NOVEL NEXT B1 - Lesson 6: “Sometimes You Just Have To Do The Job Yourself.”
Jack was tired.
He had been tired for centuries.
But soon, he told himself, he would no longer need to carry that weight. Soon, the schemes he had spun, the countless plans and hidden pieces, would lock into place. Soon, he would hold his daughter in his arms again.
He tapped his staff against the scorched ground, and the gout of molten rock before him froze mid-eruption, hardened into jagged stone that glittered with frost. He stepped forward, and another stretch of the glowing sea blackened beneath his boots, the lava crusting into frozen wasteland in his wake.
Just one last task. One more burden to bear, and then everything would be right again. Then he could finally rest.
At the center of that blazing ocean yawned a gargantuan pit, kept open only by the will of the being that dwelled within. Jack halted at its edge, staring into the bottomless dark before calling out.
"Marici! I have come for your heart!"
For a long breath, there was only silence, then laughter thundered from the abyss. The molten sea heaved as the sound tore through it, waves of burning rock surging outward like a storm tide.
"OH! Have you, my little frozen popsicle? Too late. My heart belongs to another. Besides, I prefer my bedmates warmer."
Jack's expression did not shift, though his voice carried flat and cold across the chaos.
"That's not what I meant." His monotone voice carried effortlessly, despite the crashing red waves around him.
A chilling white light pulsed from the tip of his staff, traveling deep into the pit. This time, a bellowing roar sounded as the being inside felt the invasive chill.
"HOW DARE YOU! Do you even know who I am?! I am the Queen of the Sun! The Eternal Flame! Life and Death incarnate!"
Jack's frozen platform buckled as something immense surged upward from the pit. Golden claws the size of fortresses hooked into the rock walls. A draconic head followed, vast enough that even the smallest fang could have crushed Jack like an insect.
"I am Marici, Goddess of Dragons! And you—" her voice rattled the sea into fury "—are nothing but a frozen insect! You want my heart?! You'll have to cut it from my cold, dead body!"
An instant later, an ice spear the size of a glacier hammered into her skull, driving her titanic form back beneath the molten waves.
Jack's voice cut through the echo of the impact, calm and unshaken, as untouched as a snowfield after dawn.
"That was the plan all along."
The battle that followed raged for nearly five years. Gods and dragons alike who tried to interfere were obliterated. Even the Warden himself only watched from afar, unwilling to risk his other charges should the war spill outward.
At last, the end came.
Marici, Queen of the Sun, body broken, golden scales dulled and scarred, glared down at the man who hovered before her. His robes hung in tatters, blood soaked his chest, and the entire right side of his body had blackened into lifeless ruin. Yet his expression never shifted. In half a decade of war, she had never once seen his face wear anything but that blank, unsettling stare.
Her eyes locked on his — those deep, vacant voids that bored through her soul. For the first time since she had hatched as a Solar Dragon, pinnacle of living creation, Marici felt the alien chill of fear.
"Y-you monster! You demon made flesh! Do you think me a fool?" Her voice trembled as molten waves surged around her. "I know your name, Jack Frost. I know the horrors you have wrought, the frozen wastelands left in your wake! But it ends now! It ends today! YOU end today!"
A blazing light swelled in the back of her throat, brighter than a newborn star.
Jack did not flinch. His face remained still, his words cutting as sharply as ice.
"History may remember me as a monster. I do not care. The Heavens have already stolen the only thing that mattered. When I take it back, they will have no one to blame but themselves."
He lifted his staff. Power rolled outward in waves of killing frost as his voice deepened, each word echoing like a litany etched into the marrow of the world.
"Winter claims the fleeting breath.
Silence binds both life and death.
Motion halts at Frost's command.
By my will, this I demand,"
Marici hurled her head forward. A torrent of incandescent annihilation tore from her maw, a beam that could scour continents from existence.
"[Cleansing Solar Breath!]"
Light screamed across the molten sea, ripping toward the lone figure standing in its path. But she was a fraction of a heartbeat too late.
The staff in Jack's hand pulsed, symbols of impossible geometry crawling across the air as his final words fell like a verdict:
"[A̲̞̼̱̟̙ll̬ ̪̲̳̙͕Th͈͚̳̙ͅi̹n̟͉̝̥͈̗g̭̙̗s̲̝̣ ̫̟͎̯̪͖S̠͓̯͚͎ͅt̮͕̰̹̦͎a͓͇̯̙͉ͅn̺͇d ͔̱̠͍͕S̰̙͇̻͈̬͎t͎͇͕il̫͙l̲̹̭̞̤̳̘]."
And the world obeyed.
Flame halted mid-roar, a sunbeam frozen in place, its brilliance locked inches from his skin. The molten sea itself went rigid, as waves crystallized into sculpted glass. Marici's titanic body locked in the motion of her wrath, suspended between fury and futility.
