News of a monster's death doesn't spread by rumor.
It resonates through the bones of the world.
When the Sovereign Venom Serpent at the foot of Emerald Peak fell, the mountains pressed their tongues to their teeth and listened. Rivers hushed mid-current. Clouds stalled for half a breath. A sovereign weight had vanished, leaving a hollow where the weave of the land sagged.
Seven great dragons lifted their heads to that silence.
High above the ranges, Tempest folded lightning into its lungs. On a granite shelf with a fortress' posture, Stonejaw opened one patient eye. Far at sea, Seawing crested until the horizon bent. On a blackened ridge, Flarefang stirred coals into fire. In the dusk city, Nightshade stretched a wing across rooftops. On a prism spire, Sunscale combed light for data. Over the storm plains, Thundermaw rumbled once, and the grass lay down.
Their tamers—Vera, Kael, Saphira, Rashan, Nyra, Lira, Joren—felt the drop through the bonds and drew together in the circle of breath, the hall that only exists when the Seven agree to exist in it. Not timbered, not bricked: a room woven from will and dragons, where storms, shadows, and suns could argue without cracking the map.
Vera spoke first, because weather seldom waits.
"Another fall. Foot of the Peak."
Rashan rolled a coal across his knuckles; it glowed because he told it to. "Sovereign venom. That one was useful. Now it's kindling."
Kael's voice was the hinge on a heavy door. "Not one of ours. No Seven-grade imprint. But something passed the village and walked upward. Enough to trigger frenzy."
Lira lifted a prism and spread lines of light across the air. "Residue confirms it. Not hunger. Not routine hunting. The serpent went mad in guard response. It sensed an approaching aura strong enough to threaten the corridor toward Emerald Peak."
Nyra's tone slid like dusk. "And failed."
Saphira's lips curved. "How entertaining."
Joren conjured a chair out of nothing and sprawled in it, amused. "So who spooked it? One of ours by proxy? A sect with better songs than sense?"
"Not ours," Vera said. "We'd have tasted our own arrogance."
"Not ritual," Lira added. "The signature is behavioral. A will that doesn't wobble. The nearer it got to danger, the straighter it walked."
"A gambler's stride," Joren said, grinning.
"Or a believer's," Nyra murmured.
"Names," Rashan demanded, impatient.
Lira rotated the prism. The village's memory stuttered into the air: an icy phoenix exhaling laminar cold, precision threading poison into sluggish fog. A man sprinting where fear should crawl, a bowl strapped to his chest, orders clear even with a poisoned arm. And inside that bowl—a shimmer of red scales, small, absurd, moving with the desperate insistence of something that should already be dead.
"The man," Lira said, "carries rumors. They call him the Underdog Warrior. Survives fights he shouldn't. Pays costs others won't."
Kael's brow lifted. "A provincial bedtime story."
Nyra's smile was slow. "Bedtime stories teach behavior. And behavior bends fate."
"And the fish," Saphira sang, delighted, "our ridiculous little koi again."
The word dropped into the circle like a coin into deep water.
For a moment, the Seven remembered: White Dragon's end at Ember Lake. Dark Fire's death in smoke and teeth. Now the Sovereign Serpent sprawled in street-pieces. Once might be a fluke. Twice, a blemish. Thrice, and the pattern itched.
Kael folded his arms. "A serpent is not a dragon. A clever coincidence can kill a gatekeeper."
"Coincidence," Lira echoed mildly. She turned the prism. The serpent's final seconds replayed in fractured light: the phoenix's thin cold thread, the koi's erratic arcs, a spray of scales hardening into spikes, frost blooming inward instead of out, a collar of cold at the throat, then the break.
"Hybrid," Lira whispered. "Not pure phoenix. Crystals growing inward. The lattice was scale, not breath. The fish carried the bird's signature inside its pain-hardened armor."
Kael's eyes narrowed. "It… learned?"
"It borrowed," Lira said. "For the moment. Enough to matter."
Rashan barked laughter, sharp as cracking wood. "Learned? Borrowed? It's still a koi. Dress a pebble in jewels, it's still a pebble. The serpent didn't fall to genius—it tripped on its own temper."
Saphira covered her mouth, giggling. "Imagine it: a carp, splashing its way up Emerald Peak. Will it freeze the dragon to death with its tiny little scales? Or just flop until the mountain dies of pity?"
Even Joren, usually indulgent, smirked. "If the world ends by carp, I'll let Thundermaw eat my boots. And he'll enjoy it."
Nyra's shadow curled, half-smiling. "Laughter is the cheapest answer. Sometimes the world spends more."
"Or sometimes it doesn't," Vera cut in. "Enough jokes. Triggered or not, a gate has fallen. The path is open. The koi, the Underdog, and their crippled bird are climbing. That's their intention."
