The training grounds were warm with late‑afternoon sun, practice dummies casting long, patient shadows across the packed earth. Half a day had passed since the convoy and the ranch intake; the castle hummed with the small, urgent business of beasts and men. Sam stood at the center of the field with his bonds and lieutenants arrayed around him—Helios perched on a high stone like a living sun, Dionysus twitching with restless curiosity, Indra a small, impatient storm at Sam's feet, Vlad waiting at the edge with the steady patience of a man who had learned to wait for the right moment. One and Eleven hovered like shadows, ready to count and carry.
Helios and Dionysus moved together to the first webbed cocoon. The silk unspooled with a soft, papery sound and the threads fell away to reveal a neat, glittering pile: beast cores stacked like dull coins and a small mountain of troop tokens that caught the slanting light. One counted aloud while Eleven checked the sacks. Twenty‑three troop tokens, One announced, and the cores were heavy in their sacks—real, immediate wealth for a lord who measured power in beasts and soldiers.
The second cocoon opened like a dark bloom. Three eggs lay within, each nearly a meter tall and half that in width, their shells mottled with shadow and a faint, cold sheen. A low hum rose from them, a vibration that made the hair on Sam's arms stand up. Dionysus padded forward, nose twitching, and announced with a delighted trill, "Garuda eggs."
Sam's eyebrows rose. "Garuda?" he said.
Dionysus's grin was all teeth and mischief. "Rare. Hard to find unless you catch them grown. These—" she tapped an egg with a claw "—are a miracle."
Helios's voice filled the space between them, low and steady. "Dionysus scented something and ran off. I followed. She was staring at two corpses—huge things. A Tier‑10 Shadow Garuda and a Tier‑10 Three‑Headed Python. They'd torn each other apart until they bled out. The third python head had the Garuda's talons sunk into it; the Garuda had its beak through the python's neck. They were locked together like lovers and enemies. Dionysus found the eggs nearby, ate from the carcasses, and then slept. We took the eggs."
The image lodged in Sam's mind: two titans, dead and tangled, and three eggs left like a bitter, impossible gift. The eggs radiated shadow and hunger and the promise of flight. Rare as they were, they were also a warning—Tier‑10 things were dying beyond Twilight's borders, and where titans clashed, opportunity and danger followed in equal measure.
The third cocoon cracked with a metallic clink. Four hulking figures unfolded—gorillas the size of small wagons, fur silver as moonlight and skin the color of dried blood. Their fists were sheathed in something like hammered steel, knuckles gleaming with a cold, industrial sheen. The handlers stepped back a pace; these were Steel Fist Gorillas, Tier 7, and they looked built for breaking walls as much as bones.
"One," Sam said without hesitation, thinking fast, "send them to the ranch. Have two handlers bring back two tamed specimens for immediate use here. The rest stay for training and breeding trials."
One inclined his head and moved like a shadow to execute the order.
The final cocoon shivered and spilled three birds into the light—Blood Eagles, enormous and terrible, feathers lacquered in blood red and black, eyes like coals, talons black as obsidian. Each bird measured roughly three meters from beak to tail, wingspans twice that. They flexed and shook, the sound like a storm rolling over a cliff.
Vlad's hand went to his chest before his mouth could form the question. "One," he said, voice steady, "I want one."
Sam looked at the man who had stood by him through raids and long nights. He saw the hunger in Vlad's eyes—the quiet, old longing for a companion that could carry him above the world. "Take one," Sam said. "The other two go to the ranch."
Vlad's grin was a rare thing—soft and fierce at once. He stepped forward, and the handlers moved the remaining birds toward the pens.
A shadow detached itself from the tree line: Clone Sam, Tiger Guards in formation, the same efficient, unblinking presence Sam had come to expect. The clone handed over a bag of beast cores and a stack of troop tokens, then did something Sam had learned to accept without surprise—dissolving into a golden light that flowed toward Sam and entered his mind like a key.
Memories flooded in: the clone's hunts, the cave mouths he had marked, the exact coordinates of two caverns that pulsed with raw magic. Sam's map updated as the memories settled; the cave locations blinked into existence on the grid. He nodded once, the motion small and private.
One and Eleven counted the new totals aloud. With the cocoons, the clone's haul, and the afternoon's cores added, Sam's inventory now read 7,400 beast cores and 40 troop tokens. The numbers felt like a new kind of weight—opportunity pressed into tangible form.
Sam turned to the platinum chest he had tucked away after the system's earlier promise. He had meant to open it in private; the training grounds were noisy and full of eyes, but the moment felt right. He set the chest on a flat stone and eased the lid. Inside lay four orbs, each humming with a different kind of promise.
The first orb dissolved into a vision of water: a small, placid lake, clear and deep enough to support fish and irrigation. The system's rules were simple—pick a place and throw the orb; the lake would appear. Sam smiled. A lake would mean fish, irrigation, and a steady food source for the people.
The second orb thrummed with a metallic, disciplined note. When Sam activated it the system confirmed: a Tier‑10 troop token specifically for Kings Guard Golems. Sam's jaw tightened with appreciation. Kings Guard Golems were the backbone of a lord's last line; another token meant more iron and more certainty. He used it without delay, and the ground trembled as new iron forms took shape—massive, patient, and immovable. He assigned the Phoenix and Tiger Guards to rotation duty and set the new golems to stand as a second line in the throne room.
