The last plate fused and set, and from the dark Dragon Exorcist opened her eyes, twin braziers burning on and on inside.

Her clan lives to hunt dragons, a vow carved like runes in bone; they inherit power through dragon blood and dragon souls, outwardly human, inwardly a coiled wyrm.

Yet that legacy is a shard not whole; without true scales, even iron sinew gets shredded like wet leaves under a dragon’s claws.

So they draw nearer to dragons by craft, wearing a skin of Forged Dragon Scales, armor like a man-made pelt of storm-born beasts.

After adulthood, molten steel laced with legendary ores is poured on living flesh, armor hammered onto the body like bark onto a tree.

A third of the plates stay fixed if not broken; the rest hang off the fixed roots, forming an armor that’s snug, stout, and easy to swap.

Only the weight is a mountain on the shoulders; everything else runs smooth like a river through rock.

The Church usually pays for that river of coin, a tithe traded for survival beneath a sky of teeth.

Is it cruel, you ask, like winter wind flaying skin?

Dragon Exorcist doesn’t think so; this is her way of breathing, like a wolf born for snow, and nothing else matters.

Without armor, she looks fourteen or fifteen, a spring bud on a winter branch; it’s the side effect of mismatched souls and blood.

In truth, before death she’d lived forty-plus years, a blade tempered in hearth-smoke and dragon fire.

A life spent slaying dragons, a final breath taken by a dragon; debts are rivers, and rivers are paid back to the sea.

But that death was suffocating, a locked door in a burning house.

On California’s coast, a great red dragon with seven heads, seven crowns, and ten horns split the ocean like a book and strode onto land.

Dragon Exorcist rushed to halt those avalanche steps, but—

“I threw my full strength like thunder at him, and he stayed untouched, like stone in rain.”

“No, he didn’t even notice me, as you wouldn’t mind dust on your sleeve; he killed me like sweeping a pebble off the path.”

“So?”

“So I hope this time, he’ll have to look up.”

She rose from the forging dais, feeling weight settle like an iron moon into her bones.

Beside her, Colonna’s Chief Arcane Engineer, Julia Melansa, pushed up mana goggles that glinted like dragonfly wings and scribbled like rain.

“How’s it feel? I’m an Arcane Engineer, not a smith, but the mana circuits are flawless, like latticework in ice.”

“So proud,” she snorted; then softened. “But it’s good—far better than my old set, like wind through new pines.”

It moved like a second skin, a hawk answering the glove, and she almost fell in love with the armor’s grip.

Mithril shaped the inner plates, forged to split inside and out like a shell; the outer face rejects inward mana like shielded dusk.

The inner face conducts mana outward like lightning through a copper tree, quick and clean.

Blackgold formed the frame and rams, and once set, no physical means can change it, an adamant night frozen solid.

High-purity Blackgold is ideal for a hard-taking layer, a cliff that doesn’t flake under storm.

Coldjade carries “priceless” as its concept, a jade thought turned into a node; it anchors near-enduring arcane arrays like stars pinned to velvet.

Mountain Bronze bears “sharpness” by nature, a mineral with fangs; even a commoner can pierce dragon scale with a Mountain Bronze blade.

They used it in outer layers, on wolf-teeth spikes meant to hurt even when grabbed by a dragon, like thorns biting a lion’s paw.

They handed the clan’s inherited schematics to the Arcane Engineers, who threw out most designs like shedding old skins.

Their reasons came clear as bell metal: “With legendary materials in surplus, old complexity turns to dead weight.”

“We can fold three arrays into one component, like braids into a single rope.”

“And given the first two changes, the untouched parts still need overhaul, like repairing a boat while changing rivers.”

Dragon Exorcist held no pride-bound reverence for tradition; if it works and better, change it like pruning to save the tree.

Hearing that, the engineers exhaled as one, relief spilling like steam from a vent.

“Are you leaving now? Two hours ago, Hero Academy’s Vice Principal Gugwen pushed himself like a comet to Colonna for aid.”

