The next day, John was in the Dravnok Empire’s capital city.
He left the others behind on purpose. Mr. Tauren worked best alone, a rumor with no fixed shape, and rumors didn’t travel well in groups of four.
"Stay with Ythera," he told them before he left. "Train, get stronger, and if the opportunity comes up to rattle Dranvok somewhere I’m not, take it. Just don’t get seen doing it together."
"We won’t need to be seen," Azelis said, Vhastra pacing a slow circle around her ankles. "We’ll just be gone before anyone finishes reacting."
Jibril’s storm-feathered companion, Vaelirash, stretched her healing wings out fully for the first time in days, clearly agreeing. Even the freed wolf, who’d spent two weeks watching all of them from a careful distance, had finally lowered his head to Yuna the evening before without a single word of prompting from anyone.
"His name’s Kaelstrom," Yuna had announced proudly, scratching behind six settling eyes. "He picked me. I didn’t even have to try."
"You never have to try," John said, grinning. "That’s the whole trick."
...
Ythera’s hoard turned out to be considerably larger than anyone had guessed. Centuries of seepage, tribute, and things that had simply wandered too close to her domain and never left again had piled up into a fortune that made most royal treasuries look like a child’s coin jar, Mythical-rank crystals stacked beside Divine-rank fragments so dense they hummed audibly through their storage cases.
"Spend what you need," she’d said, waving off his hesitation entirely. "I have had no use for any of it in three centuries. Let it finally do something."
He took her at her word.
...
The top floor of the Ashen Crescent, the capital’s most exclusive hotel, cost less than a single mid-sized Divine-rank fragment, and the manager’s hands shook visibly counting it out.
"An entire floor is highly unusual, sir," the man said, sweating despite the room’s cool air. "May I ask what business brings you to our city?"
"Trade," John said simply. "The kind that requires privacy and a very good view. But most important reason is that I like to be alone where I sleep."
...
He spent the following morning becoming someone new.
White robes first, layered and precise, cinched tight at the waist with a sash of woven silver thread that caught the light like water. Over it, a long coat of black cloth fell nearly to his ankles, high-collared and unadorned except for a single clasp shaped like a closed eye. He topped it off with an umbrella, black-lacquered and faintly humming with warded silence, more accessory than shelter.
The reflection that looked back at him from the hotel’s mirror felt satisfyingly unreadable, neither noble nor merchant nor warrior, exactly the kind of blank canvas rumor liked to paint itself onto.
"Mr. Tauren," he told the mirror, testing the weight of the name in his own mouth. "Vault of Curio Traders. Pleasure doing business."
He spent an hour simply walking after that, letting the capital reveal itself at its own pace. Dranvok’s streets ran wide and orderly, paved in dark stone veined with the same domination-runes he’d learned to hate in the Expanse, though here they served a gentler purpose, keeping the streetlamps lit without oil or flame.
Merchants called out from covered stalls selling everything from tamed songbirds to bottled weather, and twice he passed processions of chained Monsters being marched toward some unseen auction, jaw tightening both times before he forced his expression back into Mr. Tauren’s practiced calm.
’Later,’ he told himself. ’Not today. Today, I shop.’
...
The Embervault Exchange dominated the capital’s central district the way a mountain dominates a valley, a vast trading hall raised and owned by a cadet branch of the royal family itself, its entrance flanked by twin statues of coiled dragons wreathed in permanent, cold flame.
Inside, the air smelled of incense and old money, three full floors of glass display cases and hushed negotiation stretching up toward a domed ceiling painted with the founding family’s ascension into nobility. Servers in Dranvok crimson moved between patrons with trays of chilled wine nobody seemed to actually drink, more prop than refreshment.
John walked its main floor unhurried, umbrella tapping a slow, idle rhythm against polished stone, letting merchants and nobility alike catch a glimpse of white robes and an unreadable face before he ever said a word to anyone.
He found a private alcove near the back, ordered tea he had no intention of drinking, and let the world assume he was simply resting.
Internally, he opened the shop.
[Xhalthuun’s Shop]
[Shop Level: 6]
[Xhal Drops: 0]
He fed the first batch of sacrificed crystal fragments into the system without hesitation, watching the Xhal Drop counter climb into numbers that would have seemed absurd to him even a year ago.
’Thanks, Ythera.’
’Upgrade,’ he thought. ’Multiple times. Enough such that it gives me Mythical as minimum rank and Demi-God as highest rank of items.’
[-111,499,999 Xhal Drops.]
[Shop reached level 8.]
The system pulsed once, warm and satisfied. "New item tiers unlocked," Chuthulos reported, sounding delighted. "Mythical through Demi-God, brother John. Xhalthuun’s been waiting a long time to show off properly."
[Xhalthuun’s Shop]
[Shop Level: 8]
[Xhal Drops: 11,200,000,000]
John allowed himself a small, private smile behind his cup of untouched tea, and began to shop.
The first list refreshed clean and unfamiliar, nothing like the modest fare he remembered browsing a year ago.
< This Week’s Items >
-Soul Technique: Hollowmourn Requiem (Mythical) — 400,000,000 Xhal Drops
-Mask: Face of the Nameless Merchant (Mythical) — 620,000,000 Xhal Drops
-Pill: Ichor of the Sundering Womb (Demi-God) — 3,900,000,000 Xhal Drops
-Robe: Veil of the Unclaimed King (Demi-God) — 5,100,000,000 Xhal Drops
He bought the mask first, on principle, watching its description unfurl.
