Chapter 225: The Evolution Begins!
When Neil came out Ileana was awake, sitting up with the unhurried quality of her mornings, and she looked at him with morning eyes that were clear and warm and direct.
Jane was still asleep.
They got up together quietly, leaving her to sleep, and went out to the courtyard where the morning was just establishing itself, the domain’s population beginning its day in the usual configurations.
Bob was already outside at the new workshop section, apparently having been there since before Neil woke up, examining something with the focused energy he brought to things he found structurally interesting, talking at his usual outdoor volume to Rob who had appeared shortly after.
Fay had breakfast on the table by the time the domain’s morning population had assembled, the thoroughness she always brought to the meal schedule making the transition from sleep to morning smooth for everyone.
Jane appeared from the main building looking somewhat better rested than the evening version of her had been, her minor injuries from the hunting trip less visible in the morning light, the exhaustion somewhat less total though still present.
She found her seat beside Rin at the table with the ease that had developed between them over the past weeks and ate with the genuine appetite of someone who had not been eating well for several days and was now in a position to address that.
Leon was in his usual seat.
Rin looked at him at some point during the meal and Leon’s eyes moved in her direction at approximately the same moment and the exchange that followed was the usual one, brief and careful and carrying something that neither of them had put words to yet.
Neil ate his food and drank his tea and looked at the domain around him in the morning light, the black rock walls and the upgraded buildings and the better defenses and the populated courtyard and the barrier running solid and deep at the perimeter.
Everything that had needed to happen had happened and more.
Now it was his turn.
He thought through the plan in the linear way he thought through things that required a clear sequence.
The clash realm first, to meet Cynthia, which he had told her he would do before starting the evolution.
Then the evolution itself, which Nemo estimated would take five to seven days for the 4th Origin, possibly longer given how the 3rd Origin evolution had run.
The Nest creature would be ready approximately when the evolution completed, which was the alignment he had aimed for.
After the evolution he would consume the 4th Origin gene potions he had collected in the Wooden Poisoned Realm, all four tiers worth, which would integrate into his foundation at the 4th Origin level.
Then the Nest creature, the 4th Origin Mythic Class beast he had set generating from the Diamond class blood, for the two Mythic tier gene points his cores needed.
The 4th Origin evolution, the gene potions, the Nest creature.
In sequence, without rushing any one of them at the expense of the next.
He stood from the table.
"I will be in the core room." He said, to Ileana specifically. "And then back."
She understood what the core room meant in this context and looked at him with the expression she had when she understood something and was giving it its appropriate weight without making a production of it.
He went to the core room.
The access to the clash realm was through the domain’s core systems, the connection point that allowed him to enter the constructed space where training and certain kinds of meeting happened, and he stood in the core room with his hand on the access point and felt the familiar pull of the transition begin.
The core room disappeared.
The clash realm resolved around him with the quality it always had, the particular artificial clarity of a constructed space, and she was already there.
Cynthia was standing in the centre of the open ground with her arms at her sides and her expression carrying the composed and settled quality she brought to everything, but underneath the composure was something that had been waiting, something that registered in the small ways she did not always fully manage to contain.
She looked at him for a moment.
He looked at her.
Then she crossed the space between them and the kiss she gave him was not the measured version of herself, it was the version that had been fourteen days in the making, warm and direct and carrying the full weight of whatever she had been holding while he was in that realm where she could not reach him and could only wait.
He held her and she held him and the clash realm was quiet around them.
When she stepped back her expression was the uncomplicated version, the one that existed before the queen and the teacher and all the other things she was in public contexts.
"You are actually back." She said.
"I told you I would be." He said.
She looked at him with the expression she had when she was deciding whether to accept a characterisation or not, and then accepted it with the quality of someone who had decided the argument was not one she wanted to spend time on right now.
They walked through the clash realm together and she asked him about the realm in the way she asked about things she wanted to understand properly, not casually but with the focused precision of someone building a real picture.
He told her about the Wood Snakes, the environmental architecture and the venom profiles and the regeneration system and the displacement ability of the Diamond class, and she listened and asked the occasional precise question.
She told him about the lost elven kingdom.
The timeline had narrowed to less than two weeks, the access conditions aligning faster than the earlier projections had indicated, and the various parties with interest in the location were all moving toward it now with the momentum of things that had passed the point of planning and were in execution.
Caleb’s group was confirmed attending.
Several other kingdoms of standing were confirmed.
The snake kingdom was attending, which meant Cynthia herself would be there.
She told him about the elven ruins themselves, what was known of their internal architecture from the accounts of people who had been in similar structures, the dimensional peculiarities of ancient elven construction and what those peculiarities meant in practical terms for people entering them.
He told her about Freya’s thoughts on the dimensional barriers and the possibility of a new body, and she was quiet for a moment with the quality of someone absorbing a piece of information that changed the shape of something.
"That would change the dynamic considerably." She said, about Freya. "If she has a physical form inside the elven kingdom."
"I know." He said.
They talked through the relevant tactical considerations for what they might face inside, the things that were known and the things that were unknown and how to approach the gap between the two, and she was thorough and he was thorough and by the end of it he had a clearer picture of what the elven kingdom was likely to require than he had before.
At some point the conversation slowed and the particular quality of the silence between them in the clash realm settled, and she looked at him with the expression she had in moments when all the professional and strategic things had been set aside and what remained was simply what they were to each other.
He pulled her close.
She came to him with the willingness of someone who had been waiting for that specific thing, her hands against his chest and her face tilted up toward his, and he kissed her and the kiss carried everything it carried between them, the months of it and the distance and the particular way she felt when she was not managing any of it.
What followed was its own unhurried conversation in the open ground of the clash realm, entirely theirs, no walls and no one else and no version of either of them that required anything other than what they were in that space, and the hours moved the way hours moved when neither person involved was counting them.
Later, in the exhausted and warm peace of the aftermath, she lay against his chest with her arm across him and the realm was silent and theirs and neither of them spoke for a while.
He held her and the clash realm was quiet and she was warm against him and the steady quality of being simply present without anything pressing from any direction settled around both of them.
"You are not going to die in that elven kingdom." She said eventually, into the quiet.
"No." He said. "I am not."
She made a small sound that was acceptance and not fully acceptance, the quality of someone who had decided to believe something and was still doing the work of making that belief complete.
She sat up after a while and looked at him with the composed version of herself settling back into place, not because the unguarded version was less real but because the composed version was also real and was what she moved through the world in.
"Go." She said. "Evolve. Come out the other side of it."
"I will." He said.
She leaned forward and kissed him once more, brief and specific, and then sat back.
He left the clash realm.
The core room resolved around him again and he stood in it for a moment, feeling the transition settle.
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