In the House Aurin convoy compound, Captain Selene felt Rowan's emergency beacon and made a rapid assessment.

It was an adept level distress signal used in the republic to display a significant threat that required a rapid response.

Then she made a second assessment: Not my problem.

She was House Aurin convoy commander. Her responsibility was transporting the Academy candidates safely to Central. That was it. Nothing in her contract, nothing in her obligations, required her to engage in Vester's internal crises.

"Captain," one of her guards said, clearly having felt the signal. "Should we—"

"No." Selene's voice carried finality. "We just have to maintain the compound security. We protect our primary transport assets if they get here. Let Vester's Adepts handle Vester's emergencies."

"But if they're overwhelmed—"

"Then the Republic will dispatch reinforcements from the neighboring outposts," Selene said evenly. "Standard protocol. It doesn't involve me—or this convoy."

She turned back to her slate, fingers already moving through departure manifests, the emergency beacon effectively erased from relevance.

"Our mandate is simple," she continued, voice flat with repetition. "We secure the Academy candidates when we depart Vester. That's it. No more, no less. No one predicted this place would collapse into a cesspit, but here we are."

She didn't look up.

"There will be hundreds of candidates funneling into Central from dozens of outposts. These ones aren't special. If a few end up dead in a ditch before then…" Her shoulders lifted in a faint, dismissive shrug. "That's their burden to bear."

Finally, she glanced up—eyes hard, distant, professional to the point of cruelty.

"I don't have friends in this town. I don't have loyalties here. Everything outside my orders is noise."

Her guard looked uncomfortable but nodded. House Aurin didn't pay her to question orders.

Selene understood the calculation perfectly. Yes, she was an Adept. Yes, she could probably help Rowan against whatever had triggered his emergency signal.

But engaging meant risk. Meant potential injury or death. Meant compromising her actual obligation to deliver the candidates.

And House Aurin would be furious if she got herself killed playing hero for an outpost she was just passing through.

Not my circus. Not my monkeys.

She continued her logistics review, ignoring Rowan's desperate plea for assistance, prioritizing her contracted obligations over everything else.

It was cold. Pragmatic. Exactly what House Aurin paid her for.

And if Rowan died because she refused to help? That was Republic problem, not hers.

-----

Atheon and Vaelith moved through Vester's infrastructure at a staggering level of speed, following Rowan's emergency beacon toward the colony breach where the queen had retreated.

"Any assessment on the threat type we are about to face?" Atheon asked, his combat cores already active, preparing for the engagement.

"It's unclear," Vaelith replied. "But given the ant emergence tonight, it's almost certainly tied to colony activity." He paused, eyes narrowing slightly. "It wouldn't be far-fetched to assume we're dealing with the queen herself."

"It's been a long time since I last crossed blades with Rowan. If he encountered the queen and survived long enough to send this beacon, then he's either exceptionally skilled or obscenely lucky." Vaelith's lips curved faintly. "Either way, it seems he's been holding out on me."

Vaelith's mind turned, already mapping outcomes.

If they arrived to find Rowan dead, he would express the proper regret and move on.

If Rowan was wounded but alive, Vaelith would assist—publicly, of course—ensuring witnesses to his concern and cooperation.

And if Rowan was facing something capable of killing them all…

Then Vaelith would have to arrive and see for himself.

They reached the colony breach site and found carnage.

Ant corpses everywhere. Hundreds of them. Soldier variants torn apart, ichor coating the walls, the floor, creating slick pools that stank of Crawler biochemistry.

And in the center of the massacre, two bodies: Rowan Kadesh and another Adept—one Atheon didn't recognize, wearing Covenant robes.

"A damned Covenant Adept," Atheon breathed, shock genuine. "They had an Adept coordinating tonight's assault."

Vaelith's surprise was also genuine—this was complication he hadn't anticipated. The Covenant forces he'd been manipulating were supposed to be fanatic laborers, not Adept-level specialists.

Did I underestimate their infiltration? he wondered with rare uncertainty. Or did they have resources I wasn't aware of?

Both Adepts on the ground were breathing—barely. Wounded severely, poisoned from what looked like massive stinger strikes.

"Medical assistance!" Atheon barked into his communication mirror. "Priority Alpha. Two Adepts down—severe envenomation. We need immediate transport to—"

He cut himself off, eyes flicking toward the fallen Covenant adept. Alive. Barely.

If they could keep the man breathing, there was still time. Still answers to be taken. A living Covenant Adept was worth more than any battlefield report—especially this far north.

"Wait," Vaelith said, studying the scene more carefully.

The ant corpses. The battle damage. The positioning of Rowan and the Covenant Adept.

They'd been fighting together. Against something so threatening that a religious fanatic and a Republic vassal had formed temporary alliance.

