09:42 AM – May 1, 1639 – Cartalpas, Holy Mirishial Empire

  A veil of salty wind swept over the port city of Cartalpas as the stars and stripes rose against the pale morning sky. From a distance, the newly established U.S. Embassy looked out of pce — all gss, steel, and yered electronic surveilnce shielding. It stood like a foreign monolith, a monument to American permanence on foreign soil.

  To the east, smoke curled zily from fishing barges returning to port. Sea gulls circled the piers. And on the western side of the harbor, where stone temples met crumbling rail lines, the skyline had begun to change. Earth's arrival was not just political — it was architectural.

  Inside the courtyard, U.S. Ambassador Marc Kallenborn read from prepared remarks beneath a low marble arch, fnked by the banners of both nations. Diplomats, defense contractors, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials stood under a modest white canopy, fnked by contractors in civilian dress with earpieces and mirrored sungsses.

  "This is not just an embassy," Kallenborn said, his voice calm and practiced. "It's a commitment. A bridge between nations. Between worlds."

  The appuse that followed was brief and half-hearted. Cameras fshed, drones hovered overhead, and on the outer perimeter, protestors waved signs written in Mirishial glyphs: "Earth Go Home", "Where Was Your Aid When the Fleet Died?", "This Is Not Your World."

  One protestor — an older man in yered priestly robes — raised a burning scroll above his head before hurling it toward the gate. It disintegrated against the reinforced concrete in a puff of ash. A half-rotted melon followed, thudding dully before rolling to the curb. Local peace officers made no move to stop it.

  From a rooftop across the pza, a Mirishial agent adjusted the focus on his long-range camera. He wasn't aiming at the ambassador — but at the man standing three feet behind him, turning slightly to check the angle of the crowd. A thin bck cable trailed from his colr to a shoulder rig. A wristwatch glinted briefly in the sun — the kind issued to U.S. Special Activities Division field operatives.

  Not a diplomat, the agent noted.

  The shutter clicked twice more.

  "Send the images to Counter-Operations. Fg them for liaison trace," the agent whispered into his pel. A green light pulsed once in response. Then he dismantled the rig, melted into the shadowed stairwell, and disappeared into the temple district.

  Below, the embassy gates slid shut with a low hydraulic hiss. Inside, filtered air and soft lighting created a stark contrast with the noise outside. Ambassador Kallenborn removed his suit jacket and slung it over his arm as he stepped into the cool interior of the secure annex.

  "How long until the ops room's live?" he asked, walking briskly past two State Department aides coordinating with local staff.

  "Next week at best," replied Erin Wakefield, CIA Station Chief assigned to the Cartalpas mission. She walked beside him, her tone clipped, tablet in hand. "Construction crews are behind schedule. Someone's been cutting fiber lines. Repeatedly."

  Kallenborn's brow tightened. "Sabotage?"

  "Probably. Mirishial intel proxies, we think. Or their religious militias acting independently. Hard to say — their chain of command is a mess."

  He gave a short ugh, mirthless. "Let me guess — publicly they call it sabotage by 'radical traditionalists.'"

  Wakefield smirked. "Of course. Same radicals that speak perfect American English when we jam their signals."

  They stopped at the secure conference room. Inside, a curved bank of screens dispyed a rotating feed of satellite maps, drone surveilnce, and a color-coded chart of magical emissions spiking near coastal ruins. Wakefield tapped a control panel and muted the audio streams.

  "I need Cartalpas stable," Kallenborn said, scanning the dispys. "If this city tips, our whole coastal footprint colpses. This is the only port where we can nd without begging Parliament or bribing technocrats."

  "We're ying a fiber ring disguised as a university internet pilot. Once it's in, we'll have full digital saturation — eyes and ears on everything from cargo docks to temple districts."

  He turned to her. "And the bases?"

  She hesitated a beat.

  "Two active. One near the southern rail corridor — posing as a logistics depot for infrastructure contractors. Second under the industrial zone, inside a concrete sb manufacturing pnt. Hidden comms. Reinforced bunkers."

  "And forward air access?"

  She nodded. "We're negotiating with the Technocratic faction for use of a remote airstrip near the Calthonic Pteau. Off the books, of course."

  Kallenborn leaned on the conference table and exhaled.

  "And the Empire's response?"

  Wakefield paused. "Fragmented. The Emperor's trying to stay neutral, but he's fnked on both sides. The Religious Order is outraged — they're calling this a cultural infection. Meanwhile, Veruno and Gormes just approved a new magi-tech b next to the harbor. With U.S. tech advisors embedded."

  "And the average citizen?"

  Wakefield pulled up a graph — social sentiment trends compiled from intercepted civilian crystal comms and Earth-installed listening nodes.

  "Mixed. Urban centers are cautiously optimistic — jobs are up, roads are getting paved, electricity is stable. But in the spiritual circles? Fury. This morning, a cathedral broadcast called Earth 'a false light sent to blind the faithful.'"

