Illma climbed out of the mountain of debris to see total carnage.

The crash-landing dragon reduced the left side of her brand new homes into wreckages. Evil spirits flew rampant everywhere. This situation was far worse than it sounded. At best the malevolent ghosts would inflict fatigue, at worse it could suck the life out of anyone without protection. Its mere presence docked away much more of their shaken morale.

Then there was the dragon. Illma was lucky it didn’t land on top of her. Right now, the wounded beast howled in rage and set everything in sight on fire. Dark red blood painfully flowed from its wound as it set aflame any solider that wasn’t already running for their lives.

Illma must admit she was getting backed into the corner. The most embarrassing thing was that she got reduced to this mess when the fight barely started. Suddenly, she heard a clattering noise. Illma looked behind her to see the struggling Port running away. Her mouth twitched into a grim smile. She wasn’t out yet.

….

The dragon could barely see straight. All it could feel was heaviness and pain. The It right eye was gone, so was its sense for the richness of the skies or its mighty tails. The monster needed power. It raged, thirsting for sustenance that could prolong its life.

The one-wing lizard chewed into a metallic cyborg that was too hard to be healthy. Weaken spells ricocheted of its penetrable shells. Things shouldn’t be like this. In its head, the dragon would rise from the ground, burn everything in front of it, and consume the charred corpse to sate its endless hunger. Instead, reality sent that ant with the cursed sword to drag its down from the sky. The beast roared at the moon for this injustice. As if summoned, the wrathful spirit gravitated toward the creature, diving inside it and giving it strength.

If the sky wanted to pull it down, then the Ghost dragon would tear the sky asunder.

…

On a distant building, a certain goddess threw her triumphant fist into the sky.

“We did it?” Cytortia cheered. “Rem brought it down right on top of that bitch. God, that is so satisfying.”

Melody sat cross-legged behind her, meticulously assembling a pile of sophisticate looking harpoon. She handled her screwdriver with exceptional precision. The entire team spent weeks working on these artifacts. Even Rem reduced himself into the role of a chef, and drink delivering the boy to get the project done on time. Sweat trickled down her brows. If she messed this up after that annoying bastard's performance, everyone would and should murder her.

Click!

Melody dropped her screw-driver. It was a success.

The demoness turned toward the elf in a female version of Ebony’s issued Horizon Dawn's uniform.

“Everything’s ready,” The demoness tossed her ten shafts of designer-grade harpoons. “Don’t screw up.”

Luxinna investigated the weapons with dread. She was there when Rem explained the plan; this was their aces in the holes.

“F-U3 and F-U4 are in here right,” Luxinna said. “So I have to get close enough to the dragon and impaled the dragon right at its gaping wound.”

Melody nodded.

The nature of Rem’s plan was a step-by-step attack. Each step would either slay the dragon or crippled it further. Personally, Melody thought it was overkill, but seeing the dragon first-hand convinced her otherwise. With Rem successfully implementing F-U1, taking away the dragon flight, injured it, and dropped in on Illma, a victory seemed to be only a hurdle away.

Sadly, that wasn’t the case.

Across Millian, emergency speakers came to life with a bone-chilling voice vibrating across the air.

“This is Illma Zoldia Road! I enact my authority as an Untouchable to issue an Emergency Deployment Charter! All adventurer in the town is now duty-bound to follow my mission directive. I, at this very moment, put a 50 million credit bounty on that dragon. Whoever brings its body to me in one piece will be handsomely rewarded and will personally get my endorsement for any position they so desire. Now get going!”

The communication tower cut off, taking their taste of victory with it.

“Okay,” Cytortia looked at her fellow accomplice. “What just happen?”

It was the badger who answered that.

“Illma just counterattack. She uses her authority as Seven Continental Alliance’s representative to order a compulsory command from the adventurer guide. She put a bounty on the dragon that any members in Millian the Adventurer Guide’s membership must accept.”

“So she just calls back-up from all-over Millian?” Cytortia had a bad feeling. “Isn't this mean we have more people to help take down the dragon?”

Scathach signed.

“More like dying to take out the dragon,” Scathach explained, slumping with each word. “Even injured, fully-grown Sicilian Ghost Dragon is still A-rank. It might not be the strongest A-rank, but it’s still more than any average adventurer team can handle. Usually, the guide needs to approve this request, come up with a stage-by-stage operational plan, and delegated each step according to the member’s rank. However, this is impossible with Aion removed from his post. Instead of a well-coordinated mission, the adventure will attack in mobs.”

