The Iron Dragons: A Fantasy LitRPG (Dragon Kings of the New World Book 3)

by Dante Doom

  "It's coming in," O'Hara said as she clicked on a few things on her computer. "From the looks of it, we're getting the entire framework of these pods."

  "Beautiful," Sang said as she got on her own computer and began to access the files that were coming in. The USB system was designed to get as much data as it could and then transmit the information via satellite to the CIA's system. It was working perfectly.

  The schematics were interesting, and they were highly complex. Sang knew the moment that she looked at the way the pods were designed that it would have been a very difficult program to write. Yet, with her team of geniuses and copious amounts of coffee, she knew she could do replicate the technology. She was going to write a virus that would eliminate any Draco who was logged into the game.

  "I think we're going to pull this off," Sang whispered. "I think we're really going to destroy them all."

  "And that means I'm going to win two bets with Neil," O'Hara said as she kicked back in her seat. "Today is going to be a great day, indeed."

  Van stood before the Emperor, who was in his Draco form. The expression upon the scaled eyes of the creature conveyed only rage.

  "I do not understand how you logged out," the Emperor said, "but we are aware that the security team in your compound was poisoned. Fortunately, they have all recovered, but this raises a great many questions."

  "Hey, that raises plenty of questions for me, too," Van said. "My pod just randomly deactivated. I logged back in like five minutes later, soon as I could."

  "That is recorded as true, but I am wondering who forced you out. Is it possible that you have some kind of ally in there? Someone you're not telling me about?" the Emperor asked. The expression on his face indicated that Van was in serious trouble unless he could pull one over on the creature.

  "Hey, I thought you said you wanted to build up trust here," Van said. "I mean, what am I going to do, huh? What could I possibly do in that facility that would allow me to supplant you? You're the one who's got his finger hovering above the "destroy all humanity" button. Do you think I'm dumb enough to risk it all?"

  "That's the problem with you humans," the Emperor said, his expression never changing. "I can never tell whether you are being idiotic or brave. It's like you are hardwired to do incredibly stupid things in order to prove a point."

  "Well, I'm not trying to prove anything. The only reason it took me so long to log back in was that something weird was going on with my head after I was forced out of the world creator. It's like all of those years faded away and my memory realized it was just a trick."

  "Ah, yes, it's the same way that your brain clears dreams away. You're left with little more than vague memories of what felt like an eternity," the Emperor replied. He got excited for a moment. "I find it interesting that what stands out to me the most in those memories are the times when the monotony was broken up by something. I once created a physics system that used a fourth dimension, but accidentally changed some values and the entire universe collapsed on itself."

  "How did that happen?" Van asked.

  "Well, it was – " the Emperor stopped mid-sentence and looked suspiciously at Van. "You're trying to change the subject, aren't you?"

  "No, I was just being polite. Jeez, you are one paranoid lizard," Van accused him.

  "So you were up to something," the Emperor said. "Of course, you were. You're the hero of your people. How could you not? Well, it's not like I didn't anticipate you trying something. Perhaps a hostage will do more for the situation." The Emperor waved his hands, causing a cellphone to appear in his hands.

  "You are to call up your friend Sang and instruct her to log into the game," the Emperor said. "If she delays, I will obliterate this world, and you may tell her so. Now, I wanted to be civil with you, but you are forcing my hand. Your handiwork inside of the world creation system is unmistakable, Van. You are quite the asset, but by refusing to be honest, you are forcing me to bring in a hostage. Sang will be brought aboard this vessel and, should you suddenly log out again, she will be killed. Once I run out of people you love who I can execute, I will be forced to destroy this planet. Do not test my patience again."

  "Uhhh," Van said, "I really wasn't doing anything."

  "I don't believe you."

  "Fine, fine, but please don't destroy earth," Van said as he took the phone. He desperately hoped that Sang had the program figured out by now. If not, things were going to get really, really messy.

  The phone dialed for a minute before Neil answered. "Hello?"

