For a long moment, Lein-Da said nothing.
The silence was not empty. It pressed in, thick and attentive, like the island itself had leaned closer to listen. The chamber hummed beneath their feet—low, resonant, a vibration that didn't quite register as sound so much as pressure. Somewhere far below, stone shifted against stone with a groan like distant thunder muffled by leagues of earth. Water dripped steadily from unseen cracks in the ceiling, each drop striking rock with a clarity that felt exaggerated, as if the acoustics had been tuned to make every sound carry meaning.
O'Nux resisted the urge to fill the quiet. He had learned by watching her and Elijah, over the weeks—months? He didn't have a good grasp on time—that Lein-Da used silence the way others used weapons. It was a test. A mirror. If you rushed to speak, you usually revealed more than you intended.
Finally, she spoke.
"That line," Lein-Da said quietly, her voice cutting cleanly through the hum, "is not fixed."
She turned away from him and walked toward the far end of the chamber. Her footsteps were unhurried, deliberate, claws clicking softly against stone. O'Nux followed her gaze to where the Anarchy Beryl veins converged—dozens of glowing threads braided together into a massive rib like structure jutting from the wall. It looked less like something grown and more like something exposed, as though the island's skeleton had been torn open and left bare. The glow there was brighter, denser, casting warped reflections across the ceiling that bent and twisted like living things.
"It moves," she continued, resting one clawed hand against the pulsing structure. The light responded to her touch, flaring slightly, then settling into a deeper, steadier rhythm. "Depending on who's standing on it. Depending on who's bleeding."
O'Nux swallowed and stepped closer. Each step felt heavier than the last, as though the air itself thickened the nearer he got to the convergence point. The resonance wasn't painful, but it was insistent—a low-frequency vibration that rattled his bones and made his teeth ache faintly. His dagger thrummed at his side, not in warning, but recognition.
"When the Overlanders came," Lein-Da said, her tone steady but stripped of any softness, "they didn't ask where your line was."
Her claws tightened against the Beryl-rib, leaving faint grooves in the glowing surface. The light dimmed around the marks, like bruising.
"They brought machines," she went on, "that drained the Anarchy Beryl energy straight out of living rock. They bored into the island like parasites. They poisoned our waters. They took children."
The last words landed harder than the rest.
Not louder.
Just heavier.
O'Nux clenched his jaw. He knew these stories—or thought he did. He had grown up on the polished versions, the ones recited in council chambers and etched into official records. Those accounts spoke of "losses" and "displacements," of "necessary retreats" and "strategic withdrawals." They did not speak of children.
"We held our line," Lein-Da said, and there was something brittle beneath the words now. "And they stepped right over it."
The chamber pulsed in sympathy, the Anarchy Beryl veins brightening for a heartbeat before dimming again.
O'Nux felt a familiar twist in his chest. Guilt, maybe. Or anger delayed too long to be clean.
"And Merkia?" he asked quietly.
Lein-Da let out a short laugh. There was no humor in it. "Merkia pretended not to see us at all. Which, in some ways, is worse."
She turned back to face him. The glow painted sharp lines across her features, emphasizing the scars he had stopped counting. Her eyes held his without challenge, without mercy.
"So you tell me, Overseer," she said. "When the world keeps proving it doesn't care about your restraint, how long do you keep pretending that restraint is a shield?"
The question hung between them. It wasn't rhetorical. It wasn't a trap. It was an invitation—and a dare.
O'Nux looked down at his dagger. At how plain it seemed now, stripped of ornament and ceremony. At the way the metal reflected the teal glow without trying to shape it, without amplifying or refracting it into something grander.
"I don't want to become a tyrant," he said after a long pause. "Or a monster."
Lein-Da tilted her head, studying him the way a craftsman might examine a flawed tool.
"Good," she said.
She stepped closer, close enough that he could feel the heat of her body, the faint electrical prickle of Anarchy Beryl energy humming just under her skin. There was no immediate threat in her posture this time. No coiled violence. Just presence.
"Tyrants don't ask that question," she continued. "Monsters don't care about the answer."
She reached out and tapped the center of his chest with one claw. Not hard. Just enough to be felt. The contact sent a small shock through him—not pain, but awareness.
"What you're afraid of," Lein-Da went on, "isn't violence. It's ownership."
He frowned. "Ownership of what?"
