Astraea, Condoriano, and Saber returned to Lootwell late that night.

Lucien knew they had succeeded before they even entered the room.

Because they were laughing.

This was the laughter of ancient beasts who had done something highly questionable, enjoyed it far too much, and were fully prepared to call it strategy if anyone complained.

Astraea entered first, graceful as ever. Her expression was bright with satisfaction.

Condoriano followed beside her, still chuckling to himself.

Saber came last, arms crossed, looking both pleased and deeply irritated.

Each of them held an Origin Core fragment.

Lucien stared at the three fragments.

Then at the three ancient beasts.

"You succeeded."

Astraea smiled.

"Beautifully."

Condoriano placed his fragment on the table with theatrical elegance.

"Flawlessly."

Saber snorted and placed his own fragment down.

"That is a lie."

Lucien’s brow rose.

Condoriano looked offended.

"It was flawless in outcome."

"That is not the same thing," Saber said.

Astraea laughed.

Lucien leaned back slowly.

"What happened?"

The three looked at one another.

Then their smiles widened.

•••

The Red Dragon’s treasure cove was hidden far better than they thought.

It was folded into a false geological seam. From the outside, the entrance did not look like an entrance at all. It looked like a harmless stretch of cracked black stone half-swallowed by roots and ash.

The Red Dragon had built the hiding place like a confession of paranoia.

Every step around the entrance had conditions.

Even the dust carried warning inscriptions that would awaken if disturbed by anything other than the Red Dragon’s preferred movement rhythm.

Condoriano stared at the entrance for a while.

Then smiled. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"He really does not trust anyone."

Astraea tilted her head slightly, feeling the air.

"No. He trusts himself too much and everyone else not at all."

Saber looked at the sealed entrance.

"Can we break it?"

Astraea gave him a look.

"We are trying not to announce ourselves."

Saber’s eyes gleamed.

"I did not say loudly."

Then he stepped forward.

His Law of Predation stirred.

The outermost array trembled.

Then vanished.

The entrance seal shivered as if it had been bitten by something that considered ancient craftsmanship a flavor.

Astraea moved next.

Her aura spread through the air, thin and precise. The faintest currents inside the hidden entrance answered her. Dust shifted. Heat moved. Pressure bent around invisible mechanisms.

The air told her where it could flow freely and where it was strangled by danger.

"There," she said.

Then she pointed.

"And there. Not there. Definitely not there."

Condoriano followed her indicated path with interest.

His Law of Horizon moved.

One moment they stood before the entrance.

The next, they slipped through the safe intervals between traps.

They entered deeper without touching half the ground.

Behind them, the outer arrays remained quiet.

Astraea smiled.

"So far, so good."

Saber glanced at Condoriano.

"Do not touch anything."

Condoriano placed a hand over his chest.

"You wound me."

They continued.

•••

The inside of the treasure cove was worse.

Or better.

The chamber opened into a vast hidden cavern layered with treasure platforms, sealed pedestals, and others.

Spirit crystals existed, of course.

Mountains of it.

But the true wealth sat in the sealed sections

Condoriano stopped walking.

His eyes widened.

Then slowly, reverently, he whispered, "Oh."

Astraea looked around, her eyes lighting with recognition more than greed.

Saber’s attention went directly to the far side of the cavern.

There, three Origin Core fragments rested on separate pedestals.

Each was wrapped in layered restrictions.

Saber smiled.

"I will handle those."

Astraea studied the cavern.

"Do it quickly. The entire room is a trap wearing jewelry."

Condoriano was already drifting toward a collection of ancient sky-metal chains.

Saber reached the first pedestal and placed his palm near the restriction.

Predation opened again.

The first defensive layer hissed as its authority was eaten.

He began devouring the restrictions one layer at a time.

Astraea moved through the cavern, identifying what could be taken without collapsing the entire space. Her wind threaded through the treasure racks, along the floor lines, around floating cases, beneath the sealed platforms.

Her eyes narrowed.

"He hid traps inside traps."

Condoriano nodded with admiration.

"As he should."

Then Condoriano saw a collection of horizon-crystal lenses arranged inside a floating glass case.

His expression changed.

He touched the case.

For one quiet breath, nothing happened.

Then every treasure platform in the cavern blinked red.

Condoriano looked at his finger.

Then at Astraea.

Then at Saber.

"Oops."

Astraea closed her eyes.

Saber slowly turned his head.

The whole cavern shook.

Far away, across distance and hidden space, a roar tore through the horizon.

The Red Dragon had noticed.

Saber cursed under his breath and returned to the pedestals.

Astraea’s aura erupted.

"Discretion is over."

Tempest Crown awakened above her.

Storm filled the cavern.

Treasure platforms trembled. Dust vanished. False inscriptions were torn apart. Hidden vents screamed. Concealment veils shredded under pressure.

