60th of Season of Fire, 59th year of the 32nd cycle

I'm alive. That was Newt's first triumphant thought. The second was - It's dead.

"Well done!" Lady Dew said. "Rexheart, see if we can salvage the core."

Newt was shocked at how casual the woman was.

"Lady Champion," he said, "Marigold—"

"Is fine. She's regenerating from her injuries. We coolheads might not be the strongest, but we are notoriously difficult to kill if you can't put us down in one blow. Besides, Lightcloud is halfway there to see to her wounds."

Newt looked around and saw her words were true. Marigold shone with a soft blue glow of her self-healing, and a fourth realm healer really was only seconds away from checking in on her.

Newt let out a stressed breath. We did it. We won, and we have all survived.

"Can you stand?" Lightcloud's voice drifted to Newt.

"I can't feel my legs."

"Mhm, your spine seems severed." Lightcloud said in a casually academic voice, which made Newt's skin crawl. Marigold might not get to walk until the healing chaplain treated her, and even then—

"Focus on regenerating tomorrow. You should be fine in two days. I can carry you back, but I don't want to accidentally mess up some nerves when you know your body better than I do."

Insane.

Newt watched Lightcloud pick up Marigold into a princess carry and start walking towards them.

The water element is utterly insane. How can you regenerate a severed spine just like that?

"Unfortunately, the core shattered," Rexheart said, either ignoring or already used to similar conversations.

"Good technique," Lady Dew complimented Rexheart. "Can you bring that thing back into the fortress? We can use the flesh for food and store the hide and bones in the airship. It's not that expensive, then again, you're at the fourth realm, and a mostly intact hide of a fifth realm fire drake can earn you some pretty crystals."

"I'll drag it," Breeze volunteered. "I've been useless during the battle."

Newt considered the woman and her chosen weapons. While chakrams certainly had some use in some cases… Probably… Maybe… Throwing them into an already erratic battle, where the blows were exchanged so fast eyes could barely follow, seemed like a recipe for hitting your own team.

I guess they are useful when you're hunting quietly or scouting, which in all honesty is an airhead's job, not getting entangled in a melee above their realm.

That was the domain of fire and earth. Marigold, with her water alignment, proved this point as their only critically wounded.

"Drakes are solitary creatures, right?" Newt wondered, a tad afraid he was tempting fate with those words, but he had to check.

"They are," Lady Dew answered, "but so are dragons, and you saw a whole conflagration of them."

Point taken.

The group returned to the castle in a sober mood. While they had defeated the drake, Marigold's injury served as a grim reminder. Had anyone else suffered that injury, they would've been out of commission until they returned to the Explorer's Gate.

The next day had no fifth realm manabeasts, but thirteen fourth realm invaders, and over a hundred at the third. The fourth realm monsters yielded a single core, while the group lacked the time to check the plentiful third realm corpses.

We threw at least half a dozen third realm cores, possibly twice that number. It's enough to turn the clan's fortune, but we don't have the time, and there's no way to protect those processing the manabeasts and searching for cores.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Newt's spell seals worked in full swing, but they had already abandoned two out of the seven as too distant with the growing number of saurians. In crowds of weaker monsters, Breeze proved just how useful her weapons of choice were. She slaughtered so many, Newt was under the impression she was showing the group how useful she could be under the right circumstances.

The next day, Margaret joined them, the manabeasts slowly drowning them in numbers Newt thought unrealistic. Twenty-two fourth realm saurians, while a menace, yielded three cores. But for all their personal power, the fourth realm manabeasts proved the lesser danger.

Dozens of third realm saurians leading hundreds of second realm ones and thousands of first realm creatures posed the real threat.

The slaughter painted the plains red as the saurians pushed deeper in. Newt's seals were falling apart from the sheer load, and they would probably abandon them by the next day.

The way things are going, we'll have to abandon Harthrow to its fate the day after tomorrow. Newt frowned. He considered the small town's safety his personal mission, but time proved the impossibility of his wish.

