novelraw Chapter 168: Summoning the Warlords
Chapter 168: Summoning the Warlords
That was the first problem.
The second was that they all were tired from the previous battle.
Another tremor rolled through the recovery zone. It was not sharp enough to knock people down, but deep enough to rattle metal and make loose ash jump.
Conversations stopped mid-sentence. Medics froze with hands hovering over bandages. Someone swore under their breath.
Ren felt it travel up through his boots, into his knees, then settle behind his ribs like a held breath.
"That wasn't an aftershock," Ilyas said quietly.
"No," Nyxa replied, standing a little straighter. "That was redistribution."
Elara looked between them. "In normal words."
"The ground is deciding where it wants to be hot," Ren said. "And where it doesn't."
Nyxa glanced at him, almost approving.
Far to the south, the air shimmered again.
Not fire exactly but more like heat bending the world out of shape. The plume that had risen earlier didn't fade. It widened, slow and steady, bleeding orange into the sky.
No alarms rang.
That made it worse.
Solara — Southern Forbidden Lands (Unobserved)
The molten rivers breached the upper layers.
Not violently. Not like eruptions from stories meant to scare children.
They surfaced the way blood does under skin dark. Glowing lines pushing upward and splitting stone with patient force. Rock sloughed away in slabs, sinking soundlessly into liquid heat.
Ancient structures—wards, anchors, containment pylons—didn't explode. They softened. Sagged. Collapsed inward, dissolving into the flow like they'd never been there.
The land exhaled.
Creatures reacted in waves.
The guardians of that land was busy in the past battle zones. It sounds stupid but it's necessary because that time they need man powers.
Smaller things fled first, scuttling away from tunnels that became ovens in seconds. Then came the adapted ones—shell-backed, heat-fed, bodies cracking and reforming as magma licked over them. Some grew thicker armor. Others shed it entirely, trading protection for speed.
And deeper still, far below anything humanity had ever drilled into, something shifted its posture. It's seemed like a ancient creature.
Global News Feed — Emergency Expansion
[BREAKING UPDATE – MULTI-REGION ALERT]
Unidentified geothermal activity confirmed along Solara's southern exclusion zone.
Authorities emphasize there is no volcanic classification matching current readings.
Satellite and mana-orb imagery remain partially obstructed by thermal distortion.
Evacuation advisories are being expanded. All civilian traffic near southern trade corridors is suspended effective immediately.
Officials urge calm.
The last line stayed on-screen longer than the rest.
People noticed.
Shelters across Solara filled past capacity. In Ventara's lower platforms, cargo bays were cleared to make room for families. In Terranox, entire settlements packed what they could carry and moved uphill, away from valleys that had suddenly grown warm.
Nobody needed to be told why.
Recovery Zone — Solara Front
Captain Tayuko returned at a jog, fire-scorched coat half-unfastened, eyes sharp.
"Orders just came through," he said. "World Convergence Council wants every available commander and captain on recall. Mana transport only. No exceptions."
"That serious?" Elara asked.
Tayuko snorted once. "If they're pulling people like Brakk and Aeris off active fronts, yeah. It's serious."
Ren glanced south again. "They finally noticed."
Nyxa shook her head slightly. "They noticed symptoms of something."
Ren frowned. "That's worse, isn't it."
"Yes."
The tremor hit again. Stronger. This time, equipment rattled hard enough to fall. A supply crate tipped and split open, water sloshing across the stone.
Someone yelled, "Hey—watch it!"
No one answered.
All eyes were on the horizon.
World Convergence Council — Full Emergency Assembly
Mana gates flared open across the chamber in quick succession.
Commanders stepped through still in armor. Captains arrived mid-argument, mid-swear, mid-plan. The room filled with the sound of boots, metal, and exhaustion.
No formal seating.
No ceremony.
Selene stood at the center projection, already active. The display wasn't a map anymore. It was layers of thermal, mana density, fault stress, unknown variables highlighted in angry red.
"This isn't spreading randomly," she said. "It's aligning."
A Ventaran commander rubbed his eyes. "Aligning with what?"
Nyxa's voice carried clearly from the side of the chamber. "With pressure release points that predate your borders."
She was teleported fastly after herding about upcoming threats. It was not she but her clone.
Several heads turned sharply.
She didn't react.
A Terranox representative leaned forward.
"So we're sitting on top of it."
"Yes," Nyxa said. "And you always have been."
That didn't go over well.
"So what do we do?" someone demanded. "Fight the ground?"
"No," Ervin said calmly. "We protect people first. We slow damage second. Understanding comes third. As i earlier told you so many times this we have to protect people first."
A Solaran official slammed a palm on the table. "We heard it so many times. If this is once-in-a-billion-years like your models say, slowing won't be enough."
Kael exhaled. "Then we buy time until slowing becomes enough."
Silence followed. Not because it was inspiring, but because it was the only option that didn't end in panic.
Selene looked up. "Mana summons are already out. Every named commander, every captain with field authority—we need them here or en route within the hour."
"And the front lines?" someone asked.
"We hold with what's left," Ervin replied. "Or we don't. Either way, abandoning coordination now kills more people than staying."
Nobody argued.
They were past that stage.
Back at the Solara Front
Ren adjusted his gloves again. The leather creaked.
Elara stood beside him, closer than before. Not leaning. Just aligned.
"You still thinking about sending me away?" she asked.
"No," he admitted. "Thinking about how to keep you alive."
She nodded once. "That's acceptable."
Nyxa watched them openly now. Not intruding. Observing.
The Abyss around her responded. It was not expanding, not darkening but stabilizing, like it recognized a fixed point.
Ren felt it, too. The strange thing wasn't fear anymore.
It was clarity.
Another deep tremor rolled through the land.
Far south, the molten glow widened, casting a dull red reflection on low clouds.
Tayuko's voice rang out again. "Units moving in five! Transport teams first, wounded priority!"
People moved. Not fast. Not slow.
Purposeful.
Ren took one last look at the horizon.
Whatever had woken beneath Solara didn't hate humanity.
Didn't notice it.
And that, he realized, might be the most dangerous thing of all.
The world wasn't under attack.
It was adjusting.
And humanity was standing in the way.