Two more days had passed, and the time-limit for Albedo's task had been edging ever near. During these past few days, the Northern Capital had been seriously hollowed due to his plans.
Albedo felt the change long before any official announcement, long before whispers reached public channels. Infrastructure that had once pulsed with disciplined efficiency now stumbled, corrected, stumbled again.
Contracts were consistently failing to be renewed, while caravans rerouted without explanation. Entire guild branches quietly shuttered "for restructuring."
Everglade's web was collapsing exactly as Albedo had planned. From a distance, it looked like coincidence, however from Albedo's POV, it looked like a systematic organ failure.
House Valemont's remaining clinics were formally seized under "temporary custodianship." Their elders immediately retreated behind ancestral wards, bloodline communications locked down by oversight seals they could not legally break.
