Chapter 944: Making decisions to deal with this new problem.

The mansion corridor seemed far too calm for the kind of problem that had just entered it.

Strax walked ahead, his steps firm and his expression closed. Samira came right behind him, holding the straw broom as if it were some kind of shameful trophy. Cassandra followed in silence, still mentally organizing every detail of the crater, the cracked seal, and the shadow that had tried to pull her mana. Daniela, meanwhile, kept glancing at the broom in Samira’s hand from time to time, looking as if she were fighting an internal battle not to comment again.

She lost the battle.

"You should take that to the meeting."

Samira looked at her.

"I am going to hit you with it."

"Then it really is a weapon."

"Daniela."

"I am only trying to lighten the mood."

Cassandra sighed.

"Lightening the mood may not be possible after a desert breathes."

Daniela pointed at her.

"See? That is why we need the broom. At least the broom is funny."

Strax did not look back.

"Keep talking and I will make all three of you sweep the entire courtyard."

Silence came quickly.

Samira looked at the broom.

Then at Strax’s back.

"I would rather fight the hand buried in the desert."

"Me too," Daniela murmured.

They continued to a side room Monica used for urgent meetings whenever the main office was too busy with documents that, according to Strax, seemed to reproduce on their own. It was a spacious room, with a large table in the center, maps stored in tubes, communication crystals on the walls, and a smaller fireplace keeping the place warm. Monica was already there when they arrived.

Of course she was.

She sat at the head of the table, writing something in a notebook. Beside her, Frieren examined several empty vials, measuring instruments, and a small portable runic plate. Ouroboros stood near the window, silent, her eyes turned toward the snow outside as if she were watching something far beyond the glass.

Monica raised her eyes when they entered.

Her attention passed over Strax, Cassandra, Daniela, and stopped on Samira.

More specifically, on the broom.

"Why is Samira carrying a broom?"

Strax pulled out a chair and sat.

"Do not start."

Samira leaned the broom against the wall with as much dignity as she could gather.

"He was sweeping the courtyard."

Monica’s pen stopped over the paper.

Frieren raised her face.

Ouroboros slowly turned her eyes toward Strax.

Strax closed his eyes.

"I said not to start."

Monica was silent for an instant.

"You were sweeping the courtyard."

"Yes."

"With a straw broom."

"Yes."

"While there is possible instability in the East, an ongoing imperial crisis, and a pending railway expansion."

"I had nothing to do at that moment."

Monica’s expression became completely neutral.

The kind of neutrality that indicated profound judgment.

Frieren, on the other hand, looked very interested.

"Was it relaxing?"

Strax opened his eyes and looked at her.

"What?"

"Sweeping. Was it relaxing?"

He was silent for two seconds.

"A little."

Frieren nodded as if that were scientifically valid information.

"Interesting."

Monica placed the pen on the table.

"We will discuss the proper distribution of household tasks among bored draconic rulers later. Now, I assume there is an actual problem."

"There is," Cassandra said.

The atmosphere changed immediately.

Strax placed the vial of sand on the table and pushed it toward Frieren. The mage took the glass without haste, but her eyes sharpened the instant she saw the dark particles mixed among the grains. She removed the lid, brought the material close to her nose without touching it, and, for a fraction of a second, her smile vanished.

Coming from Frieren, that was enough to leave everyone silent.

"Where did this come from?" she asked.

"From the paws of beasts killed near Asgard," Cassandra answered. "After that, we followed the trail to the desert in the southeast."

"You went to the desert without informing the administration?" Monica asked.

Daniela discreetly pointed at Samira.

Samira narrowed her eyes.

"I am going to break your finger."

Monica ignored them both.

"Continue."

Samira then told everything from the beginning, without embellishment. She spoke of the strange horde near the safe zone, of the different species, the signs of a long march, wounded paws, and excess sand. Cassandra added the observations about magical residue, animal panic, and the sensation that the beasts had not been hunting, but fleeing. Daniela described the crater, the black sphere, and the ruins emerging from the dunes with brutal sincerity.

"It was weird as fuck," she concluded. "I do not have a better description."

Frieren poured a minimal amount of sand onto a runic metal plate. As soon as the grains touched the surface, the symbols engraved on the plate lit up green, then yellow, then a color too dark to look like light. The plate trembled. A thin line of smoke rose from the metal.

Monica looked at it.

"Is that normal?"

"No."

"I thought so."

Frieren tilted her head, now clearly interested in a dangerous way.

"It is not common sand. It is also not just sand impregnated with mana. Part of it is ground natural glass, part is mineralized bone, and part..."

She stopped.

Strax narrowed his eyes.

