Tanya tapped her finger absentmindedly on the wood, the rhythmic beat echoing ever so faintly in the otherwise quiet room. It wasn't really out of impatience, more like a soft percussion to keep her grounded, her eyes wandering lazily around the chamber.

  They were gathered in what passed for a council room—though calling it that seemed almost arrogant. It was too austere for politics, too weighty for mere conversation. The walls were carved from thick slabs of foreststone, naturally grown with faint streaks of blue and silver laced through the mossy gray. There were no windows, but the room breathed—its ventilation subtle, as if the builders had accounted for airflow by instinct rather than design.

  At the center stood a round table. Tanya almost laughed at that. A round table—so poetic. So fair. As if the shape alone guaranteed some kind of unity or honesty. Yet it had a clear head. Naturally.

  Remus sat there, the undeniable axis around which the rest orbited. His broad frame rested like a tree trunk wrapped in fur and command. She couldn't see his expression from her angle, but she could feel the weight of his silence. Even in stillness, the man was a storm held taut behind eyes.

  Tanya's seat wasn't at the head, but it wasn't far. She had considerable placement—symbolic, maybe, or maybe earned. No one had bothered to explain it to her, and she hadn't asked. But people watched when she sat, and few interrupted her when she spoke, so the meaning wrote itself in tone and posture rather than words.

  The other elders were arranged around the table's curve in thoughtful silence. Their chairs were wide, built to accommodate various sizes—horned, tailed, clawed, or winged. She had no idea why. She could only think that at some point this room had also been used to host members of alternate races in discussion. The stone beneath each leg was worn from weight and time. They didn't speak often, these figures, but when they did, it shifted the rhythm of the village like a drumbeat through the canopy.

  And then there was the table itself—monolithic and dark, an obsidian-black stone base that merged into a flat wood surface. The grain was rugged and coarse, the brown-gray of old iron and deep mountains. Not the usual blue-green timber that made up most of the architecture around here. Tanya narrowed her eyes a little, running her fingers along the edge.

  Ironwood, she realized. She'd seen it before—used sparingly in weapons. Some spears, mostly ceremonial or elite-issue. It grew near the Iron Winds, wild currents that howled around the Hjeer race's territory. Midea had spoke of them they could tear a cultivator to shreds. He had struggled a lot getting through them while carrying her and her brother. She knew they were real but she ignored him because it seemed lke he was trying to guilt trip her. Regardless the trees there and around, iron winds in general grew dense and warped by the wind's kiss, their roots digging into stone, their bark harder than some metals. According to her studies, Bardo had been clamoring for more of it—quality materials always seemed in short supply.

  This wasn't cheap. This wasn't local. This table had been brought in or traded for. That alone made it mean something.

  Her thoughts drifted. She turned to her right, where Midea sat quietly, posture statuesque. His eyes were closed, arms folded over his broad chest, body so still that she could almost believe he'd turned to stone.

  Tanya tilted her head slightly.

  She had no idea if he was meditating or cultivating or adjusting his mindset or just doing that silent-brooding thing men with demons in their pasts always seemed to favor. It could've been some technique. It could've been for effect. She honestly wouldn't put either past him. Maybe both. Maybe neither.

  Whatever it was, it was nonsense.

  But then again, this whole world ran on nonsense.

  That being said, her bias—and instinct, truthfully—just told her he was pretending. Midea always struck her as the type who meditated more for optics than actual enlightenment. Still as a stone, sure. Silent and serene, sure. But her gut said he was posing. Probably imagining some ancient poem about fire and stillness or some other melodramatic garbage. Or worse—flexing his spiritual presence like a peacock without moving a muscle.

  Tanya's amethyst eyes drifted from his still form toward the window. A single pane carved from polished sand-crystal let in a soft glow. Dust particles floated lazily in the air, tiny galaxies dancing between the thin beams of light cast by the distant stars above. The stars here were strange—always moving, always sharp-edged and warm. They didn't twinkle like on Earth. They shimmered, like polished metal catching firelight.

  She could see much of the village from here. It lay in quiet disorder, alive but not loud. The walkways between the huts and longhouses bustled lightly with movement—people returning home, moving goods, finishing tasks, trading wares. Some practiced drills near the barracks, sweat glinting off their skin in the moon-glow. A pair of wolfmen sparred near a fire pit, fists flashing in the shadows. There was laughter. Somewhere, someone cursed loud enough to carry.

