They drove the final iron spike into place just after dusk.
The clang echoed across the crater wall, sharp and hollow, swallowed by the heat-heavy air. Kael stepped back, sweat soaking through the back of his shirt, and let his hammer drop into the ash beside his boots. The others didn't cheer. They didn't speak. They just stood in a quiet ring, staring at the wall like it might breathe if they waited long enough.
It didn't.
It just stood there—tall, jagged, angular. Built from split obsidian, scavenged iron, and layered slabs of fused stone. It wrapped three-quarters of the way around the inner camp, anchored to the natural curve of the crater's cliffs. At its thinnest point, it was a meter thick. At its strongest, nearly two. The top edge was sharp enough to tear skin if someone tried to scale it.
And it radiated heat.
Because inside the outermost layer, Riku had ordered the forge lines run directly through the wall's interior core—thin, winding tunnels of open ventstone laced with low-burning fuel beds.
It was not just a wall.
It was a warning.
Riku stood at the center of the main gate, watching the flames pulse faintly through the wall's seams. It was beautiful in a brutal way. Alive. And if he was right, it was the first structure of its kind. A fire wall—literal. Tempered. Permanent.
He didn't speak. Just watched.
Sira approached quietly, her boots crunching gravel.
"It's done," she said.
He nodded once.
Kael came next, tossing a waterskin from hand to hand. "That's the last of the iron rivets," he said. "Unless the system gives us a miracle. Or you start finding more… your way."
Riku's eyes flicked to him. But only briefly.
"Check vent flow again before sleep," he said. "I want full circulation by morning."
Kael didn't argue.
None of them did.
Because they could all feel it now—the shift. The mood across the camp had changed in the last two days. Not because of any single moment. But because the pieces were clicking into place.
No one had died since the first scout disappeared.
No beasts had broken their defenses.
And the forge was stronger than ever.
The mist still came every morning, thicker now, denser. It reached the outer slope of the wall before it was burned away by the heat radiating through the vent cores. The wall hissed like a living thing each time it happened. The mist retreated.
That was enough for now.
That night, after the second perimeter check, Riku returned to the war table and pulled open the system interface. It flickered into view, projecting over the flat stone.
Global chat glowed with activity.
Panic. Noise. Fear. Rumors of other monarchs dying to rogue wanderer packs. Someone—tagged as Sandglass—claimed to have seen a dragon. No one believed them. A few others had started posting alliance codes. Trade requests were thin.
Then Riku typed.
He hadn't said a word in global chat since arrival.
No one even knew his alias yet.
He typed slowly. Then sent it.
AshEdge:
It's not about surviving the Blood Moon.
It's about making sure others don't.
The screen froze for a heartbeat.
Then the feed went still.
No new messages came.
No jokes. No threats. No trade offers.
Just silence.
He closed the interface, leaned back, and exhaled once through his nose.
Beside him, the fire-root flickered in its pot—leaves glowing faintly, pulsing in sync with the forge's rhythm.
The Wall of Fire was up.
The dome would fall soon.
And when it did, no one would be ready for what waited behind the heat.