Aarav woke to the smell of cooking grain.
For a disorienting moment, he was back in Vayuna—his mother in the kitchen, the familiar scent of morning meal filling their apartment. Then the rough straw of his sleeping mat pressed against his back, and memory crashed over him.
The white void. The screaming pillar. The valley of ruin.
He sat up quickly, his body aching in ways it hadn't since his academy training days. The hut was dark, but through the gap in the door, he could see the gray light of predawn.
[ AETHEL - DAY 2 ]
[ LOCAL TIME: 05:47 ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ HOST: AARAV OF ORION ]
[ TERRITORY: THE UNTAMED VALLEY ]
[ MANA POOL: 55/1000 ]
[ EVOLUTION AVAILABLE: 1/1 ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Eight mana recovered overnight. At this rate, full recovery would take nearly four months. He couldn't afford another expensive evolution for weeks.
Unless I choose cheaper targets.
He pushed himself up and stepped outside.
The valley was waking. Several of the healthier survivors were already moving toward the evolved wheat field, staring at it like pilgrims at a shrine. The grain practically glowed in the early light, heavy and golden and impossibly abundant.
"Lord." Varen appeared at his side, looking like he hadn't slept. "The field... it's still there. Part of me thought it would vanish at dawn."
"It's permanent." Aarav walked toward the palisade, Varen falling into step beside him. "What's our biggest problem today?"
"Besides the goblins?" Varen's voice was grim. "The wall. It won't survive another raid. And with the field drawing attention..."
He didn't need to finish. Goblins could smell abundance like sharks smelled blood.
[ AETHEL - THREAT ASSESSMENT UPDATE ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ BROKEN FANG TRIBE ]
├─ ACTIVITY: INCREASED (SCOUTS DETECTED)
├─ PROBABLE RESPONSE TO WHEAT FIELD: +37% AGGRESSION
├─ REVISED TIME TO OFFENSIVE: 10-14 DAYS
└─ RECOMMENDATION: IMMEDIATE FORTIFICATION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Ten days. Maybe less.
Aarav reached the palisade and studied it with fresh eyes. Rough-hewn logs, driven into the earth and bound with rope. In some places, the wood had begun to rot. In others, gaps large enough for a goblin to squeeze through.
[ AETHEL - ENTITY ANALYSIS: PALISADE ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TARGET: WOODEN PALISADE
├─ CURRENT RANK: E (SIMPLE)
├─ INTEGRITY: 60% (40% DAMAGE)
├─ MATERIAL: UNTREATED TIMBER
├─ HEIGHT: 3.2 METERS (INADEQUATE)
├─ DEFENSE RATING: 23 AGAINST GOBBLIN ASSAULT
├─ PROJECTED SURVIVAL TIME UNDER FULL ASSAULT: 47 MINUTES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ EVOLUTION SIMULATION: E-RANK → D-RANK ]
├─ PROJECTED MATERIAL: REINFORCED HARDWOOD (TREATED)
├─ INTEGRITY: +200%
├─ HEIGHT: 5.5 METERS
├─ DEFENSE RATING: 78 (+239%)
├─ SPECIAL: SELF-REPAIR (SLOW)
├─ MANA COST: 220 UNITS
└─ CURRENT MANA: 55/1000 (INADEQUATE)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He couldn't afford the wall. Not yet.
"Varen, gather every able-bodied person. We're reinforcing the wall manually. It won't be enough, but it'll buy time."
"And then, Lord?"
Aarav looked toward the eastern tree line, where the howling had come from last night. "Then we find something cheap to evolve that can kill goblins."
---
The day passed in brutal labor.
Aarav worked alongside his people—cutting new logs from the small grove within the valley, dragging them back, lashing them to the existing wall. His hands blistered. His back screamed. But he didn't stop.
The Orions had a saying: A leader who eats while his people starve will find his plate empty when he needs them most.
By evening, they had added thirty percent more height to the weakest section. It wasn't enough. It would never be enough.