  Kallenborn rubbed his temple.

  "They bme us for not stopping the Morocco Incident?"

  "They bme everyone," Wakefield said. "But mostly, they bme their own government. And that anger's bleeding into everything we touch."

  He stared at the screens for a long second. "What's the risk profile on internal destabilization?"

  "We rate it high," she said. "Especially if the Emperor keeps trying to bance both camps. Sooner or ter, he'll have to pick a side — or someone else will pick it for him."

  That afternoon, a small explosion rocked a remote magi-tech testing facility just outside Cartalpas. Three Earth engineers were killed. Two Mirishial tech specialists were critically injured.

  The official report bmed a glyph resonance overload. The Religious Order bmed divine punishment. The Technocrats bmed outdated spell-channel regutors. The Embassy bmed procedural gaps and warned about deys.

  No one mentioned the sigil painted in ash on the floor — a symbol st seen on robes during the temple protests.

  Back in the embassy, Wakefield stared at the security report. The file had already been marked Cssified/ORCON.

  Kallenborn entered the room quietly.

  "Another act of God?"

  She shook her head.

  "No. This was a message."

  10:18 AM – May 1, 1639 – Turalen District, Cartalpas, Holy Mirishial Empire

  The sanctums of the Turalen Temple cast long shadows over the streets below, where incense and soot danced together in the afternoon air. Hidden behind carved marble walls and veils of rising mist, the high elders of the Elven Order of Veritas gathered in silence.

  In the center of the chamber, the fmes of a ceremonial brazier flickered as Councilor Tharil Orym stepped forward. He was dressed in obsidian ceremonial robes trimmed in silver filigree, his brows furrowed and jaw set. The faint etching of ancient glyphs lined his cheekbones—a mark of eldership and spiritual mastery.

  "We were promised divine victory," he said, voice as brittle as cold steel. "The Zeroth Fleet, our sacred sword, shattered by a desert nation."

  Murmurs rippled across the chamber.

  "Morocco," another elder hissed. "A backwater fragment of Earth. How could they pierce the will of our gods?"

  Tharil turned toward the sigil mosaic on the chamber floor. "Because they are not of this world. Their machines, their bombs, their sky-fire... This was not a war. It was heresy, forged in silicon and fire."

  At the perimeter of the sanctum, initiates knelt, heads bowed, clutching relic-bound scrolls in trembling hands. For weeks, whispers had spread through the Order's hidden channels—the truth that no one outside their halls dared speak aloud: Earth had humbled the Empire.

  Not through magic. Not through divine pact.

  But with circuits and code.

  "And what does the Emperor do?" Elder Maeryn spat. Her violet eyes burned beneath her veil. "He signs the Concorde Accords like a merchant prince selling off our soul. Welcomes the humans into our ports. Calls them 'partners.'"

  A heavy silence followed.

  Tharil extended his hand toward the gathering. "These humans bring paved roads, glowing signs, and flying chariots that do not burn mana. They build embassies guarded not by honor, but by cameras and poison gas. And now our cathedrals echo with their transtions, our rituals scanned into their 'clouds.'"

  Another councilor, Elder Virell, spoke up. "It is not merely occupation. It is infection."

  Heads nodded.

  "I have seen their 'technicians' near the temple ruins," Virell continued. "Using machines to unseal our sealed crypts. They say it is for 'research.' But they desecrate our foundations."

  Tharil raised a fist.

  "No more."

  The chamber grew quiet.

  "We were once the fme beneath the throne. Now we are told to stand aside while the Technocrats poison the Empire with these Earthborn abominations."

  Maeryn stepped forward, lifting a scroll sealed with bck wax. "The Order of Veritas does not kneel. We act."

  Gasps, then resolve.

  "What are you proposing?" Virell asked, though he already knew.

  "Sabotage," Maeryn said coldly. "Not grand acts. Precision. Infrastructure. Communication lines. Supply depots. Let the Earth humans feel unease in their metal towers. Let them wonder which wire will fail."

  "Targets?" Tharil asked.

  Maeryn unfurled the scroll. Detailed glyph-maps, surveilnce sketches, and records of Earth military and corporate instaltions. She pointed with a silver rod.

  "Begin with the Cartalpas Port fiber grid. Then the Arcene Power Node. We have already embedded acolytes in the clerical staff under assumed identities. They await the call."

  "This will be beled terrorism," Virell warned.

  Tharil's expression did not waver. "Let them call it what they wish. We call it devotion."

  The brazier's fme surged as if answering the sentiment. From the far edge of the sanctum, a chorus of low chants began—a litany forbidden since the Empire's founding charter, now reborn in secrecy.

  "Let their networks go dark," Maeryn intoned. "Let their machines turn on them. Let the false light be extinguished."

  The elders raised their palms in solemn unity.

