LORD OF THE MYRIAD DOMINION

Chapter 8: Walls

Riven woke on Day Six to a report already waiting for him — the void-hunting rotation had run through the night without a single break.

[Overnight Hunt Report: Void-Touched Creatures Slain — 11]

[Gold Earned: 340]

[Items Acquired: Void Residue x2, Warped Fang x1]

He checked the main status next, the numbers climbing steadily the way he'd come to expect.

[Lord Hall (Level 2)]

[Development Level: 20]

[Population: 101]

[Gold: 190 → 530]

[Grace Period: 2 Days Remaining]

Two days. Riven sat with that number for a moment longer than usual. Whatever came after the Grace Period ended, it was close now, close enough that every decision today needed to account for it. He pulled up the Barracks interface, the same first real move of every morning.

[Unit Summoning Available]

[Angel Barracks: 10/day]

[Fallen Angel Barracks: 10/day]

[Summon Cost: 1 Gold per Unit]

"Summon," he said.

[20 Units Summoned]

[Race: Angel (10) / Fallen Angel (10)]

[Loyalty: Absolute]

[Gold: 530 → 510]

[Population: 101 → 121]

One hundred twenty-one now. Riven opened the Lord Network next, the second habit that had settled in almost as fast as the first. Two names had messaged him overnight, drawn in by his standing offer for a Wall or Watchpost Blueprint. He'd expected to wait days for a bite. Apparently a fair offer, posted early enough, traveled faster than he'd given the Network credit for.

[Lord: Garrick Fen — Level 3 — Race: Human]

"Got a Watchpost Blueprint I'm not using. 50 Stone, 30 Wood, and it's yours."

Riven checked his stockpile and confirmed without hesitating.

[Trade Complete]

[Resources Sent: Stone x50, Wood x30]

[Item Received: Watchpost Blueprint]

The second name took longer to respond, but the offer was worth the wait.

[Lord: Kessa Dorn — Level 3 — Race: Dwarf]

"Wall Blueprint's pricier — I use those myself. 100 Iron, 80 Stone, and 100 Gold on top."

Steep, compared to the Training Ground trade, but walls mattered more than almost anything else with the Grace Period closing in. Riven confirmed without haggling.

[Trade Complete]

[Resources Sent: Iron x100, Stone x80]

[Gold Spent: 100]

[Item Received: Wall (Basic) Blueprint]

[Gold: 510 → 410]

He walked to the edge of his cleared ground, both Blueprints ready, and pulled up the build options one after another.

[Building Available: Wall (Basic)]

[Requires: Blueprint (Owned), Stone x150, Iron x50, Gold x60]

"Build it," he said.

[Materials Consumed: Stone x150, Iron x50]

[Gold Spent: 60]

[Wall (Basic) Construction Complete]

[Development Level: 20 → 24]

A low stone wall rose around the core of his territory in a single pulse of light — not tall, not yet, but solid, enclosing the Lord Hall, the Storehouse, the Blacksmith, the Training Ground, and the Holy Fountain inside a perimeter that hadn't existed an hour ago. Riven walked its length, running a hand along the stone. Ordinary work, compared to the fountain. But ordinary work that would matter enormously the first time something dangerous came looking for an easy way in.

He checked the wall's full span before moving on, tracing its line against the shape of his territory in his head. It didn't cover everything yet — the southern plains and most of the river sat outside its reach, along with the grain fields the wolf pack had tried to raid days earlier. Expanding it further would have to wait; stone and iron weren't infinite, even with gold flowing in from the void hunts. For now, the core of his operation — everything that actually mattered if the worst happened — sat behind something solid.

[Building Available: Watchpost]

[Requires: Blueprint (Owned), Wood x60, Stone x40, Gold x35]

"Build it," he said again.

[Materials Consumed: Wood x60, Stone x40]

[Gold Spent: 35]

[Watchpost Construction Complete]

[Development Level: 24 → 27]

A tower rose at the highest point along the new wall, tall enough to see well past the treeline in every direction. Riven climbed it himself once it finished, and the view alone justified the cost — his entire territory laid out below him, fields and forest and river all visible at once, along with the faint shimmer at the edge of his vision where his Lord Space ended and the open void began.

"Post rotating watch here from now on," he told the units gathering below. "I want eyes on that boundary at all times, not just during the void hunts."

