The wave got closer, but the strange feeling never went away. If anything, it got stronger the closer the time came. When it was a week out, Laurel was sure it was a single beast, like the first time she'd defended the City. There hadn't been any warning that time, but she didn't recall any reluctance on the behalf of the leviathan.

"I'm going to fly out and take a look," she announced at breakfast that morning.

"Alone?" Annette asked, loudly enough to get some looks from the rest of the room. "Alone?" she corrected in a whisper.

"Martin will stay here just in case, and I don't think anyone else has learned to fly, so yes, alone."

"Against a whole beast wave?"

"I'm pretty sure it's just the one spirit beast. If I can fight it away from the city, all the better. If not, I'll be able to beat it back here so we can regroup."

Annette turned to Adam, as if searching for another argument. Which was fine, she was more than welcome to make her case, but Laurel's mind was pretty much made up on the subject. Something weird was going on, and handling weird situations was her entire job.

Neither of them came up with anything.

"Good plan, but I suppose that means I'm doing lessons for everyone today," Martin said.

"Yes, sorry. Right now it's out to sea, and I'd prefer to keep it there."

"You'll owe me a day off then."

"Very well." That was enough to get her oldest friend on her side.

"Have you let the army know?" Adam finally found something to join in on.

"I sent Mansfeln a line when I first felt it. There isn't a lot they can do when it's just the one beast besides get ready to be a distraction. Most spirit beasts move too quickly for them to line up a shot with the bigger ordinance. Though with some of the stuff they're working on…" She faded off for a moment, thinking of the walled off section of the Crafting Hall.

Her connection to the Core meant nothing in there was a secret from her, and while she might give random individual guild members the courtesy of not looking, the army was a different story. Every project and all its ups and downs was getting recorded in a special book in the library. Just in case.

"Anyway, I'll push a note to Curson's office and let her handle it. I'll be gone for less than a day."

"A day?" Annette was still in full worry mode, and was once again drawing attention from the entire sect. "How close is this thing? We need to make an announcement for the city. People need time to prepare to hunker down or evacuate."

Laurel held her hand up to slow down the other woman before she shifted into emergency preparations. It did nothing.

"Annette! There's plenty of time. You aren't the only one that's improved over the years." She let her smile get wider in anticipation. "I can fly very fast. I finally figured out the best way to handle the air resistance. Even if I can't handle it, we still have a week before the wave hits."

There wasn't much more to say after that, and it was less than an hour later that Laurel found herself on the highest balcony of the sect house. She noted a bedroll in the corner and felt a twinge of guilt. She'd suggested Leander spend a few days sleeping up high to get the feel for the element he had chosen.

Her students had taken that to mean everyone with an air aspect had to sleep outside as often as possible. Telling them that beds were perfectly acceptable most of the time did not seem to factor into the discussions. Some prodding had revealed that Leander was heading up his own little cadre amongst the air students, who despite almost all being older than him, listened to what he had to say about how to be a good cultivator. It was adorable, and since they had the good sense to stay inside when it was dangerously cold, she wasn't fighting it. There were bigger concerns to spend her time on.

She launched herself into the air, climbing until the whole city was spread out beneath her, a toy she could pick up and play with if she so chose. It was a pleasure to behold. Verilia thrummed to her senses. Mana saturated the city, with bright spots for the Core-supported buildings, and twinkling stars from the cultivators. Years and hard work had embedded magic into the very fabric of the City. But there was still work to be done.

There was always work to be done.

Her sense of the City was as clear as it had ever been, but lead still blocked her connection in places, and blurred it in others. Laurel had been working on it, transmuting the metal she could find whenever there was even a drop of spare mana to spend. She hadn't exactly asked permission for that project, but It was her prerogative as Sectmaster and she wouldn't be apologizing for it.

Satisfied the City was stable, she wrapped mana around herself and shot off to the east. She hadn't been lying to Annette when she said she could fly faster than ever. Her cultivation had progressed enough that mana wasn't a limiting factor, and hadn't been for years. Instead, it was the air itself that had kept her from greater speeds. This was something anyone learned when their movement techniques got fast enough. Air resisted motion, and unless you wanted to trail the sound of explosions in your wake, there was an upper limit on speed. Not to mention the need to shield her eyes and face so that she could breathe. All of that meant traditional flight techniques had an upper limit. Which was still faster than anything else could travel, with the exception of using a portal or teleporting, which didn't count.

Laurel had never slacked when it came to her own cultivation. The City, the sect, the whole world required her attention, but she carved out hours every day to train. Which meant she was finally going to get to use her newest creation. With her mana spread out, and the air bending to her will, Laurel flew.

