Adamant Blood

The north pole was awash with color, like normal. Rainbows ripped up from the waters, turning the ocean into rivers, and then back again. The flow was ever-churning, and warm. The rainbows covered an area of about a thousand kilometers in diameter, but sometimes they arced further than that when something was about to come through, or leave. It was like this on both Earth and Daihoon, for the two worlds were connected by the churning, aurora-filled magnetosphere, but it was not a direct connection.

A lot of kaiju lived in the between-space; in Endless Daihoon.

Casual flickers of rainbow flowed out and into the main density of auroras.

One larger flicker flowed outward and then it grew and grew.

The watchers of Endless Daihoon, from both Aluatha and Okuana, noted the disturbance and marked it down as a possible cat 5 kaiju.

Over the next few days the disturbance grew and grew, and the 'cat 5' was upgraded to a 'cat 6', as the rainbow flashed outward, pulling even further from the main disturbance of auroras. The further away a kaiju manifested from the Crossing, the larger it was. Some of the largest kaiju, the Bigs, were too large to cross the Crossing at all, but there had been records of Bigs attempting to get to Daihoon. Endless Daihoon had always connected to Daihoon, but it had only connected to Earth in the last 80 years.

When Bigs tried to get through to Daihoon, it was like the whole thousand kilometer storm of auroras flickered outward, tracing a rainbow path thick as a continent across the sky, drawing almost near the equator sometimes, threatening to release its kaiju upon Daihoon and kill everything, everywhere.

But the Bigs never made it to Daihoon, or to Earth. Those massive disruptions always kept going, all the way to the southern pole, to the other entrance/exit to Endless Daihoon.

The current disturbance, noted on June 18, remained a cat 6 kaiju, dumping its monstrosity near what they would call Greenland on Earth, and which was just called 'part of the Wastes' on Daihoon.

When the pillar of rainbows broke away, revealing its contents, it showed a massive goblin made of light, easily 600 meters tall and fully formed of rainbow brilliance.

The goblin rapidly vanished.

The watchers from Aluatha and Okuana could not find the goblin anywhere.

Aurora sat at her desk, on June 23rd, rereading the report, and then ten different sub-reports. The news of the kaiju-sized goblin was making its rounds in the upper echelons of both Empires and also the Settlement of Xerkona. She set the papers back down, and then looked across her desk at the man who had delivered the report to her.

Sentinel Walter Volkov seemed ready to kill someone; this was very normal for him.

Aurora said, "It's the Lightbody goblin that got away and then escaped to Endless Daihoon in the Battle for Memphi, and you think the Lightbody goblin is coming here."

"That's what we think, yes."

Aurora asked, "So you're not here to try and steal Mark away?"

"We will if we can, but the window to force the issue has passed."

"The ability to force the issue has passed," Aurora stated.

Walter shrugged. "Doubtful."

"Not doubtful, Sentinel," Aurora said, her tone carefully icy. This was big politics right here, and Aurora had to play it calmly. "You have been rebuffed multiple times, and then again by Mark as of yesterday, when he denied you again. You will not attempt any coercion of any sort, or your ability to remain here at this settlement will be revoked. For all of our worldliness, this is still a settlement. I still retain complete, tyrannical control, if I so choose."

Walter rolled his eyes at her.

Rolled his eyes!

Aurora had half a mind to grab the man and fling him outside of her window. Maybe she could even send him sailing all the way to the wall, a few kilometers to the north.

Walter said, "I went to those Brawny Battles you have at that coliseum, Aurora—"

" 'General Valen' to you," Aurora corrected.

" 'General Valen'," Walter said, though it was an allowance from him to her, and not the recognition of propriety at all. He was humoring her. Walter continued, "You got 70,000 civilians living here. Some of them are kids! You got property values in the millions, and noble houses that look 10 generations old out there. This is a settlement in name only."

"Names matter, facts matter, and the truth is that this is a settlement and everyone here is under my absolute protection inside these walls. Outside of these walls, everyone who signed up with me is still under my protection. That means Mark, Eliot, the whole team, and everyone else from Reeni to my mother."

"So if I come in here with a writ of remit for Mark, from Aluatha? What would happen then?"

Aurora stood. Walter remained seated. Aurora politely said, "Thank you most dearly, Sentinel Walter, for bringing to my attention the possible ingress of a very strong goblin. Now, if you would permit me, I will be showing you what I will do if you come in here with any 'official' demands for Mark or any of my people."

