly illicit example of Mind Magic strictly controlled under Article 17, though as Burma remains an extra-territorial Frontier, the legalities remain complex."

"During this incident, our surveillance systems suffered a setback. However, we have it on the authority of the proctors present that Fudan had initiated the following actions."

"Gwen Song. Illicit use of unregistered, restricted Magic Item - Superior Potion of Invisibility."

"Gwen Song. The lethal use of Class II Restricted-Magic 'Cloud Kill' on another Mage. Though the victim, presumed to be Aung San Yuzana, is a Rogue Mage, thereby not under the protection of the Tower's laws."

A grudging murmur spread through the table.

"Gwen Song. Suspicion of Conspiracy. Records show that the individual 'Golos' who intervened during the incident in regards to Seoul U is known to her. If proven, match interference of this kind may be escalated to disqualification."

"That's right!" a Magister called out. "Conflict of interest!"

The chief proctor stared him down.

"Kitty Liang - Mind Magic and match interference. Although the incident did not directly tamper with the results, therefore, no CCs will be deducted. As a side note, Contestant Gwen Song engaged Kitty Liang in a friendly-fire incident resulting in her teammate's death. Details are in section IV-I."

Hass waited for the decision to sink in before delivering her final line."After review, Gwen Song's actions cannot be construed as seeking an advantage, nor having resulted in one. As for the involvement of third-party Magical Creatures, Magister von Schlabrendorff will clarify."

Hass turned on her heels, then stood primly behind Lutz, her superior.

"That's all very well and good, but aren't you missing something?" a Magister raised a bundle of documents in frustration. "I want to know why Fudan is receiving a SEEDED position for the IIUC!"
"Why is there no mention of the Tyrant in your report?"
"What about Ruxin? What about the Thunder Dragon?"
"I heard she fought a Mythic! To a stand still!"
"What of her ties to Sobel? She used a similar spell—"
"What's going to happen to the other Asian teams?"
"You're destroying our neutrality! Blatant favouritism from Brussels!"
"You Grey Faction scoundrels!"
"Are your militant meatheads any better?"

Von Schlabrendorff sipped his coffee while the other proctors tired themselves out. Recent events had indeed been a victory for the Grey Faction, though his fellow proctors likely had no idea of the details.

"I understand your frustration." Von Schlabrendorff's voice overpowered the outburst. "But let me enlighten you on events as they now unfold. A deal has been made with Ruxin, the new Lord of Nagaland, Manipur and Kachin, a lease of sorts for the foreseeable future. If you don't like it, make a petition and tell your backers to pay a visit to the Jade Palace in Nagaland. My authority in this comes from the top - London, Berlin and Beijing are in agreement."

The table fell into sullen silence.

"A few days ago, I visited Lord Ruxin as the representative of the Mageocracy," von Schlabrendorff explained with great patience. These men had brought an axe to grind, and he had waited for their choler to dull before delivering a bite of his own. "Though an official announcement has yet to be made, I will inform you of where we stand. From October, the Mageocracy will resume governorship of Yangon as a Frontier Protectorate, while the Chinese will establish a military presence to the north, in Mandalay. In exchange for resource autonomies, as well as Gwen Song's guaranteed passage through to the IIUC's international round, Yangon will receive the Pillar of Jade."

A collective shuffling of chairs filled the room.

A Tower in Yangon!

A Human Frontier returned to the fold!

"Lord Ruxin's initial demand." Von Schlabrendorff cleared his throat. "Was to gift Fudan 100,000 CCs in the IIUC to 'get it over and done with'."

A new silence fell over the room.

"I choose instead to preserve our dignity," von Schlabrendorff vocalised sardonically. "As such, all of you will join me in agreeing that Fudan has achieved Seeded status, taking one of Asia's two slots, with a total score of 3310 CCs, a new record for the Asian Qualifiers. Are there any questions?"

"I've got one."

"Go on, Magister Corey."

"Why Gwen Song?"

"I am afraid that isn't for me to say, James."

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Fine, then I have a question." A dozen heads turned to regard the elderly scholar. From her pregnant vowels and elongated 'e', it was evident that the hawkish Magister hailed from the American west coast. "Is this because Gwen Song raised the dead?"

A new hush filled the chamber.

"No," said von Schlabrendorff. "That is a separate matter—"

"I find that hard to believe," the woman interrupted Von Schlabrendorff. "Whatever you might say, the demi-human she aided had been asphyxiated. Your own observations crystals indicate her breathing had ceased."

"The woman was a demi-human being," Von Schlabrendorff added. "Their physiologies are different."

"Nonetheless," Magister Williams persisted. "That's Necro—"

"Magister Milford Williams!" von Schlabrendorff snapped. "There was neither Positive Energy nor Negative Energy present during the incident! For all we know, it was luck! Sheer luck!"

"And the Grey Faction, including her disgraced advisor, has no interest in this matter?" Williams scoffed. "Need I remind you that her wardens in Sydney, Magus Shultz and De Botton belong to our Middle Faction."