Mana cycled through the technique at an absurd rate. Tamping down the friction which should have slowed her, fueling her breath, easing the air behind her to keep her passage from causing a disturbance that would send sound waves traveling across the countryside. It was exhilarating. Her laughter was whipped away by the same techniques, but nothing touched the smile.

She flew east for over an hour. When she judged it the right time, she turned north east and sped out over the ocean. Laurel was too far from the City to have an exact location, but an area and the original trajectory should be good enough. Her perception rolled out for kilometers around her, nothing but sea and sky as far as she could feel. Further north, a fleet of small icebergs, broken off of the frozen pole, played host to a few seals. One of them was already a spirit beast, but not nearly strong enough for her search. She swooped down to scratch behind its head, the skin sleek and smooth beneath her fingers. This one hadn't learned fear yet, for better or worse.

Her pause on the iceberg, with her mana still extended, let her notice an oddity. The little armada, which she'd assumed was drifting in a current, wasn't moving at all. She pushed deeper, to the encouraging barks of her new friend. A network of mana was forming between the chunks of ice. Like the Diamond Kelp Forest she'd found as her first real sign of a recovering world, it would become a magical biome. Attracting spirit beasts who appreciated the stable mana, and germinating treasures anyone or anything with the right aspects would be drawn to. Sabrina was going to owe her for this one, the ice witch's only source for cultivation aids was the occasional trek to the dangerous peaks of the tallest mountains.

With one more pat to the seal's head, she was off. Back into the air, she adjusted her angle slightly, staying parallel to the distant shore rather than continuing north. It took another hour, flying a bit slower this time, to latch on to her quarry.

At first it was just a whisper to her senses, an adjustment to her flight path that only mattered over the long distances she was flying. Then she got closer and her sense of the beast increased. It was big, it was pissed, and its mana was delicious.

A shudder ran through Laurel's body almost interrupting her flight as the mana of the beast resonated with her own. Lightning. And something that was not quite air. Thunder, maybe.

She flew faster.

When it finally came into view, Laurel let out a low whistle, the sound quickly whipped away by her own technique and the clash of control with the beast. A bird the size of a house was soaring through the air. Grey feathers faded to lightning blue at the tips, while razor sharp talons glinted in the sunlight. That was all less important than the stormclouds that trailed off the bird's back. They roiled with power, leaving a trail of deadly mana for hundreds of meters behind the beast before it faded.

Laurel's power sang in recognition. Here was a beast that embodied the storm. Her fingers twitched for a blade, but she held off when the bird slowed its flight.

"Fledgling. Why do you stand in my path?"

"I stand as guardian of the City of Verilia. Whose Core you seek to consume."

Before Laurel could say anything more, the bird let loose a savage caw. The sound echoed through her mana, momentarily disrupting her flight. She dropped a few meters before she restarted the technique. There were downsides to fighting something with similar mana compositions. Intentional or not, the interactions could have unexpected consequences.

"I do not want your Core, fledgling. Those beasts that consume one of the hearts of civilization are slaves to their hunger. Once tasted, forever more will they seek it, in thrall to the Core's call. I survived for centuries in a desert of magic, a base bird sipping drips of mana to sustain my life. I have earned every feather on my back."

"Then why come?"

Another furious cry, though this time Laurel was ready and refused to falter.

"Humans," hissed the spirit beast. "Your cultivation is created from force of will, not instinct. You do not suffer the degradations of being yoked to the world's mana. Your Core's call latched on to me, and I am unable to resist the pull."

Laurel thought fast. There was no precedence for this. The beasts that attacked Cities were base, like the leviathan, or not true beasts at all, merely results of the mana build up, like the horde. An intelligent attack was unique, as far as she knew. She jumped frantically from one idea to the next. Not all beasts were drawn to attack, not even during a wave. Companions, or even beasts raised for their worth as alchemy components or cultivation aids never attacked the Cities they lived in.

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What she was about to try was stupid. She should kill the bird, harvest the parts for her own cultivation, and move on.

"You are conflicted fledgling."

"I can't let you attack the City."

They idled in the air, far above the icy ocean. Laurel was buffeted by the wind kicked up by the bird's wings where it bobbed up and down. What she was going to do was unprecedented. If it went wrong, there would be a disaster and it would be her fault.

She thought about the tame spirit beasts sects of the past would keep. She recalled Flint and his comfort in the City. She thought of the legends of the Guardian of Al'Cazir, the serpent that once guarded a City carved into a mountain.

Not every spirit beast was a slave to the call.

