Three months after the signing of the Esthirant Peace Treaty and one month before the arrival of the Holy Mirishial Empire's delegation.

  Moscow. A classified analytical center of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).

  On the giant interactive map that took up nearly the entire wall of the situation room, the topography of a geological anomaly slowly came into focus. In the reports, it was dryly codenamed "Objective 'Ring'". The image, compiled from data provided by the new orbital constellation of "Kosmos-K" military satellites, was incredibly clear. Upon magnification, one could make out the individual peaks of the circular mountain range that, like a colossal crown, encircled an isolated inland sea.

  Within the SVR and the Ministry of Defense (Minoborony), this region had already become a priority target. The interest was sparked not only by its relative proximity—about two thousand kilometers north of the Severomorsk naval base—but also by the harsh lessons of recent wars.

  "Detected three weeks ago during a routine scan of the northern sector," a young analyst reported in a monotone voice, using a laser pointer to highlight specific coordinates on the screen. "The mountain range's altitude reaches up to fifteen hundred meters. A solid wall. No navigable passages have been detected at sea level. In the center of the inland sea lies an island, roughly the size of our Sakhalin. Thermal imaging and analysis of nighttime light emissions confirm the presence of three stable pockets of civilization."

  The Director of the SVR, Colonel General Melnikov, listened in silence, his gaze fixed on the shimmering map. His face expressed nothing but weariness. After the unconditional surrender of Parpaldia and the successful recruitment of Kaios to head the transitional government, Melnikov had grown even more pragmatic. The New World did not forgive weakness.

  "What's the word from the Scientific Research Institute of Magitech Analysis?"

  "Colonel Kovalev reports the presence of a weak but stable magical background across the entire island. However, there are no aggressive spikes similar to those we detected around Nosgorath's horde. Preliminary conclusion: the level of magical development is standard for this region, likely early medieval."

  "Standard..." Melnikov gave a bitter smirk. After the brutal meatgrinder for Tormeus, that word had lost all its peaceful connotations. "Your conclusions?"

  The analyst straightened up.

  "Objective 'Ring' represents a strategic blind spot in the immediate vicinity of our northern sea routes. Given recent events and the confirmed activity of hostile remnants—including Parpaldian revanchists—we cannot afford to leave unexplored territories that could be used as a staging ground against the Federation. Furthermore, satellite geological scans indicate potential deposits of rare-earth metals and mana-crystals. Recommendation: initiate a joint reconnaissance and diplomatic operation. Send a naval task force with a diplomatic corps and a cover of Special Operations Forces (SSO) to establish first contact."

  Melnikov slowly nodded.

  "I agree. Prepare the operational directive. I will report to the President today."

  And so, in the sterile silence of a Moscow office, the gears of the Russian state machine began to turn once more. This was not a naive mission for the sake of abstract peace. It was a cold, calculated move to secure the Federation's borders and resources—a move that would soon bring Russian forces face to face with the echo of an ancient, almost forgotten horror, slumbering in the very heart of the island of Calamique.

  Arkhal, Capital of Calamic. Estate of the Wysk Family.

  The estate of the Wysks, one of the three great ducal dynasties of Calamic, was nestled among ancient pines on the outskirts of the capital. Built from light mountain stone and dark wood, it was not so much a symbol of ostentatious luxury as a bastion of stability and ancient power, surrounded by a fragile, almost ringing silence peculiar to lands beyond the Civilized Regions.

  In one of the bedrooms, bathed in the soft morning light, a young woman sat in a deep armchair by the window, completely immersed in a world far more interesting than her own. On her lap rested a thick, worn leather-bound tome with words embossed in gold—Heroes of Legend.

  Enesi, who had recently turned twenty-one, reread the last page with a racing heart—the prophecy of the sage Todorork, which everyone considered the ravings of a madman. But for her, these lines were the only reality that mattered.

  To the people of Calamic, separated from the rest of the world by the violent currents and magnetic storms of the "Great Ring," the outside world was a void. They knew nothing of the wars raging on the Rodenius continent, nothing of the Lourian genocide against the demi-humans, nor of the rise of Japan or Russia. To Enesi, words like "Louria" or "Parpaldia" were meaningless sounds from ancient maps, devoid of political context. In her isolated paradise, ignorance was bliss, and history was replaced by romanticized legends

  "When monsters from another world bring the kingdom to the brink of ruin, a knight from beyond the celestial line shall appear, riding a soaring beast, and he will show the path to salvation…"

  For Enesi, whose life was mapped out for years to come—a profitable match with another duke's son, the birth of heirs, dull balls and receptions—this prophecy was not just a fairy tale. It was a promise. A promise of a different destiny. A grand, heroic one, full of adventure. She knew she was supposed to marry for convenience, but she dreamed of a love worthy of a legend.

  "Enesi! Breakfast is getting cold! Get down here this instant!" her mother's imperious voice from the first floor, like a rough shove, tore her from her world of dreams.

  "Yes, coming…" the girl drawled reluctantly, carefully folding the corner of the page. She left the book on her bed, a promise to herself that she would surely return to a world where knights were noble, monsters were fearsome, and destiny was great.

  At the large oak table, set with traditional dishes—roasted mountain kwall meat, soft grain bread, and aromatic berry infusions—the usual family breakfast had already begun.

  "Enesi! Daydreaming again? Stop sitting with those books like a little girl! You're already twenty-two, and you don't even have a hint of a suitor!" the Duchess, an energetic woman for whom duty to her lineage was paramount, didn't miss the opportunity to jab at her daughter.

  "Dear, Enesi is still quite young…" her father, Duke Wysk, tried to intercede.

  "Young?!" the Duchess threw up her hands theatrically. "At her age, I had already given you an heir! If a girl of our station doesn't find a worthy match in the prime of her life, she risks becoming an old maid! In a month, it's the Founding Festival! All the heirs of the best knightly houses will be there. Do you have anyone you're going with?"

  "No…" Enesi quietly lowered her gaze to her plate. She could feel the familiar, suffocating sense of duty closing in on her.

  "Then you'll find one! I will personally speak with the son of Duke Ioan. He's young, strong, and will soon inherit the richest lands in the west. A perfect match."

  "I'm not sure that would suit me…" Enesi whispered.

  "What's that?" her mother raised her eyebrows.

  "I… I don't want that. Not just… a match," Enesi found her courage. "I want to meet someone great. A true destiny! Someone who will make my heart stop…"

  "Stop living in the clouds!" her mother cut her off sharply. "Reality isn't the pages of your dusty books! Your duty is to secure an advantageous alliance for our house, not wait for a fairy-tale prince on a dragon!"

  Breakfast, as it often did, had turned into a battlefield.

  "Enough," Duke Wysk finally said, and his voice, calm but commanding, instantly cut the argument short. "We've received some alarming reports recently. Packs of magical creatures have begun gathering near the crater of Mount Luud. It's far for now, but their activity is abnormally high. I am forbidding anyone from leaving the city without my personal permission. Especially you, Enesi! Do you understand me?"

  "Yes, Father…" she replied with a hint of annoyance.

  She knew this prohibition was not just about concern. It was also a way to keep her under control until the Founding Festival, where she would be paraded like a prize mare before the heir of House Ioan. The thought made her feel even sicker.

  Returning to her room, Enesi, ignoring her embroidery, her heraldry lessons, and the stack of social correspondence, once again picked up Heroes of Legend. Her fingers, almost by touch alone, opened the book to the last, most well-read page, its corners frayed from hundreds of touches. Her gaze locked once more onto the ancient, time-faded lines:

  "From beyond the edge of the world, magical creatures shall appear, and when the kingdom stands on the brink of ruin, a knight shall descend from the heavens, commanding a soaring beast. In alliance with the Crimson Star, he will appear in the decisive hour, to save the country from the greatest threat since its founding…"

  To everyone else—to her pragmatic mother, to her father weary of intrigues, to the entire high society of Сalamic—this prophecy of the mad hermit Todorork was just a ridiculous children's fairy tale. But for Enesi… she believed in it with a fanatical, almost obsessive force. Because it was the only thing that gave her hope of escaping the golden cage of aristocratic duty, of a future where she was destined to be a beautiful accessory to Duke Ioan's son and a machine for bearing heirs.

  "My chosen one… it must be him…" she whispered, pressing the heavy book to her chest. "Let the kingdom be in danger… but that means he will appear. He will surely come."

  She closed the book, and a soft, almost childlike smile appeared on her lips. But if anyone could have looked into her eyes at that moment, they would have seen not the naivety of a dreamer, but the cold, calculating glint of a high-stakes gambler, ready to bet everything for a single, most insane, but also the greatest stake of her life—her own destiny. She wasn't just waiting. She was ready. And as soon as the first signs of that very "threat" her father spoke of appeared, she knew she would have to act. She would have to go out and meet her legend herself.