  But not everyone was busy. She noticed it, the way some of them just wandered. Unfocused. Lackadaisical, maybe. Or just adrift. After the day's tasks were done, some only had drink or brawls left on the menu. It gave the place a certain flavor—raw and wild, but missing a productive undertone.

  That would change soon. She had plans for that.

  Cards.

  Games, too. She was rolling out new systems in a few days. Ways to gamify work, to create value through play. To reward pattern recognition and risk. Systems that would give structure to idle hands and minds. But not yet. First, something else. First, something that had been kicked down the road for a bit too long.

  Tanya leaned forward just slightly as one of the elders spoke—his voice smooth but rich, bouncing slightly off the stone walls with the practiced rhythm of someone used to long debates and louder rooms.

  "Regarding the plan brought up by the Reification and Midea," Elder Ondallf began, adjusting the thick sash tied over his ample belly. He was rotund in a soft way—plump, not swollen—his eyes always a little too shiny and his robes always a touch too fine for the rest of the council. He carried a gravitas to match the weight of his frame, though, and he spoke with the patience of someone who enjoyed hearing himself just enough to pace his words.

  "In regards to gathering more shadowcores, and the procurement of potent beast-blood from both Featherlin and Nlvum—our hunters and soldiers have been successful. Quite successful, in fact."

  He paused, either for breath or emphasis.

  "It became a great deal easier with the paths rewritten by the Reification," he said, nodding slightly in her direction, though the man didn't react. "The vampyrs avoided us. Or rather—we avoided them. Cleanly, efficiently."

  Tanya raised a brow at that with a slight smirk. The vampyrs were never easy to avoid. Not unless you had a deep understanding of their territory shifts and feeding patterns—both of which were notoriously erratic. But then again, she had mapped them once. Deep inside the forest. She hadn't bragged about it not really but she was proud of that feat. Once you understood them things were more simple. Like picking out streams of order among the rivers of chaos. Or something to that nature. It seems her literary sense had been minorly affected by this cultivation civilization as well. Her skill in that area had gotten her, her current power. As strong as she was, her strength was far from absolute.

  In fact, she was quite wary of these elders—and of Remus most of all.

  It wasn't just caution born of newness or status. No, Tanya had stared down monsters that stood taller than war-beasts and moved faster than thoughts. She wasn't the type to be cowed by ceremony or hierarchy alone. But something about them—the stillness beneath the surface, the weight of old power they didn't need to flaunt—put her senses on edge. They were like old mountains. Weathered but not worn down. Quiet until they decided not to be.

  She hadn't missed the moment they first laid eyes on her. Their shock had been palpable, yes. But she had been shocked too.

  Hathor, for all his sneering cruelty and volatile aura, was apparently one of the weakest among them. Only at the first shackle of the Second Layer. That had stunned her. Because, loathe as she was to admit it… he could've killed her in a fair one-on-one. Probably. She wasn't entirely sure what it would take to actually kill her, not since her body had proved more tenacious than even she had known. But if that fight had gone just a bit differently—if her brother hadn't been there, if she had slipped once, if the flames had burned deeper—then yes. She'd likely have lost.

  After the battle, her body had undergone the strange post-traumatic adaption typical of her kind. The shifting sensation had flared, adapted, recorded, and responded. Her organs had been immolated—and in return, her body had become vastly more flame-resistant. Not immune, of course. She could still be hurt by all of Hathor's attacks, but it would take more to actually push through her defenses now. Where once the fire had consumed her from the inside, now it would scorch, sear, maybe even burn through flesh—but it would never spread like it once had.

  It had reached the point where even Midea, who rarely speculated aloud, had said there was now a real chance she could defeat Hathor—even without help from Tarak.

  A part of her wanted to believe that. To seize the compliment like a medal, polish it and wear it with pride. But Tanya wasn't so sure.

  Midea likely spoke from the perspective of life and death—who walks away, who doesn't. Not necessarily who "wins" in the conventional sense. Hathor, if nothing else, could likely do more damage to her in less time than she could to him. But thanks to her natural durability, the healing power woven into her very body. And her really good stamina better than cultivators who get worn out when they use too much numen, so she'd probably live. That didn't mean she'd win.

  At best, she figured, it would come to a draw. A messy one. Flames, blood, maybe a missing limb or two.

  And even that was only now—after everything. After surviving immolation. After rebuilding herself.

