In the distance, the Chieftain of the Tiger Tribe felt his world crumbling.
"Wait...!"
His expression was ashen and horrid as dismay and despair covered him like a burial shroud.
He looked at the tribe behind him. The Warriors who trusted him. The families hiding in the huts. The children who looked to him for protection.
Then he looked toward his own family, held like animals before slaughter.
The seconds ticked by.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
"AAAHH!"
A scream echoed out as at the five-second mark, Morgana began pulling the hand of the bloodied mother with casual brutality, twisting and wrenching as if she were tearing a wing from a cooked bird.
"Stop! STOP!"
The Chieftain's voice cracked with desperation.
"We surrender! We surrender!"
...!
With a heavy gaze and hatred burning in his eyes, the Chieftain of the Tiger Tribe put down his weapon. The stone axe that had been his father's, and his father's father's before that, fell to the dust.
He kneeled.
And as he did so, all the Flesh Awakening Warriors behind him did the same. Their expressions were ashen, filled with shame and impotent fury, but they followed their leader into submission.
After all, if the Bone Tempering Warrior who led them kneeled, what were they to do?
The Chieftain looked toward his family as Morgana released his woman's arm and rose up with that same fluid grace. She walked toward his forces alone, her steps unhurried, her expression unchanging.
She stopped before the kneeling Chieftain and looked down at him.
"What most do not understand in these cursed Lands is that power is not everything."
Her voice was soft, almost gentle, which made it somehow worse.
"Even if I am more powerful than you, I could have fought you just now. I could have lost some of my forces and then killed yours. Blood would have painted these stones. Bodies would have fed the Lands. And in the end, the same outcome would occur."
She tilted her head, as if genuinely curious whether he understood.
"Or I could go about it in a much different way. With no bloodshed. With no loss to either side. Is it not much nicer that way?"
Her smile held no warmth.
"Power tells you what you can do. Wisdom tells you what you should do. The strong who rely only on strength find themselves eventually broken by those who know how to think."
She arrived directly before the Chieftain.
Her slender hand reached down and caught his chin, raising his face to meet hers. His eyes burned with hatred and despair, the look of a man who had lost everything that mattered while still breathing.
"Why..."
His voice cracked.
"Why are you doing this? Why bother other tribes and seek expansion when all of us are just trying to survive?"
Why?
Morgana tilted her head at this question.
And she smiled.
"I have to raise an army, big guy. An army."
She said such shocking words with casual ease.
"But you would not understand why."
Her smile faded into something more serious.
"Look into my eyes."
The Chieftain swallowed hard, but something compelled him to obey. Perhaps it was the hand on his chin. Perhaps it was the knowledge that his family's lives hung on his compliance. Perhaps it was something else entirely.
He looked into her eyes.
They were mesmerizing.
A deep green that seemed to hold depths beyond what eyes should contain. And her pupils were not round as a human's should be.
They were serpentine.
Vertical slits like those of a snake, set in irises that swirled with patterns no human eye had ever held.
Those pupils pulsed with a green light that grew brighter as the Chieftain stared. The light became entrenched in his vision, reflecting in his own eyes until they too held that green glow.
His expression went slack.
Dazed.
Empty.
Morgana released his chin, and he remained kneeling, swaying slightly, his hatred and despair washed away by whatever power she had placed in his mind.
She turned to the Warrior kneeling at his right.
"Look into my eyes."
...!
That Warrior did the same, and the scene repeated. Her serpentine eyes flashed with that brilliant green, and the Warrior's expression emptied as the light reflected in his own gaze.
She was about to continue to the next when...
...!
She stopped.
She blinked, the brilliant green light in her eyes flickering and fading as something drew her attention away. She turned around to face her forces, her gaze finding the massive Bone Tempering Warrior with the shield and spear.
"Lukaku, go and track down where Jax and his little band went to last."
...!
Jax.
Otherwise known as the Butcher of the Golden Tribe.
The Bone Tempering Warrior stepped forward. He was a big, burly man whose muscles seemed to have muscles of their own, his bald head gleaming in the light. He blinked at the unexpected order.
"Yes, Chieftain Morgana."
His voice was deep as rolling thunder.
"Did...something happen?"
Morgana blinked calmly as she nodded, already moving toward another kneeling Warrior to continue her work.
"Mm, yes. My Mark on him has died down."
She said it nonchalantly, as if discussing a minor inconvenience.
"So unless he somehow lost all his Mana, it means he is dead. Find out where my Little Butcher fell. He may have deviated from the tribes I told him to scout to have his own fun, so check everything. Once you find the culprit, do not engage them. Report back first."
...!
Lukaku became stern and shocked at these words.
The Butcher, dead?
The man had been a peak Flesh Awakening Warrior, brutal and efficient. Whatever had killed him was either very powerful or very fortunate.
Either way, it needed to be found.
He nodded seriously, looking toward the Warriors behind him. His massive hand waved, selecting a few of the Flesh Awakening cultivators.
"With me!"
They departed immediately, moving with the urgency of those who understood that their Chieftain's orders were not suggestions.
Morgana continued to go from one Warrior of the Tiger Tribe to another thereafter, her serpentine eyes flashing green again and again, as if nothing significant had happened.
Just another tribe absorbed.
Just another army grown.
Just another step toward whatever goal drove the Bone Crusher forward.
The Lands of Stone were vast and filled with mysteries.
And there existed things that many could barely even imagine.