Chapter 127
Nille sat quietly for a moment, absorbing everything Maruha had revealed.
The Great Flood.
The primordial beings.
The ancient lineages that had crossed oceans and survived calamities that erased entire civilizations.
The pieces were beginning to connect in ways he didn't particularly like.
Finally, he looked up.
"Maruha..."
The older Encanto met his gaze.
Nille hesitated.
Then asked the question that had been lingering in his thoughts ever since she mentioned the ancient bloodlines.
"Are the Nephilim the reason Encantos exist?"
The warehouse fell silent.
Even the fairies stopped moving.
Maruha's expression changed ever so slightly.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
As if she had heard that question before.
Many times.
And never from someone asking casually.
Nille continued.
"If the Fallen Ones walked among mortals..."
His voice remained steady.
"If they lived beside humans... loved humans... had children with humans..."
He frowned.
"Then wouldn't that make them the ancestors of many Encanto bloodlines?"
Nobody spoke.
For several long seconds, Maruha simply stared at him.
Then she slowly exhaled.
"That," she said quietly, "is a question that has divided scholars, spirit courts, and entire kingdoms."
Nille remained silent.
Waiting.
Maruha looked away briefly, as if recalling memories older than nations.
Then she nodded.
"Yes."
The answer was simple.
But the weight behind it was anything but.
"There are bloodlines among the Encantos that trace themselves back to the Fallen Ones."
A murmur spread among some of the younger fairies.
Maruha ignored it.
"The oldest records speak of beings who descended from realms beyond the mortal world."
"Some called them angels."
"Some called them divine messengers."
"Some called them rebels."
"Others called them monsters."
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
"But every culture remembered one thing."
"They came here."
The room grew quieter.
"And they did not remain separate."
Nille listened carefully.
Maruha folded her hands.
"They taught."
"They ruled."
"They fought."
"They protected."
"They loved."
The final word lingered.
"Children were born."
"Families formed."
"Generations passed."
"Their descendants inherited fragments of what they once were."
She paused.
"Not enough to remain Nephilim."
"But enough to become something new."
Something ancient flickered behind her eyes.
"Something that would eventually be called Encanto."
Nille felt a chill run through him.
Not because of the answer.
Because of what it implied.
Entire races.
Entire bloodlines.
Entire supernatural civilizations.
All tracing back to a moment when beings from beyond the mortal world chose to stay.
Or were forced to.
Maruha's voice softened.
"Most Encantos don't like discussing that origin."
Lakan let out a short laugh.
"That's an understatement."
Maruha smiled faintly.
"For some, Nephilim ancestry is a source of pride."
"For others, it is a source of shame."
Her gaze drifted toward the window.
"And for many..."
She paused.
"It is a reminder."
"A reminder of what happens when beings with immense power forget their limits."
The room became still.
Nille thought of Apo Lakkay.
Of Temria.
Of the ancient names that refused to disappear from history no matter how much time passed.
Then another thought surfaced.
"If the Nephilim are our ancestors..."
He looked directly at Maruha.
"What exactly were they?"
This time, Maruha didn't answer immediately.
The question seemed to reach deeper than the previous one.
Eventually, she spoke.
"Nobody truly knows."
Nille blinked.
Maruha nodded.
"History remembers their actions."
"History remembers their wars."
"History remembers their descendants."
"But history rarely remembers who people truly were."
A sad smile touched her lips.
"Especially after thousands of years."
She leaned back slightly.
"Some texts portray them as fallen angels."
"Others describe them as divine guardians."
"Others claim they were the first kings."
"The first tyrants."
"The first heroes."
"The first sinners."
Nille frowned.
"Which version is true?"
Maruha looked at him.
For a moment, her ancient eyes seemed impossibly tired.
Then she answered.
"All of them."
The room fell silent.
Because suddenly the legends felt much smaller.
And much more human.
"They were not one thing, Nille."
"They were people."
The simplicity of the answer struck harder than any grand revelation.
"They loved."
"They hated."
"They dreamed."
"They feared."
"They made mistakes."
Her voice grew quieter.
"And some mistakes were so large that the world is still suffering their consequences."
Nobody spoke.
Not even the fairies.
Maruha looked toward the distant horizon.
Toward places older than memory.
"Power was never what defined the Nephilim."
Nille listened.
"What defined them was choice."
The words settled into the room like stones dropped into still water.
"Some chose humility."
"Some chose pride."