Luxinna sulked.

“It'll be a massacred,” the elf said.

The badger didn't mention it, but the elf knew there was another factor. Luxinna lived in the forest for long enough to know that animals will fight each other for meats. She would gamble her left arm and say that those adventurers would backstab each other for the bounty at the first opportunity.

“Hey, I know this sounds bad,” Cytortia said, looking disturbed. “But do we have to stop all of them? We're already down by one. Trying to fight Illma, the dragon, and the adventurer isn’t part of the plan. I can’t risk you guys over that.”

The nation isn't you, or the land or the stupid throne, but the people.

“No,” Melody could barely recognize her voice. “We are here to defend Millian. This town is not the buildings around us or the land, but its people, its culture. And also the adventurers who don't know any better."

Melody got up.

“We split up. The elf goes with the plan, and I will try to stop those idiots.”

“Do you think they will listen?” Luxinna stood, fully intend to go all-in for the cause.

“Probably not, but I have to try.”

“But with Rem went down?” Cytortia said. “Who's in command now?”

Everyone looked at the goddess.

“Rem said it would be you,” Scathach said. “I originally thought he was high when he said it, but it technically made sense. Horizon Dawn is your faction above all.”

“Are you serious?”

“Sadly, yes.”

Cytortia cried. They were so screwed.

…

Rem would agree with Cytortia’s line of thinking.

The crash-landing hurt, but the voice took the cake. [Eas End]'s curses attacked the boy's head so badly he got reduced exhausted, confused wreckage. Thankfully, he was still conscious; in pain but conscious.

Rem hobbled from the wreckage and helped himself to an abandoned inn.

Noticing the liquor lined up on the shelves, he opened his Cytortia’s issue wallet, slammed a banknote on the table, and took a non-alcoholic cider from the shelves.

He turned to find a familiar man in an annoying white suit.

“Sups loser,” REM said. “You look like a mess.”

Rem didn’t reply. Instead, he stumbled to his imaginary nemesis and lost his lunch on said bastard shoes.

REM stood speechless at that offense.

“Holding that back for a while,” said the nauseated Rem, who quickly slumped down on the nearest chair and popped a healing-tablet into his mouth. “Thank you, Captain Obvious, for telling me that I am a mess. Now what? Do you want to sing me a eulogy?”

REM’s mouth twitched.

He already got physically reduced to a Ping-Pong ball by this man for an entire month. He sure as hell won’t tolerate a verbal beating on top of that.

“Well, congratulation, I believe you are smart enough to know that I can use any weapon you summoned with [Arrival of Dream]. Now I have [Eas End] and [Desolator Blade], and you, my boy, got a healthy dose of Center Force gnawing on your cell. How does it feel to be slowly converted to an executioner of justice, Remus?"

Rem drank the cider down maliciously and brutally committed verbal murder on his counterpart.

“Well, congratulation, you won jack-all. Do you think I am as stupid as you are? What you get today is an overspecialized meat cleaver that will reduce you to this mentally constipated mess insulting you right now. Good luck using it. It's practically unusable against anything that isn’t a dragon. I'm pleased that you think I am a flying, fire-breathing lizard, but I recommend you pick a more useful degree than Gender Studies.”

REM’s mouth twitched, but he couldn’t refute the facts, so he decided to ignore it and refocused another attack avenue.

“Yes, but you heard the announcement, right?” Rem spoke as he disappeared. “As incompatible as we are, I also fought for justice. Things aren’t looking good, you know. [Eas End] completely demolished your brain’s chemistry; no need to mention the state of your Magic and coordination. With Illma Road sending the entire Millian on a suicide mission, how do you plan to get out of this?”

Rem stayed silent.

“Wait,” REM suddenly realized something as he faded to nothingness. “You didn’t expect Illma to launch Emergency Charter?”

Rem sighed.

“Sadly, no,” Rem admitted. “Illma completely blindsided me on that one.”

REM disappeared with an ugly frown.

A second later, the boy slammed his fist on the table. The situation was turning bleak. Illma threw the battle side-ways. The battlefield about to be turned into a free-for-all. The dragon, although crippled, was still loose. Meanwhile, he couldn’t do anything but hope that Cytortia could hold the fort together until he got back to the board.