  Mount Luud, 60 miles north of Arkhal. Kingdom of Сalamic.

  A cold, piercing wind whistled among the bare rocks.

  "Contact! Eastern slope, two hundred meters out!"

  From the detachment of thirty knights concealed in the shadow of a rocky outcrop, ten men simultaneously raised their long yew bows. The dry, cracking sound of bowstrings being drawn cut through the air. Ten heavy, armor-piercing arrows, shrieking in the thin mountain air, struck their target almost simultaneously—a primitive but dangerously fast bipedal lizard-creature, a granman, armed with a crude bone spear.

  "GRAAAAH!"

  Letting out a deafening roar of pain and fury, the creature, bristling with arrows like a porcupine's quills, launched into a suicidal frontal assault.

  At that moment, a dry, sharp crack echoed. A heavy crossbow bolt, fired with flawless precision, struck the lizard squarely in its eye socket, passing straight through and exiting the other side of its skull in a fountain of dark, almost black blood.

  "Ha! Gotcha, you bastard!" shouted a young crossbowman named Morisaw, proudly raising his weapon.

  "Excellent shot," the squad leader, Knight Kousse, nodded in approval. "But don't get comfortable. Check the perimeter!"

  In recent weeks, the number of attacks by magical creatures on the border had sharply increased. Therefore, by order of the Duke, a constant patrol had been organized. Kousse—a seasoned warrior with a stern, weather-beaten face—bent over the corpse of the slain monster.

  "A granman," he growled through his teeth, turning the twitching, agonized body over with a heavy boot. "An aggressive beast, but stupid. And a loner."

  He wiped the blade of his dagger on the creature's scales with disgust and looked out at the grim mountain peaks, lost in the misty haze.

  "Something's not right here," he muttered, more to himself than to his men. "Granmans never used to come down from the highlands. And they never gathered in packs. Something is driving them down. Something they fear even more than us."

  His head throbbed dully from sleepless nights and a bad feeling. The old, familiar world, with its understandable threats, was coming apart at the seams. Something was changing. And this "something," from all appearances, was far more terrifying than a pack of crazed granmans.

  Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. Smolenskaya Square, Moscow. Joint Operations Briefing Room.

  Following a closed-door directive from the Security Council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in tight coordination with the SVR and the Ministry of Defense, was tasked with a highly sensitive objective: establishing official diplomatic ties with the isolated states on the "Ring" island. Located roughly three thousand kilometers northeast of the Russian mainland's new maritime borders, the island represented a massive geopolitical blind spot.

  However, the planning phase had quickly devolved into a logistical nightmare.

  "So, I ask again: how exactly do we get our people inside?" Pavel Orlov, the veteran diplomat assigned to head the contact mission, leaned over the massive digital table. He tapped a stylus on the high-resolution satellite composite of the island.

  The image occasionally flickered. Despite the capabilities of the orbital Kosmos-K constellation, the island was perpetually shielded by a localized magnetic anomaly—a dense field of mana-interference that scattered radar waves and made continuous optical surveillance a headache.

  "The Navy is out of the equation," Orlov continued, his voice echoing in the quiet, heavily shielded room. "The island is roughly the size of Sakhalin, but the entire coastline is a continuous, unbroken wall of sheer cliffs, rising hundreds of meters straight out of the violent currents. No beaches. No natural coves. Even if we send a Zubr-class hovercraft or deploy naval infantry on fast boats, they’d just be smashed against the rocks by the surf."

  "Then we insert by air," a stoic lieutenant general from the VDV (Airborne Forces) replied, adjusting his uniform. "We send a flight of Mi-8AMTSh transport helicopters, escorted by Ka-52s. We cross the mountain ring and insert the delegation directly into their capital's perimeter."

  "Look closer at the topography, General," Orlov countered, bringing up a magnified 3D scan of the terrain behind the mountain ring. "It’s a primordial, hyper-dense forest. The canopy is impenetrable and grows right up to the city walls. There isn't a single natural clearing large enough for a heavy transport helicopter to safely touch down within a forty-kilometer radius of their capital. The only bare ground is on the jagged mountain peaks, and I am not marching a diplomatic corps through forty kilometers of unmapped, hostile magical wilderness."

  "We don't need to touch down," the general insisted stubbornly. "The pilots can hover above the canopy. We drop the personnel via fast-rope. It’s a standard tactical insertion."

  Orlov let out a dry, humorless laugh. He looked around the room, meeting the eyes of the intelligence officers and military brass.

  "General, with all due respect to your paratroopers, my chief negotiator is a fifty-two-year-old career diplomat, not a Spetsnaz operative. If you force him to fast-rope from a hovering chopper down fifty meters of rope, through a dense magical canopy while enduring rotor wash, you are going to deliver a corpse with a broken neck, not a peace treaty."

  Silence descended on the briefing room. The sheer absurdity of the situation wasn't lost on anyone. Here sat the representatives of a nuclear superpower, a nation capable of tracking a stealth fighter from space and erasing an enemy fleet from a thousand kilometers away. Yet, they were completely stymied by the simple task of delivering one man in a suit to a medieval castle without starting a war.

  "What if we carve out our own landing zone?" a younger officer from the General Staff suggested tentatively. "A precision strike. One or two thermobaric payloads from a Solntsepyok or a FAB-500 glide bomb. We vaporize a hectare of forest outside their capital, the ash settles, and we have a perfect, paved LZ for the helicopters."

  "An efficient military solution," Orlov replied, his tone dripping with venomous sarcasm. "And an absolute diplomatic catastrophe. Imagine the impression: the sky tears open, a pillar of fire incinerates their sacred ancient forest, and from the burning ashes, Russian diplomats emerge holding a briefcase, offering friendship. We are here to secure a political foothold and mineral rights, not to instantly unite the entire island against us in a holy war. Forced entry is off the table."

  The room grew heavy with frustration. The options were exhausted.

  "Just how the hell do we do this..." Orlov rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling a migraine coming on.

  "We stop thinking like a conventional military, and start thinking like an intelligence service," a calm, measured voice cut through the tension.

  All eyes turned to a senior operative from the SVR's Special Activities Division. He walked up to the tactical screen and swiped his tablet, replacing the topographical map with a classified dossier. The image displayed a rugged, scarred man in a modernized flight suit, standing next to a massive, heavily armored Wyvern.

  "A biological VTOL asset," the operative said simply. "A wyvern doesn't need a paved runway, and it doesn't suffer from the rotor-clearance issues of an Mi-8. It can dive through the canopy and land in a courtyard."

  "Are you out of your mind?" the VDV general scoffed. "You want to put a federal envoy on the back of an unstable, fire-breathing lizard? The FSO will have our heads!"

  "It's not just any lizard, General," the SVR operative countered smoothly. "This is a Royal Wyvern, bred for stability and endurance. And the rider is an asset we flipped after the Lourian capitulation. He currently works as an aerial recon contractor for RosInfraStroy. He knows how to handle VIPs."

  The operative placed his hands on the table, looking directly at Orlov.

  "Think about the psychology of this, Pavel. If we fly in on roaring metal machines, we trigger their primal fear. We become alien invaders. But if our ambassador descends from the sky on the back of a tamed wyvern—a creature they respect and understand—we speak their language. We show them that we are not only infinitely more powerful, but that we have already mastered and assimilated the very apex of their world's aviation. It’s a profound projection of soft power."

  Orlov stared at the image of the wyvern on the screen. The sheer audacity of the plan was staggering. It lacked the brute force of the Russian military machine, but it possessed the cold, calculating elegance of a flawless intelligence operation. It was a masterpiece of psychological manipulation.

  "A wyvern..." Orlov muttered, the gears turning in his head. He looked up, his eyes sharpening with resolve. "What's the payload capacity on that beast? Can it carry the ambassador and a translator?"

  "With a custom-built, lightweight dual-saddle rigged by our engineers? Yes. It will be tight, but manageable," the operative confirmed.

  "Alright," Orlov finally nodded, his voice turning into steel. "Get the GRU to vet the rider one more time. I want Spetsnaz snipers on overwatch in stealth drones tracing their flight path the entire way. Find out what this contractor wants for the job, and pay it. We are going to make an entrance they will never forget."

  Jin-Hark, capital of the former Kingdom of Louria. Rodenius Continent.