[ AETHEL - TERRITORY UPDATE ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ PALISADE ]
├─ INTEGRITY: 71% (+11% FROM MANUAL REPAIR)
├─ PROJECTED SURVIVAL TIME: 68 MINUTES (+21 MINUTES)
└─ NOTE: MANUAL FORTIFICATION CANNOT MATCH EVOLUTION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Twenty-one extra minutes. Against two hundred goblins.
Aarav sat by the fire that evening, eating a bowl of the newly abundant grain porridge, and tried to think. He had one evolution per day. He had ten days at most. He needed to choose targets that would multiply his defensive capability exponentially.
The wall costs 220 mana. I'll have maybe 150 by the time I can afford it. What costs less? What gives more?
[ AETHEL - EVOLUTION COST DATABASE ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ CHEAP EVOLUTION TARGETS (F-RANK → E-RANK) ]
├─ HUMAN SOLDIER: 80-120 MANA (VARIES BY POTENTIAL)
├─ BASIC WEAPON: 40-60 MANA
├─ WATCHDOG: 70 MANA
├─ HUNTING TRAP: 30 MANA
├─ TORCH (AS WEAPON): 15 MANA
└─ NOTE: MANA COST REFLECTS EVOLUTION COMPLEXITY
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Soldiers. He needed soldiers. But evolving one soldier at a time would take too long. He needed something that could fight many.
His eyes drifted to the old watchdog, lying by the fire. She was watching him with cloudy eyes, her tail giving a weak thump against the ground.
[ AETHEL - ENTITY ANALYSIS: WATCHDOG ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TARGET: UNNAMED WATCHDOG
├─ CURRENT RANK: F (FRAGILE)
├─ AGE: ELDERLY (5-7 YEARS BEYOND LIFE EXPECTANCY)
├─ HEALTH: POOR (ARTHRITIS, DIMINISHED SIGHT, WEAKENED HEARING)
├─ LOYALTY: ABSOLUTE
├─ COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS: 8% OF PRIME
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ EVOLUTION SIMULATION: F-RANK → E-RANK ]
├─ PROJECTED OUTCOME: DIRE WOLF (JUVENILE)
├─ HEALTH: FULLY RESTORED (+ REJUVENATED)
├─ SIZE: 2.3x CURRENT
├─ COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS: 340% OF PRIME PRIME
├─ INTELLIGENCE: ENHANCED (CAN UNDERSTAND COMPLEX COMMANDS)
├─ LIFESPAN: +15-20 YEARS
├─ MANA COST: 70 UNITS
└─ CURRENT MANA: 63/1000 (PROJECTED TOMORROW: 71)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Seventy mana. Tomorrow morning, he would have just enough.
Aarav looked at the dog. The dog looked back, her ancient eyes holding something that might have been understanding.
"What's her name?" he asked Varen.
"Never named her, Lord. She just... showed up, years ago. Started guarding. Never stopped."
Aarav nodded slowly. "Tomorrow, she becomes more."
---
He barely slept.
The howling from the eastern woods continued through the night—closer now, more organized. Not random monster noises. Signals. Communication.
By dawn, every person in the valley was on edge.
[ AETHEL - DAY 3 ]
[ LOCAL TIME: 06:12 ]
[ MANA POOL: 71/1000 ]
[ EVOLUTION AVAILABLE: 1/1 ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aarav walked to where the watchdog lay. She struggled to her feet as he approached, her tail wagging weakly.
"Hey, girl." He knelt beside her, one hand on her graying head. "You've protected these people for years. Now I'm going to give you a chance to protect them forever."
She licked his hand.
[ AETHEL - EVOLUTION PROTOCOL INITIATED ]
[ TARGET: UNNAMED WATCHDOG (F-RANK) ]
[ PROJECTED OUTCOME: DIRE WOLF (E-RANK) ]
[ MANA COST: 70 UNITS ]
[ CONFIRM? Y/N ]
Yes.
The power flowed through him—less overwhelming than the field, more focused. He felt the dog's body under his hand, felt every cell, every weakness, every failing organ. And then he felt them change.
The dog gasped—a sharp, surprised sound. Her muscles bunched. Her spine elongated. Her graying fur fell away, replaced by thick, dark coat that seemed to absorb the morning light.
