Chapter 23: NEW HORIZONS
The sky never truly healed.
Even after the violet rift closed, its scars lingered—like burn marks across the clouds. The land was quiet, yes. But it was not peace. It was aftermath. The kind that simmers.
Reed stood at the edge of the new border, boots pressing into soil that had never belonged to him before. Goblin’s Hollow was no longer a hidden trench—it was a dominion. His dominion.
> DOMAIN MAP EXPANDED
> NEW RESOURCES UNLOCKED: IRONWOOD GROVES / WRAITHMARSH / SUNKEN BARRACKS
> POPULATION: 478 (Mixed)
The System’s clean numbers meant nothing without context.
Among the 478 were scavengers, deserters, surviving peasants from burned villages, slaves freed during the chaos, and remnants of the coalition’s vassals. All of them now under his rule.
Shia stood beside him, leaning heavily on a gnarled walking stick made of Hollowspawn chitin. Her body was still recovering, but her mind remained sharp. "They don’t know what you are. Yet."
"They’ll find out soon enough."
The first decree was survival.