Chapter 228: Chapter 228: Empty Shelves
Chapter 228: Empty Shelves
The morning sun illuminated the utter destruction of the courtyard.
The heavy stone flagstones were completely gone. The massive, thick roots of the World Tree had shattered them into powder. The high perimeter walls of the private villa were fractured and groaning under the pressure.
A massive canopy of glowing emerald leaves stretched over the estate. The towering tree was now easily visible from three districts away.
Draven stood near the silver trunk. He stared up at the canopy.
He was watching the small, tightly closed green bud resting between the upper branches. It had not changed. It was still silently gestating the newborn spirit.
FLAP.
Astraxion finally descended from the morning sky. The neon-purple Void Dragon had refused to land all night.
The dragon did not land in the branches. It dropped onto a thick, exposed root near Draven’s boots.
Astraxion looked up at the glowing green bud and let out a low, cautious hiss. The apex predator knew something vastly superior was growing inside that flower.
Draven reached down and scratched the dragon behind the horns.
"Let her sleep," Draven murmured.
---
Miles away in the outer commercial ring, the city was not sleeping.
It was day two of the Capital blockade. The Vanguard grain ships were sitting idle in the distant waters.
Panic had set in.
A massive, shouting crowd of civilians flooded the narrow street outside the Stonehelm Bakery. The line stretched around the block. People were shoving each other, waving thick stacks of Vanguard credits in the air.
"Two loaves!" a desperate man yelled, slamming coins onto the wooden counter. "I will pay triple!"
Mr. Stonehelm stood behind the counter. The baker looked exhausted. His apron was covered in white dust, but the massive iron bins behind him were completely empty.
"I am out of flour," Mr. Stonehelm repeated for the hundredth time. His voice was hoarse and broken.
Mrs. Stonehelm sat on a wooden stool in the back corner. She was staring blankly at the wall. Her hands were folded tightly in her lap.
The prices in the market had doubled overnight. It was not a Vanguard decree. It was pure fear.
---
Deep inside the command bunker, Lord Commander Helion Goldmane made the hard choice.
Helion sat at the head of the war room table. He held a heavy iron pen. He signed his name at the bottom of a thick parchment document.
"Issue the decree," Helion ordered, sliding the paper across the table.
Tokks stared at the document in horror.
"Lord Commander, this is a full rationing order," Tokks protested loudly. "It is only day two of the blockade. The public storehouses still look completely full. If you cut their meals in half today, the outer rings will riot. They will call you a tyrant."
Helion leaned back in his heavy wooden chair. His golden eyes were devoid of any warmth.
"I will gladly be a tyrant to a living city," Helion stated coldly. "If we wait until the shelves are empty to start rationing, I will be the savior of a graveyard. Post the decree."
Tokks swallowed hard. He took the paper and marched out of the war room.
Draven stepped out of the shadows near the corner of the room. He had been listening quietly.
"The flat ration is a mistake," Draven pointed out flatly.
"Everyone eats the same amount," Helion replied, rubbing his temples. "It is the only way to maintain order."
"That cannot be done," Draven countered.
"Halvers and his engineering crews are hauling multi-ton stones to build the clearing towers. The border garrison fights daily. If you feed a heavy laborer the same ration as a desk clerk, the laborer will collapse in a week."
Helion closed his eyes. He knew the math was true.
"You want me to formalize a tier system," Helion said quietly. "You want me to sign a paper stating a Vanguard soldier’s life is worth more calories than a starving child in the lower wards."
"It is the ugly math of survival," Draven said.
"No," Helion refused firmly. The Lord Commander opened his eyes. "I will not put that in writing. The decree remains flat."
Draven did not argue. He gave a single nod. Helion had his limits as a leader. Draven understood that.
But Draven did not have those limits.
He left the bunker and returned to the villa. He walked down into the secure, underground Meditatory Chambers beneath the courtyard.
He sat down on the cold stone floor and closed his eyes.
Draven pulled his consciousness into the [Astral Server].
The endless dark expanse of his soul was flooded with the warm emerald light of the World Tree. He stood in the center of the conceptual space.
He willed a connection to open.
A sleek, well-dressed man materialized in the green light.
Sirius Statanham adjusted his expensive suit collar. The criminal Don looked around the glowing dimension with wide, amazed eyes.
"I never get used to this place," Sirius muttered.
"I have a job for your network," Draven said, cutting straight to business.
Sirius instantly focused. He had spent months expanding his underworld contacts across Bastions Six, Seven, and Eight. He had been waiting for a real directive.
"Name it," Sirius said.
"Smuggling," Draven ordered. "Not weapons. Not Miasma tech. Grain. I want every single transport route the Capital does not actively monitor."
Sirius frowned. He pulled a silver cigar case from his pocket, mostly out of habit.