He crushed the third orb between his fingers and a black ring fell into his palm—a ring set with a black diamond that drank the light. The system scanned it and named it: Shadow Kings Ring. Its function was brutal and elegant: summon 10 shade troops per day for free. Sam slipped the ring onto his finger and thought of Shade Assassins. Smoke pooled at his feet like spilled ink and ten figures rose from it—Tier‑7 ninjas of shadow, silent and precise. Sam named them Eleven through Twenty. Eleven bowed to One and took up the role of assistant; the rest were sent to Two for assignment across the domain's covert tasks.
The fourth orb yielded a skill card: Lunar Laser. Sam felt the spell settle into his hands as if it had always been waiting there—lunar energy condensed into a beam he could fire from palm or blade. He tested it once, a thin, silver line that sizzled through a practice target and left a faint, moonlit scorch.
Helios and Dionysus watched Indra with amused, almost parental expressions. Indra puffed out his small chest at their praise, green breeze making his fur ripple; Helios's rumble was a soft, approving sound and Dionysus made a delighted chirp. The small scene steadied Sam for a moment, a reminder that power was also a private thing—bonds and warmth amid the calculus of cores and tokens.
Sam moved to the throne room with his bonds and lieutenants in tow. Twenty Kings Guard Golems stood in formation—ten on each side of the dais—metal faces unreadable, their presence a statement as much as a defense. He called One and Eleven close and delivered orders with the crispness of a man who had learned to make decisions quickly.
"Put 150 Moon Mages on the walls at all times," he said. "At least five mages per watchtower; the rest walk the parapet. Rotate them so they're fresh. Send 150 Sunrise Knights and 150 Moonlight Cavalry to hunt and scout the surrounding areas—rotate every other day. Assign a few Shade Assassins to each scouting group for communications and stealth. All other troops patrol the city and perform tavern and Colosseum duties. Territory on high alert."
He paused, eyes sweeping the room. "Anyone without a beast bond gets one by the end of the day. Bring twenty carts to the castle—fill them with fruits, vegetables, bread, and the wheat and corn seeds the system granted. Announce the lake; people should prepare for fish. One, Eleven—dispatch those orders now."
They moved like shadows, sending runners and signals. Sam used his free daily troop summon to call up a fresh cadre of Moon Mages, then spun his Daily Gift Roulette. The wheel clicked and landed on a Storage Ring—one hundred cubic feet of space. Sam smiled; it would be perfect for Clone Sam's needs and for storing cores and tokens safely.
He opened the system message for the first‑place reward. The text glowed with ceremony and danger: Congratulations on being the first Overlord in 100,000 years to start in first place on both leaderboards. You will receive a Cosmic Beast Egg. Insert all types of energy you possess into the egg; have any bonded beast do the same. Cosmic Beasts hatch at Tier 10 with Cosmic Overlord potential. They are fiercely territorial; the death of the bond causes the Cosmic Beast to die. No two Cosmic Beasts are the same.
A nebula‑colored egg appeared on the throne floor, swirling with galaxies in miniature. Sam felt the gravity of it—power that could tilt the balance of a continent, and a cost that bound life to life. He did not touch it yet. Some gifts demanded thought.
Outside, at the ranch, Vlad knelt before his Blood Eagle. The ritual was private and public at once: a circle of runes flared beneath them, and Vlad offered his blood. The eagle dipped its beak and the two shared the old, dangerous exchange. Blood rained from the sky in a crimson mist that smelled of iron and salt. The ranchers watched, mouths open, as a vision of war—spears and banners and a million voices—flashed across the clouds. A sphere of blood‑tinted light wrapped Vlad and the bird; the eagle's cry became a chorus of steel. When the ritual ended, the ranchers whispered that they had seen something like a king's coronation and a battlefield at once. Vlad rose, the eagle perched on his arm, and the two looked like a single, terrible promise.
Sam returned to the training grounds and watched Indra curl against his knee, small and fierce. He thought of the week ahead—the System's test, the leaderboards, the enemies already whispering in the feeds. He thought of the Garuda eggs and the Cosmic Egg and the ring that could summon shadows. Power had a way of making choices urgent.
He sent One to arrange for the two tamed Steel Fist Gorillas to be brought to the castle for demonstration and training and ordered the other two to remain at the ranch for breeding trials. He had Eleven coordinate the Shade Assassins' placements and assigned handlers to the Garuda eggs with wards and constant watch. The cave locations Clone Sam had marked pulsed on his map like small, dark promises; they would be priorities for future expeditions.
As the sun leaned toward evening, the training grounds filled with the sound of movement—runners, handlers, the low rumble of beasts settling into pens. Sam stood for a moment and let the new formations settle into his mind. He had turned cores into troops, orbs into terrain and tools, cocoons into beasts and eggs. He had given his people a lake and his guards more iron. He had accepted a ring that would let him call shadows and an egg that could birth a world‑shaking ally.
The week ahead would be a crucible. The System's horn had sounded; the world would answer. Sam walked toward the pens where the new beasts stirred and the handlers readied themselves for the next day's work, Indra at his heels and the weight of choices heavy and sharp in his chest.