Chapter 163: Waves Across Nations

Far from the streets of Cinderfall, in a fancy building, a young woman stared at a glowing screen. The air here was clean and calm. This was the embassy of the Silver Phoenix Empire, a small piece of a foreign land placed in the heart of a rival nation.

The woman was Ariana. Her hair was tied back in a simple bun, and her face, usually calm and composed, was tense with focus.

On the screen in front of her was the official public report from the Cinderfall City Guard about the fight in the alley. It was full of covered-up words and unclear sentences. It talked about a “small gang fight” that had gotten out of hand. It mentioned an “unforeseen escalation of violence.” Frankly, it was an obvious and poorly written lie.

With a quick move of her wrist, she pushed the report away, making it disappear. “Not useful,” she said.

She took a slow sip of tea from a pretty, white cup. A soft chime rang in the room as a new file appeared on the screen. This one was marked with the silver phoenix symbol of her own nation’s intelligence service. It was a file from her own spies.

An assistant stood by the doorway. “Your Highness,” he said, his voice a polite whisper. “Our analysts have finished their first look at the energy readings.”

“Show me,” Ariana commanded.

The hologram changed, showing a messy graph of energy. It looked like a storm of sharp ups and deep downs, colored in warning red.

“The official story is weak,” the aide stated, agreeing her own thoughts. “Our sources give a different view. The energy pattern is not like anything in our records. It is… artificial. Stitched together.”

Ariana leaned closer, her eyes tracing the wild lines of the graph. Artificial. Stitched together. The words made her shiver. It was the exact thing she had argued with Jonah about during the tournament. The Golden Dragon Nation’s “shortcut” to power. She had called their Divine Serum a violation, a way to force power onto a person instead of earning it. This felt like that, but so much worse.

“And the fighters?” she asked.

The screen changed again. It now showed a map of the alley. The map had been made from the magical traces that were left behind and from the secret reports from the witnesses that her spies had collected. Two powerful figures were marked on the map.

“That is the most troubling part of all this,” the assistant said, and his voice was low and serious. “We detected two separate individuals fighting with the unique and powerful energy signature of a Weaver. We know that one of them was Jonah. The other… it was like a corrupted version of him.”

A copy. A broken version.

The pieces fit together in Ariana’s mind, and the picture they made was scary.

She stood up and walked to the large window, looking down at the city lights. During the tournament, she had seen something special in Jonah. He was different from the others in his nation. His power wasn’t a brutal tool. He had called it “symbiotic,” a partnership with his creations. It was balanced. It felt natural.

She had warned him. She had told him that power gained without wisdom, power taken as a shortcut, could only lead to corruption and disaster.

And now, here was the proof.

Someone had taken that idea and pushed it to its most terrible outcome. This Dr. Thorne, this evil scientist, hadn’t just made a mindless monster. He had tried to copy a Weaver. He had built a fake puppet and filled it with nothing but pain and orders. The fight in the street wasn’t just a fight. It was Thorne showing off his terrible new invention.

Ariana pressed her hand against the glass of the window. Her rival nation was about to tear itself apart with a technology that could burn down the whole world.

What if Thorne perfected it? What if he built an entire army of these soulless Weavers? An army that could create endless monsters on command? The idea was a sickness, a plague that would spread across the sea and consume everything.

She could not just stand by and watch. Her duty was to protect her home, and this fire, if left unchecked, would eventually reach her shores.

But she couldn’t just call the Golden Dragon Nation’s leaders. It would start a political issue. It would be slow and messy, and Thorne would escape in the chaos.

No. This required a different approach. This wasn’t about politics or competition anymore.

Jonah was at the middle of this trouble. He was the original, the true creator. And someone was making broken copies of his soul to use as weapons. He was the only one in this entire nation who would understand the true danger. He had to know he wasn’t the only one who saw it coming.

She walked back to her desk with a clear goal. “You may leave,” she told her assistant.

The man bowed and silently left the room, the door closing with a gentle sound.

Once she was alone, Ariana placed her palm on the wooden surface of her desk. A secret panel opened up, revealing a small device. It was an encrypted messenger, a tool for sending secret messages that no government or spy agency could ever trace. It was to be used only in the most extreme emergencies.

This was an extreme emergency.

She was sending a message to the only person who could possibly be her ally in this secret war.

Her fingers were just above the glowing keys. She needed to be simple. Direct. She needed him to trust her.

She began to type. The message was short, with no room for misunderstanding

With a final, sure tap, she sent it.

A tiny light on her desk blinked once.

Ping.

[Message Delivered].

“I know the battle you are fighting. You are not alone. Let us meet.”

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