  The city was slowly, agonizingly healing its wounds. The ghost of the recent war still lingered over the battle-scarred spires and breached limestone walls, but through the devastation, a new life was stubbornly pushing its way up, like weeds cracking through asphalt. The deafening roar of heavy construction machinery drowned out the mournful silence of the ruins. Hastily assembled scaffolding clung to facades blackened by soot, and on the dirt roads, alongside wooden carts pulled by exhausted horses, massive Russian "KAMAZ" and "Ural" trucks rumbled past, leaving a thick trail of diesel exhaust as they delivered tons of cement and steel.

  Hundreds of former Lourian soldiers, having traded their dented armor for cheap canvas work clothes and high-vis vests, were trying to find their place in this alien reality. Here, a sharp sword was useless, and the ability to lay bricks or mix concrete was valued far more than aristocratic blood or martial valor.

  "Sign here, Muller. And stamp the bottom."

  "Alright."

  Muller, the former star ace of the Royal Lourian Air Force, silently signed another stack of topographic release forms. Sitting in a cramped, modular construction trailer that smelled of cheap instant coffee, damp earth, and cigarette smoke, he felt a crushing weight on his chest. His ancestors had spilled blood for these lands for centuries, yet here he was, helping a foreign corporation formalize its logistical grids. But he kept his mouth shut. Arrogance and pride were luxuries that he, like his entire vanquished nation, could no longer afford.

  After the devastating defeat, Muller was one of the few who had managed to find a practical application for his unique military skills. His wyvern, Taarela, was a living anomaly. While traditionalist knights had mocked him for wasting years training his beast for vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) rather than open-field diving, that eccentric tactical obsession had become his salvation. For the Russian geodesic engineers of RosInfraStroy, who needed to conduct rapid aerial surveys over impassable terrain, his "biological VTOL asset" proved invaluable.

  The pay was exceptionally good—paid in stable rubles and silver, not the depreciated local copper. It was enough to move his wife and daughter out of the refugee sector and into a sturdy, rebuilt house. He had even managed to buy a small plot of land on the outskirts, understanding early on that wherever the Russians laid their asphalt and built their communication towers, real estate prices skyrocketed. He hadn't just accepted the harsh reality of occupation; he had learned to navigate it to ensure his family's survival.

  "That's a wrap for today, Muller," his immediate supervisor, an elderly Russian foreman with a thick beard, peeked into the trailer, wiping grease from his hands with a rag. "Shift's over. You can fly home."

  Muller nodded silently, grabbed his worn leather jacket, and walked out onto the makeshift landing pad enclosed by wire fencing. Taarela was already waiting. The massive wyvern, sensing her master’s approach, lowered her horned head and let out a deep, rumbling purr that vibrated in her scaled chest. Muller patted her powerful, scarred neck. She was all he had left of his past life. The final, breathing reminder that he was once a king of the skies.

  "Just hang in there, girl," he whispered in the old Lourian dialect, checking the tension of the saddle straps. "We're surviving. That’s what matters."

  He was about to mount up, a faint, rare smile touching his stern face at the thought of his daughter’s promise to show him her new drawing, when the foreman's voice called out again over the idling hum of a nearby generator.

  "Hey, Muller! Hold up a minute!"

  Muller paused, his hand freezing on the leather reins. "What is it, Petrovich?

  "No. A job came up. Urgent. A business trip," the foreman said, his usual jovial tone replaced by a tight, uncomfortable stiffness. "On Moscow's directive."

  The word "Moscow" made Muller instantly tense up. The faint smile vanished. His posture shifted effortlessly from a tired laborer back into the rigid stance of a veteran officer. His face became a cold, impenetrable mask.

  "I'm an independent contractor for a construction firm," Muller replied slowly, his eyes scanning the perimeter. "What does your government want with a defeated pilot?"

  "This isn't about politics, Mr. Muller. It's about your highly specialized asset."

  A third man stepped out from the deep shadow cast by the trailer. He hadn't been there a minute ago, or at least, Muller hadn't heard his footsteps over the generator. The stranger appeared to be in his early fifties, wearing an expensive, perfectly tailored civilian suit that sat on his frame with the unmistakable rigidity of a career military man. He exuded an aura of absolute, quiet authority—the kind of cold danger that didn't need a drawn sword to be felt.

  "Let me introduce myself. I am a regional curator," the man said smoothly, offering no name.

  A chill ran down Muller's spine. He recognized the type. The rumors among the locals and the Russian contractors were identical: these were the phantom men of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). The unseen architects who truly governed the occupied territories.

  "This is a direct, classified request from the Government of the Russian Federation," the curator continued, his pale eyes locking onto Muller. "We need a biological insertion vector. Specifically, we require an experienced pilot capable of delivering one of our high-ranking operatives into an isolated, hyper-dense forest environment where our conventional rotorcraft cannot land without causing a major diplomatic incident. I was informed that you and your beast are the only ones on the continent capable of true VTOL operations without a clearing."

  Muller narrowed his eyes, gently stroking Taarela’s flank to calm the wyvern, who was reacting to his rising heart rate.

  "Your task is simple," the curator took a step closer. "Insert the operative, wait for the signal, and extract him. You will have overwatch from our special forces the entire time. The physical risks to you are minimal."

  "I’ve lived through a war with your military. I know better than to believe in 'minimal risks'," Muller stated, his tone blunt and defiant. "What's in it for me? Why should I risk my neck and my beast for a foreign intelligence operation?"

  The curator didn't flinch at the disrespect. In fact, a micro-expression of approval crossed his face. He preferred pragmatists over fanatics.

  "Five times your current annual salary, deposited in gold or Federation currency—your choice," the curator listed calmly. "A Class-A permanent immunity and residence permit for your entire family in the secured 'Green Zone' of the capital. And a house. A large, stone estate with a garden in the upper district. The deed will be signed over to your wife’s name the moment you agree, entirely tax-free."

  Muller froze. The air in his lungs suddenly felt heavy. This wasn't just a lucrative offer; this was generational wealth and absolute security. It was the ultimate shield for his wife and daughter in a world that was changing too fast. But as an old soldier, he knew that the Kremlin didn't hand out castles for a simple taxi ride. The price of this contract could very well be paid in blood.

  "I am not promising anything until I am briefed on the exact coordinates, the threat level, and the payload," Muller said slowly, his voice dropping low. "I am a professional pilot, not a blind courier."

  "A reasonable demand," the curator nodded slightly, slipping a sealed electronic tablet from his inner coat pocket and holding it out. "Report to the central command bunker at 0600 hours tomorrow for a full tactical briefing. But rest assured, Muller... the enemy we are sending you to face is not you. And it is certainly not us."

  A few days later, Muller, the former knight-ace of a fallen kingdom, officially signed the nondisclosure agreement. He convinced his wife that it was just another surveying contract, telling himself he was doing it solely for their future. But deep in the recesses of his soul, as he strapped on his old, modified flight harness, he felt the familiar, intoxicating surge of adrenaline. The thrill of a warrior who had been pulled from the ashes and offered a part in an impossible mission.

  He was needed again. And that feeling, dangerous as it was, tasted almost as sweet as the promised reward.

  Esthirant, capital of the vanquished, but not yet broken, Parpaldia Empire. The Lord Regent's Office.

  The heavy scent of wood polish and old paper mingled with the faint stench of soot that the wind still carried from the ruined shipyards. Kaios sat at the massive oak desk that had once belonged to Emperor Ludius, reading every line of the document slowly and with surgical precision.

  Heavy, snow-white paper. Flawless typeface. The watermarks of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. It was not a request, even though the diplomatic language flowed in polite, sanitized phrases. Behind every "we have the honor to request" and "we look forward to a fruitful collaboration," the treads of tanks clattered and the lenses of orbital spy satellites squinted like predators.

  "And what are we supposed to make of this dog and pony show?" Kaios's voice was dry and devoid of emotion. His fingers, with their perfectly manicured nails, carefully set the document down on the desk.

  Standing at attention in the office was Vorn—one of the few high-ranking officials in the Department of the Navy who had survived the "personnel purge" following the arrival of the Russians. A sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead.

  "Their true motives remain hidden from us, Your Regency," Vorn swallowed nervously, carefully choosing his words. "The request sounds... humiliatingly absurd. The Russian Federation is demanding that we provide them with one dragon carrier, complete with a full maintenance crew, to transport a wyvern. They are citing some sort of 'scientific and diplomatic mission.'"

  Kaios steepled his fingers and leaned back in his chair. Outwardly, he remained an unruffled lord of the Empire, but inside, behind the barrier of someone else's memories, the cold, calculating mind of Colonel Belov was hard at work—a man who had survived the absolute meat grinder of the post-Soviet intelligence agencies in the '90s before waking up in this godforsaken magical world.

