The hooded man did not move immediately after Fior disappeared into the hidden entrance.

He remained where he stood, half-shadowed beneath the towering roots, watching the section of earth that had sealed shut once more. The illusion folded perfectly back into place, no trace of disturbance.

So that was the spark.

Young. Angry. Reckless. Already stained with royal blood.

It had been almost disappointingly easy.

He had been assigned to find one individual among the Dark Elves, someone influential enough to pull others with him, yet volatile enough to crave escalation.

Someone who would choose pride over patience.

Fior had presented himself like a gift.

The man’s lips curved faintly beneath the hood.

A piece of cake.

His gaze lowered to the four corpses scattered across the clearing.

Pure Mana Elves.

Their luminous veins had dimmed, but faint traces of their elemental energy still clung to the air like the echo of a struck bell. That would not do.

He knelt beside the first body and held his hand up, a ball of black misty mana covered his palm and he casted it over all of them.

Within seconds the skin over the dead bodies started rotting and the Pure Mana began evanescing.

The attack of dead mana was enough to make the others believe that it was the work of a Dark Elf.

He even scorched the grass with a residue pulse mimicking the unstable flare of Fior’s magic.

When the Pure Mana Elves found these bodies, they would see exactly what they were meant to see.

Savage retaliation.

Uncontrolled aggression.

Dark Elf brutality.

It was, as expected. Easy.

He rose smoothly. The forest wind stirred faintly, carrying the rotting scent away.

He looked past the trees far, far away, a humongous tree stood tall.

Yggdrasil’s distant canopy shimmered under starlight.

Its influence pressed gently against all living things, a vast, ancient awareness that regulated balance across Edrisyl.

But not here.

Not beneath the surface layers.

Not within the tunnels his kind had constructed.

He moved toward a thicket that appeared ordinary to any passerby. He pressed his palm against a twisted trunk and the bark rippled subtly, parting just enough to reveal a narrow passage descending into darkness.

The entrance sealed behind him without a sound.

The tunnel was nothing like the Dark Elves’ earthen corridors. These walls were reinforced with an unfamiliar black mineral that absorbed ambient mana rather than reflecting it. The air felt strangely hollow, insulated.

Yggdrasil’s pulse could not reach here.

The tunnel widened gradually, branching into an underground network far more calculated than organic.

A pair of figures stood guard at an intersection further down, their silhouettes lean and unnervingly still. They did not question him. They did not need to.

He inclined his head slightly.

"Objective?" One of them asked quietly.

"Secured," he replied.

"Catalyst identified?"

"Yes."

A pause.

"And compliant?"

The hooded man allowed himself the faintest smirk.

"He will be."

The guard gave a single nod.

The hooded man continued walking deeper into the network of shadowed corridors.

The mission had been simple: locate the ember.

Feed it air.

Ensure that when war ignited between the Elves, it would burn too fiercely for either side to extinguish.

Once they were weakened, then the true work would begin.

He removed his hood only after reaching a sealed inner chamber. His features were sharp, almost Elven in structure, but subtly wrong. The ears not quite the same curve. The eyes lacking that innate glow.

Hybrid of Dark Elves fed with demonic blood.

He stepped down the stony stairs carved into the bowels of the earth.

Each step echoed faintly, swallowed almost instantly by the oppressive silence below. The air grew heavier the deeper he descended, thicker, as though the earth itself pressed inward.

Red mana stones jutted from the tunnel walls and floor in jagged formations, their inner cores pulsing faintly like embers trapped in crystal. Their glow painted the narrow passage in an eerie crimson wash, turning shadows into clawed shapes that crawled along the stone.

This was one of the forgotten arteries of Edrisyl.

A secret tunnel no living Elf knew of.

After the Great war, the remaining forces had hidden away deep into the parts of the world waiting for the time when their King would rise again.

One of their branch was here, surviving deep beneath Edrisyl, the world considered these dark forces as the objects of myth from a long time ago but what they had no idea of was that they were simply bidding their time.

But myths, as always, had bones.

The man walked with measured steps through the labyrinthine corridor. The architecture here was not organic like the Dark Elves’ tunnels. These were carved deliberately, sharp angles, symmetrical cuts, symbols etched into corners where red light pooled.

The tunnel opened at last into a vast underground chamber.

Carved into the far stone wall was the sigil of their King.

A ram’s skull, elongated, ancient, with two massive curled horns spiraling outward. Around it, inscriptions in an archaic script circled like a binding spell. The grooves had been filled with dark resin that still gleamed faintly under the red glow.

At the center of the chamber stood a large stone altar.

Its surface was worn smooth by centuries of ritual. Around it, concentric rings of incantations were carved into the floor, layered over one another — old spells beneath newer ones, each circle overlapping history.

Stone pillars lined the perimeter of the chamber, thick and imposing, supporting the ceiling high above. Chains once hung from some of them, the iron long rusted, the hooks still embedded.

"You’re back."

The voice came from the far side of the altar.

Deep. Controlled.

The hooded man immediately dropped to one knee.

"Yes, Dominus."

The figure before him turned slightly.

He was tall, taller even than the man kneeling. His black cloak fell in heavy folds around him, absorbing the red light rather than reflecting it. His skin was unnaturally pale, not fair, not ivory, but devoid of warmth, as though sunlight had never dared touch it.

His features were sharp and severe, eyes completely black with the faint red pupils and the silver pendant of a ram’s skull hanging over his chest.

"And how did it go?" He asked calmly.

"As per your orders," the kneeling man replied. "The catalyst has been secured. He is impulsive. Influential among his peers and had even injured Aelfric."