  Far below the temple, beneath the cobbled streets of the old district, cloaked figures moved through hidden tunnels—carrying devices not powered by mana, but by stolen batteries.

  Their war would be unseen.

  But not unfelt.

  July 10, 1639 – Capital City, Jin-Hark – Kingdom of Louria

  The rain had stopped just before sunrise.

  Mist clung to the base of the rising skyline as steam drifted from the newly id concrete foundations outside Jin-hark's southern district. The air still smelled faintly of cement, scorched wood, and ocean salt — a mix that had come to define Louria's modern rebirth. Or its surrender, depending on who you asked.

  From the high tower of Jin-hark Pace, King Hark Louria XXXIV stood alone beneath the colonnade, watching as the morning sun cast dull orange light across the construction yards. Steel ttice frames reached skyward beside the old royal walls. Blue tarps snapped in the breeze like battle standards — except these bore no coat of arms. They were stenciled with foreign glyphs: simplified Chinese, Vietnamese, English, Indonesian. Words like "SITE OFFICE," "DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE," and "AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY" had become a common sight in Louria.

  The king clenched the railing with both hands, his knuckles white beneath the folds of his regal coat. His nation had not lost a war. They had not been invaded. Yet here, under a dawn sky, Louria no longer felt sovereign.

  Behind him, Queen Elenara approached quietly, hands folded. She watched her husband for a long moment before speaking.

  "They've broken ground on the Education Center. Southeast of the embassy ring."

  King Hark did not look at her. "Another embassy?"

  She shook her head. "No. A school. Sponsored by the Australian contingent. Joint-funded by a Vietnamese foundation and something called a... 'Singapore Smart Campus Initiative.'"

  "Of course it is," he said coldly. "Perhaps they'll teach our children to forget they were Lourian."

  Elenara said nothing.

  In the lower quarters of the pace, Prime Minister Maus scanned reports id out across a wide cquered table, while an Earth advisor from Jakarta tapped briskly at a folding touchscreen. On the wall, a digital dispy — Earth-standard — showed data in flowing real-time graphics: popution registration spikes, weather-synced crop rotation models, crime heat maps. The AI dashboard, called "Sagelight Beta," was developed in Vietnam but trained on multilingual Earth and Rodenian datasets.

  "Public utility routing has improved," the advisor said, adjusting his gsses. "Your water system is now functioning 21% more efficiently. That's only from AI reallocation and predictive alerts. Wait until we roll out dynamic waste management."

  Maus nodded slowly. "And the... machine doesn't need our input for that?"

  "It learns from your city's usage patterns," the man said. "No one's being repced. But your staff is finally making decisions in hours, not weeks."

  Commander Rand, ever stern, leaned forward from the far corner of the table. "And what happens when it begins making decisions for us?"

  "We're far from that," the advisor assured. "This isn't a military AI. It's just trained to find the shortest route from a problem to a solution."

  Maus raised a hand, cutting the tension. "This is the world now, Rand. If we want Louria to be more than a museum of pride, we must keep up. I prefer a smart program running logistics over another food riot in the artisan district."

  "Or another pgue," added Essen, the royal economist, who was reviewing projected job growth. "Do you know the cost of bringing clean water to every district before Earth arrived? A ten-year pn. Now? Four months. Two more if we upgrade filtration nodes."

  "And we will," Maus said, already tired. "If we can convince the king."

  Outside the pace, the capital swelled with change. The once-grand boulevards, lined with uneven cobblestone and crumbling towers, now saw convoys of Earth-built trucks and power loaders. A crew of Filipino engineers supervised the pouring of reinforced sidewalks. Above them, a new hospital's scaffolding climbed skyward under the joint banner of the Indonesian Red Crescent and the Lourian Royal Health Ministry.

  For many, this was salvation.

  For others, humiliation.

  Inside a half-converted barracks near the port, Rear Admiral Sharkun reviewed ship traffic manifests delivered via Earth's naval database. The interface was clunky, transted awkwardly into Elysian script, but it worked. More importantly, it brought results.

  He ran a hand along the smooth hull of a refurbished patrol boat — originally a ceremonial vessel, now fitted with a GPS rey and thermal scopes provided by an Australian tech firm. His old instincts resisted, but his reason knew better.

  He looked over at Lt. Selva, his new Earth liaison, a Maysian naval officer with perfect Lourian grammar and a casual posture.

  "Why do your people help us?" Sharkun asked ftly.

  Selva raised an eyebrow. "You think we came to conquer?"

  "No," Sharkun replied. "If you had, we'd already be gone."

  Selva nodded. "Then trust this — we've seen where pride leads. My country... our region... we've been colonized, exploited, betrayed. But we survived. And we built. We didn't lose who we were. We made who we are better."

  Sharkun said nothing, but for the first time in weeks, he felt his spine ease.

  Back in the city center, digital screens fshed over shopfronts — new Earth tech installed by Indian and Thai entrepreneurs. Weather forecasts. Health alerts. One ran an ad for a job-training program funded by the ASEAN Partnership Bureau.