  So she set her current battle prowess at around first shackle of the Dao Carving Realm. A reasonable estimation, all things considered. Not her potential, but her practical capacity to fight someone with real technique and power. That was where she stood.

  And knowing Hathor was once one of the weakest elders in this room?

  That told her all she needed to know.

  This table wasn't just a council of wrinkled old men and women making decisions behind wood and stone.

  This was a room full of killers. And while they smiled and spoke in riddles and wrapped their speech in the softness of diplomacy, she wouldn't let herself forget that.

  Indeed, the thing was—of the seven remaining elders, ignoring Remulus and Remus—two were at the sixth shackle. One sat comfortably at the fourth, another rested at the third, and one more matched Hathor at the first. There was even one seated at the second shackle, a quiet presence who hadn't spoken much since the meeting began. As for Baya, she had once stood proudly at the seventh in her prime, and even now, her base hadn't fully collapsed. The decline in her cultivation had everything to do with the state of her body, not her will or experience. Even seated quietly with her cane and her trembling hands, Tanya wouldn't be surprised if the old woman could vaporize half the council hall if she decided to get frisky.

  Whether for better or worse, most of the elders had spent the last stretch of their lives tucked away in seclusion after Midea appeared. Retreat. Closed-door cultivation. The sacred hermitage. Whatever term you used, it all meant the same thing—retreating into the deep dark of their own minds and sitting in one place like cosmic squatters, refusing to engage with the world until something changed within. Cultivators loved their stillness. And they loved it long.

  Tanya thought about the old neets back on Earth. Shutting themselves in their rooms for years, wasting away while watching anime or playing virtual games until their muscles atrophied and the world forgot them. In some ways, the comparison felt offensive.

  To the neets.

  Because at least they didn't set themselves on fire while rewriting the very laws of reality in their bones.

  Because that was what these elders had done. Not just trained or meditated—they'd fully switched their cultivation path to the Solgaleo Sutra, the central sacred text of the flame-wrought sects. It enhanced their strength, certainly. And their endurance. And their destructive capabilities, from what Midea had hinted at. But it also bathed their internal numen in pure solar flame. Everything they touched became warmer, harsher, heavier. It twisted their elemental nature irrevocably toward fire.

  Which… maybe, possibly, in some convoluted logic spiral, was a good thing for her?

  She cocked her head slightly, eyes flicking toward the unmoving figures at the table.

  If every single one of these people used fire-based techniques now, that gave her a weird kind of advantage. A sliver. A narrowing edge. After surviving a furnace of hellfire or rather sunfire Midea would be insulted if she called it that- in her duel with Hathor, her body had evolved, become more resistant, grown new channels and defenses against flame. Though they could still burn her to ash likely enough.

  Even so perhaps, in a fight, she'd do better than someone else at her level would. If the time came.

  Still, it was humbling.

  No—it was brutal.

  To be back at the bottom of the ladder again. One of the weakest people in the room. Even though she had fought monsters, bent demons to her will, stared death in the face and come out hissing and burning. Even though she had survived the kind of battle that should have left her a charred husk buried in the earth. None of it mattered here. Here, she was outclassed.

  Again.

  But.

  She wasn't empty-handed.

  She had the old goat.

  Midea.

  She hadn't seen him fight at full power. Not truly. Not once. He always moved smugly and confidently like someone holding back ninety percent of his strength, just in case the walls couldn't take the force. Even when she'd trained under him, even when he'd crushed her with gravity and man-traps and scathing critiques of her posture, she knew it wasn't serious. Not even close.

  And Remus?

  The one seated at the head of the table like some cape-draped statue carved from volcanic rock?

  She hadn't seen him do anything. Not a single move. Not a huge flare of numen or a technique. He was a third layer at the spirit projection realm and she had never seen his spirit projection.

  Which, in and of itself, was probably more terrifying than if he had done something.

  Even Hathor, for all his madness, had shown off a few pretty destructive moves before his capture. His flame discs. His giant sun. The whip of boiling fire that had melted stone like butter. She could respect the destructive power in hindsight. Even if she hated him.

  But what the hell could Remus do?

  What was Midea hiding?

  Those questions lingered in the back of her mind like the glow of a dying ember—low, slow, and hot.

  Tanya shook her head, blinking herself back to the present, where dust still spun lazily in the starlight, and the elders murmured on. Some things would reveal themselves in time.

  Others, she'd drag into the open herself.

  "Yes," Tanya began, her voice clear and deliberate as she tapped her fingers against the rim of her chair once more. "I was wondering when we would be able to move onto this part of the plan in question."