  "Oh, hi, Neil," Van said. "I'm not really sure why it called you, but I need to talk to Sang."

  "She's busy," Neil replied. "Van, is that you?"

  "Yeah, it's me. Listen, I really need to talk to her," Van said, hoping against hope that Neil wouldn't mention anything that could be damning.

  "Sure, here, let me get her for you," Neil said. There was some rustling in the background and Van could hear them whispering to each other.

  "Hi there," Sang said, "good to hear from you, Van."

  "Yeah… hey, listen, I'm in a bit of a bind here. The Emperor has decided that he wants you to, uh, hang out with us for a while."

  "What?" Sang asked. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, you need to log into the game as soon as possible or everything goes to hell," Van said. "He's really not playing around."

  "You've got to be kidding me," Sang said. "Fine, I'll be right in."

  "Thanks," Van said as he hung up. He looked at the Emperor and shook his head. "She'll be in any moment now."

  "Good," the Emperor said. "Now, you weren't done building that world yet. Get back in there and finish it up. I really want to admire your handiwork when it is finished."

  Van sighed as he returned to the pod. Going back in there meant his brain would have to handle perceiving thousands of years going by. If Sang needed him quickly, his mind wouldn't be in the best shape to handle awakening from the pod suddenly. There was only one solution: he'd need to think about escape for as many decades as possible. That was the only way to ensure he'd be able to act when he was needed. Van climbed into the pod and looked at the Emperor.

  "See you in a few million years," Van said as the pod shut around him, plunging him back into a universe where he was a god.

  "Everything about this is going to suck," Neil said as Sang climbed into her own pod.

  "I know, I know, but Van was pretty clear about the consequences of taking my sweet time. The team should be able to figure it out without me. I did most of the work already," Sang replied as she laid back and tried to straighten herself out.

  "Well, what if the Emperor is just planning on murdering you in front of Van to make a point?" Neil asked. "Have you ever considered that?'

  "No, not until you brought it up," Sang replied. "Look, I'll be fine, okay? We just need to finish the hardcoding of the program and upload it into my items. If anything, this just lets us skip the step where we frantically try to get a program to Van without any guarantee that he'll receive it."

  "Well, please try not to die in there," Neil said as he grabbed the pod to shut it. "I don't wanna lose three bets to O'Hara today."

  "I'll do what I can," Sang said with a chuckle as the pod closed. The pod's cords snaked out and connected to her body, and quickly began to pipe information straight into her brain.

  The AI's voice chittered, "Welcome back to Dragon Kings of the New World."

  Hopefully, this was going to be the last time that Sang ever heard those words. She blinked, and suddenly she was standing in the Feast Hall where the tremendous dragon-slaying brawl had taken place. Everything had been repaired, the walls were back to normal, the tables were put back together, and there was quite a large amount of Draco people walking around.

  "Sang?" asked one of the creatures as it walked up to her.

  "Yeah, that's me," she said, feeling a little bit of nervousness. There was something so unnerving about this creature, and she didn't really know what to do with her feel
ings at the moment. The Draco were so strange to look at.

  "Please step atop that disk over there, and it will transport you to the Emperor," the Draco said. It gestured to a large silver disk that was floating in the middle of the room.

  Sang shrugged and walked over to the disk. She placed one foot atop of it and hoisted herself up. The platform bobbed up and down slowly.

  "This is kind of we – " her words were cut off as the disk rocketed toward the sky at full speed. She instinctively braced for impact, but she merely passed through the wall. She was in awe as she watched the world beneath her get smaller and smaller until, finally, it was nothing more than an orb beneath her. She was in space.

  Sang glanced around at the stars and the moon, in complete awe of the situation. This was definitely more interesting and beautiful than anything else in the regular game. As she gazed at the beauty of the universe around her, she saw the large Draco spaceship in the distance. The disk was taking her there.

