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The news reached Lu Changcheng through Chu Xinghe, which meant it arrived already stripped of anything that could be called composure.
Chu Xinghe delivered it standing in the doorway of the Guildmaster's office, one hand on the frame, the other at his side. Lu heard him out. He asked two questions. He received the answers.
"Veyra," he said.
"Yes," Chu Xinghe said.
A moment passed between them that had nothing convenient in it.
"How long ago," Lu said.
"The initial contact was thirty minutes. The wraith classification came in twelve minutes ago." Chu Xinghe's voice was level in the way it got when he was holding something at distance. "She's calamity-rank. They're not engaging."
"Smart." Lu was already on his feet. "Get the Doctor."
. . .
Ren was in the clinic when they came for him.
He listened to Chu Xinghe's summary without interrupting. When Chu Xinghe finished, Ren said nothing for three seconds. Then the white mask grew from his face, settling into place, and he stood.
"Let's go," he said.
. . .
The Northern Leisure District had been cordoned at a two-block radius. The air at the perimeter was wrong before you entered it: cold that had no source in the season, light inside the boundary thinner than it should have been, the mana pressure of the space pushing outward against the normal air like something dense displacing water.
They were not the first to arrive.
Evan Roman stood at the staging point, three meters of Bureau Director who had already assessed the situation and moved four decisions past it. Behind him stood two S-rank hunters and a formation of A and B-ranks in tight operational configuration.
Elias Thorne stood with his vice guildmaster and his hunters, running numbers behind his eyes that he clearly did not like the results of.
Armand Clamor stood with his S-ranks. Beside him stood a woman in blue priest's robes, her gaze on the cordon. When Ren arrived she glanced at him, and one corner of her mouth moved.
Ren's mask moved back.
Nobody noticed.
Lu Changcheng stepped forward. "He is with us. A newly joined alchemist, S-rank." He left the statement there.
The assembled leadership looked at Ren. Nobody asked the question they were all forming. An S-rank in Lu Changcheng's company on a day like this was not the priority.
Evan spoke.
The situation in full: the gate break at the convention hall, the Overlord's initial demand, the Darkness Guild's response. Veyra Mornveil, Mythical rank, dead inside four minutes of engagement. Reanimated as a calamity-rank wraith within the hour. Currently active inside the cordon, held in check only by the fact that the Overlord had not issued a command.
Silence followed.
"She walked in herself," Elias said. Not a question.
"She did," Evan said.
"Of course she did." Elias exhaled. "Stubborn."
"It was her district," Armand said. His voice was flat in the way that covered something not yet processed. "She wasn't going to send someone else."
"It still wasn't—" Elias stopped. Restarted. "It doesn't matter now."
"No," Armand said. "It doesn't."
"She trained for thirty years," Armand said. He was not speaking to anyone. He was saying the fact aloud because it needed to go somewhere.
"She was good," Elias said.
Evan said nothing.
She was faster than me in a corridor, Ren thought, and did not say it.
"The Darkness Guild's vice guildmaster is still inside the cordon," Chu Xinghe said. "He got the living out. He didn't come out himself."
"He made the right call," Evan said. "Wraith follows if he exits. He knows that."
"There's a right call to make in a situation like this?" Elias said.
"There's a less wrong one," Evan said. "That's what he made."
Elias did not respond.
"How many civilians," Armand asked.
"Still counting," Evan said. "The district was sealed when the cordon closed. We're estimating tens of thousands."
The number sat on the group without anyone addressing it directly. Armand's hand went to his sword pommel. Elias pressed two fingers to his temple.
"Apocalypse-rank classification," Elias said. "On a unique-rank gate. Everything we use for profiling is wrong."
"That's tomorrow's problem," Evan said.
"Tomorrow assumes we have a tomorrow."
"We will," Lu Changcheng said.
Everyone looked at him. He had not spoken since they arrived, and the certainty in his voice landed without effort.
"He negotiated the initial demand," Lu said. "You don't extend a condition to something you plan to annihilate. He wants something. That gives us time." He turned toward the cordon. "I'll go talk to him."
"Immortal Lu." Armand's voice carried weight Ren had not heard from him before. "We don't have an accurate read on what he is."
"I do," Lu said. "I need to know what he wants."
Nobody told him not to.
"Brother Lu," Ren said, low enough for just the two of them.
Lu looked at him.
Ren looked back. He had nothing to add. He just wanted Lu to know he had thought it through.
"I know," Lu said.
He walked toward the cordon alone.
. . .
The Overlord did not move when Lu Changcheng entered the hall.
He remained on the bone throne, the extinction-rank undead positioned around him, the dragon coiled at the base. Veyra Mornveil drifted near the northeast wall, calamity-rank now, held together by the wrong kind of continuity.
Lu stopped fifteen meters from the throne and stood.
He looked at Lu differently from how he had looked at Veyra. Something in him adjusted.
He inclined his head.
"Thou art stronger than the last who stood before this Lord," he said.
"Lu Changcheng. Dao Guild." Lu looked at the hall, at what it had become. "Part of this city is mine."
"This Lord is called Malachar the Pale Sovereign. Undying lord of the Fourth Kingdom of Ash." He settled back on the throne. "Thou art the closest to an equal this world hath placed before this Lord."
Lu said nothing to that. He was looking at Veyra Mornveil near the northeast wall.
A moment passed.
"This Lord hath terms," Malachar said.
"I'm listening."
"One hundred million lives. Given freely. Twenty million of them must be Mystics." He paused. "Those who wield mana. What thy kind calls hunters."
Lu was quiet.
"You want us to give you people," he said.
"This Lord wants tribute. Whether it is given or taken is thy choice."
"And if we meet this condition."
"This Lord retreats through the gate. Thy city stands. What remains of thy world remains."
Lu looked at the court. The Death Knight. The Lich. The Wraith. The dragon breathing without sound. Veyra somewhere behind him, drifting, not quite gone.
He thought about the population of the continent. He thought about the total registered hunter count. He did not say what he arrived at.
"Give me until tomorrow," he said.
The Overlord considered this.
"Tomorrow. When the sun reaches its peak, this Lord's patience ends."
Lu bowed his head once, turned, and walked back.
. . .
The assembled leadership read his face before he spoke.
Evan's jaw set. Elias looked at the ground. Armand closed his eyes for a moment.
Lu Changcheng stopped in front of them and told them the terms. He said the number. He said the twenty million.
Elias laughed. It was short, hollow, the first response of someone whose mind had decided this was an error before the rest of him caught up. "A hundred million. He said a hundred million."
Nobody confirmed it for him.
"He's not serious," Elias said. "That's not a negotiation, that's—"
"It's serious," Evan said.
"It can't be."
"Elias." Evan looked at him. "It's serious."
Elias stopped. He pressed both hands flat against his sides.
"Twenty million hunters," Armand said. He was running the number. "That's—" He stopped himself. "That's every registered hunter on the continent. Multiple times over."
"He knows that," Lu said.
"Then what does he actually want," Armand said.
"He wants the war," Lu said. "The offer is a formality. It gives us tonight."
"Tonight," Evan said. "To do what with tonight."
"Whatever we can." Lu turned to the group. "Every guild on the continent gets the full report before dawn. Bureau authority, mandatory compliance. Evacuation corridors need to open now." He looked at Evan. "You've already started."
"Yes."
"Good." He looked at the rest of them. "Whatever you have, prepare it. We meet at first light."
Nobody moved immediately. The number was still in the air.
Armand was the first to turn and walk back toward his people. Evan followed. Elias stood for another second, looking at the cordon, then went.