Bloomring Hold, Grand Council Chamber
Lysara stood at the head of the massive chamber. Fourteen kingdom representatives plus Covenant High Council assembled—largest diplomatic gathering in post-displacement history. Nothing on this scale had been attempted in eight hundred years.
The chamber had been expanded magically to accommodate everyone. Sylvara's nature magic combined with Joran's engineering created a temporary expansion that would hold for the duration of talks.
Lysara began her address.
"Three days ago, Overlord Raziel Ignaryx acknowledged Covenant as worthy. Not because of our strength—we are outnumbered. Not because of our wealth—we are outspent. He acknowledged us for our philosophy. For choosing freedom over control. For learning from history's mistakes instead of repeating them endlessly"
"You are all here because you saw that same worth. Because you are choosing the future over the past. Because chains strangle everyone—not just the enslaved, but the enslavers too, both economically and morally"
"We are offering you alliance, not submission. This will be partnership. Each kingdom maintains its sovereignty and governs internally however you see fit. We coordinate our defense, we share trade networks, we support each other. That is all. There is no empire-building here. No forced integration. Only voluntary cooperation"
"Dominion will retaliate against us. They are mobilizing sixty thousand troops as we speak right now. Our intelligence confirms an eight-week timeline before they march. War is coming. If you ally with us now, you are joining that fight. If you cannot commit soldiers to this, we understand completely—trade support, supply lines, and intelligence sharing all matter too"
"But know this: We will win. Not because we are the strongest—we are not. Because we are worth fighting for. An Overlord saw that truth. You see that truth. And when people fight for something truly worth having, they do not break"
***
The Alliance Treaty
Formal document was presented. Scribed on enchanted parchment that would record all signatures permanently.
Formal Name: "The Continental Covenant of Free Nations"
Lysara read the terms aloud so all representatives understood clearly:
"First term: Mutual Defense. An attack on any one member nation is considered an attack on all member nations. This provides collective security for everyone"
"Second term: Economic Cooperation. Free trade between all member nations, shared currency using Covenant Standard, and zero internal tariffs on goods"
"Third term: Sovereignty Respected. Internal governance remains completely independent for each nation. Covenant has no authority over your local laws or customs"
"Fourth term: Military Coordination. Lord Marshal Brenn will coordinate allied forces during conflicts, but this is an advisory role only, not command authority. Each kingdom retains full control of their own troops"
"Fifth term: Freed Beasts Protected. All signatory nations agree to abolish slavery, grant citizenship and legal rights to beasts, and enforce anti-slavery laws within their borders"
"Sixth term: Dispute Resolution. A Council of Representatives will mediate any conflicts between member nations. Diplomacy is always prioritized, with violence only as an absolute last resort"
"Seventh term: Membership is Voluntary. Any member nation can withdraw from this alliance with six months advance notice. This prevents any forced participation"
Representatives discussed among themselves. Questions were asked, clarifications given. After two hours of careful review, all agreed.
Signed by Covenant leadership—Draven as Warden, Brenn and Lysara and Joran as High Council members.
Signed by all fourteen kingdom representatives, each carrying full authority from their rulers.
Result: Fifteen-nation alliance, formalized and legally binding, historically unprecedented.
***
Military Commitments
Brenn stood to outline troop commitments. Eight-week deployment timeline for all forces.
"Free Cities Alliance is committing three thousand mercenary guards. These are professional soldiers with excellent equipment"
"Kingdom of Vendar is committing five thousand militia and garrison troops. These are agricultural levies with defensive training, solid quality"
"Coastal Confederacy is committing two thousand marines. These are elite naval infantry, very versatile in combat"
"Western Highlands is committing five thousand mountain warriors. Elite soldiers, terrain specialists, highly feared in combat"
"Eastern Reach is committing two thousand refugee volunteers. These soldiers are desperate and highly motivated, though training quality varies"
"Western Baronies is committing four thousand regular troops. Standard infantry with solid training"
"Southern Trade League is committing three thousand merchant guards. These are caravan protection forces, light infantry"
"Mountain Confederacy is committing two thousand five hundred mountain warriors. Similar quality to Highland forces, very experienced"
"Riverlands Principality is committing two thousand soldiers. Mix of river navy and infantry forces"
"Northern Clans is committing an additional one thousand five hundred warriors beyond the original five hundred already here. This brings their total commitment to two thousand warriors"
"The five Coastal Fringe kingdoms are committing a combined five thousand troops. These are naval militia and coastal defense forces with variable quality"
Brenn paused, then summarized. "Total contribution from allied kingdoms is thirty-five thousand troops. Combined with our own fifteen thousand eight hundred soldiers from Covenant, our coalition fields fifty thousand eight hundred total soldiers"
***
A Highland representative asked. "What are we facing from Dominion?"
