The flickering torchlight barely touched the edges of the war chamber—walls carved from volcanic blackstone, veins of silver mana pulsing through the floor like arteries feeding sothing ancient. The large round table before the throne buzzed with the echo of an argunt that had spiralled into cody hours ago.
Lina, Speaker of the Council, had tried three tis now to maintain order. She failed each ti.
"I'm simply saying," Snaggle muttered, tapping his claw against the table with irritating rhythm, "the treasury can't keep conjuring gold just because your 'God-Touched Goblings' want sapphire inlays on their chamber pots."
"Bah! You talk like a miser, Snaggle." Griv leaned back, boots kicked onto a half-finished map. "Let the wee ones have their sparkle. They'll grow up stabbing humans with sharper morale."
Snaggle twitched. "That is not how morale works, you walking fungus."
"Says the bean counter too afraid to enter a real dungeon!"
Leonhardt didn't flinch. He let them quarrel.
Across the chamber, Lina pinched the bridge of her nose, her dark skin flushed deeper with frustration. Her crimson eyes burned as she finally slamd both hands against the stone table. The bang echoed.
"Enough. Snaggle—report. Griv—shut your mouth."
Griv grinned but slumped back into silence. Snaggle adjusted his glasses.
"The Black Briar auction's cut has been accounted for," he began with the dryness of a man forced to report under duress. "In total: 1,200,000 marks, excluding the summoning scrolls and the auxiliary core."
"And the DP conversion?" Leonhardt asked without looking.
"Post-infusion with the auxiliary core?" Snaggle nodded. "Already risen by fourteen percent. We'll see full yield in three days."
"Good."
While Leonhardt attended the main auction, he used that ti for Snaggle and Griv to purchase so goblin summoning cores and treasures. This is why the DP increased after spending a large amount of marks; converting their rare and precious minerals into marks at the event would benefit them in the end.
Marks were the currency used by all other races, apart from humans.
However, humans didn't deny the existence of marks.
They were just too expensive for the normal person to have more than a few hundred.
Leonhardt turned his eyes to Lina, finally.
She stepped forward, robes rustling. "The outpost to the north—the old lizard dungeon. It's functional but vulnerable. Scouts report human movent through the foothills of the Ashen Crest range."
She paused, gaze steady.
"White armor. Holy emblems."
Erina tensed beside the throne. Mira didn't even blink.
Leonhardt exhaled slowly. "Priests?"
"Likely," Lina said. "But not official Temple Knights. More like zealots. Independent, unranked. Dangerous... because they act without order."
"Disgusting," Griv muttered. "Sll like candles and self-righteousness."
"They haven't reached the central egg chamber," Lina continued. "But they're close. We found one of the builders flayed and nailed to the stone with a silver dagger."
That silenced even Snaggle.
Leonhardt didn't react.
"Zafira."
She stepped forward from the edge of the shadows where she'd been watching everything with half-lidded gold eyes.
"Take Mira," Leonhardt said. "Scout the ruins. If they're still there—I want the head of whoever marked that worker."
Zafira blinked. "You're not going yourself?"
"I have to deal with sothing, and you are my most trusted and powerful aide. Can't I trust you to help ?"
Her lips twisted into a soft smirk.
"And if they sll like church?"
Leonhardt's voice turned iron.
"Kill them before they speak."
Zafira's wings fluttered slightly behind her, but she nodded.
Mira stepped forward without being told, her presence like frost behind silk. She didn't ask questions.
Zafira hesitated. Her gaze flicked to Erina, then back to Leonhardt. "You're staying behind with the priestess again?"
Leonhardt didn't answer.
But when he glanced toward Erina, Zafira clicked her tongue, muttered sothing under her breath, then turned sharply.
"I'll be quick. Don't get her pregnant while I'm gone."
She left the chamber with a puff of pink smoke, her hips swaying like a pendulum, Mira trailing behind like falling ash.
The flas dimd as Leonhardt rose from his throne.
The room no longer felt like a council chamber.
It felt like a war tent.
He looked at Lina.
"Mobilise 80% of the goblin army to protect the workers in the north dungeon. I will create additional forces to reinforce the outpost periter. Keep the tunnels narrow. If they're coming, we make them bleed for every step."
"Yes, my King," Lina murmured.
Snaggle adjusted his scrolls.