  Street merchants, once defiant, now welcomed Vietnamese trade advisors with open palms. Microloans in Earth currency had allowed many to reopen after years of stagnation. And perhaps most shocking: public order was holding. Petty theft dropped 40% in the st month alone. Data from AI-driven community watch posts showed deterrents were working.

  Inside a modest café overlooking the civic square, Prince Alrius sat with his mother and sister, nibbling at steamed grain cakes while listening to Princess Lierya Qui speak through a video call.

  "She's in Barrat now," Queen Elenara expined to the prince. "They're building a bridge school — to connect students from both our worlds."

  The screen showed Lierya smiling in a hard hat and pin dress, standing in front of a gss-walled learning center rising from the jungle.

  "The world is changing," she said. "And we will not be left behind."

  But not everyone agreed.

  Deep in the old artisan quarter, where Earth tech had not yet touched the bricks, a group of cloaked men and women moved through the market shadows. At their center, a former nobleman — dismissed after the AI had fgged corruption in his ministry — passed around scrolls inked with anti-Earth slogans.

  "We dress like them, we trade with them," he hissed. "But they will never see us as equals. They will never kneel to a king."

  Others nodded.

  "Then we make them afraid," one said.

  Sabotage rumors already swirled in the embassy quarters. A drone shipment rerouted. A server room inexplicably fried. But no cims, no fgs, no demands.

  Only silence.

  And the feeling that not all within Louria had accepted the new dawn.

  July 17, 1639 – Maihark, Qua-Toyne Principality

  It started with a rumble beneath the earth.

  At first, the citizens of Maihark mistook it for thunder, or perhaps a distant stampede. The sound rolled down from the northern hills and echoed off the harbor walls like a war drum from a forgotten era. But when the ground shook — really shook — and the shrill whine of unseen engines pierced the usual morning chatter, people abandoned their stalls and leaned from windows. Heads turned. Voices hushed.

  And then they saw it.

  The first machine crested the ridge just before sunrise. Massive, armored in yellow pting, it moved not on legs or hooves but on bck rubber wheels thicker than a grown man was tall. Its front jaw scraped the earth — tearing through stone and soil alike with no magic, no chanting, no smoke. Just relentless power. Behind it came more: diggers, lifters, trucks with arms like insect limbs. A convoy of steel and noise.

  A woman dropped her basket of root vegetables. A child cried. Even the guards at the gatehouse flinched before instinctively drawing their swords — then lowering them again in confusion.

  For most in Maihark, this was the first encounter with Earth's machines. Not a rumor, not a description from traveling schors or overexcited traders, but the real thing. Cold, fast, and utterly indifferent to awe.

  Prime Minister Kanata stood on a scaffold overlooking the construction site that had once been the southern grazing fields. Where sheep once bleated, massive concrete blocks now waited to become the foundation of the New International Port of Maihark, a joint project between Qua-Toyne's Ministry of Infrastructure and the Earth Civil Works Group — led by Indonesian, Japanese, and Thai engineers.

  He was fnked by Minister Eltanor Avrin, who carried a data-ste synced with an Earth tablet, and Ambassador Payne, who had just returned from Qui's triteral coordination talks.

  "They move with such precision," Kanata murmured. "Without spells. Without chant or mana."

  Avrin nodded slowly, still blinking as a crane hoisted a ten-ton pilr into pce with eerie steadiness.

  "The Vietnamese engineer said it's all predictive load-bancing, driven by pre-trained algorithms. Copilot calcutes torque in real time."

  Kanata turned to him, half-joking, half-sober. "I understood none of those words."

  "Neither did I," Avrin admitted. "But it works."

  Below them, roads were taking shape. Gone were the dirt tracks that splintered in the rainy season. In their pce, teams of Earth workers id bck sheets of bitumen over compacted gravel, sealing each pass with steamrollers that hissed and growled. Already, three arterial roads led from the docks toward the city's market ring — a full kilometer of paved, marked highway.

  The first Earth cargo trucks had arrived that morning, bearing industrial hardware and modur office containers. The people gathered near the edge of the city square just to watch them. One man fainted when a truck let loose a reverse-gear arm.

  Kanata exhaled slowly. "Two months ago, we measured time by the tides. Now we schedule bor around satellite feeds."

  Avrin gnced at the convoy rolling past. "Do you know what one of their engineers told me yesterday?"

  Kanata shook his head.

  "They built an entire city block in Jakarta in under four days using prefab modules. Electric cranes, swarm drones, machine-routed foundation work. The machines communicate. The buildings self-bance before humans even enter."

  Kanata's eyes widened. "Without even touching mana?"

  "No enchantments. No rituals. Just code."

  He paused, then added with a faint scoff, "Meanwhile, Parpaldia's engineers are still lighting bst furnaces with dragon oil, and Holy Mirishial insists on using crystal resonance towers that short out during full moons."

