The Exiled Duke's Lottery system

Chapter 225: Chapter 218 — The Six-Winged Golden Warlord

Five days until the ninety-day industrial review.

Two years and 280 days until the compulsory quest deadline.

The oath hung heavy in the damp air. One by one, the occupants of the ruined interrogation chamber began to filter out. Cedric went first, his voice a low, clipped murmur into his communication set as he ordered every record connected to the prisoners sealed under his personal, absolute authority. Malen followed Lucien toward the dark outer passage, while the guards outside hovered beyond the threshold, waiting for Gandalf to declare the chamber safe from lingering hexes.

Aurethar remained beside the shattered warding circle. The Iron Hammer had already vanished back into his storage ring, but faint, jagged lines of golden light still pulsed beneath the heavy scales of his chest and shoulders. They flickered into view whenever he shifted, bleeding a low heat before dissolving back into the dark hide.

Maerath hadn’t moved a inch toward the exit. He stood rooted beside the warped metal of the detection frame, his gaze fixed on the dragon.

"What happened?" Gandalf asked, noticing the lingerer.

Maerath didn’t look back. "I believe the dragon owes us an explanation."

Aurethar slowly turned his massive head, his vertical pupils slitting. "That belief has damaged many otherwise pleasant relationships."

In the corridor, Lucien’s footsteps stopped. Maerath stepped away from the frame, his boots crunching on pulverized stone. "The power you used to parry that strike... it didn’t feel Legendary."

For a fraction of a second, Aurethar looked genuinely puzzled. "The chamber was collapsing under an above-Legendary demonic execution spell. Your senses were undoubtedly overwhelmed."

"They weren’t."

"Residual corruption, then your perception was affected maybe."

"No."

"Fatigue?"

Maerath folded his arms, his silence absolute.

Aurethar sighed, a breath that smelled of ozone and hot brass, and glanced toward Gandalf. "Is he always this tedious after surviving an execution spell?"

"Only when someone lies poorly."

"I haven’t lied."

"You’ve offered three explanations you don’t even believe yourself."

"That’s called generosity."

Lucien re-entered the chamber, the ambient light catching the hard lines of his face. "Aurethar. What did we feel?"

The dragon’s gaze swept across the remaining faces. His golden eyes gleamed with a familiar, dangerous amusement, as if prolonging the denial was a game he still wished to play—though even he seemed to recognize the room had grown too small for it. With a low, heavy thud that shook the loose dust from the ceiling, he lowered his massive bulk onto an intact section of the stone floor.

"Legendary is not what I am," Aurethar said, his voice dropping into a register that vibrated in their teeth. "It is merely what this continent has been permitted to endure."

Maerath’s jaw tightened. Gandalf went completely, deathly still.

"You’re above Legendary," Lucien stated. It wasn’t a question.

Aurethar tilted his head, a wry, terrifying gesture. "That is the common nomenclature."

Malen stepped back in from the passage, the air suddenly feeling entirely too thin. "How far above?"

"Far enough that detailing the exact metric in this structurally compromised room would be profoundly unwise."

"That sounds deliberately vague," Cedric’s voice echoed from the doorway.

"It is deliberately vague."

Gandalf stepped closer, studying the last stubborn threads of gold fading beneath the dragon’s scales. "You sealed your power."

"In several layers. Like an onion. Or a very volatile explosive."

"Before you crossed into this continent?"

"Yes."

Lucien narrowed his eyes, pieces of a centuries-old puzzle locking into place. "Because of the shield."

"Because of a boundary," Aurethar corrected softly.

"You didn’t know what it truly was."

"I knew it ringed the land. I knew it blinded external eyes, warped any attempt to map its geometry, and violently rejected any entity carrying energy above a specific threshold."

"What did you think it was?" Maerath asked.

"A continental isolation matrix. A localized Veil collapse. Perhaps the surviving cage of a civilization old enough to have forgotten its own language." Aurethar looked directly at Maerath. "I was curious."

"And you crossed it anyway."