"Of the consequences," she replied. "You were taught that if you never strike, you never have blood on your hands. That if you refuse power, you're absolved of its cost."
Her claw slid away, leaving the faintest warmth behind.
"That's a comforting lie," she said. "And a deadly one."
The island pulsed again, stronger this time, almost approving. The hum deepened, aligning itself with the rhythm of O'Nux's breathing.
He closed his eyes.
For a moment, memories surfaced unbidden—faces from council halls, voices praising his "principled restraint," his "moral clarity." None of them had been there when the island bled. None of them had stood in chambers like this, feeling the weight of living stone judging their silence.
When he opened his eyes again, something had settled behind his gaze.
Not rage.
Not joy.
Acceptance.
"So what do I do," he asked, his voice steadier than he felt, "when the next attack comes?"
Lein-Da smiled. This time it reached her eyes.
"You don't ask permission from ghosts," she said. "You act. Quickly. Precisely. And when it's over, you live with it."
She stepped back and rolled her shoulders. Her claws extended with a soft metallic whisper, catching the light.
"Which brings us to the next lesson."
O'Nux straightened instinctively. "There's more?"
"Always," she said cheerfully. "Breaking scripture was just step one."
She dropped into a combat stance again—but it was different now. Lower. More grounded. Less performative. Her weight was distributed evenly, her center of gravity sunk deep, like roots gripping stone.
"Up until now," Lein-Da said, "I've been teaching you how not to die. Now we work on making sure no one else does."
She lunged.
This time, O'Nux didn't retreat.
He moved to meet her, not rushing, not hesitating. His dagger came up in a controlled arc, intercepting her strike at the wrist. The impact sent a ripple of teal light through the chamber, but it didn't explode. It flowed—cleanly, smoothly—channeling through his arm, into the blade, then grounding into the stone beneath his feet.
Lein-Da's eyes widened—just a fraction.
"Oh," she said. "That's new."
She twisted, trying to disengage, but O'Nux adjusted instinctively, stepping into her movement instead of away from it. He felt the shift in balance, the moment where momentum could be redirected. He didn't strike back immediately. He redirected, forcing her off-balance just long enough to make a point.
"Is this what you meant?" he asked through clenched teeth.
Lein-Da laughed, sharp and delighted. "You're catching on fast."
She wrenched free and kicked out, aiming for his knee again. He anticipated it this time, shifting his weight and absorbing the impact without buckling. Pain flared hot and bright, but he held. He stayed upright.
The exchange intensified.
They moved faster now, strikes and counters blurring together, the chamber lighting up with rhythmic pulses of teal and violet as the Beryl reacted to their proximity. Each impact rang through the stone, echoing down unseen tunnels. The air grew warm, charged, alive with kinetic intent.
Lein-Da pushed him harder, forcing him to make decisions without the luxury of reflection. When to block. When to evade. When to press. Every mistake was punished—hard enough to be remembered. Every success was immediately challenged.
"You hesitate less," she noted mid-exchange, parrying a slash that would have opened her side. "But you still flinch."
"Working on it," he grunted, deflecting another strike.
She feinted high and swept low, clipping his ankle and sending him sprawling. He hit the ground hard, breath knocked loose in a sharp gasp.
Before she could capitalize, he rolled, coming up on one knee. Instead of striking her, he slashed at the stone beside her. The blade bit into an Anarchy Beryl vein, releasing a controlled surge of energy that flared bright and forced her to jump back, claws scraping as she landed.
The light scorched the stone, leaving blackened lines spidering outward.
Lein-Da stared at the mark. Then at him.
"Well," she said slowly. "That was clever."
O'Nux panted, pushing himself fully upright. Sweat slicked his brow, his muscles trembling with exertion. "You said… outcomes matter."
She grinned. "I did."
The chamber's hum began to stabilize, the pulses evening out, as though responding to a new equilibrium. The island was adjusting to him.
Recognizing him.
Lein-Da lowered her claws at last, signaling a pause.
"That's enough for today," she said. "You're not done bleeding yet, but you're done learning for now."
O'Nux sagged in relief, then caught himself and straightened. His shoulders ached. His leg throbbed. But he was still standing.
"What happens if I fail?" he asked quietly. "If I lose control later. If I go too far."
Lein-Da regarded him for a long moment. Then she shrugged.