"Smuggling food is a dangerous game, Draven," Sirius warned seriously. "It creates a massive black market. Profiteers will hoard the shipments. The wealthy nobles will buy it all, and the poor in the lower wards will starve."
"I am aware of the cost," Draven replied coldly. "Can you do it?"
Sirius sighed. He put the cigar case away.
"I can do it," Sirius confirmed. "I have men in the neutral Bastions. Bastion Nine and Bastion Eleven have surplus stores. But they will not sell at market price. They will ask for a four-hundred percent markup just for the risk of angering the Capital."
"Pay them whatever they ask," Draven instructed.
Draven had the ten million Vanguard credits Helion had provided. He did not care about the gold.
"Every neutral Bastion that takes our money becomes fractionally complicit," Draven analyzed aloud. "We are buying grain, but we are also buying their allegiance. Make them rich, Sirius."
Sirius nodded slowly, calculating the logistics.
"There is one more thing," Sirius added, a rare look of genuine respect crossing his face. "Lord Commander Gunther contacted my men in Bastion Six."
Draven narrowed his eyes. "Gunther is still rebuilding his walls. He cannot spare resources."
"He does not care," Sirius said quietly. "Gunther is loading three heavy transport crawlers with grain from his own military reserve. He is cutting his own people’s rations to send food to Bastion Seven. He honors the alliance."
Draven went completely silent.
The weight of Gunther’s loyalty was staggering. The massive Earth Mage was starving his own recovering city to keep Helion’s people alive. It was a debt Draven would never forget.
"Secure Gunther’s transports," Draven ordered. "Make sure the Cult does not intercept them."
"I have one more asset to present," Sirius said, gesturing to the empty space beside him. "I pulled him into the lower sleep state. He is waiting in the lobby."
"Bring him in," Draven commanded.
A second figure materialized in the green light.
It was Sogaar. The thin, twitchy information broker from the refinery alleyway in Sector Four.
Sogaar fell to his knees immediately. The broker was absolutely terrified. He recognized the white mask.
"I did not say anything!" Sogaar begged rapidly. "I swear to the gods! I saw you take the Capital Envoy, but I kept my mouth shut!"
"You tried to sell the memory to a Cult sympathizer two days ago," Sirius corrected flatly. "My men intercepted the buyer."
Sogaar paled, shivering violently in the conceptual space.
Draven looked down at the pathetic broker. A dead man was useless. A greedy man was highly predictable.
"I am not going to kill you, Sogaar," Draven said.
Sogaar looked up, his eyes wide with disbelief.
"You know the lowest smuggling routes in Sector Four," Draven continued. "You know the blind spots the Vanguard patrols miss. You are going to work for Sirius. You are going to route the black-market grain directly into the city."
Draven stepped closer. The absolute pressure of his Level 100 aura pressed down on the broker.
"And I pay far better than the Hawks," Draven finished coldly.
"Yes," Sogaar gasped, nodding frantically. "Yes, whatever you need. I know the routes. I can move the cargo."
Draven severed the connection. Sirius and Sogaar vanished from the server.
Draven opened his eyes in the physical world.
He was sitting on the cold stone floor of the Meditatory Chambers. It was late at night. The bunker was dead silent.
A glowing blue screen flickered in his vision.
---
[Daily Sign-In Available.]
Draven mentally selected the prompt. He had not missed a single day, even during the chaos.
[Sign-In Successful.]
[Reward: Minor Stamina Potion (x2).]
---
It was a generic, low-tier reward. Draven dismissed the screen and sent the vials directly into his inventory without a second thought. He banked it with the rest of his supplies.
He leaned his head back against the stone wall. He closed his eyes and ran the brutal mathematics in his head.
Sella had calculated one hundred and forty days of food before the rationing. Helion’s strict cuts would extend that slightly. Sirius’s black-market smuggling would bring in supplementary shipments. Gunther’s heavy transports would provide a critical buffer.
Draven tallied every single variable. He accounted for the accelerated growth rate of the purified soil in the outer sectors.
The final number settled in his mind.
It was not enough.
Even with the smuggling, the rationing, and the sacrifices from Bastion Six, they would completely run out of food in exactly one hundred days.
But the winter wheat required one hundred and twenty days in the ground to yield a harvest.
Halvers could seed the first purified sector inside two weeks. Everything past that waited on towers that did not exist yet.
Two weeks to plant. One hundred and twenty days to grow.
The projected harvest date landed at day two hundred and ninety-one.
Two hundred and ninety-one minus one hundred and ninety.
There was a hundred-day gap.
A hundred days of empty shelves. A hundred days of starvation before the first crop could be pulled from the ground.
A hundred days.
Draven stood up in the dark. The logistics of survival were failing. He needed his squad to reach their absolute peak, and he needed them to do it faster than humanly possible.
It was time to open the Guildmaster training.
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