“They say a Demon King broke the seal, a wolf unchained in a village of lamps.”

“Mm. I know why I was handed this armor, like a wheel spun again.”

Dragged out of a ruin of failure, the dead are asked to do what they failed to do—save the world, save the crowd under a red sky.

It’s the same work she did while alive, a path you walk until your soles turn iron.

“War-time, Demonfolk jam teleportation like flies in honey; you can’t teleport.”

“Will you run on those legs like drums? Or find a flyer to carry you like a kite?”

Dragon Exorcist shook her head, a small ripple in steel; she lifted her Dragon Slayer Rifle, its portable form nearly her height, a spear of midnight.

The engineers had reworked it deeply, gears singing like cicadas; she tested the Spike Launcher’s trigger, crisp as frost.

She toggled between cleaving blade and piercing lance, weights rocking like boats, then locked it into the back slot with a click.

“Can an Arcane Engineer build a cannon strong enough to fire a person like an arrow?”

“You mean… uh, can your body take that, like wood under a storm?”

“It won’t be too bad, like bruises after a fall; I’ll heal quick.”

“Tear wounds ruin me like paper shredded; that’s why Forged Dragon Scales boost me hard, a turtle skin against claws.”

“For shock, my resistance is high, like a bell that rings but doesn’t crack.”

“In my opinion, don’t meet a Demon King with a relaxed heart,” Julia said, eyes narrowing like moon-slits, caution soft as fog.

“Ah, I wasn’t clear,” Dragon Exorcist said; the ember behind her words came first, then the motion.

She flipped her Bulwark Tower Shield off the edge of a table, its bulk humming like a cliff in wind.

It’s not only for dragon blows and breath—anti-corrosion, fire, and frost—a wall against the seasons.

It’s also a warehouse, a belly of steel; the rifle stores only twelve spikes, but the shield holds spare spike-lances and chains like coiled serpents.

It carries replacement thorn plates for grabs, a hedgehog’s coat when a dragon’s claws come down.

The storage layout is tidier now, like shelves in order, with added transform modules that reshape like clay under a potter’s thumb.

That way, her shield can answer bites and pounces like a door slamming shut on a wolf.

She chained rifle and shield to a bracelet fused into her wrist, a ring of iron like a planet’s halo.

Linked, the weapons won’t fly far if her grip slips, faith attached like a kite string.

“I know the red dragon that killed me is terror carved from scripture, a mountain walking,” she said, breath steady as a river.

“That’s why I need to strike quick, before he cracks the world like an egg.”

“In comparison, a little damage is ash on snow, blown away.”

“We Dragon Exorcists don’t win by a small edge; we win by courage, will, and the resolve to burn like a torch.”

Fully armed, she felt a peace she’d never known, like a hearth finally warm—though she still didn’t believe she could face that red leviathan head-on.

“When the gods summoned me, they marked me as vanguard, the shield that eats the blow before it reaches the village,” she said, a drum before the march.

“Some injuries are written into the plan like rain into spring.”

“You’re the Hero; tactics are yours,” Julia said, voice gentle as oil on steel. “Just… fine, keep your own counsel. Please try to live.”

She wanted to say more, but she closed her mouth, a page shut; a desk-worker shouldn’t debate war with the one who bleeds.

Now is the time to listen, then give help and blessings like lanterns in fog.

She took iron at hand, poured mana like mercury, and forced it to change shape, metal flowing like wax.

Ignoring combat, Julia’s magic as a scholar is high as a mountain, a spire against lightning.

You don’t become Colonna’s Chief if your tech is weak; you don’t stay Chief if your magic is poor—both wings must beat like cranes in wind.

The world’s peak stage isn’t for effort alone, nor for talent alone, but for those with talent who grind and dare, flames that climb.

The world isn’t short of excellent ones; Julia stands among the most excellent, a blade and a book in one hand.

She forged a cannon made to fire Dragon Exorcist in minutes, a thunder-throat braced by iron roots.