"What are you suggesting?" Von Schlabrendorff growled.

"What I am saying..." Willams snarled. "Is that the Grey Faction is up to its old tricks, trying to hog a good thing!"

Then, as if gasoline to a Fireball, the room ignited.

With great care, Ruì placed a blanket over Gwen's hunched, groaning body, then tip-toed from the spacious open-office with the others.

Suddenly appearing at the office after her return from Yangon, Ruì's lady boss had thrown herself into her appointed position as advisor for the House of M, shackling her NoM assistants to the small, single floor office while she tirelessly pored over the flood of paperwork coming in from Yangon, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Singapore and more.

"How long has she being awake?" Terence, dark eye-bags under his eyes, breathed a sigh of relief. "Any longer and I would have died."

"How do I look." Effi poked at her bloated face.

"You look like a Pandaren." Ruì wanted to laugh, but she was afraid of waking her boss. "I think she's been up for four days."

"I am going to find a motel close by and fall unconscious." Terence stumbled away. "Message me."

"Where's Ken and Dai?" Ruì asked of her companion.

"Ken's gone on the third day, says he's got an emergency back at Secretary Chen's," Effi reminded her. "Dai said he'd come back when the Boss is sane again."

"… Alright." Ruì licked her cracked lips. From the looks of it, she would be sleeping at the office again.

Ding!

The lift opened.

"Richard!" At the sight of Gwen's dashing cousin, her heart was suddenly aflutter. The others followed, bowed, then took the lift down.

"Ruì," Richard acknowledged the secretary. "Is Gwen…"

"Asleep," Ruì explained her bosses' situation to the young man. "Oh, hello there, Miss Mayuree."

The House of M's heir was also one of Ruì's bosses. According to Gwen, she was now the boss of her boss.

"I have something for her." Mayuree indicated her Storage Ring. "It's from my brother. He said it'd cheer her up."

"She's asleep just now," Ruì said.

"We'll wait." Richard smiled attractively. "Have you eaten? Know any place good?"

Ruì's face flushed a bright crimson; all thoughts of fatigue fell from her mind.

"I do!" she answered enthusiastically. "I know just the place!"

"T-three thousand and three hundred?!" Dean Luo spluttered, spilling the tea he'd been nursing.

"And Ten," Walken finished. "Also, she's picked up Enchantment."

"One thing at a time." Luo raised a hand in protest. "Mao, how in the world? Kyoto or Tsinghua takes home the cup every other year just breaking twenty-five hundred!"

"She also liberated Burma, by accident." Walken raised his teacup in the manner of a man having read a mildly interesting scandal in the tabloids. "I expressly forbid her, you should know. It's all on record, I am sure."

"And Enchantment! That's good news." Dean Luo paced back and forth, then stopped. "Did you just say…"

"Then fought a pseudo Mythic Naga to a standstill, then triple-teamed it with a Thunder Dragon and a Thunder Wyvern," Walken continued with a deadpan dryness only the English could afford.

Dean Luo stopped by the alcohol cabinet and poured himself a stout glass of Maotai; his heart wasn't as shatterproof was it had been in the old days.

"Anything else?"

"Revived a dead woman by accident."

Luo spilt half a glass of the precious alcohol over his hand and the carpet, filling the room with the pleasant scent of fermented sorghum. "Necromancy?"

"Nothing of the sort, I think it has to do with her Druidic Essence," Walken calmed his old friend before correcting himself. "Well, Draconic-Essence."

"Eric, you old fox." Luo sucked in a breath of cold air. "Mao, what have you unleashed."

"We." Walken replaced his cup, then repeated himself. "And Wen as well. If we share the credit, we share the blame."

"There's bad news as well..." Walken explained the problem with Kitty before elaborating on what the team had told him. "But then there's the good news."

Dean Luo optioned to find a place to sit so that if he went into cardiac shock, he could be revived with his dignity intact.

"She liberated both Mandalay for the CCP and Yangon for the Mageocracy?"

"Well, we can't say it like that. The Yinglong's scion is the mastermind I am sure. If I'd been in the thick of it, I would have suspected Ruxin the moment he came out on top. No one, not even a Dragon, comes out with a total victory without meticulous scheming. If you want my opinion, I think the old drake's gotten a bit too greedy. Considering one of Gwen's companions died, the secrecy won't do either of them favours in the future."

"Now that's a confrontation I am not looking forward to." The Dean sighed. "BUT, the result is that we have a seeded spot for the IIUC?"

"Yes."

"Mao!" Luo was sweating. "First time we've gotten close, and we're going straight to the main competition!"

"MASTER!" Ellen teleported into the Dean's office. "There are hundreds of reporters beating down the front gate! They want to talk to Fudan's IIUC team! They want interviews. They're clamouring for Gwen!"

"Where's Gwen now?"

"Working - believe it or not." Walken grimaced, tapping his forehead. "She needs time to sweat off her angst, I am afraid. Her final School of Magic didn't come easy."