Walter stood even before Aurora was finished.

Aurora grabbed Walter with Supreme Telekinesis, the world bending into rainbows at her grip. She avoided the furniture and most everything else, and Walter began to spark in her grip, golden light flickering out and zapping her Power with reflective damage. Aurora ignored the damage, but it was not nothing.

And then she threw him through the window at the back of her office, sending him and part of the wall and all of the glass flying.

She grabbed the debris to prevent it from falling on anyone who might be down there, and she stacked it into a pile by her desk. The wall was easier to repair if the materials were still around.

Walter kept flying.

Aurora stood at the edge of her office and watched Walter sail across the sky and slow down at his apex. He kept falling a bit, but it was a controlled sort of fall. He landed about a kilometer away from the wall, easily touching down with both feet, without splatting at all.

Aurora hummed. And then she placed a temporary block in the wall with her telekinesis. Rainbow flex lines stretched across the broken wall, the wind cutting off, as she turned and pressed one of her many quick-dial buttons on her large phone. She waited.

Ralph, from the Repair Corps of the settlement —something Aurora didn't think she needed to make this early in the lifetime of the settlement, but there it was— responded, "15 minutes for normal repair?"

"That's acceptable."

Ralph hung up.

The guy was curt, and solid. Aurora appreciated that from her Repair Corps.

Aurora pressed another button.

A few rings later, Inquisitor Joon from the Hall answered, "Aurora! How can I help you?"

"Tell the Inquisitors to prioritize training the new recruits on high tier goblin maneuvers, and give Derek some more leeway. He's going to be a front-liner for this. That Lightbody goblin that got away from the Battle For Memphi might be coming here, or he might not. He emerged from the Northern Crossing several days ago on the 18th as a 600 meter tall kaiju form, and then he vanished. That's all."

Joon had a moment, and then he said, "Yes, ma'am!"

Aurora ended the call.

There was other business to do, like the literal stack of long term requests for joining the settlement. Every one of those extra 72,000 people out there were only here on travel allowances, and the majority of them would be forced to leave in a month, but others would show up soon to replace those lost, and honestly, if Aurora wanted, this settlement would already be 150,000 people.

Part of her wanted that. She wanted that recognition that she could make a safe home; that she could be more than a person-sized nuclear bomb for Aluatha. But the settlement didn't have the bureaucracy infrastructure to settle that many people at this moment, nor did they have the allowances from Aluatha to do such a thing. The systems in place were already straining, and if she allowed too many people here, then Aurora was going to get some visits from Second Princess Walaria Aluatha, asking her if she was trying to step away from the Empire.

Aurora did not want that to happen at all.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

… Aurora pressed a button on the phone.

Several chimes later, Iliandra Snowstepper, the ambassador for Aluatha, picked up the phone.

"Greetings Aurora. I noticed Walter went flying."

"He deserved it. I need to talk about several important topics."

"Now-important? Your place or mine?"

"A few hours is fine, or tonight. Your place. It's about being in-line with Aluatha's desires, and it will probably concern Mark tangentially."

"I'm with some people right now, but I will be at my house to receive you in 2 hours, if that is acceptable."

"It is. Thank you."

"Look forward to seeing you, Aurora."

Click.

Aurora got down to paperwork that had already been sorted by Yoro, and she started signing off on names. Soon, Ralph showed up carrying a box of tools.

Ralph nodded. "Ma'am."

Aurora said, "Hello, Ralph." She removed the seal she had placed with her power in the wall and the wind flowed. "You can see the issue."

"I can, yes. Thanks for saving the materials."

He got to work, using some spells and some tools to replace what Aurora had broken, while Aurora worked on her own pile of obligations. Soon, the wall was back up like it had been and Ralph was gone.

Aurora kept right on working until it was time to leave to talk with Iliandra.

She flew there, which wasn't exactly polite, but it was needed, so she did it.

Iliandra opened her door before Aurora got to it, bowing, as she said, "Welcome, General."

Aurora nodded. "Ambassador."

It was a pretty normal interaction, with tea and cookies and a lot of information given back and forth quickly and succinctly, and Aurora was thankful for that. Iliandra knew more than Aurora did, and apparently the Empire was good with Aurora taking a hard stance against Okuanan incursion into the settlement.

"Why did the Empire allow Okuana to send Walter, anyway?"