  "They have their own ships, Vorn. Project 11711 Landing Ship Tanks, amphibious assault platforms," Kaios deliberately used terms that the native could not fully comprehend, but whose heavy implications he had already learned the hard way. "You could cram an entire squadron of those scaly oversized lizards into the cargo hold of a single Ivan Gren. Why on earth would they need our archaic wooden tub?"

  "Through backchannels at their embassy..." the official hesitated. "They hinted at the 'specifics of housing biological assets.' Allegedly, their decks aren't designed to withstand the highly corrosive, acidic nature of... wyvern droppings. And their sailors flat-out refuse to play waterboy and janitor for a fire-breathing beast right next to their ammunition magazines."

  Kaios allowed himself a brief, almost predatory smirk.

  "A cover story. Cheap and hastily cobbled together, yet surprisingly effective for the minds of this world," the Regent said, rising to his feet. He walked over to the lancet window. Below him lay Estirant. The city was licking its wounds under the invisible, yet psychologically crushing crosshairs of the Russian orbital satellite constellations. "They don't want to get the decks of their missile cruisers dirty, that much is true. And fire safety protocols near missile silos are still a thing. But all of that is just smoke and mirrors, Vorn."

  They need Muller, the thought hammered in the Regent's head. That same former Lourian falcon they bought out and turned into their own pocket mercenary. And they need his wyvern. That means they're planning a drop-off in an area with absolutely zero infrastructure. The Ring Island... They don't want to sail a nuclear cruiser out there and wave their flag in front of the savages. They are pulling off a classic proxy operation.

  If the operation goes south, they'll just throw their hands up and claim plausible deniability: a local mercenary on a local ship. Fucking brilliant. Good old-fashioned KGB First Chief Directorate school. I'd recognize that signature anywhere.

  "If we send them just one single ship, Vorn, it's going to look pathetic," Kaios said slowly, with a deliberate, drawling laziness, as he walked back to his desk. "Like a handout from a beaten dog that wags its tail at the very first snap of the victor's fingers. That's not going to fly. The Empire may have lost the war, but we haven't completely lost our dignity just yet."

  "Are you suggesting we... refuse them?" Vorn turned pale, vividly imagining supersonic missiles raining down on the capital.

  "Do I look like I have a death wish?" Kaios shot his subordinate an ice-cold glare. "We will fulfill their request. But we'll do it on our own terms.

  Put together a full-fledged escort strike group. Take the two best frigates that survived the blockade, and throw in a heavy supply ship to accompany the dragon carrier."

  "But the Russians didn't ask for an escort!"

  "I don't give a damn that they didn't ask. The official diplomatic note will read: 'To ensure the safety of the joint scientific mission in waters infested with pirates and sea monsters. The Parpaldian Empire considers it its duty to provide everything they desire.'"

  "And one more thing, Vorn," Kaios's voice betrayed a moment of genuine, almost professional bewilderment. "Using a single mercenary wyvern for a covert insertion of a lone diplomat into an unexplored zone? Regardless, sailing an empty dragon carrier out there is a total joke. It'll raise too many red flags. Fully man its deck with a complete squadron of our Wyvern Overlords."

  Kaios settled back into Ludius's chair. He was back in his element. Back in a world of shadows, double standards, and multi-layered schemes, where even unconditional surrender was just the opening move of a brand-new game.

  "Appoint Captain Rekmeyer to command the escort group," the Regent declared with finality.

  "Rekmeyer? But he's a... a fanatic! He harbors a burning hatred for the Russians after our fleet was annihilated at Altaras. He could provoke an international incident!"

  "It's exactly because he hates them that he won't miss a single detail," Kaios cut him off. "Rekmeyer is smart, ambitious, and highly observant. Send him to me before they set sail. I'll personally screw his head on straight so that he keeps his damn hands off the gun ports, but keeps his eyes wide open. Crew those ships. And man the Wyvern Overlord escort to guarantee security... Crew them with men who know how to think, analyze, and keep their mouths shut. And I don't want to see a single aristocratic blockhead on those bridges."

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Vorn, both overwhelmed and utterly awestruck by the multi-layered order, gave a short bow and vanished behind the heavy oak doors.

  Kaios was left alone. In the absolute silence of the office, he picked up a fountain pen, dipped it into the inkwell, and scrawled his ornate signature at the bottom of the official letter of consent.

  They agreed to our ceasefire terms way too fast, Belov pondered, watching the ink dry. Either Moscow is absolutely dead certain of its total global hegemony, or... they are pressed for time. Anomalies? The Third Civilization Region? Demons? Whatever the hell is going on over in Calamique, it's of critical importance to them.

  He closed the folder. A subtle, nostalgic half-smile played on his lips.

  "Well then, comrades. The Great Game continues," he whispered in Russian, barely audible, gazing out the window at the alien city slowly rebuilding itself. "And this time around, I'm playing on the other side of the board. But the rules... we wrote the rules together."

  Early morning. Naval Base Novo-Severomorsk.

  At dawn, under a low, leaden arctic sky that seemed to physically press down on the shoulders, the Russian Navy's operational task force departed the pier. The air was saturated with a bone-chilling wind, the acrid smell of burning marine diesel, and the sharp scent of frozen steel.

  The heavy, grey waters of the bay churned as the Project 22350 frigate Admiral Kasatonov let out a long, low horn blast. The sound echoed across the frozen coastline like the roar of an awakening mechanical leviathan, vibrations rippling through the dense morning fog.

  The rendezvous point with the ships of their recent enemy—now ostensibly their "escort"—had been designated in neutral waters, just beyond the continental shelf.

  Two hours into the transit, the Combat Information Center (CIC) of the flagship was bathed in the dim, tactical blue light of multi-function displays. The silence was absolute, broken only by the hum of server racks and the quiet, clipped reports of the operators.

  "Multiple surface contacts, bearing zero-four-five. Range: thirty-two kilometers. Speed: thirteen knots and fluctuating," the surface radar operator reported, his voice devoid of any inflection. "Radar Cross-Section indicates large wooden hulls. No active electronic emissions detected. Thermal signature confirms minimal heat output, consistent with magical wind-propulsion drives. Signature matches the expected Parpaldian escort group."

  On the bridge, Rear Admiral Roman Vitalievich Arakin stood with his hands clasped behind his back, silently watching the digital representation of the "allies" on the Sigma-E tactical display system. To his right, resting on a shock-absorbent console like an absurd museum exhibit, sat a bulky, crystal-encrusted artifact—a Mirishial manacomm device provided for long-range communication. It looked like a prop from a cheap fantasy movie, yet it was the standard communication link of this world.

  "So, here are our new 'partners'," Arakin thought with grim irony, his grey eyes narrowing. "Six months ago, we were grinding their Ships-of-the-Line into kindling at Altar. Today, we are playing convoy nanny. Moscow knows perfectly well that Kaios stuffed those wooden decks with every intelligence officer he could find. The Regent is playing his game… and we are playing ours."

  Arakin didn't turn his head as he issued his orders. "Comms, establish visual and radio-magical contact. Confirm readiness for joint transit." He paused, tapping a finger against his uniform seam. "EW section. I want the Prosvet-M electronic warfare suite active, but dial it back. Feed them low-level acoustic noise. Let their spies listen to our auxiliary generators and water pumps. Give them the illusion they are gathering valuable intelligence, but scramble any acoustic signatures of our main propulsion and VLS cells. Blind them softly."

  "Understood, Comrade Rear Admiral. Masking acoustic and electromagnetic signatures. Comms link established."

  "They are responding, Admiral," the communications officer reported. "Parpaldian flagship Cerberus confirms readiness. They are currently maintaining thirteen knots. That is their maximum sustainable cruise speed

  Arakin let out a barely perceptible exhale. Thirteen knots. For a magical galleon, it was a forced march. For a Russian gas-turbine frigate, it was a humiliatingly slow crawl, forcing the helmsmen to constantly adjust pitch just to keep the engines from idling.

  "Turtles," Arakin muttered. "Well, we will adapt. We have another two thousand kilometers to drag them along. Signal the flotilla: 'Commence main phase. Maintain formation.' Let's see how much they really want to learn."

  Aboard the Parpaldian dragon carrier Cerberus, the atmosphere was drastically different. The biting northern cold, completely alien to the inhabitants of the temperate Third Civilization Region, was driving the crew to the brink of despair.

  Captain Reckmeyer stood on the open command deck, wrapped in a thick fur coat, his breath forming white clouds in the freezing air. Through the lenses of his high-quality spyglass, he studied the grey, angular hulls of the Russian ships cutting effortlessly through the icy swells.