  Tension rose up inside of Sang's stomach as she realized that the disk was hurtling towards the glass of the gigantic window. The disk buckled underneath of her then and threw her off, chucking her right into the glass. Fortunately, she phased through the glass without a scratch. She landed gracefully and looked around. There were Draco everywhere, working on the ship without relent.

  "It is nice of you to join me, Sang," said a Draco in a military uniform as it marched up to her. It was the Emperor, no doubt.

  "Well, it's not like I had much of a choice," Sang replied.

  "Hahaha, comments like that are why I like you," the Emperor replied. "If you were just a little less loyal, I would have certainly invited you to join Van in his mission. But alas, I know you well enough at this point to know that the only thing that could dissuade you from your mission is death."

  "Yeah," Sang agreed. "That is true. Even right now, I'm trying to figure out how to kick your scaly ass."

  "Well, I should hope that you fail in formulating the right plan," the Emperor said. "It would be embarrassing to have a hostage kill herself. The entire point of having a hostage is to motivate Van."

  "I certainly want to avoid being embarrassing," Sang said as she checked her UI. She had made some modifications to her pod based off of the information she had received from the schematics, and there was no way the Draco would be able to prevent the team from uploading items to her character directly. All she needed was for the virus to be uploaded, and then she could obliterate all of Draco with a simple click of a button.

  "In the meantime, I suppose it would be good for you to know the rules here," the Emperor said. "You are a hostage, not a guest. You will be restricted to a prison where you will wait until Van learns how to behave. You are to be allowed to log out every 3 days in order to refuel yourself, but should more than 12 hours pass without you returning to the game, well… let's just say it won't be Van's fault that the world is ending."

  "Yeah, yeah," Sang said. "Save your threats, General Jackass. I'll do whatever you want."

  "I might just find it interesting to sit down and find out what goes on in that mind of yours," the Emperor said. "I find it so refreshing, how much lip you are giving me, considering the situation. What is it about humans that drives them to double-down on their decisions? Why would you commit yourself to oblivion, just to spite me?"

  "Do you really want to know why?" Sang asked as she checked her Stealth skill. It was high enough to where she could probably sneak around on the ship and break Van out. "It's because there is one thing that can never be conquered. It's our ability to believe, no matter what, that we can prevail."

  "Riveting. Well, the prison cells are–" his words were cut short as Sang swept his legs out from underneath of him with a well-timed surprise kick. The words Sneak Attack, Stunned hovered above the Emperor's head as he thumped to the ground.

  "We will prevail!" Sang shouted as she ran off into the corridors. Much to her surprise, the Draco around her gave no chase. They all ignored her as she ran through the hallways. She took a sharp turn, only to see the Emperor standing in front of her. His arms were crossed and he didn't seem amused.

  "You honestly think you can try and stage some kind of a great escape? Do you realize, Sang, that you are trapped aboard a vessel with a god? This reality is of my own creation. You can try to run around as much as you like, but you cannot deny my power. I can revise reality as I see fit in this world."

  Sang frowned at him. "Can you blame me for trying?" she asked.

  "I suppose not," the Emperor said. He reached his hand forward and Sang felt an intense pain surge through her entire body. The words You Are Taking Nonlethal Damage appeared over her head as she watched her health bar drop down rapidly. The pain was so bad that she felt as if she were going to pass out.

  "Do you see what I can do with a simple wave of my hand?" the Emperor asked as he waved his hand again, causing the pain to cease. "You would do best to behave here. Now, go to your prison cell or face more agony."

  Sang felt a deep anger well up inside of her. The feeling of being helpless was agonizing, and perhaps far worse than the pain that she had been feeling a few seconds before. She wanted to fight back, to hurl insults and rage against him, but at the same time, he really did have the power to kill her. The first attempt at rebellion had been a simple test to see if she could get away with something, but it was clear that he would keep a tight fist around her.

  "Fine, fine," she said. "Where is it?"

  The Emperor pointed at a door behind her. "It's through there."

  "No one's going to escort me?" Sang asked.

