Verren's gaze flicked to Marrow, limp in Elias's grip, the spear still hovering beside them, holding Marrow's severed arm—black goop dripping as the fingers kept twitching, trying to reach back to the body.
Verren didn't look at me when he spoke. He spoke to Elias, voice flat and direct.
"Take Marrow and fix him up before his arm forgets where it came from."
For a heartbeat Elias looked like he wanted to argue, a brief flash of anger crossing his face before his eyes shifted to me, clearly blaming me for it. He swallowed whatever he'd been about to say, gave a single nod, and moved.
He didn't run. He didn't leap. He was simply… gone—so fast my heightened senses tripped trying to follow him. The air where Elias had been displaced in a thin rush, like the room realized he was gone a half-second too late and rushed to fill the void.
Maybe he's not so simple.
My attention snapped back after Elias's disappearing act as Verren moved. He rose from his seat, then jumped down from his pillar to the center floor where I stood. He landed with a heavy impact that I felt through the stone, like he didn't care if it cracked beneath him. Then he straightened and loomed over me the way he always had. The difference was this time I didn't shrink under it. I didn't even lean back.
I stood defiant, claws planted, and refused to let his size—his posture, his history—turn my resolve into something smaller.
The pillar to my right, where Jonah had been perched with that dissecting stare, dropped down next. Unlike Verren, he descended with controlled precision. He landed without a sound, eyes already moving over me like I was still an interesting problem.
Then the other pillar—the elite I still hadn't properly met—shifted, the figure descended in a way that didn't feel like climbing or jumping.
A dark ribbon floated around their neck at first, relaxed and almost for show. As they reached the edge of the pillar, the ribbon moved.
It slid around her body in a smooth swirling motion, coiling downward before catching her foot, then unfurled beneath her like a staircase forming one step at a time. They walked down through the air as if the world owed her footing, each step with effortless elegance.
For a split second, there was something strangely charming about the motion.
My body even shifted like it wanted to step toward them before my mind caught up—an ugly disconnect, like something in me had reacted first and I'd only just been informed.
I killed the impulse immediately.
That was unusual.
When their feet touched the floor, the ribbon flowed up and around them, wrapping close like a dress made of shadow. They stared into my eyes without blinking, and the white glow in theirs intensified.
"We haven't officially met yet," they said smoothly. "My name is Hollis."
I looked at her intently. She was unmistakably a woman. On the outside she seemed calm, composed, almost relaxed. But something still stirred in me anyway—an instinctive warning, the kind that didn't come from fear so much as respect for a knife you hadn't seen yet.
"Nice to meet you," I said, cold and sharp, then paused just long enough to make the next word land. "Officially."
She grinned slightly, and I could just make out the faint edges of her smile through the darkness wrapped around her. But her eyes gave her away—like I'd done something she hadn't expected.
I held her gaze until Verren cut in, before the moment could stretch into something else.
He didn't look at Hollis when he spoke. He looked at me.
"For now, we will stay allies," he said coldly. "But I won't accept another mana crystal thrown away."
I didn't look away from him when I answered.
"And I won't accept being sent somewhere without all the information at hand."
We stared at each other. The room held its breath again.
Verren let out a small, controlled laugh.
"Good," he said, like he'd been waiting for that exact response.
His voice settled into something calmer.
"Now," he said, "it's time to tell you why we called you here."
He knelt down and planted his hand against the cold stone floor.
Darkness seeped off him—not smoke, not liquid, something stranger—and sank into the stone as if the castle had been thirsty. Cracks that hadn't been there a moment ago spidered out from his palm, filling with that same black substance I'd seen from the entrance.
I looked down, and for some reason I'd never noticed it before.
Faint symbols lined the center of the floor beneath the council space, worn into the stone so shallowly they looked like scars. They felt similar to what I'd seen in my spirit realm—the rune circle, the golden glow—but these were different.
As the black darkness consumed the cracks, the symbols flared to life. The ground rumbled slightly, not enough to throw me off balance, just enough to remind me the castle was not simply stone. It was a thing.
Then the floor began to rise.
Four small pillars rose first—one at each corner of a rectangle forming beneath us. Stone lifted in slow, deliberate increments, as if it was assembling something it already knew by heart.
Thin white lines seeped into the cracks running up each pillar, faint at first, then brighter—veins of light filling the grooves. Those lines stretched outward from pillar to pillar, connecting the corners. They didn't form walls like masonry. They reached like connective tissue, drawing straight, clean edges in midair before the stone followed.
Dark goo bled up along those glowing seams, coating the forming lines, thickening, hardening. The walls took shape as it solidified—stone and shadow knitting together until the rectangle became a defined space, built right out of the floor in front of us.
A few seconds passed, and the rectangle finished rising—its surface settling just above my eye level. I couldn't see what it held at all—only the faint light bleeding up from its center.
Hollis tilted her head, eyes flicking to the height difference like she'd just noticed it on purpose.
"Do you need me to get you a stool?" she asked, and a laugh tried to slip out with the words—caught, but not quite hidden.
Verren sighed. Jonah did too, almost in sync.
I didn't answer.
I took one step—and crossed the room in a blur. A chunk of stone still lay where Marrow's pillar had crumbled. I grabbed it, stepped back just as quickly, and set it beside the raised surface.
Then I stepped up onto it. The added height brought me close to Hollis's eye line. Close enough to make the point.
"I'm fine," I said, voice flat. "Thank you."
Her mouth curved again—small, pleased—like she was enjoying herself.
A light pulsed from the center of the raised surface, drawing my eyes in. I stared for a second, letting the lines and ridges resolve in my head.
A vivid, detailed relief of lands and regions I'd never seen, borders hinted at through terrain shifts, rivers carved like veins, mountains jagged as teeth. It looked impossibly precise.