"Ellen." The Dean nodded understandingly. "Get me Tei and anyone else from the team who's at Fudan right now. Set up the Guanghua tower's auditorium. When's the match broadcasting?"

"In two days, Sir."

"Eric?"

"I'll talk to her. For now, she needs time."

"Thanks." the Dean peeked outside, where already he could see more reporters gathering. "Ellen, clear my schedule. It's going to be a busy week."

Gwen realised she must have fallen asleep, because she had lost consciousness during the day, and now it was night time.

"Ruì?"

The office was deserted, though that wasn't a bad thing.

When she moved from the table, a blanket shifted from her back, still warm from her body's heat.

Good old Ruì, she thought to herself, then leaned back in her chair.

It had felt good.

Killing Minty, that is.

Watching the woman's smug face as she goaded Marong and Mayuree, she had never felt so sure of anything in her whole life. When Caliban struck its appendages through her unresisting body, she had felt a sadistic rapture.

Then came the horror, and the pleasure, which was mild in so far as the scale was concerned, but still enough to buckle her legs with quivering delight. That had been the worst, as all her pent up self-loathing ripped out of her oesophagus, emptying her stomach twice over, painting the jade-tiled floors.

Then strangely, catharsis.

The Greeks weren't kidding when they privileged Nemesis, divine balancer of life, dark-faced daughter of Justice. There was something to be said of having a good purge now and then.

After that, she picked herself from the floor. Consulted with Mayuree and Marong, then switched off something in her head so that she could coast through the darkness that came with her crisis of conscience.

Two days later, she was back in Chengdu.
Then, without visiting her much anticipated Pandaren, she was back in Shanghai, being hugged by Petra, who gave her a big, sloppy, comforting kiss on the forehead.

At Petra's behest, Gwen had promised to call Babulya the next morning, but then she looked up at the ceiling and recalled that only a few walls away, was Kitty's now vacant bedroom.

That very night, dressed in her best professional outfit, she showed up to work and inspected her worker's progress. The next morning, she requested an interim report from Magus Maymaruya, as well as stacks of Tonglv documents, after which the rest became a blessed blur of unthinking arithmetics and compounding interests.

According to Marong, when he declared in favour of Yangon Tower following their disposal of Maymyint, the lesser factions in the House of M broke into a riot of succession fantasies. All quailed, however, when the Vairagi of the Shadowmen made an appearance and affirmed their allegiance.

When Marong's contemporaries began calling him the new Me Nu, Marong pointed out that instead, it was Mayuree who now reign at the House's peak. Mayuree, a companion to she who defeated the Tyrant, who in turn had the backing of the new master of Kachin, Manipur and Nagaland. A woman who undoubtedly would come one day into her own Tower.

A fox who borrows the tiger's borrowing of the dragon's terror? Gwen had read over the letters of loyalty, to which she responded with a full financial review.

That and she recommended for Marong to begin training an elite troop of accountants.

"Borrow some of the NoMs to teach the Shadowmen," she had Messaged back. "You can call them Mayuree's Shadow Auditors."

"I shall begin at once," Marong informed her. "Also, your requested items will arrive in Shanghai soon. Take it 'on the house'. What we owe you will take time to repay. For now, let us shoulder some of your burdens."

What Marong referred to was her request for upper-tier Contingency Rings for Lulan, Richard and a new ring for Mayuree. At the 10,000 HDM tier, the rings came with contracts for triage and sanctuary in the Mageocracy's Towers.

Stripping out of her workwear, she took a shower in her private bathroom, feeling as though she was peeling off a layer of old skin. As she slid into the silk she had gotten from Hangzhou, a recollection resurfaced.

She dropped her brush.

"OH, SHIT!" She cursed, almost slipping on the tiles. Frantically, she punched in the Glyphs to dial her Babulya.

"Gwen?" Pale Divination bloomed beside her ear. "How are you feeling?"

"Babulya! I am sorry for not calling sooner!" Gwen apologised profusely. "I'd been so distracted by everything that's happened. Is Yeye there? I want to apologise as well."

"I am at the hospital right now," her Babulya's soothing voice came through. "Richard told us everything. Congratulations on the match. The official results are out tomorrow, so I hear."

"Thanks, Babulya." Gwen felt a sudden exhilaration. It was a beautiful thing to have one's anticipations confirmed. "Everyone did their best. How about you? How have you been?"

"Busy as always."

"How's Percy?"

"The usual, trying to chase after you, although it looks like he may have some distance to go. Guo said that you liberated a country?"

"Aha…" Gwen laughed awkwardly. "I think you should ask Uncle Jun about that. I happened to be in the right place at the right time."

"He's such a good boy." Her grandmother sighed happily. "Guo's work has become much easier since Jun found himself with that dragon princess. To think my boy would find himself a dragon-kin! Who'd have imagined he would find someone older than his parent? I didn't know where to put my face when Ayxin called me 'mother'!"

The shared laughter dispelled some of Gwen's residual ill feelings.

