The Heroine is My Stepsister, and I'm her Final Boss-Chapter 171 - 172: Bargain.

Hours before the border burned, Aurora perched atop Berkimhum’s highest tower, her silver hair catching the wind like tattered silk banners. The cold stone pressed into her thighs as she sat cross-legged, motionless, save for the tremble in her jaw. Her eyes—twin shards of raw mana—glowed with strain, veins along her temple pulsing faintly. She was the medium, the living conduit for all communication in the kingdom now, her many trials finally bearing fruit. Not a title, but a torment.

The air smelled of scorched herbs and salt—the spell’s reagents burned nearby to keep her synapses from frying completely. Aurora blinked hard. Fifty percent of her brain was gone, hijacked by the web of threads connecting every outpost, soldier, scribe, and scout. Her thoughts swam in the hum of voices, thousands of them. Orders. Screams. Lies. Whispers. She had no silence anymore.

Once, only mages could whisper through the mana. But she’d shattered that law with the sharp edge of genius. A mistake, maybe. One her body now paid for.

Her voice hummed through the mana, sharp and clipped, reaching Atlas at the border. "The red dragon’s egg sends a stress signal when threatened," she said, each word dragging heat up her throat. "Only the mother hears it. The empire copied that signal, wove it into an echo spell. Simple but Brilliant."

The wind howled over the tower’s peak, slicing across her skin like razors. She leaned back, spine grazing the jagged edge of the parapet. Pain grounded her. Her fingers unconsciously traced the calloused scars on her knuckles—ghosts from her youth, from the nights spent shielding Atlas during his seizures, feeding him gruel by candlelight. She had raised him. Her storm prince. Her mistake.

Aurora’s voice crackled back, distorted, static-laced and edged with panic. " I needs proof—parts of their airships. I can’t just inform to your father just like that..."

Aurora’s heart thudded once—hard. Her eyes unfocused. "What! you are gonna do fucking what!!?"

"You’re luring the dragons," Aurora hissed. "You idiot, you felt it too during their attack at the capital...The mother of dragons...."

Aurora froze. She forgot to breathe. A pulse of raw mana surged through her spine, nearly snapping her tether.

"You know the mother of dragons will come? Then, it means....you’re giving up our land to them?"

Atlas’s voice hardened on aurora’s ears, iron beneath silk. "Better them than the empire. It’ll block their air attacks?...maybe, maybe you are on to something..." Aurora voiced.

Aurora let out a laugh, bitter and sharp. It hurt her throat. "You’re a piece of work. Henry’ll chew my brain out for this." Her fingers curled tight against the tower’s edge. Anger bloomed in her gut, cold and precise. "I sent you the spell copy thinking you were just curious. If we lose land to dragons because of this lunacy, I’m done. I’m totally done...."

"Do what you need....," She said, her voice softening. There was something else hidden beneath it—a plea, or guilt, maybe. "You are not called mad prince for a reason..."

Aurora snapped the connection. The mana thread cracked, vanished. Silence—true, painful silence—crashed around her like a wave. She sagged against the stone.

Above her, the bruised sky stirred. A shadow passed. She blinked upward, pulse hammering.

Loki.

His silhouette slid beside her, perched with the ease of a cat on the narrow ledge. His green eyes caught the dying light, a grin tugging at his mouth.

"Bet it was Atlas," he said.

She snorted, wiping a thin line of blood from her nose. "How’d you know?"

"He spreads stress like a plague. You wear it on your face."

He offered her a flask—plain steel, dented at the corners. She ignored it. The air reeked of ozone and old sorrow.

"I raised him," Aurora said. "Watched him grow from a scrawny, fever-prone orphan to... this. He’s mature, sure, but this? Luring dragons? The mother?" She shook her head, strands of silver hair slapping her cheeks. "The world’s shifting, Loki. After the dreaming ended, humans, beasts, monsters—they’re evolving. The mother of dragons sleeps eight months a year.

But now, she no longer sleeps, If she comes... we can’t fight the empire and her at the same time. We’ll be toast."

Loki didn’t smile. Not this time.

He rolled the flask between his palms. "Atlas thinks ahead. You know he does."

"I know," Aurora said, her voice suddenly small. "But he gambles too much. One day, his luck—our luck—will run dry."

Silence stretched. The clouds above curled like clawed fingers.

.

.

.

At the border, the night was a living slaughterhouse.

Dragon fire scoured the earth, painting the sky in streaks of crimson and gold. The air was thick with the stench of burning metal, seared flesh, and fairy core dust—a sickly-sweet tang that clung to lungs like ash. The ground trembled with every beat of the red dragons’ wings.

Atlas stood at the edge of the wreckage. His boots crunched over shattered crystal and melted steel. His Truth Eyes flared red, scanning, dissecting. His body pulsed with violent contradiction: the virus and Yggdrasil locked in ceaseless war. [Healing Litigated... process... healing continued...45 %]

His breath hitched. One lung wheezed. His ribs ached like glass slowly fracturing.

The empire’s camp —a marvel of military logistics—was now a graveyard of twisted airships and dying men. A jagged shard of an engine pulsed faintly behind him, its mana still flickering, like a heartbeat refusing to die.

Atlas turned his head slowly. Blood streaked down his jaw from his left ear. His golden eyes shimmered—half clarity, half madness.

"Damn," he muttered, dragging a breath through his teeth. "I did not think this through."

He looked at the point where Claire was stationed. The spell active through her. "I hope She can maintain it until the end....until SHE arrives again.

{{{....you again...}}}}

"Wait...hold on..let me deal with them first. "

{{{....?}}}

"We need to bargain a deal."

{{{Who are...you?....to make a deal....with me...after all you have done...}}}

"Cause I can give you what you lost..."

{{{.....?}}}