  He didn't make the mistake of his predecessors. He didn't scoff at the lack of sails, nor did he call them "ugly iron boxes." He had seen the aftermath of the naval massacre. He knew that beneath that featureless grey paint lay a power capable of wiping his entire squadron off the face of the world in under two minutes.

  "Captain," his First Officer shivered, stepping up beside him. "The wind-mages are exhausting their mana reserves faster than expected due to the cold air density. And the beast tamers report critical issues below deck. The Wyvern Overlords are falling into thermal shock. We had to ignite five high-grade fire-magic stones just to keep their blood circulating. If it gets any colder, the beasts will slip into hibernation. We won't be able to launch them."

  "Keep the beasts warm, even if you have to burn your own blankets," Reckmeyer replied coldly, not taking his eye off the spyglass. Lord Regent Kaios had been very specific: the wyverns were their eyes in the sky.

  Reckmeyer lowered the glass, his gaze sweeping over his intelligence officers, who were already scribbling furiously on their parchment boards, calculating the displacement and wake patterns of the Russian vessels.

  "Look closely, gentlemen," Reckmeyer addressed his officers, his voice laced with venomous respect. "Notice the complete absence of smoke. Notice the enclosed superstructures. No visible cannons on the broadsides. Only those strange, angled panels on their masts. Those are their 'radars'—the artificial eyes that saw Admiral Arneus's fleet from beyond the horizon."

  He turned to his chief intelligence operative, a man handpicked by the Third Department. "I want to know the frequency of their rotor blades when their metal helicopters take off. I want to know the draft of that massive flat-topped ship. Map their blind spots. Do not make any aggressive maneuvers, do not target them with magic, but absorb every detail. We are not an escort. We are an autopsy team, and the corpse we are studying is still alive."

  Thus, having synchronized their courses, the joint but profoundly distrust-ridden flotilla headed northeast. The transit took almost three and a half days—excruciatingly long for the Russians, and physically agonizing for the Parpaldian crews fighting the sub-zero temperatures.

  During this time, the Russian side utilized the slow pace to finalize their tactical briefings, while Parpaldian intelligence filled dozens of logbooks. Yet, despite their efforts, the Parpaldians failed to answer the main question: what fundamental laws of physics truly governed this cold, soulless, yet frighteningly efficient power?

  The composition of the Russian operational task force was compact, meticulously balanced, and perfectly suited for an autonomous mission in hostile, unmapped waters:

  The Yamal — The flagship, a Project 18280 medium intelligence ship. It wasn't heavily armed, but its presence was far more devastating than a battery of cannons. It served as the nervous system of the operation. Its towering arrays of SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) antennas vacuumed up every localized mana-wave and radio emission within hundreds of miles, providing secure, encrypted satellite uplinks to the National Defense Control Center in Moscow.

  The LHD Sevastopol — The pride of the task force, a newly commissioned Project 23900 amphibious assault ship. A floating fortress and logistics hub. Its vast inner well-deck and hangars held not a standard marine brigade, but a specialized scientific team, containerized field laboratories, and a reinforced company of the SSO (Special Operations Forces)—the ultimate, surgical "hard power" argument should diplomacy fail. On its massive flight deck, Ka-52M "Alligator" attack helicopters rested under protective tarps, their coaxial rotors locked in place.

  The Fleet Oiler Boris Butoma — A heavy sea tanker. It carried thousands of tons of humanitarian aid, construction materials, and diplomatic "gifts" for the Calamic locals. More importantly, it held the aviation kerosene and naval diesel—the liquid blood required to keep the steel hearts of the Russian armada beating.

  The Frigate Admiral Kasatonov — The silent, deadly bodyguard. A state-of-the-art Project 22350 multi-role warship. Its Poliment-Redut phased array radars actively painted the sky, projecting an impenetrable dome of anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense for hundreds of kilometers around the convoy. Deep within its vertical launch systems (VLS) rested the Kalibr cruise missiles and Zircon hypersonic warheads, patiently waiting for a target.

  Against this terrifying backdrop of 21st-century engineering, the escort provided by the Parpaldia Empire—the aging dragon carrier Cerberus flanked by two outdated Phishanus-class patrol ships—moved with a slow, desperate mimicry of imperial grandeur.

  It was a theater of the absurd. The apex predators of two different eras swimming side by side. And as the dark, impenetrable silhouette of the Ring Mountains finally appeared on the distant horizon, both sides knew that the real test of their forced alliance was about to begin.

  Aboard the Parpaldian dragon carrier Cerberus. The Northern Archipelago.

  In the distance, through shreds of cold morning fog, the first peaks of the ringed mountain range began to emerge from the leaden, restless waters—massive, black, and sharp-toothed, like the jaw of a dead leviathan. On the bridge of the Yamal, Admiral Arakin raised the microphone:

  "All units. Commencing final phase. Prepare for insertion. Alpha Group, one hour to readiness."

  A low, guttural rumble, like the grumbling of a volcano, momentarily drowned out the creak of the deck planks.

  "Easy, Taarela, easy, my girl," Muller whispered affectionately, stroking his wyvern. Agitated by the unfamiliar scent of other dragons and the hum of the Russian ships, she nudged her huge, scarred head into his chest, seeking protection.

  A group of Parpaldian dragon riders in gleaming armor walked past them, deliberately keeping their distance.

  "Kinda small, isn't she? Not like our imperial wyvern lords," one of them muttered with a contemptuous smirk, loud enough for Muller to hear.

  Muller didn't even turn his head. He had long since learned to ignore them. Something else was on his mind—his wyvern's calm.

  "You have an excellent bond with your beast. It's a rare thing to see," a low, rumbling voice said from behind him. A tall, broad-shouldered man in the dress uniform of an Imperial Navy captain had appeared beside him.

  "Reckmeyer," he introduced himself, without a hint of arrogance. "Captain of the imperial dragon riders."

  "Muller," the other replied curtly, not looking up from his inspection of the leather harness.

  "I've heard a great deal about you and your wyvern. They say you're the only one who's taught her to take off without a running start."

  "Lourian wyverns are smaller, easier to train," Muller answered evasively.

  "Mastery is mastery, regardless of the size of the beast," Reckmeyer said with sincere respect. "For us riders, that's what matters most."

  Muller finally looked up at him. He saw before him not an arrogant imperial aristocrat, but a professional, just like himself. A man for whom the sky was home, and a control stick or reins were an extension of his will.

  "Thank you," Muller nodded. And in that short phrase, there was more understanding than in any long conversation. Two aces, who had found themselves on opposite sides of a shattered world, had, for a moment, found a common language. The language of warriors.

  "I heard she can take off vertically? Even with a passenger?" Reckmeyer continued, his curiosity professional.

  "She can," Muller said, still focused on his work. "It took some time, but she learned. We've been together for fifteen years. Since she was six months old."

  Reckmeyer nodded thoughtfully.

  "If we had something like that in the Empire… Land operations would be entirely different. Inserting scout groups in the mountains, rapid evacuation of the wounded…"

  "Your wyvern lords are too heavy. And too spoiled," Muller replied with a hint of bitterness, recalling years of training. "This isn't just an animal, Captain. This is a partner. You need to know how to talk to them, not just give orders."

  "Wisely said," Reckmeyer fell silent for a moment, then added, a bit softer: "If you find yourself in Esthirant after this mission, stop by. There's a quiet tavern there, for our kind. We'll drink to the sky."

  For the first time in their entire conversation, Muller allowed himself a slight, crooked smirk.

  "I don't drink," he looked at Reckmeyer with a calm, direct gaze. "Wife, daughter. That's enough."

  Reckmeyer froze for a moment, and then a slow smile spread across his face in return, but in it was a shadow of sadness, and perhaps a touch of envy.

  "You know how to hold on to what's truly important. I respect that," he said.

  They exchanged short, understanding nods. At that moment, aboard the imperial dragon carrier, in the middle of a foreign, cold sea, a fragile, almost impossible feeling was born between the former knight of a vanquished Louria and the captain of a still-mighty Parpaldia—not friendship, but a deep, professional respect between two warriors who understood each other without words.

  Aboard the Parpaldian dragon carrier Cerberus. The Northern Archipelago.

  In the distance, tearing through the shreds of freezing morning fog, the first peaks of the Ringed Mountain Range began to emerge from the leaden, restless waters. They rose out of the ocean like the colossal, black, and sharp-toothed jaw of a dead leviathan, their summits hidden in localized magnetic storm clouds. The very air here felt heavy, thick with raw, unrefined mana that caused the hair on the back of the neck to stand up.

  Three kilometers away, cutting through the swells with mechanical indifference, the Russian flagship Yamal held its position. Inside the shielded, climate-controlled Combat Information Center, Rear Admiral Arakin watched the digital topography of the island materialize on the screens.