At dusk, on their way back to the castle, Newt insisted the group pass through the city. They walked the empty streets, where Newt recalled walking with Jasmine Steelwheel, sampling sweets and fruits.

Then they reached the Steelwheel estate. It had been a bit over a year since he had last been there, since the horrors of blood and death had violated his childhood memories. In that year, the estate remained abandoned, with clear signs of looting.

Newt looked at the house obscured by the walls with a mix of nostalgia, disgust, and rage.

What happened to Jasmine? Dandelion is probably protecting Hailstown, since he's in the neighborhood, and Thunderbluff should be safe. Have the people evacuated there? Did the Imperials waive their entrance fee to preserve the common folk, or did they leave them outside to die?

The dragons weren't heading anywhere near that place, but if they decide to pay them a visit, they will burn the imperial city to the ground.

Newt recalled the region's young talents against whom he had fought in the Hailstown tournament and wondered whether they were dead, surviving, or thriving in the chaos that was the onslaught.

If they lived close to the border, they are probably dead, or they have fled to a safer area.

Many thoughts of past events swirled within the confines of Newt's skull, melding the past with the present, the what-ifs with the deadly reality of life, and for the twentieth time, he asked himself one critical question - Are Greenbow, Emeraldstreak, and Aura still alive?

By Newt's estimate, they should be in the jungle, thousands of miles away from his place and dragons alike. Saurians passed through the jungle and amassed in the human lands, meaning the jungle should be safer.

"Newstar," Chaplain Longfang interrupted Newt's brooding thoughts right as they were about to enter the castle. "I've repaired what I could. Unfortunately, my seals won't do much, but it's better than nothing."

"I thought you said it was prohibitively expensive?" Newt blinked in confusion.

"The more esoteric work is. The rest," Chaplain Longfang tilted his hand from side to side. "Not so much. Don't worry, since defending your home counts as your personal project, I won't charge you the order's standard tariff, but you do owe me quite a bit of manarium both for the work and the materials used."

Newt almost groaned. Everyone was looking to bleed him money at every step. Even the impatient saurians.

"Thank you, Chaplain Longfang." Newt smiled tiredly. "I appreciate your friendly gesture nearly as much as I appreciate the grace you've shown us."

Chaplain Longfang slipped him a note, and Newt nearly had a stroke.

"That's the order's tariff." He gave Newt another note. "This is what I'm charging you."

Newt nearly had eighty percent of a stroke when he saw the other number, but still, he wouldn't skimp on the safety of his clan.

"Once more, thank you. I'll see to your payment once we're back at the order and my merit and debts are settled."

Chaplain Longfang gave Newt an appraising look, one an old raptor might give a young hopper. "You know, I will accept an alternate means of payment for what I have done, and the future merits I might earn in this onslaught."

Newt looked at the chaplain of the Chamber of Runes for a long moment before speaking. "What sort of payment?"

"Instead of paying me now, how about you owe me one, or to be more precise, you owe one to my clan, since I'm helping yours?"

Newt frowned. "I would owe one what to your clan?"

"A service that will help us survive or weather a difficult period." Chaplain Longfang's answer was as nebulous as Newt's own understanding of his terms.

"Shouldn't I owe you a favor?"

"There is little I need that you can offer before I die of old age. I might look hale and like I have all the time in the world, but in another two hundred years, I'll be gone, while you will still be a rising star."

Chaplain Longfang paused, seemingly thinking, before continuing. "In the same vein, I don't really need you to intervene while I'm alive. After all, my clan will have me, and while you are talented, you're unlikely to outclass my power and influence anytime soon."

It was Newt's turn to consider things. On one hand, he really didn't have the money, nor did he like being in debt. On the other, the future favor might be more costly. "Lord Longfang," Newt said, "you have shown my clan grace, and it's only right I return the favor someday."

Besides, it meant he didn't have to pay anything immediately.

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