As Kai entered, Viscount Redmont immediately stood. He gave a curt nod and extended his broad, calloused hand. Kai grasped it without hesitation. It was firm, and was nothing like his physical state.

“When I sent Corwin I hadn’t expected him to bring you back with him. But it’s a pleasant surprise,” Redmont said. His voice belied his toughened face. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting the man who held off the beast wave.”

Kai smiled at his last statement. “I intended to come here. I’m mightily happy to meet a warrior like yourself. The honor is mine. You’ve been the shield of the kingdom for a long time.”

Redmont exhaled, and with that his shoulders slumped. “That’d be not entirely true.”

Kai raised an eyebrow.

“That’s just the talk they throw around in ballrooms. And soon enough, even that will stop—once the plague sweeps through Aegis. I’ll just be a broken shield then.”

Ah, so that’s where his mind is at.

“I heard of the situation from Corwin,” Kai said. “I came here precisely to see the plague. With my own eyes. I want to analyse the situation before we discuss anything further.”

Viscount Redmont nodded. Kai expected him to stand up and lead him to the plague, but the former cleared his throat. “Before that, Count Arzan, you don’t want to talk about the refugee request? I’m willing to pay compensation.”

Kai shook his head once. “I already said yes. Corwin can walk you through the details, but you can begin sending the refugees.”

For the first time, a flicker of relief crossed the viscount’s face. He turned toward the envoy. “I expect a report by evening.”

“You’ll have it, my lord,” Corwin replied, bowing slightly.

“If you’d waited a day or two,” Redmont said, already turning, “you would have seen the plague yourself—spreading over Aegis like smoke on water. Come. I’ll show it to you.”

Kai followed, the Viscount’s Knight and soldiers falling into step beside them. The path ahead was lined with withered trees, the faint tang of ash and rot in the air. As they walked, Redmont spoke again.

“I believe Corwin told you of the plague’s nature.”

“He did,” Kai said. “But I need to see it for myself. It’s spread, its symptoms. That way I can judge its strength. If we want to stop it, I need every bit of information I can gather.”

Redmont stopped so suddenly that Kai nearly collided into him. He turned, his face now fully serious, eyes narrowed.

“You came here to stop the plague?”

Kai met his gaze without flinching. “Observe it. But I have methods if it’s what I’m thinking it is.”

There was a pause. Redmont’s eyes searched his, like a man watching the wind for a coming storm. “Your words make me feel like you know what this is.”

“I might,” Kai said truthfully. “If we don’t act, the plague will devour most of the Sylvan Enclave. And I’ve already bled too much for this land to see it swallowed by mindless decay.”

Redmont’s pace resumed, the crunch of gravel under his boots the only sound for a few seconds.

“I was hoping Archine Tower would act before it swallowed the region whole,” he said, his voice rougher now, wearied. “Magus Veridia was said to be working on a countermeasure. Or so my sources claimed.”

Kai didn’t stop, but a subtle tension crept into his shoulders at the mention of her name. He kept his voice even.

“I don’t think Archine Tower will manage to solve it faster than I can. Even the Mages of Vanderfall fell.”

The Viscount glanced at him, brows lifting. “What gives you that confidence? No offense. I’ve heard of your magical prowess, of course. But from what I know, you’re only at the third circle.”

“Circles don’t matter. Knowledge does. And I have a good idea of what this plague is—and how to stop it. I just need confirmation before I begin throwing out solutions.”

That silenced the Viscount.

They walked in step, the fortress looming larger with every stride until the path curved and spilled out onto the outer wall. A cold wind bit against Kai’s robes as he stepped onto the platform and looked past the battlements.

The breath he didn’t realize he was holding slipped out slowly.

It was exactly what he had expected. Not worse. Not better. But that wasn’t comforting.

Beyond the fortress, the land stretched into a distorted shadow of its former self—where once-thriving woods had stood, now only a creeping void remained. The color had been stripped away like dried paint from a dying canvas. Trees shimmered faintly within the blackened miasma, their trunks cracking and limbs bending as the natural strength within them was devoured, twisted into something unholy.

And at the fringes—barely visible in the haze—skittered things.

Once, they might have been squirrels. Now, they were husks of motion, with elongated bodies, black veins crawling through their fur, and jagged teeth exposed in grotesque maws. They moved in bursts, like static across a corrupted screen.

The plague had rewritten the ecosystem.

Kai felt the weight of it press against his chest—not just the stench or the sight, but the quiet grief of it. So many lives, lost or worse—turned. Minds hollowed out and filled with hunger.

