The Primeval Era-Chapter 134: Expansion II

In the distance, the Purple Stone Tribe appeared on the horizon.

Serala recognized the crimson-blue walls first, that strange defensive barrier pulsing with Mana she could sense even from this altitude. The Roaring Stone Mountain rose behind it, massive and ancient and somehow different from when she had last seen it.

There was also the mountain he raised himself that also seemed taller. More alive, perhaps. More connected to the young man whose beast form she rode upon.

But something else caught her attention.

Groups of people were arriving near the tribe. Not dozens. Not hundreds. Thousands of figures moved across the plains in long columns, converging on those walls like streams flowing toward a river. From this height, they looked like ants, but Serala knew what they truly were.

Dross who had lost their homes.

Refugees from tribes trampled by the Primal Surge.

Many of them had watched their families die.

She could see the exhaustion in their movements even from here, the slow shuffle of people pushed beyond their limits. Some were being carried on makeshift stretchers. Others leaned on companions for support. Children clung to adults, and the elderly struggled to keep pace with columns that couldn’t afford to slow down.

They had nowhere else to go.

And they had found their way here, to this small tribe protected by walls of strange Mana and defended by a young man who called himself a ghost.

Serala looked at them, then at the Purple Stone Tribe, then at Damian’s human form sitting nearby.

"There are too many of them."

Her voice emerged quiet against the rushing wind.

"Will you send them away? Keep them outside the walls?"

She had seen so many events without honor recently.

Imperators who triggered disasters. Sworn who hunted those beneath them. Covenant families who betrayed everything they claimed to stand for. Would the Tokoloshe be any different? More people meant more mouths to feed and shelter. Double or triple the population of the original tribe meant resources stretched thin and complications multiplied.

Sending some of them away would be practical.

It would be what most leaders in the Lands of Stone would do.

Damian’s human form turned to look at her, those golden-winged pupils holding something she couldn’t quite read.

"What are you talking about?"

His voice carried no hesitation.

"I will simply expand the walls, build more huts, and as for food..."

He gestured toward the Roaring Stone Mountain in the distance.

"Things grow fast around that mountain. As long as they farm, there will be more than enough. We can provide for them starting tonight."

...!

His words made her look at him with fresh eyes.

This was not a small thing he was proposing. Taking in thousands of refugees meant responsibility beyond anything the Purple Stone Tribe had ever shouldered. It meant becoming something more than a Dross settlement clinging to survival at the edge of the Threshold Lands.

Did he understand the extent of it truly?

Did he grasp how this would transform everything, how people would look to him for leadership, how he would become responsible for lives numbered in the thousands rather than dozens or hundreds?

She studied his profile as he looked toward the approaching refugees.

He should know this very well. A prince of the Vakochev Empire would have been raised to understand the burdens of leadership. He would have learned what it meant to be responsible for others, to make decisions affecting lives beyond his own.

And he was doing it regardless. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

He was choosing to help when he could have chosen to protect only what he already had. He was opening his walls when he could have kept them closed. He was accepting burdens when he could have turned them away.

He should be an honorable man.

Similar to his father, if he really was the Lost Prince of the Vakochev Empire.

She was taken out of her thoughts by movement below.

The group of refugees had stopped. Their columns ground to a halt as figures at the front pointed toward something that made them freeze with terror. Serala followed their gazes and saw the massive body of the Inkanyamba coiled in the plains near the tribe, that Behemoth serpent watching the approaching crowds with ancient eyes.

A Beast Lord among desperate Dross.

No wonder they had stopped.

And moments later, as Damian’s beast form drew closer, the groups below looked up. They saw the massive leonine shape descending from the sky, golden fur blazing in the fading sunlight and mane of blue flames burning around features that belonged to nightmares as much as legends.

They began to clamor in fear.

Before the panic could spread further, Damian spoke.

"Let’s go."

HUUUM!

His massive beast form stopped its descent, hovering in the air above the crowd. He jumped from the leonine body in human shape, and Serala followed alongside him as wings erupted behind her again. They fell together, two figures of obvious power descending toward the terrified masses below.

Seeing the massive beast pause seemed to stop their panic.

Seeing humanoid figures flying off of it stopped it entirely.

The refugees stared upward with expressions shifting from terror to confusion to something approaching desperate hope. Powerful Warriors were arriving! Powerful Warriors who hadn’t immediately attacked or driven them away.

Serala took a deep breath as she prepared to witness exactly how things would unfold.

And even before they touched down, she saw Damian wave his hand toward the Purple Stone Tribe.

The vibrant defensive walls began to move.

The gate opened as if alive, sections of crimson-blue barrier separating to create an entrance wide enough for columns of refugees to pass through. But the walls didn’t stop there. They began to expand outward, growing toward the oncoming crowds as new sections materialized from the land itself.

Stone and Mana and Damian’s blood wove together, the defensive barrier extending its protection to encompass territory it had never claimed before.

She was about to witness the ridiculous feats of the Tokoloshe again.

But better this than carnage and destruction, right?