The Primeval Era

<Masamuk>

Masamuk had traveled across many Lands in his long existence, and he had seen many sights!

He floated beside Tiaret in the high air, his obsidian body drifting on currents of Mana. The stellar blue points scattered across his form pulsed harder than usual, responding to the density of what surrounded them. Beside him, Tiaret’s golden hair lifted.

The Threshold Lands were gone as they were nearing an area that really should not exist.

Where stone and dry earth should have stretched in every direction, a paradise now reached toward every horizon. Crimson-leafed Acacia in groves that swayed without breeze. Golden Baobab clusters rising like the bones of something ancient. Blue-stemmed grasslands running across miles, and seven enormous pillars that the delegation’s mind kept wanting to call trees but whose height made the word inadequate!

Behind him, the rest of the delegation had stopped moving.

Tiaret’s father hung in the air at the head of the procession, his golden fur rippling, his Crown of Kingship floating above his head and pulsing brighter than it had in years. The King of the Noble Simba Lineage was staring downward with an expression Masamuk had seen him wear perhaps three times in their long acquaintance, the expression of a ruler encountering something his rulership did not yet have language for.

The Mana was the worst of it.

Or the best, depending on how one chose to frame the sensation. It pressed against them from every direction, thick enough to drink, pure enough to make Masamuk’s cultivation increase!

"Masamuk." Tiaret’s voice came soft beside him. "What uuh...what is this?"

...!

What the fuck was this really!

But just as they were about to observe more of the distant paradisical place, a booming voice rolled out filled with mana as if it meant to declare something grand.

"I hear the command of the Heir of Zuku Vakochev! The Young Lugal! Damian Vakochev, First of His Name! The True Heir and Ruler of the Vakochev Empire! I hear and greet...Emperor Vakochev!"

...!

Masamuk’s small body went utterly rigid.

Beside him, Tiaret’s father had turned his enormous head downward with slow, deliberate menace, his nine tails freezing mid-sweep. The Crown of Kingship above him flared once!

The King had come expecting to meet a beast who had healed his daughter. What was this about the heir of a human Empire?!

—

Damian shook his head wryly at Uncle Adam.

The old warrior was still holding the Vakochev salute, chest out, eyes bright with a fervor that belonged more to the burning night of the fallen empire than to the morning of the Cradle. Damian stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"I’ll be here," he said, softer now. "And I’ll be back."

Then he floated up.

The ground released him without resistance, wings of verdant-blue flame unfurling behind him as he rose through the warm air of the Cradle. Serala was already waiting above, and he nodded at her once as she followed!

They turned together and began to fly, angling out of the Cradle of First Flames and toward the distant horizon where the Covenant of the First Stone waited.

He had already observed the delegation.

They’d arrived a little early, dozens of Mana signatures drifting in from the sky at the edge of his domain, and he had felt them the moment they crossed into the territory. The words Uncle Adam had bellowed would have carried to them. Whatever conclusions they drew from it would be whatever conclusions they drew.

It didn’t truly matter.

Within the Cradle was his beast form, and on his beast form sat the brand new Land and Sky Physique of Primordial Beast Sovereignty. He absolutely wasn’t worried.

---

Far below, on the grass of the Cradle where the raised mountain met the earth he had reshaped, the massive beast form remained seated in regal stillness.

Uncle Adam walked toward it with Grandmother Essun at his side, both newly transformed, both still adjusting to bodies that stood taller and moved easier than the ones they’d worn this morning. The beast’s verdant-flaming mane stirred as they approached, enormous head lifting slightly in acknowledgment.

Far above them in the sky, the delegation arrived.

Dozens of Noble Beasts drifted into view across the horizon, all of them Noble Simba Lineage except for the small obsidian shape floating among them. Their golden fur caught the morning light, eyes shining with the pride of a Lineage that had walked the Sacred Mountains since before the current age had a name.

They advanced with the composure of royalty arriving, Crowns of partial Kingship flickering above the more powerful among them.

They noted the Pteranodon first. Several of them slowed at the sight. They noted the Pterosaurs scattered across the skies, the Velociraptors prowling in organized packs below, and the density of Mana threading through every inch of the Cradle.

Then their eyes landed on the beast form by the mountain.

And..

Golden fur bristled across the delegation. Tails froze mid-sweep. The Noble Simbas stared down at the massive golden lion seated on the earth with its verdant-blue flames and its nine tails and its crown of Primordial fire, and their faces wrote a single word across every one of them!

Incredulity!

Down below, the beast form simply raised its head.

Damian hadn’t intended to do anything. The Primordial Beast Sovereignty Physique did the rest really as he didn’t even exert it!

Regal and tyrannical light flashed in those enormous verdant-blue eyes.

He wasn’t controlling it. The Physique simply responded when he stared at beasts, the inherent sovereignty of the First Hunters uncoiling through him without permission, and the gaze that reached upward from the Cradle wasn’t a warning or a challenge.

It was a question that he truly did not even intend as he was looking up!

How dare you float above while I sit below?

HUUM!

In the next moment, the members of the beast delegation found their pride and arrogance and power dwindling inside them as if something greater than all of them had reached into their blood and squeezed. Their lineages shuddered!

Damian blinked at their reactions as in thr next instant...

Dozens of figures dropped from the sky, golden fur and burning manes plummeting toward the earth without grace or warning, each Noble Simba slamming down to one knee as their heads bowed!

Masamuk descended more carefully, his small obsidian body settling near the head of the delegation, crimson eyes wide.

The largest of them, the one who must have been Tiaret’s father, raised his enormous head and looked toward the beast form.

His voice shook when it came with fervor, incredulity, and hope like he had found something long lost!

"Oh, Ancestor!"