The eastern trench still steamed where the wyrm's body had burned into the soil. Blackridge's warriors worked in grim silence, hauling obsidian plates from the creature's corpse, stacking them in slag carts for salvage. Every breath tasted of scorched rock and smoke. The Blood Moon hung above them like an open wound, casting a red sheen over everything.
Riku watched the cleanup from the shattered overlook, a fresh split in the stone beneath his feet from where the wyrm had surfaced. The forge teams had patched the steam lines within hours, but the damage wasn't just structural—it was mental.
Apex beasts weren't supposed to feel planned.
But this one had moved like it was drawn to the forge itself. Not wild, not random.
Directed.
Behind him, Kael arrived carrying the new glaive prototypes—reforged from fragments pulled from the trench's debris pile. "The plating held," he said, setting them down. "Whatever shape they came back in… they're stronger. Denser."
Riku took one and turned it slowly in his hand. The weight was right, but the balance was better. No visible forge marks. No grind imperfections. Yet it felt… owned.
He didn't speak. Just slid it onto the rack.
Sira entered next, limping from the wound on her thigh, wrapped tight and recently cauterized. She dropped a soot-stained cloth onto the table. "Found this in the wyrm's gullet."
It was a metal crest—shattered, blackened, but unmistakable. The insignia of a rival force. Not beasts. Human-forged. Bent into the curve of the wyrm's throat plating like a tag.
Kael frowned. "You think someone steered that thing?"
Riku didn't answer immediately. His eyes traced the edges of the crest. "I think we've waited long enough to return the favor."
They moved fast that night.
A sovereign convoy had been spotted two days before—rumor from Pale Flame stragglers. North of the ridge, narrow passes cut through slag fields where resources still lingered. A supply line, maybe temporary, maybe not. Riku didn't care. It was exposed. He meant to strike.
No banners, no messages in the chat. Just movement.
They traveled under the Blood Moon's glow, each warrior cloaked in soot-dyed cloth. Thirty fighters. Ten glaive-bearers. Two archers. One goal.
It took three hours to reach the ridge crest. The slag fields lay below, glowing faintly with heat pockets still cooling from old tectonic breaks. The convoy was there—six beasts of burden hauling carts of alloy and salvaged cores, escorted by armored men with cracked symbols Riku didn't recognize.
But they weren't Nightforge. That mattered.
Riku gave the signal.
The first glaive landed in silence, cleaving into a guard's shoulder. Chaos erupted in an instant—shouts, steel clashing, a cart flipping as one of the haulers broke its harness and fled.
Sira moved through the shadows like smoke, cutting down two in the confusion. Kael struck from the side, his glaive catching a second cart guard at the knee before driving the weapon upward into the man's chest.
Riku reached the center cart just as the last defender turned to run. He didn't shout. He didn't warn. He struck low, took the man's legs, and stepped past him as he fell.
Inside the cart was a crate—sealed, reinforced. Not from this region. The alloy was refined, etched with directional indicators and folded seams.
He stared at it for a long moment.
Then opened it.
Inside were vents, tubes, partial conduit pieces. Prepped materials for a heat-core rig. Not enough to build one, but enough to know someone nearby was.
Kael approached, panting. "We dragging the whole lot?"
"No." Riku closed the crate and lifted it onto his shoulder. "Burn the rest."
Kael didn't ask why. He just moved to comply.
They returned to Blackridge just before dawn. The forge teams opened the outer gate in silence, the Blood Moon dimming slowly behind them. The camp stirred with motion—patrols rotating, ash being shoveled off the inner fields. Normalcy.
But they were already past normal.
Riku carried the crate into the forge vault himself, setting it on the worktable beside the obsidian spike samples pulled from the last trench collapse.
Later, as he walked the perimeter with Kael, the east wall still bearing scars from the wyrm's assault, he finally spoke.
"Someone's building toward the crater core. That crate wasn't for defense. It was for drilling."
"You think it's Nightforge?"
"No. But whoever it is, they're rushing. And they're nearby."
Kael paused. "And us?"
Riku looked out across the scorched plains, where the light of the dying Blood Moon painted every ridge a deeper red.
"We don't rush," he said. "We wait."
He turned, heading back toward the forge. But behind him, in the pens, one of the wyrmlings hissed for the first time. Not a cry. Not pain.
Hunger.