"Some chose sacrifice."
"Some chose domination."
"Some sought redemption."
"And some..."
Her eyes darkened.
"...could never forgive the heavens for remaining silent."
For a brief moment, Nille thought of Apo Lakkay again.
A being old enough to remember things that should have been forgotten.
A being who still seemed to be fighting a war no one else could see.
Maruha's voice became almost a whisper.
"The greatest tragedy of the Nephilim was never their fall."
Nille held her gaze.
"It was that many of them spent eternity believing they had been abandoned."
Silence followed.
Heavy.
Uncomfortable.
Profound.
And for the first time, Nille began to wonder if the monsters haunting the present were not merely ancient evils,
but ancient wounds that had never been allowed to hea
Maruha remained quiet for a moment before speaking again, her expression unusually thoughtful.
"My siblings and I are descendants of one of those unions."
The warehouse fell silent.
Nille listened carefully.
Maruha folded her hands in her lap.
"One of our ancestors was a Nephilim."
She paused.
"A true one."
Not a diluted descendant. Not a distant bloodline.
A being that had once existed much closer to the ancient age.
"By the time my family line was born, most of that blood had already thinned considerably, but the connection remained."
She smiled faintly.
"That is true for many of the older High Elven houses."
Nille frowned slightly.
"So High Elves are descendants of Nephilim?"
"In some cases, yes."
Maruha nodded.
"Not all."
"But many of the oldest lineages can trace their ancestry back to one or more Nephilim who chose to remain among mortals."
She leaned back.
"People often imagine Nephilim as immortal rulers hiding in distant realms."
Her eyes drifted toward the warehouse ceiling.
"The truth is stranger."
"Most of them disappeared."
"Many sought forgiveness."
"Many abandoned their former identities."
"Many simply wished to live quietly."
Nille remembered her earlier explanation about redemption.
"The ones who remained?"
Maruha sighed.
"They still walk the world."
The room grew quiet.
"Some live as humans."
"Some as elves."
"Some as spirits."
"Some change identities every few centuries."
"Some have forgotten names older than kingdoms."
Her expression became distant.
"And some are still searching for answers they failed to find thousands of years ago."
Nille thought immediately of Apo Lakkay.
Maruha noticed.
"Apo Lakkay is not the only one."
That statement was somehow more unsettling.
"The difference is that most learned how to move forward."
She paused.
"Their greatest struggle was never power."
"It was purpose."
Nille remained silent.
Maruha continued.
"You must understand something."
"The Nephilim were not created to change."
That statement surprised everyone.
Even Lakan looked up.
"What do you mean?"
Maruha searched for the right words.
"Mortals are constantly changing."
"We age."
"We learn."
"We fail."
"We mature."
"We become different people over time."
She smiled faintly.
"A human can become a completely different person in twenty years."
"A dwarf may take a century."
"A High Elf may require several centuries."
"But eventually we all change."
Her smile slowly faded.
"The Nephilim were different."
Nille frowned.
"How?"
Maruha's voice lowered.
"They were created much closer to their intended purpose."
"More complete."
"More powerful."
"But also more fixed."
The warehouse became quiet again.
"They possessed the ability to shape reality."
"Influence life."
"Influence death."
"Manipulate spiritual laws."
"Travel between realms."
She paused.
"Yet changing themselves was often far more difficult."
The irony settled heavily in the room.
Maruha nodded.
"Imagine possessing enough power to alter mountains but lacking the ability to easily alter your own nature."
Nille immediately understood why that could become dangerous.
"Mortals grow through limitation."
Maruha pointed at him.
"Exactly."
"We are forced to adapt."
"We suffer consequences."
"We are humbled."
"We learn."
Her eyes darkened slightly.
"A Nephilim could spend thousands of years carrying the same wound."
"The same regret."
"The same obsession."
"The same resentment."
"Without ever truly healing."
Nobody spoke.
The psychological implication was horrifying.
A mortal carrying bitterness for ten years could ruin a family.
A ruler carrying bitterness for fifty years could ruin a nation.
But a Nephilim?
A being capable of remembering every slight for millennia?
Maruha shook her head.
"That is why so many of them became trapped."
"Not by chains."
"Not by enemies."
"But by themselves."
Nille thought of this kind of prison
A being still angry about events that occurred thousands of years ago.
A being who seemed incapable of letting go.
Maruha sighed softly.
"Many Nephilim envied mortals."