Griv gave a two-finger salute.
And the dungeon beneath Embervale stirred, slow and hungry.
——
Leonhardt closed his eyes after everyone left and watched Erina shifting uncomfortably in the corner while peeking at him with her deep green eyes.
The summoning chamber was alive with breathless silence.
Carved from obsidian, the floor spiralled outward like a broken spider's web — jagged lines of raw mana curling from a central glyph that pulsed with his blood. Steam clung to the walls. The torches here burned without fire. Only violet light. Unnatural. Low.
Leonhardt stood at the centre of the ritual web, one hand bare, the other resting at his side. His aura felt heavier now. Rooted. As if the dungeon itself responded not just to his presence, but to his thoughts.
This was his domain.
No throne. No council. Just creation.
Erina watched from near the wall, arms folded across her chest, trying not to shake.
The last ti she watched a birth, it had been human.
This wasn't.
He stepped forward.
No chant.
Just intent.
"Co!"
His eyes closed — not in prayer, but in command. The summoning sigil beneath him glowed hotter, brighter, the bloodline mark on his ribs flaring in response. Then… six circles spiralled outward. Like flowers blooming in ash.
One by one, they arrived.
Not in screams.
Not with grace.
They crawled.
Like sothing waking from a long, erotic sleep.
The first dragged herself into existence, naked and shivering, skin pale like milk, horns twisted unevenly above her head. She whispered his na before she could even speak. Her lips moved around it like a holy chant. "Lord Leonhardt…"
Then ca the second. Taller. Curvier. Eyes unfocused, but smiling already. "Master…"
The third giggled as she ford — a smoky, breathless sound, her tail twitching behind her bare thighs like a cat stretching after sleep. "I felt you call ... I ca…"
Erina's breath hitched.
The fourth arrived mid-laugh, voice half-sane, hands caressing her skin as if she'd been born into pleasure. The fifth had black sclera, glowing irises, and the softest voice of them all, whispering "Father…" like it hurt her to speak anything else.
And the last?
The sixth didn't speak.
She just stood there. Watching.
Her body was smaller. Less complete. No wings yet. No tail. But her eyes…
Erina's heart twisted.
Because the sixth didn't look at Leonhardt like a master.
She looked at him like ho.
"Why… why are they all so…"
She couldn't finish the sentence.
Leonhardt looked over his new creations.
His face remained blank, almost thoughtful — as if he hadn't just birthed six living creatures from desire and will alone.
"Well... you are all extrely beautiful. My Daughters of Desire."
They moved to him.
Not walking.
Crawling.
Their fingers pressed reverently into the stone floor, crawling toward the edge of his mana signature like moths to heat. They didn't hiss. They didn't beg.
They pressed their foreheads to the floor before him.
Six naked girls. Not quite monsters. Not quite won. All whispering.
"Master…"
"Father…"
"Leonhardt…"
Their voices layered together like a lullaby.
Erina couldn't move.
They weren't Zafira. None of them looked like her. Closer to monsters than humans, but the eeriness of their existence made her scared.
A natural rejection.
But each one seed to carry a part of that essence.
As if so part of his blood rembered Zafira and built it into them like instinct.
They were his, but more than that… it felt this was their desire, not his.
Not summoned.
Not ordered.
They wanted to serve, to be born for him.
Leonhardt stepped forward once, standing among them.
Six heads lifted. Six mouths opened.
They didn't ask.
They waited.
"You were made to care for this place," he said finally. "To serve it. To live in it. And if needed…"
He paused.
"…To protect it."
Leonhardt looked different in this mont, he didn't look at them like won, or with desire, instead it was like a leader, a master, a father... they weren't existences he lusted for...
Erina didn't know if she was right, it was just her hope... because each one was beautiful... as beautiful as her.
There was a mont where she wanted to beco one of them, rather than wearing a fake mask... she wanted Leonhardt to change her forever.
'W-what a foolish thought...' She scrunched up her face and tried to forget it.
anwhile, the sixth girl — the youngest — leaned against his leg without speaking.
She exhaled like she'd been given a na.
He didn't stop her.
And across the room, Erina finally looked down.
Because the way they looked at him…
That wasn't love.
That was worship.
And for the first ti, she wasn't sure if she was watching a king build his court.
Or a god making his first church.
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