As we emerged from the Hellzone's oppressive darkness into the Academy's familiar corridors, three familiar figures rushed toward us. Copelan, Patter, and Eyarna had been waiting at the entrance, their faces etched with worry that instantly melted into relief.

Eyarna, normally reserved, threw her arms around each of us in turn, tears streaming down her face. Her embrace was gentle but desperate, as if confirming we were truly solid and alive. Patter followed with hearty back slaps that nearly knocked the wind from our already exhausted bodies.

Copelan hung back, maintaining his usual physical distance, but his smile reached his eyes for once. "You should all be thoroughly ashamed," he said, crossing his arms in mock sternness. "Making us worry ourselves sick like that. Highly inconsiderate."

The laughter that bubbled up felt strange after days of terror, but it died instantly when attendants passed by with a stretcher. Langdon's body lay there, covered with a white sheet, his sword placed ceremoniously atop his chest. We fell silent, watching as they carried away the man who'd given everything to save us.

"Did you hear about...?" Loland gestured toward the retreating stretcher, his voice unusually subdued.

Patter nodded grimly. "Everyone knows. The whole Academy… no, the whole city, watched you fighting your way up from the depths. They saw everything, including..." She trailed off, looking at the stretcher disappearing around a corner.

"They what?" Annes' face contorted with fury. "They watched? Like some sort of entertainment?"

"Headmaster Reins authorized the broadcast," Copelan confirmed, his tone bitter. "Called it a 'valuable learning experience' for the student body."

The rage that flared through my mechanical body nearly melted my joints. Our suffering, Langdon's death; it had all been spectacle. I felt my companions' fury radiating like heat around me.

"If it's any consolation," Patter added quietly, "your broadcast drew more viewers than the tournament itself. People were riveted."

"The tournament," Genta whispered, the realization hitting her. "We missed it."

The weeks of training, the strategies we'd developed, the weapons I'd crafted; all wasted because of Shawe's sabotage. Another injustice to add to the growing list.

"Who won?" Genta asked, her voice hollow.

Copelan leaned against the wall. "It was interesting, actually. During the artifact hunt, the Institute teams nearly pulled off an upset. While our Academy teams were busy engaging every monster they encountered, the Institute teams simply avoided combat and focused on exploration."

"Smart," Sven muttered.

"Both Institute teams found artifacts and would have advanced together, but..." Copelan's expression darkened. "Dragon House ambushed one of them and took their artifact."

"That was mean," Yulios spat.

And the final round? I asked, though I already knew the answer.

"Dragon House won the battle royale," Copelan confirmed. "No one was surprised."

I nodded, my golden tendrils coiling tightly around my frame. Dragon House's victory felt distant and unimportant compared to what lay ahead. In two days, I would face Shawe in the arena.

Annes's eyes widened as Sven winced, clutching his side where the Boulderbug had clawed him days ago. The wound had barely begun to heal.

"We need to get to the infirmary," she announced, suddenly all business. "Sven needs healing, and the rest of us should be checked too."

Copelan nodded in agreement. "You've all been through hell, literally. Everyone should get examined. Who knows what those deep-level monsters might have done to you."

"Except you, of course," Annes added, turning to me with a half-smile. "Must be nice having an invincible body."

I flexed one of my auric steel tendrils. At least you have legs. And can eat.

The laughter that erupted from my companions was musical, almost intoxicating. After days of terror, of whispering and hiding from monsters that could tear us apart, the sound of their unbridled mirth was like sunlight breaking through storm clouds. I found myself joining in, my inhuman voice producing the musical chimes that was my version of laughter.

"You should prepare too," Annes said, her expression turning serious. "You've got two days before you face Shawe."

Copelan, Patter, and Eyarna froze, their faces shifting from relief to shock in an instant.

"What?" Eyarna whispered, her large eyes growing even wider behind her spectacles.

That wasn't broadcast? I asked, somewhat surprised.

Copelan shook his head. "Definitely not. What happened?"

I challenged Professor Shawe to a duel, I explained calmly, as if discussing the weather. He tried to kill us by sabotaging the teleportation circle. The mage who did the actual work was executed, but Shawe gave the order.

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"Can you even do that?" Eyarna asked. "Challenge a teacher?"

Apparently I replied. Headmaster Reins seemed quite pleased by the idea, actually. He forced Shawe to accept.

"But… but…" Copelan sputtered, his hands moving in frantic gestures. "Shawe's a bastard, yes, but he's a skilled mage! Isn't his level in the upper 40's?"

He's only level 40, I corrected.

"Only?" Copelan's voice cracked. "Only level 40? Are you insane?"

I reached out with a tendril, gently patting his shoulder. Calm down. The Platinum Dragon's death earned me six levels. I'm now level 35.

"That's still—"

With Ancestor Might's effects, I should be on par with him, possibly even stronger. I hadn't told them the exact number of constructs I'd built, but they'd seen enough to understand the principle.

Yulios whistled. "You're going to crush him."

I'm going to try, I said, my voice hardening. He sent us to die. He got Langdon killed. He's spent months making our lives miserable because we're different.

The group fell silent, the weight of our loss settling over us again.

"We should get Sven to the infirmary," Loland finally said, breaking the somber mood.

As we moved toward the medical wing, I felt a strange mix of grief and determination. Langdon had taught us how to fight beings more powerful than ourselves. Now I would use those lessons against the man responsible for his death.

