Phong looked like a man who had fought a war.
He hadn't.
He had simply loved a Level 29 Mind Blade three nights in a row.
The result?
Zombie farmer.
Hair slightly wrecked.
Eyes half-lidded.
Movements delayed by a full two seconds.
When Selena and Vanessa stepped through the troll-cleared path toward Camp Stymphalian, they both stopped.
Selena blinked.
"…You okay?"
Phong lifted a hand in weak greeting.
"I have seen things."
Vanessa looked at Alex.
Alex folded her arms, smug.
"He's fine."
Selena's lips twitched.
"Did you break him?"
"Define break," Alex replied sweetly.
Vanessa laughed outright.
"Farmer needs a stamina build."
"I am Level 1," Phong muttered. "Have mercy."
Little Fireball chirped from inside his hoodie like running commentary.
Phong reached in and gently lifted the chick out.
"Newest member."
Selena's frustration from Josh's recruitment drive melted on the spot.
"…Oh my god."
Vanessa leaned closer.
"Is that a flame nugget?"
"Little Fireball," Alex announced proudly.
The chick blinked, then immediately tried to burrow back into Phong's hoodie.
Selena clasped her hands.
"I'm in love."
"Get in line," Phong said dryly.
Behind them, thick steak cuts from the three-headed cow had already been vacuum-sealed and packed into the powered freezer Janet had insisted on installing.
"For Dominic," Alex explained.
"He'll cry if we eat it without him."
"I would," came Dominic's voice faintly through the group chat audio, as if summoned by meat telepathy.
Phong shifted into cooking mode without complaint.
Phở again.
Fresh.
Comforting.
The broth had deepened overnight.
He built the bowls carefully for Selena and Vanessa.
Clear northern-style broth.
Clean steam rising.
Turtle shank placed with precision.
Gầu giòn layered on purpose.
Noodles loosened in hot water before plating.
When the bowls landed in front of them, Selena inhaled slowly.
Vanessa leaned over the steam.
"…This smells illegal."
"Eat," Phong said simply.
They did.
Selena closed her eyes on the first bite.
Vanessa exhaled long.
"That's therapy."
"In liquid form," Alex added.
In exchange, they produced a package with theatrical flourish.
Long's new instant coffee brand.
A Vietnamese collaboration.
Bright packaging. Bold claims.
Vanessa read the label aloud.
"Dungeon-grade caffeine."
Phong squinted.
"He really commercialized."
Selena grinned.
"He said if monsters can industrialize, so can he."
They brewed some.
Surprisingly good.
Strong. Balanced.
Alex raised her cup.
"To Uncle Long's empire."
They teased her mercilessly while they ate.
"So," Vanessa said casually, "what's in the Leader Room?"
Selena nearly choked on broth.
Alex did not blush.
She smirked.
"It's private."
"Is that what you call it?" Vanessa asked.
Phong looked resigned.
"I'm outnumbered."
"Absolutely," Selena agreed.
Little Fireball chirped while nodding her little head.
"Traitor," Phong whispered to it.
---
After eating, they wandered through camp.
Selena studied the lime-oak guardian with academic intensity.
"I know academic integrity requires evidence," she murmured, "but this feels like more than growth. More like structural reinforcement."
Vanessa tilted her head.
"It feels… protective."
Phong stared up into its canopy.
"I was thinking of building a swing."
Alex blinked.
"…A swing."
"Yes."
Under the giant tree.
For normal reasons.
Vanessa clutched her chest.
"I'm going to get diabetes if you and Alex keep shoving this sickly sweet couple behavior down my throat."
Before Phong could answer, the ground trembled.
A different kind of presence moved across the far treeline near Lake Baratok.
Tall. Massive. Rooted, yet mobile.
Treants.
Dozens of them.
Bark thick as armor.
Branches spreading like antlers.
A quick system scan flickered across several of them:
Level 40–46.
Selena's eyes widened.
"That's above the Troll King."
The treants moved with purpose.
They were migrating toward the biggest water source in sight.
Toward Lake Baratok.
The lake glittered in the distance.
The lizardmen had already assembled in defensive lines.
Spears raised.
Ranks tight.
Disciplined.
They had numbers.
They had order.
But their average level sat lower.
Tension spread across the field.
Unlike trolls and lizardmen, the treants did not treat Camp Stymphalian as a threat.
They passed near the chili perimeter.
Paused.
Several branches tilted toward the Moletato rows.
The soil rustled faintly.
Some unspoken signal passed between root and root.
Then the treants continued toward the lake.
"No aggression," Vanessa observed.
"Plants," Selena whispered. "They probably recognize his garden as… kin."
Phong exhaled slowly.
He stepped forward carefully, stopping just short of the perimeter.
He tried diplomacy.
He approached the lizardman emissary.
"This doesn't have to escalate."
Ssarath's eyes narrowed.
"Water is ours."
Phong turned to the nearest treant, voice calm.
"The lake is large enough for shared access."
The treant's wooden face gave nothing back.
Its branches creaked slowly.
A deep sound rolled from it, like wind through old forest.
Neither side attacked.
Neither side welcomed him in as mediator.
Neither side asked Camp Stymphalian to intervene.
This was not his war.
Not yet.
Alex stepped beside him.
"They're drawing lines."
"Yes."
"And leaving us out."
"Yeah."
Vanessa crossed her arms.
"Smart."
Selena nodded.
"You're neutral ground."