There is so much unknown.
Then borders began to appear across the map, spreading like ink lines drawn by an invisible hand. Regions zoned off—some large, some small, some barely visible, as if whoever drew them hadn't bothered to pretend they mattered.
Names followed.
Most of them meant nothing to me. Strange, unfamiliar words that settled onto the land.
Then I saw it.
Valmere.
Then Rhydemar.
And small regions bordering them.
Those areas held a faint blue glow, subtle but distinct, like they were highlighted by the castle itself. Valmere and Rhydemar sat south of that blue glow.
I studied the map, letting my eyes trace the countless regions, the spread of borders, the way the world widened out in every direction. It wasn't just "a forest" or "a dungeon" anymore. It was a continent of problems.
I pointed toward the blue glow before my mouth caught up with my caution.
"Is this—"
Jonah interrupted immediately.
"This is where we are," he stated coldly. "This is your current territory."
Interesting. I should've felt pride seeing it marked. I felt exposed instead.
"I assume we have the eyes of the Mornaks stationed everywhere to thank for this."
Verren gave a small laugh, almost amused.
"Yes. This is the current known regions we have seen."
"There are many kingdoms and monster lord regions…" I said—and only after the words left my mouth did I realize I'd spoken them. The scale of it had pulled the thought out of my head and into the room.
"There is more than this," Jonah replied, tone blunt, "but our eyes only reach so far."
"But our main focus is what is currently on our borders," Verren interjected.
I nodded once, slow.
This map gives me valuable information.
I lifted my gaze from the glowing terrain back to Verren.
"This map helps a lot, but what was so important to call me back here?"
Jonah shifted his stance and stepped closer to the raised map. He placed his hand on it like he owned the world beneath his fingers, then dragged that hand north-east across the terrain.
A region lit up with a faint red glow.
It was larger than my territory by at least double, the border swallowing space with casual arrogance.
Jonah spoke without looking away from the map.
"This region is run by another monster lord," he said. "Similar in status to you, but controls larger areas to the north-east."
I should've felt threatened instantly. I didn't—yet.
"We have been tracking anything that enters your territory to see what the kingdom of Valmere would do," Jonah continued. "But to our surprise, it was something else that started moving into your territory before them."
My eyes narrowed.
My mind flashed to what the System had said previously about a bounty—one placed on me the moment I became a region lord.
I wonder if this monster lord wishes to challenge me.
Hollis spoke before I could.
"It seems our cute monster lord is about to be challenged," she said, the words coated in a playful tone that didn't match the room at all.
My eyes snapped to her.
Cute? The comment threw me for half a second—wrong-footed me in a way I didn't like—before my focus snapped back into place. The smile she wore made it feel like she'd done it on purpose.
"How powerful is this lord?" I asked, forcing my attention back where it belonged.
Verren answered without hesitation.
"It has been expanding its borders steadily for some time," he said. "Whether it seeks conquest or simply enjoys the battles, we do not know."
His gaze stayed on me.
"But it is stronger than anything you've faced."
I scoffed quietly.
That's a big assumption. Verren wouldn't know what I actually fought in the dungeon—or how dangerous the Riftscour really was.
But of course the first day back couldn't stay peaceful. I should've been excited to test myself. I felt annoyed instead, like something had interrupted a rare moment of breathing room.
Hollis cut in again, bright as a blade reflecting sunlight.
"As our lord you must protect us," she said with a laugh and a big smile, as if she were teasing someone over dinner rather than discussing what might be a fight to the death.
I looked at her coldly.
She didn't flinch. She looked pleased.
"Where is this lord?" I asked.
Jonah didn't hesitate. He stepped closer to the raised map and pointed inside the borders of my territory.
"Last location was here," he said, voice flat. "It moved quickly during the night. Not easy to keep track of." His finger traced a path across the terrain. "It kept a safe distance from our eyes—gliding through the dark, never close enough to be pinned down."
I watched the line he drew.
Then something else cut through my attention.
Not on the map. Not in Jonah's words.
A sharp, unfamiliar sensation moved through my senses, strong and steady in a way that felt different from everything else around me. My head tilted slightly back toward the exit of the council room as I focused on it.
I'd never felt anything like it before.
I wasn't sure how strong it was.
But I knew one thing immediately—the information was already outdated.
"Wrong," I said.
Jonah's head turned toward me at once, and the look he gave me made it clear he'd taken offense to that. "Wrong?" he said, his tone tightening. "How could it be wrong? What do you know about it?"
I didn't look at him.
"It's already here," I said quietly.
The room went still.
I closed my eyes.
I felt the uneasy shifting of all three elite Mornaks almost immediately.
Everything inside the castle started to fall away—pillars, stone, voices—until there was only sensation. My awareness stretched outward through the dimension, moving past the Mornaks in the halls, past the guards, and toward the threshold.
I tried to force my senses through the doorway like I was stepping out myself.
That was where it resisted.
Not a wall I could see—more like pressure, like my perception was being squeezed through something too narrow. The world blurred at the edges, detail smearing into noise as I strained to reach beyond the Mornak dimension.
But I still caught it.
A presence waited outside—imposing and controlled. I couldn't make out its shape properly, but I could feel its posture in the weight it carried. Its breathing was even too, assured in a way that made it feel like it had all the time in the world.
"I can hear it breathing."
Hollis's smile faded. Verren's posture changed—subtle, but instant. Even Jonah's eyes narrowed, calculation replacing offense.
They all looked at me like I'd just said something impossible.
Verren spoke first, voice lower. "Where?"
I stepped down from the stone and turned toward the exit of the council room.
"Outside," I said flatly, and pushed through the doors.