"Ah, Babulya, you're the best."

"I try, dear. So, I am assuming you're calling because of Hai?"

"I forgot to Message Father," Gwen confessed. "I told Uncle Jun I would, and yet… did Qīn…"

"She did," her babulya informed her. "I delivered the child myself. A boy."

"Congratulations."

"Thank you." Her babulya's tone was ambivalent. "Your Yeye says he's torn, but I can see that he's the happiest he has been in decades. The child's name is Shui. Song Shui."

"Water?"

"Aye, a name which we hope he lives up to, for there shall be trials for the child yet."

"Is he going to be another Salt Mage?"

"Let's hope not." Klavdiya's voice grew uncertain. "Mao willing."

"I'll call him and congratulate him," Gwen promised.

"You do that, dear, and take care. Will you be joining us on Sunday? There'll be a gathering at home."

"I'll try, babulya."

"Good night."

"G'night."

The Message died.

Ding!

"Gwen, you're up?" came the voice of Richard.

"Yeah." She stretched her fingers. "What's up?"

"Well, you've been in a cave for four days, so we'd thought to bring you some real food."

"God, yes." Gwen realised that indeed, she was finally hungry. For four days she had survived on chocolate, coffee and magically appearing take-out that Ruì had left on her table.

"Mia has a package for you as well. Says it's from Marong."

"Cool, see ya soon."

Gwen then left a Message for her father, lacking the courage to deal with her old man's frustrations.

"Dad, congratulations on your new son. Song Shui, was it? It's a good name. Please give my best wishes to Aunty Qīn as well. There'll be a gift from me soon!"

She shut the Message Glyph before someone could reply.

After a few more minutes of darkness and sullen silence, she Glyphed on the lumen-globes so that the office grew bright as day.

"Yo!"

The door opened.

"Gwen, how are you feeling?" Richard visibly appeared to relax when he entered the bright room and saw her in a pastel dress. "We got you an XL dan-dan mien."

"Cheers." Gwen stood so that all her friends could see she was indeed better than the bedraggled hellion that had returned from Burma with a chip on her shoulder and a bone to chew. "Sorry, everyone. I had lots of accounting to do, both personal and business."

Richard had returned with more people than she thought. Including Ruì, there was also Mayuree, Lulan, Kusu and Petra.

Hugs were exchanged all around before her companions made themselves comfortable. While Gwen ate, Ruì made tea and prepared biscuits and cakes for the Mages, playing the part of a perfect secretary.

"So what's this package?" Gwen asked after an exchange of teas, cakes and ices. "The Rings?"

Her Diviner materialised an intricate looking wooden chest from storage.

"The Rings are being sent to Fudan T2. Marong says these are from your collaborator." Mayuree invoked the unlocking incantation, then opened the box.

Within the chest, nestled in velvet silk, were two perfectly preserved Creature Cores, so dense with Earthen mana that their observers felt as though a mild Petrification spell had come into effect.

"Mao…" Lulan was the first to react, accompanied by an open-mouthed Petra. The Sword Mage alone was the Earthen Mage, and she felt an unmistakable connection to the stones. "A-are those… higher-tier Naga Cores?"


"Left or Right?" The casualness of Gwen's voice betrayed the rarity of Ruxin's leftovers.

"The left one," Lulan replied, halfway between a dream-come-true and a waking nightmare. "Gwen, this is a higher-tier Spirit!"

"Good." Gwen retrieved the Core as one might a packaged sirloin from the supermarket, then tossed it between Lulan's lap. "Here, it's yours."

"NO!" Kusu blurted beside his sister, rattled by the fortune fallen from heaven. "That's a debt we can't repay. In all of Huashan, there is a single Sword Spirit! You're buying Lulu a ring already. We can't—"

"Why would I demand reparation?" Gwen pushed the Core into Lulan's unresisting hands so that its odds and ends poked her thighs. "I need an offensive caster who can kick arse in Europe. What's fairer than that?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Kusu spluttered. "Gwen, be reasonable. Lulan, give it back."

Lulan agonisingly lifted the crystal.

In response, Gwen procured the second Core, then tossed it toward Petra.

"Here Pats, my tuition fees."

Petra caught the Core, then ran her hand over the surface. In the past, Petra informed Gwen of the impossibility of her finding a unique, higher-tier, sapient, sentient Spirit. A Mineral variation was astronomically scarce, which was why she had given up long ago.

"Hmm, condensed Nephrite. Interesting. I'll let you know if I can attune." Petra wasn't nearly so shy. "Lulu, just so you know, the earlier you receive a sapient Spirit, the easier it is for them to attain humanoid forms. Gwen, are you sure?"

"Absolutely."

"Thanks." The girl inclined her chin. "The benefit will be mutual."

"Absolutely." Gwen nodded back, then turned to Lulan and Kusu. "See? Is that so hard?"

Kusu looked at his sister, who hugged the Core like a newborn.

