The scanner's hum had changed. It no longer pulsed with the steady rhythm of observation. Now, it screamed — a high, electric whine that sliced through the night air like a dying signal from a forgotten star.
Sam stood before it, eyes locked on the crude projection Tek had painted onto the stretched bark screen. The dots had moved. Where once there had been three slow-moving lights converging upon Crownhold, now there were seven. One of them — marked in red ink — had broken from the pattern and was descending fast.
"It's falling," Tek whispered. "Right over the spine of the Eastern Ridge."
Sam didn't respond. The air around him seemed heavier. His fingers twitched near the hilt of his twin Nichirin Katanas. The Crown System's interface burned behind his eyes, feeding him updates like a machine made of thoughts.
> Crown Alert: Protocol Shift — Passive Observation to Active Threat.
Signal Beacon Landed. Foreign object detected. Impact zone: 3.2 km east.
A white flash lit up the entire sky.
It was not thunder. Not lightning. Not anything natural. It was a flare of pure, blinding energy, and it came from beyond the clouds. From space. It touched the horizon in a shaft of light… and vanished.
Then came the sound. A boom — no, a roar — that rippled through the bones of every living thing. Birds scattered in shrieking flocks. Wolves howled in the north. The Shal'Ka people fell to their knees, clutching their ears.
Karun, eyes wild, stumbled toward Sam. "What was that? What just came from the heavens?"
"An envoy," Sam muttered, eyes never leaving the horizon. "Or a message."
He didn't say it out loud, but he knew the truth.
It was a warning.
He called for the council within moments. The sky still crackled with residue light as the elders gathered in the shadow of the central totem. Around them, the tribe formed a wide, whispering ring.
"This was no god," one of the warriors said, trembling. "It was a curse."
"No," Sam said, stepping forward. His voice didn't rise, but it carried through the silence like thunder in reverse. "It was a scout."
Karun's brow furrowed. "You mean one of them?"
Sam nodded. "Aliens. Not gods. Not demons. Beings of technology far beyond this world. That light was a marker. Something has landed. Something's watching us. And we have one day. Maybe less."
He turned to Tek. "Ready the Ashfall Protocol."
The boy's eyes widened. "You're activating that?"
"It's time."
---
While the others scrambled into action, Sam returned to the cave beneath his stone hut — the chamber he called the Forge of Thought.
Blueprints lined the walls — ancient mechanisms mixed with modern genius. His Virtual Workspace flickered into life the moment he touched the Crown embedded into his gauntlet.
> Inventory Accessed. Tools loaded. Energy Cell (74%). Scanner Module (Active).
New Module Available: Reinforced Perimeter Beacon.
Subroutine Suggestion: Defensive Encampment Mode.
Sam began blueprinting with mental gestures. His mind flowed like water — conjuring automated turret designs powered by concentrated sunstones, forging diagrams of motion traps triggered by weight differentials, and revisiting one he hadn't dared build yet: the Anti-Void Net.
He whispered to himself as he worked. "If they come, I won't just defend. I'll outthink them."
Behind him, a soft knock.
Tek entered, breathless. "Sam. There's more."
"What now?"
Tek held up a splintered piece of dark metal. "This came from the sky. From the flare."
Sam took it, eyes narrowing.
It pulsed. Once. A faint beat. The same 33-second rhythm.
But the metal wasn't just a shard. It was a key.
---
Night fell again like a curtain of steel. Sam stood on the outer wall, looking toward the black woods beyond the ridge. Nothing moved. Not even the wind. The trees themselves seemed to be holding their breath.
Behind him, the village buzzed like a machine — a machine he had built. The Ashfall Protocol had transformed Crownhold.
The watchtowers now glowed with thermal sensors crafted from molten ore and salt-lenses. Tripwire traps ran in rings around the village, coded to Crown sensors. Even the guards wore new armor: hardened bark soaked in resin and layered with woven copper threads that shimmered like scaled bronze.
But the fear was still there.
They trusted him, yes. Worshipped him, maybe. But deep down, they all knew.
This was the calm before something monstrous.
Karun approached quietly. His silhouette looked smaller in the light of the flame-poles.
"When I was young," he said, voice soft, "our tales warned of the sky-rivers breaking. Of stars falling and gods returning to harvest what they planted."
Sam looked at him. "You think they planted us?"
Karun shrugged. "Do you?"
Sam didn't answer.
He couldn't.
---
Morning came with wind.
Hot, foul, metallic wind.
And with it… smoke. The scouts returned pale-faced and wide-eyed.
"The impact zone…" one of them whispered. "It is not a crater. It's… a structure."
"What kind of structure?"
"Black stone. Shaped like a spire. Silent. But… watching."
Sam knew then that it had begun.
He turned toward Tek, who stood gripping his small bone-blade.
"I need you to do something."
"What?"
Sam knelt. "Take the glider. Fly east. Watch the spire from above. Do not approach. Do not engage. Just… watch. And return."
Tek hesitated. "You're sending me alone?"
Sam's eyes didn't waver. "You're the only one I trust."
---
The glider launched at dawn. Sam stood atop the watchtower as it soared upward, carrying Tek's silhouette against the copper sun.
The Crown System ticked in the back of his mind.
> Threat Escalation Level: 14%.
Estimated Time to First Contact: 26 hours.
Weapon Sync: Twin Nichirin Katanas (Charged).
Inventory Updated: Anti-Void Net, Pulse Beacon Launcher, Flame Braid Cloak.
He whispered to himself. "Let them come."
And somewhere beyond the ridge, in the shadow of the black spire, something blinked awake.
Its first words were not of war, nor peace.
They were simply:
> "Crown signal confirmed. Earthborne anomaly detected. Commence retrieval."
---
End of Chapter 14