She grew.
Within seconds, she was twice her previous size. Then three times. Her legs thickened, her paws widened, her jaws lengthened into something that could crush bone.
When it finished, a dire wolf stood before him—shoulder-height to a man, muscles rippling under dark fur, eyes no longer cloudy but sharp and intelligent.
[ AETHEL - EVOLUTION COMPLETE ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ TARGET: WATCHDOG → DIRE WOLF ]
├─ PREVIOUS RANK: F
├─ CURRENT RANK: E (ELITE)
├─ SIZE: 3.2x PREVIOUS
├─ COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS: 340% OF PRIME CANINE
├─ INTELLIGENCE: ENHANCED (EQUIVALENT: HUMAN CHILD, AGE 8-10)
├─ LOYALTY: ABSOLUTE (TRANSFERRED)
└─ SPECIAL: PACK MENTALITY (CAN LEAD OTHER CANINES)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ TERRITORIAL MANA: 1/1000 ]
[ WARNING: MANA DEPLETED ]
[ RECOVERY TIME: 125 DAYS TO FULL ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The wolf—no, she needed a name now—pressed her massive head against Aarav's chest and made a sound that was half growl, half whine.
"You remember," he whispered. "You remember everything."
She did. He could feel it through the strange connection the evolution had created. She remembered every child she'd guarded, every night she'd watched, every goblin she'd chased away with nothing but noise and courage.
Now she could do more.
"Kiri," Aarav said, the name coming from nowhere. "Your name is Kiri."
The wolf—Kiri—lifted her head and howled.
It was nothing like the goblin howls. This was deep, resonant, terrifying. It rolled across the valley like thunder, and from the eastern woods, the goblin howls suddenly stopped.
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Then, from the trees, a new sound. Not howling. Screaming. Goblin screaming. And the crashing of bodies fleeing through undergrowth.
[ AETHEL - TERRITORY UPDATE ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ EFFECT: ALPHA PRESENCE ]
├─ SOURCE: KIRI (DIRE WOLF, E-RANK)
├─ TARGET: BROKEN FANG GOBLIN SCOUTS (12 DETECTED)
├─ RESULT: ROUT (100% FLEE)
├─ TRIBAL MORALE IMPACT: -15%
├─ TIME TO OFFENSIVE: +3-5 DAYS (DELAYED)
└─ NOTE: FEAR IS TEMPORARY. HUNGER IS PERMANENT.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aarav let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Three to five extra days. Time he desperately needed.
Varen approached slowly, his eyes wide, his hand nowhere near his rusted sword. "Lord... that's... that's the dog?"
"That's Kiri." Aarav scratched behind her massive ears. She leaned into the touch like she was still a puppy. "She's our new head of security."
The people were emerging from their huts, staring at the giant wolf with expressions ranging from terror to awe. A child—a girl of perhaps seven—broke free from her mother and ran toward Kiri.
"NO!" Several voices shouted at once.
But the girl didn't stop. She reached Kiri and threw her arms around the wolf's neck.
Kiri stood perfectly still for a moment. Then she lowered her massive head and licked the girl's face, her tail wagging like a weapon that could kill.
The girl giggled.
Something shifted in the valley. The terror in the adults' eyes didn't vanish, but it mingled with something else. Hope. Real hope.
[ AETHEL - TERRITORY MORALE UPDATE ]
[ NEW BASELINE: HOPEFUL (+5% → +12% PRODUCTIVITY) ]
[ NOTE: LOYALTY TO LORD INCREASING ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aarav watched the girl and the wolf, and for the first time since arriving in Aethel, he allowed himself to believe they might actually survive.
Then Varen's hand gripped his arm.
"Lord." The captain's voice was urgent. "Look."
He pointed east.
Above the tree line, smoke was rising. Too much smoke for a campfire. Too organized.