Elarys joined him at the top, wings settling against the cool morning air. "Two days," she said, following his gaze out toward the horizon. "You think the Hordes come the moment the Grace Period ends?"

"I'm not betting on anything else," Riven said. "Better to have walls up a day early than a minute late." He looked over the wall's height, doing rough math in his head. Not tall enough yet to stop everything. But tall enough to slow down whatever couldn't fly, and with a Watchpost now standing at its highest point, nothing would be crossing it without warning first.

The rest of the morning went to training. With the Wall and Watchpost both finished, Riven turned his full attention to the yard, watching two full squads cycle through drills under the same steady, patient instruction that had already produced two skill unlocks that week.

[Weapon Mastery Report: 41 Units Improved]

[Unit "Reya" reached Weapon Mastery Threshold — Skill Unlocked: Deflect]

Forty-one in one session, the largest single jump yet. Riven watched the number and felt the shape of a pattern solidifying further — more units meant more simultaneous training, and more training meant skills accumulating faster than any Lord relying on combat alone could hope to match.

He walked the yard's edge while the drills continued, watching pairs work through the same drills that had already produced Guard Break, Precise Strike, and Iron Stance among the ranks. Reya's Deflect looked promising even at a glance — a clean redirect of an incoming strike that sent the training partner's blunted blade skidding wide instead of connecting. Riven made a note to see how it held up against something with actual teeth behind it, not just wood and padding.

"You keep saying the same thing every time one of these skills shows up," Elarys observed, watching from the yard's edge.

"Because it keeps being true," Riven said. "A free skill is worth more than a paid one. I'll say it as many times as it stays accurate."

By midday, the second void-hunting rotation was still out past the boundary, and this was the fight that would decide whether Elarys came back alive at all. Running wasn't really an option — whatever they'd found was simply faster than they were, and two of her squad were already down. Leaving them behind was never a trade she was willing to make.

---

The Void Lesser Wraith had come apart out of nothing, the way everything past the boundary seemed to — a shape built from smoke and old shadow, faster than anything she'd faced since arriving in this world. It had already knocked two of her squad reeling out of formation before she'd fully registered the danger, their blades passing through it like it wasn't there half the time and catching solid the other half, no pattern she could predict.

It caught her across the ribs on the third pass, and the world tilted sideways.

The blow spun her out of the air, one wing crumpling awkwardly against her own body as she tumbled. The Wraith turned toward her instead of finishing the squad members still holding formation, drawn by whatever it was that made a falling target more interesting than a standing one. She forced her wings open and beat hard to stop the spin, and felt something grind wrong in her side that hadn't been wrong a second ago.

Not like this. The thought arrived cold and clear even through the pain. Not after everything he risked, choosing me.

Something answered.

It didn't feel like a decision. It felt like a door that had been shut her entire existence finally giving way under enough pressure, gold light and black light both pouring out of her at once instead of fighting each other the way they always had. The Wraith's next strike passed through where her wound should have been and found nothing there to hit — the fracture already closing, the torn muscle already knitting back together faster than the injury had even finished happening.

[Skill Activated: Faith of the Unmade]

She was steady in the air again before she understood how, and the Wraith's smoke-shape was already recoiling from something it hadn't expected — a strike that didn't just wound it, but unraveled it, thread by thread, the way heat undid frost. It didn't scream. It simply stopped being coherent, the smoke losing whatever will had been holding it together, and dispersed into nothing at all.

Elarys stood in the settling dust, breathing hard, both hands trembling — not from pain. There wasn't any left to feel.

[Hidden Skill Threshold Reached]

[Skill Fully Revealed: Faith of the Unmade]

[Effect (Faith): Restores wounds and vitality beyond what conventional healing can reach — including injuries the Holy Fountain cannot fully close.]

[Effect (Unmade): Unravels a target at a fundamental level — bypassing armor, resistance, and conventional defense entirely.]

The squad regrouped around her, wide-eyed, and nobody said anything on the flight back. There wasn't anything that needed saying yet.

---

Back at the territory, Riven read the report the instant it arrived, three times before he trusted it. A skill the System itself had only ever managed to label with question marks, finally spelled out in full, and it read less like a single ability than two opposite miracles stitched into one name.