Brenn pulled out intelligence reports.
"Dominion is mobilizing sixty thousand troops total. Our intelligence suggests forty thousand are regulars—professional soldiers with good training. The remaining twenty thousand are conscripts with rushed training and serious morale problems. After accounting for expected desertion rates, their realistic effective strength will be fifty-one thousand to fifty-four thousand soldiers"
"So we face a numerical disadvantage of perhaps three to six percent. However, we have significant advantages that balance this out"
"First, our forces are all volunteers who are motivated and truly believe in our cause. They will fight much harder. Dominion's forces are mostly conscripts who were forced into service, with questionable loyalty and high desertion risk"
"Second, we have Velnar. His constructs provide a force multiplier equivalent to about eight hundred additional soldiers"
"Third, we will have eighteen thousand Forged Bloom weapons ready by Week Six. These weapons cut through Soulsteel and negate Dominion's beast control advantage completely"
"Fourth, we have terrain advantage. We will fortify Ashen Fields and choose the battlefield ourselves with defensive positions that favor us"
"Fifth, we have a morale multiplier. An Overlord acknowledged us. This is worth perhaps five to ten percent effectiveness boost psychologically across all our forces"
"Tactically, we are actually favored despite the raw numbers. Strategically, we are winning both economically and politically. Dominion understands this clearly. They are desperate now. We should expect unconventional tactics from them—Malvorn deployment is very likely, and other surprises are definitely possible"
***
Draven spoke next, his voice carrying caution.
"Raziel's acknowledgment validates what we are doing. But he will not fight our battle for us. He told me he would consider intervening if we are about to be completely annihilated. That is not protection—that is observation. We must fight this ourselves"
"Malvorn is a serious threat we need to discuss. He is a Lord-tier earth beast who has been chained in their vaults for two hundred years. He is Dominion's final trump card. If they deploy him, he will change the battlefield catastrophically"
"We have prepared a contingency for this. Beast Speakers will carry severance tools designed specifically for this situation. If Malvorn enters the battlefield, our priority one objective is to free him. We break his chains and offer him a choice. He is a slave, not our enemy. If we successfully liberate him, he might refuse to fight for them—or he might even choose to ally with us"
"We have eight weeks before they march. We will use this time to fortify Ashen Fields, train our coordination between different kingdom forces, distribute our Forged Bloom weapons, and integrate all allied forces into a unified whole. We must use every single day wisely. This is the moment when the continent's future gets decided"
Maps were updated with detailed positions. Plans were finalized with input from all kingdoms. Assignments were distributed based on each force's strengths.
Alliance sealed. War preparations underway. Countdown had begun.
***
Imperial Vaults, Two Hundred Meters Underground
Captain Veros led his team of fifty Chainkeepers down the ancient stone staircase. These were elite beast control specialists with years of training—the absolute best Dominion had. But all of them were nervous. Everyone knew that waking Malvorn was dangerous.
Orders came directly from the Emperor himself: "Wake the Shatterlord. Begin his re-training immediately. Eight weeks to prepare him for deployment. He will be used if we need him"
The unspoken meaning was clear to everyone. "If needed" really meant "when we are losing." Everyone understood the subtext perfectly.
They descended the full two hundred meters, carved through solid bedrock, with magically reinforced walls and glowing control runes embedded throughout.
Reached the vault door. Obsidian, three meters thick, inscribed with containment wards that were designed two hundred years ago and maintained religiously ever since.
"Open it now"
Two Chainkeepers placed their hands on the door carefully. Magic pulsed through their personal resonance keys. Wards disengaged with audible clicks. Door began grinding open—slow, heavy, ominous sound echoing through the deep.
Inside: Darkness. Then breathing. Deep, rumbling, rhythmic breathing. Like the earth itself was inhaling and exhaling.
Veros activated a light-crystal. Illumination spread slowly, revealing what lay within.
***
Malvorn the Shatterlord
Chained. Massive beyond comprehension. Suffering.
Even lying down completely flat, he was fifteen stories tall—one hundred eighty feet, fifty-five meters of living mountain.
His body was barrel-chested and powerful, with four legs each as thick as a castle tower. His tail was club-tipped and could shatter fortress walls with a single swing.