The forty-eight hours before my duel with Shawe vanished in a frenzy of creation. I retreated to my basement sanctuary, emerging only when absolutely necessary. My friends brought food they knew I wouldn't eat, concerned questions I barely answered, and offers of help I gently declined. This was my battle to prepare for, my vengeance to craft.

My war frame needed to be perfect.

I stripped the chassis down to its skeleton, analyzing every joint and connection. The battles against Arctur and the Platinum Dragon had exposed weaknesses I couldn't afford against Shawe. Each failure became a lesson, each broken component a blueprint for something stronger.

The dragon's remains proved invaluable. Its molten gold blood, once cooled and refined, yielded metal of exceptional purity. Combined with the shipments Copelan had secured from his father's mythril sales, I had enough raw material to forge something truly formidable.

I worked without pause, my mechanical fingers never tiring as I wove golden threads into braided cords of auric steel. My Assembly ability reached new heights of precision as I constructed not three, but nine magnificent tendrils. Each one emerged thicker than my previous design, the interwoven strands creating a muscle-like structure that could support tremendous weight while maintaining serpentine flexibility.

Write your name, I commanded each tendril in turn, testing their dexterity with pen and ink. The letters flowed across parchment in nine different hands, each perfectly legible. Satisfied, I moved to the final phase: the terminals.

Initially, I crafted serrated claws; functional, deadly, efficient. They could grasp, tear, puncture. But as I held one up to examine it, a thought crystallized: Shawe didn't just need to be defeated. He needed to be terrified.

The man who feared monsters should face one worthy of his nightmares.

I melted down the utilitarian claws and began anew, sculpting nine distinct dragon heads. Two I modeled after dragons I'd encountered: the Snapper's broad, tooth-filled maw and the Platinum's crystalline-horned visage. The others emerged from fragmented memories and imagination: serpentine faces with backward-sweeping horns, reptilian snouts with armored scales, ancient wyrms with beard-like tendrils.

Each golden head gleamed in the workshop's dim light, their empty eye sockets awaiting final touches. I mixed crushed sapphires with molten auric steel, creating nine pairs of luminous blue-gold eyes that seemed to track movement even when motionless.

When I connected the final tendril to my frame and activated the system, the nine dragon heads rose around me like a deadly crown, weaving through the air with hypnotic grace. They responded to my thoughts instantly, moving in perfect coordination or independently as needed.

I stood before the workshop's largest mirror, watching as the dragon heads snapped and snarled at my command. The war frame no longer resembled anything human. It was a nightmare of golden scales and mechanical precision, a monster worthy of legend.

Good. Let Shawe face what he truly fears. Let him see what his hatred has created.

Let him know, in his final moments, that the monster he tried to destroy has become something far more terrible than he could have imagined.

My tendrils represented only the beginning of my war frame's transformation. The inner skeleton required complete redesign. I doubled the thickness of critical support structures and reinforced stress points with cross-bracing. Every steel component, down to the smallest gear, disappeared into my crucible, reborn as auric steel with superior strength and mana conductivity.

The Platinum Dragon's hide yielded unexpected treasures. I extracted pure platinum and experimented with platinum-gold alloys, discovering their remarkable resistance to friction and heat. These became my joints, bearings, and internal mechanisms; anywhere metal would grind against metal under pressure. The combination eliminated weaknesses that had plagued my previous designs.

My torso armor underwent complete reconstruction. Layer upon layer of auric steel plates interlocked in an overlapping pattern inspired by insect chitin. Though golden underneath, I anodized the surface to a lustrous silver, not from vanity but practicality; the anodized layer would provide additional protection without sacrificing the metal's properties.

My right arm received similar treatment. The redesigned limb contained additional power systems and reinforced musculature. What appeared decorative, such as spiraling patterns etched into the forearm and bicep, actually functioned as cooling channels and mana conduits, allowing me to channel energy more efficiently through the limb.

The helmet represented my crowning achievement. I discarded the war frame's simple steel mask in favor of a full helm crafted from a single sheet of auric steel, formed and shaped through countless hours of meticulous work. It encased my head completely, the lower portion tapering to expose only my jaw and mouth. Elegant filigree patterns adorned the surface, not mere decoration but precisely calculated channels for mana flow.

False vents lined the front in a pattern resembling a knight's visor, their true purpose being to disperse heat generated by my internal systems. Within the helmet, the ruined red flesh where my eyes had been would be kept safe from even the most fiercest of blows.

Standing before my mirror, I beheld not just a war machine but a manifestation of martial perfection. The silver-armored torso and gleaming helm provided stark contrast to the nine golden dragon-headed tendrils that writhed beneath me. The frame embodied everything I had learned about combat, machinery, and magic since my awakening.

This creation transcended mere functionality. It embodied the spirit of war itself: beautiful in its deadly precision, terrifying in its calculated efficiency. The design drew from fragmented memories of ancient battle standards and forgotten armor styles that flickered through my consciousness.

As I flexed each joint and tested each system, a strange thought surfaced: Kaldos, the God of War himself, would look upon this frame with approval.

I dismissed the reflection. Tomorrow, this frame would face Shawe. Today, it required final calibrations. I turned from the mirror and resumed my work, nine dragon heads watching over me like golden guardians.

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