The peace, for all its fragile beauty, lasted less than a month. It was shattered not by a betrayal, nor a battle, but by a sound they had all feared but never truly believed they would hear: the distant, droning buzz of an engine in the sky.
Rex was in the courtyard, reviewing the militia drills, when the sound cut through the air. Every head snapped upwards. The drills froze. For a heart-stopping moment, it was as if the old world had returned to claim them.
Then, a small, unmanned drone, sleek and military-grey, zipped over the tree line and circled Avalon. It was a predator's eye, cold and mechanical. It hovered, its camera lens a black, unblinking pupil, taking in the repaired walls, the bustling courtyard, the newly planted fields.
Panic erupted. People screamed and ran for cover.
"Hold your positions!" Rex roared, his voice a whip-crack of authority that cut through the terror. "It's just a scout! Archers, hold your fire!"
He knew a single arrow would be useless and would only reveal their hostility. His mind raced. This changed everything. The calculus of their entire existence had just been upended.
The drone completed its circuit, then, with a final, contemptuous buzz, sped off to the north—directly towards Vanguard territory.
The silence it left behind was deafening.
Rex stormed into the gatehouse, his council scrambling after him. "They're not from the Vanguard," he said, before anyone could speak. "That was military-grade. The old world isn't completely dead. Someone out there just found us."
Kaelen slammed her fist on the table. "Who? The government? Another prepper?"
"It doesn't matter who," Rex snapped, his mind working at a furious pace. "What matters is what they saw. They saw a functional, fortified settlement with resources. We are no longer a secret. We are a target."
An hour later, their worst fears were confirmed. A scout from Felix's Border Wardens came running, breathless. "Lord Rex! The Vanguard—their entire camp is on the move! They're abandoning the quarry! They're heading this way, and they're being pursued!"
Rex and his council rushed to the northern wall. Through a spyglass, he saw it. A column of Vanguard survivors—men, women, and children—was fleeing south, harried by two of the drones that buzzed around them like angry hornets. Behind them, following at a deliberate pace, was a convoy. Three armored trucks, painted in dull, urban camouflage, and a dozen figures on foot clad in matching, modern body armor and carrying assault rifles.
They moved with a professional, chilling efficiency the Brutes could never have matched.
Marius was at the head of his people, trying to organize a fighting retreat. As Rex watched, one of the drones dove. There was a sharp crack, not a gunshot, but something more precise. A Vanguard soldier carrying a heavy pack cried out and fell, a smoking, precise burn on his back. The drone had fired some kind of non-lethal, disabling energy weapon.
They weren't killing. They were collecting.
"The truce is over," Kaelen said, her voice grim.
"No," Rex replied, his eyes fixed on the scene, his face a mask of cold calculation. "The game has changed. The Vanguard isn't our enemy anymore. They're our buffer. If that force takes them, we're next."
He turned to his council, his decision made. "Open the gate."
Jean stared at him. "You cannot be serious. We let them in?"
"They have intelligence on this new enemy. They have fighters. Right now, they are the only allies we have," Rex said, his voice leaving no room for argument. "We let them in. We integrate their forces. We defend this wall together, or we all fall separately."
He was about to make the biggest gamble of his life. He was going to open his kingdom to the very people he had been preparing to fight, all to face a threat he had never imagined. The world had just gotten much larger, and much more dangerous.