  Her words rippled through the room like a dropped pebble into still water. The sound of shifting fabric, creaking chairs, the faint hum of wind outside the darkened window filled the spaces between her voice and their silence.

  "I've spied several spots along the topography of the surrounding areas—specifically on the routes I rewrote. They show clear bottlenecks, high brush cover, rocky elevation, and openings narrow enough to act as a chokepoint if fortified properly. Ideal places for trapping shades. If the formations are laid carefully, the risk is minimal. All of it's marked."

  Without pause, Tanya reached to her side. A soft rustle echoed as she unfolded several papers—thick, tan sheets etched in deep black ink, maps annotated with her dense hand and arcane shorthand. She passed them to a waiting servant with an idle flick of her fingers. The young man moved quickly, bowing as he went from chair to chair, letting each elder take their copy of the material. She could feel their gazes—some respectful, some skeptical, none dismissive.

  Across from her, a gruff sound came—half grunt, half breath.

  "As great as this is," came the voice of Skollf, tall and string though not quite Remus, his spine curved just slightly from the weight of responsibility and too much quiet contemplation. His face was angular, as though it had been carved from clay but left unfinished, with a long sandy brown beard twined with braids.

  "I feel as if we should wait before acting."

  He didn't look at her, instead staring at the map as though it might change under his scrutiny.

  "As extraordinary as the reification may be," he continued, "we have no way of knowing whether these routes are truly inviolable. No route is ever absolute, especially in a world like ours. To set up this formation would require significant manpower to be moved into the forest. That alone carries weight."

  The room stilled slightly. A low breeze whistled through the window cracks and stirred the light-blue braziers positioned in the corners, their flames licking the air in silence. Tanya's eyes didn't move from Skollf, but she heard the subtle shifting of Midea's arms across his chest as he adjusted—still silent, still playing the cold master or just deep in thought.

  "The Vampyrs," Skollf went on, raising his eyes to the room this time, "are one of the accursed races. There are reasons they've remained unconquered. We cannot fully comprehend their logic—nor predict the timing of their movements. There are gaps in this forest that even our senses do not reach."

  "And that's not to mention," came a heavy voice—Randalk. Thick in the neck and shoulders, the veteran warrior elder sat leaned forward, broad fingers steepled before him. He looked like he could crush a bear with his elbows alone. His exposed arms, clad in darkened furs and reinforced leather, bulged slightly as he exhaled, his every word like a hammer dropped on stone.

  "With Hati's advent," he rumbled, "we know the goblins have spies near the village. Eyes in the trees. Whispers in the wind. Whether they're moving against us or just watching, we can't tell. But they're there."

  He huffed once through his nose, the noise sharp in the otherwise quiet chamber. Even Remus, unmoving at the head of the table, blinked slowly in acknowledgment.

  "We could be under attack without even knowing it. Stretching our lines now, splitting the guard or hunter patrols to establish formations in the wild, exposes our walls. Our flanks. Our young."

  He glanced briefly at Tanya, his eyes unreadable. "I'm not saying the plan is bad. We all heard the reification's explanation."

  He tapped the table once with a single knuckle. The sound echoed.

  "But entering a confrontation with the goblins now? With the vampyrs stalking the outer mists? It's not a good idea. We need more time."

  She blinked slowly. Once. Twice. The soft violet gleam of her amethyst eyes reflected the braziers around the room. Her finger, which had gone still during the discussion, began to tap once more—faint, rhythmic.

  Were they trying to undermine her?

  That thought crept in, not sharp like a blade, but seeping like mist through cracked stone. There was no obvious confrontation in their tone—no sneering dismissal, no outright rebellion. And yet the words carried weight that curled like smoke behind their backs. What reason would they have? Her plans had already been accepted, formally and verbally, by Remus himself at the courthouse. The chieftain hadn't simply nodded—he had given his approval in public. For the elders to attempt to block her now would be a strange kind of defiance. Slippery. Political.

  It wouldn't be enough to stop the plan entirely. She knew that.

  No, this wasn't sabotage. Not outright. Even if some among them still smarted from what happened with Hathor, even if whispers of that battle still echoed through the village with a hundred different flavors of retelling—from awe to fear to petty disbelief—they wouldn't dare attack her credibility so directly. Especially not when her plan brought a net benefit to the village.

