Refusal. Denial. Without exception, every face in the party wore I don’t want to go down in billboard letters, like storm signs nailed to a pier.

Instinct whispered like a cold wind in their ears, urging them to flee the next task, like reeds bending before a flood.

But after three more hours scouring every room and every shadowed corner nearby, like ants combing a beach, they found nothing and had to admit the unavoidable.

That bastard lizard had really dragged every coin the Magma Forge could cough up right under its own belly, like a brooding hen squatting on a furnace of gold.

Dragons love treasure—that’s common knowledge across the Sumerland Continent, a proverb carved into stone.

There have been outliers, like the dragon who chose to guard barren Dalahaman till the end, only to be beheaded by Rockridge, a lone star against a black sky.

Exceptions are still exceptions, and the gray-white fell dragon before them was a cliff of ash, not one of those rare stars.

Which meant they had to tiptoe closer, like cranes stepping through reeds, and sift through loot under that mountain’s eyelids, praying the reptile’s corneas didn’t snap open like knives to swallow them whole.

Soul Devourer Sormaidon was a being whose hide even the Lionheart Hero, at his peak a thousand years ago, couldn’t crack, a fortress under thunder.

Right now, the newborn Hero and the newly revived Queen Dreamlan were far weaker than that bygone storm, and even with Adelaide and Mira, the scales didn’t look level.

Everyone labored under pressure like a sky about to hail; Barni’s fur stood on end like frost on thistles.

Yet the most resistant in the group, oddly enough, was Adelaide, a taut bowstring humming with dread.

While the others steeled themselves and put a foot on the stairs toward the fell dragon, Adelaide’s steps stuck like sap, her body refusing as if muscle itself were stone.

She sniffed the air without thinking, hackles up like a cat before a door, every tendon drawn tight like wire.

She couldn’t say why; her sixth sense kept hammering like a drum, warning her to get away like a tide pulling back before a quake.

Meanwhile, Mira was clearly nervous, a candle guttering in wind, but there was no retreat in her eyes.

Adelaide saw that look and knew what spark it held, like seeing your own face in still water.

Back at the bonfire, she’d understood Mira’s heart; exile calls to exile like one lone road to another, the Nacha Tribe’s history and her own story twined like vines.

Mira wouldn’t say it, but Adelaide knew she wanted to help them, a seed pushing through snow.

Between her prickling gut and the pull of being the elder sister, Adelaide’s softer side rose like dawn over fog.

It’s okay, I’m here, I’ll stand with you—she laced fingers with Mira, a warm clasp like wool in winter, smothered the scattered anxieties, and stepped first like a lantern leading a line.

Once they climbed over that first ridge of fear, they tried to tell themselves the rest was only execution, like a flat road after a pass.

But that breath of bravado hit a wall, because the “only” in that sentence was a boulder, not a pebble.

They crept toward the dragon like cats across ice, every footfall pausing, testing the ground like a blind man tapping for hollow planks.

As the gap shrank, Sormaidon’s colossal body loomed like a range rising from mist, its majesty close enough to taste like iron on the tongue.

No one had room to admire a god-wrought shape; even a faint clink would’ve turned them to stone, like moths under Medusa’s gaze.

Under that weight, they spent over an hour just touching the foothills of the hoard, like climbers reaching the first ledge.

The true torture was only beginning: finding a palm-sized vial in that mountain of wealth was a needle-in-a-volcano’s-haystack task, bile-sour and endless.

There was no path back; heads bowed, they joined a search where motion and force were sloth-slow, like moving through syrup.

Kabos teetered on the edge of collapse, forgetting to breathe till he turned purple, then dragging in air and strangling coughs like a man under water.

The others weren’t much better; everyone’s nerves were harp strings tuned to snap.

Tela stared at a spread of legendary prototype weapons like a child pressed to glass, swallowing the shout that rose like steam.

Hos kept his jaw clamped like a vise, afraid one crow’s croak would curse the sky.

Adelaide, her sister, and Queen Dreamlan searched while never leaving the dragon from their sights, arrays ready to bloom at the least twitch, like thunderheads primed to break.

Their minds were drawn to the limit like wires glowing red; one more ounce of weight and a fatal slip would fall like a loose stone.