"I conducted extensive observation first."

"How extensive?"

"Extensive enough."

"That’s not a measurement."

"It is when the expedition belongs to me."

A ghost of a smirk touched Lucien’s lips, though his eyes remained sharp. "You choked down your own strength and walked blind into a trap you didn’t understand."

"I was younger."

Maerath frowned. "You’ve been old for longer than many human kingdoms have existed."

"Age and wisdom," Aurethar murmured, "are entirely separate afflictions,they are just taken same for someone surviving lesser than my quick nap."

Gandalf leaned on his staff. "How did you get through?"

"A temporary fracture opened in the boundary—a narrow, weeping seam formed under a conjunction of astral anomalies I have never seen repeated."

"And after you crossed?"

"It snapped shut."

Lucien took a short breath. "You were trapped."

Aurethar’s eyes narrowed into golden slits. "I would prefer the term ’inconveniently relocated.’"

"You couldn’t leave."

"I could have forced a breach."

"At full strength?"

"Naturally."

"And the boundary would have resisted."

"Violently."

Gandalf looked down at the cracked, trembling floorboards. "What would have happened to the surrounding land?"

Aurethar considered the question, shifting his weight with a slow, reptilian grace. "It would have acquired new geography."

Maerath stared. "You mean mountains would have disappeared."

"Some might have become valleys. Others might finally have become interesting."

Cedric folded his arms, his voice flat. "So you stayed."

"At first, because making a crater out of a subcontinent seemed excessive."

"And later?" Lucien asked.

The sarcasm bled out of Aurethar’s expression, leaving behind something heavy, ancient, and unreadable. "Later, leaving became unnecessary."

The finality of the words slammed the door on the subject. Lucien let the silence stretch, allowing the gravity of it to settle before shifting focus. "When you parried that demonic strike, did you break any of those seals?"

"No."

Maerath still looked deeply skeptical.

"I strained against them," Aurethar clarified, his tone sharpening. "Trust me, human. Had I unraveled them, this conversation would be occurring in the afterlife."

"What happens if you *do* open them?" Malen asked.

"The shield notices."

"And then?"

"It objects."

"How?"

Aurethar looked around the ruined, scorched interrogation room. "Poorly."

Gandalf’s posture stiffened. "Could that strain have been detected outside?"

"The demonic spell certainly was. Any observer beyond the veil capable of recognizing above-Legendary metrics would have felt the impact when it detonated against the shield."

"And you?" Lucien asked.

"My seals held. But not so quietly."

Maerath looked at the bare, dark scales where the gold had finally vanished. "That means enough for someone to recognize your specific signature?"

"Those old fogeys might remember the weight of my presence or may recognize the pressure beneath the seal."

"How many?" Cedric asked.

"Enough to make the coming years incredibly irritating."

"Only irritating?"

"For me." Aurethar turned his head toward the exit, his voice dropping an octave. "Potentially catastrophic for anyone who decides to visit uninvited."

"And what were you known as, outside?" Lucien asked.

Aurethar’s nostrils flared—a clear sign he thoroughly regretted letting the interrogation drift into a memoir. "I possessed several titles."

"Which one would they remember?" Gandalf pressed.

"Most were excessively dramatic. The product of terrified poets."

Maerath smiled faintly. "That means you liked them."

"It means other races lack stylistic restraint." Aurethar paused, the silence stretching until he finally spat the words out. "The Six-Winged Golden Warlord."

Cedric looked at the dragon’s back, counting the two visible, massive wings folded against his spine. "Your title appears to be missing evidence."

"The remaining four are sealed alongside the rest of my strength."

"So the title is accurate."

"Painfully."

Cedric gave a slow, respectful nod. "I was beginning to suspect exaggeration."

Aurethar’s eyes flared like twin furnaces. "The missing evidence is sealed because this continent appears remarkably fond of continuing to exist."

Gandalf turned away, his shoulders shaking slightly as he hid his amusement.

Lucien looked around the room, his voice turning commanding. "The oath already covers what happened here."