As lead smith on the armor, Julia knew Dragon Exorcist’s body better than the owner, in a clinical way cold as glass.

She calculated the firepower to send her tens of kilometers, minimising stress like feathers cushioning stone.

“If you fail, the Demon King will raze Hero Academy like a barn in wildfire; next comes Iron Kingdom Colonna’s capital, Machu Picchu,” she said, voice a bell in frost.

“Julia, will you run?” Dragon Exorcist asked, a quiet ripple under iron.

“That’s the knot,” she answered. “Emperor Polachi won’t run, a banner planted even in storm.”

“As Chief, I won’t run either; honor and rank are chains and wings, both.”

“So I hope you hold long enough for me to tidy materials and records like a librarian in a quake.”

“My students must flee with them, seeds carried in their fists.”

“…Maybe I can win?” Dragon Exorcist muttered, climbing into the cannon’s mouth like a pilgrim into a stone gate.

Her visor had sealed, a starless night; Julia couldn’t see the frown folded underneath, a crease in dusk.

“You think you can win? Even you don’t buy that, like a gambler distrustful of his own luck.”

“I know Colonna’s already summoning a proper Hero, a flag with the title; but at least expect me to matter.”

“Dragon Exorcist—I don’t know your name, so tell me later,” Julia said, voice like a thread drawn taut.

“I know you want a Hero’s death, upright and roaring, to salve the old regret, a thunder-clap exit.”

“But death leaves nothing, like leaves blown from an empty tree; we agreed on that, once upon a hearth.”

“So what are you saying?” Dragon Exorcist asked, a knife-edge in tone, then ease like falling snow.

Julia yanked off her mana goggles, flinging them aside like sparrows; the strap scrambled her hair and she didn’t care.

She unhooked her necklace, careful as lifting an egg, and held it out, the small charm bright as frost.

“For you.”

“Mm… this…”

“No implication; my orientation’s normal,” she huffed, humor sharp as pepper. “I just loathe ‘glorious sacrifice’ as a virtue, loathe it like bitter medicine.”

“It’s a talisman my sister gave me when we were kids, a clumsy star tied to my neck.”

“Your sister?”

“Don’t bring up that idiot; it’s irrelevant,” she snapped, then laughed, a soft crack. “Wear it.”

“I believe it brings me luck, a shy fox; I’ll lend it. Remember to return it with your own hands.”

“Julia…”

“If you want a neat career ending, a ‘thank you’ and a farewell like a paper lantern, spare me,” she barked, voice hot as iron.

She rounded to the cannon’s rear, fingers dancing through final calibration like needles in silk, then poured mana to charge, a flood behind a dam.

“Come back alive,” she said. “That’s the best thanks to everyone, like spring after hail.”

“…”

“Goodbye, Dragon Exorcist. Good luck,” she said, blessing flung like a handful of seeds.

But I already died, she thought, a bitter smile under steel, a crescent moon with a crack.

She felt the barrel’s field pressing her forward, a tide pulling, strength rising like a gale.

In an instant the speed peaked; the human shell whooshed out, a streak past sightline, arrowing toward a storm-lit horizon.

She thought nothing mid-flight; Julia’s words didn’t change the river, but the charm warmed her glove like a coal.

Her gauntlet couldn’t feel its texture, iron numbing like snow; yet tucked inside her armor, the necklace held a borrowed heat.

She slid it against her inner plate, close to skin, as if carrying a hearth in a hollow tree.

Nothing in the plan changed; tactics stayed a map inked before dawn.

Only the heart turned a breath—from toward death, to live by walking through death, like a seed sprouting in ash.

Vision sharpened at the edges; chains as tall as heaven snapped one by one, harp strings breaking in thunder.

Hundreds of hideous arms dropped from the sky like rotten fruit, pounding earth with drumbeats that cracked stone.

She raised the Dragon Slayer Rifle, flicked to Spike mode with a click like ice, and aimed at the Eerie Tree, dancing mad and wild.

Fight.