"Those are… priceless," Richard butted in, renewing his understanding of Gwen's generosity. "Perfectly preserved high-tier Cores are as rare as hen's teeth."

"But their value lies in use, not worth." Gwen shrugged. "Think about the Jade Pillar. What good had it done in the hands of the Tyrant? I don't need currency, and I don't wish to hoard. Their only worth to me is what they can do for Lulu and Pats. I could trade them away as well, but I doubt an equitable trade would be possible."

"You say that." Richard smacked his lips drily. "But you could have bought a high-rise building near the Second Orbital…"

"You're overestimating their exchange rate," Mayuree chipped in, enlightened by Gwen's disregard for gifted treasures, so different to the late Me Nu and Maymyint. "The Cores are rare, though they're unlikely to find buyer, even with Spirits. We're looking at anywhere between 30,000 HDMs to 150,000 HDMs, and Mages with bloodlines worth that kind of investment usually don't lack for Spirit Cores."

Lulan begged her pale-faced brother with pleading eyes, who relented after a defeated dip of his head.

"Lulu." Petra motioned for her to get up. "Gwen, you still have that private training room booked?"

"I am coming as well." Gwen grinned, motioning for the others. "Let's see some magic!"

"Kusu, chill!" Richard slapped Kusu on the back so that the young man wouldn't asphyxiate. "Don't mind it so much. Everyone gets a fair shake of the sauce bottle on Team Gwen, eh?"

"Fair dinkum," Gwen added yet another Aussie slang to the mix, confusing the siblings to no end. "No worries, Kusu, Lulu'll be right."

The rest broke into laughter.

"Umm… Miss Song?" Ruì meekly implored at her mystic betters as they casualy exchanged gifts worth more than her lifetime earnings. "Can I go home now?"

"Gwen! Come quick! They're everywhere!" Mayuree's Message burst through the ceiling, causing Gwen to rise from her bed with such force that her bedframe threatened to revolt.

"Oh, Goddess!!" Mayuree yelped at the pale wonder suddenly materialising in her living room. "Lei, get Gwen a robe!"

"What is it— Oh my God! Lei!" Their ill-dressed intruder performed a double-take, then embraced the NoM woman with suffocating passion. "You're safe! You're back! Thank God!"

"Miss Song." Lei winced as her bones creaked. "I can't breathe."

"S-sorry!" Gwen released the matronly woman from her death-grip. "I am just so happy to see you again. We've been surviving on takeout…"

"Hey!"
"Hahaha…"
"Let me get you a robe, Miss Song."

Lei quickly retrieved a robe from the laundry.

"So, what's the matter?" Gwen studied the spotless penthouse, wondering if Mayuree had seen rats or cockroaches.

"Look down." Mayuree indicated toward her panoramic panes.

"HOLY…"

Below, like a maliciously conjured swarm, a milling assembly of three dozen reporters and their crews meandered through B1's external garden.

"What do we do?" Mayuree pressed against the glass. "Last time, you got in so much trouble."

"Let me ask." Gwen wasn't sure if she had permission to deal with the paparazzi herself and so turned to her master of dubious schemes. She punched in the Glyphs, then waited for the Divination to connect. "Eric?"

"Gwen." Walken sounded tired. "What's happened?"

"Mia and I have been blocked in by the paparazzi at B1," she explained, playing the Message aloud. "I need to take my team to T2 today to get their rings registered and Contingency contracts validated. Judging from the crowd, did we win?"

"I am not going to ruin it for you." Walken's tone was effervescent but evasive. "Just so you know, Luo and I have been dealing with your fallout for the last three days. It's good that you called because we're conscripting you for the day. There's going to be a press conference at the Guanghua auditorium, where your scores are announced. As for you, get dressed, impress the gallery outside, then get back to the campus. Richard and the others won't be needing your supervision, even if you're paying for their rings."

"Actually, Marong's paying."

"Good God." Walken bit his tongue. "I don't know if I am impressed or appalled."

"Our interests are mutual."

"Of course," her instructor concluded with a patronising pause. "Now go. Call me when you get here. Magister Wen is looking forward to sampling your latent abilities."

At the mention of the zealous researcher, her joy soured.

"Alright, Eric." She turned to Mayuree and Lei, still wearing borrowed bathrobes. "We gotta doll up for the press."

"What are you going to wear?" Mayuree averted her eyes from the second floor. There would be nine of them at the conference, making the reality of Kitty's passing all the more poignant. "What do you think I should wear?"

"Miss Song!"

"Gwen Song!"
"Vice Captain Song!"

The mob of reporters moved forward, then staggered back when confronted by a blue-white Kirin pacing beside an obsidian Deathworm.

After which the creatures' owner arrived.

As one, devices were raised, buttons depressed and glyphs fired. For a few brief seconds, the frontage of Gouding B1 grew incandescent.

To the press corps, the Familiars' mistress was magnificent. Raven haired and crimson-lipped, she appeared a treat in crow-black chiffon, hiked just enough so that the pale length of her white legs induced voyeuristic guilt. As she approached, popping lumen-strobes vivified her hazel orbs, punctuating the click-clacking of her Mary-Janes.