A faint smile curled along the Dominus’ colorless lips.

"Good."

He stepped toward the altar and placed a hand upon a small chest resting atop it.

The chest was carved from blackened wood reinforced with iron bands etched in sigils similar to those on the floor. A faint hum resonated from within, subtle, but present.

He lifted it effortlessly.

The kneeling man rose to his feet but kept his gaze lowered.

Dominus turned and walked toward the massive stone doors at the chamber’s far end. They opened at his approach with a grinding sound, ancient mechanisms still obedient even after decades.

Beyond lay another tunnel, deeper, darker.

Colder.

The red mana stones thinned the further they went, replaced by black-veined rock that seemed to drink light itself. The air shifted again, carrying the faint metallic tang of something sealed away for too long.

The man followed wordlessly.

They walked deeper into the tunnel system, past the section where the red mana stones no longer glowed. Their once-fiery cores now sat dull and lifeless, as though something had drained them hollow.

The air here felt thinner.

Even sound seemed reluctant to linger.

The Dominus moved through the darkness without hesitation. He did not require light. He did not slow his steps. The earth itself seemed to recognize him, or perhaps fear him.

They reached a narrow bend where a faint green glow pulsed weakly against the stone. He stopped.

Embedded within the cavern wall was a thick strand of root, ancient, textured, alive. It pushed through stone as if the rock were mere soil. Veins of luminous green ran along its surface, pulsing steadily.

A fragment of Yggdrasil.

Its life force hummed faintly, a subtle resonance that usually brought warmth to the air around it.

But now, standing before it, the Dominus regarded it with unmistakable disdain.

As though staring at an old enemy.

He opened the lid of the small chest in his hand.

The hinges did not creak.

Inside lay several carefully secured instruments made of glass, silver, bone. He selected one.

It resembled an injection device, slender and sharp, its chamber filled with a deep black viscous liquid. The fluid inside moved unnaturally, too thick to ripple, yet too alive to remain still. It clung to the glass as though resisting containment.

"Any information about who caused that mana rain?" the Dominus asked without looking back.

The man behind him lowered his head slightly. "Nothing yet. The disturbance was brief but widespread. The source remains unidentified."

The Dominus hummed softly, not displeased, not surprised.

He stepped closer to the root.

Up close, the green glow reflected faintly in his pale eyes. The pulse of it was steady.

He did not hesitate.

The needle pierced the root with a soft, wet sound.

The green pulse flared once in reflex.

Then he depressed the injector.

The black fluid slid into the living strand.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then, the green glow flickered violently.

A tremor ran through the root, subtle at first, then sharp. The veins of light inside it began to darken, as though ink were spreading through clear water.

The pulse faltered.

Slowed.

Stopped.

The luminous green extinguished entirely.

The root blackened from the injection point outward, shriveling slightly as if centuries of decay had been forced into it at once. Its surface cracked, thin fissures spreading like fractures across glass.

What had been alive moments ago now hung there, dead and rotting.

The surrounding stone seemed to absorb the absence.

The Dominus withdrew the needle slowly, observing the result with clinical detachment.

"Yggdrasil is not as invincible as they believe," he murmured.

Behind him, the man swallowed but remained composed.

"Will it notice?" he asked quietly.

The Dominus studied the now-blackened strand.

"It will feel something," he said. "A weakness. A fluctuation. But not the source."

He allowed himself a faint smile before it disappeared as if remembered something displeasing.

"We must find out the one that made the Mana rain," the Dominus said quietly, though the silence around him made it feel like a decree. "And get rid of them."

The man inclined his head. "It has been several days. After the mana rain, the Presence vanished from the island. Every member of our coven has searched. There is no trace."

"No trace," the Dominus repeated.

He reached for the blackened root embedded in the wall and wrapped his fingers around it.

With a sharp, violent pull, he tore it free from the stone.

Fragments of dead bark scattered across the floor.

"Yet its mere existence was enough to undo years of our work."

His pale features hardened. For the first time, irritation, real irritation, flickered in his eyes.

"I am certain it was one of them."

The man hesitated. "Dominus... there are only three who possess the authority to heal Yggdrasil."

He spoke carefully, choosing each word with respect and caution.

"One is sealed. One is dead. And if the third were to descend upon Edrisyl, we would know at once."

The Dominus’ lips thinned.

"Apparently," he said coldly, "there is a fourth."

Silence thickened.

"He does not reside here," the Dominus continued. "But he came. He healed. And he left."

His gaze shifted toward the distant tunnel ceiling, toward the world above.

"And since he can return... we will eliminate the possibility before it matures."

The man pursed his lips.

The task of their coven was to kill the roots of Yggdrasil without getting caught, they were mostly living underground on the edges where the farthest of Yggdrasil’s roots reached and had been killing it slowly for years. But suddenly around a week ago, there was a strange rain infused with Pure Mana that healed the Yggdrasil enough for its roots to rejuvenate and their work to be increased.

He could understand why the Dominus believed that this individual who healed the Yggdrasil wasn’t an Elf or a Dwarf, because they didn’t have the authority to do so. They could only ever nurture it.

The healing could only be done by the beings as strong as Yggdrasil. The Dragons.

But even among them only three could cast that. The Golden Dragon who is sealed away, the Aqua Dragon that’s dead and lastly the Green one whose arrival would alert then at once. But since it was none of them then he wondered if it really was a fourth Dragon who had made an appearance.

He just hoped that their years of work wouldn’t go to waste, their predecessors had failed to destroy Yggdrasil who is the source of Mana but the present generation was close to their goal. It had taken years and years of planning and patience and this time, nothing could stop them.

Not even a Dragon.