It had been a while since we began searching for the Lubara shrines.
Three dozen Voros had fallen so far — perhaps more. I wasn't counting exactly. But I knew the number by feel. The rhythm of death. I could sense how many had died by the trail of Fallen residue they left behind, the heat that lingered in the trees, the silence that followed.
Still, they kept coming.
The deeper we went, the more persistent they became. We hadn't even reached the true hotbeds yet — not the shrines, not even the main zone. And yet, these creatures already greeted us like starving dogs. Crawling from behind roots, twitching under brush, hiding in stone hollows.
My group held strong. No one had faltered yet.
Of course not. My leadership skills were unmatched. Even a fool could thrive under my command — I had turned both Easterners in my unit into functioning tools. Fortunately, I also had Nura Husafi at my side. His presence made things... more tolerable.
Still, the Madarikan Ifeanyi, and that Udoka girl, Amaka — they were thorns in my path. Two Easterners, in my group?
It was infuriating.
But not unmanageable.
This forest — this contract — it was more than a routine cleansing. It was our play. Our window. If everything went according to plan, the Central Confluence would finally slip from the Udokas' fingers. It would become what it was always meant to be — Husafi territory.
That's why this plan had to succeed.
That's why these Easterners shadowing us made things harder. Receiving the coordinates from the native doctor's men was already a delicate task. Now I had to keep everything under the radar — away from any watching eyes. Especially Eastern eyes.
A useless obstacle. But one I would work around.
And then there was the native doctor.
A strange man. Brilliant, perhaps. Dangerous? Absolutely.
I still remembered the day he stepped into the Husafi compound. No escorts. No formal scroll. Just that weathered cloak of his, walking in like we'd all been waiting for him.
He sat. Spoke. Spoke not like a man requesting permission, but like one offering destiny. A true native doctor, through and through.
"I'll help you gain control over the Central Confluence," he said. "Let me stir the chaos — you bring the calm."
His confidence was unsettling. But his offer?
Irresistible.
He brought with him something we had never imagined real — knowledge of the Lubara shrines. Not just tales or superstition. Blueprints. Rituals. Schematics. A method to open birth portals and let the Fallen flood in like locusts through torn grain sacks.
Even I thought he was bluffing.
Until he summoned one in the drylands.
We watched the Voros pour out. Screeching. Crawling. Real.
That's when I knew — he was no fraud.
This native doctor wasn't just a mystic.
He was something far worse — a scholar of the unspeakable. The kind of man who spent his life reading between the pages of worlds. A man who could shatter the divine balance, if left to his own devices.
Which is exactly why we won't leave him unchecked.
Once we've received our end of the deal — the shrine coordinates, the planned collapse, the platform to emerge as saviors — the dais he was promised will never reach him.
We will capture him.
Not kill. Not yet. He's too valuable.
A man like that, with knowledge like his… must be kept. Held. Controlled. We'll take what he knows — every page, every whisper, every rite etched into his mind.
And then?
Then we decide what becomes of him.
Because only the Husafis know how to manage true talent.