The statement surprised everyone.
"Why?"
"Because mortals can become someone new."
The answer came immediately.
"A poor child can become a hero."
"A criminal can find redemption."
"A coward can become brave."
"A broken person can heal."
She looked toward the fairies.
"Even High Elves eventually change."
"We still age."
"We still gain wisdom."
"We still grow beyond our younger selves."
Her smile became bittersweet.
"It may take us hundreds of years."
"But it happens."
Then her expression turned serious again.
"The Nephilim did not have that luxury."
The room became still.
Maruha noticed Nille's expression and immediately clarified.
"Don't misunderstand."
"The Nephilim could learn."
"They could remember."
"They could observe."
She paused.
"But growth is not the same thing as change."
The room became quiet.
"The greatest difference between mortals and Nephilim is not power."
"It is potential."
"But fundamentally changing who they were often required something extraordinary."
"Humility."
"Forgiveness."
"Divine intervention."
"Or genuine self-reflection."
She paused.
"And many never achieved it."
Nille slowly understood.
The tragedy of the Nephilim was not that they lacked power.
It was that they possessed too much of it.
Enough power to reshape the world.
But not enough freedom to easily reshape themselves.
Maruha's eyes drifted toward the distance.
"That is also why many chose to remain among mortals."
Nille looked at her.
She smiled softly.
"Because humans, dwarves, elves, and other races possessed something they desperately wanted."
"What?"
Maruha's answer came quietly.
"The ability to become more than what they were yesterday."
The warehouse fell silent.
And for the first time, Nille realized that perhaps the reason some Nephilim stayed hidden among mortals for thousands of years was not because they were protecting humanity.
Perhaps they were studying it.
Watching generation after generation grow, change, fail, recover, love, forgive, and move forward.
Trying to understand the one gift that even beings capable of shaping reality had never truly been given:
the freedom to think for themselves.
Nille still had more questions.
Far too many.
Every answer Maruha gave seemed to reveal three new mysteries waiting beneath it.
The Nephilim.
The Great Flood.
The ancient bloodlines.
The Celestial Cloth.
Apo Lakkay.
The Buntala artifacts.
The forgotten civilization beneath Sector Twelve.
Each thread felt connected to the same tapestry, yet the full picture remained frustratingly incomplete.
He opened his mouth, intending to ask another question.
Then Nyx's voice echoed softly within his mind.
"Recommendation: Return to the underground chamber."
Nille blinked.
"Now?"
"Affirmative."
The response came immediately.
Unlike before, Nyx sounded unusually insistent.
Nille glanced toward the warehouse entrance.
Only then did he notice how much time had passed.
Sunlight streamed through the open doorway.
The darkness of night had vanished entirely.
Morning had arrived.
Dust motes drifted through the golden rays, and outside he could hear the distant sounds of people beginning their day.
For a moment, the ordinary scene felt strangely disconnected from everything he had experienced during the night.
Ancient beings.
Primordial bloodlines.
Reality-warping artifacts.
And yet somewhere beyond the warehouse walls, people were buying breakfast, opening shops, and preparing for work.
The contrast almost made him laugh.
"Reason?" Nille asked internally.
There was a brief pause.
Then Nyx answered.
"Probability analysis indicates the underground chamber remains the highest-value source of actionable information."
That sounded like Nyx's usual logic.
Then the spirit added something unexpected.
"Additionally, there is a 78.4 percent probability that your recent realization regarding the World Tree, the Seed Bearers, and the dimensional gateway is correct."
Nille froze.
The warehouse suddenly felt much quieter.
"You think the visions are location-based?"
"Evidence suggests a strong correlation."
His pulse quickened slightly.
For days he had suspected the visions were more than random memories.
More than echoes.
What if they were connected to physical locations?
What if each vision ended because he had reached the limit of the memory attached to that specific place?
And what if returning to the correct location allowed the sequence to continue?
The possibility was difficult to ignore.
Nyx continued.
"If your theory is accurate, locating the dimensional archway from the previous vision may trigger additional memory resonance events."
Nille slowly exhaled.
The ancient gateway.
The impossible arch he had seen standing near the World Tree.
The structure that seemed to connect places that should never have touched.
The vision had ended there.
Abruptly.
Incomplete.
As if someone had paused a story midway through a sentence.
And now he had a chance to continue it.
Maruha noticed his expression.
"Nille?"
He looked up.