[Hunt Report: Void-Touched Creatures Slain — 6]

[Gold Earned: 210]

[Gold: 315 → 525]

[Hero EXP Gained: Elarys — 90]

[Hero Level: 3 → 4]

[Notable Encounter: Void Lesser Wraith — Threat Level: High]

Elarys landed a step ahead of the rest of her squad, wings folding tight, one arm curled protectively against her side out of habit more than need, expression somewhere between exhaustion and disbelief.

"It almost had me," she said, before Riven could ask. "Bigger than the others. Faster too. It came apart into smoke when I finally hit it — really hit it, not just wounded it. Something in me just... answered. Like it had been waiting for me to need it badly enough to ask."

"Faith of the Unmade," Riven said quietly, reading it back to her. "That's what came out of you back in the Ethereal Space. The part the System couldn't name."

She nodded slowly, flexing the arm that had taken the worst of the fight — already healed, no wince left behind it at all. "I didn't decide to use it. It used itself, the moment the alternative was dying. I don't fully understand it yet. But I understand it more than I did an hour ago."

Riven set the report against everything else he knew about the void — a resource, yes, but not an infinite one without cost, and apparently one that had just handed him something no ordinary Lord's Hero would ever carry. "Then we push carefully until we know its limits," he said. "Gold's good. Gold's not worth losing someone permanently — you included. Pull the rotation back to easier ground if the next few shifts see more of these Wraiths."

"Agreed," Elarys said. She rolled her shoulder once, testing it, and seemed satisfied with what she found. "For what it's worth, four levels in two days wasn't something I expected either. Whatever's out there, it's teaching me faster than anything inside your boundary ever could — and apparently it just taught me something the whole System couldn't."

"Then it's a fair trade," Riven said. "Gold for me, growth for you. Everybody walks away ahead."

By evening, a familiar notification bloomed as the sun dropped toward the treeline.

[Lord EXP Gained: 620]

[Current Level: 2 (650/2,000 EXP)]

Riven read it over, satisfied. Not a level up yet, but steady progress from walls and towers instead of another lucky find. Development, apparently, kept paying out exactly the way it had every day since he'd arrived — no ceiling in sight yet, no sign that the well was running dry.

The quiet didn't last long. A horn sounded from the new Watchpost, sharp and unmistakable, and Riven was moving before he'd finished processing the sound.

[Identification Activating...]

[Target: Approaching Signature]

[Species: Stonehide Charger (Juvenile)]

[Threat Level: Moderate]

[Approach Vector: Northeast, Ground-Based]

A second Stonehide, smaller than the one they'd killed two days ago, moving fast along the treeline toward the new wall's northeast corner. Riven felt something steady settle into his chest instead of the old spike of panic — this was exactly the situation the wall existed for.

"Archers to the wall," he called. "Nobody outside the perimeter. Let it come to us."

Six units scrambled up the low stone barrier, bows already in hand, and the Watchpost's height gave them a clean line before the creature had even cleared the treeline properly. The first volley caught it mid-stride, and a second followed before it managed to close half the remaining distance. It slammed into the wall's outer face once, hard enough to shake dust loose from the stonework, then staggered back under a third volley and went down in the open field beyond the perimeter — never once setting a foot inside.

[Threat Neutralized]

[Unit EXP Gained: 6 (Distributed)]

[Wall Integrity: 98% — Minor Damage]

Riven walked the wall's length afterward, running a hand along the small crack the impact had left. Ninety-eight percent, after a full-grown collision from something that would have sent an unarmored unit flying two days ago. He'd spent gold and resources on stone instead of another round of training, and the trade had paid for itself in a single evening.

"That's the whole point of a wall," Elarys said, joining him at the damaged section. "Something to absorb the hit that would've cost you someone otherwise."

"Cheap, compared to a funeral," Riven said. He looked out past the wall toward the darkening treeline, toward the boundary where the void hunt continued its endless, rotating shifts, and toward whatever the next two days still had waiting for him. "Repair crew on this tonight. I want it back to full before anything bigger decides to test it."

Riven looked out from the new Watchpost one last time before climbing down — a walled territory, a manned tower, a fountain that healed anything short of death, a Blacksmith turning Stonehide materials into real equipment, and a hundred and twenty-one loyal subjects who trusted him without needing a reason beyond the one number that mattered most to them.

Two days left. Whatever came through that boundary first, he intended to meet it standing on ground he'd built himself.