Extra's Sign In System: The Hero's an Idiot!

Chapter 251: Chapter 251: What It Costs to Send

Chapter 251: What It Costs to Send

Draven Mordis stood in the dark courtyard of the villa.

He held a heavy, newly forged iron machete. The blade gleamed under the glowing green canopy of the World Tree. He stepped toward the massive silver trunk, preparing to do what the survival of Bastion Six required.

The Warden drifted down from the high branches.

The ancient, gold-veined spirit stopped directly in front of him. The spirit did not radiate anger. It radiated a profound, heavy sorrow.

"You have never grown a single living thing," the Warden whispered into the freezing night air. "You have only ever ended them. You are a reaper of the harvest. You will not be the one to sever her flesh."

Draven stopped. He looked at the heavy blade in his hand. The Warden was right.

"Who?" Draven asked quietly.

The Warden turned its glowing form toward the distant industrial sector.

"The boy who listens," the Warden answered.

Ten minutes later, Cole Rust walked into the courtyard.

The God-Forge Artisan did not carry a machete. He carried a customized, razor-sharp Star-Iron saw. He looked up at the towering, three-week-old canopy. His hands were covered in soot and calluses.

Cole hated this. He hated every single second of it.

His hands were built to craft armor and shape raw metal into tools of survival. He was a creator. Now, he was being asked to maim a newborn god.

Cole approached the tree. It was not a ceremony. It was a brutal, necessary surgery.

High above, nine ancient elemental spirits drifted out of the foliage. They circled the perimeter of the courtyard, glowing in the dark, watching the act in silent mourning. Near the trunk, the translucent newborn spirit did not move from the alchemical tap.

Cole set the jagged teeth of the Star-Iron saw against the base of a thick lower branch. He closed his eyes. He listened to the living resonance of the wood.

He pushed the blade forward.

SHNK.

The World Tree did not scream. It bled.

Heavy, glowing golden sap poured freely from the open wound, cascading down the silver bark. It was the exact same hyper-dense sap currently sitting in glass vials, keeping Master Engineer Halvers and the Vanguard tower crews standing on their feet.

Cole gritted his teeth and pulled the saw back.

SHNK.

Draven stood in the shadows and ran the brutal arithmetic in his head.

Severing a major limb shocked the World Tree’s biological system. The trauma meant the canopy would halt leaf production to heal the gash. No leaves meant no clearing towers. Halted towers meant delayed planting.

Every pull of the saw pushed the starvation clock backward. Sending a weapon to Bastion Six was going to cost Bastion Seven its own survival margin.

CRACK.

The heavy branch tore free from the trunk. It hit the courtyard stones with a heavy thud.

Cole dropped the saw. He turned around and walked away without looking back.

Lyra Voltaire stepped forward. She wore heavily padded alchemical gloves. She knelt in the dirt and lifted the bleeding wood into her arms.

She carried the heavy branch into the sterile laboratory.

A cutting was not a magical weapon. It was a dying piece of a tree. It had to be weaponized before it withered in the cold.

Lyra set the branch on her metal workbench. She opened the heavy Elven Encyclopedia. She frantically flipped through the glowing, runic pages, searching for a botanical preservation technique.

She found nothing useful for a war.

The ancient texts described peaceful, cultivated groves. The elves had written extensive poetry about nurturing roots through harmonious song.

They had never documented a method for keeping a severed root system aggressively alive in a hostile environment.

Lyra threw the book aside. She had to invent the poison herself.

She began mixing raw kinetic dust with stabilizing fluids. She coated the severed end of the branch in a harsh, heavy alchemical resin designed to force the wood into a state of panicked, desperate growth.

Outside the laboratory, Astraxion landed heavily on the Vanguard staging pad.

Astraxion had been sitting in the subterranean bays beneath Bastion Six since the squad landed. Draven had recalled him south two days ago for exactly this.

Draven walked out carrying a long, sealed iron case.

Astraxion growled low in his throat. The massive beast shifted away. The dragon had always avoided the canopy in the courtyard. He hated the pure nature magic.

Draven ignored the warning growl. He strapped the iron case tightly to the spiked ridges on the dragon’s back.

Astraxion snapped his jaws in irritation, but he accepted the burden.

The dragon launched violently into the freezing night sky, flying north alone.

Four hundred miles away, Bastion Six waited in the dark.

The ash-white corruption had breached the outer defensive perimeter. The pale veins of rot were creeping steadily into the cobblestones of the second district. The Vanguard garrison had retreated behind the inner barricades.

There was nothing left to do but hold the line and pray the payload arrived.

Inside the freezing command post, Aegon Logcheville stood near the heavy iron window shutters. He watched the white rot glowing faintly in the streets below.

Bram Stonehelm sat heavily against a wooden support pillar.

The earth mage was wrapped in thick, bloody bandages. His shattered collarbone jutted at an unnatural angle. He could not lift a weapon. He could not anchor himself to the bedrock.

Aegon knew his heaviest defender was out of the fight. Bram knew it too. Neither of them spoke the grim reality aloud.

Estella Everdawn stood near the tactical table.

Aegon held the smooth silver communication crystal in his left hand. The blue link to Draven’s interface hummed quietly.

Estella walked over to the young commander. She held out her hand.

"Give me the crystal," Estella requested softly.

Aegon looked at her. He saw the quiet, heavy resolve in her eyes. He handed the stone over without asking a single question. He stepped backward, leaning against the far wall of the cramped room, trapped in the tight space with her.

Estella pressed her thumb against the runic activation seal.

"Draven," Estella said into the stone.

"Report," Draven’s voice echoed back. It was sharp, operational, and stripped of all warmth.

Estella did not give a status update. She did not yell. She did not accuse him of harboring the Void God or lying about his origins.

She just spoke the painful truth.

"You used to talk to me," Estella stated.

The simple words cut through the freezing air of the command post. Aegon stiffened in the shadows, suddenly wishing he were standing out in the corrupted mud rather than inside this room.

Draven went silent on the other end of the link.

"Before Envoy Corwyn arrived," Estella continued, her voice remarkably steady. "Before we stood in the hallway of the bunker. I asked you one question about who you were. You gave me the shape of an answer instead of a real one."

She looked down at the glowing blue stone.

"And you have not looked at me the same way since," Estella finished.

She did not demand his secrets. She was addressing the sudden, freezing wall he had built between them.

Four hundred miles south, Draven stood alone in his bunker.

He gripped the edge of his table. He could not deny the accusation. It was flawlessly accurate.

He could not confess his reincarnated origins. The Ghost Protocol demanded that his identity remain a mystery. High Pontiff Malakor was watching the board. The lie had to survive the winter.

Draven offered the only honest thing he could manage.

"I pulled away deliberately," Draven answered.

His voice was flat. The cold admission echoed through the crystal.

"I established distance," Draven continued, refusing to soften the blow. "I am not going to explain the reasons behind it. But you are right to be angry with me."

Estella listened to the static hum of the crystal.

She absorbed the rejection. He had just confirmed that the isolation was an intentional choice. He was shutting her out, and he was refusing to apologize for it.

That was what she thought.

She did not offer forgiveness. She did not push for the hidden truth.

"I see," Estella whispered.

She pressed her thumb against the runic seal.

CLICK.

The blue light died.

She severed the connection first. It was a quiet reversal of every single conversation where Draven had walked away.

Estella set the dead stone down on the wooden table.

Aegon stood in the shadows by the window. He stared very hard at his iron boots, pretending he had not heard a word.

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