The fairies, Lualhati, Maruha, and Lakan were all watching him.
For a moment, he considered explaining everything.
Then decided against it.
Not because he didn't trust them.
But because he wasn't certain himself.
Not yet.
"I think I need to return to Sector Twelve."
The statement immediately drew reactions.
Lakan nearly groaned.
"Of course you do."
Maruha pinched the bridge of her nose.
"You disappeared for weeks."
"You came back exhausted."
"You learned enough disturbing information to keep scholars occupied for decades."
"And your first thought is to return?"
Nille smiled sheepishly.
"When you put it like that..."
"When I put it like that, it sounds insane."
"It probably is."
Nille couldn't argue.
Because she was right.
It probably was.
Yet standing still had never brought him answers.
The visions had.
The ruins had.
The forgotten places hidden beneath the world had.
And somewhere beneath Sector Twelve, buried under centuries of stone and silence, waited an ancient chamber connected to a civilization that should not have existed.
A place where a World Tree once stood.
A place where an impossible gateway once opened.
A place where the vision had ended.
And if Nyx was right, it might also be the place where the next one began.
As the morning sun climbed higher into the Philippine sky, Nille reached for the means to return.
Because answers were waiting underground.
And for the first time since leaving the chamber, he had a direction worth following.
As soon as Nille returned to the underground chamber, the familiar pressure of the sealed space settled around him again—quiet, heavy, and isolated from the surface world.
Maruha was still with him for a brief moment, her expression thoughtful as she watched him re-establish his connection to the lower network routes.
"If you can move between sectors," she said slowly, "can you open a direct gateway to Sector One?"
Nille shook his head almost immediately.
"No."
He adjusted his stance near the runic interface embedded in the chamber wall.
"I can only open a gateway if I place an anchor in the destination area first."
Maruha frowned slightly.
"So you still need to go there physically."
"Yes," Nille confirmed. "No anchor, no stable connection. Anything else would collapse mid-transfer or distort into an unstable rift."
He paused, then added with a slight shrug.
"Nyx tried calculating indirect routing before. It's not safe. The spatial laws between sectors reject unmarked traversal."
Maruha exhaled softly, as if she had expected that answer.
"Then you're dealing with a system that still enforces its own boundaries," she muttered.
Nille nodded.
"Exactly."
A brief silence followed.
Then Maruha straightened slightly, as if remembering something more urgent.
"I need to head back."
Nille looked up.
"Already?"
"Yes," she said firmly. "This conversation is already far beyond what I should be involved in."
She hesitated at the edge of the chamber.
"And there's something else you should be aware of."
Nille waited.
Maruha's expression darkened slightly.
"The biggest problem won't be the Malignants."
That caught his attention.
"It will be the Left and Right Deans of Yamatai Academy."
Nille frowned.
"The Deans?"
Maruha nodded.
"You can't trust those two."
Her voice lowered.
"They are no longer aligned with humans."
The words hung in the air like a warning left deliberately unfinished.
Nille's gaze sharpened slightly.
"Then what are they aligned with?"
Maruha didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she turned away, stepping toward the exit of the chamber.
"That's exactly why you need to be careful," she said over her shoulder.
"Some people in power aren't trying to protect the world anymore."
A pause.
"They're trying to decide what replaces it."
Nille activated the anchor point and the gateway tore open with a low, unstable hum.
Space folded.
Then snapped.
The world reassembled itself around him in fragments of memory and distortion until reality finally stabilized.
He had returned.
Not to a city.
Not to safety.
But to the hill where the hut once stood.
Or rather—what was left of it.
The land was scarred, blackened, and hollowed out as if something immense had burned through it from above. The hut was gone completely, reduced to ash and shattered stone fragments scattered across a wide radius. Even the air still carried a faint residue of spiritual pressure, like the echo of something violent that had already moved on.
Nille's gaze sharpened.
Nyx immediately activated.
"Warning: High-density hostile presence detected."
Before Nille could fully process the report, the ground below him trembled.
Then came the sound.
Movement.
Not singular.
Not scattered.
Organized.
From the tree line and broken terrain beyond the scorched hill, figures began to emerge.
Lizardmen.
Armored in crude bone plating and river-metal scales, their movements coordinated in tight formations rather than wild instinct. Behind them followed something far worse—hulking shapes dragging their weight through the cracked earth.
Unglok.