  Kanata snorted. "Mirishial calls it 'divine harmonics.'"

  "Yes," Avrin said dryly, "and their st divine harmonic explosion left a crater outside Cartalpas. Two engineers turned to gss."

  Payne, standing nearby, shook his head with a faint smile. "And yet they still think themselves chosen."

  Avrin gestured toward the construction crews. "That? That's divine. That's sacred, in its own way. Machines that don't question. Logistics that don't sleep. Algorithms that can save more lives in five minutes than a priesthood in five centuries."

  They watched as a team of Earth workers, aided by a squat automated loader, precisely lowered a power rey unit into a prefab utility slot. It clicked once, lit green, and powered up an entire scaffold.

  Kanata let out a slow whistle.

  "I spent the first half of my career petitioning Parliament for budget to fix one sewer gate. And here we are, watching electricity install itself."

  From the ground level, a group of local children had gathered near the edge of the site. They whispered excitedly, pointing at the sleek Earth trucks, the tablet-wielding supervisors, the glowing survey drones.

  One girl tugged at her father's sleeve. "Papa, is that magic?"

  "No," the man replied, his voice hushed. "That's Earth."

  Back on the scaffold, Payne watched a digger bde carve through stubborn rock with machine efficiency.

  "This would take Mirishial's sorcerous guild a month and three rituals. And you'd still end up with half-melted stone and a tax on leyline use."

  Kanata's mouth curled upward, grim amusement dancing in his expression.

  "We used to bow at the edges of their court just to be considered for mage-support in flood season," he said. "Now we can build our own canal in a week. With margin tracking. With forecasts."

  "They have relics," Avrin muttered. "We have results."

  The first Earth cargo trucks had arrived that morning, bearing industrial hardware and modur office containers. The people gathered near the edge of the city square just to watch them. One man fainted when a truck let loose a reverse-gear arm.

  Kanata exhaled slowly. "Two months ago, we measured time by the tides. Now we schedule bor around satellite feeds."

  Ambassador Payne gave a wry smile. "Not everyone's happy about that. Even among Earth nations."

  Kanata raised an eyebrow, but Avrin was already nodding grimly.

  "There was an incident. West of the Sendar Pins. Chinese geological team entered a forest zone under the assumption it was 'uncimed nd.'"

  Kanata's eyes narrowed. "Under what authority?"

  "None that mattered," Payne said. "They weren't cleared through the official Earth-Rodenian Exploration Bureau. No diplomatic filing. No regional map coordination. They just... showed up. Decred the area Chinese territory. Pnted a fg."

  Kanata's expression darkened. "I hope we didn't send in knights."

  "No," Avrin said. "Just a farmer. He kicked the fg into the mud. Didn't know what it was."

  Payne chuckled once. "That's when it turned into a brawl. Australian infrastructure crew was nearby — they stepped in to protect the local. It escated. Melee weapons. No fatalities, but bruises and broken dignity."

  "And the Chinese?" Kanata asked.

  "Ran," Avrin said. "Straight back to their temporary HQ in Louria. Their own Exploration Department had them arrested within a day."

  Payne's voice lowered. "They were charged with acting without state sanction and 'ruining the face of the Chinese nation.' Forced to issue public apologies to your Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Haven't been seen since."

  Kanata watched as another truck unloaded modur housing units stamped with Japanese and Thai emblems.

  "The world watches us," he said at st. "And we watch them back. Closely."

  In the residential district, Meily, the well-known receptionist at Defense HQ, watched the procession from her apartment balcony with a mix of fascination and dread.

  "They look like golems," she whispered to no one in particur.

  Her elderly neighbor, a retired wyvern handler, grunted. "No. Golems groan. These beasts scream."

  But even he watched, eyes narrowed.

  From their vantage point, they could see the port cranes rising like skeletal giants. One was already operational, unloading pre-fab housing from an Australian container vessel. UN peace advisors mingled with Qua-Toynian guards near a temporary customs checkpoint.

  It was surreal — ships with no sails, walls with no mortar, machines that obeyed no spells.

  Inside the Defense HQ, General Hanki stood before a projection screen powered by Earth-standard sor generators. Maps fshed across the gss — not drawn, but dynamically rendered by satellite. A UN logistics officer expined the port's development timeline while sipping from a thermal mug beled "Republic of the Philippines: Army Corps of Engineers."

  "We expect basic ship handling capability in six weeks. Deepwater port functionality in three months. By then, we'll be rotating in Earth-standard cargo and joint security advisors."

  "Will your people be armed?" Hanki asked, a trace of frost in his voice.

  The officer paused, choosing his words. "Advisors will remain unarmed unless explicitly requested. Your sovereignty is fully recognized. Our presence is infrastructure-first."

  Hanki grunted. "So long as that does not change."

  The officer gave a respectful nod. "Understood."