His gaze tracked the land, skimming far below toward the lower foothills. The mountain the fortress rested upon gave them some elevation, but even so, he could see it—the black tide inching its way upward.

Three more days.

That’s how long they had before it reached the base of the fortress.

Two weeks after that, it would reach the outer boundary of Redmont City.

And beyond that… the rest of the Sylvan Enclave.

He couldn’t allow that. Not again. Not after everything. He had ideas. Temporary, but still something.

Before he could follow the thought further, Viscount Redmont spoke again, his voice loud. “So,” he said, eyes narrowed. “What do you think?”

“I’m assuming it’s the worst plague in recorded history. At least… until this point.”

The Viscount grimaced, his jaw clenching. “So can you solve it?”

“Not yet,” Kai said. “To solve it permanently, we’ll need an expedition force. More Mages. Fighters. Gear. And that’ll take days at best to assemble.”

Redmont’s eyes flicked to him, understanding the hidden meaning of his words. “But there’s a temporary solution.”

Kai nodded slowly. “There is a way, I think. To halt its spread. Slow it down long enough for us to prepare.”

The Viscount caught a sharp breath, but it wasn’t him who broke the silence.

It was Knight Cais.

“We’ve tried everything to stop the plague,” he said, gesturing out toward the barren land beyond the wall. “The trenches we dug are still there.”

He raised a hand, pointing further out. “We even tried to build walls. Wooden palisades, reinforced stone… None of it worked.”

Kai narrowed his eyes, following the Knight’s finger. He saw them then—gashes in the earth, trenches long since abandoned and half-filled with soot-streaked debris. Some sections of the stone wall still stood, crumbling and blackened as if they’d fought and lost against the very air around them.

“You should have kept digging,” Kai said simply.

Cais blinked. “What?”

“You didn’t dig enough,” Kai replied. “You needed to go deeper… if you wanted to find the truth. Let me show you.”

Before either man could stop him, Kai’s feet left the ground in a burst of pressure. He surged upward, cloak fluttering behind him, wind magic lashing at his sides as he floated at the edge of one of the abandoned trenches.

Dead mana curled up in wisps around him like smoke from a smoldering pyre. The earth itself reeked of decay, but Kai didn’t hesitate. He held out his hand, and glowing spell structures spun into place—circles laced with runes, sharp and angular, forming in the air.

Wind gathered at his palm, but not as blades. Instead, it was shaped into a massive, ghostly hand—translucent, bladed fingers bent like a scoop. It slammed into the dirt, dragging up great chunks of blackened earth. Kai gritted his teeth, pushing more mana into the spell as the plague-fouled ground resisted, dead mana gnawing at his construct like acid.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The shovel-hand kept working, each strike hurling more dirt aside. The pile to his left grew quickly, the trench sinking deeper, broader. From the wall, Redmont’s voice rang out—sharp, angry, and confused.

“What are you doing?!”

Soldiers pointed. Some yelled. But Kai didn’t pause.

“You’ll see,” he called back, eyes locked on the dark soil as it fell away.

Ten feet. Fifteen. The air grew colder. At twenty feet, something shifted beneath him. Roots.

Not ordinary ones. They pulsed.

Thick, gnarled strands, like veins grown too large for the body. They weaved under the earth like serpents, covered in black lines that moved—alive, corrupted, pumping with sickly energy. Dead mana surged along them in rhythmic pulses, spreading outward like a cancer beneath the ground.

Even from above, the Viscount and his men gasped. The roots twitched. One of them snapped free from the soil with a violent lurch, surging toward Kai like a spear thrown from the earth itself.

But he was ready.

He spun midair, his fingers snapping out. A sphere of flame ignited in his palm, but it wasn’t ordinary fire—it flickered white and hot.

[Fiendfire]. He hurled it downward.

The blaze struck the root and erupted, coiling around it like a hungry serpent. The creature shrieked—not in sound, but in the way it twisted, spasming in pain as the unnatural flame consumed it.

Kai shot backward, riding the wind, keeping just outside the reach of the other roots as the burning one collapsed, still thrashing, smoke trailing up toward the sky.

When the fire had done its work, Kai landed on top of the wall once more. Viscount Redmont, Cais, and a dozen soldiers stared down at the pit, at the still-simmering tendrils curling like dying snakes.

Their faces were pale.

“That,” Kai said, “is what you were trying to wall off.”

Smoke curled lazily from the charred trench as the root spasmed one final time and stilled, blackened and cracked. The flames had lessened, reduced to embers glowing faintly in the dirt.

Viscount Redmont’s eyes never left it.

Then, finally, he turned—eyes sharp, jaw tight—and pointed toward the still-simmering tendril. “Count Arzan,” he asked “what the fuck is that?”