Dark-skinned cave dwellers, twisted and heavy-built, their bodies marked with ritual scars and crude trophies. Skulls hung from their belts and shoulders—mortals, beasts, and things that should not have been classified as either. Some were worn as masks. Others were turned into ornaments fused directly into armor.
They did not speak like animals.
They spoke like an invading force.
Nille's expression darkened slightly as Nyx continued its analysis.
"Classification: Unglok sub-horde. Behavior pattern confirms predatory expansion doctrine."
More figures appeared behind them.
Smaller groups.
Scouting units.
Then heavier ones.
War-beasts dragging chained debris behind them, marking territory as they advanced.
Nyx continued.
"Historical correlation identified. These entities share distant genetic and behavioral lineage with the Skunk Ape-class Malignant previously recorded attacking the castle perimeter."
Nille exhaled slowly.
"So they followed the same migration path…"
"Affirmative. Objective confirmed: territorial reclamation and extermination of non-native populations."
Now it made sense.
Not chaos.
Not random violence.
Invasion.
The Unglok horde pushed forward through the ruined hill like they believed the land already belonged to them. Their presence carried certainty rather than hesitation.
A deep, guttural roar echoed from one of the larger ogre-like commanders.
Then another voice—lower, more deliberate—followed.
Nille didn't need translation to understand the intent.
They were here to cleanse.
To erase.
To drive out dark elves, dwarves, humans, and half-blood settlements that had "entered their domain."
Except—
Nille stood directly in it.
A silence stretched for half a second.
Then Nyx spoke again.
"Probability of immediate engagement: 92.6%."
Nille's hand shifted slightly.
He didn't draw a weapon yet.
Instead, he looked across the battlefield forming in real time—the lizardman formations tightening, the Unglok beasts spreading out, encircling the ruined hill as if sealing an invisible perimeter.
Then he noticed something worse.
They weren't reacting to him.
Not fully.
They were reacting to the location.
As if something here mattered more than his presence.
The last place of the vision.
The broken memory point.
The missing fragment.
Nille narrowed his eyes slightly.
"…So this is why the timing was wrong," he muttered.
The horde advanced another step.
Closer.
Closer.
Nyx's voice lowered.
"Recommendation: immediate disengagement or high-level concealment protocol activation."
Nille looked at the ruined hill one more time.
Then at the approaching army that had already decided this land was theirs.
And quietly realized , whatever had once happened here… had not only left a memory behind.
It had left a claim.
"prepare to fight, lets trim down those who are not willing to listen to reason "
Nille's gaze hardened as the Unglok horde continued to tighten its formation around the ruined hill.
The air felt heavier now—not just with hostility, but with intent that had already committed itself to violence.
He exhaled slowly.
"Prepare to fight," Nille said under his breath.
A pause.
Then his voice sharpened.
"Let's trim down those who are not willing to listen to reason."
Nyx immediately registered the shift in his emotional and tactical state.
"Acknowledged. Combat posture accepted."
But Nille wasn't thinking only about survival anymore.
He was thinking about time.
About how many questions had already stacked themselves on top of him without answers.
About how every "next lead" always came with another layer of danger.
He frowned slightly.
I'm wasting too much time chasing answers…
That thought settled heavily.
He realized something uncomfortable.
If he kept stopping every time a mystery appeared, he would never grow strong enough to survive the next one.
So this time, he made a different decision.
Not retreat.
Not avoidance.
Progress through confrontation.
Two birds with one stone, he thought grimly.
Training and survival.
Information and strength.
Nille's eyes shifted slightly as he assessed the battlefield again.
The Unglok weren't random.
Their formation, their discipline, even their timing, it didn't feel like coincidence anymore.
And Maruha's warning echoed in his mind.
The Yamatai Academy… the Deans… might really be no longer aligned with humans.
That thought tightened his expression.
So this might already be connected.
No more hesitation.
No more half-steps.
Nille reached inward.
"Hyde."
A response came immediately.
Not spoken.
But present.
A presence layered beneath his awareness, coiled, sharp, and waiting.
"Understood," Hyde replied.
Nille's fingers flexed slightly.
He didn't reach for the Buntala weapons.
Not this time.
Celestial Cloth interference made their usage unreliable in situations like this, and overdependence would only slow him down.
Instead, he adjusted his stance.
A pair of tactical hard knuckle fingerless gloves formed his only physical reinforcement—simple, durable, direct.
No enchantment complexity.
No interference risk.
Just impact.
