More than a month passed after the phenomenon.

  Instead of relief, pressure deepened.

  Blaze issued a directive to all allied kings: troop training would intensify immediately. Rest periods were shortened. Wages were delayed. The justification was simple—the world was under threat.

  Complaints followed.

  Soldiers protested exhaustion. Commanders warned of declining morale. Those concerns were dismissed under the banner of necessity.

  At the same time, sealing procedures accelerated.

  Villages were sealed faster than forests were cleared, justified by fears of rapid spread. Some regions were overlooked entirely due to favorable readings—only for mutations to appear later, revealing twisted data and incomplete surveys.

  Advance posts reported cleared areas that later proved contaminated.

  Mistakes multiplied.

  Upper management tightened oversight, which only slowed response further. The heroes grew visibly strained—Blaze most of all. He was the driving force of the alliance, and if these failures continued, control would slip from his grasp.

  He knew it.

  Inside the council chamber, tension finally surfaced.

  Marcella confronted Blaze directly. Not with emotion—but with accusation. She argued that they were acting without understanding the cause of the spread, that speed had replaced comprehension.

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  Blaze responded sharply. Knowledge without action, he argued, was useless. The world could not wait for perfect models while people died.

  Voices rose.

  Alister ignored them both.

  He was focused on weapon development—progress slow, failures frequent. Holy and abyssal materials still refused stable coexistence. Explosions destroyed weeks of work. Still, he continued.

  Eventually, the argument cooled.

  Not because it was resolved—but because both realized that infighting would change nothing.

  Across markets and guild routes, behavior shifted again.

  Trade paths were altered repeatedly. Domestic caravans avoided entire zones without explanation. Explorers refused patrols near regions that had been mysteriously “cleaned.”

  Those places were silent.

  Too silent.

  Animals avoided them instinctively. Mutated beasts fled without engagement. Even common wildlife refused to pass through, as if a presence lingered—one that triggered panic without form.

  Temples attempted investigation.

  Holy magic surged uncontrollably in those zones, sometimes dissipating mid-cast, as if swallowed by emptiness. After several near-fatal incidents, officials designated the areas as dead zones.

  Entry was prohibited.

  People obeyed without needing enforcement.

  In refugee camps, patience fractured.

  People began leaving on their own. Villages stopped reporting fully to the capital, relying instead on local power. Explorer guilds quietly formed independent defense groups, clearing nearby threats themselves and transporting materials discreetly through merchant networks.

  Officials interfered.

  Too late.

  Some villages cut themselves off entirely.

  Non-allied kingdoms began emerging—not in declaration, but in practice.

  Healers were the first to break protocol openly.

  They demanded resources and protection from local explorer groups, refusing to prioritize based on political rank. Their lists changed quietly. Their loyalties shifted silently.

  Meanwhile, comparisons spread.

  Merchants spoke of Roy Val Drake when evaluating explorer performance. Guilds referenced his methods when training recruits. Sightings were shared discreetly between guilds—with one condition.

  Capital officials were not to be informed.

  Ragnar understood what was happening.

  Control had not been overthrown.

  It was being bypassed.