Kai's city was alive.
From the stone walls above to the glowing caverns below, it pulsed with Sovereign's threads. Twenty-three humans, twenty-seven goblins, eighteen kippers, six werewolves — Daniel among them — and Vael, the vampire prince. The count grew daily, every soul drawn into the weave of something larger.
Kai felt the weight of it. His tattoos ached. Every time he carved stone or bent metal, Resonance Pressure leaked out like a heartbeat others could feel. They called it strength. To Kai, it was just fatigue.
---
Glowhollow spread like a dream beneath the earth. Quartz veins shimmered in the pillars. Flow's rivers ran silver, their hum purifying the copper piping. Bioluminescent fungi swayed, painting alcoves in blue and violet.
Kai dragged his palm along the stone wall, tattoos buzzing. "Another kipper tunnel," he muttered. The wall split obediently, bricks folding inward.
Flow's voice rippled through the water. Peace must be built as much as walls.
Kai smirked. "Peace doesn't hold bricks together."
---
The commons gathered around a chessboard. Draven, Hollow Howl leader, crouched on one side. Across from him: Kilo, axe at his belt, eyes sharp as cut glass.
The crowd hushed when Kilo moved his knight. Draven growled, countered, then froze.
"Checkmate," Kilo said.
The kipper's grin was wider than his head. He reached for Draven's hand. The handshake became a finger-shake, the werewolf's claw dwarfing him. Laughter thundered through Glowhollow.
Draven rumbled approval. "You hunt well, little rat."
Kai leaned back against a pillar. Unity, one awkward handshake at a time.
---
Above ground, the Crimson Road roared. Vampire caravans trundled past, their servants branded with glowing sigils. Vael wandered through the market, cloak trailing like smoke.
He stopped at a kipper's basket stall, running a pale hand over woven reeds. "Bold. Selling to vampires in the open."
"Business is business," muttered the kipper merchant.
Vael's smile flashed sharp. "Nepthuren may yet survive its own courage."
---
That courage was tested when the wizards arrived.
They wore robes of silver-threaded black, staves humming faint. Their eyes held stars — literal stars. Behind them loomed their legend: Vorath's Tower of Power.
The Tower was carved from black glass and bone, an ancient relic hoarding forbidden lore. Its halls pulsed with resonance crystals. Some whispered the toad-king himself croaked spells in its depths.
The wizards bowed. "We heard of a Resonant who bends stone as if it were dough. Show us."
Kai sighed, tattoos flaring. He pressed his palm to the dirt.
The ground roared. A spiral of stone twisted upward, higher and higher, etched with glowing sigils. The tower gleamed, a scar of will against the sky.
Kai staggered back, chest heaving. "There. Your lodging."
---
At first, the wizards sneered. "Too far from Vorath. Too crude."
Then they saw toilets.
"No stench?"
They touched glass windows. "Sand turned to sight?"
They ate bread that rose instead of burned flat. "Yeast… makes food grow?"
By dusk, they whispered among themselves. "We will return with our belongings."
That night, they even played chess. One conjured orbs of light for pieces. Goblins jeered, "Your spells weaker than Kai's stone!" The wizard scowled, then laughed.
---
Later, Kai found Kilo training in the tunnels. The kipper rolled, swung his axe like a blade, darted between shadows.
"You fight like a ninja," Kai said.
Kilo stopped. "What's a ninja?"
"Silent warriors. Hidden. Quick. And samurai — warriors of honor."
Kilo's eyes glowed. "Then I will be both! I'll train a squad. The Kipper Ninjas!"
Kai chuckled. "Just don't assassinate Draven in his sleep."
---
The town square blazed with fire that evening. Glowhollow's streams pulsed in rhythm. Humans passed bread. Goblins sang with cracked voices. Kippers carried nectar-cakes half their size. Deer roasted over spits.
"We need a name for the underground!" someone shouted.
Kilo hopped onto a barrel. "Glowhollow! Because Flow lights it, and stone shelters it!"
The cheer was instant.
"And the nation?" another asked.