The girl stopped just short of the gate, flanked on either side by her Familiars.

"I need to report to Fudan for a medical, but I am happy to answer a few questions." Fudan's Vice Captain teased the crowd with a red-lipped smile, then chose to privilege the CCVC-1 crew.

"How do you respond to rumours of your involvement in Burma's liberation?" A state-sanctioned reporter levitated a recording instrument toward the sorceress.

"Serendipity and chance, an incidental affair which cost our team greatly." The girl's shoulders drooped. "Though the outcome has favoured humanity, we lost Kitty Liang, our Controller and our friend in the incident. Whatever good that may emerge from our victory, I dedicate it first and foremost to her memory."

The journalists quickly jotted down her words.

"You." Fudan's Void Sorceress next picked a young man in a newspaper cap.

"Are allegations that you brutalised Seoul's Chaebol true? News from Seoul is that three of their members returned to the city's Tower."

The girl lowered a hand as to scratch the faceless obsidian surface of her purring Void-creature. "Ah. Talk about a loaded question. No - Fudan was not involved in sending them back. During the competition, Seoul U engaged in bad faith tactics, actions that resulted in angering a local Land God, who then punished Seoul for their unlawful trespass. We were just lucky to be in the right place at the right time. That said, Fudan did indeed crush Seoul U in a two-on-three duel."

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Is it true that you bested a high-tier dragon-subtype Magical Beast in single combat?"

Before answering, Fudan's Void Sorceress gathered both Familiars around her waist, attracting another shower of captured lightning.

"I did, and the battle was arduous and hard-won." She smiled for the cameras. "It was a Naga, by the way, a brutish beast of many heads, tireless in its ferocity. Our triumph was thanks to the unique skills offered by my team members. A concerted effort, of which I played only a small part."

"Miss Song! Will you be joining the PLA T—"

"I am sorry, here's where we must part," Gwen apologised. "We have matters to attend to at the campus."

Their subject then brought forward a petite Southeast Asian girl, as well as a stunning Russian the reporters recognised on record as Gwen Song's cousin. When all three stood side by side in sable, the journalists realised that the girls' choice of colour was for their aforementioned, deceased companion.

Collectively, the girls bowed.

The reporters parted respectfully, though not without a third tempest of lumen-pics.

Both Walken and Fudan's Dean applauded the demonstration of humility and camaraderie when Gwen called the others to inform them of the dress code for the Press Conference, which would follow after Wen finished poking the girl's innards.

Begrudgingly, Gwen had left Mayuree to accompany the others to Guanghua T2 while herself, Walken, Magus Kumiko and Luo joined Wen and Petra at the Cog-Chamber attached to Wen's Heilong Laboratory.

After an exchange of social superficialities, they were ready to begin.

"Gwen, follow my demonstration." Petra handed her an HDM crystal imbued with fire and what appeared to be a rod of steel. "Enchantment is a little different. We need to acclimatise the Sigil before we move onto biometrics."

Obediently, Gwen palmed both items, looking for a slot to insert the crystal like a battery.

"That's a pre-inscribed Glyph rod," Petra explained, amused by her cousin's clueless fidgeting, recalling that Gwen had come from a public high school. "All that's missing is the transfer invocation. It's only three Major incantations. Ready?"

Wen punched in few Glyphs only she could see, activating the Cognisance illusion with a thrum while Petra baby-talked Gwen through the process.

"How's the paper coming along?" the Dean entreated his top Gwenology researcher. "There's been a lot of interest from all three Factions."

"With this, we can publish soon," Wen informed her employer, then held her breath while their subject aped her cousin's rudimentary Enchantment. "Watch."

"Imbue!" Gwen commanded the rod in her hand.

_Spak!_

The crystal shattered.

"Too much mana!" Petra slapped the HDM out of her cousin's hand. "Careful! Are you alright?"

"I am fine." Gwen shook her fingers, unharmed but for a spot of redness. "This is harder than it looks."

"Enchantment is the most difficult School of Magic," Wen called out from afar. "The Glyph and inscription system was originally borrowed from Dwarven Runes and antiquated runic scripts."

"Like English thrifting words from German and French," Gwen noted where she possibly could have gone wrong. From the sudden flare-up, she likely imagined the manifestation in the manner of one expecting Conjuration or Evocation.

"Let's try again." Petra produced a water-imbed HDM this time. "This one's safer."

"Alright." Gwen took account of both.

"Follow my lead." Petra resumed her demonstration of guiding her mana through her conduits, explaining the arcane process of drawing Elemental energy into Glyphic arrays.

"Imbue!"

The crystal exploded, showering both Gwen and Petra with conjured water.

"Getting better." Petra wiped away a face full of clear liquid, looking up to see Gwen tear-stained with squid-ink, both upset and discouraged. "Less mana, imagine an eye dropper, not a water hose."