"They fought the queen," Vaelith realized. "Both of them, coordinating against that threat. And something still poisoned them both before they could kill it."

"Which means the queen survived." Atheon's expression was grim. "Retreated into the colony network, is still alive and is still coordinating swarm activities."

Complications, Vaelith thought. The colony had never been part of his calculations, but he adjusted anyway. What else could you do when faced with a player you held no leverage over?

This was meant to be noise—random chaos to mask his cleaner movements elsewhere, not an organized, thinking threat.

But if the Queen was this powerful… this intelligent—

Medical teams arrived and began emergency treatment on both fallen Adepts. Atheon coordinated their extraction while Vaelith studied the tunnel entrance where the queen had withdrawn.

This changes the narrative, Vaelith calculated. Rowan fighting alongside a Covenant Adept meant the threat had crossed a threshold. Ideology didn't bend easily—certainly not between enemies like that.

Which meant tonight was no longer a carefully arranged disaster.

It was becoming something genuinely dangerous, something drifting outside the boundaries of his predictions.

Could still work in my favor. Frame everything as an unprecedented multi-vector assault that overwhelmed our defensive preparations. Position myself as the one who maintained order amid the chaos no one could have predicted.

"The queen's still out there," Atheon said, reading Vaelith's thoughts from his expression. "We need to organize the extermination operation before she recovers."

"Agreed. But not tonight. We've lost too many soldiers already." Vaelith's tactical assessment was sound. "We'll seal the breaches, establish the defensive perimeters and wait for dawn reinforcements from our neighboring outposts. Then we conduct the proper bug extermination with adequate force."

Atheon wanted to argue—wanted to press the advantage, finish what Rowan had started. But exhaustion and casualties made Vaelith's caution rational.

"Fine. Dawn operation. But I want triple patrols around every known breach point. If the queen emerges again before we're ready—"

"She won't," Vaelith said with confidence he didn't entirely feel. "She's wounded from what I've gathered. Retreating. The Hive Instincts prioritize preservation over expansion when the queen's threatened. We have time."

They supervised the fallen Adepts' extraction, coordinated defensive repositioning, began the grinding work of transitioning from active crisis to damage assessment.

-----

On another end,

Adam stood in darkness, his soul core tugging—a strange, insistent sensation that meant his advancement was approaching.

It was not happening immediately but soon.

He could feel it. The accumulated combat experience, the absorbed skills, the systematic killing he'd been doing all night. It was coalescing into something, pushing him toward the threshold between Fledgling and Initiate.

Weeks, he estimated. Maybe a month. Then I'll hit Initiate rank.

Which meant the Mental Dampening core—currently locked in his footlocker, waiting patiently—would become absorbable.

Would transform him from baseline human with a rifle into something more.

Would improve his Academy chances from desperate hope to realistic possibility.

Especially if more candidates die and they don't leave till I advance , Adam thought with habitual calculation.

He'd killed Sinclair. Had staged it as ant casualty. Had created one vacancy in the fifteen slots.

But one wasn't enough. He needed more. Needed the selection committee to look at remaining candidates and see Adam—the tactician who'd survived Clear Light's Eve through intelligence and adaptability, who'd helped coordinate defensive responses, who'd demonstrated value beyond simple combat capability.

How many more need to die? he wondered clinically. Three? Five? How many vacancies before my advancement becomes inevitable?

The thought should have horrified him. Should have triggered some moral revulsion at calculating human lives like mathematical variables.

But Adam felt nothing except focused determination.

He'd crossed the line when he shot Sinclair. Everything after was just logistics.

His soul core tugged again—stronger this time, insistent. The threshold was approaching. Initiate rank within reach.

Just need to survive, Adam thought. Survive long enough to advance. Advance enough to matter. Matter enough to secure the slot I need.

The machinery of opportunity turned.

And Adam fed it corpses, one calculation at a time.

-----

Elsewhere, Silas watched the medical bay's ongoing tension and wondered if anyone actually believed their own performances anymore.

Estovia clutched evidence everyone already knew existed.

Vaelith maintained innocence everyone knew was false.

Atheon protected candidates while failing to protect the outpost.

And Academy advancement—the thing they were all supposedly pursuing—felt increasingly like elaborate distraction from the simple truth:

Everyone was just trying to survive systems that ground them down regardless of merit or morality.

Maybe that's the real lesson, Silas thought, fading slightly further from perception. Not how to advance. Just how to survive advancement's cost.

His Sense Fade flickered.

And for moment, even he forgot he existed.

Which somehow felt appropriate for Clear Light's Eve.

When everyone was forgettable.

When everything was temporary.

When survival was just delaying the next crisis.

The night wore on.

Dim light approached.

And Vester counted its dead, knowing the count would rise before the sun—artificial or otherwise—brought any relief.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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