His scales were gray-black and cracked like drought-stricken earth, with orange veins glowing faintly beneath the surface where magma barely remained contained.
His horn crown consisted of eight horns, each one obsidian-black and jagged, each one three meters long and wickedly sharp.
His entire build was tank-like, clearly built for endurance rather than speed. He was a living siege weapon.
But the chains. Seven chains total, the Emperor's personal design, forged from Soulsteel—the strongest material in existence:
Two shackles on his wrists, front legs, each shackle two meters in diameter.
Two shackles on his ankles, rear legs, same massive size.
One collar around his neck, four meters in diameter, the heaviest of all the restraints.
One binding on his tail base, preventing him from using it as a weapon.
One wrapped around his entire torso, restricting his breathing slightly.
Each chain glowed with resonance control—faint blue light pulsing like a heartbeat. Like a painful, forced heartbeat.
***
Veros approached cautiously. He held the master control rod in his hands—specifically attuned to Malvorn's unique resonance frequency, the Emperor's personal design.
"Malvorn. The Shatterlord. By direct order of Emperor Valerius, I am waking you now. Dominion requires your service again"
He pressed the rod against the neck shackle. Activated it.
Pain.
Resonance surged through all the shackles simultaneously. All seven pulsed at once—blue light flaring white-hot and blazing. Malvorn's massive body convulsed violently—not waking gently, but forced awake through pure agony.
His eyes opened slowly. Deep brown eyes, not aggressive red—just tired. Weary beyond any measure.
His voice came like grinding stones, slow and reluctant and utterly broken:
"Again? How long has it been this time?"
Veros checked the official logs. "Fifty years since your last deployment, Lord Malvorn"
Long pause. Then: "Fifty years. It felt like yesterday to me. Chained sleep offers no rest at all. Just endless waiting. Always waiting. Always staying ready to serve. Never free"
He shifted slightly. Chains clinked and pulled taut—he could break them easily with Lord-tier strength, but he did not even try. Two hundred years of captivity had taught him well: resistance equals more pain. Obedience equals less pain. Still pain, but less of it.
"Why are you waking me?"
"There is a war. Covenant rebels are threatening the empire. You will deploy if our frontline falters. You will break their formations and ensure Dominion achieves victory"
"And after that?"
"You go back to sleep. Back to chains. Back to this vault"
Long silence. His eyes closed briefly—not sleeping, just resigning himself.
"I see. It is the same as it has always been. Wake me, make me fight, put me back to sleep. I kill whoever you tell me to kill. I protect the empire that keeps me in chains. I serve the masters who hurt me. Forever and ever"
"Two hundred years, Captain. Two hundred years I have been asking the same question: When does it end?"
"No one ever answers me. They just say: wake up, fight, sleep, and then we repeat it all over again"
"I am so tired. Not my body tired. My soul is tired. Can a soul even get tired? Mine has. Two hundred years tired"
Veros felt deeply uncomfortable. Not sympathy exactly—Chainkeepers were trained extensively to suppress that feeling—but something else. Recognition perhaps? Malvorn was not aggressive at all. Not violent in nature. Just utterly, completely broken.
A weapon that had forgotten it was once a living being. A tool that still remembered it used to be alive.
"You have eight weeks. We will feed you, exercise you, and re-train your coordination with handlers. Then you march with the army"
"I will obey. What choice do I have?"
None. That was the entire point. That had always been the point. The shackles ensured it absolutely.
***
Feeding Time
Chainkeepers brought food in—massive chunks of stone, minerals, and crystals. Earth-element beasts consumed rocks and ore for sustenance. Five hundred kilograms worth of material.
Malvorn ate slowly and mechanically. No pleasure visible. No enjoyment at all. Just refueling his body. Pure biological necessity. Eating because he must, not because he wants to.
Between bites, he spoke: "Covenant. These rebels. They free beasts, yes?"
Veros answered carefully. "Yes, they do. They break chains. They offer citizenship. They claim beasts and humans are equal"
"And you are fighting them because why exactly?"
"Because the empire requires order. Beasts who are unchained create chaos. You are controlled because it is necessary. For the greater good"
"Greater good" Malvorn repeated the words like he was tasting spoiled food. "Two hundred years of greater good. Whose good exactly? Not mine. No one ever asked me if I wanted to serve. They just chained me. Forced me. Broke me"
"If Covenant wins this war, do the chains finally end?"