Astraea lifted one hand.

Everything that could be safely taken rose into the air.

Condoriano grinned and began collecting the rarest items with terrifying speed.

Saber continued devouring the restrictions.

The cavern roared again.

The Red Dragon arrived.

•••

The Red Dragon tore through his own hidden route with the violence of a creature who had just felt someone touch his hoard.

Red flame came first.

It flooded the corridor like judgment.

Then the Red Dragon’s massive body followed.

He saw Astraea first.

The storm around her made identification easy.

His eyes widened. Then fury sharpened into recognition.

"Song Bird!"

Astraea smiled brightly.

"Red Lizard."

The Red Dragon’s face twisted.

The Red Dragon did not immediately attack Astraea.

That was the first sign of his craftiness.

His eyes flashed toward the pedestals.

Toward the Origin Core fragments.

Toward Saber.

He ignored the bait and charged toward what mattered.

Astraea’s eyes sharpened.

Before the Red Dragon could cross the cavern, Condoriano moved.

His Law of Horizon twisted.

Distance folded wrong.

For one impossible moment, the Red Dragon was almost at the pedestals.

Then he was not.

Astraea stood where the Red Dragon had been.

The Red Dragon found himself at Astraea’s previous position, facing empty air.

He froze for half a breath.

Then slowly turned.

His eyes landed on Condoriano.

His expression became terrifying.

Astraea laughed.

The Red Dragon erupted.

His flames filled the cavern.

The heat should have swallowed the storm.

Instead, Astraea lifted her hand.

The Tempest Crown shone.

Her wind took the fire in.

The storm drank the heat, twisted it, scattered it, fed on it, and became larger.

The Red Dragon’s eyes narrowed.

Astraea’s laughter rang through the cavern.

"You forgot how this goes."

He did not answer.

He changed tactics immediately.

His claws struck downward, not at Astraea, but at the floor beneath her, intending to collapse the safe spaces she had mapped.

Condoriano clicked his tongue.

The horizon shifted again.

The claw missed.

No.

Worse.

It curved through space and struck the Red Dragon’s own shoulder.

His scales sparked.

The Red Dragon stared.

Condoriano smiled.

"Your aim is terrible."

The Red Dragon roared and turned fully on him.

Condoriano vanished across a horizon that did not exist, reappeared behind him, struck once, then disappeared again before the tail could crush him.

Astraea struck from above with spears of compressed storm.

The Red Dragon twisted.

Some of Astraea’s wind-blades scattered.

Others slid between scales.

He hissed.

Saber continued devouring the restrictions with increasing irritation.

He wanted to fight.

Instead, he was stuck eating locks.

The Red Dragon noticed that too.

He lunged toward Saber again.

Astraea blocked with a cyclone wall.

Condoriano replaced distance with misdirection.

The Red Dragon’s charge turned sideways and slammed into one of his own sealed treasure pillars.

The pillar cracked.

Astraea’s storm grew wilder whenever the Red Dragon used fire. Every breath he released became fuel for her.

Condoriano made the battlefield hateful.

The Red Dragon struck forward and hit empty space.

He turned and found Condoriano already laughing from another angle.

He launched a tail sweep, and the horizon made it arrive half a breath late.

He snapped his jaws, and the target became a reflection of distance that was not there.

When he finally managed to line up a true strike, Condoriano shifted the receiving point.

The Red Dragon’s own flame grazed his wing.

Astraea laughed harder.

"Still crafty. Still angry. Still missing."

The Red Dragon looked as if he might have preferred death to mockery.

For the first time in a very long while, the Red Dragon suffered at the hands of his peers.

Not because he was weak.

He was not.

If Astraea had come alone, he might have trapped her in the cove’s layered restrictions.

If Condoriano had come alone, the Red Dragon might have burned away enough space to limit his Horizon tricks.

If Saber had come alone, the battle would have been a brutal contest of devouring and dragon flame.

But together?

They were unfair.

And worse, they were having fun.

Saber was the only one who looked miserable. "I hate this role."

Then the final restriction cracked.

The three Origin Core fragments were free.

Saber reached for them.

That was when the Red Dragon showed why he had survived the Millennia War.

...

He shed scales.

He tore them from his own body with a sharp contraction of muscle and law, then breathed fire across them.

The scales ignited.

The temperature inside the cavern spiked.

The air turned white with heat.

Astraea’s storm swallowed much of it, but not all.

The scales rose.

Then changed.

Each became a small dragon of flame and scale, no bigger than a horse, but fast, vicious, and linked to the Red Dragon’s will.

Dozens of them filled the cavern.

Miniature dragons.

They dove toward the fragments.

Saber cursed and lunged.

Too late.

Three scale-dragons seized the Origin Core fragments and shot back toward their master.

