Ashmaw didn't sleep for two nights.
Not deeply. Not the way beasts normally did — coiled, belly-breathing, twitching in dreams. He stayed half-awake, posture tense, ears flicking toward every leaf shift beyond the grove. His eyes glowed low through the mist like a smoldering brand.
The scout who'd tested their southern line hadn't returned.
But his tribe had.
Riku felt it in the pattern of stillness, the weight of unbroken moss. In the shift of crowbird calls echoing over the cliff. In how Ashmaw suddenly refused food—not from stress, but because he didn't want to be distracted.
Somebody was watching.
Someone who understood not to trigger noise or light. Someone who'd learned from their failed probe and was now listening harder than they moved.
He tightened patrol formations again.
Juran took over sector 4 with a new archery ring — silent-string bows, treated for low-pitch release. Thalya tuned the dreamweaver fungi embedded in the canopy to flare if air pressure shifted above natural wind levels. Even the forge was shifted to low burn cycles.
Then Riku visited the moss cell again.
The prisoner was thinner now. Eyes sunken. Unwashed, but not broken.
He stared blankly at Riku, lips cracked.
"I told you nothing," he croaked.
Riku nodded. "I noticed."
"I knew you wouldn't kill me," the scout muttered. "You're not like the others."
"That's because I already got what I wanted."
The man blinked. "But I didn't say anything—"
"You didn't have to," Riku said. "Your boots did. The soot on your leggings. The scent you carried. The resin still caught in your satchel. The other tribe you're from? They're not a band of survivors."
He leaned forward, voice calm.
"They're organized."
The prisoner flinched.
Riku stood. "That's all I needed."
The forge flared at dusk.
Not by blacksmiths.
No bellows pumped. No ore was added. But a bright white pulse rolled through the core chamber, drawing a gasp from the assistants nearby.
Riku's vision flashed once — no sound.
[Surge Trigger: Structure Enhancement]
Asset: Forge-Hut – Southern Slope
– Firecore durability increased
– Energy loss per smelt reduced
– Secondary crucible slot unlocked
– Output acceleration: +220%
Crafting Bonus Unlocked: Flame-barbed Pit Spikes (x5)
Note: Changes registered silently. No public markers.
He stepped in within minutes to verify it himself. The forge's central vent no longer hissed from pressure. The roots lining the smelter basin were blackened and slightly glowing, as though absorbing backdraft.
The blacksmith Nilo approached, squinting.
"Sovereign. I swear to you, no one touched the flame-depth. It adjusted itself."
"You saying the forge upgraded on its own?"
Nilo nodded. "Weirdest thing is… it's working better than ever. Like it remembers."
"Keep this between us," Riku said quietly. "Scrub the records. Tell your team it was a calibration routine."
Then he walked out before questions could stack.
Another random trigger.
Another edge — invisible to all but him.
Later That Night
Ashmaw paced the edge of the southern slope.
He was no longer growling. Just silent. Focused. His head tilted every few seconds, like he was tracking a sound no one else heard.
Riku arrived, standing beside the beast in the violet-blue dusk.
"Still out there?" he asked.
Ashmaw didn't react, but his ears turned to the farthest treeline.
Juran joined them moments later, having just completed the final report sweep. "No new disturbances. No scents. But… something's changed. The air's too still."
"Do we send a bait patrol?" Juran offered.
"No," Riku said. "Not until I know what's watching."
He turned to Ashmaw. "Can you draw it closer?"
The beast didn't nod. It moved.
It walked straight into the trees—unhurried, purposeful, deliberately slow.
And vanished.
Midnight
Riku watched from a hidden perch above a hollowed root pass where visibility was sharp but angled.
An hour passed.
Then a second.
At the start of the third, a new form slipped into the grove perimeter.
Not the scout. Not like before.
This one moved with balance. Bare-chested, ash-dyed skin, tattoos along both arms. Two shortblades crossed at the back. Silent. Human. Muscled like a runner, not a soldier. Scouting advanced party—possibly a vanguard for expansion.
He stepped onto a mossy rise—
—and triggered a spike trap Riku had set just hours earlier using the new flame-barbed variant.
The trap didn't kill him.
But it pinned his right calf to the soil in a burst of charred wood and smoke.
The man screamed once, then bit down on his own shoulder to silence it.
Ashmaw was already closing in when Riku dropped silently to the ground behind the invader and placed his dagger at the man's throat.
"Tell me something useful," Riku whispered, "and I won't let him finish what the spike started."