  Near the market square, Kalmia, one of the youngest signal operators in the military, stared at the new communication tower that Earth engineers were building just outside the walls. She clutched a small receiver — gifted by a Thai technician — and tuned through frequencies, nding on a soft, rhythmic noise. Music.

  It wasn't magical or sacred. Just... a guitar. A voice. A beat. All foreign.

  She had never heard anything like it.

  "It's called a pylist," the technician had expined, ughing. "You'll be addicted soon."

  Kalmia wasn't sure about that. But when she pyed it for her brother, he asked her where the bard was hiding.

  Even among the nobility, the reaction was split.

  Some embraced the change eagerly. Lord Hagama, governor of Maihark, had already announced a partnership to introduce Earth-style logistics management into the city's bureaucratic core. He hosted Earth diplomats for tea under banners that read "Friendship Across Worlds."

  Others — especially older lords — whispered fears.

  "What happens when we forget our own hands can build?"

  "Will our sons grow up loyal to software instead of swords?"

  "Are we being helped... or being repced?"

  At the Royal Academy, young students began lessons assisted by tablets and AI-driven transtion tools. Earth educators worked alongside Minister Rinsui and Meridi Yushta, now the de facto head of Earth-Rodenian information coordination. The cssroom echoed with both Qua-Toynian and English. Some children adapted quickly. Others asked why the old books were being stored away.

  The cultural shock was not loud — not yet. But it simmered. Underneath the optimism, underneath the wonder, there was a growing tension: between past and future, tradition and transformation.

  And as one boy whispered to his friend, watching a Chinese drone hover above the new bridgeworks:

  "If this is peace... what does their war look like?"

  July 18, 1639 — Southern Louria, Province of Redin Vale

  The old sve roads were silent.

  Where once chains rattled and wagons creaked under the weight of bound flesh, now only crows circled above scorched wood and burnt fgs. The st caravan had vanished three nights ago — intercepted by a UN Marine recon squad. The guards were stripped of their weapons, the sves freed, and the camp burned to ash. No warning. No negotiation. Just a storm of steel and thunder that came and went like judgment from the sky.

  Lord Vascard stood over the smoldering remains, his heavy robes dusted with soot. His expression was fixed — half hatred, half disbelief. He'd lost a year's profit in one night. A thousand gold in stock. Three dozen enforcers dead. And worse — no punishment had followed. No royal inquiry. No cavalry from Jin-hark.

  Just silence.

  They had been abandoned.

  He stepped over the bckened bones of a cart axle, crunching gss from a shattered containment rune underfoot. Scattered across the dirt were singed colrs — iron bands engraved with identification codes, ownership marks, and control glyphs. Some still sizzled faintly from impact rounds.

  He picked one up and turned it in his gloved hand.

  The namepte read: Mirae, demi-human, age 14. Capable. Fertile.

  Beside the colr y a ragged cloak, child-sized, torn at the shoulder. He did not move it. He did not need to see the stain beneath.

  Three days earlier, Mirae had been shoved into that wagon with twelve others — elven children, beastkin teens, two mute dwarves sold from the mines. Some had known only cages. Others, freedom until their vilge fell to border raids. Vascard's men had loaded them under torchlight, branding their wrists, slicing off hair for identification. They would've been delivered to the new Arcanum market near Fenrell's coast, a "protected" zone outside royal surveilnce.

  But the UN arrived first.

  They came without fgs, without horns. Just fast, silent airships in the night. Drones cut through the treetops. Suppressed rifles coughed in the dark. Every Lourian guard dropped where they stood.

  One soldier, a Maysian sergeant, personally carried Mirae out of the burning cart. She screamed. She didn't understand the nguage. But he whispered calmly, offered water, handed her a space bnket.

  She had never seen a man kneel before her before.

  Now, in the present, Vascard crushed the colr and let it fall into the ashes.

  "Do you hear it?" he said aloud, not turning to the captain behind him.

  "Milord?" the man asked cautiously.

  "The silence," Vascard growled. "No punishment. No protest. No condemnation from the pace. They knew what Earth would do. And they watched us burn."

  The captain lowered his eyes. "We've lost the Hillside Depot, too. They hit it st night."

  "Another caravan?"

  "Gone. Dozens."

  Vascard's face twisted. "Elves. Beasts. Dwarves. They steal our bor, and call it justice. But it's not justice. It's warfare."

  He turned, eyes wild now.

  "They came with fire and wires. They came to erase our order. They think mercy is a virtue. They think we will crawl."

  A long silence stretched between them.

  "Prepare the next camp," Vascard ordered. "Pull from the deeper pens. No more parading. No signs. We move only at night. And if Earth comes again..."

  He looked at the remains of the guard shack — melted into sg from a drone strike.

  "...we bury them."

  Later, at the secret war council, as the lords debated weapons, troops, and vengeance, Vascard brought out the broken colr and smmed it onto the war table beside the map of Earth outposts.