  He leaned over the comms console, pressing the transmit key.

  "All units. Commencing final phase," Arakin’s voice was calm, cutting through the encrypted channels. "Aviation group, spool up. SSO Alpha Team, prep for high-altitude drone overwatch. Envoy-One, the airspace is as clear as it's going to get. You are go for biological VTOL insertion. One hour to launch.

  Meanwhile, on the frost-covered wooden flight deck of the Cerberus, a low, guttural rumble—like the grinding of tectonic plates—momentarily drowned out the creak of the hull timbers.

  "Easy, Taarela, easy, my girl," Muller whispered affectionately, pressing his gloved hand against the coarse, icy scales of his wyvern's neck.

  The beast was agitated. It wasn't just the biting arctic cold that forced the Parpaldian beast-tamers to surround the deck with glowing, red-hot fire-magic stones. It was the unnatural, rhythmic thrumming of the Russian gas-turbine engines carrying across the water, and the high-frequency pings of their active sonar that the wyverns could feel vibrating in their hollow bones. Seeking protection from the sensory overload, Taarela nudged her huge, scarred, triangular head against Muller’s chest, letting out a hot, sulfurous breath.

  A group of young Parpaldian wyvern riders, walked past the Lourian mercenary. They deliberately kept their distance, huddling near the thermal stones.

  "Look at the size of that thing. Kinda small, isn't she?" one of them muttered with a contemptuous, nervous smirk, projecting his voice just loud enough over the wind. "Barely half the wingspan of our Imperial Overlords. The Russians must be desperate if they are relying on a Lourian lizard to carry their diplomat."

  Muller didn't even turn his head. He methodically checked the tension on the custom-forged titanium buckles the Russians had integrated into his old leather harness. He had long since learned to ignore the barking of frightened pups. His priority was his mount's heart rate, not the bruised egos of a defeated empire.

  "You have an excellent bond with your beast. It is a remarkably rare thing to see," a low, authoritative voice resonated from behind him.

  The young riders instantly stiffened, saluting in fearful silence before quickly scurrying away down the deck.

  Muller turned slightly. A tall, broad-shouldered man wearing the heavy woolen greatcoat of a Parpaldian Naval Captain stood there. There was no sneer on his face, no imperial haughtiness. Only the cold, sharp gaze of a veteran evaluating a peer.

  "Reckmeyer," the man introduced himself, his tone devoid of the usual aristocratic drawl. "Commander of this escort group, and former Captain of the Imperial Dragon Riders."

  "Muller," the mercenary replied curtly, returning his focus to the saddle's reinforced passenger stirrups. He didn't offer his rank; he had none anymore. He was simply a contractor for RosInfraStroy.

  "I have heard a great deal about you and your mount in the post-war intelligence briefs," Reckmeyer continued, stepping closer but respectfully keeping out of the wyvern's bite radius. "They say you are the only aviator on the continent who has trained a standard wyvern to achieve a vertical takeoff without a catapult or a running start."

  "Lourian wyverns are smaller. Lighter bone density. Easier to retrain if you know what you're doing," Muller answered evasively, checking the wind direction.

  "Mastery is mastery, regardless of the size of the beast," Reckmeyer countered, his voice laced with sincere professional respect. "For those of us who live in the sky, the laws of aerodynamics do not care about the flag painted on our armor. You achieved something our beast-masters deemed physically impossible."

  Muller finally stopped his preparations and looked up. He expected to see a spy trying to fish for Russian secrets. Instead, he saw a man whose empire had been shattered by the unforgiving anvil of 21st-century physics, a man desperately trying to understand how warfare had evolved overnight. Reckmeyer wasn't just an imperial aristocrat; he was an aviator. For him, the sky was home, and the reins were simply an extension of his own will.

  "Thank you," Muller nodded slowly.

  In that short, singular phrase, an invisible bridge was built. Two aces, forced onto opposite sides of a broken world by geopolitics, had found a momentary, silent understanding. The universal language of warriors who knew the price of a mistake at three thousand meters.

  "I heard she can perform this vertical ascent even while carrying a secondary payload? A passenger?" Reckmeyer probed, his curiosity shifting from admiration to tactical analysis. He looked at the specially modified dual-saddle the Russians had installed.

  "She can," Muller said, keeping his answer measured. "It took time. It alters her center of gravity entirely. We've been together for fifteen years. I raised her from the egg. She trusts my shifts in weight, and I trust her wing-beats."

  Reckmeyer nodded thoughtfully, his eyes calculating payload-to-weight ratios. Lord Regent Kaios had tasked him with gathering intelligence, and here was a piece of the puzzle.

  "If we had integrated that capability into Imperial doctrine…" Reckmeyer murmured, almost to himself, looking out at the impenetrable forest canopy of the Ring Island in the distance. "Land operations would be entirely different. No need for cleared runways or open plains. We could have inserted scout groups directly into dense mountains. Executed rapid extractions of wounded officers from behind enemy lines without landing..."

  "Your Wyvern Overlords are too massive for VTOL—Vertical Take-Off and Landing, as the Russians call it. And your riders are too spoiled," Muller replied, a hint of hard-earned bitterness leaking into his voice. "Your academy teaches domination. You break the beast's will with magic and a whip. But this isn't just an animal, Captain. This is a partner. You need to know how to listen to the shift in their muscles, not just scream commands into their ears."

  "Wisely said," Reckmeyer conceded without a trace of offense. The truth hurt, but the recent war had taught him that ignoring reality was a death sentence. He fell silent for a moment, listening to the howling of the arctic wind through the rigging. Then, he added, his tone softening: "If you find yourself in Esthirant after this mission is concluded... stop by the Naval District. There is a quiet tavern there, frequented only by those who fly. The Russians haven't found it yet. We'll drink to the sky."

  For the first time since boarding the Parpaldian ship, a faint, crooked smirk touched the corner of Muller's lips. He reached up, adjusting the strap of his modern, Kevlar-lined flight helmet.

  "I don't drink," Muller looked directly into Reckmeyer's eyes with a calm, unshakeable gaze. "I have a wife. I have a daughter waiting for me in a safe apartment in Gim. The money I make today secures their future. That is enough adrenaline for me."

  Reckmeyer froze. In the Parpaldian military culture, glory, rank, and imperial pride were everything. To fight purely to provide, to reject the romance of war for the quiet stability of a family... it was a sobering thought.

  Slowly, an understanding smile spread across the Imperial Captain's face, but deep within it flickered a shadow of profound sadness, and perhaps, a touch of genuine envy. He realized then why the Russians had chosen this man. Muller couldn't be bribed with imperial titles or seduced by glory. He had something real to lose, which made him utterly reliable.

  "You know how to hold on to what is truly important. I respect that," Reckmeyer said quietly, taking a step back.

  They exchanged short, crisp nods. Neither bowed; they simply acknowledged an equal. And in that fleeting moment, aboard an obsolete wooden dragon carrier drifting in the shadow of nuclear-powered warships, an impossible connection formed between the former knight of a vanquished Louria and the captain of a humbled Parpaldia. It wasn't friendship—that was impossible in this new geopolitical reality—but it was a deep, unbreakable respect between two men who understood each other perfectly without uttering another word.

  "Envoy-One is on deck," a sharp, heavily accented voice broke the silence.

  Muller turned. Flanked by two heavily armed SSO operators in snow-camouflage, the Russian diplomat, Viktor Volkov, strode onto the flight deck, pulling on a pair of tactical flight gloves. The real mission was about to begin.

  Forest, 6 miles west of Arkhal. Kingdom of Calamic.

  The Mi-8AMTSh pilots didn't wait for a thumbs-up. The moment the last man cleared the ramp, both birds were already pulling collective—a brief, violent thrash of downwash that flattened the grass in a ten-meter circle and sent a shower of loose leaves into the faces of everyone on the ground—and then they were gone, climbing hard through the gap in the canopy, their rotor noise dopplering down through registers until the forest swallowed the last of it.

  What was left behind was not silence. It was the absence of machine noise, which the forest immediately filled with its own sounds: water moving somewhere downhill, unseen birds resuming calls they'd paused for the intrusion, the creak of something massive and wooden shifting in a wind that didn't reach the ground. The air smelled like decomposing leaves, resin, and something underneath both of those things—something sweet and slightly wrong, the way flowers smell when they've been in water too long.

  Captain Zakharov had his team deployed before the helicopter sound had fully faded.