[ AETHEL - THREAT ASSESSMENT UPDATE ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ BROKEN FANG TRIBE ]
├─ STATUS: MOBILIZING
├─ SMOKE SIGNALS DETECTED: 7 (TRIBAL COUNCIL SUMMONS)
├─ ESTIMATED RESPONSE TO DIRE WOLF: FEAR + RAGE
├─ REVISED STRATEGY: TRIBAL LEADERSHIP WILL COMPENSATE FOR FEAR
├─ NEW THREAT LEVEL: EXTREME (ESCALATED)
├─ REVISED TIME TO OFFENSIVE: 5-8 DAYS
└─ RECOMMENDATION: IMMEDIATE PREPARATION FOR SIEGE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Five to eight days. Less than he'd gained.
"They're scared," Varen said, reading the smoke better than Aarav could. "Scared enough to call all their tribes together. Scared enough to bring every warrior."
"How many then? Not two hundred?"
Varen's face was pale. "The Broken Fang are one tribe among many in those woods. If they're calling a council... Lord, we could be facing five hundred. Maybe more."
Five hundred goblins. One dire wolf. One Lord with no mana. Eighty-seven terrified people.
And five days.
Aarav looked at Kiri, still accepting the child's adoration. He looked at the wall—still too weak, still too low. He looked at the people—his people now—and saw the hope in their eyes.
He couldn't let that hope die.
"Varen, gather every adult. We have five days to turn this valley into a fortress. We start now."
The captain nodded and ran.
Aarav stared at the smoke rising from the eastern woods, and for the first time since arriving in Aethel, he felt something beyond determination.
He felt fear.
[ AETHEL - SYSTEM STATUS ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ HOST: AARAV OF ORION ]
[ TERRITORY: THE UNTAMED VALLEY (RANK F) ]
[ DAY 3 - 18:47 LOCAL ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ TALENT STATUS ]
├─ EVOLUTIONS USED TODAY: 1/1
├─ NEXT AVAILABLE: 11H 23M
└─ MANA POOL: 1/1000 (DEPLETED)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ TERRITORY STATUS ]
├─ FOOD: ADEQUATE (+10 DAYS)
├─ MORALE: HOPEFUL (+12%)
├─ SECURITY: THREATENED
│ ├─ PRIMARY THREAT: BROKEN FANG TRIBE (MOBILIZING)
│ ├─ ESTIMATED FORCE: 400-600 WARRIORS
│ └─ TIME TO OFFENSIVE: 5-8 DAYS
├─ DEFENSES: PALISADE (E-RANK, 71% INTEGRITY)
├─ MILITARY ASSETS:
│ ├─ KIRI (DIRE WOLF, E-RANK) - COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS: HIGH
│ ├─ VAREN (CAPTAIN, F-RANK) - COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS: LOW
│ └─ 23 ABLE-BODIED ADULTS (F-RANK) - COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS: MINIMAL
└─ MANA RECOVERY RATE: 8 UNITS PER DAY
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ACTIVE QUESTS ]
├─ PRIMARY: SURVIVE THE FIRST WINTER (51 DAYS) - 5%
├─ REGIONAL: THE GOBLIN MENACE - UPDATED
│ ├─ NEW THREAT ASSESSMENT: TRIBAL COALITION
│ ├─ REVISED DEADLINE: 5-8 DAYS
│ └─ REWARD: CONTROL OF EASTERN WOODS + IRON VEIN + ???
├─ WORLD EVENT: LORD RANKING COMPETITION (27 DAYS)
│ └─ YOUR RANK: 4,872,331,009 (UNCHANGED)
└─ PERSONAL: UNDERSTAND YOUR GIFT - 0.1% (+0.09%)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ COSMIC REGISTRY UPDATE ]
├─ MYTHICAL TALENT HOLDERS: 8,400 (UNCHANGED)
├─ NOTE: 47 MYTHICAL LORDS HAVE DIED IN FIRST 3 DAYS
└─ YOUR STATUS: STILL UNLISTED
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ WARNING ]
[ FIVE DAYS. ]
[ FIVE HUNDRED GOBLINS. ]
[ ZERO MANA. ]
[ WORLD 'S WILL WATCHES. ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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End of Chapter 2
Next Chapter: The Five-Day Siege
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