[Face of the Nameless Merchant: Worn, it renders the bearer’s true identity unreadable to divination, scrying, and soul-sense alike, even against Demi-God tier detection.]
"That one’s for you specifically," Chuthulos noted approvingly.
He took the robe next, sliding it into storage rather than wearing it yet, saving it for whenever Mr. Tauren needed to feel considerably more untouchable than he currently did.
[Veil of the Unclaimed King: Woven from thread pulled off a deposed god’s own funeral shroud. Grants immunity to forced dethronement, coercion, and any claim of ownership asserted over the wearer, magical or otherwise.]
The Hollowmourn Requiem went into his technique library without hesitation, a soul art built entirely around weaponizing grief, corrosive enough to eat through an enemy’s defenses the longer a fight dragged on. The pill he set aside for later, unwilling to test something described only as centuries-old ichor from a dying world without proper preparation first.
...
He refreshed twice more before the tea in front of him had even cooled, each new list stranger than the last.
< This Week’s Items >
-Seed: Emberroot of the Drowned Choir (Mythical) — 210,000,000 Xhal Drops
-Bell: The Last Toll of Verimoor (Mythical) — 340,000,000 Xhal Drops
-Selection Box: Demi-God Geno Art Chest — 6,800,000,000 Xhal Drops
-Gauntlet: Fist of the Second Silence (Demi-God) — 4,450,000,000 Xhal Drops
The bell caught his eye immediately, small and dull silver, humming with a silence so complete it made his ears ache just holding it.
[The Last Toll of Verimoor: Rung once, erases all sound within a ten-kilometer radius for one full minute, including the sound of its own ringing.]
"Useful for exits," John murmured, pocketing it.
He splurged on the Demi-God Geno Art Chest without much debate, already imagining what it might do for whichever of his Monsters opened it, and refreshed once more.
< This Week’s Items >
-Gacha Banner: Relics of the Fractured Pantheon (New)
-Fruit: Sungrief Persimmon x3 (Mythical) — 88,000,000 Xhal Drops each
-Cloak: Widow’s Hour (Demi-God) — 7,200,000,000 Xhal Drops
-Vial: Breath of a Dying Star (Demi-God) — 9,000,000,000 Xhal Drops
He bought all three Sungrief Persimmons on sight, their skin dark and freckled with tiny points of light like the sky at dusk, each one dense enough with soul-restorative potency to bring a Mythical-rank Monster back from the edge of death in a single bite. The Widow’s Hour cloak followed a moment later, its fabric shifting between deep violet and utter black depending on the angle, said to let its wearer step fully out of time’s notice for up to an hour at a stretch.
[Widow’s Hour: While worn and active, the bearer becomes unable to be tracked, aged, or perceived by any means tied to the passage of time, for up to sixty minutes. Cooldown: seven days.]
The banner alone was worth investigating.
[Gacha Banner: Relics of the Fractured Pantheon. Contains fragments of power once belonging to gods who no longer exist. 1 Summon — 500,000,000 Xhal Drops. 10 Summons — 4,500,000,000 Xhal Drops.]
"Go big," Chuthulos urged. "You’ve earned a little recklessness today."
John grinned and committed to the full ten.
Light bled up from the counter in a slow, reverent column, and one by one, ten fragments materialized in front of him, each pulsing with a faint, mournful weight that felt distinctly like something that used to be worshipped.
-Fragment of the Silent Harvest (A-rank)
-Fragment of the Drowned Crown (S-rank)
-Fragment of Endless Winter’s Regret (A-rank)
-Fragment of the First Broken Oath (SSS-rank)
-Fragment of Hollow Abundance (A-rank)
-Fragment of the Watcher Who Slept (SS-rank)
-Fragment of Grey Devotion (A-rank)
-Fragment of the Unwritten Verdict (SSS-rank)
-Fragment of Loyal Rot (S-rank)
-Fragment of the Final Kindness (SSS-rank)
Three SSS-rank fragments in a single pull left even Chuthulos briefly speechless.
"Brother John," he finally said, "I believe you just out-gambled a god’s own funeral."
"I’ll take that as a compliment," John said, tucking the fragments away with the same unreadable calm he’d been practicing all morning, though privately, behind Mr. Tauren’s careful stillness, he was grinning like an idiot.
...
He was three items deep into a fourth refresh, umbrella propped against the chair beside him and his tea gone stone cold, when a floor attendant finally worked up the nerve to approach.
"Sir," the man said, voice pitched carefully polite, the kind reserved for guests they weren’t yet sure they were allowed to be rude to. "I couldn’t help but notice you’ve been seated for quite some time now without viewing any of our displays."
John glanced up, Mr. Tauren’s blank, unreadable calm sliding into place without effort.
"This alcove is reserved for browsing patrons," the attendant continued, gaining confidence now that the stranger hadn’t immediately incinerated him. "If you’re not interested in any of the Exchange’s offerings today, I’ll have to ask you to free the table for someone who is."
John looked past him at the glass cases lining the hall, rows of gleaming relics that, compared to what he’d just pulled out of a dead pantheon for pocket change, looked faintly like a child’s rock collection.
"Fair enough," he said, standing and collecting his umbrella in one smooth motion. "Wouldn’t want to hog a seat I’m not using properly."
"I’ll come by later after lunch."