  "Do you know what they call this?" he snarled. "Evidence. They parade it in their courts as proof of our 'barbarity.' As if the world was ever fair to those without power."

  Othar leaned forward. "Then let's give them something worse."

  Fenrell nodded. "We recruit the wild mages. The ones who won't touch court gold. Give them what they want — targets."

  "Not just sabotage," Dremir said. "We hurt them. Hit their patrols. Bleed their engineers. Make the roads run red before their towers ever rise."

  "And the sves?" asked Belcane, voice quieter.

  Vascard didn't hesitate. "The weak will always serve. That is bance. And Earth will learn that bance cannot be rewritten by machine code and drones."

  In the hills, the ensved were gone.

  But the chains still cnked — now forged into bdes.

  And the men who had once sold elf children for coin were now preparing to sell something else:

  Revenge.

  Atop the ruined fort of Redin Vale, beneath the cracked sun-sigil of House Ven Draim, the six lords of the southern marches sat around a cold brazier and drank sour wine from chipped cups. The fmes had long since gone out. Only the rot remained.

  Vascard. Fenrell. Othar. Belcane. Dremir. Halst.

  They had once ruled bordernds with iron and fire. Now, they watched their power decay by the week.

  "They've turned their back on us," Fenrell snarled again, voice thick with contempt. "Hark Louria feasts in marble halls while we bleed out here. Our gold feeds his embassies. Our nd rots while he raises gss towers for the foreigners."

  "Hark is no king," Othar spat into the ash. "He's a clerk. A groveling mouthpiece for the Earth men and their fshing boxes."

  "They call them 'data centers,'" Dremir grumbled, "but all I see are prisons for thought."

  Belcane leaned forward, swirling his cup with venomous calm. "The king signs away our sovereignty with every trade deal. He shuts down the sve routes, bans our levies, dismantles our enforcement rights. And for what? For electric lights and cheap grain from Australia?"

  Halst gave a bitter ugh. "He even lets them rewrite our w. The Earth court ordered one of my knights executed. Executed. For harming a 'protected civilian' during an inspection."

  "They weren't even Lourian," Fenrell added, seething. "They were from Maysia."

  "And we bowed to their fg," Halst muttered. "To their justice."

  Another pause. Then Vascard's voice cut like flint. "The royal court betrayed the pact. They abandoned tradition. Sold Louria's soul for concrete and software."

  There was no dissent.

  "Every time the United Nations strikes our markets, we lose more than coin," Othar said. "We lose authority. Our men question us. Our nds weaken. Our people look to Earth screens instead of banners."

  "And those screens," Fenrell said with narrowed eyes, "show them another world. One where we do not exist."

  "They mean to erase us," Vascard said. "But we are not yet finished."

  Belcane smiled slowly. "Then let them be reminded what we are."

  They shifted into strategy, the room colder now, voices sharp.

  "We need weapons," Dremir said. "Not iron. Not bronze. Weapons that work. That kill."

  "Modern soldiers fear nothing," Othar added. "They wear metal that bends neither bde nor bolt. They see through fog. They speak in thunder."

  "We'll change the rules," Vascard said. "We don't match them—we unmake them."

  Belcane tossed a scroll onto the table. It showed sketches from captured Earth patrols. Ballistic armor. Helmet shapes. Vehicle weak points. Notes scrawled by a rogue alchemist in their pay.

  "Spells that melt vision lenses. Dust that clogs rifles. Fire glyphs fused with tar-soaked bolts. We will forge death for men who think they are beyond dying."

  Fenrell leaned in. "And dragons. We need dragons."

  "Wyverns," Halst corrected. "Fast. Hungry. Fearless. They can't outrun bullets, but they can strike when the sun is behind them."

  Othar nodded. "We'll breed more. Hatch them in the old fme caverns. We still have three nests untouched. There are tamers in the marshes who remember the old commands."

  "Magicians too," Belcane added. "Not court wizards. Not ritual fools. Real blood-casters. Exiled or disgraced. The kind who bind pain to power."

  "We give them purpose," Vascard said. "We offer them vengeance."

  "And when we are ready," Halst said slowly, "we make them pay."

  "Earth?" asked Dremir.

  "And the Crown," Halst confirmed. "Hark Louria shall learn what it means to be ruled again. And Earth—"

  "Earth will bleed," Vascard finished.

  Their eyes turned to the map. A red circle marked a small logistics hub near the southern border — a lightly defended UN outpost staffed by Maysians, overseeing trade routes and monitoring pirate activity. It handled daily drone supply runs and intel from across the coastal hills.

  Perfect for a first strike.

  "Soft target," Othar noted. "But symbolic."

  Fenrell nodded. "We hit them there. Then vanish. Let them chase ghosts while we recruit."

  "And after that?" asked Dremir.

  Vascard's voice was quiet, resolute.

  "Then we decre war."

