The world had narrowed to a single infuriating image.

Dante standing between his two pets, smiling.

A picture of easy friendship. Of shared peace she had not been invited to.

The sight was physical poison. Venom burning hotter than dragon fire.

The rage she had so carefully pushed down threatened to crack. To shatter.

She had played her part. Gone on their boring mission with the quiet swordsman and his lovesick shadow.

They had found the mana well. A deep, shimmering pool of pure, liquid energy. Filled their flasks without problems.

A victory. A success.

But it felt hollow. Bitter.

He had sent her away. He had planned this separation.

And the reason was standing on either side of him. Their faces glowing with soft, infuriating contentment.

Her smile was a weapon. Bright and sharp.

She approached them.

She had learned her lesson. A direct attack of rage and jealousy was a fool's plan.

It made her look childish. Unstable. A liability.

And Dante did not tolerate liabilities.

So, she would be the perfect teammate. Supportive. Curious. Completely trustworthy.

And she would pick apart the truth, piece by piece.

"So," she began. Voice cheerful. Lilting.

Eyes fixed on Dante.

"Tell me everything. Your journey must have been so difficult. What happened down there?"

Her gaze was a drill. Boring into him. Demanding an answer.

'What did they do to you? And what did you do to them?'

Dante's smile vanished.

Replaced by his usual cool, calculating mask.

He looked from her to Erica. Then to Masha.

She saw a flicker in his eyes. A brief moment of thought.

He was choosing his words. Building his lie.

"The grotto was a place of immense healing energy," he began. Voice calm. Even.

"The pool itself was a natural elixir."

"We decided the most efficient way to recover from our battle fatigue was to submerge ourselves completely."

"A tactical decision."

"A tactical decision," she repeated. Smile never wavering.

"So the three of you... took a tactical bath?"

Erica flushed deep, guilty crimson.

Masha's expression hardened. Eyes daring Lana to challenge him.

"Precisely," Dante continued. Gaze steady. Unyielding.

"The elixir's properties were most effective when absorbed through the skin over a long period."

"It allowed us to recover strength and stamina faster. We collected the potions and returned."

"The mission was a success. Nothing more, nothing less."

His explanation was perfect.

Cold. Logical. Completely empty of emotion.

He had taken a moment of intimate, peaceful connection and reframed it as calculated strategy.

He was speaking her new language. The language of pure, cold usefulness.

Telling her what she needed to hear.

And she almost believed him.

But she saw the way Erica refused to meet her eyes.

The faint, lingering blush on Masha's cheeks.

The way Dante's remaining hand rested naturally on his sword hilt.

The gesture of a man ready for a fight. Even when there was no visible enemy.

He was lying.

But it was a beautiful lie. Designed to calm her. To manage her.

A lie that acknowledged her power. Her instability.

And in a strange, twisted way, that felt like a victory.

He was learning how to handle her.

And she would learn how to handle him.

She let her bright smile return.

"Well, that's wonderful!" she chirped. "I'm so glad you're all fully recovered."

"We'll need all our strength for what's to come."

She had her answer.

The war for his affection was not over.

It had simply become a colder, more subtle affair.

And she was a very, very patient player.

With both teams reunited, supplies refilled, bodies and minds restored, there were no more excuses.

No more side quests. No more delays.

The final trial awaited.

They stood on the edge of the floating islands. The swirling purple abyss of the Graveyard of Gods below.

In the distance, a single massive island of black, obsidian-like bone dominated the horizon.

A fortress of death. A mountain carved from the corpse of some unimaginable creature.

A faint, evil, blue-green light pulsed from a massive cave mouth at its center.

A heartbeat.

That was the lair of the Bone Dragon.

Before they began their final journey, there was one last piece of business.

"Masha," Dante said. Voice quiet.

She came to his side. Expression serious.

"Are you ready."

She had offered to forge him a new arm. An arm of ice and bone.

They stood before the skeleton of a dragon or a drake. His eyes gesturing to the skeletal and telling what he meant.

She knew it immediately.

"The idea is simple," she explained. Voice low. Academic.

Placing her hands on the bone.

"I'll use the divine, magical properties of the fossil as a foundation. My ice magic to shape and bind it to you."

She began her work.

A deep, profound cold came from her hands. Sinking into the marrow of the ancient bone.

The fossil began to glow with pale, blue light.

Slowly, carefully, she drew out slivers of material. Shaping them with her will. Weaving them together with threads of pure, black ice.

A breathtaking display of power and control.

An arm began to take shape in the air before them.

A beautiful, terrifying thing of pale, shimmering bone and dark, clear ice.