Rem groaned.

This gonna suck.

…

The dragon bashed a leopard-like robot into another brick house. Its mouth opened, releasing the fire that sent several heavy-weight X-cution units up in flame. Although the fire-resistant armors and magical shielding blocked the flame's heat, the soul attack still killed the shell of the children inside, leaving a decommission pile of burning metal wherever the fire brushed past.

Illma took the loss badly. How could her father's life-work fell this quickly? Why hadn’t the fire-proofing countermeasure activated? The girl stood on behind the ruin of her base, screaming and throwing a fit at everyone in sight.

“I want that useless trash to assemble as fast as they can!” She screeched. “Double the speed and shove that dragon to the town center! Tell them to surround this dragon on all side and bring it down!"

“Erm, Lady Road,” Mayor Port trembled under pressure. “The center of the town is our most populated area, and we didn't evacuate it yet. The damage will be horrific!”

Illma was furious.

“Do you think I care!” Illma screamed hysterically. “Move it this instant!”

…

Cytoritia nervously watched the X-cution threw themselves at the dragon only to get obliterated. Most of the Illma's men were already fleeing for their lives. She couldn't blame them since both her and Scathach were also hunkering down and weighing the situation.

Cytortia gulped. The dragon walked through all the attack like it was walking through a shower. So far, only Rem alone did some lasting damage.

Scathach's instinct rang. Something wasn't right; then it hit her.

“Shit,” the badger watched the dragon squashed another cyborg to smithereens, and tanked a swarm of missiles from a flying X-cution model. “Illma's pushing the dragon toward the town's center. Even by an Untouchable's standard, this is a massive breach of etiquette."

Cytortia turned grimed and took out a compact little ball. Horizon Dawn spent three-day and two-night working on this little thing for one purpose extinguishing the dragon's fire but was it the time.

“F-U2?” She asked the badger.

The badger took account of the damage while the dragon burned the flying X-cution into a ball of flame. Illma bought about 36 X-cution units with her. The Sicilian Ghost Dragon decommissioned at least 15 of them in this last thirty minutes. They originally planned to launch F-U2 when the number dropped under a half. However, with the situation spinning out of control, Scathach believed an alteration must commence.

“Yes,” Scathach agreed. “But we need to get in position.”

“Position?” Cytortia looked puzzled. “What position?”

Scathach looked at the shopping mall in the distance, particularly at its incredibly tall and ornate spires.

“Oh, I have a perfect place in mind.”

Cytortia didn’t like her tone one bit.

…

An army of adventurers slowly amassed in the distance as they hurriedly marched into the carnage. Not many of them were used to this predicament. Older mercenary recalled the fact that there should be several instructions from the guide by this time. The newer blood, on the other hand, suspected nothing with the reward of glory and riches clouding their brain.

“Hey old man, why are we teaming up with these clowns?” One random young man said to his elderly leader. “Isn’t it better for us to hog the dragon for ourselves?”

“Are you an idiot?” The old man whispered. “Do you think you can take a dragon alone? This operation is a mob crusade. You guys have one job, conserving your strength for the actual fight. I don’t believe there is a dragon that can handle this many attackers. It’s dead for sure. The real problem is who would be left alive to take the glory.”

Behind them, another group of adventurers finalized their plan.

“When the dragon dies, we have to turn on the other groups as fast as possible. Make sure to save yourself first, okay,” A young man with a battle-scars across his face said to his too companion.

“Cheer up, dude,” said a scantily cladded woman next to him. “We’re going to kill the other anyway, at least let have fun until then.”

The youngest member of the trio couldn’t help but felt disturbed by her companion flippant attitude about the entire fiasco.

“Aren’t you two afraid?” The fourteenth years-old boy said in confusion. “We are about to fight a dragon, and then backstab everyone here! Isn’t this sound like a massively terrible idea?”

The scantily cladded woman snorted.

“You are new to this, aren’t you bro?” The woman explained. “This kind of thing happens every day. People are going to die. We're going to get rich. It’s the way of the world.”

Suddenly, a wall of fire rose to obstruct the group.

A scarlet-hair woman walked through the flame, facing the mob with the face sterner than a brick wall.

“Sorry,” Melody said. “None of you is going to die today. You won’t get paid for killing the dragon because Illma will be in no position to pay you. And the way of the world can go and hang itself.”