"Then we correct course," she said. "Same as always."
She turned toward the exit tunnel, motioning for him to follow.
"Leadership isn't about never making mistakes," she added over her shoulder. "It's about making fewer of them than the people trying to kill you."
As they left the chamber, the bioluminescent algae dimmed behind them, the echoes of combat fading into the stone. The hum softened, settling into a steady, patient rhythm.
Deep within the Sunken Demon Island, the Overlord Beryl pulsed—steady, measured, alive.
And for the first time in a very long while, it pulsed in time with O'Nux's heart.
The tunnels beyond the chamber narrowed as they descended, the ceiling rising just enough to make O'Nux aware of his small height again. The stone here was older—less shaped by intention, more by pressure and time. The Anarchy Beryl veins still traced the walls, but thinner now, like fading scars rather than open wounds. Their glow was dimmer, cooler, and the hum softened into something closer to a heartbeat heard through layers of flesh.
Lein-Da moved ahead of him without looking back, clearly unconcerned with whether he followed.
He did of course.
Not because she commanded it. Not because he feared being left behind. But because the island itself seemed to be nudging him forward, gently but insistently, like a tide that didn't care whether you swam or floated as long as you moved with it.
They walked in silence for a time. O'Nux used it to take inventory.
His leg ached where she'd clipped it. Not crippling, but enough to remind him of the cost of a misstep. His hands still trembled faintly, adrenaline bleeding off in uneven waves. The dagger at his side felt heavier than before—not physically, but conceptually. It was no longer just a symbol or a tool. It was a responsibility that had learned his grip.
He realized, distantly, that he was smiling.
That realization unsettled him more than the fight had.
The tunnel opened into a wider cavern, this one lined with carved pillars that resembled vertebrae stacked end to end. Faint bioluminescent algae clung to their surfaces, casting soft, uneven light. In the center of the space was a shallow pool, its surface glassy and still. The water glowed faintly teal, illuminated from below by slow-moving currents of Beryl energy.
Lein-Da stopped at the edge of the pool.
"Sit," she said, not unkindly.
O'Nux complied, lowering himself onto a flat stone near the water. The surface rippled slightly as he did, concentric rings spreading outward before fading.
"Yes," O'Nux began nervously, having heard the tales of what happens to those that wronged them, "They are a mystical species of pixie like creatures that inhabit various areas on Mobius. They feed off of anarchy energy and emotions, especially long lasting and powerful ones."
Lein-Da chuckled at O'Nu's reply, dipping her claw into the pool and watching the teal water ripple around it like liquid lightning. "Close enough," she murmured, "but they're more than that. They're the island's pulse—its wrath given form." The water clung to her talons as she withdrew them, strands of glowing fluid stretching before snapping back into the pool with a sound like a muted chime.
"And right now," she added, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that made the cavern's shadows lean closer, "they're starving."
The pool's surface erupted in a frenzy of teal sparks as if answering Lein-Da's declaration, tiny winged figures bursting forth in a storm of jagged light. The Narchy were deceptively cute looking:
They were all small creatures, about the size of a Mobian newborn, with gelatinous and pudding like bodies each, round and droplet like heads with diamond shaped eyes but no noses, round torsos smaller than their heads, smooth feet with no legs, and arms with no visible hands. Neither their arms or feet had any digits. They also had a short tail, small wings and a floating cube above their heads.
They resembled miniature versions of Overlander angelic beings that O'Nux had seen in ancient Atlantian carvings—except where those figures had been depicted with serene grace, the Narchy were anything but. Their wide eyes glittered with manic hunger, their cube shaped crowns pulsed with anarchic energy, and their tiny mouths stretched into unsettling grins filled with needle thin fangs.
The creatures swarmed toward him in a chittering mass, their wings humming like disturbed hornets—except instead of stingers, their tiny claws dripped with something that smelled metallic and sweet. O'Nux recoiled instinctively, but Lein-Da grabbed the back of his neck, forcing him still as the first Narchy landed on his wounded leg. Its bite was less pain and more pressure—like teeth made of static—before the entire injury lit up with teal fire, knitting flesh and bone back together in seconds.
"Control them," Lein-Da hissed against his ear, her grip tightening as the swarm spiraled tighter around them both, "or they'll consume you alive." The Narchy's hunger wasn't just physical—their diamond shaped eyes reflected every hesitation, every unvoiced fear, amplifying them into jagged vibrations that made O'Nux's bones ache.