Jack's face never changed. Empty. Unyielding. Eternal.
He tapped his staff against the breath of fire turned to ice.
The first Dragon God shattered. Marici, Queen of the Sun, broke apart into a thousand glittering fragments, leaving behind a single treasure — her glowing dragonheart, still pulsing defiantly in the air.
Jack ascended, pale robes trailing ragged shadows, and closed his hand around the prize. The final piece of his long design—
——————————————————
Lian Peng exhaled and shut the book the merchant had given him as a free gift. He already knew how the story ended. The man called Jack Frost would finish his great work, a labor spanning tens of thousands of years:
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The [True Resurrection] of his daughter, Iris.
It would also mark the death of the greatest Winter Mage who had ever lived, and the rise of the plague that still haunted every world of the Grand Firmament:
Iris, the Living Lich, Mother of Undeath.
Every child across the Nine Worlds knew the tale in one form or another. It was told as a warning — a parable of obsession, of ambition carried past the breaking point, heedless of cost.
But the younger generation, especially among the Cultivators, seemed to hear only the glory, never the lesson.
That, Lian Peng thought with quiet disappointment, was none of his concern.
Lian Peng was a Lunar King — one of only nine across the Grand Firmament. His duty wasn't to debate the young blood's morals or correct their arrogance. His task was simpler, and infinitely more thankless: keep them alive long enough to set foot in the Celestial World. Bah! A glorified travel agent, nothing more. This wasn't what he had been promised when he accepted the mantle. Damn the Celestial Council, and damn the Warden most of all for tricking him into it.
Still… the position had its perks.
A grin tugged at his mouth as he pushed the book aside and drew the golden shard closer. The fragment hovered obediently before him, no larger than a clenched fist, yet it painted the chamber in soft, molten light. Its glow soothed him even as its presence made the fine hairs along his neck bristle with unease.
A fragment of [Marici's Final Flame], frozen in time and preserved in its full majesty. A treasure over which even Divinities would gladly slaughter each other. That a High Celestial such as himself held it in his hand bordered on madness. If Jonathan — the sly merchant who had sold it to him — hadn't also been his brother-in-law, Lian Peng would have declared the thing counterfeit and had him flogged for insolence. In truth, he had nearly flogged Jonathan anyway for daring to place something so dangerous in his lap.
If word ever escaped… No. He could not dwell on that.
What mattered was what to do with it. To burn it away as an energy source would be a sin. Far wiser to shape it into an artifact, one worthy of its origin. Most fools still believed solar and lunar energies stood in opposition, irreconcilable as fire and ice. But his people had long known better. They were not rivals — they were reflections. Two halves of a single whole. With the proper art, a Lunar Mage could wield the sun's fury as deftly as moonlight, and a Solar Cultivator could harness moonlight with equal ease.
Forged carefully, this shard could become a weapon or focus steeped in solar affinity, perhaps even carrying the whisper of dragonfire itself. The thought made his heart race, but the danger was too great. Such a mark could never be hidden. If its true nature was exposed, his life would be forfeit. Divinities would be hammering down his gates before sunset, regardless of his status or their fear of the Warden.
Perhaps he should give it away. To the right patron, the gift could purchase him a return to the Celestial Court, a release from this barren outpost. He already had a few names in mind, ambitious and desperate enough to risk binding themselves to such a relic. The only question was what shape it should take. A focus was versatile, yes, but uninspired. This demanded something grander, something worthy of the Dragon Goddess herself.
Hmm. Perhaps if he—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The sound jolted him. With a single motion, he swept the fragment into his storage ring, smothering both its glow and his racing pulse. He forced his expression calm before speaking.
"Enter."
A young man shuffled into the chamber, shoulders hunched, robes stained with fatigue. One of the newer staff members whom Lian Peng recalled being assigned to perimeter security. The fellow's eyes were bloodshot, his face pale, as though he had not known sleep in weeks.
"S-sir! I—I have an urgent report!"
Lian Peng frowned. There were protocols for such things. Reports should never have reached him directly. He twitched his wrist, signaling the man to continue.
"Th-three months ago, we lost contact with a patrolling void beast," the guard stammered. "That's not… not unusual, given how hostile the open void can be — and how unstable the new teleportation formulas are…"
"Yes, yes, nothing I don't know already. Get on with it, man."
Unlike the older, lumbering teleportation arrays, the new models carved their path through the Dragon Stream — those invisible grooves in the fabric of reality where rivers of energy pooled and flowed like veins through a cosmic body. The benefits were extraordinary. The Stream itself bore the brunt of the cost, letting travelers ride its current instead of draining their own reserves. Distances that once demanded months could now collapse into hours.
But such boons never came without peril. The slightest error in calculation, the smallest misaligned glyph, and the traveler would hurl themselves against the Grand Firmament — the vast, unbroken shell that encased the Nine Worlds. Not even the greatest Divinities had ever pierced it. To slam into it was to invite utter annihilation.