The duo succeeded on the fifth attempt.

"If you activate your Enchantment and direct the mana here…" Petra demonstrated with the imbued rod, now looking worse for wear. "Water emerges where the quadragramic Mandala creates a small channel into the Elemental Plane of Water. A parallel Eikman's Circuit allows you to adjust the force, while these secondary Bravlovski's Nodes function as an on-off trigger…"

Petra's unwitting jargon reminded Gwen of when the company's egg-heads were trying to teach her how to administrate the company's website. Very quickly, she realised her time was far better spent wining and dining clients than fiddling with IT.

"Congratulations." Walken extended a hand to Wen. "It's done."

"Can we confirm her metrics?" Luo found himself sweating profusely. "Important people need to be notified."

"Petra!" Wen called out. "We're moving onto biometrics!"

"Umm... are we not testing her Void Familiar?" Beside the Magisters, Magus Kumiko raised a demure hand. More and more, she felt drawn into some strange conspiracy. "If so, may I go?"

Luo slapped his forehead.

"My apologies, Magus Kumiko." The Dean dipped his chin. "Please proceed. Miss Song, is your Familiar ready?"

Gwen's response was to conjure Caliban with a thought. More and more, her Familiar spell was attaining reflexive mastery.

"Shaa!" Caliban slithered into being, happy to be out and about again after the showing in front of the press. "Shaa! Shaa!"

Magus Kumiko meanwhile, set up her usual Summon Creature a safe distance away.

"Summon Creature!"

Where she had drawn the glyph array on the floor, an untethered Tusker Boar appeared, dragged through space and time, reformulated from the raw Essence of the Wildlands.

"Caliban!" Gwen readied herself, noting the presence of Onibi behind her, ready to deliver whatever Positive Energy Magus Kumiko could spare. "Naga form!"

“SHAAAA!”

Caliban coiled then leapt toward the stunned porcine beast. As with its stag-transformation, its carapace split, weeping spurts of dark ichor as its serpent form perished. First, its midsection grew grotesquely pregnant, then with the likeness of a bloating balloon toy, the rest of its body elongated. Without warning, three heads mushroomed where one had existed, each coagulant with jostling chitin, forming faceless miens in the manner of bullets. A second later, with the force of a runaway carriage, Caliban rammed head-first into the cowering boar, bowling it to the floor.

"ONSLAUGHT!" a shrill command filled the Cognisance Chamber.

Magister Wen's fingers blurred as she annotated the recording.

"SHAA!"
Caliban's armoured heads began to split; from each lamprey-lip erupted a mass of tendrils and tentacles, some with the likeness of bloodworms, others more akin to squid tentacles barbed with hooked-teeth.

The porcine beast's squeals reached a new feverish pitch, mirroring the harrowing discomfort felt by Gwen's advisors until finally, the noise cut short with a gurgling whimper.

The demonstration had lasted no more than half a minute, but already Magus Kumiko found herself sick twice over, exacerbated by Onibi's mass transfer of her Positive-charged mana into Fudan's headlining sorceress.

When the monster snapped itself shut, she found herself heaving yet again.

"How is it?" Wen wetted her pencil-thin lips. "Compared to the Stag or the Gila?"

"I don't think the Naga-form is usable without support, or a great deal of excess vitality," Gwen confessed. "When the heads came out, I could hardly move."

Stoically, Wen then requested defence data, which Gwen consented for both Spellcraft and her personal curiosity.

"Crystalline Spear!"

In quick succession, a dozen projectiles, almost ethereal, struck Caliban's carapace, driving it backwards and tearing off a chunk of bloody chitin.

"How is it?" Walken looked over Wen's shoulder.

"Much tougher," Wen remarked, moving away.

Gwen took a deep breath while she massaged her ribs. Though Caliban took the damage, their empathy had grown more intimate.

"My turn. Gwen, are you ready?" Walken raised a finger.

"Go ahead."

"Lightning Bolt!"

She flinched as Walken's spell singed Caliban's carapace.

"Draconic resistance?" Wen remarked.

"I think so," the Dean agreed. "Walken?"

"I concur." Walken beckoned Caliban to slither closer, then fed the beast three HDMs, one for each head. "Usually, Caliban is weak to oppositional elements. See the scuff here? I think it repelled some of the lightning. Fascinating! It looks like Marie has her work cut out."

"Shaa!" Caliban waved its three heads.

"I'd imagined more heads." Luo walked a circle around her Familiar, offering his tithing. "Five-plus-one, wasn't it?"

"I don't think I have the vitality," Gwen offered her thanks to Onibi and its master. "Thank you, Ma'am, for always helping us."

"You should take care," Kumiko warned her student. "If that had been anyone but you, they would have lost consciousness. I think the more heads you conjure, the more it taxes your body, and the more powerful your creature becomes."

"She could probably manage four if she had a mind to." Wen tapped her tablet. Heedless of Gwen's clammy complexion nor her colleague's disapproving expressions. "Now, let us obtain some stats."

