The road did not lead to a town.
It led to a scar.
Kael sensed it long before he saw it—a tightening in the stillness, not from incompatibility this time, but from pain that had learned to endure. The land sloped downward into a basin ringed by broken watchtowers and collapsed walls. Smoke rose in thin, uncertain threads.
People lived here because they had nowhere else to go.
They called it Lowreach.
No banners marked its perimeter. No formations guided travelers in. What remained of the walls had been repaired with scavenged stone and desperation. Guards stood at the gaps—not trained soldiers, but men and women with hollow eyes and weapons worn thin by use.
They saw Kael approach and did not threaten him.
They watched him with the look of people who had learned that warning strangers often made things worse.
A woman stepped forward, hand resting lightly on the hilt of a chipped blade.
"Pass through," she said. "Don't linger."
Kael slowed. "Why?"
Her jaw tightened. "Because lingering gets noticed."
By whom, she didn't say.
Kael nodded and stepped inside.
Lowreach smelled of smoke and old blood.
Not fresh violence—repeated violence. The kind that leaves no shock behind, only routine. Makeshift dwellings crowded together, built from whatever had survived previous burnings. People moved quickly, heads down, eyes alert.
Children were conspicuously absent from the streets.
Kael felt the stillness inside him draw inward—not suppressing, not correcting.
Listening.
A man collapsed near a well as Kael passed, breath shallow, cultivation frayed and uneven. Others rushed to help him, lifting him without ceremony and carrying him away.
"Raid last night," someone muttered. "Took three this time."
Kael stopped.
"Took?" he asked.
The speaker flinched, then looked at him properly.
"They come every few weeks," the man said quietly. "Collectors. Harvesters. Doesn't matter what you call them."
Kael's gaze sharpened. "The yield stations."
The man laughed once, bitter. "Stations. Quotas. 'Necessary extraction.' Different words. Same result."
Kael followed him.
They led him to a cellar beneath a half-collapsed hall. Lantern light revealed faces marked by exhaustion rather than fear. These were not rebels. They were survivors.
An older woman sat at the center, her cultivation weak but carefully controlled, eyes sharp despite the lines carved into her face.
"You shouldn't be here," she said. "Not if you're alone."
"I won't stay long," Kael replied.
"That's what they all say."
She studied him for a moment, then frowned. "You don't feel like the others."
"No," Kael agreed.
A murmur rippled through the room.
"They take our cultivators first," the woman continued. "Drain them until what's left can't resist. The rest of us work to keep the quota down."
Kael felt something settle into place.
"This place exists because you endure," he said.
She smiled faintly. "Endure is a generous word."
Kael closed his eyes briefly.
The stillness inside him shifted—not outward, not aggressive.
It anchored.
"What happens when they come?" he asked.
The woman's smile vanished. "They're due tonight."
They came at dusk.
No warnings. No negotiations.
Three figures descended into Lowreach, their presence precise and measured. Not the same investors Kael had met before—but aligned with the same structure. Efficient. Detached.
The townspeople scattered with practiced speed.
Kael stepped forward.
The lead harvester noticed him immediately.
"Another anomaly," the man said mildly. "This region produces them often."
Kael met his gaze.
"You're taking people," Kael said.
The harvester inclined his head. "We're collecting surplus."
Kael took a step closer.
The stillness inside him spread—not suppressing the harvesters, not attacking them.
It severed assumption.
The harvester's technique faltered mid-activation. His expression tightened.
"What did you—"
Kael placed his palm lightly against the ground.
Lowreach responded.
Not violently.
Defiantly.
The exhausted land rejected the pull. The extraction arrays flickered, then dimmed.
The harvesters stepped back, startled.
"This site is compromised," one of them said sharply.
Kael looked at them calmly.
"No," he said. "It's finished."
They tried to escalate.
They failed.
Not because Kael overpowered them.
Because the system they relied on no longer found compliance.
Within moments, they withdrew—fast, unceremonious, abandoning their claim.
Silence followed.
Then breath.
Then sound.
People emerged cautiously, disbelief etched into every movement.
The older woman approached Kael slowly.
"You didn't fight them," she said.
Kael shook his head. "I removed the condition that allowed them."
She stared at him for a long time.
"Will they come back?" she asked.
Kael did not lie.
"Yes."
Her shoulders sagged.
"But," Kael continued, "they won't come the same way."
That mattered.
Kael turned to leave before gratitude could form into dependence.
As he walked out of Lowreach, the stillness inside him settled again—heavier now, more committed.
Resistance had not been polite.
It had been desperate.
And stillness had answered it.
Somewhere far away, systems adjusted.
And for the first time, those adjustments were not confident.