  This delay, this murky pause disguised in rational tones and careful reasoning—it wouldn't stop the project. It wouldn't damage her growing prestige. If anything, it would spotlight it. The plan would go forward eventually. That much was inevitable.

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  Which meant... this was something else.

  Were they trying to buy time?

  That made more sense. She leaned back ever so slightly in her seat, her gaze sharp now, more calculating than annoyed. If they feared the breadth of her influence—and they had reason to, given the rapid consolidation of credibility around her name—then yes, perhaps they needed time. Time not to sabotage, but to make their own moves. To craft their own plans. To contribute visibly. Something they could hold up to Remus like a shield—proof that they were still vital. That their wisdom was still relevant. That they too could protect this place, not just the young bird girl who burned down one of their own.

  Yes. They wanted political counterbalance. Not war.

  Or—her eyes narrowed slightly—they wanted both.

  Tanya was no fool. She'd already been steeped in the unspoken language of power long before she learned how to mold flames and blood. They didn't need her to fail. They just needed to not be forgotten.

  Skollf, elder of the hunters. Randall, elder of martial defense and wartime readiness. Both were respected. Old enough that their strength was steady, cultivated. Enough so that their posturing wouldn't be some desperate grasp at relevance. They were second layer elders, and second layer meant power—power that could bend trees and send shockwaves through the land. They weren't arrogant children trying to claw their way up a ladder. They were lions pacing their territory, making sure no new beast claimed the sunlit rock without resistance.

  Which meant...

  Her eyes flicked across the table. The flicker of flamelight caught the edges of the ironwood, illuminating the maps that lay in front of the elders. Her fingers stopped tapping.

  If her routes were viable—and they were, her rewritten maps ran like veins through the forest's most elusive arteries—then perhaps Skollf and Randall wanted to use them for a different purpose. Perhaps they planned to send a separate excursion. A long-range strike team. An elite scouting unit. Something meant to uncover hidden relics, ancient structures, bloodcore deposits, or long-forgotten beasts still curled in the dark.

  Leverage.

  They would use the routes she carved with thought and vision as highways for their own glory. Not to take credit—but to regain it.

  Alternatively, perhaps they feared the coming of something. Perhaps they had intelligence she had not yet been made aware of. A hidden movement among the goblins. A shifting in the deeper woods. Some vague prophecy or secret passed among the elders that made them hesitant to risk any large-scale movement from the village right now.

  Whatever the case… this wasn't about stopping her.

  It was about positioning.

  She glanced toward Remus. The old man's face was unreadable, unmoved, still sunk back in the great chair carved of old treebone and old gray stone. As far as she could tell, he hadn't moved once during the entire conversation. His gaze sat somewhere between dream and piercing clarity.

  She turned her eyes downward, hiding the faint twitch at the corner of her mouth.

  If they thought politics would slow her, they'd chosen the wrong opponent.

  After all, she'd played games like this long before she could wield a flame.

  Were they trying to buy time?

  Probably.

  Were they trying to buy glory?

  Almost certainly.

  Were they trying to do both?

  Yes. Yes, she thought. They were.

  "This plan was made with the intention of getting goblin forces off our backs."

  Baya's voice cut through the chamber with a commanding resonance that belied her physical frailty. The rasp in her throat was tempered by iron. Her gaze swept across the table like a drawn blade, first settling on Skollf, then flicking toward Randall, and finally turning toward the elder who had just spoken. "There's no point in saying goblin forces could attack in that case." Her lip curled, just slightly. "That would be the very purpose of executing this—to prevent that attack."

  The stone walls seemed to hold their breath as her words settled. Dust drifted in slanted shafts of light through the high windows, catching the flicker of torchflame. Even Remus, silent as always, tilted his head faintly in her direction, though his expression didn't change.

  "Not to mention," Baya went on, her words slower now but sharper for it, "we will be sending out Midea and the equivalent of two elders for this plan. Or do you believe the goblin chieftain would move to stop us directly?"

  Her eyes narrowed.

  "No spy has infiltrated the village," she said with certainty. "In truth, that was why they used beast-drawing powder to suss us out. To test the scent of our blood. If we were compromised, they would not have wasted such a rare resource. They would have simply struck."

  Her stare lingered just a beat longer than was polite, then drifted back to the center of the table where Tanya's maps lay unfurled, the delicate lines of rewritten paths sketched in a hand steadier than a war map had any right to be. Tanya didn't speak. She didn't need to. The elder's defense of her work said more than words would have.