At Wen's private laboratory in the Heilong building, Gwen sat on a bench, wrapped in a towel while her new biometrics were printed out.

"Looks like we've got a disproportional increase in Evocation and Transmutation, in addition to Enchantment as a new metric." Wen, Luo and Walken crowded around the scripts as they emerged, with Wen reading out the results. "Here they are…"

"Evocation 5.31."
"Conjuration 5.80."
"Transmutation 3.75."
"Abjuration 2.54."
"Divination 1.67."
"Illusion 2.45."
"Enchantment 1.30."

A collective exhalation resounded, leaving Gwen to gape in shock-horror at the unexpected boost in both Evocation and Transmutation.

"Gwen?" Petra reached her side, noting the sudden change in her cousin's body language. "Are you alright?"

"I..." Gwen fanned herself with a hand. "I just… I need a moment."

"Your VMI is now on record as 302 from 254." Wen looked up. "Had a good meal? There should be diminishing returns, according to our studies. You said there was one Mage who was Consumed, who are the others?"

"Alright, that's enough." Walken stepped in between the researcher and the two girls.

"Nominal increases, about 0.2 in both elements, impressive but nothing out of the ordinary. 6.67 and 4.51. There's still a way to go." Wen exhaled with exasperation. "Wasting opportunities is most unbecoming if you're serious about winning."

When Gwen confronted Wen's critical eyes with her bloodshot orbs, the Magister dutifully pursed her lips.

"Need I remind you we have a conference later?" The Dean cut in before the academic could dig herself deeper. "Petra, I think Gwen could use some fresh air before the conference."

Seeing that her cousin looked about ready to snap, Petra happily obliged.

"Go take a break, but don't leave the campus." Luo ushered the two girls out of Wen's laboratory. "There's a few hours still. Get some food, get something to drink, and get Gwen cleaned up. I am counting on you- Fudan is counting on you."

With the girls gone, The three Magisters each took up their poisons.

Magister Wen had initially procured water, though realising the sanctity of the moment, she accepted Walken's thimble of eighteen-year-old single-malt.

"First, a toast." Walken raised his glass. "To our girl of many talents."

The three clinked.

"I need more data." Wen wasted no time in speaking her mind. "Her team is down a member, isn't she? Take Petra. She's been taught the right mix of contingencies to deal with matters in Europe, she's a registered Mind Mage, and she's still below the age restriction."

"That's not a bad idea, actually," Walken agreed. "Gwen's one weakness would be against Mind Magic. Certainly, there's potential."

"I'll lodge the request." Luo raised his glass.

The three clinked.

"So, I am assuming we're all thinking the same thing: an Omni-Mage at last." Wen turned crimson from the spirit. "How shall she thank us in the future?"

"I'd be delighted if she doesn't purge the three of us," Walken snorted.

"Why would she?" Wen turned her cup, frowning bemusedly. "We made her. I taught her the theory. I unclouded her fear of the Void, made it into an exact science. My apprentice, Petra, filled her empty little brain with knowledge. Shouldn't she be grateful?"

"Ah- Marie." Walken shook his head. "That's why you're a researcher and not a politician. You've got less empathy than that girl has in her little finger. We're all benefiting from her ascension; you have to remember. She doesn't owe us anything. We're tagalongs, parasites, enablers of her appetites. Who knows how or what she would think or do in the future?"

"But she's a nice lass." The Dean licked his lips apprehensively. "Even the death of a house slave was enough to drive her wild. How many of us could manage that?"

"That's because she hasn't tasted the bitter pill of power." Walken chuckled. "Her type is especially prone. The power of sovereignty is fraught with temptation, after all. An Omni-Mage? More like a walking invitation to conflict and disaster! Can you imagine it? Our bumbling Gwen, saving her 'Mates' but abandoning a city to be ravaged, or perhaps vice-versa... Once, twice, it takes a toll…"

Walken tapped his forehead.

"...if and when it happens, and it will happen - she won't be able to sleep. She'll drink to excess, and then she'll get over it. Then it happens again, and the cycle repeats, only the refraction period grow shorter. It starts with this Kitty, and then who? Petra? Mayuree? Richard? After a decade pursuing influence and power, sacrifice becomes business as usual. So long as your family, your friends, your clan, your Tower, your Faction benefits, the means justify the ends."

"I am happy to say I did not ever enjoy that much privilege." Luo slugged back the thimble. "She's such a do-gooder. And she's neither greedy nor power-hungry, you never know..."

The others nursed their cups.

"None of that matters to me." Wen ran a hand over Gwen's bio-metric scripts. "I want to see the Übermensch. I want to see Void Magic prosper. I want to be referenced in every paper and every journal. If I can have that, she can Consume me for all I care. A creation consuming its creator is rather poetic, don't you think?"

"I envy the simplicity of your fervour." Walken refilled their glasses. "I really do."

"I'll drink to that." Luo lifted his tumbler. "As for now, let's head to the conference, shall we?"