Iliandra said, "They didn't. It was organized entirely through the Collective and at great political cost in the capital Crytalis because Walter being here was an imperative from Drakarok himself. We're keeping eyes on it." She sipped her tea, letting that information set in, and then she asked, "Walter didn't fly as far as you wanted, did he?"

Aurora said, "He stung a bit to hold onto, too. He's more dangerous than he appears."

"Can you kill him if you need to?"

"Of course I can. I don't want to, though."

Iliandra nodded. "The Empire is keeping an eye on him, specifically. Executioners are fine, but we also prefer them all in other nations, and not in ours."

Aurora had a few traitorous thoughts about how Aluatha would be better with a few more Executioners, but she did not voice those thoughts. Never, never. Of course Aluatha already knew those thoughts, which was why Second Princess Walaria was always so interested in Aurora, ever since Aurora had been a child that finished the Tutorial at age 12 and showed up as one of the most powerful Talents of the generation.

Mark was going to get there, too.

Soon, he would share the crosshairs with Aurora.

Iliandra surprised Aurora by saying, "Walaria sends her regards."

Aurora was very polite as she said, "I thank the Second Princess for her regards."

The conversation moved on.

- - - -

Grax looked down at 'the settlement' and it hurt to look at the place, which was weird.

Grax pulled back, back back back, to the mountains a thousand kilometers from the place, to center himself once again into his body, though 'his body' was not what it had been. Grax had changed into—

Old Slave stood nearby, watching.

Grax went very, very still.

Old Slave was wearing formal clothes instead of the normal-to-wear nothing that all goblins should be proud to wear. Their skin was tough, and their bodies didn't have weaknesses like humans. But to wear clothes was to imply the need to hide…

Which is what elder goblins did. Right now it was just the two of them, but it should have been only Grax. How did he get here?

Grax asked, "How did you find me?"

Old Slave said, "Ask a question I will actually answer, and I will talk."

"Why are you here?"

"To stop you from attacking the humans."

"Why?!" Grax demanded, the world thrumming with his anger.

The world around Old Slave was calm as could be, as he simply said, "I would have thought your stint in the Everlands would have made you more cautious of attacking things that you don't know." He added, "And I would have thought you would have come back with a few million brothers."

Grax's temper gutted like a spent flame. "… They couldn't survive out there. I tried. They died." His anger flared a little. "They were so bleeding stupid. Idiot! Idiot brothers!" And then he pointed south, to a place a thousand kilometers away. "I want some proper breeders! Proper brothers! Ones that actually listen and reason and won't simply attack toenails, trying to bite what they cannot even stand near without dying!"

Old Slave nodded, his mannerisms too human, and he continued, "Which is a very good reason to leave these humans alone. They cannot kill us, and they're going to bring a lot of prosperity within 600 kilometers of Goblinhome. The closest human settlement we've ever had, and the largest. You have lived within the shadow of kaiju for months now, so surely you understand that if you cannot fight, and that it does not want to kill you, that you must learn to live within the shadow."

Grax glared. "For now, yes. But I do not plan on being complacent forever. There will be total war and total subjugation soon."

Old Slave grinned, showing off his weeping fangs. And then he huffed, and spat to the side. His breeding venom sizzled on the ground, as he said, "Goblins have been around forever, young one. But the ones who survive and live again, like me, like you, are the only ones that are worth anything at all, and we require human hosts. Good human hosts. Without good human hosts, we are nothing, and the humans are very, very easy to hunt to extinction. For a long time, the quality of hosts was very, very low, for a lot of reasons. It's getting better now. Much better. So please, allow the nursery to hatch a few more worthwhile lacunas before we reap them all. Please allow for infiltration, plans, and organization to happen.

"Come back home, to Goblinhome."

Grax went, "Bah! … I will… I will come home when I am ready."

"Will you assault the settlement after I leave?"

"… No."

"I believe you," Old Slave said, "Please don't make me distrust your words, Grax. It has been wonderful watching you grow up to a fine, strong goblin."

"You would have been fine with any of my brothers coming out on top. Stop pretending to care."

"Oh but I do care! I care a lot. I only care because you are strong; this is true. But I do care about you, now that you are strong."

Grax huffed. "Begone, Old Slave. I will not approach the settlement until organization occurs at Goblinhome."

Old Slave bowed, and then he walked away, out of the big cave where Grax had thought he had been protected.

How had the elder goblin found him?

And did he risk the humans finding him in the same way?