Morning didn't come with sunlight in Blackridge. It came with heat.
A low, dull pulse from beneath the earth stirred Riku awake—pressure rising from the stone like a slow breath. He sat up inside the broken headquarters hall, still half-covered in ash and moss, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His muscles protested the movement. His left shoulder ached from hauling a splintered beam yesterday. His hands were blistered.
This wasn't the kind of sovereignty anyone dreamed about.
Outside, a gust of wind howled across the crater wall, kicking up a haze of soot. The Draganoids were already moving. Their rhythm was slow, measured, survival-born. Not eager. Not fearful. Just mechanical. Tharn was barking instructions near the forge, his deep voice echoing off the stone. Kael knelt near a pile of salvaged materials, his claws moving quickly as he scratched updated counts onto bark-paper.
Riku stretched once, grabbed a flask of cooled steamwater, and downed half of it. It tasted like iron. Everything here tasted like iron.
He stood, brushing dust from his pants, and scanned the rebuilding efforts. The forge now had a skeleton—four rising beams lashed with stripped vine, a central channel ready to vent heat, and a working scrap-iron shelf Kael had managed to reinforce with scavenged hinges.
The progress wasn't pretty, but it was real.
"Riku," Kael called out. "We've used twelve units of stone already. Only thirty-seven left."
"I know," Riku said, already doing the math in his head. "Save at least fifteen for the tower base."
"That won't be enough to finish the forge."
"We'll finish what matters."
He walked past the tool rack near the armory wall—just a makeshift stone ledge now. There, he paused. Something was off.
He leaned in.
The second hatchet—the one he'd sharpened two nights ago—now had three identical siblings.
Same blade pattern. Same dull curve in the haft. Same flaw in the wrapping, like someone had misaligned the leather grip. He hadn't made more. He hadn't ordered them.
But they were there.
A small flicker pinged in the edge of his vision—brief, silent, like static.
[Tool Folded – Hatchet | Original: 1 | Multiplier: x4 | Final: 4]
Riku let out a slow breath through his nose and picked one up. It was real. Balanced. Even the edge was the same—he'd sharpened it unevenly, and the imperfection was duplicated. No glow. No sound. Just truth.
He wrapped the blade in cloth and slid it into the supply crate before anyone else came near. The rest he left alone, pretending nothing had changed.
He was getting better at hiding his reactions.
The fold wasn't consistent, but it wasn't random either. Everything it touched had one thing in common—it was his. Not just held, not just nearby. Owned. Used. Tied to him.
He didn't know why it was happening. But the more it happened, the more it became clear this wasn't luck. It was something deeper. Coded into the world. And it was growing.
Later that afternoon, Tharn returned with three blood-slicked claws and a sour expression.
"Scout perimeter shows movement at the northern slope. Smoke."
"Hostile?" Riku asked.
"Don't know yet," Tharn said, tossing a burned root into the dirt. "Could be a monarch. Could be a wanderer. Could be something worse."
Riku looked up toward the high ridgeline.
"Any contact?"
"Not yet."
"Then we don't move."
Tharn scowled. "You're afraid of shadows?"
"I'm building a wall," Riku said calmly. "And I'd like it finished before someone tries to test it."
Kael cleared his throat nearby. "We have enough stone for a partial ring. Maybe twenty meters, half-height."
"Do it," Riku ordered. "Start with the front flank, closest to the forge. If we get breached, it'll be from there."
Kael nodded and motioned for two others to start hauling the slabs. Their movements weren't fast, but they were reliable. That was enough.
An hour passed. Then two.
Sira called down from the half-rebuilt tower, her voice sharp: "Movement in the clouds!"
Everyone stopped.
Riku sprinted up the slope and climbed the half-finished ladder to her perch.
Sira pointed out across the basin. Far in the distance, halfway beyond the haze and just beneath the highest cliffs, something flickered. A faint red glow—gone as quickly as it came.
"What was it?" he asked.
"I don't know," Sira said. "It looked like a flame, but it moved. Fast."
Riku didn't answer. He just watched the cliffs until the sun dipped low and the light began to turn.
That night, he sat by the fire with Kael and three others. The others shared meat, traded insults, joked in low, rumbly voices about the heat and the stubbornness of the stone.
Kael leaned closer when the others were distracted. "That slab in the forge. I think it's a system node."
Riku didn't look up from his sketchbook. "What makes you think that?"
"The grooves. They're symmetrical. Embedded crystal points. It looks like old tech—before the reset."
Riku's hand paused briefly on the page.
"Then we don't touch it," he said. "Not until we understand more."
Kael nodded, but there was hesitation in his eyes. "You know something's off, right?"
"Everything's off," Riku replied. "This whole world is stitched together like a wound that never healed."
He closed the sketchbook, stood, and walked back toward the tool crate.
The hatchets were still there.
Four of them.
Exactly as they had been.
No one had noticed.
He checked the pickaxes next—still three.
He didn't speak. Didn't log anything in front of others.
But in the quiet of his tent, he updated his private notes.
#3 – Hatchet | Fold x4 | Original: 1 | Final: 4
Triggered sometime between late morning and midday.
He tapped the page with the end of his pen.
Then underlined the word ownership twice.
The fold wasn't random.
It was obedience. Silent, unquestioning, and invisible to everyone else.
He didn't need an army to win the Blood Moon.
He only needed time.
And time, for now, was the one thing he still had.