  Not "formed a perimeter." It was more specific than that. Two operators went immediately to the northern treeline, twenty meters out, prone, covering the approach from the road the satellite imagery had flagged. Two more moved to the rocky spur on the eastern edge of the clearing, using the elevation to get eyes on the ground above. The remaining eight held a staggered inner cordon, two-man pairs at compass points, each pair oriented so that their sectors of fire overlapped and no single gap in the coverage was more than thirty degrees wide. The AK-12s were up, thermal sights active, fingers indexed along trigger guards. Nobody was scanning randomly. Everyone had a specific piece of ground they were responsible for.

  Zakharov himself stood in the center of the clearing and didn't move for thirty seconds.

  This was something his operators had learned to recognize: he was listening. Not for sounds specifically—for the quality of the forest's ambient noise. Whether the birds were still calling, what direction they'd gone quiet from, whether the things moving in the undergrowth were moving toward them or parallel. It was a skill that took years to develop and couldn't be taught in a classroom, and it told him more in thirty seconds than a sensor sweep told him in three minutes.

  The forest wasn't alarmed. Whatever was out there had registered the helicopter noise as a threat and gone still, and was now reassessing. That meant nothing was already close and committed. They had time.

  "Secure," he said quietly, and his team relaxed from contact-ready to movement-ready—a difference of about fifteen percent in posture that an outsider would struggle to identify and that mattered enormously.

  Orlov had his tablet out. He'd had it out before the helicopter finished its climb, which told Zakharov that the diplomat had done this before—or at least had been briefed thoroughly enough to know what the first thing to check was. The screen showed what Zakharov's own wrist unit was showing: the satellite uplink indicator cycling through three yellow bars and failing to reach green, accompanied by a diagnostic string that the system's designers had apparently felt needed to be dramatic about.

  SIGNAL INTEGRITY: 12% — GEOMAGNETIC ANOMALY (MANA-FIELD CLASS 4) — BURST TRANSMISSION ONLY

  "Ground relay," Orlov said. Not a question.

  "Gridin, Semenov—deploy the relay package," Zakharov said. Two operators peeled off and started unpacking a case from their load-bearing kit: a short telescoping antenna mast, a signal repeater unit the size of a large thermos, and a cable spool that would link it to the squad's encrypted comms. The relay wouldn't restore full satellite uplink—the mana-field was too dense for that—but it would allow burst-compressed transmissions to the Yamal, which would relay to Moscow. Enough for situation reports. Not enough for real-time tasking.

  For operational purposes, they were effectively autonomous from the moment those helicopters left.

  Zakharov was fine with this. He'd operated in communication blackouts before. The mission parameters were clear, the contingency protocols were memorized, and the objective hadn't changed because the radio didn't work. What it did mean was that any decision made from this point until they reached a relay-capable position was his decision, and the weight of that sat where it always sat—somewhere in the middle of his sternum, quiet and steady.

  Orlov, who had apparently reached the same conclusion through a different route, pocketed his tablet with the expression of a man who has accepted an unpleasant fact and is moving on. "How far to the approach route?"

  "Four kilometers to the first waypoint. The route stays below the ridgeline until we're within a kilometer of the outer estates." Zakharov checked his wrist unit. The GPS was degraded but not dead—the mana-field attenuated the signal rather than blocking it entirely, which gave him position accuracy to about thirty meters rather than three. Workable. "We move in wedge, Muller's asset on the right flank where the canopy gaps. If we need aerial observation, I want her up fast."

  "She'll be ready," Muller said.

  He was standing at the edge of the clearing where Taarela had settled—not sitting against the tree the way the original position had put him, but standing, back to the clearing, facing the treeline, which was where his attention belonged. He'd removed his flight helmet and clipped it to the saddle. His hair was damp. He was eating something from a foil packet without apparent interest in it, the way experienced soldiers eat when they have the opportunity regardless of appetite.

  Taarela herself lay at the forest margin with the specific quality of stillness that large predators achieve when they're paying full attention to something. Her eyes moved—slow, systematic tracking of the operators as they moved through the clearing—but nothing else did. She'd registered each of the twelve men by now, categorized them by movement pattern and smell, and determined they were not threats to her rider. The relay team working twenty meters to her left had warranted two seconds of focused attention when they extended the antenna mast; she'd watched it go up, apparently decided it was not relevant, and returned to her baseline survey.

  Muller folded the empty foil packet and put it in his jacket pocket. He didn't drop it on the ground. Zakharov had noticed this about him on the Cerberus—he cleaned up after himself automatically, the way people do when they've spent years operating in places where you leave no trace.

  "She's reading the mana-field," Muller said, without being asked. He was watching Taarela's eyes. "The way she's tracking—that's not surveillance, that's orientation. She uses it like a compass. I've seen her do it when we cross over into high-mana terrain."

  "Is that useful to us?"

  "It might be. If she starts orienting differently—sudden reorientation, especially toward the ground—it usually means there's something large moving nearby. She picks up the displacement in the field before she can see or smell it." He paused. "I'm not saying treat her like a sensor system. I'm saying she's worth paying attention to."

  Zakharov filed this. "Noted."

  He turned to his team lead. "Starkov—formation. We move in four minutes."

  They were ninety minutes into the route when the scream reached them.

  High, female, ragged—the kind of sound that doesn't involve any decision to produce it, that comes out of a body before the mind has caught up with the fact that it's afraid. Distance was hard to read in this forest; the canopy and the undergrowth created acoustic reflections that made a sound simultaneously seem to come from everywhere and nowhere specific.

  Zakharov's hand went up before the sound had finished. The formation stopped.

  "Report," he said, low.

  "Bearing unclear," said Operator Nesterov, who was running the acoustic sensor unit—a handheld device that used phase-difference between its microphones to triangulate sound sources. The problem was legible on his face: the readout was showing him three possible bearings, each within forty degrees of each other, because the forest was bouncing the sound off three different surfaces before it reached him. "North to northeast, somewhere between two hundred and four hundred meters. I can't resolve it further."

  A second scream, shorter. Same direction, same ambiguity.

  "Human female," said Operator Glukhov, unnecessarily but accurately.

  "Visual?" Zakharov asked.

  "Nothing on thermal. Too much canopy interference."

  The thermal sights on the AK-12s worked by detecting radiated heat—effective in open ground, significantly degraded in dense forest where the canopy absorbed and redistributed thermal signatures. Whatever was happening two to four hundred meters to the north was invisible to them.

  "Something large," Muller said. He was beside Taarela, hand on her neck. "She's reoriented. North-northwest, ground level."

  Zakharov looked at the sensor readings, looked at the forest, and made the decision the situation required rather than the decision he'd have preferred. A blind advance on an unknown threat in dense forest, with twelve operators and four civilians, toward a location he couldn't pinpoint, was the kind of tactical scenario that got people shot by their own people when something came out of the undergrowth in the wrong direction. He needed eyes before he needed boots.

  "Muller."

  "Already getting on." It wasn't a reply to an order. It was a statement of fact—Muller's boot was already in the stirrup, his body already rising into the saddle in the practiced economy of motion that came from fifteen years of mounting under pressure. No dramatic shout. No dramatic gesture. He settled, adjusted the harness point across his chest, and looked down at Zakharov.

  "Height?"

  "Get above the canopy. Give me a bearing and a description of the target. Don't engage unless the subject is in immediate lethal danger. Then make your own call." Zakharov met his eyes. "But if you engage, I need to know before you do it."

  "Understood."

  "Taarela." He leaned forward slightly, and she was already responding, rising from her resting position with the fluid controlled power of an animal whose musculature was built for exactly this—the vertical launch from a standing start, no run-up required. The downwash hit the nearest operators hard enough to stagger one of them. Then she was through the canopy gap and gone, visible for two seconds as a moving silhouette against the gray sky before the treeline swallowed the angle and she disappeared.

  "Starkov," Zakharov said. "Split the element. You take four, move north, stay on the ridgeline, keep cover. I take four, direct route. We don't commit to contact until Muller gives us a picture." He turned to Orlov, who had his hand on the compact sidearm he carried under his jacket and was looking like a man who was recalibrating his understanding of what this operation involved. "Stay behind the second pair. Don't reach for that weapon unless you're alone and something has teeth."

  Orlov didn't argue. That was a point in his favor.

  Southern Slope of Mount Luud, Kingdom of Calamique.

  Enesi, heiress of the ducal House of Wysk, had once again disobeyed a direct order.

  The Founding Festival was less than a month away, and by strict aristocratic tradition, the unmarried ladies of high society were required to weave live benon flowers into their hair and attire. It was more than a decoration; it was a symbol of purity and the gods' blessing. But this year, an unexplained blight had ruined the local greenhouses, and the city merchants could only offer helpless shrugs. The entire market stock had been bought up by rival noble houses within hours.

