Begin the Widening

The marker stood where the mist broke.

A slim, triangular post carved from obsidian-root and engraved with a single glowing glyph: ⚔.

Riku pressed his hand against it. The bark-stone pulsed faintly once.

Then silence.

That was all.

No sound. No lightshow. No announcement.

Just the final act of activating the Territory Claim Token — one of the three Blood Moon survival rewards given directly to him after the battle. This one had weight. Not because others would see it immediately… but because eventually, if another Sovereign's scouts ever came this deep, they would recognize it.

The symbol was universal.

It marked a place claimed.

First Expansion Zone

He selected a zone east of the central basin — rich in mossvein, naturally sheltered by layered canopy cliffs, and distant enough from core structures to allow early warning of enemy approach.

With the token planted, he now had a system-recognized foundation zone — where buildings would be reinforced with slightly better structural cohesion, and traps and outposts would anchor more stably.

It wasn't magic.

It was permission.

And that meant more than power.

Wall Construction Begins

Juran and Nilo coordinated the first ten-meter wall span. It was a single row of tiered bark-iron fencing lashed to rootbone frames. The center posts were sunken half a meter into reinforced soil.

"Why here?" Juran asked.

"Because they'll come from the fog," Riku said. "Everyone does. Even if they don't know it."

Nilo's forge team installed flame-bonded spikes across the top ridge — forged from hardened slagstone and treated ashwood. Thalya embedded vibration moss between the outer barkplates — a Lorian trick. If anything brushed it in the night, it would release a silent tremble only trained soldiers could sense through their footwraps.

Construction inside the claimed zone was faster. Root-guided reinforcement grew quicker. Moisture management stabilized on its own. And when the eastern wall's third support beam cracked during transport, it regrew to seal the gap within an hour.

On the second day, Thalya brought forward a practice lost in older generations of her people.

Root Memory Training.

Each Lorian root — if guided correctly through rhythmic pressure, slicing patterns, and environmental shaping — would remember its growth path.

She demonstrated with a palm-sized cutter and a watering horn. In minutes, she had a rootline twisting in a full arc — mimicking the curve of a wall brace.

"We train them once," she said. "Then every regrowth will match."

This meant every fallen wall could be regrown.

Eventually.

And if they had time, they wouldn't need to rebuild — they'd only need to wait.

By the third day, excavation began on the central anchor.

They didn't call it a fortress. Not yet.

But it was placed at the core of the claimed zone, with reinforced bark arches and stone ribs sunk deep into the ground.

The first chamber was half-dug. It would house:

Emergency weapon stock

Warbeast housing for Ashmaw and his future kin

A command hollow large enough for full strategy councils

It was primitive. Cold. Damp.

But it was theirs.

And with the system's silent acknowledgment, it would hold.

Ashmaw had relocated again.

Not on Riku's orders.

He chose a spot beyond the new wall — on a narrow ridge that faced the fog-line, where vines dangled over the edge like feelers.

He didn't eat.

He didn't move.

But he was watching.

Always watching.

And that meant something was coming.