  "You're smart enough," the Emperor said. "You'll figure it out. And if you try anything again, I'll simply torture you until you're ready to cooperate. Understand?"

  "Got it," Sang said as she turned around and walked through a steel door that slid open just as she got close to it. Finding the prison cell wasn't too hard, as most of the signs on the ship were in English for some reason. Perhaps the Emperor was readying the ship for more humans to work alongside of him.

  As Sang reached the prison cells, she noticed that they weren't particularly secure in any way. There were no guards around. There was just a large cell where she would be required to sit. As soon as she walked into the cell, which didn't even have a bed, a yellow field of energy appeared at the entrance, trapping her.

  Sang quickly used her hacking tools to analyze the security of such a force field. It wasn't too well programmed, from what she could tell, and bypassing it would be easy. Still, what was the point of bypassing the program? The Emperor would be on top of her the moment she escaped. No, she would have to wait and bide her time until it was the right moment.

  She slid down to the ground and began to ponder the plan. First, she would have to locate Van and free him from his pod. She wasn't sure if the virus would affect a digital pod, but she didn't want to risk it. Instead, she would have to break him out of his digital pod and then activate the item that was resting in her inventory. She would have to wait, of course. The hacking team that she'd brought aboard to work on the project was hopefully close to being finished. For right now, Sang knew that she had a little bit of time to wait. And so she waited, and prepared her mind for the fight ahead.

  The Emperor was smart, but as she had noticed in his conversations with Van, he was also prone to a lot of intellectual stimulation. Something within that creature craved conversation, and this desire had been strong enough for Van to convince the thing to change its entire operating procedure, just so it could have a partner in crime. The rest of the Draco were all infinitely different from the Emperor. Perhaps if Sang were able to convince these Draco to turn on the Emperor, it would buy her enough time to free Van and kill them all with the virus. Yet, could they be convinced otherwise? They were a strange collective, after all, and their loyalty to the Emperor was fierce. What could Sang possibly say to these Draco that would rile them up against the Emperor?

  As she sat and pondered the prob
lem, the doors to the prison area slid open as a Draco entered carrying a bucket and a mop. It began to clean the floors, staring blankly at the ground as it worked.

  "Why are you cleaning the inside of a fake room?" Sang asked the creature.

  "We all must clean," the Draco replied as it continued to work on the floor. "It is our task as given to us by the Leader."

  "That's weird," Sang muttered under her breath. She watched in fascination as it continued to work. Maybe this was her ticket out of here. "So, you're cleaning because the Leader told you to," Sang said. "Why do you have to listen to him?'

  "Everyone serves a function," he replied. "The Leader's function is to serve as a voice to our race. He provides order."

  "Does he clean?" Sang asked.

  "Negative," the Draco said as he continued mopping the floor. "He states that all of his energy must go to leading us."

  "Sounds pretty convenient, if you ask me," Sang said.

  "Those words are irrelevant. I am simply fulfilling my function, as is he," the Draco answered. It never ceased its work.

  Sang wrinkled her face. She recalled the long, spirited conversation that Van had had with the Emperor when she'd been in stasis in the throne room. She remembered the Leader's derision for the rest of his people and how they were so easily manipulated. How did he manipulate them? Maybe she could pull some strings on this creature and trick it into helping her find Van. After he found him and was sure that he was safe, then she could activate the virus and this would all be over.

  "His function is to tell everyone what to do, right?" Sang asked.

  "Correct," the Draco agreed.

  "Does he tell himself what to do?"

  The Draco paused from his cleaning and looked up at her. "No. That would be independence. No Draco can tell themselves what to do, for that is in our sacred laws. All for the good of all, one is the enemy of all."

  "So, who tells him what to do then?" Sang asked again. She could see the creature was now beginning to puzzle over her question.

  "I cannot answer that," the Draco whispered. He paused entirely from his cleaning and pensively leaned against his mop. "I fear that I do not know the answer."