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# The Dragon Refused Fifty Riders in a Single Week — Then It Knelt the Moment the Stable Girl Walked Past 🐉✨ / Chapter 5 / 20

Chapter 5 - The Sub-Vault Horror

Under the cover of midnight, Winn slipped past the sleepy guards near the forge and unlocked the heavy iron door leading into the forgotten sub-vaults.

The air grew stiflingly hot as she descended the winding spiral stairwell. The strange hum she had felt through the masonry grew louder, accompanied by the smell of scorched ozone and dark magic.

At the bottom of the stairs lay a cavernous chamber lit by sickly purple runes glowing along the walls. Winn gasped, pulling herself behind a thick stone pillar.

In the center of the room sat a massive, arcane containment engine. Suspended inside a cage of black iron spikes was a glowing, pulsating dragon egg — twice the size of a standard clutch, radiating intense, unstable elemental energy. Connected to the cage were thick copper tubes siphoning the raw, unrefined magic directly out of the egg and routing it into heavy lead canisters stamped with Chancellor Reev’s personal crest.

Reev was illegally harvesting dragon core-magic — a forbidden practice that mutated the dragon's soul and caused immense pain to any living kin nearby.

"It's breathtaking, isn't it?"

Winn spun around. Chancellor Reev stepped out of the shadows, flanked by Colonel Maro and three heavily armed enforcers.

"I wondered how long it would take you to follow the beast's instincts down here," Reev sneered, stepping closer. "Kestrel is a rare royal bloodline. He could feel his mother’s unhatched core egg the moment we brought him into the courtyard three years ago. That's why he wouldn't leave. That's why he fought every rider who tried to steer him away."

"You're draining a living egg!" Winn yelled, her voice echoing in the chamber. "It's torture! It's killing him and it's mutating the power!"

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"It is funding my rise to the High High Council," Reev corrected coldly. "And unfortunately, stable girl, you have reached the end of your five-day trial a little early. Maro, dispose of her. Make it look like a tragic accident in the dragon pens."

Maro drew his longsword with a brutal grin. "With pleasure."

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Chapter 6 - Fire in the Dark
Chapter 7 - The Sky Belongs to the Bold
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