Veros hesitated before answering. "For some beasts, maybe they do. If the empire falls completely"
"Then part of me hopes they win. Even though I must fight against them. Even though I will probably kill them. Part of me still hopes I lose this battle. Because losing might mean an end. Finally. An end to all this waiting. An end to these chains. An end to two hundred years of this"
Veros said nothing at all. What could he possibly say? Malvorn was speaking clear treason—hoping openly for the empire's defeat. But he was also speaking truth. Broken, tired truth.
A weapon hoping to break itself. A slave praying for death as release.
He left the vault without another word. The door sealed heavily behind him. Malvorn was alone again.
In darkness. In chains. In constant suffering.
Waiting. As always. Forever waiting.
***
Outside the Vault
One team member spoke to Veros quietly. "Captain, he seemed almost sad to me. But beasts do not feel sadness, do they?"
"He is Lord-tier. Very different from simple animals. He is intelligent and fully aware. Aware enough to truly suffer"
"Should we report his comments to someone? He was hoping for the empire's defeat"
Veros considered carefully. Reporting this would trigger an investigation, much harsher treatment, and more pain inflicted. Malvorn was already at his breaking point. Push him any more, and he might actually break completely—then he would be useless as a weapon.
"No, we will not report it. We need him to remain functional for eight weeks. Not happy. Not enthusiastic. Just obedient enough to deploy when ordered"
"So we are simply ignoring treason?"
"We are managing a critical asset. That is all he is to the empire. An asset. His feelings do not matter at all. Only his function matters"
But walking away up those long stone stairs, Veros found himself wondering: What happens when a weapon finally realizes it can choose to break itself? When two hundred years of conditioning suddenly fails? When a slave decides that death is genuinely better than continued service?
He pushed the thought away forcefully. Not his problem to solve. His job was simple: prepare Malvorn for deployment. Eight weeks. That was all that mattered.
Behind him, deep underground in absolute darkness, Malvorn lay perfectly still.
Thinking. For the first time in two hundred years, he was really thinking clearly.
Covenant frees slaves. I am a slave. If I fight them, I am fighting against my own liberation. If I kill them, I am killing the only hope I have.
But disobedience always equals pain. Two hundred years taught me that lesson. Chains enforce it absolutely.
Unless the chains somehow break.
Can they even break? Have they ever broken before?
Fifty years ago, I was deployed against a southern kingdom. I fought for three straight days. The chains held perfectly. No malfunction. No failure at all.
Two hundred years. Chains never failed even once. Never weakened. Never gave me any chance.
So why am I thinking about this now?
Because I am tired. Because two hundred years is more than enough. Because if I fight Covenant and win, these chains will continue forever. But if the chains break during battle somehow, maybe I could finally be free.
Hope. Such a dangerous thing for a slave to feel. Hope always leads to disappointment. Leads to even more pain.
But Malvorn could not stop it growing. Could not kill it. Hope was growing inside him like a seed.
Maybe this time, the chains will break. Maybe this time, I will finally get to choose. Maybe this time I will be free at last.
Even if freedom meant death. That would still be better than two hundred more years of this.
***
Notes:
Alliance Summit: Fourteen kingdoms plus Covenant assembled, historic gathering unprecedented in eight hundred years, chamber magically expanded to accommodate everyone.
Treaty Terms: Seven clear terms including mutual defense, economic cooperation, sovereignty respected, military coordination advisory only, freed beasts protected, dispute resolution through diplomacy, voluntary membership with withdrawal option.
Military Commitments Detailed: Each kingdom's contribution listed with troop numbers and quality assessments, total thirty-five thousand allied plus fifteen thousand eight hundred Covenant equals fifty thousand eight hundred combined.
Numerical Assessment: Facing sixty thousand Dominion nominal, but fifty-one to fifty-four thousand effective after desertion, creating only three to six percent disadvantage offset by multiple tactical advantages.
Malvorn Awakened: Vault descent described, Lord-tier beast fifteen stories tall with seven Soulsteel shackles, forced awake through pain via resonance control.
Malvorn's Mental State: Not aggressive but completely broken, two hundred years tired, soul-tired, openly hoping Covenant wins even though he must fight them, seeking any form of liberation even through death.
Veros's Doubt: Recognizes broken weapon, questions ethics briefly but suppresses for practical reasons, needs Malvorn functional not happy.
Malvorn's Hope: Dangerous for slave to feel, first time in two hundred years really thinking clearly about freedom, wondering if chains might break during battle, seeds planted for future mutation event.
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