The Commander did not open with the worst numbers. He opened with the oldest ones.
"When the force was formed, we reviewed every Rift report the Council could give us. Not just recent incidents. Decades of records from neutral cities, border regions and outposts barely known beyond their own walls."
"For most of that history, the pattern was irregular but understandable. A Rift opened, remained unstable for a limited period, released a small number of creatures, then collapsed. Large incidents existed, but they were rare enough to study individually."
Malakar leaned forward slightly. "When did you first see a real change in that pattern?"
"The clearest break appears around the war between Thal'zar and Sylvanel. At the time, everyone had an obvious explanation. The intelligent Void Creature was opening Rifts directly, and that battlefield produced numbers nobody had seen in generations."