"Part what?"

Frieren took a fine pair of tweezers and separated one of the dark grains.

"Part of it looks like fossilized mana."

Daniela grimaced.

"Mana fossilizes?"

"It should not."

"Great. One more thing that should not exist."

Frieren smiled again, but the smile had no humor.

"It is ancient. Very ancient. And it was compressed for far too long under extreme magical pressure. As if something had been sealed in the desert for centuries, perhaps millennia, and the seal transformed the very energy around it into sediment."

Cassandra folded her arms.

"I saw inscriptions on the ruins. A symbol lit up before we left. It was a cracked seal."

Ouroboros, who had remained silent until then, finally spoke.

"It was not only a seal."

Everyone looked at her.

Strax turned his chair slightly.

"You saw it?"

"Not with my eyes."

Ouroboros walked to the table, her steps silent over the carpet. Her eyes had that ancient glow that appeared whenever she saw threads too invisible for others.

"When you returned, the threads around Cassandra were trembling. Samira’s were burned at the edges. Daniela’s had sand caught in them."

Daniela instinctively looked at her own arms.

"Is that literal?"

"No."

"That does not calm me."

Ouroboros looked at the vial.

"Something touched you without touching you."

Cassandra became more serious.

"The shadows."

Strax rested his elbows on the table.

"Explain everything."

Cassandra told them about the shadows moving on their own. About Samira’s shadow turning its head. About Daniela’s opening wings out of sync. About her own shadow crawling toward one of the dark lines on the ground and, upon touching it, something trying to pull her mana. Frieren listened without interrupting, but her fingers began drawing small symbols along the edge of the table.

Monica did not look frightened.

She looked furious.

Furious in an administrative way.

"So the location has a shadow-connection mechanism, mana theft, control or influence over beasts, active geological alteration, a gravitational or matter-devouring sphere suspended in the air, and a cracked seal."

"Yes," Daniela said. "But saying it like that makes it sound less horrible."

"It does not."

"It does to me."

Strax was silent for several seconds.

Then he looked at Frieren.

"Theory."

Frieren observed the sand.

"Three main possibilities."

"Start with the least bad."

"An ancient tomb was damaged and began leaking mana. That attracted beasts, altered the terrain, and activated automatic defensive mechanisms."

Daniela took a deep breath.

"That is the least bad?"

"Yes."

Monica closed her eyes for an instant.

"And the second?"

Frieren raised another dark grain with the tweezers.

"Something was sealed inside that tomb and is waking up."

Samira placed both hands on the table.

"And the third?"

Frieren smiled.

"The tomb is not keeping something trapped."

The silence grew heavy.

Strax looked at her.

"It is keeping something out."

No one spoke for several seconds.

Until Daniela broke the silence.

"I preferred it when he was sweeping the courtyard."

"Me too," Samira said.

Monica opened a large map over the table, unrolling it quickly. It was a regional map of the southeast, incomplete in several areas because the desert had no routes stable enough for precise cartography. Even so, it had ancient marks, ruin names, caravan passage points, and areas considered dangerous.

"Show me where it was."

Cassandra leaned over the map and pointed to a region far from the main trade routes.

"Here. Perhaps a little farther south. The desert line began too abruptly, as if the expansion had been artificial."

Monica marked the point.

"This area should be empty."

"It is not," Samira said.

"I understand."

"No, Monica. It is not just that it is not empty. There were ruins large enough to be seen from above. A crater that could swallow part of Asgard. Hundreds of beasts walking in circles. That did not appear yesterday."

Frieren looked at the map.

"Perhaps it was buried."

"And now it is not," Strax completed.

Ouroboros lightly touched the edge of the map.

"The southeastern threads are folded."

Monica looked at her.

"That means?"

"That something is trying to change the natural path of events. It is not a simple threat advancing. It is as if an entire region was placed outside the correct flow for a very long time, and now it is trying to return to the world all at once."

Daniela stared at Ouroboros.

"That was the scariest thing anyone has said today."

"It was not my intention."

"You can say things like that without intending to? That is worse."

Strax stood.

"Enough theory."

Monica looked at him immediately.

"No."

He turned his face to her.

"I did not even say what I am going to do."

"You were going to say you are going to the desert."

"I am going to the desert."

"Then no."

Samira folded her arms, clearly holding herself back from laughing.

Strax stared at Monica.

"There is something waking up near my territory."

"Exactly why you are not going to fly alone to a crater that pulls shadows, devours mana, and possibly houses an ancient cracked seal."

"I did not say alone."

"You thought alone."

"You do not know what I thought."

Monica merely stared at him.

Strax looked away first.

Daniela murmured:

"She knows."