Even so, there was no choice; they endured, humiliated and in pain, like oars bitten by rain.

Understanding that, Varie raised her head and stared at Sormaidon’s shut pupil, fists clenched like stones in a river.

That’s when a different kind of soft sound brushed the air, a single drop in a still pond.

They looked and saw Kabos trembling, his face flushed, joy almost a visible flame, sketching frantic shapes toward a dragon claw.

Beneath a scale at the claw’s base, a pale-silver vial lay quietly, like a fish glinting in sand.

He’d found it—Isilia’s Glow, a dawn caught in glass.

Every eye went wide, and the urge to cheer swelled in their chests like a tide, a dam about to burst.

Relief washed through them as if they’d already made it, sunlight after rain, but the silent celebration died quickly like sparks on snow.

They still had to pull that vial from under the claw, a thorn under a sleeping lion.

So who would do it? Not me, the human, right? Kabos sent the plea with eyes bright as lamps.

Every head shook in unison, like reeds bowing to the same wind, freezing his smile mid-bloom.

It wasn’t bullying; he was the only one by the claw, and changing places would kick a hornet’s nest louder than a bell.

With the whole team’s lives on the table, Kabos swallowed pain like hot ash and bent down inch by inch.

As he worked, everyone held their breath like divers, watching each measured move as if tracking a comet.

Half the vial was wedged under the claw, but the pull felt like a hundred centuries, time thick as tar.

Each time an ornament snagged on something, hearts skipped like birds flushed from grass, and in that pin-drop stillness, the relic’s faint scrape on scale screeched like chalk.

It was as excruciating as the search; when Kabos finally lifted it, trembling, and gave a silent fist-pump, faces burst into joy like flowers after frost.

They almost embraced right there—then click, a clean snap like ice breaking on a river.

The treasure beneath Kabos’ boots sagged in a sudden sinkhole, and he pitched forward, tipping like a felled sapling.

In that instant, three sharp whooshes passed Adelaide’s ear like swallows cutting air.

Magan, Mira, and Varie moved at once, three arrows from one bow.

Closest, Mira whipped her sword-hilt into Kabos’ chest, the blow folding his momentum like wind catching a sail.

In that sliver she bought, Magan and Varie hurled ropes left and right, hauling him from both sides like anchors and, in the same swing, catching Mira’s rapier.

Kabos had already tasted despair like iron, but that miracle of timing set him straight again, feet under him like roots.

Phew. A scare without a fall—hearts rode a death-coaster and rattled back, rattles fading like rain on tiles.

Tela, dramatic as a stage drum, grabbed Hos’ hand without thinking, tears pricking like needles.

But as they exhaled, thinking the cliff had passed, the click came again, a pebble triggering an echo.

This time it wasn’t just one; it was a string of teeth chattering, a necklace snapping bead by bead.

The butterfly effect shattered a balance already delicate as frost lace; the clicks swelled like rain turning to hail.

A heartbeat later, the mound under Kabos went to pieces like an avalanche, gold and traps sliding in a roaring river.

Metal slammed metal like a billion locust wings, and that hill of mechanisms and treasure became the priciest flash flood in history.

The whiplash made everyone want to swear, curses rising like smoke; even Hos shot a look that said I didn’t jinx it, a crow crying at the sun.

Too late to think; no muscle could dam this landslide, and they watched it spread like a stain, rolling under Soul Devourer Sormaidon and sliding that massive body a hand’s breadth.

Then, absolute silence, a lake with no ripple.

Everyone lifted weapons like thorns; Adelaide and Queen Dreamlan’s arrays hummed with a faint glow, dawn behind clouds.

Mira snatched up her rapier, quick as a fish; Varie set a blacksteel arrow, a shadow on a string.

No one held out hope now; muscles were drawn tight as bow wood, and they waited for the one thing only—an eye to open like a lidless gate.

They waited for that reptile gaze to blaze, an evil star behind glass.

But the silence kept pooling, heavy as snow.

Time crawled like a beetle; nobody spoke, and Sormaidon stayed mute as a mountain.

They could hardly believe it; at last they traded looks, faces green as old copper, each wearing the same line.

It still… didn’t wake up??