"Well it now covers rather more," Cedric observed dryly.

"Then its meaning expands."

No one argued more. They left the ruined chamber, the dark corridor swallowing their footsteps, none of them eager to break the silence again.

Beyond the shield, silence was already dead.

Across the vast expanse of the Central Continent, warning arrays built to detect planar invasions screamed to life. They were triggered by the spell meant to silence fewer than a dozen prisoners, but the ripples were catastrophic. Ancient shield-watch towers flared with blinding white fire along distant mountain ranges. Deep within the earth, dwarven wards hummed, carrying the seismic magical disturbance through foundations older than the empires built upon them. Elven root-networks recoiled, their leaves turning black as a trace of abyssal corruption bled through the world’s Ley lines. In the wild lands, beastman shamans jolted awake, choking on the phantom scent of blood and burning brass.

Dragons raised their massive heads from jagged peaks, deep caverns, and hidden vaults, staring toward the dead horizon.

Even goblin air traffic suffered. A massive merchant airship crossing an oceanic trade lane suddenly lurched violently; one mana-engine tripled its output while the other spontaneously reversed its rotation. The vessel survived only because goblin engines were terrifyingly powerful. Though it still nearly crashed because they were goblin engines.

By nightfall, a breathless shield-watch messenger stood before an emergency council of the Central Continent’s sovereign powers.

Humans, dwarfs, elves, beastmen, dragons, orcs, and goblins packed the curved, rising tiers of the grand amphitheater while banners of alliance hung from the stone walls.

The messenger placed seven obsidian-sealed reports onto the central stone table. His hands shook. "The observatories agree."

A human representative, draped in heavy furs, leaned forward. "On what?"

"An above-Legendary demonic force projected a targeted strike toward the ancient shielded continent."

The ambient murmuring in the chamber vanished. Dead silence fell.

A dwarven representative, his beard braided with gold wire, snapped open the first report. "Physical breach?"

"No, My Lord. The spell utilized pre-existing anchors already established inside the perimeter."

"Targets?" the human asked.

"A localized group."

"How small?"

"Likely fewer than twelve individuals."

A goblin representative, wearing a tailored coat and thick spectacles, frowned. "That much raw output for a handful of lives? Ridiculous. Uneconomical."

"The targets died," the messenger said flatly.

The goblin’s smirk vanished.

An elven representative reached for a parchment, her fingers elegant but tense. "The shield failed, then?"

"The shield held. Most of the kinetic and magical force was rejected."

"’Most?" the elf asked.

"Enough crossed to complete what it was meant to."

The dwarf read faster, his eyes darting across the magical runes. "The response time from the barrier was delayed. Why?"

"Compared to the oldest records, yes," the messenger admitted.

"Deterioration? Core energy loss? Faulty pylons?"

"Possible but real reason is unknown."

"Deliberate draining from the inside or outside?"

The messenger hesitated. "Also possible."

An orc representative spoke from the lower tier, his voice like grinding stones. "What remains certain?"

"The shield still violently rejects the physical passage of any being at our power tier. It also entirely suppresses teleportation, including large-scale intercontinental transfer. The spatial locking mechanisms are intact."

The human representative leaned back, exhaling a long breath. "Then no army can be sent through."

"Not through conventional magic."

"Not even a vanguard?"

"The shield unravels the spell matrix before the destination gate can even manifest."

"The ocean prevents conventional naval deployment due to the storms, and teleportation is dead," the human muttered.

"Yes."

"What about a naval blockade?"

"Ships can patrol the outer waters, but crossing into the territorial shallows triggers the barrier’s kinetic repulsion."

The goblin raised a clawed finger. "Airships?"

The messenger looked at him with an exhausted, unblinking stare. "The shield does not care whether the rejected object is expensive, airborne, or poorly insured."

The goblin slowly lowered his hand. "That answer contained unnecessary emotional bias."

"However," the messenger continued, clearing his throat, "narrow magical interference is becoming increasingly viable. The barrier is fraying enough to allow precise frequencies to slip through, provided they follow established anchors inside."