Frieren raised her hand, still holding the tweezers.

"I need to go."

"You are not helping," Monica said.

"I need to collect samples."

"Frieren."

"There is fossilized mana in the desert, Monica. Fossilized mana."

"I heard."

"That does not exist."

"I heard that too."

"Then I need to go."

Monica breathed in deeply and slowly, as if trying to prevent a headache from becoming homicide.

Then Cassandra spoke calmly.

"We need a controlled expedition. Not an invasion. Not an attack. Reconnaissance, samples, mapping, observation of the beasts, and analysis of the seal. If that thing is getting worse, we need to know the rhythm."

Samira nodded.

"And if something tries to pull mana again, Strax can cut the connection."

"Probably," Frieren said.

"Probably?" Daniela repeated.

"I have not seen the phenomenon personally yet."

"That is not reassuring."

Strax looked at Ouroboros.

"And you?"

Ouroboros took a moment to answer.

"I should go."

Monica narrowed her eyes.

"Why?"

"Because the voice said ’go back.’"

Daniela opened her hands.

"That usually means we should not go back."

"No," Ouroboros said. "It was not a threat. It was a warning."

The room went quiet again.

Samira frowned.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"What was it warning us about?"

"I do not know."

Strax looked at the map.

The words go back remained in his mind, repeated by the three of them, but now carried another weight. An aggressive entity could have attacked. A defensive seal could have drained their mana until they fell. The beasts could have been sent against them. But none of that happened. The voice told them to go back.

Like someone stopping children from approaching an open well.

"We go at dawn," Strax said.

Monica opened her mouth.

He raised one hand.

"With a limited team. Me, Frieren, Ouroboros, Samira, Cassandra, and Daniela."

"Me too," Monica said.

Strax looked at her.

"No."

"Yes."

"Monica, that is a breathing desert with shadows pulling mana."

"And that is exactly why someone needs to make decisions that are not based on hitting it until it stops moving."

Samira coughed to disguise a laugh.

Strax ignored it.

"It is dangerous."

"I live with you."

"That is not an argument."

"It is experience."

Frieren raised her hand again.

"She is right."

"You only say that because you want to go."

"That too."

Monica rolled up the map firmly.

"If there is a possibility of territorial impact, beast displacement, threat to routes, need for evacuation, or barrier construction in the southeast, I need to see the location. I will not administer this crisis through incomplete reports from people who decided to fly to an impossible phenomenon without informing anyone."

Samira looked at Daniela.

"She is still irritated."

"With reason," Daniela said.

"Traitor."

Strax stared at Monica for several seconds.

Then sighed.

"You stay behind me."

"I am not a child."

"You stay behind me or you do not go."

Monica held his gaze.

"Are you going to try to stop me?"

"Yes."

The answer came simply.

Monica evaluated him.

Then nodded.

"I will stay behind you."

Daniela widened her eyes.

"You accepted far too easily."

Monica looked at her.

"I did not say how far."

Strax closed his eyes.

"Of course."

For the first time, Ouroboros seemed almost amused.

Frieren immediately began separating instruments on the table.

"I will need isolating vials, reaction plates, collection needles, a shadow blade, anchoring chains, and perhaps a small animal to test mental influence."

Monica turned to her.

"You are not taking a small animal to be possessed by a desert."

"It was only a suggestion."

"Rejected."

"An insect?"

"Frieren."

"Fine."

Strax picked up the vial of sand again and observed it once more. The dark grains seemed motionless, but he felt something there. Not consciousness. Not exactly. A memory of pressure, heat, containment, and time. Something so ancient the world itself may have forgotten its name.

He closed his hand around the glass.

"Tomorrow at dawn."

Samira smiled.

"Finally."

Cassandra nodded, serious.

Daniela released a sigh.

"I hate to say this, but I am curious."

"That is dangerous," Cassandra said.

"I know. That is why I hate it."

Monica collected the documents and began giving orders before even leaving the room.

"I want updated maps, guild reports on beast movement in the south and southeast, historical records on desert ruins, and any mention of ancient seals linked to shadows. Call Rogue. Send a message to the outer towers to increase observation. No caravan travels southeast without escort until further notice."

Strax looked at her.

"You already had all of that ready?"

"No. I am doing it now."

"Terrifying."

"Thank you."

The meeting ended, but no one left with the feeling that the problem was under control. It had merely been named. And in Asgard, when something received a name, a map, and a schedule, it meant it had stopped being a distant omen and had become a threat to be faced.

Outside, the snow continued falling.

Far away in the southeast, the desert continued breathing.

And beneath the ruins, the cracked seal opened one more fissure.

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