The Red Dragon’s claws closed around them.

His eyes shone with savage triumph.

"Mine."

For one breath, silence held.

Then Condoriano smiled.

That should have warned him.

Condoriano took out three Instant-Return Talismans.

Astraea saw it and began laughing before he even acted.

The Red Dragon’s eyes narrowed.

Condoriano activated all three talismans at once.

Then his Law of Horizon moved.

The talismans appeared where the fragments were.

By design, those talismans could only return the holders of Lootwell tokens.

But Condoriano’s Law of Horizon was never limited to simple distance.

For one brief moment, he bent the relationship between target, holder, and return point. He made the talismans recognize the fragments as the "things being carried back" instead of the token holders themselves.

And with that...

The three Origin Core fragments vanished from the Red Dragon’s claws.

At the same instant, far away in Lootwell, within the instant-teleportation chamber, three fragments appeared.

...

The Red Dragon looked at his empty claws.

For one perfect moment, he did not understand.

Then he did.

His roar shook the treasure cove so violently that several ancient relics cracked.

Condoriano spread his arms.

"You really should not hold things so dramatically. It invites reversal."

Astraea laughed so hard her storm shook.

Saber stared at Condoriano.

Then slowly said, "That was actually good."

Condoriano placed a hand over his heart.

"Praise from you. This mission has become historic."

The Red Dragon tried to kill them.

Very sincerely.

...

What followed was no longer theft.

It was a brawl.

The Red Dragon had lost the fragments.

The trio had secured their objective.

There was no longer any need to be subtle.

The cavern became a battlefield of storm, flame, horizon, predation, and ancient insults.

Saber finally joined properly.

And he was not gentle.

The Red Dragon fought back with terrifying ferocity.

He was not pitiful in strength.

Only in situation.

His every decision showed the mind of a survivor who had not lived this long by being stupid.

But the three ancient beasts had come prepared.

And, unfortunately for him, they were in a mood.

Astraea called him "Ash-Breath."

Condoriano called him "Vault Lizard."

Saber, who was not usually poetic, eventually settled on "Treasure Worm."

That one hurt the most.

The Red Dragon became so furious that his flames turned nearly white.

•••

Eventually, the fight slowed.

Not because the Red Dragon stopped wanting to kill them.

Because the trio had already taken what they came for.

And also because the Red Dragon now looked terrible.

His scales were dented.

His wing edges were torn.

One horn had a visible crack.

The Red Dragon glared at them with hatred so pure it almost deserved respect.

Astraea smiled.

"What a refreshing beating."

The Red Dragon’s teeth ground together.

Condoriano gave a graceful bow.

"Since we are the ones who stole from you, we will not kill you."

The Red Dragon stared at him.

That statement appeared to injure him more deeply than the battle.

Saber nodded once.

"Be good from now on."

The Red Dragon’s eye twitched.

Astraea pulled out an Instant-Return Talisman.

Condoriano did the same.

Saber followed.

The Red Dragon lunged one last time.

Too late.

Return light swallowed the three ancient beasts.

They vanished from the treasure cove, laughing.

The Red Dragon’s claws closed on empty air.

For a few breaths, he remained still.

Then he looked around.

Then the Red Dragon wailed.

It was the sound of a creature who had been robbed, mocked, beaten, spared, and told to behave inside his own treasure cove.

His indignation shook the cavern.

For one dark, humiliating moment, the Red Dragon considered defecting to the Black Mass monsters out of pure spite.

Then his pride recoiled.

Miasma?

Filth?

Rot?

No.

He would not sink so low.

He was furious, not disgusting.

So he did the only thing his pride allowed.

He wailed harder.

•••

By the time Astraea, Condoriano, and Saber finished telling the story, Lucien did not know whether to laugh or apologize to the universe.

He looked at the three Origin Core fragments on his desk.

Then at the three ancient beasts, who were still visibly pleased with themselves.

The worse part was that he could not deny the mission had succeeded perfectly.

The Red Dragon was indeed pitiful.

A proud, crafty ancient beast who had survived the Millennia War, hidden a treasure cove under layered arrays and Abyssal concealment, hoarded Origin Core fragments without telling even his own sect, and still somehow ended the night beaten black and blue by three laughing peers who called it necessary.

In this story, the villains were clearly Astraea, Condoriano, and Saber.

And Lucien, the mastermind.

Lucien sighed deeply.

He picked up the fragments.

That meant the hidden fragments in the West had decreased again.

It also meant the Red Dragon would spend the foreseeable future furious, suspicious, and probably tearing apart every route around his treasure cove trying to understand how he had been outplayed.

Lucien felt a tiny pinch of guilt.

Very tiny.

Almost decorative.

Then he remembered how he was almost killed by it before.

The guilt vanished.

"Win-win," Lucien said.