  A few chairs shifted. An elder coughed softly into his sleeve.

  "Yes, yes, we understand, Elder Baya," another of the robed elders said, his tone carefully smoothed like river-washed stone. He leaned forward slightly, both hands lifting palm-upward in a gesture of peace, submission, or at the very least, political deflection. His long hair—once deep auburn, now streaked with coal-grey—hung loosely past his shoulders. His face bore the kind of tired wisdom that had long since learned to speak with honey when iron would get you killed.

  "But think of the implications," he continued, his voice calm and dry as old parchment. "Even if we start now, can we really guarantee the support of the other clans?"

  A murmur moved faintly through the room—nothing said, only the suggestion of breath and the soft creak of chairs as eyes shifted.

  "And doing so…" he exhaled slowly, as if reluctant to finish the thought, "could stir the goblins prematurely. Force a confrontation. We have just begun to find our footing again after the incident with Hathor. The people are still watching us. Our hunters are stretched thin. There may be threats in the shadows. I'm not sure," his gaze drifted toward Remus, respectful, "we can bear a all out war."

  He let the final word drop gently into the silence that followed, like a stone into deep water. Let it ripple. Let it echo. Let it seed doubt without accusation.

  He kept his hands raised, calm as a priest, as if to say—I'm only trying to preserve us.

  Tanay sighed at that and the she spoke.

  "To my understanding," Tanya began, her voice calm but carrying, the sort of clarity that cut through a room without needing to rise, "the goblins have an overinflated population when compared to the Canid Clan."

  There was a pause as eyes turned to her—some wary, some interested, some unreadable.

  She leaned forward, fingers steepled on the edge of the dark ironwood table, the smooth polished surface reflecting the faint flicker of the torches above and the light of the suns. Dust still danced in the high air, golden particles caught between the breath of old stone and flickering firelight. Her amethyst eyes—quite literally alien in this world—caught and held the glint of it. Not many spoke with such certainty here, especially not to elders, but she had grown past the point of fear. What was the point of growing strength if it wasn't to speak freely?

  "Not only that," she continued, "but without such a wall, they live in more dangerous conditions. The goblin village lacks even a true great wall. Their defeses cannot compare to this relic left by your ancestors and enhanced by Midea, they do not ocmpare. Not to mention the fauna is harsher in that stretch of the forest, isn't it?" Her gaze drifted, just for a moment, toward Skollf and Randall, who had earlier voiced concern. "There's a Snavine nest not far from them. And I believe most of us know what happens when those spawn."

  A few of the elders stiffened, a shadow flickering across their expressions.

  "From my understanding of goblins," Tanya went on, "they survive not on strength alone, but on trade. On cunning. They rely on imports and cross-border deals, not self-sufficiency. Their society is shaped by survival and manipulation, not dominance. Their resources include fertility stimulants, strange powders, niche poisons, their shadowcore technique, and their mastery of forest paths. But that's it. That's their edge. The breed fast and they are sneaky."

  She tapped one finger against the table. Once. Twice. It echoed faintly.

  "They made aggressive moves because something—or someone—has changed. Wolvenblade showed weakness with the huge influx of Vampyrs. And like the scavengers they are they moved when they smelt blood in the water."

  A beat passed. Several elders narrowed their eyes. Tanya didn't smirk, but she didn't soften her words either. Truth held power here.

  "They took the gamble because they had leverage," she said, voice lowering slightly. "Shadowcores are too valuable. They have an effective monopoly on a resource essential for survival and growth. That gave them courage. Even if Wolvenblade struck back, it's not like you could eliminate them entirely. Forest warfare doesn't work like that. But…"

  Her eyes gleamed now, reflecting the glow of a torchflame near the window. Outside, the light of the seven suns bled across the horizon, streaming down into the room in slivers, painting her expression in radiant hues.

  "In my experience," she said, "if they're trying to take us down, that means they're ramping up for war. Maybe not just with us. Maybe they need more cores for something larger. Maybe they're expanding—growing bold, growing desperate. And if they are, then the villages and forces that trade with them?" She spread her hands slightly. "They're likely being bled too. Shadowcores priced higher. Demands increased."

  She let that hang, just long enough for the implications to weigh heavy.

  "There is nothing in this world more important than benefits," she added. "Not for most living beings. The world runs on profit. Always has."