"Which is suicide," Rashan said, satisfied. "At the top sits the Emerald Dragon."
The name cooled the room.
"Tier One," Kael intoned. "Hide that is law. Joints that are vows. Not pierced without ritual or siege."
"So the story ends neatly," Vera said. "A koi, a broken phoenix, and a man who survives scraps against wolves but dares a mountain. The contract yawns. They fall."
Saphira tittered again. "At least it will be amusing to watch."
"Observe with bets," Joren proposed. "Otherwise the laughter is wasted."
Lira sighed, though her eyes lingered on the prism. "If you must, wager silence. Odds are rituals. Rituals shape tables."
"Then I wager silence," Joren said. "They'll reach the lake before they crack."
"I say the koi will touch the dragon," Saphira declared, her tone mocking. "With its nose. Once. Before it dies screaming."
Rashan snorted. "It dies below the treeline. Happily. That's as far as minnows go."
Kael's eyes flicked to Lira. "Probability?"
"I can give you shapes," Lira said. The prism spun. "Plainly: the man's belief is a field. He bends choice but pays dearly. The bird's cold is precise. The fish is stubborn; pain writes commas where endings should be. Together, they don't add—they interfere. That's how frost blooms inward."
"In plainer words?" Joren asked, smirking.
"The koi steals tricks from allies it bonds with," Lira said flatly. "The serpent fell to pain, cold, and timing. Yes, plus the luck of arriving when the beast panicked at their aura."
Kael's verdict was final. "And this… algorithm beats Tier One?"
"No," Lira said. "Not now. Perhaps not ever. Tier One isn't size. It's history. A mountain's contract written into flesh. Tricks don't break it."
"Good," Vera said, decisive. "Conclusion: the so-called Underdog Triad—man, phoenix, and koi—can disrupt sovereigns, but they cannot defeat a Tier One."
"Cannot," Rashan echoed, pleased.
"Cannot," Kael affirmed.
Saphira grinned. "Cannot. Though I'd still like to see the koi flop against Emerald's scales."
"Cannot," Joren said lightly, though his smirk bent the word.
"I won't say never," Lira murmured. "But I grant impossible now."
Nyra's voice drifted like dusk. "The world enjoys proving laughter premature."
Still, Vera finished the work of power. A pane of hard light etched their decision into the circle:
Incident: Sovereign Serpent — slain at Emerald foothold.
Provocation: Frenzy triggered by aura (Belief-Dominant).
Trio: Brandon (Underdog Warrior, human); Frostwing (Phoenix, Tier Two, ice); Koi (negative level, non-tiered).
Observed Mechanics: Laminar cryo, numb-stacking via Blood Scales, hybrid skill emergence (Ice Scale Spikes).
Assessment: Transient Anomaly. Mockworthy but functional.
Projection: Emerald Dragon (Tier One) → inevitable victory.
Action: None. Watch. Laugh. Adjust only if anomaly repeats.
Filed. Flattened. The koi reduced to a joke written in bureaucratic stone.
"Filed," Kael said.
"Monitored," Vera added.
"Ridiculed," Joren muttered with a grin.
"Balanced," Lira said, though not convinced.
"Dismissed," Rashan finished.
Thunder hummed: Thundermaw's signal to adjourn. The dragons exhaled, the circle folded, the room let go.
But corners exist even in rooms made of breath. A thought lingered there, unwanted: Anomalies that repeat are not anomalies. They are systems no one has named yet.
Out in the waking world, the story climbed the slope the Seven had mocked. The serpent hadn't killed for hunger; it had panicked at the aura drawing near. And still, it had fallen. The phoenix lived, grounded but breathing frost over poison. The man lived, arm trembling but voice steady. The koi floated, cracked but unbroken, singing frost on its scales.
Rashan sent a rider—because jokes deserve witnesses.
Saphira taught a shoal to hum the carp's "heroics," so the story would echo with laughter.
Kael scribbled HYBRID in a margin and underlined it twice, then claimed he hadn't.
Joren polished armor, whistling a tune about carp soup.
Nyra told the dusk to grow ears.
Vera let Tempest count lightning to thunder, just in case.
Lira redrew the prism-map, leaving one empty slot where never should have sat.
The Seven had concluded with comfort: The Underdog Triad is a laughing stock. A transient anomaly. They cannot defeat a Tier One.
Filed and done.
The mountain, which does not read reports or jokes, wore its cloud a little lower, as if listening.
And somewhere below that patient shoulder, a bowl rocked in the hands of a poisoned man. A bird breathed careful winter. A fish who had promised not to be a burden whispered a new word to himself:
Again.