Kai scratched his neck. "Nepthuren. Human realm with an N at the end. It'll do."
The laughter was warm, not mocking. It stuck.
---
Daniel raised a mug. His voice rang, twisted by his burden — cursed truth and riddles. "A court needs more than walls. You need a seer. A fool. And guards whose blood won't run."
Kai groaned. "I don't need—"
Vael interrupted, eyes gleaming. "Kings never think they do. But they always do."
Kai muttered, "Maybe Forn. If she wants it."
---
The wizards promised again: "We will return with our belongings."
Kai turned to soil, planting wheat and apple saplings. The people bent beside him.
Then the forest stirred. Roots shifted. Moss glowed.
A woman stepped forward, hair braided with ivy, bark veining her arms. Her eyes glimmered like spring. Behind her, druids carried seeds and branches that breathed.
She bowed. "May we join?"
Kai straightened, dirt on his hands. "Yes. If you'll have us."
---
By nightfall, houses rose for fugitives from Karthos. Goblins taught them hearth-building. Kippers showed them tunnels. Werewolves shared hunts.
Flow drifted above, brighter than ever, humming against the wizards' magic.
Kilo tugged Kai's sleeve. "We have wizards. Druids. Ninjas. What next?"
Flicker whispered in his mind. 'Nepthuren? Not your best name, but it sings.'
Kai looked over Glowhollow's lights, the crowd's cheers, the spider-thread humming in his tattoos. "What's next? Whatever comes. Nepthuren will hold."
And the night answered with thunderous applause, echoing down the Crimson Road like the first cry of a nation.
Glowhollow wasn't just wolves' dens and goblin forges anymore. At its edge, past a curtain of quartz pillars, stood something stranger: a kipper city.
Kai had carved it stone by stone, brick by brick, with a tenderness he didn't let anyone see. The walls were no taller than his knees, the doors barely wide enough for a child's hand. Streets threaded like veins between miniature homes, each fitted with copper pipes for clean water, each roof glimmering with glow-fungi.
And at the heart — a fortress.
A square of stone with banners etched by Kai's own hand: tiny painted glyphs that looked like fishbone sigils. Towers no taller than his shin crowned its corners. And within, a hall with room for one throne-sized chair: Kilo's headquarters.
---
Kilo strutted through the gates like a king. He carried his toothpick axe as though it were a legendary blade, wooden training dummies lining the courtyard.
"Behold!" Kilo declared to an audience of no one but Kai and the fungi. "The stronghold of the Kipper Ninjas! From here we shall rule the shadows!"
Kai chuckled, crouching so his face loomed just above the fortress wall. "You're the only kipper in Glowhollow, Kilo. What shadows are you ruling?"
"Future shadows," Kilo said gravely. He planted the axe in the dirt. "When my ninja squad is ready, they'll need headquarters. A dojo! A council chamber! Secret passages!"
He darted into a narrow alley between two waist-high houses, vanishing from Kai's sight. Moments later he popped out on the other side, panting but triumphant. "See? Already working!"
---
Kai leaned back against the stone, wiping sweat from his brow. "You know, most people build for armies they already have. Not ones they dream up."
Kilo frowned. "Then most people are fools. Ninjas need mystery. Surprise. I'm planning ahead."
The tiny houses glowed in the dark like toy lanterns. Kai couldn't deny the pull in his chest — this strange, fragile kipper declaring himself lord of an empty city. The thought of him alone in these halls one day, cold and scared, twisted Kai's gut.
So he pressed his palm to the ground again.
Stone shifted. Hidden ladders sealed. Sewer grates shrank to narrow slits no kipper could squeeze through. Safety layered upon safety.
Kilo didn't notice. He was already clambering onto the fortress wall, striking a pose with his axe against the glow.
"From here," Kilo shouted, "the Kipper Ninjas shall leap into legend!"
Kai shook his head, half-smiling, half-worried. "One kipper, one fortress, and too much imagination."
But in the quiet of Glowhollow, the tiny city felt alive — and in a way, maybe it was.