Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 36: For Ruby

"Eruption?"

Arzhen’s lip curled down. The name ’Mount Saede’ felt like something tedious from a past he was eager to forget. He could still hear Cecilia’s voice, that infuriating, relentless drone of doom, listing seismic mana readings and crustal deformations until he’d wanted to shut her up.

Of course it had erupted. It was a mountain, wasn’t it? That’s what they did. It was expected anyway, so what? She’d predicted it for years, the northerners had ample warning. If they were too incompetent to heed it, that was their own affair.

The first news of the eruption had already bled across the continent, carried on the frantic, wind-borne cries of Arkai Dawnoro’s own messengers. But Arzhen couldn’t care less.

A tragedy, certainly, but a northern one. He was about to sleep for the night, planning to issue some perfunctory condolences in the morning.

But then, a different kind of message arrived, one that could not be ignored. Ruby, his Ruby, had been stirred by the distant cataclysm. She had gone to the temple. She was... convening with the gods.

So, he left the warmth of his residence. If Ruby had something to say about it, then he would want to know.

When he pushed open the great temple doors, he found the temple bathed in an argent glow. Moonlight, thick as liquid silver, poured through the high, arched windows, cutting through the darkness to illuminate the swirling coils of incense smoke.

The usual priests were there, their faces full of grave piety, but they were flanked by the pale-furred forms of the Arctic Werewolf delegation.

And at the center of it all, on the cold marble dais, was Ruby.

She was kneeling, drenched in the celestial light. Her head was thrown back, her eyes wide and unseeing, fixed on the vaulted ceiling as if beholding a vision too terrible to bear. A single tear, catching the moonbeam, traced a path down her cheek like a fallen star.

Then, a tremor wracked her body. A sharp and pained gasp escaped her lips. Her hands, which had been clasped in prayer, flew to her chest as if her heart had been pierced.

"No..." The word was a breathless whimper. "Oh, by the gods... no..."

Her body went limp, collapsing directly into the waiting arms of Nikolas Delanivis, who stood behind her like a shadow given form. He caught her effortlessly, his face concerned, his arms closing around her in an embrace that made Arzhen’s jaw tighten.

"The fire..." Ruby sobbed into Nikolas’s tunic, her voice muffled but clear, trembling with grief. "The mountain... it spoke again... a second death... a wave of fire and ash that scoured the sky..."

She pulled back, her beautiful face ravaged by tears, her eyes pleading as she looked up at Nikolas. "He stood against it... the great wolf, the Lord of the North... he stood on the peak and howled his defiance to the very end!"

Her voice broke on a wrenching sob. "He tried to turn the wind... to save them all... but the mountain was too hungry... it swallowed him... it swallowed them all... the first to come to their aid... buried in a tomb of fire and rock..."

Arzhen’s eyes widened.

Uncle Arkai... Uncle Arkai was...?

Her hands, trembling violently, came up to clutch at the front of Nikolas’s robes, her knuckles white. "Please... I beg you, Nikolas... you must go... your people, your strength... they are needed now. The north is leaderless, its heart torn out!"

"You must take charge... bring order to the chaos... protect the innocent from the scavengers who would pick the bones of a fallen kingdom! Please... I cannot bear this vision... I cannot bear to know they are suffering while we stand here, safe!"

She buried her face against his chest once more, her entire body shuddering with the force of her prophetic anguish. The saintess, shattered by the burden of a truth too terrible to hold alone.

Ruby stated it clearly.

Arkai Dawnoro was no more. The Black Wolf King, the unshakeable pillar of the North, had fallen. He had heroically tried to turn the very tide of the catastrophe and had been consumed by it. The realm was now leaderless, a crown of ice and ash lying in the snow for the taking.

And Ruby, in her divinely-inspired wisdom, was placing that crown upon the head of Nikolas Delanivis?

Arzhen clenched his jaw. He stepped forward, trying to reason a rightful claim.

"Arkai Dawnoro is my distant uncle. To take charge, our Vasiliev Family has the bigger responsibility than the Delanivis. Ruby, let me deploy my men. Please don’t worry," he said.

Ruby raised her face, the tracks of her prophetic tears still glistening in the moonlight. She looked deep into Arzhen’s eyes, and her lips curved into a smile of such tender, heartbreaking gratitude that it stole the air from his lungs.

"You are so kind, Arzhen. Thank you." Her voice was soft until it wavered, infused with the horror she had witnessed. "But the vision I saw... I just can’t bear it anymore... Nikolas’ Arctic Wolf Tribe is far closer than the Vasilievs. We need to hurry..."

Ah. Logistics over lineage. Compassion over custom.

"Move now. Send a message to Father with the communication crystal. Go," Nikolas commanded, not even waiting for a rebuttal. His men snapped into action. Then, he turned to Arzhen who was clearly not happy about this. "I know you want to help, but Ruby is right. This is an emergency. Of course, you can send your men immediately too. My people will still arrive first."

Their eyes met. A silent duel passed between them, a clash of ambition and entitlement barely concealed beneath a veneer of civic duty.

Internally, Arzhen sneered.

He saw through the charade. This opportunistic bastard had been coveting his uncle’s domain for years, salivating over the rich tundra and impassable mountains. Only the indomitable, living legend of the Black Wolf King had kept his ambitions chained.

Now, with Arkai gone, Nikolas couldn’t wait to pounce on a prize, using Ruby’s tears and a convenient prophecy as his justification.

Fine. If this was the game Nikolas wanted to play, Arzhen would play it. He would just play it better.

A smile graced his features, so perfect it immediately put Nikolas on edge. "Thank you for the help you so generously provide for our blood," Arzhen said, full of the expected familial courtesy. Nikolas’s instincts prickled. Something was amiss.

"We appreciate the help," Arzhen continued. "This way, our Vasiliev Family will be able to quickly assess the damage, reorganize everything in Uncle Dawnoro’s absence... and... hold his funeral in haste."

He finished with a slight, formal bow to Nikolas. Now he had successfully framed the Delanivis not as saviors, but as mere functionaries, useful tools for the true family to manage its own affairs.

Then, he turned to Ruby. His smile softened, becoming something intimate and genuine, reserved only for her. "Ruby, thank you for asking for all the help for us. The Dawnoro and the Vasiliev will never forget your kindness."

It was a direct and personal connection, bypassing Nikolas entirely and claiming her compassion as a gift to his bloodline. Of course. His Ruby was still his Ruby, smiling back at him.

At their shared smile, her sad, beautiful expression meeting his gentle gratitude, Nikolas’s grasp on Ruby’s waist tightened almost imperceptibly.

This bastard... All he kept doing was making a move to his bonded mate!

The gall, the sheer audacity to play the gracious nephew while simultaneously positioning himself as the rightful heir and cozying up to the Saintess...

Just wait. Just wait and see.

He would march north, he would take control, and he would embed his people so deep into the Dawnoro domain that by the time Arzhen realized what was happening, it would be too late.

He would take over the North.

For himself, for his family, and... for Ruby.

With the world kneeling at her feet, she would finally choose him, right?