The armored garrison transport rumbled eastward along the elevated stone sky-road, cutting through wispy banks of purple abyssal mist that curled against the reinforced window panes. Laia leaned against the cold metal frame, her gaze distant as she threaded a thin strand of divine awareness back through the veil to check on her realm. Six weeks of nonstop hunting had left her barely any time to peek in on her subjects, and she was curious what chaos they'd gotten up to in her absence.
The first sight that greeted her inner eye was the Whispering Grove, now wrapped in a thick, luminous blanket of soft blue mist that drifted between ancient oak trunks like scattered stardust. Elowen the elven queen sat perched on a moss-carved stone throne at the grove's heart, braiding glowing bluebell stems into her silver hair while her attendants tended to rows of mutated flowering bushes along the mist's edge. The toxic blue fog that would have seared the lungs of any ordinary mortal hung light and gentle around them, a natural defense barrier turned ornamental feature. Laia stared for a long, quiet beat. She'd left a perfectly ordinary, if somewhat sparse, old-growth forest. They'd turned it into a warded, enchanted sanctuary entirely for their own comfort. Typical.
She shifted her focus northward, to the Shadow Marches—the perpetually dark, cavern-strewn stretch of realm where the shadow clan made their home. The bioluminescent light-trees that lit the underground caverns had evolved too, their cores burning with vivid purple and deep blue flame instead of the soft white glow they'd held when she'd left. Their branches had grown sharp, thorny, aggressively predatory, lashing out to incinerate any stray void wraith that drifted too close to the settlement. The shadow folk moved through the trees completely unharmed, going about their daily work as if nothing had changed. Of course they'd adapted. They'd survived far harsher conditions in the uncharted void wastes before she'd stumbled across them.
The dragon roosts on the southern volcanic peaks looked much the same, if far busier than before—new stone forges, tiered hatchery terraces, and steady streams of young drakes patrolling the ridgelines. The dwarf holds under the western mountains had expanded three new deep mine shafts, their smelters pumping out steady streams of refined divine ore around the clock.
The real surprise waited in the human capital's eastern farmlands. Past the rolling fields of deep-wheat, which now grew twice as tall as the original native strain, a row of stout wooden stockades stretched along the riverbank. Inside them wandered a herd of massive, round, scaled beasts, four meters tall at the shoulder, with thick plate-like hide and heavy clawed hooves. Half cattle, half abyssal lizard, they bore no resemblance to any standard domesticated livestock. A team of farmers herded them toward a feeding trough with long wooden poles, completely unafraid.
Laia blinked. Most gods raised sheep, goats, plain dairy cattle. Theron had looked at a pack of aggressive, venomous abyssal lizard hybrids and decided we can farm those. She shouldn't have been surprised. The man had turned corrosive abyssal mother venom into a crop booster. Of course he'd turn dangerous feral beasts into livestock. It also raised the barrier for would-be livestock thieves to an almost comically high level.
She pulled her divine awareness back to the mortal plane just as the transport rumbled to a halt. The Eastern Outpost loomed ahead of them, larger and far more fortified than the western garrison, with twice as many watchtowers, thicker perimeter ward walls, and a constant stream of armed hunters moving in and out of the main gate. This was a base built for the edge of the abyssal middle ring, not the safe, slow outer hunting grounds. The air hummed with sharp, seasoned divine auras—veteran border soldiers, career hunters, men and women who'd been fighting the abyss for decades.
Everyone back at the academy talked about the abyss like it was an instant death sentence, Laia thought, stepping down the metal ramp onto the dusty red soil. After six weeks of steady hunting, it felt more like a slightly dangerous manual labor job with excellent benefits. She'd yet to run into anything that actually posed a real threat.
Tobias was right behind her, stretching his arms over his head and already craning his neck toward the mess hall wing at the far end of the compound. "Hope this place has a better dessert rotation," he said, yawning. "The western outpost ran out of honey cakes three days ago. I've been surviving on plain cookies. It's been dire."
Laia huffed a quiet, amused breath. Of course food was his first priority.
Liora stepped down beside them, her jaw set, her leather satchel packed tight with annotated hunting maps and abyssal beast field guides. She'd been quiet the entire ride, her mind clearly fixed on merit tallies and the billion-merit price tag for the Waters of the Far Shore. The three-year deadline of the True Name War was ticking closer with every passing day, and every wasted hour was another hour her sister's condition worsened.
The adjutant who'd escorted them from the western garrison led them across the parade ground to the administration hall to finalize their transfer paperwork. The clerk on duty flipped through their files with bored efficiency, then paused when he reached Laia's record, glancing up at her with a flicker of open surprise.
"Forty-two consecutive hunting days," he said, scanning the numbers again like he thought he'd misread them. "Zero safety incidents. Zero realm instability flags. And you single-handedly cleared out the entire western outer gorge's beast population?"
Laia shrugged. "They weren't very fast."
The clerk stared at her for another long second, then stamped their transfer papers with a heavy thud and slid them back across the counter. "Welcome to the Eastern Outpost. Open hunting zones are posted on the board by the main gate. Middle ring access is restricted to teams of three or more, all minimum Fourth Tier. Don't go wandering off alone. The eastern abyssal clans are far more organized than the scavenger packs out west. They don't take kindly to trespassers."
Laia nodded, already glancing past him at the large merit exchange board mounted on the wall behind the desk. The bounties here were better across the board: higher tier beasts, rarer resource turn-ins, even special task rewards for clearing out problem clans and raiding enemy supply dens. At this rate, she'd hit the fifty thousand merits she needed for the Box of Avarice in barely three more weeks. Easy.
Tobias was already leaning over the counter, asking the clerk about mess hall hours and weekly menu rotations. Liora was memorizing the middle ring bounty list, her expression sharp with focused determination.
Laia hefted her hunting rifle higher on her shoulder, a faint, satisfied smile tugging at her lips.
New hunting grounds. Better merits. All the unlimited food she could eat.
This transfer was turning out to be the best thing that had happened to her all semester.