Free Web NovelChapter 108: "Seven days, human,"
The messenger’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits, his three red tails swishing aggressively.
"The Crimson Court does not wait on the convenience of a human, or a rogue. You will come—"
"I said, seven days," Hana interrupted, her voice dropping into that quiet, lethal frequency that usually signaled an execution command.
Beside her, Caspian let out a massive, rumbling hiss, his chest expanding as the orange fire in his throat flared brightly, ready to incinerate the white silk right off the messenger’s back.
High above, Kulu’s feathers were set in spear motions, the wind whistling sharply through them as he braced to shoot at the messenger. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
The messenger looked at the towering dragon king, then at the mechanical drones whirring with high-tech precision behind Hana’s chair, and finally at the absolute lack of fear in the human female’s dark eyes.
He realized, with a heavy jolt of reality, that if he pushed her any further, he wouldn’t live long enough to deliver her answer.
With a stiff, deeply resentful snap of his wrist, the messenger tucked the jade medallion back into his silken sleeve.
"Seven days, human," the white fox hissed, his voice venomous as he took a slow step backward into the southern brush. "Do not keep the Sovereign waiting. The penalty for breaking the Court’s patience is something your primitive ridge cannot afford to endure."
With a sudden, violent ripple of crimson light, the white fox’s form blurred, his presence completely vanishing into the thickets as he retreated back through the valley network.
As the air stabilized, the clearing fell completely quiet, save for the heavy, ragged breathing of the Fox Tribe slaves still flat on their faces.
Hana stood up from her chair, her tactical uniform rustling as she tapped a sequence into her tablet, locking down the security protocols.
She didn’t say a single word to Raiden, her cold demeanor completely resetting as she walked past his trembling, silent form and headed straight toward the humming construction site of the medical bay.
She didn’t have time to start reassuring him, or coating her actions as something to be done for the greater good. It was time to seriously get to work.
Over the next seven days, the clearing of New Eden transformed from a crude mountain settlement into a highly fortified, automated garrison. Hana pushed herself relentlessly.
She completely ignored the increasing weight in her lower abdomen and the heavy, draining pull of the dragon-kin lineage rapidly synthesizing her energy stores.
Every morning, her daily interface updated her progress with a relentless, mechanical clockwork, and every two days, she initiated the bonding nurture with her mates to milk the system for every available scrap of balance.
By the third day of the countdown, her routine was an unbroken, high-intensity cycle:
> [Daily Login: Day 9]
> Current Balance: -797,880 Karmic Points (+45,000 Bond Nurture Processed).
By the third day:
> [Daily Login: Day 11]
> Current Balance: -752,880 Karmic Points (+45,000 Bond Nurture Processed).
By the fifth day:
> [Daily Login: Day 15]
> Current Balance: -707,880 Points (+45,000 Bond Nurture Sequences Processed).
And by the morning of the seventh day.
> [Daily Login: Day 15]
> Current Balance: -662,880 Karmic Points
> (+45,000 Bond Nurture Sequences Processed).
She had extracted a total of 180,000 points over the course of the week just from managing her mates on three separate intervals a day.
The sessions were transactional, heavy, and intensely stimulating; she structured them precisely so that she wouldn’t get overwhelmed, and on the seventh day, made sure to carry out the three in separate easy sessions so that she wouldn’t miss a chance to milk the system.
And she absolutely refused to handle their mating cycles on the road—doing it in an unsecured valley while carrying a prominent, day-fifteen pregnancy was a vulnerability she wouldn’t permit.
While her balance steadily climbed out of the deep negative digits, her automated robot builder fleet worked non-stop through the nights.
The high-pitched whine of the heavy laser-cutters echoed down the ridge as the robot builders laid down massive, high-grade perimeter fences around the central sectors.
The barriers were thick, reinforced with old-world ballistic alloys that effectively sealed the base against any rogue native trespassers or spatial tracking signals.
The foundations for future residential sectors were completely gridded out, and by the afternoon of the sixth day, the New Eden Health Sector stood fully finalized on its concrete foundation, its biosynthetic stabilization fields humming with continuous power.
Inside the clean, white-paneled recovery bay, the rabbit-kin female was finally cleared for leaving. Her internal tissue readings were completely stable, and her three kits were now fat, dry, and squawking with vigorous energy.
The badger beastmen loaded the light transport boxes onto their shoulders as the mother slowly sat up from the bio-mesh mattress.
Before she left, she dropped to her knees before Hana’s mechanical chair, her long ears trembling with deep reverence as she pressed her forehead down against the floor.
"The Peak has never seen a healer like you, Great Female," the rabbit mother whispered, her voice cracking with emotion. "You saved my litter. You gave us life when the wilderness would have taken it."
Hana didn’t look up from her tablet, her fingers inputting the final inventory lockouts.
"If your lower valley runs out of resources, you can migrate back to this sector once the residential sectors are opened," she muttered, her voice flat and entirely clinical. "The security grid here keeps the casualty rates down. It’s a better calculation for your lineage survival."
The rabbit mother wept openly, bowing three more times. Hana had just spoken tactfully, but the rabbit female interpreted it as Hana giving her a place to stay if she ever finds herself stranded.
Though completely different from what Hana meant, that was how it came out as.
The badgers escorted her back down the mountain path.
The moment her foot stepped past the outer perimeter fence, a familiar, sharp chime rang directly through Hana’s neural link.
> [QUEST STATUS: BENEVOLENT RULER EXTRACTION]
> Objective: Secure the loyalty of an indigenous outer-ridge bloodline.
> Reward: +10,000 Karmic Points.
Hana’s lips twitched into a cold, brief smile. She didn’t mean to be benevolent, but it happened. The ten thousand was a drop in the bucket, but useful nonetheless.