He saw flashes—Elijah's sneer, Lord Loch's disappointment, the Overlander machines boring into Atlantian flesh—as the Narchy gorged on his anguish. Their tiny claws dug deeper, not into skin but memory, pulling forth every failure like shrapnel from a wound. The cube above each creature pulsed faster, fractal patterns forming as they fed, their pudgy bodies swelling with stolen emotion. O'Nux gasped as his glyphs flared to life—not scripture now but raw, unchanneled power scorching up his arms in jagged teal lines.
Lein-Da's grip tightened to the point of pain, her claws digging into the nape of O'Nux's neck like iron hooks. "Focus," she snarled, her breath hot against his ear—not a suggestion, but a command carved into his spine. The Narchy's chittering rose to a fever pitch, their tiny claws now etching glyphs of their own into his skin, rewriting his flesh with their hunger. He could feel their ravenous delight as they fed on his terror, their gelatinous bodies quivering with the feast of his unresolved past.
One particularly bold creature latched onto his cheek, its needle teeth sinking in just deep enough to draw a thin bead of blood—not to harm, but to claim. The glyphs flaring across O'Nux's skin pulsed in unison with their movements, the scripture warping into something jagged and beautiful under their influence. His breath came ragged, but he didn't pull away.
Instead, he reached up—slowly, deliberately—and closed his fingers around the Narchy gnawing at his cheek. Its tiny body pulsed in his grip like a captured heartbeat, wings buzzing against his palm as it tried to wriggle free. The moment his glyphs made contact with its cube-crown, something shifted—not in the creature, but in him. A current of understanding arced between them, raw and electric.
O'Nux exhaled through his nose and loosened his grip just enough to let the Narchy squirm—not to escape, but to realign. Its tiny claws hooked into his palm like barbed wire made of lightning, and suddenly he understood: they weren't parasites. They were symbiotes. The cube above its head pulsed faster as it chittered, the sound resolving into something almost like language—if language could be carved from static and spite.
"You want and need permission," he murmured, watching the way its wings stilled at his voice. "Not to feed. To belong."
The Narchy's cube pulsed violently—once, twice—before stabilizing into a slow, steady rhythm matching his own heartbeat. Around them, the swarm's frenzy eased, their movements losing their jagged desperation as they hovered closer, drawn by the unfamiliar cadence of control without cruelty. O'Nux exhaled slowly, feeling the creature in his palm grow heavier, warmer—not draining now, but sharing.
The glyphs on his arm shifted again—no longer scripture, no longer wounds, but a living contract written in shared blood and voltage. The Narchy clinging to his palm shivered, its cube flickering through colors too fast to name before settling into a deep, pulsing violet—the exact shade of Lein-Da's eyes when she was pleased. Around them, the swarm's frenzy slowed to a humming orbit, their movements synchronized like planets around a star.
O'Nux felt their hunger sharpen into something finer—a blade whetted on his acquiescence rather than his fear. The Narchy weren't tame now, nor domesticated; they were acknowledged, their ravenous mischief given direction like floodwaters channeled into aqueducts. Lein-Da's claws withdrew from his neck slowly, her breath huffing against his ear in something almost like approval before she stepped back.
"Good," she said, the word a blade drawn slowly across stone. Lein-Da circled the pool's edge as the Narchy clung to O'Nux like living armor, their tiny claws now stitching his wounds shut with threads of volatile energy. Her grin showed too many teeth—not a smile, but a threat assessment. "Now you understand why Atlantinopolis' ancestors called them 'the island's teeth.'"
The Narchy chittered in agreement, their cube crowns pulsing violet as they swarmed around O'Nux—no longer tearing at him, but weaving through his movements like extensions of his own nervous system. Their tiny claws traced the glyphs on his skin with proprietary delight, stitching his wounds shut not with gentleness, but with the brutal efficiency of a seamstress who knew the garment would be tested in battle.
Lein-Da watched, arms crossed, as the Narchy swirled around O'Nux in tighter orbits—no longer feeding, but *bonding*. Their cube crowns pulsed violet in unison, casting jagged shadows across the cavern walls. One particularly bold creature perched on his shoulder, gnawing playfully at his ear with needle teeth that drew no blood—only laughter.