  Her tone remained steady—level and firm—but her eyes sharpened, like polished crystal. "They weigh the costs. They measure the odds. They calculate what they can lose, and what they stand to gain. If we sell cheaper, if we undercut them with superior product, superior people, and superior reputation…" She lifted her chin slightly, catching Remus's unreadable gaze at the head of the table.

  "I can near guarantee," she said, "the plan will work out just fine."

  Tanya's eyes glinted underneath the myriad light of the seven suns.

  "I understand where you are coming from," Midea finally spoke, his voice calm yet possessing that eerie steadiness that never quite settled right with those unfamiliar with him. His eyelids lifted slowly, and with that same infuriatingly unreadable smirk curling his lips, he cast his gaze over the table. "However, it is better to act now."

  The shadows seemed to cling to his words, almost as if the firelight dimmed slightly in response. Tanya could feel the shift. The air in the room, already dense with tension, thickened further.

  "One does not duel with a dragon with sand in their boots after all," he said, folding his arms in a loose, confident gesture. "Get rid of the smaller goblins before anything else can be done. And the extraordinary part of this plan," his gaze flicked toward Skollf and Randalk, "is that the other villages will also help in their suppression."

  Midea's tone didn't rise, but it didn't need to. His presence alone carried the words with the weight of experience.

  "They may not fight the goblins directly," he continued, "but their presence alone—and the severing of resources—will distract them. It's better that this does elevate to actual conflict across their borders. Divide their attention. Fracture their focus. If they're busy trying to patch up all the cracks in the dam, they'll have no time to worry about Wolvenblade. And we—" he tapped the table once, with two fingers, "can focus on what actually matters."

  Tanya's mind didn't wander—but it did race. She was many things, but slow was not one of them. Not anymore. Not since her rebirth, her inheritance—whatever the correct term was. She had been human once, and she had been Tanya. But now she was something more, someone else, someone reborn in the fire and pain and power of Surya.

  She was not slow, and she listened.

  And what she heard between the lines didn't sit right.

  They were circling around something. Skollf's hesitation, Randall's huffing caution, the extra elder's supposed concern—it was too neat. Too conveniently timed. Her instincts whispered that there was something larger stirring in the undercurrent of the village. Something significant. Something important enough that even the elders, men and women with shackle-level strength and decades of cultivation, were wary of dividing attention—even when a golden plan lay before them.

  Something was going to happen in Wolvenblade. Soon.

  Something that made even a plan that exploited their enemies' weakness… feel risky.

  But what?

  Tanya leaned back slightly, eyes narrowing as her amethyst gaze studied the others. Not suspicion exactly—calculation. She didn't need to know everything yet. She just needed to be ready. The mind was a battlefield just as real as any training ground. And in this room, power wasn't just defined by how much force one could throw—it was what you understood before anyone else.

  A rustling of movement pulled her attention. At the head of the table, Remus finally stirred.

  "Enough."

  The word was soft, but absolute. It cut through the murmuring thoughts like the slice of a honed blade. All conversation ceased immediately. Even Midea's smirk grew a shade more subdued as all eyes turned to the clan chieftain.

  "We will do as we said," Remus declared, voice low and deep, the weight of his presence pressing subtly into every corner of the room like a silent wind. "Tomorrow night, we will move and create the formation to attain shadowcores."

  His hand curled slightly against the table, veins pulsing just faintly beneath his skin.

  "I agree with the sentiment," he said. And then, almost like an echo cast from stone, "One cannot fight a dragon with sand in their boots."

  Ever since the night she became the Reification, Tanya had noticed a shift in Remus. Subtle at first—like a current beneath calm waters—but increasingly clear the longer she observed him. He was no longer playing the neutral game. No longer sitting in the middle like a piece of seaweed drifting with the tide, swaying to keep balance between opposing forces. That had been his habit for what seemed like centuries—appeasing, pacifying, absorbing the storm without ever confronting it directly.

  But now?

  Now his decisions cut like stone. No more soft negotiations or layered delays. No more carefully positioned neutrality. He moved like a blade honed toward a purpose. Not toward any particular side—not her, not the elders, not even Midea—but toward the village. That was what mattered to him now. Not legacy. Not posturing. Not dominance.

  Progress.

  Tanya had seen that look before. Not in generals, not in emperors, not even in tyrants.

  She had seen it in the tired eyes of battle-worn lieutenants. In subordinates who had bled too long and buried too many. Who had seen too much, survived too long, and lost the patience for politics. The kind of men who no longer cared about the lines drawn in the sand, only that something moved. That something changed.

