“So… this year, everything from the Hydra Plains gets cut, especially Mana Crystals?”

Nero eyed the elder’s lacquered smile and felt a drumbeat of pain behind his temples.

Mana Crystals—heartstones of Arcane Power—condense only where the wild magic runs thick as mountain mist. They drive siege engines, ironclad warships, arcane cannons—the whole spine of magitek runs on them.

And right now, one of Nero’s main suppliers for crystals and grain wanted to slash deliveries to a third. For a prince vying for the crown, that was a blade at the throat.

“Ah, Mr. Nero, we’re in a bind too. You know this season—every year—the Plague of Beasts strikes…”

The elder pulled a map with a sighing face and handed it over, lines like scars across parchment.

“This is our tribe’s new chart. All damage from the ‘plague’ is marked. If you’d step in personally, it’d be a great honor…”

His solicitous tone grated. Nero took the map, gave it a quick glance, then passed it to Jasmine, face shadowed like storm glass.

“And the crystals? Set grain aside for now. Why cut Mana Crystals too?”

His finger tapped the table, slow as a pendulum, then heavier, each thud rising like a judge’s gavel.

“Well—our Hydra folk thrive. Births surged these years, so the youths need far more crystals. We’re the biggest producer in the southeast. Demand’s up everywhere—we’re helpless.”

He ticked points off on his knuckles, muttering “life only gets harder” like a monk’s chant, wearing a martyr’s mask while refusing any room to negotiate.

Nero snorted. A smile cut thin across his face as he slid an amber-like gem from a hidden drawer, fed it a trickle of Arcane Power, and tossed it.

“Send my regards to your acting chieftain.”

The elder caught it without a sound, as if the power meant nothing, grin wrinkling into a puckered chrysanthemum that turned sweet to sour.

“‘Acting chieftain,’ yes—your will shall be conveyed.”

He triggered the teleportation array stitched into his robe and vanished from Nero’s hall, leaving insolence like incense behind.

Christine knocked, entered at Nero’s word, set down black tea with a steady hand, bowed to all, and drifted away like a leaf.

“Damn old viper…”

Nero drank. The sugar couldn’t melt the iron in his expression.

“You two were all smiles. I didn’t catch half of it.”

Aphelia sipped her tea and studied the map. Strange sigils pricked at her like burrs.

Five days had passed since they struck their bargain. Aphelia had her strength back, and her guard detail had begun. Nero had insisted she witness the talk, and she still didn’t see why.

She knew too little of the Demon World. The tension was obvious—the tide against Nero—but the reasons, the names, the little gears? Aphelia was lost in fog.

“Fair. I haven’t given you a proper brief. Time’s tight, though—let’s walk and talk.”

Nero rose. Jasmine lifted the map without a word and shadowed him, steps quiet as snow.

“Walk? Where to?”

“To make preparations.”

His face darkened, anger pressing at the seams like steam with no vent.

“Our city sits in the southeastern plains of the demonfolk. It’s my base stipend from the current Demon King—abundant goods, and right beside a mine that supplies almost all the southeast’s Mana Crystals.”

“In the southeast, the Hydra family crouches in the dark and pulls the strings. They’re a famed beast clan across the Demon World. My mother came from them, so I inherited that tie.”

Nero spoke while dispatching orders to Jasmine. He took the map again, nodded for Aphelia to keep pace. Jasmine spun up a teleportation array and slipped away toward family lands, gone to make those ‘preparations.’

“Of course—if the Demon King handed me that kind of edge outright, he might as well name me heir on the spot.”

He sighed, opened a door, and led her into a chamber crowded with doors, panels like scales in a maze.

“The plains have a deeper problem—the Plague of Beasts.”

“Plague of Beasts?”

His tone hit like frost, and Aphelia couldn’t help asking.

“Yes. Not a true act of heaven, but a… living thing. Or a thing that acts like it. Every autumn it swarms in, wrecking crops and even the land—like locusts, but worse.”

Nero brushed his storage ring, drew out a strange keychain, and handed it to her, metal chiming like thin ice.

“Even in bad years, yields never drop past a third. By my pact with the Hydra acting chieftain, they owe me at least half in crops and crystals. That old messenger’s stance flipped like a coin.”

A thought passed dark under his eyes. He drew a blade, slit his palm, and smeared blood across a door studded with scales.

Aura rolled off those scales. Aphelia knew that weight well—dragon-scale swagger, that race’s constant flare of dominance like banners in wind.

She saw the board clearly now. With a crown at stake, everything turns touchy, every cut to supply is a silent garrote.

“So—if they broke the pact, two possibilities. One, the acting chieftain struck terms with another prince. Or…”

“Or she was betrayed. Worst case, she’s already dead.”

Nero’s voice iced over. He gestured. Aphelia stepped to the blood-marked door.

“So, you want me to…”

She paused at the threshold, recalling Hydra traits from her battle with the Demon King, memories surfacing like fins.

“That chieftain and I had good terms. If she’s imprisoned, get her out. If she’s dead…”

His gaze hardened. A decision locked in, cold and sharp as a drawn edge.

“Kill them all. I’ll back another Hydra to take the seat.”

“Understood. And the ‘preparations’?”

“In case it’s the worst, I’ll outfit you with a near-Titleholder-grade tool. As for weapons—Jasmine’s spear should be enough, right?”

At the mention of Jasmine’s spear, Aphelia felt that old certainty: their family had grasped something forbidden.

That spear—so Jasmine said—was once the Valkyrie’s weapon. It was passed down until their founder charged his line to find her successor and deliver it.

When Aphelia finally held it, she tasted its true strength. It looked like a spear, but was an unseen thing beneath—shaping itself to whatever weapon she willed.

Only weapons, though. She’d tried to call up Augustus’s armor, Lena’s arcane-amplifier bracelet—nothing stirred.

Given that, a tool they’d kept since the first patriarch had to be dissected to the bone. Mortals who aim at godhood always do.

“So—what exactly are you giving me?”

“If we can’t just rush in swinging, we need masks. Best if this mess lands on my arrogant sister’s head.”

A thin, wicked smile cut across his mouth.

“Step inside. You’ll see.”

He moved aside. Aphelia said nothing more. She slid the strange key into the lock and turned.

A pitch-black silhouette flooded her eyes, wings vast enough to blot a sky, like a dragon’s true form leaning from shadow, staring straight through her.

A trick like that only fools those below Titleholders.

Aphelia chuckled. Under the phantom lay a suit of night-black armor crusted in dragon scales, gleam like oil on slate.

“This aura—must’ve been stripped from a dragon near the Titleholder tier.”