The room was dark, damp, and smelled like something that had been burning recently.

Eight cloaked figures sat around the round table, same as always.

Veth stood at the front with a projector remote and the particular energy of someone who had been waiting all day to show people something.

The footage played.

Thirty seconds in, someone snorted.

A minute in, Drevak had both hands flat on the table trying to hold himself together.

By the time the nine tails spread across the portal light and Vane’s face did what it did, the room was completely gone.

"HAHA—"

"Did you SEE his face—"

"He was SHAKING—"

One figure had his head down on the table entirely. Another had pushed his chair back and was pointing at the screen unable to form words. Coryn, who had been there in person, was somehow laughing the hardest out of all of them.

It took a while before anyone could breathe properly again.

Malgros wiped the corner of his eye with one finger.

"You’re right Veth," he said, exhaling slowly, pulling himself back together one piece at a time. "Humans really do have a knack for digging their own grave."

The laughter wound down into scattered chuckles, then silence.

Veth straightened his posture and clicked the remote, pulling up still frames from the footage.

"Judging from everything we’ve gathered," he said, voice back to business. "It’s safe to assume he’s a Sovereign candidate."

The room stilled.

Not the polite kind of still. The actual kind. The kind where everyone at the table suddenly remembered why they were here.

Malgros nodded once.

Around the table, slowly, everyone else did too.

"Who would have thought," Malgros said quietly, eyes on the frozen image of Leon floating barely conscious above the courtyard. White hair. Eight years old. Surrounded by people who had spent his entire life telling him he was nothing. "The humans have one."

He looked around the table.

"A Sovereign candidate. Sitting right in the middle of their capital." He let that land properly. "And they spent years calling him a failure."

Drevak shook his head.

"Blind," someone muttered.

"Completely blind," another said.

Malgros looked at the image a moment longer.

Sovereigns weren’t something any race produced on purpose. They happened, rarely, when something came into existence that simply refused to be capped. Demigods in everything but name. Some became God Slayers. Some became things that even Gods stepped carefully around.

The gap between a Sovereign and an S rank wasn’t a step up.

It was a completely different floor of the building.

And the humans had one.

Had always had one.

"Truly," Malgros said.

A small smile.

"A remarkable talent. For digging their own grave."

"We’ve made some investigations," Veth said.

He let that breathe for a second.

"He is no longer in Novaria."

The room processed that.

"The Nine Tails either," he added.

Silence.

Then Malgros leaned back in his chair and a grin spread across his face. Not the controlled, measured expression he usually wore in these meetings. A real one. Wide and unhurried and thoroughly satisfied.

He looked around the table at each of them.

"Then it’s settled."

He placed both hands flat on the black wood.

"Novaria’s conquest," he said. "Begins now."

...

The world Yuki stepped into was nothing like what could be found in the human continent.

The sky was the first thing. Too many colors in it, deep purples bleeding into blues at the edges.

The trees were enormous. Trunks wide enough that ten people couldn’t link arms around them, roots breaking the surface in great arching waves before plunging back down. The bark was almost black, the leaves at the canopy catching the strange light and throwing it back silver.

Yuki moved through it quickly, Leon in her arms, ears forward, tails close.

She knew exactly where she was going.

Two familiar figures came into view before the gate did, standing at attention on either side of the entrance, spears upright, cat ears tracking the forest around them with the professional alertness of guards who genuinely took the job seriously.

Lark’s ear swiveled first.

Then Hugo’s hand went to his spear.

Then they both saw who it was and straightened immediately.

"Lord Nine Tails," they greeted together.

"You’re both looking well," Yuki said, not slowing. "Any updates?"

"No my lady," Lark said. "All quiet."

Hugo opened his mouth to add something and then his eyes dropped to what Yuki was carrying and the sentence evaporated.

Lark followed his gaze.

Unconscious. White hair falling across his face. Small. Unreasonably small for someone who had, on this exact spot roughly a year ago, put both of them on the ground without breaking a sweat .

The face was unmistakable.

"Isn’t that..." Lark started.

"Yes," Yuki said. "My master."

She adjusted her grip on Leon slightly.

"He’ll be staying here for a while. And since he is my master, you can assume him to be the Lord of this realm as well."

Lark’s ear twitched.

"But..." He chose his words carefully. "He’s a human."

"He isn’t like other humans," Yuki replied, calm and simple. "You know that better than anyone."

Lark thought about the pressure that had pinned him flat to the ground a year ago. Thought about Hugo, who hadn’t been able to move either. Thought about what had just casually done that to both of them.

He closed his mouth.

Hugo was already bowing.

Lark followed.

"Your wish is our command."

They stepped aside.

Yuki walked through the gate.

...

The city on the other side was alive.

Dark clouds sat low overhead, the sky here perpetually that deep bruised purple that made it feel like evening even when it wasn’t. Lanterns hung between buildings, warm and amber, strung across the narrow streets in long drooping lines. Stalls lined every available surface, vendors calling out, children running between adult legs, the smell of food and unfamiliar spices mixing in the air.

A bustling market that operated entirely unbothered by the strange sky above it.

And every single person in it had ears.

Cat ears, dog ears, fox ears, wolf ears, ears that belonged to things that didn’t have clean names. Tails too, where applicable, curling or swaying or tucked close depending on the mood of whoever owned them.

A cat eared woman near the gate entrance looked up first, eyes going wide.

"Lord Nine Tails—"

That was all it took.

Heads turned. Conversations stopped mid sentence. A vendor forgot about the customer in front of him entirely. Two children who had been chasing each other around a stall froze in place.

Then, one by one, they all went to their knees.

The entire market. Every stall, every street, every doorway that had someone standing in it. Down, heads bowed, a quiet that spread outward from the gate like a wave until the whole city was kneeling.

Yuki looked out over them. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"Continue your work," she said, her voice carrying easily without being raised. "Don’t mind my presence."

She walked forward. If Leon was awake right now he would be shocked that Yuki still had this side of her, after all, she always acted irresponsible around him.

Slowly the market stirred back to life around her, voices returning, stalls resuming, though more than a few eyes followed her path through the streets with open curiosity, particularly the unconscious white haired figure in her arms.

Ahead of her, rising above the surrounding buildings with the particular confidence of something that had been standing long before anything else around it was built, was the tower.

Tall, dark, its upper floors disappearing into the low cloud cover, windows lit from within with that same amber warmth as the lanterns below.

Her home

She walked toward it without hurrying.