If the kinks could be worked out, the breakthrough would revolutionize passage between the Three Sisters, the great Celestial Worlds around which all else revolved. For now, though, it was Lian Peng's curse to test the dangerous prototypes. As Lunar King of the only mortal world orbiting the youngest Sister, he had been saddled with this responsibility, another in a long list of duties he had never asked for.
He dragged himself from his grumbling as the nervous man continued.
"…Well… two weeks ago, the signal was detected falling out of the Dragon Stream."
Lian Peng's brow arched. That pried him from his disinterest. Losing a scout was routine — the void devoured them often. But a reappearance? That was something else entirely. If the beast had been spit back out, it suggested interference… or worse.
"Were we able to gather anything useful?"
"Unfortunately not, sir. The signal appeared near the edge of the Firmament. None of our scouts are close enough for a visual, and we can't risk another teleport through the Stream, not with the… oddness of the situation."
Lian Peng's frown deepened. "No data from the scout itself?"
The messenger's voice cracked. "No, sir. The scout was one of Beast King Marjatta's… experiments. Based on a Million-Stars Auroric Squid. The creatures can make short jumps through the Dragon Stream naturally, so it was believed they might adapt to the arrays better. Unfortunately, they're… not clever beasts. The void creature's signal resurfaced, but its handler's… did not."
Lian Peng's fist slammed down, denting the carved desk with a sharp crack. "Then send someone to investigate! Why waste my time with this drivel?!"
The man flinched as if struck, fear flashing in his bloodshot eyes. "Th-that's the thing, sir! The signal… it was only active for a few hours before vanishing again! Worse, it switched—from a retrieval distress beacon to an 'under fire' alert just before it disappeared."
Lian Peng leaned back, brows knitting tight. "Under fire? Our scout was attacked? By whom?"
The thought was absurd. Every moon of every mortal world belonged to the Warden, and the Warden's authority was absolute. Even Divinities balked at crossing him. To strike a Lunar Scout was unthinkable. Madness. Yes, pirates haunted the void and unorthodox sects sometimes raided pilgrims bound for the Celestial Worlds — but to lay hands on a scout was to beg for obliteration. It was nothing short of suicide.
No… something was wrong. Had it been a wild void beast, perhaps? Maybe one had sensed the scout falling out of the Dragon Stream and gone to investigate. But at those distances? Within that timeframe? The odds were laughable.
"Sir, there's more."
Lian Peng exhaled sharply through his nose, irritation prickling. He rolled his wrist in a gesture that meant 'get on with it.'
"Since the incident, our detection arrays have picked up… something… headed our way. Origin point matches the last location of the distress signal."
"Something? Can you not be more specific?"
The man swallowed hard. "Sir… we—we're not sure what it is."
Lian Peng's growl rolled low in his throat. "Explain."
The messenger mopped sweat from his brow with his sleeve, words tumbling over themselves.
"The object — whatever it is — registers no spirit traces, no mana signatures, nothing at all. We can't even get visual confirmation yet; it's too far away. The array only picked it up because of how… massive it appears to be."
A pause. The Lunar King's eyes narrowed. "How… 'massive?' are we talking?"
The man glanced around the chamber as though the walls might give him courage. The sound of cracking wood as Lian Peng's grip splintered the armrests of his chair finally forced the answer out.
"A-according to the array… several kilometers in length."
"WHAT?!"
Lian Peng erupted from his seat. His voice cracked the air like thunder, sending the other man staggering back in fright.
Impossible. Utterly impossible. Even the Warden's flagship — the mightiest void ship ever forged — barely stretched a few hundred meters, and its shadow alone could tilt the balance of a battlefield. To suggest something magnitudes larger existed — and that someone had built it in secret? Madness.
His peers would laugh him out of the Court if he brought them such a tale.
"How certain are we of those readings? Who verified them?!"
The man snapped to attention despite his trembling. "S-sir, it was Master Engineer Igor. As soon as the data came in, it was sent to him. He ran the numbers at least a hundred times!"
Lian Peng cursed inwardly. Of course it was Igor. The man was the finest Array Master on the Youngest Sister, perhaps in the entire Lunar Palace. If he vouched for the data, then the readings were beyond question.
The Lunar King ground his teeth in silence, the weight of decision pressing down like lead. At last, he drew a slow breath and steadied his tone.
"Send word to all branch heads. I'm calling an emergency council. I want every one of them in the war room within the hour."
The messenger saluted with visible relief. "Yes, sir!" He bolted from the chamber as though fleeing execution.
Lian Peng lowered himself back into his chair, shoulders sagging. He pressed his fingers against his temples, a bitter sigh escaping him.
This cursed job would be the death of him. Of that, he had no doubt.