The week after the Conclave was the longest of my life. The journey back to Bastion was a blur of translocation light and tense silence, the five of us a powder keg of unspoken anxieties. Vayne's offer sat in the center of our new alliance like an unexploded bomb. Back in the familiar, dusty reality of our home settlement, the tension didn't dissipate; it sharpened. Lucas held a closed-door meeting with our inner circle, carefully explaining the situation without revealing the familial link, framing it as a strategic imperative forced upon us by an Empire that knew too much. Eliza immediately began drafting a hundred different technological contingencies, Silas started mapping new escape routes out of the settlement, and Nyx simply waited, a coiled spring of lethal potential, ready for her next assignment.

I was a ghost. I walked the paths of Bastion, returned the greetings of our people, and nodded along in strategy sessions, but my mind was counting down the hours, minutes, and seconds. The gilded leash had been replaced by a velvet-gloved hand offering us a golden crown, and the distinction was becoming terrifyingly thin. Was this an offer of partnership or a summons for indoctrination? Every scenario I ran through my mind ended in a checkmate against an opponent who owned the entire board. All I could do was wait for the moment I could step off it, if only for a little while.

On the seventh day, at noon Prime System time, a current of excitement rippled through Bastion. Lucas had announced the impending arrival of another independent settlement's champions, our new allies from the Conclave. It was a historic moment. For the first time since the Confluence, we were not just an isolated outpost of defiance, but part of a larger network. The entire settlement had gathered around our translocation pad, now raised upon a sturdy, functional disc of Dweorg-forged iron and inlaid power runes, set in the center of our main square. The air was festive, charged with a nervous, hopeful energy that smelled of dust, hot metal from the forge, and the roasting nuts a vendor was selling from a cart. Children sat on their fathers' shoulders to get a better view, and Elder Borin stood near the front, arms crossed, grumbling about "new mouths to feed" but with a look of undisguised pride in his eyes. I saw a group of the Lion's Truth acolytes eagerly clutching newly-printed pamphlets, their faces alight with the zeal of potential converts, rehearsing their opening lines. It was a wonderfully chaotic, perfect scene.

I stood beside Lucas, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs. He gave me a reassuring nod. "Receiving the key," Eliza's voice murmured over our private comms from a nearby console she was monitoring, her fingers a blur over the crystalline interface. "Silverwood Reach… a valid Prime System designation. It's clean. No Imperial backdoors."

"Open it," Lucas commanded, his voice ringing with authority.

The iron pad hummed, the Dweorg runes glowing with a steady, blue light. A shimmering, vertical oval of light bloomed over it, gentle and stable, unlike the violent Imperial method. Through it, I saw a sun-dappled forest floor, and Anna, Marcus, and Lena waiting, their expressions a mixture of apprehension and resolve. She met my eyes as she stepped through the portal, and in that instant, a thousand unspoken words passed between us. It's happening. It's real.

"Welcome to Bastion!" Lucas boomed as Anna and her team stepped through into the cheering crowd. He strode forward, his hand outstretched, not to her, but to Marcus. "It's an honor to have you. I am Lucas Montgomery." The formal greeting, leader to leader, was the perfect political move. Marcus gripped his hand, his expression of grim surprise softening at the genuine warmth of the welcome. The people of Bastion pressed forward, not as a mob, but with a vibrant, curious energy. A woman offered Lena a small flask of clean water, another pushed a freshly baked roll of bread into Marcus' startled hands. They were seeing not just champions, but survivors, people just like them. It was a connection forged in defiance.

As Anna looked around, her archer's eyes taking in every detail, one of the Lion's Truth acolytes pushed his way forward. "Greetings, honored champion!" he proclaimed, holding out a pamphlet with a crude drawing of Rexxar on it. "Have you heard the good Roar of the Lion's Providence?"

He was cut off as Anna took the pamphlet, gave it a quick, confused glance, and then fixed him with a stare so intensely pragmatic it seemed to physically push him back a step. "Does he also provide arrows and rations? Because I find those are generally more useful."

The acolyte stammered, utterly flummoxed, before Silas appeared and smoothly steered him away. Anna just smirked, rolling her eyes in my direction. This was our home — quirky, defiant, and now, a little less alone.

We retreated to Lucas' office and, over mugs of a steaming, herbal tea, the facade of diplomacy gave way to the hard reality of our situation.

"It's a lie," Anna stated flatly. "The whole 'devourer plague' thing. Vayne is a master manipulator, and that was one of her manipulations."

"I agree," I said, and the relief on her face was immediate. "My gut screams that it's a fabrication. But Anna… my gut isn't an intelligence network. We can't know."

"So what do we do? Roll over and become her loyal pets?" she shot back.

"No," I said, setting my mug down. "We do something much more dangerous. We say yes."

She stared at me. "Have you lost your mind?"

"Hear me out," I insisted, leaning forward. "We accept her offer, publicly. We play the part. And in return, she gives us everything we need."

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"This is our long game," I continued. "One: Access. Two: Intelligence. And three: Verification." My mind drifted to the Elven survivors. "Not long after I established my Sanctum, I found a rift that led to a hidden enclave deep in the forests. Elven survivors from an isolated city called Sylvandell on another Confluenced planet."

Anna leaned in, her attention absolute.

