Maximus freshened up before returning to the site of the battle with the Demon Queen. He was dressed in traveling clothes as he teleported in.

  Things had changed since he had last been there. The survivors were resting, and a vast quantity of bipedal ants were now sorting the dead. Fey processed the fallen soldiers before freezing them so they could be interred in proper graves. Meanwhile, the demons were being tossed into an ever?growing pile that was slowly being broken down by a number of slimes.

  But little of that mattered to Maximus as his eyes locked onto his target.

  The air itself felt heavy, thick with lingering mana and the metallic tang of blood. Even cleansed, the land remembered. Craters pockmarked the ground where ancient dragons had fallen, their outlines still faintly glowing with residual power. He could feel the pressure of it through his boots—echoes of sacrifice pressed into soil that would never truly forget what it had borne.

  “Antionette,” he greeted.

  “You have returned,” she noted with a nod of her head.

  “I finished talking to the other rulers,” he informed her. “Some will try their luck, but it is simply too much barren land for them to cross. So I found myself with some spare time.”

  Antionette tilted her head as she listened. “So you secured transport for all the dead?” she asked.

  “I have people working on it,” he assured her.

  “You have talked to the families?” she asked neutrally.

  “I have people working on it,” he responded less confidently.

  “You have set aside burial plots and gathered the necessary personnel to process the dead?” she continued. “And what of securing grave markers? Necromancers to perform the rites to prevent undeath?”

  Maximus was beginning to look like a scolded child.

  “What about compensation for the families?” she continued. She did not seem upset—just curious.

  “I suppose I could double?check on all of that,” Maximus admitted. “But after that, would you have time to join me for dinner?”

  “I am sorry,” she replied with a shake of her head. “Once we are done here, my father is throwing a party for Peter the Archdruid.”

  “And who might this Peter be?” Maximus asked.

  “Peter is the first druid of the Vitalmire Swamp,” Antionette answered animatedly. “Did you know he became an Archdruid by slaying the Demon King alone?” There was excitement in her voice. “Unlike the Demon Queen, the King had near?infinite regeneration!” she marveled.

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  “That sounds like it was quite the fight,” Maximus admitted.

  “He used his druidic power to stop it from moving before poisoning it and soaking it in acid!” she explained enthusiastically.

  “He sounds like a skilled combatant,” Maximus added dryly.

  “Not really,” Antionette admitted sheepishly. “He prefers cooking.”

  “Cooking?” Maximus asked.

  Suddenly, there was a flash of light and Rey appeared with a gaggle of druids. Antionette walked up to them, waving.

  “Hello, everyone,” she began. “Nice to meet you, Peter. I am Antionette. My father spoke fondly of you.”

  “He spoke fondly of you as well,” Peter the gecko?kin druid responded.

  “He did?” Antionette asked. “That is good. Did he send you to help?”

  “He did,” Peter admitted. “Told me there would be all the food I could eat once we helped soothe the land in the area. I can see we have our work cut out for us.” Peter let out a laugh that caused his large gut to bounce. “I will leave you to your duties, my lady. It would seem we have our own to attend to.”

  Peter signaled his druidic circle to follow him. The blood?stained soil turned soft and fertile as he tread.

  “He is so…” Maximus began.

  “Diligent,” Antionette finished. “He is equally dedicated to his duty as he is to his diet.”

  “Diet?” Maximus asked, looking at Peter’s girth.

  “Indeed,” Antionette said with a nod. “He eats very well—a good sign for both his wealth and his ability to cook. If he could not cook tasty food, I doubt he would eat so much.”

  Maximus could not believe what he was witnessing. Antionette appeared to be more interested in a gecko than a dragon. He could not wrap his mind around it. With a bit of focus, he attempted to identify Peter.

  Maximus almost choked.

  Peter also had the Unique Existence modifier.

  That revelation hit harder than Maximus cared to admit. Unique Existence was not a blessing handed out lightly, nor was it something earned through raw strength alone. It was a mark of possessing a unique quality that few if any before have shown. It was meant to signify an entity that reshaped the world around them. Maximus had always assumed such beings would be conquerors, emperors, or monsters. Not… cooks.

  “I think I will ask him to teach me to cook,” Antionette mused.

  “I have chefs in my city,” Maximus offered. “They could teach you.”

  “But Peter lives closer,” she pointed out.

  “I could send one to you,” he tried again.

  “I would not want to impose,” she gently refused. “That sounds like it would be a massive change in their life. I could never ask that.”

  If Maximus had hair, he would have been pulling it out. His draconic instincts bristled, scales itching. He had stood against Demon Queens, commanded legions, and watched nations bow, yet none of that seemed to matter here. Antionette treated him with the same polite distance she afforded everyone else—no awe, no ambition, no hunger for what he represented.

  It was unsettling. Dangerous, even. Not to him, but to everything he understood about power.

  He found his gaze drifting back to the druids as they worked. Where Peter stepped, life surged back eagerly, grass unfurling as though desperate for his approval. The land responded to him not with obedience, but with trust. Maximus clenched his jaw. That, he realized, might be far rarer than fear. He had no idea what to do. Never before had he met someone to whom his station, wealth, and power meant nothing. Somehow, he was being compared to a fat druid and losing. A dragon losing to a gecko. Maximus lamented within his soul.

  “I thought you were leaving to check on your plans?” Antionette asked, interrupting his internal spiral.

  Maximus cleared his throat and straightened his back.

  “Yes, I had best be going,” he admitted. “It was nice seeing you.”

  “I look forward to our next meeting,” Antionette said neutrally, bowing.

  Matthias activated his personal teleport gem and vanished. He had plans to make.

  Maximus refused to be outdone by a gecko.