Long after the last of the Cretaceous race had gone, a crazed roar echoed from the now-empty volcanic depths.

"Hahaha… Nyxira! I can feel it! You're angry! You're afraid!"

As the maniacal voice boomed, the magma beneath the great egg churned violently, and a column of searing flame erupted upwards. Within the fire, the indistinct phantom of a monster took shape.

"Nyxira, let me out! Let me help you destroy these invaders!" the phantom shrieked. "Hehehe…"

The great egg trembled, and a seven-colored luminescence flared across its shell, forming a barrier that repelled the flames and forced the phantom back down into the molten rock.

"You're delusional, Orric," Nyxira's deep voice resonated from within the egg. "To release you would be to doom the Cretaceous World completely. Don't even think about it."

She had sacrificed nearly everything to seal Orric, the very entity that had almost destroyed this world, within the volcano. Her plan was to use the last of the world's ambient essence to slowly erase him, forcing him to return his stolen power to the land.

"I can sense them, Nyxira! These invaders are strong!" Orric's voice seethed from the lava. "They are beings capable of shielding themselves from our perception! If not demigods, then they are arch lords at the peak of their power! Let me out, and I will annihilate them for you! Or would you rather watch as outsiders conquer the world you protect? Do you want to see the children you worked so hard to spawn slaughtered?"

Orric hammered at every one of her fears, trying to manipulate her with the things she held most dear.

His only answer was an intensification of the brilliant, seven-colored light.

With a final, frustrated roar of defiance, Orric's phantom was suppressed, and the churning magma slowly grew calm.

"You, Orric, are the root of all destruction," Nyxira's voice declared into the silence. "I will never trust you again, no matter what lies you spin. I will see you erased."

***

Silverwood Realm, Staghelm City.

"Mother, this is pure exploitation!"

Beside the shimmering Moonwell, the Moon Elf Isilra raged at the demigod phantom of her mother floating above the water's surface.

"An ally who behaves like this can't be trusted! The Champions Alliance is taking advantage of our desperation!"

Whether it was from anger, a sense of betrayal, or the simple fact that her own life was at the center of the bargain, Isilra was incandescent with fury.

The Moonwell demigod remained silent, listening patiently to her daughter's tirade, her gaze filled with a mother's gentle love.

"What are we going to do?" Isilra finally asked, her ranting having burned away the worst of her anger, leaving behind the cold reality of their situation. She was smart enough to know that complaining would solve nothing.

"Isilra, you are my daughter," the demigod, Gima, said softly. "Whatever you choose, I will support you. If you refuse, I will stand with you to defend Staghelm City. We will fight to the very end, together. If you accept, I will support that as well. My greatest wish is for you to find happiness, to have children of your own."

Gima's voice was impossibly gentle. She was a being born of faith, a manifestation of the collective hope, gratitude, and will of Staghelm City's people across millennia. Her purpose was to protect the city. But Isilra was different. Born of moonlight, a favored child of the world itself, her destiny was not shackled to this one place.

"And if the end comes," Gima continued, her voice heavy, "if Staghelm City falls, I want you to leave. Find a life for yourself. Don't be bound to this fate as I am."

She had watched Isilra grow, day by day, from a child of light into the powerful arch lord she was today. She would not see that life thrown away.

"Mother, what are you saying?" Isilra looked up, her eyes shining with sincerity. "I would never leave you. I would never abandon Staghelm City."

Seeing the fiery resolve in her daughter's eyes, the Moonwell demigod wisely changed the subject. "This man from the Champions Alliance… have you seen him?"

"Yes," Isilra admitted. "Only an avatar, but his power was terrifying. I felt that his avatar alone could have defeated me easily." The Alliance's message had been explicit: a marriage between her and a man named Orion. She had never seen his true face, but she had witnessed his strength firsthand.

"There is only one way for a being to have one foot in the door of godhood," Gima mused. "They must comprehend a cosmic Law and forge their own Lord's Stone. To be honest, he is exactly the kind of man I would entrust you to."

She spoke softly, as if sharing a secret. "Think about it, Isilra. If he ascends to the demigod realm soon, as the Alliance Eminences claim he will, a marriage between you would no longer be a union of equals. The Champions Alliance is immensely powerful, strong enough to stand against the Cult of Four. If you married into their ranks, I could rest easy knowing you were safe."

This was her mother speaking from the very bottom of her heart. With their home on the brink of annihilation, Gima had to secure a future for her daughter, a path to survival.

"I understand why they proposed this," she continued, her voice both that of a queen and a mother. "Our alliance is new and untested. We share an enemy, nothing more. We attacked the Black Tower out of self-preservation, not loyalty to them. A marriage is the only way to truly bind our interests. A child born of both our bloodlines… that is an alliance that cannot be broken."

Gima wasn't trying to manipulate her. She was laying out the cold, hard political reality for her daughter. Despite being an arch lord, Isilra was still young in the ways of the world, more naive in some respects than a human girl of sixteen. War and marriage were harsh but effective teachers.

"If you find that you like this man, or at least that you do not hate him, I think you should consider accepting," Gima concluded gently. "It would be good for you, and good for Staghelm City."

Coming from anyone else, such a blunt, transactional proposal would have been insulting. Isilra would have bristled with anger. But this was her mother, the person she trusted most in the universe. Her mother would never harm her.

Isilra fell silent, turning her mother's words over in her mind, weighing the terrible logic within them.

"Whatever you decide, my child," Gima said, her voice a comforting anchor. "I will support your choice. And I will be with you until the very end."

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