Kai stepped forward, the wind still whispering around his cloak. “We call them Netheroots. The reason your defenses failed—the reason nothing worked—is because the plague spreads from below. These roots tunnel through the earth, carrying the infection with them. By the time it surfaces, it’s already too late. The corruption seeps into everything it touches.”

He gestured out to the horizon. “They’re likely buried all throughout Vanderfall. Deep. Deeper than most spells or tools can reach. That’s why no one found them. And even if someone did…” He turned back toward the trench. “They’re nearly impossible to kill. Their regeneration is on par with a drake.”

As if summoned by his words, the burned root shifted again. Tiny black tendrils twitched along the edge, creeping out from the charred husk. New growth, budding from the corpse.

The hope in Redmont’s face withered.

He stepped closer to the edge, eyes wide with disbelief as he watched the root squirm—alive once more. “They’re… already growing back.”

Kai nodded grimly.

“So how are we supposed to deal with this?” Redmont asked. “We can’t keep burning them forever.”

“No,” Kai said. “We can’t.”

He let the silence settle before he continued. “But if we destroy the source, the roots will stop growing.”

The viscount blinked. “The source?”

Kai turned his gaze south, toward the unseen heart of the plague. “If I’m right, somewhere in Vanderfall… There’s a treant. Rotheart treant to be specific.”

The name struck the Viscount like a slap. He stared. “A what?”

“The rotheart treant is a dead mana fiend—a treant twisted beyond recognition. The worst kind. It doesn’t move, but it spreads. Massive. Towering. Its roots burrow for miles, feeding on the land, spreading corruption. When one grows, it claims everything around it. That’s where the netheroots come from.”

He pointed again at the trench. “They’re extensions of it. Cut off one, and the tree simply sends more.”

Redmont’s brows furrowed. He hadn’t heard of such a creature—that much was obvious.

“They’re classified as a grade six threat. Difficult to kill. Near impossible, if unprepared. But they have a weakness.”

He held up a finger. “They can’t move. They’re bound to the spot where they first sprouted. And they guard it well—branches, roots, corrupted guardians. Everything around it is infected. But if we can reach it—really reach it—and burn it to the ground… the roots will die with it.”

The Viscount exhaled slowly, still processing.

Then Kai added, almost as an afterthought, “And if you’re not familiar with dead mana… it’s the core reason weavers exist. Any human or beast that soaks in it long enough loses themselves. Turns into something else. Something hollow.”

At that, Redmont gave a slow nod, his gaze distant. “I’m aware of what dead mana does.”

“Good. Then I can refrain from the lecture.”

He let his arms fold behind his back, the burned trench still smoldering below them. “Still… we need to move fast. The longer we wait, the more the plague spreads. Every hour costs us lives.”

The Viscount frowned, silent for a moment, then turned to him with a cautious question. “Where did you get this information? About the treant. If it came from another Mage, perhaps we can contact them. Ask them to assist.”

Kai didn’t miss a beat, having practised the lie before he revealed the truth. “The knowledge came from records left in my mother’s inheritance.” He looked away for a moment, letting his voice drop just slightly. “She passed. So it’s just us now.”

Redmont studied him for a moment longer, then gave a small nod—accepting the answer, or choosing not to push further.

“Actually,” Kai continued, “I came here to speak with you precisely because of that. We’ll need a large force to enter the plague zone and bring down the rotheart treant.”

The Viscount didn’t hesitate. “I’m willing to give you every soldier I command. But how will they enter the plague lands? Touching dead mana corrupts.”

“I’ll handle the equipment,” Kai said. “What I need are trained fighters. Preferably Mages.”

Redmont rubbed his jaw, thinking. “I have three mages in my service. All second circle.”

Kai grimaced.

“That… might not be enough.”

His thoughts raced. Even if he somehow convinced the Sorcerer’s Tower to lend their Mages, it still wouldn’t be sufficient. They were too few, too isolated. Even the noble prisoners he had taken during the war hadn’t brought many magic-users with them. Most houses relied on swords, not spellwork.

That was the hole in his plan.

The rotheart treant wouldn’t be unguarded. Between here and its location, there would be dozens—if not hundreds—of fiends and weavers. Their numbers would matter. And right now, his side didn’t have enough. His gaze drifted to the horizon, where the black tide swallowed the forest edge. As he stared, something clicked.

A force he had dealings with, but had never truly relied on.

They might not be eager at first, but Kai had grown confident in his ability to negotiate. He turned back to the Viscount, the beginnings of a smile forming.

“I have a plan.”

***

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