  "The son of Duke Ioan will be there," she recalled her mother's grating words with physical disgust. "You must look flawless. We cannot afford to look poor."

  That thought had been the final spark. She would get those flowers. Not for the sake of propriety, and certainly not for Duke Ioan’s arrogant son. She would do it as a symbol of her small, private, yet fiercely proud rebellion against the golden cage closing in around her.

  She remembered a secret. Ten years ago, her old nanny had snuck her out of the estate to a hidden clearing on the southern slope of Mount Luud. A place where wild, magical benons grew untouched by city hands.

  "I will find them," she resolved.

  Slipping into a simple but sturdy woolen traveling dress, she tucked a small silver grafting knife under her leather belt. Then, moving like a ghost through the halls she had memorized since childhood, Enesi slipped out of the estate through an unguarded servant’s exit that led into the sprawling, overgrown rear gardens, and eventually, the untamed forest.

  The day was deceivingly clear. The biting wind carried the intoxicating scent of pine, sun-warmed granite, and the faint, ozone-like smell of raw mana. With a light, almost euphoric heart, Enesi reached the foot of the familiar hill. Clinging to rough stones and springy, moss-covered roots, she ignored the dirt staining her expensive dress and scrambled toward the peak.

  "There they are…" she breathed.

  Before her, like a secret treasure hidden from the world's rot, lay a sun-drenched, bowl-shaped clearing. It was entirely carpeted in a luminous white-and-pink layer of wild benons. She dropped to her knees in sheer delight. Inhaling the sweet, heavy, honeyed aroma that seemed to make her head spin, she drew her silver knife and began to carefully cut the stems.

  Snap.

  The sharp, dry sound of a heavy branch breaking under immense weight.

  It was entirely too loud for this deafeningly quiet forest. Enesi froze, her silver knife pausing halfway to a glowing flower. Her heart skipped a beat, hanging in her chest before it began to pound—fast and erratic, like a bird thrashing against the bars of a snare. The silence of the forest, which just a moment ago had felt like a blessing, suddenly became oppressive, heavy with a suffocating, unseen threat.

  Slowly, her breathing shallow, she turned her head toward the tree line.

  From the dense shadows of the thicket, two large, bristle-backed forest boars emerged, grunting peacefully as they rooted through the luminous moss.

  "Idiots… you scared me to death," Enesi exhaled, a shaky, relieved smile breaking across her face. Her shoulders slumped.

  But her relief was a fatal, amateur mistake.

  In the next fraction of a second, the entire ecosystem reacted. The wind died completely. The chirping of the forest birds cut off so abruptly it was as if an invisible blade had slit all their throats at once. An unnatural, absolute silence fell—the kind of heavy, barometric pressure drop that preceded an earthquake.

  And then, the wind shifted. A foul stench washed over the clearing—a sickening mixture of rotting meat, sulfur, and stagnant blood.

  From the opposite side of the clearing came a deafening, splintering crash, as if a hundred-year-old oak had been bulldozed aside.

  Enesi tried to scream, but the air was trapped in her lungs.

  Stepping into the sunlight was a nightmare violently ripped from the darkest pages of the Ravernal bestiary. It was a Twelve-Horned Beast. It possessed a fleshy, low-slung, heavily muscled body, moving on six powerful limbs tipped with scythe-like claws that dug trenches into the earth. It looked like a grotesque, biomechanical hybrid of a silverback gorilla and a monitor lizard, covered in coarse, wire-like black bristles that acted as natural armor.

  But the most terrifying feature was its head. Crowned with twelve forward-swept, jagged bone horns, its jaws dripped with acidic saliva. Its eyes—four burning, crimson slits devoid of any animal instinct save for pure malice—locked onto the clearing.

  It wasn't hunting for survival. The royal texts were explicit: These remnants of the ancient empire kill for the sheer pleasure of slaughter.

  Moving with terrifying, explosive speed for its mass, the beast lunged. It didn't aim for the girl. It slammed its two massive front paws into the nearest boar, pinning the screeching animal to the bedrock. With a sickening, wet crunch of snapping spine and tearing flesh, the monster's jaws effortlessly ripped the boar's torso in half. Blood sprayed across the pristine white benons.

  "A… a twelve-horned beast…" Enesi's dry lips trembled, her mind fracturing under the weight of primal terror.

  For two agonizing seconds, fear paralyzed her motor functions. Then, survival instinct overrode the shock. She bolted.

  She dropped the silver knife and the gathered flowers, whirling around and diving into the dense undergrowth. Her heavy woolen cloak immediately snagged on a patch of thorny briars, tearing the fabric and gashing her shoulder, but she didn't feel the pain. Blood pounded in her ears like a war drum, drowning out all sounds except the ragged, desperate tearing of her own lungs.

  Behind her, the forest shook.

  "GURRAAA-UGHHH!"

  A wild, low, guttural roar vibrated through the ground. It had noticed her. It was leaving the boar carcass. It was chasing her.

  Enesi was fast, driven by pure adrenaline, but she was a human girl in a dress navigating unfamiliar terrain. Behind her, entire trees were being snapped like matchsticks as the multi-ton predator effortlessly bulldozed through the forest, closing the distance at a terrifying speed.

  "No… I don't want to die… Help! SOMEONE! PLEASE!" she screamed, her voice shrill, tearing her vocal cords.

  She tripped over an exposed root, falling hard onto the damp earth, scraping her hands raw. She scrambled to turn around, kicking backward against the moss.

  Through the shattered trees, the Twelve-Horned Beast burst into the opening, its crimson eyes fixed on her. Its jaws unhinged, preparing for the lethal strike.

  "This is the end…" Enesi squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the agony.

  But then, the sky directly above the canopy darkened.

  A massive, impossibly swift shadow eclipsed the sun.

  "SKREEE-AAARRR!"

  It was not the roar of the monster in front of her. It was a shockwave. A localized, barometric blast that physically rattled the air in Enesi's lungs. It was the imperious, furious battle cry of an apex predator claiming absolute dominance over the airspace.

  The Twelve-Horned Beast instantly aborted its charge, its six claws skidding into the dirt. Its crimson eyes darted upward, its natural armor bristling in sudden, uncharacteristic hesitation.

  Enesi, trembling violently on the ground, opened her eyes and lifted her tear-streaked face toward the heavens. She gasped, all breath leaving her body.

  Hovering barely twenty meters above the clearing, beating its massive, leathery wings with such kinetic force that it created a miniature hurricane, was a wyvern. It was magnificent. Its wings were as dark as a rolling thundercloud, its scaled body the color of polished gunmetal.

  And on its back, locked into a complex, utilitarian saddle, sat a man.

  "There's… a rider?!" her mind struggled to process the image.

  He looked nothing like the illustrations in her books. There was no shining silver plate armor, no flowing crimson cape, no heraldic shield. The man wore a functional, dark, tactical flight jacket over Kevlar weaves, strapped tightly with canvas harnesses. On his head was a strange, padded helmet with a lowered tinted visor and a small metallic stalk resting near his mouth.

  He was completely composed. The man wasn't even looking at her—the helpless princess bleeding in the dirt.

  His posture was rigid, cold, and intensely focused entirely on the Twelve-Horned Beast below. Through the visor, Muller was executing a rapid, professional tactical assessment. He was calculating the thickness of the beast's bristled armor, estimating the wind shear from Taarela’s downwash, and identifying the soft tissue between the monster's neck joints for a lethal strike. There was not a single shadow of fear, doubt, or misplaced chivalry in his movements. It was the cold, mechanical precision of a professional killer.

  But to Enesi, lying in the mud, staring up at this dark silhouette framed by the blinding sun and the violent winds of the beast's wings, reality warped.

  Her fragile worldview, meticulously built from childhood fairy tales, dusty library books, and a desperate desire to escape her arranged fate, completely shattered. And in a fraction of a second, it rebuilt itself upon its own ruins—forming a new, infinitely more dangerous reality.

  The lines of the forbidden prophecy flashed in her mind like lightning. "When monsters from another world bring the kingdom to the brink of ruin, a knight shall descend from the heavens, commanding a soaring beast…"

  It wasn't a fairy tale. It was HIM.

  "He… has come… My knight…" she whispered, her bloody fingers clutching the dirt.

  And in her wide, dilated eyes—still brimming with the tears of absolute terror—a new, fanatical, almost manic fire ignited. It was the terrifying, unshakable fire of blind faith.

  Thus, in a secluded clearing drenched in high-altitude sunlight and fresh blood, beneath the deafening roar of a mercenary's wyvern, the true history of the Kingdom of Calamique irreversibly changed its course.