Sira didn't call out at first. She just stood there, high above the rest of the camp on the rebuilt tower, unmoving, her tail stiffened and arms locked on the edge of the platform.
Riku noticed because she never stood still unless something was wrong.
He climbed the tower himself, the ladder groaning beneath his weight. They hadn't reinforced it fully yet. Still temporary. Still held together with scavenged rope and twisted iron pins. Kael had promised a stone base within the week. Riku didn't like waiting that long, but some things couldn't be rushed.
When he reached the top, Sira didn't turn to greet him.
She just pointed south.
"See it?"
At first, Riku didn't. The horizon was red, but everything out here was red—steam, sky, stone, even the damn moss glowed red at night.
Then he caught it.
A flicker.
Not natural. Not slow-burning sulfur or gas flare from a vent. This was sharper. Pulsed. Gone. Then there again.
And it moved.
"Someone built a fire," he said.
Sira nodded once. "Big one. And it's been shifting positions. Northward."
"That's not a firepit."
"No," she said. "That's a forge. Mobile."
Riku's grip on the wooden frame tightened.
It was too far to confirm anything for certain, but he already knew. The system had said millions were summoned. There was no map of where they landed. No alignment list. No contacts auto-shared. The world wanted them to find each other the hard way.
Now they had.
"First monarch we've seen," Sira murmured. "Or at least a tribe."
"Not ours," Riku said. "Not close enough to be friendly."
Sira turned slightly. "We going to scout them?"
"Not yet. They haven't found us."
Her tail twitched.
"You sure about that?"
"No," Riku admitted.
They stood in silence for a while, wind whipping across the exposed beams.
Down below, Kael and two others were checking the trap placements again. Tharn was dragging stone with a makeshift sled, preparing the last of the wall reinforcements. Nothing about the camp looked ready for a siege.
And it wouldn't be—not with only one line of defense.
"We need an inner wall," Riku said.
Sira blinked. "Inside the dome?"
"If the outer one collapses during the Blood Moon, we need fallback."
He climbed back down without another word.
Within the hour, work had begun.
Kael marked the circle radius inside the safe zone, just around the central hall and forge. They couldn't afford another full ring, but a semi-encircling barricade with reinforced corners? That was doable. Riku assigned two to quarry more stone, while others scavenged every loose metal scrap in the forge ruins for plating.
He worked alongside them, sweat streaking his arms, hands raw. They didn't call him "monarch" when they worked. They just followed. It was better that way.
That night, he sat near the crate of tools.
He hadn't touched them since the last time something duplicated. But something felt different today. Tense. Electric, almost.
He lifted the chisel Kael had used to etch vent stones, just to examine it.
The handle felt smoother.
Lighter.
Sharper.
It hadn't multiplied.
It had changed.
A faint pulse flicked behind his eyes.
[Tool Folded – Chisel | Original Quality: Basic | Multiplier: x2.5 | Final: Reinforced Precision Chisel]
He turned it in his hands slowly. The grip had reshaped. The metal edge was cleaner, less brittle. The grooves along the side had been refined into micro-serrations.
He didn't tell Kael.
Instead, he tucked it back into the crate, at the bottom, under the dull ones.
He updated his private notes.
#4 – Chisel | Quality Fold x2.5 | Upgraded to Reinforced Precision
Detected post-usage, evening
The red glow in the south kept flickering.
Two days ago, that would've scared him. Now, it focused him.
Later that night, as wind howled over the crater and ash drifted sideways across the half-built second wall, Riku walked the perimeter alone. He passed each Draganoid on watch, nodding silently. He checked each trap. He marked the weakness in the barricade that needed to be patched first.
He didn't sleep.
He didn't speak.
He just kept thinking about the fire across the cliffs.
Whoever lit it was bold. Or desperate.
But either way, they were close.
And when the dome finally fell, someone would move first.
He was making damn sure it would be him.