"Define narrow," the orc grunted.

"Curses. High-density messages. Target-locked corruption. Summoning tethers. Power channeled through bound mortal agents."

The human’s expression hardened into granite. "The fortress remains locked, but the enemy has begun sliding daggers through the cracks in the gate."

"That is the strategic assessment, yes."

The messenger reached into his satchel and placed a dark preservation crystal at the center of the table. "Furthermore... there was active resistance from within."

A dragon representative, sitting motionless in the shadows, tilted his head. "The shield itself?"

"Not just the shield."

The messenger tapped the crystal. It flared to life.

An oppressive, suffocating golden pressure flooded the amphitheater. It wasn’t a clean visual projection—it was a raw, heavy magical signature pulsing upward through layered, artificial restraints. Even as a mere recorded fragment, the weight of it made the air in the council room feel hot and thick. Then, for the space of a single heartbeat, the ghostly outline of six massive, shimmering wings filled the air.

Then it snapped off.

The dragon representative bolted to his feet, his chair scraping violently against the stone. The oldest dwarf stopped reading, his jaw slack.

The messenger lowered his hand. "The signature was independently verified by three separate high observatories."

The human turned slowly toward the towering form of the dragon delegation. "Whose signature is that?"

The dragon spoke, his voice a low, reverent rumble that vibrated through the floorboards. "Aurethar."

The name drifted through the massive hall like a sudden winter draft.

"Aurethar," the messenger confirmed. "The Six-Winged Golden Warlord."

The goblin representative leaned so far over the table his spectacles slid down his nose. "The one with the hoard? The legendary treasury?"

"Also the one who pulverized three imperial armies when they crossed his hunting grounds," the dragon corrected sharply. "Yes."

"Right, right, but armies are an expense. A hoard is a liquid asset."

The human ignored the goblin entirely. "Aurethar vanished centuries ago. We assumed he died in the planar rifts."

"He crossed into the shielded continent," the messenger said.

"At full strength? How did he survive the feedback?"

"He didn’t cross at full strength. The telemetry shows multiple, self-imposed soul-seals."

The elven representative’s eyes widened. "He intentionally crippled his own progression to slip past the boundary’s threshold."

"Yes."

The dwarven representative stared at the dark crystal. "He reduced his existence to that of a lesser beast... and maintained that humiliation for centuries?"

"That is the only logical conclusion."

"How much of his true power broke through during the clash?" the dragon representative demanded.

"None of it fully manifested."

"Then what did our arrays detect?"

"The mere pressure of his soul straining against his own seals."

Silence pulled tight over the room once more.

In the old histories, Aurethar was a force of nature. He ended wars with a brutal, terrifying efficiency that left historians debating whether a conflict had legally ended or if the participants had simply ceased to exist. His six golden wings over a battlefield meant the map was about to be redrawn. The title ’Golden Warlord’ wasn’t given by adoring subjects; it was a ghost story told by the few who survived his wake.

And his wealth was a myth unto itself. Rulers had bartered away provinces just to glimpse relics he deemed useless; entire religious orders guarded items he had discarded as clutter.

Then, he simply went dark.

Now, the council looked at the empty air where his sigil had burned. He wasn’t a myth. He was alive, trapped in a forgotten land, wearing chains of his own making.

"Why?" the human asked, looking at the dragons.

The dragon representative slowly sat back down, the scales on his face tightening. "If anyone in this room possessed the brain to understand the mind of Aurethar, this council would be significantly shorter."

The beastman shaman, draped in bones and feathers, leaned forward. "He fought the demon."

"He did," the messenger said.

"Then he was not an observer."

"Yes."

"He chose a side."

The dragon’s eyes flared with sudden, dangerous heat. "Then whatever entity resides within that continent... it possesses his loyalty."

The dwarven representative shook his head, his heavy rings clinking. "No dragon of that caliber accepts centuries of self-inflicted stagnation for sentimentality. There must be a reason."