  The fire cracked like bone beneath the night wind, casting long shadows against the jagged rock walls that boxed in the ruined chapel where they had gathered.

  There was no light save torch and fme. No banners. No heralds. Just rusted weapons and hungry men.

  Peasants with dirt still caked beneath their nails. Mercenaries stripped of commission and coin. Retired knights with broken oaths. Even a handful of former castle mages with scorched robes and bitter eyes. All stood shoulder to shoulder beneath the crumbled arch of a temple that once worshipped the sun. Now it worshipped rage.

  Lord Vascard stood on the altar where a priest once gave blessings. His voice was low but sharp, cutting the murmurs clean.

  "You know why you're here."

  Silence answered.

  "You've seen it. We all have. The fgs. The machines. The concrete. Roads that stretch over our graves. Lights that never dim. Men who speak of 'progress' while they erase us."

  He gestured outward, toward the northern hills where cranes glowed red in the distance, building another Earth logistics hub.

  "They say we are backward. That we are to be repced. Even our own king—" he spat the word like a curse, "—has chosen their world over ours."

  Murmurs turned to mutters. Anger burned behind eyes.

  "They banned the markets. Shut down the chains. Raided our nds like thieves in the night. And our Crown? Nothing. Not a sword raised. Not a word spoken."

  "Because the Crown has bent the knee," growled Fenrell, stepping forward. "Louria is no longer ours."

  "We are the st of it," said Belcane. "And we will not go quietly."

  Vascard raised both arms, fire flickering in his eyes.

  "We do not fight their machines," he said. "We fight their men."

  A beat. Then he shouted.

  "They are not gods! They bleed! They doubt! And we—"

  He pointed at the ragged crowd.

  "—we know these nds better than they ever will."

  The chapel walls shook with the rising voices.

  They would not win with honor. They would win with ambush, terrain, and terror. The fight would be uneven — and that was the point.

  Bcksmiths in Fenrell's court had begun crafting new bdes — obsidian tips fused with steel, serrated to punch between the ptes of Earth body armor. Iron spikeballs soaked in brine to tear flesh beneath polymer padding.

  Old mages — blood-bound sorcerers exiled from Jin-hark — now practiced spell rot, rituals designed not to kill outright, but to cripple Earth soldiers' senses: nausea runes. Sound-bending wards. Mirage glyphs that could mask movement or twist light around a campfire.

  Smoke bombs ced with screaming pitch.

  Slings modified to hurl acid pods — cy vials filled with fmmable oil and powdered ash. Even these crude tools could panic soldiers in formation, sow chaos among precision.

  And in hidden chambers below Vascard's estate, wyvern eggs rested under dragongss braziers. Three nests, intact. A new breeding line, fueled by fear and desperation. The beasts would not match jets — but in the jungle, in the dead of night, a silent glider with razor cws could still carve men from the sky.

  Recruitment spread like fever.

  From the old quarry vilges to the marshes of Arad Hollow, word passed quietly: The Ash Pact rises. No speeches, no fgs. Just nods, favors, old debts recalled.

  By week's end, two hundred had joined.

  One was a boy no older than sixteen, whose father had been trampled during a UN seizure of a sve caravan. He brought a flint pistol and a hatred too deep to extinguish.

  Another, a mage once condemned for human grafting, offered to enchant boar tusks into armor-piercing harpoons.

  Vascard accepted them all.

  At the war table — a splintered door repurposed over crates of stolen Earth rations — the six lords circled a crude map of southern Louria.

  "This one," Halst said, tapping the red X drawn near the coast. "Maysian outpost. Satellite uplink, light security, ten, maybe twelve stationed at a time. Mostly engineers, peacekeepers."

  Fenrell sneered. "They're the ones that raided my eastern pens. Took the stock. Burned my fields."

  "They won't expect an attack," said Dremir. "They think us cowed. Broken."

  "Let's teach them otherwise," Belcane growled. "Quick strike. No survivors. Leave their tower in smoke."

  Othar gnced around the table. "And after?"

  Vascard didn't blink.

  "After, we decre war. On the Crown. On Earth."

  "The old fg?" asked Halst.

  "No," Vascard said. "A new one. Bck. With ash. No kings. No masters. Just fire."

  The war council fell quiet.

  Then Fenrell ughed once — bitter and full of teeth.

  "So be it. Let them come with satellites and drones. We'll greet them with shadow and steel."

  In the dark hills beyond civil reach, the first war drums of the Ash Pact began to beat.

  And Earth would soon learn that not all of Louria had surrendered to peace.

  In the capital, the Crown had heard whispers — but Commander Rand's scouts had not yet returned from the south. Queen Elenara knew something stirred beyond their reach, but she feared what her husband would do if he learned.

  And so, for now, the rebellion festered in the cracks of a changing world. A world being paved over with Earth concrete and silicon logic.

  But in the south, old blood still boiled — and the first weapons made in the name of revenge, not profit, had already been forged.

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