She worked for nearly an hour. Face beaded with sweat. The S-rank core within her blazing with power.

Finally, the arm was complete.

It floated in the air. A perfect, artificial limb. Humming with contained, arctic power.

"It's ready," she said. Voice strained. "Bring your shoulder."

He stepped forward.

His heart, for a single foolish moment, filled with hope.

To be whole again. To wield his sword with two hands.

She guided the arm to the stump of his shoulder.

The moment the ice and bone made contact with his flesh, violent, agonizing rejection happened.

Not physical pain. Spiritual.

The divine, almost holy energy of the fossilized god-bone clashed with the unholy, necromantic darkness that was the core of his being.

A war of fundamental, opposing realities.

Light versus dark. Life versus death.

A scream of pure, mental agony tore through his mind.

He staggered back. Clutching his head.

"AAAGHH!"

CRASH!

The beautiful ice-and-bone arm exploded.

Shattering into a million glittering shards. Falling to the ground like frozen tears.

Masha stared. Face pale with shock and failure.

"I don't understand," she whispered. "The energies... they're not compatible."

"Your own power... it's rejecting the new arm."

"It sees it as foreign. A poison."

'No. No no no. I was so close. I could have been whole again. I could have—'

He looked at the stump of his shoulder. Then at his single, remaining hand.

The truth settled over him.

Cold. Hard. Unchangeable.

He was one-handed now. This was his reality.

This was the price he had paid for survival.

'No,' a cold, defiant voice whispered in his mind. 'That won't be the case.'

'I'm coming, Goddess.'

The wish.

No longer just a prize. A necessity. He had already thought of a wish. A wish that will change every power dynamics.

The only path back to what he had lost.

His resolve, which had been cold and hard, now became a blazing, white-hot star of absolute, unshakeable purpose.

"It doesn't matter," he said. Voice empty of self-pity.

He turned to his team. Eyes burning with new, terrible fire.

"Let's go."

---

The final journey was serious. Silent.

They crossed the abyss. Masha creating a single, solid bridge of black ice.

CRACKLE. CREAK.

And set foot on the island of the dead.

The ground was smooth, black bone. Felt unnervingly like obsidian.

The air was still. Heavy. Smelled of dust and ancient decay.

The path to the central lair was a long, winding staircase carved into the side of the bone-mountain.

A great, spiraling climb into the heart of darkness.

There were no monsters here. No guardians.

Nothing needed to guard this place.

The sheer, overwhelming presence of the being that lived within was ward enough.

They could feel its ancient, sleeping consciousness.

A weight on their souls. A pressure in their minds.

It was dreaming of death.

And they were walking into its nightmare.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

Their footsteps echoed as they climbed.

After what felt like an eternity of climbing, they reached the top.

They stood before the cave mouth.

A vast, yawning archway that led into the black, silent heart of the mountain.

The faint, blue-green light pulsed from within.

A slow, rhythmic, terrifyingly real heartbeat.

They drew their weapons.

SHING. SHING.

The sound of steel and artifacts was small. Defiant.

In the face of crushing silence.

They took a single, collective breath.

And stepped through the archway.

Into the lair of the Bone Dragon.

The cavern was massive.

Impossibly vast. The ceiling lost in darkness.

The walls were lined with fossilized, skeletal remains of a thousand heroes who had come before.

Their bones fused into the rock. Their silent screams a permanent part of the structure.

And in the center of it all, it lay.

It was not sleeping. It was waiting.

A creature of impossible size.

Its body a skeletal titan forged from the bones of a hundred different ancient beasts.

All fused together into a single, terrifying form.

Its bones were not white. But a deep, sickly, graveyard green.

They pulsed with eerie, internal light that filled the cavern.

Its head was the skull of some ancient, unknowable dragon.

Its empty eye sockets, each the size of a man, now filled with two swirling vortexes of evil, blue-green energy.

It lay coiled around a mountain of skulls. Its massive, skeletal wings folded at its back.

As they entered, its huge head lifted.

The two vortexes of soul-fire in its eyes fixed upon them.

They were caught. They were seen.

Jin took a step back. "That's... that's..."

"The Bone Dragon," Masha finished. Voice barely a whisper.

Talia gripped her daggers. "It's so big. How are we supposed to—"

And in the sudden, deafening silence of their own minds, they heard its voice.

Not a sound. A thought. A feeling.

A wave of ancient, weary, utterly evil consciousness that washed over them.

Threatening to drown their very souls.

'You have come, little mortals.'

The voice echoed in their heads. Each word a pressure. A weight.

"Come to add your bones to my throne.'

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