The dragon turned on him. "You constantly mistake longevity for emotional void, dwarf."

The goblin raised a finger. "I repeat: it may be due to a treasure. A very big, very shiny treasure."

The human threw him a look of profound exhaustion. "You honestly believe the apex predator of the old era accepted centuries of forced weakness because he found a pile of gold?"

"I believe," the goblin said smoothly, "that dismissing capital as a primary driver of history is exactly why humans are currently paying fifteen percent interest on our naval loans."

"Enough," the orc representative boomed, silencing the bickering. "The demonic strike was a targeted execution. The adversary exposed the gap and even used an above-Legendary asset just to kill a dozen individuals. Therefore, those individuals possessed knowledge that threatened the entire demonic campaign."

The elven representative nodded slowly. "Something linked to the corruption spreading within the barrier."

"Or a flaw in the shield itself," the dwarf added.

The human looked down at the pile of reports. "The core issue isn’t *why* they were targeted."

"It’s what they were about to say before the axe fell," the beastman shaman finished.

The realization settled over the council like a shroud. They had an answer, but the solution was entirely out of reach.

The ocean barrier was impassable. Teleportation was a dead end. No vanguard could march; no fleet could sail.

"How long until the structural decay creates a usable anomaly in the shield?" the human demanded, turning to the dwarven spatial experts.

The dwarf opened a secondary ledger of complex geometric calculations. "An exact calculation is impossible with our current distance."

"Give me a window."

"If the current rate of degradation holds... a narrow, unstable structural seam might manifest in roughly a decade. Perhaps longer."

"Large enough to push a legion through?"

The dwarf looked insulted. "Large enough for a small, highly specialized team. Assuming they are suicidal, exceptionally lucky, and cross at the exact millisecond the rift fluctuates."

"The window will exist for minutes, perhaps seconds," the elf added grimly. "And it may manifest over a volcanic active zone or an ocean trench."

The human turned back to the messenger. "Then we begin selection today."

A black-budget specialist unit would be drafted in absolute secrecy over the coming decade. Not just soldiers, but shield-breakers, spatial theoreticians, master healers, demonologists, and scouts trained to survive high-velocity planar rifts. They would prepare for a mission that might not even exist for ten years. Until then, the world could only watch the border.

The goblin representative coughed into his hand. "My cartel can provide long-range airships for oceanic border monitoring."

"Reliable ones?" the human asked skeptically.

The goblin drew himself up proudly. "They are exceptionally powerful."

"That wasn’t the question."

"In my industry, it is considered the more comforting answer."

"Will they return with data, or crash?"

"I can only say one of it will happen frequently."

The proposal was aggressively stripped down to unmanned reconnaissance drones and heavily escorted atmospheric patrols.

By midnight, the council’s edicts were stamped and sealed. Shield telemetry was upgraded to a continuous live feed. Ancient historical archives were unsealed. Dwarven and elven academies would coordinate to map the shield’s decay vectors. The standing armies would quietly filter out candidates for a suicide mission a decade away. Dragon flights would monitor the skies for any further resonance from Aurethar. And goblin engineers would construct deep-sea observation platforms under a level of military supervision that offended them on a profound corporate level.

No direct contact would be attempted. The event was classified under maximum security.

Before the chamber emptied, the human representative looked up at the towering dragon delegate. "One thing bothers me."

"Only one?" the dragon retorted.

"What could possibly keep the Six-Winged Golden Warlord quiet in that godforsaken land for hundreds of years?"

The dragon looked out over the glowing embers of the projection crystal, his expression distant and dark. "You are asking the wrong question, human."

"What is the right one?"

The dragon’s gaze snapped back, cold and sharp as glass. "Do not ask what kept him there."

The entire chamber held its breath.

"Ask who."

For centuries, the world had assumed Aurethar had died in pursuit of a myth.

Now they knew he was alive.

The true terror was realizing that something inside that sealed continent was powerful enough to make a god-tier dragon willingly clip his own wings.