  Her amethyst gaze slid across the table again, resting momentarily on Midea, who now sat with one leg crossed over the other. His arms rested casually, but his expression was as unreadable as ever.

  Then, he spoke.

  "Those of the Deluvian type would tend to be the ones who weaken themselves to fight with opponents," Midea said idly, his voice low, with a bit of amusement and reminiscence. His crimson eyes trailed lazily across the ceiling, almost as if recalling a memory not quite his own. "Rather than the other way around."

  He blinked slowly. "They do love boasting about that. They have a reputation for it."

  "The Deluvi—?" one of the elders began, brow furrowing as they leaned in with interest, clearly unfamiliar with the term.

  And then—

  BOOOOMMM!!

  A thunderous detonation split the air.

  The entire room shuddered, a low reverberation rolling through the stone walls like the deep bellow of some ancient beast awakening from its slumber. Dust cascaded from the corners of the ceiling. Ironwood chairs scraped back instinctively. Servants stumbled and gasped. Scrolls and carved pieces on the table rattled violently against one another, some tumbling to the floor.

  Tanya's body snapped alert—not surprised, but ready. Her fingers clenched the armrest, the gold in her veins humming faintly as she twisted toward the sound. Her eyes darted toward the crystalline windows, where a faint shimmer of light—red, bright, and unnatural—pulsed briefly beyond the ironwood walls like a heartbeat against the night.

  Midea was already standing. Calm, focused, the strange energy from earlier all but vanished. He dusted nonexistent debris from his sleeves, lips parting slightly as he turned his full attention toward the now-echoing silence left in the wake of the explosion.

  Remus had not moved a muscle. His hand, still resting on the table, had cracked the ironwood beneath it. His eyes were open—glowing slightly beneath his brow, unreadable and piercing.

  The elders were already rising to their feet. Baya growled something low beneath her breath. Skollf's nostrils flared. Randalk had instinctively reached for a weapon he no longer carried at council.

  That sound—that blast—was not ambient. It wasn't a collapsing roof or a forge mishap or some ill-advised game of beast-tag gone wrong. No, that sound was intentional. Focused. Destructive. And it wasn't far.

  Three possibilities coursed through her mind like quicksilver, her thoughts threading through cause and consequence at a blistering pace.

  First possibility the goblins are attacking. Bold, but improbable. Suicidal, really. The vampyrs flanked their borders, and even with their renowned mastery of forest warfare and shadowcores, their individual combat strength paled in comparison to Wolvenblade's and they ran the risk of provoking the pack creatures. The wall still stood—unchallenged—and from what she could tell, the blast had been singular, not the scattered chaos of a siege. Goblins were methodical in their swarming, according to her studies. This felt... different.

  The second possibility the vampyrs themselves. That made her stomach tighten. Vampyrs were day-shy, but not truly hindered by the sun in all cases. And if a powerful one had decided to bypass the roads and launch a focused strike, that would explain the strength behind the explosion. Still—no alarms? No guards shouting? No scent of blood on the air? Her ears twitched, straining. She heard nothing. No whispers. No movement. No chaos in the village outside the chamber. And more importantly, vampyrs rarely acted so out of character. Not without protracted warning or some dark omen.

  Third possibility—and the most likely. A second layer cultivator within the village just made a very big noise.

  And that narrowed it down to a terrifyingly short list.

  All the elders were in this chamber. All of them—save Hathor, who was still locked away, deprived of numen flow and restricted in movement. Remus hadn't moved. Midea was here. The elders? Present. Baya? Present. Midea again? Still here. Every known second layer was accounted for.

  Except one. Or a being rivaling one.

  Her eyes widened.

  The only other being in this village with the raw, unrefined might to shake the earth like that was—

  "Tarak!"

  "Tarak."

  She and Midea spoke at once, their voices overlapping with a strange resonance. The moment their words aligned, their eyes snapped to one another, sharp with mirrored understanding.

  Midea moved before she could, already turning on his heel, cloak swaying behind him. His stride wasn't rushed—but it was direct. Purposeful. Tanya was moving a second later, her amethyst eyes burning with urgency.

  The elders were shouting behind them—questions, theories, reactions tumbling over each other in a mess of startled voices—but Tanya had already tuned them out. She wasn't interested in their confusion. She wanted to know what had happened. Not if it had happened. But what.

  Tarak, she thought again, her jaw clenched.

  What did you just do now?