"They're refugees," I said quietly. "They told me stories... not of a glorious integration, but of a cultural hollowing-out. Their 'System integration' silenced their ancestral magic, labeling it 'unstable' and 'inefficient.' Their world didn't die in a blaze of glory; it was bled dry, one tradition at a time, until all that was left was a compliant, soulless workforce. They called it a 'pacified' world, that is, until a champion they called Reyna freed them." The bitterness in my voice was real. "We need to see that truth with our own eyes. We need to know what a world looks like almost a century after the Kyorians are done 'saving' it."

"And while we're doing all that?" she asked, her eyes sharp.

"While we're doing that," I said, a slow, predatory grin spreading across my face, "we get strong. Stronger than them. Strong enough that it doesn't matter if they're lying or not." My expression turned more serious. "But there's a problem. My own growth... it hasn't stalled, not completely, but the returns are getting smaller with every dungeon run. The power I gain from clearing out Tier 4 behemoths is negligible now. A single point to Body here, another to Spirit there after a week of grinding. It's like trying to fill an ocean with a bucket. I'm a whale trying to live on krill, and this pond is getting shallower by the day."

I paused, remembering the conversation in the Veiled Path's command center just two days prior. I had brought the problem to my two most brilliant minds.

"I had Jeeves and Leoric run a deep-archive analysis on high-tier Essence Manifestation," I explained to Anna. "We were looking for a better way, a different method of training."

Jeeves had presented his findings with his usual, unnerving calm. "The issue is not with your methodology, Master Eren," he had explained, a projection of our planet's Essence saturation levels shimmering beside him, showing a vibrant but shallow ecosystem of power. "The issue is with this world. It is, for lack of a better term, 'new.' Post-Confluence, a world's ambient Essence levels rise dramatically, but it takes years, even decades, for the local biosphere to adapt and evolve. The apex predators you face in the dungeons... they represent the absolute peak of this world's current potential. You have, quite simply, out-leveled the planet's ecological maturation curve, unless there are some real monsters hidden in undiscovered locations, which is always a possibility with the Prime System. Your rate of growth has been an extreme outlier."

Anna's eyes widened, the tactical implications hitting her at once. "So... we're stuck? We're on a world that isn't dangerous enough for you?"

"Essentially," I confirmed, nodding. "The potential for life to reach Tier 5 and beyond does exist, but it will take time. Time we currently don't have. And that's why this has to be a two-pronged strategy. The dungeons here are no longer for my statistical growth. They're for ours. As a unit." I swept my gaze over her. "We consolidate. We turn our two teams into one single, cohesive unit. We will run your Whispering Barrow and Lucas' Warrens relentlessly. For you and the others, these places are a gold mine, the perfect environment to push everyone to the absolute peak of Tier 3 and beyond. We will sharpen our skills, develop our synergy to a level the Empire can't even comprehend. We will forge our two teams into a single, perfect spear."

"But for me to get stronger, to reach a point where I can face down those mirrored masks from my vision... I need a deeper ocean," I said, the final piece of the puzzle locking into place. "And that is why the mission to Sylvandell isn't just a 'maybe.' It's an absolute necessity. An older, Confluenced world that had been integrated for almost a century. Its dungeons will be deadlier. Its monsters, its very flora and fauna, will be infused with far more potent Essence. It will be a real challenge again. That is where I will find my growth. While our team forges itself here, I'll be sharpening the tip of the spear elsewhere."

When the day came that we needed to act, we would need to be a scalpel sharp enough to cut the heart out of whatever beast stood in our way.

She was silent for a long moment, her gaze distant. "So your grand plan," she said finally, a slow, dangerous smile of her own dawning, "is to use the Empire's own resources to build an army in their backyard, right under their noses, to eventually overthrow them?"

"More or less," I admitted.

She laughed, a real, genuine laugh. "Okay," she said. "Now you're talking. I'm in."

"Before we commit," I said, standing up. "There's one more thing you need to see. You've seen Bastion. You've seen our hidden… tent. Now I want to show you my fortress."

I led her to Waystone Gamma. With a quiet word and a touch, a section of the wall dissolved into a shimmering, gray portal. I gestured for her to enter. She hesitated, then squared her shoulders and stepped through. We went through the Ghost Road's Waystones one by one until we finally arrived.

The change was absolute. She emerged from a rustic, lamplit office into a place that smelled of ozone and clean metal. Leoric shuffled out from his forge, his face smudged with soot, gave Anna a shy, timid wave, and then scurried back into the rhythmic clang of his hammers. We walked past the gleaming racks of my armory, past the advanced medical bay, past the training hall. Her eyes were wide, her mouth slightly open.

I brought her to the central command chamber, a circular room with a massive, holographic map of the local continent floating in its center.

"Whoa…" she breathed, her hand reaching out as if to touch the glowing map. "Eren… what is this place?"

"The Veiled Path," I said. "The other half of our alliance."

She slowly turned, taking it all in — the hum of the Soulfire forge in the distance, the rows of humming crystalline servers that stored Leoric's impossible schematics, the sheer, breathtaking scale of my hidden operation.

"This... this isn't a tent," she said, her voice a hushed whisper of pure, unadulterated shock. "This is a castle. You haven't just been surviving... you've been building an empire in the shadows."

"I've been preparing," I corrected her gently. "For this. For all of us."

We stood there, brother and sister, united in our secret heart of power. Our path was clear. Our resolve was absolute.

"So it begins," she said, her voice filled with a newfound, steely purpose.

"It begins," I agreed. "Now, let's get our teams. It's time for their first joint dungeon run."

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