Raw and controlled.
Hyde's presence shifted.
"Stabbing vectors available. I will assist in close-range exploitation."
Nille gave a small nod.
"Good. Stay sharp."
He rolled his shoulders once, grounding himself as the first wave of Unglok scouts began to break formation and advance.
Lizardmen moved first—fast, coordinated, flanking from both sides of the hill like they already knew his position.
Behind them, the Unglok ogre-class units began to close in more slowly, each step shaking the ground with deliberate pressure.
Nille watched all of it.
Not panicking.
Not reacting blindly.
Analyzing.
Then he stepped forward.
Just one step.
Enough to signal intent.
Enough to remove doubt.
"I don't have time to be chased by everything in this world," he muttered.
His eyes sharpened.
"So I'll start cutting the noise down."
Nyx immediately updated threat trajectories.
"Engagement starting."
And as the first seven foot tall lizardman lunged from the right flank, Nille met it head-on, no hesitation, no delay, turning the ruined hill into a battlefield where every strike would either sharpen him…
or end him.
Before Nille returned to the ruined hill, the land was already drowning in tension.
The scorched remains of the hut still smoldered faintly, reduced to ash and broken stone scattered across blackened soil. Whatever had happened there was over—but its consequences had only just begun to spread.
Not far from the destruction site, a small gathering stood hidden among the fractured trees overlooking the swamp edge.
Among them was one of Vaelcrest's underlings.
He wore no grand armor, no visible insignia that would mark him openly. Only a simple cloak and the calm posture of someone who had done this kind of work many times before.
He looked at the burned hill with quiet satisfaction.
"Perfect timing," he muttered.
Around him, scattered groups of lizardmen and Unglok forces waited in uneasy coordination. They were not truly united, just pointed in the same direction by persuasion, fear, and carefully planted lies.
The underling stepped forward slightly, addressing the gathered leaders.
"You've seen the condition of this land," he said calmly.
His voice carried just enough authority to hold attention, but not enough to threaten pride.
"The swamp is dying."
A few of the lizardmen shifted uneasily.
"The miasma from the Hydra's remains has poisoned the water," he continued. "Your food sources are disappearing. Your young are starving. Even your strongest hunters are returning weaker each season."
He paused, letting the words settle.
Then he turned his gaze slightly toward the darker shapes standing behind them—the Unglok.
"And it is getting worse."
One of the Unglok leaders grunted.
The underling nodded as if agreeing with him.
"You think this is natural?" he asked. "That your suffering is just the way of things?"
He shook his head slowly.
"No."
He pointed faintly toward the direction of the dark elven territories.
"The contamination comes from them."
A ripple of murmurs spread through the group.
The underling continued smoothly.
"The dark elves have been poisoning the water channels for years. Slowly. Quietly. Expanding their influence while your lands decay."
A lie.
Carefully shaped.
Repeated enough times in different regions that it began to sound like truth.
"The swamp is collapsing," he said. "And when it does, your homes will follow."
Silence.
Then he stepped back slightly, lowering his voice.
"But there is a solution."
The leaders leaned in.
The underling glanced once more at the burnt remains of the hut.
"Vaelcrest's forces are prepared to stabilize this region," he said. "But chaos must be reduced first. The mountain routes need to be secured. The swamp borders must be cleared of resistance."
He let the implication hang.
Then added quietly:
"This is not just about survival anymore. It is about control of what comes next."
A lizardman leader finally spoke.
"Why should we trust surface rulers?"
The underling smiled faintly.
"Because you don't have a choice."
He let that sit for a moment.
Then softened his tone slightly.
"Or because starving slowly in poisoned water is worse than risking change."
The Unglok shifted again, uneasy but listening.
The idea had already taken root.
Fear made it easier.
Hunger made it faster.
And uncertainty made it inevitable.
The underling turned slightly, looking once more toward the direction where the hut once stood—where the woman and her child had turned to ash just moments ago.
A necessary cleanup, he thought.
Loose ends removed before they could complicate the narrative.
Behind him, the swamp wind carried the faint scent of rot and miasma, reinforcing every word he had spoken.
"Prepare yourselves," he said at last.
"The Draconian Mountain region will not remain untouched much longer."
And as the gathered forces slowly began to disperse—some convinced, some uncertain, all moving forward anyway, the lie began to spread deeper into the land.
A war was being prepared.
Not by truth.
But by carefully planted desperation.
.