Phong watched as the treants settled along a different section of shoreline.
Roots probed the soil.
Testing boundaries.
Testing how far the lizardmen would tolerate them.
The treants might not have been openly aggressive, but the intelligence was obvious. They understood the lizardmen would hesitate to attack first.
The lizardmen hissed among themselves, but held their line.
The level gap was real.
Even with numbers.
A cold standoff took shape.
Mountain.
Lake.
Now forest.
Camp Stymphalian stood between all three.
Untouched.
For now.
Little Fireball chirped from inside Phong's hoodie again, sounding entirely unimpressed by Level 40 tree monsters.
Phong sighed.
"I just wanted to build a swing."
Alex squeezed his hand.
"Start with rope strength calculations."
Vanessa smirked.
"Level 49 treants nearby, and he's thinking about playground equipment."
Selena smiled faintly.
"That's why this place works."
Because it wasn't built on conquest.
It was bult on shared love, community, and good food...
And mutated plants.
Defensive, territorial, Geneva convention violating, mutated plants.
And even as giants shifted around them, Camp Stymphalian stayed stubbornly rooted.
---
Phong decided he would only play the good guy for free once.
He had offered mediation.
He had suggested shared water.
Both treants and lizardmen had politely, firmly told him to stay out of it.
So he did.
He wasn't their king.
He wasn't their judge.
And honestly?
He had something far more urgent.
CS Major.
The real kind of global crisis.
Phong had followed CS since high school. He only stopped after the tragedy that hit his uncle and aunt.
Now he set up the projector again, this time in daylight with the volume low.
Caster voices rolled through camp while he planted sunflower rows.
The meta had changed.
Not the game mechanics.
Everything around them.
Esports had evolved since dungeon classes became public.
Players with reflex-enhancing skills.
Micro-telekinesis for pixel-perfect flicks.
Perception buffs that turned smoke pushes into near-clairvoyance.
Reaction speeds blurring the line between talent and stat allocation.
SuperLow had already normalized skill-enhanced athletic feats.
Now esports was doing the same.
New stars appeared almost monthly.
Kids with awakened classes dominated brackets.
Teams formed not just around strategy, but around class synergy.
Phong listened like it was a podcast.
Caster hype mixed with the steady push of dirt over sunflower seeds.
Alex sat nearby trimming carrot greens.
Every now and then, she offered commentary.
"That entry was clean."
A little later:
"Why does that guy keep flipping off the crowd?"
Phong explained "crowd cheat" and "rush B" to her.
That was enough.
Couple life had settled into something steadier.
After Selena and Vanessa's visit, Alex had quietly adjusted frequency.
Not out of rejection.
Out of practicality.
Level 29 stamina versus Level 1 durability required negotiation.
Phong appreciated that.
He also appreciated not walking like a retired war veteran every morning.
The standoff between treants and lizardmen turned into a slow territorial war along Lake Baratok.
Grinding.
Methodical.
Treants rooted sections of shoreline.
Lizardmen built defensive ridges.
Occasional clashes.
Level 40 bark against disciplined scaled formations.
Camp Stymphalian stayed neutral ground.
Untouched.
Then—
The roar came.
It didn't split the sky like the Phoenix.
It descended.
Heavy.
Authoritative.
A pressure wave shuddered through bone and soil.
Sunflower sprouts trembled.
Water in the pond rippled violently.
The lime-oak guardian's leaves shivered, but did not bow. It leaned forward, taking most of the hit for its farmer.
Phong stood up this time.
He did not collapse.
He did not bleed from the eyes or ears.
Thanks to the lime-oak tree.
The last time a roar like this had passed through the biome, he'd nearly died.
Now, he braced.
Feet planted.
Breathing steady.
The sound rolled across mountain, lake, and forest.
Treants froze mid-swing.
Lizardmen halted their charge.
Even the trolls on the ridge went still.
Then silence.
A held breath over the entire biome.
The monsters knew the name.
Phong heard it being whispered silently among all factions.
From trolls.
From lizardmen.
Even in the treants' slow creaking speech.
Sky Emperor.
No one had seen it clearly.
No diver had recorded it.
But every monster spoke of it with the same undertone.
Authority.
This wasn't the Phoenix.
That thing was fire and destruction.
This was sovereignty.
"Floor boss," Alex said quietly.
"Yes."
"Above the Phoenix?"
"Maybe."
The roar did not come again.
But its presence lingered.
As if something vast had shifted position far above, in unseen layers of the dungeon.
After a long moment, the treants withdrew from immediate combat lines.
The lizardmen lowered their spears.
The conflict at the lake ended.
Not resolved.
Paused.
Hierarchy had reminded them who truly ruled.
Phong exhaled slowly.
In the background, the CS caster screamed about an insane clutch.
It felt absurdly small compared to what had just rolled through the biome.
And yet...
It grounded him.
He looked at the sunflowers.
At the carrots.
At Little Fireball perched on the coop roof, chirping bravely at absolutely nothing.
At Alex beside him.
The dungeon had bosses.
Floor bosses.
Sky Emperor.
Phoenix.
Catastrophe-class things.
But he was no longer the boy who collapsed under a roar.
He stood.
He learned.
From trolls.
From lizardmen.
From treants.
Hierarchy mattered.
Strength mattered.
But so did roots.
And when the monsters stopped fighting because something greater had spoken, Phong quietly planted another row of sunflowers.
And kept listening.