But more than anything else, she thought of the last half decade she'd spent working with the City Core. It was an intimate experience, dealing as it did with her whole soul. Even Martin, who'd taken over for lengths of time, didn't have the same connection.

Instinct told her to fight, and instinct told her she didn't have to. There was an opportunity here, to nurture instead of consume. But only if she threaded a needle between disastrous alternatives.

By all metrics it was the wrong choice, but she made it anyway.

"We can battle here. Happy to, in fact. It's been years since I had a good fight." Privately, Laurel sized up the bird and thought it might be closer than she had anticipated, if it came to that. "But if you're amenable, there might be another way. If you choose to swear support and allyship, you will be left in peace."

"Is that so? You assume much in your offer, fledgling. Why should I trade one yoke for another? Your storm is still building, mine is ready to break."

"Maybe. But I won't be alone. You won't stop me here, and you won't win against all of us."

"You fly fast, young one. But you would find challenging me more difficult than you think. The reach of the storm is long."

This beast could call her fledgling all he wanted, she'd learned patience over a long life, he would not rush her into anything. She was still confident she had the upper hand. The bird had a more evolved mana aspect, in line with her own goals, but that wasn't everything. And she wasn't only a storm.

Both circled around, only interrupted by the whispering of the frigid wind.

"What would an allyship entail? I will not serve you."

There it was. A chink in the armor she could exploit. Noblemen, street toughs, spirit beasts, everyone had something they wanted. Her years of politicking were going to pay off.

"No servitude. You would claim and protect a territory. We would leave you alone. Mutually protection pacts were either of us to be attacked."

"To this ,I agree, on one condition. You will share what allows you to fly faster than sound."

Trading techniques was a delicate art. Giving away an advantage was foolish. On the other hand, being unable to adapt should your opponent know your techniques was a sign of weakness in itself. But it would open the door, just a crack. Laurel was getting close. Her air and lightning mana hadn't yet merged, hadn't evolved, but it was coming. The dream of her youth was within striking distance. And when she grabbed it with both hands, here was a being that would understand.

"I accept."

Another caw shattered the calm. Waves rippled on the surface of the ocean, Laurel's hair and clothes flew back in the gales, despite her protections still in place.

"Go then, fledgling. Prepare. I will see you at your City and we will find out who's word can be trusted."

Laurel wasted no time. The return trip she pushed her technique even further, flying so fast the world below turned into a blur. She only slowed when she felt the outer edges of Verilia's influence. No need to terrify everyone in the City. She'd have plenty of time to do that when a stormbird showed up.

Now that there was an agreement in place, she felt the timeline accelerate as the bird stopped resisting the Core. Her estimation of the spirit beast grew. If this was the change, it had held back far more than she had realized.

There was no time to waste with pleasantries. Or doors. Avoiding the fortifications of secretaries and waiting rooms, she opened Curson's window and climbed inside.

"Of course, Sectmaster. Come right in. I wasn't busy at all trying to manage the internal administration of an entire government."

"Great. I'm glad I brought something exciting then. I made tentative allies with a giant storm bird. It's on its way here to either attack the City or become a formal ally. Anyway, off to tell the others. Meet later, bye!"

She ducked back out of the window before the paperweight could make contact. Not a bad throw. She directed a string of mana to put it back on Curson's desk before rising back into the air. The Fort, the Secthouse, and that should give enough time for everyone to reach the palace for the real meeting.

**********

"This is such horseshit. I'm buying my own airship," Martin said.

He was standing a few meters away from Laurel, staring out over the waves at a spirit beast he definitely couldn't see yet.

"You do that."

"It's unfair. You can swim if you have to. I should have a way to fly."

"Should have thought of that sooner. Now you get to hang out on the ground and look intimidating."

He gave her a flat look which she returned with an easy smile. The banter was his way of helping calm the nerves. Adam had leveraged all of his research superpowers, and Laurel had consulted the Legacy Stone for ideas. They had reached the same conclusion. Nowhere in recorded history on this planet had something like this been tried.

Cores could force oaths on cultivators, that was normal. Doing so while mid beast-wave, while one of the participants was the beast wave, was resting on shaky theory at best.

"You've got this, L."

"Of course I do. And thanks."

He gestured her off, maintaining his vigil. The plan was simple, as all the best ones were. If the bird tried anything sneaky, Martin would join her in either killing it or driving it off. She jogged the short distance to the open field that had been cleared for their use.

Like the horde that had attacked Verilia in their first year, the whole City had been notified of the incoming wave. Unlike those frantic weeks, instead of town criers, they had used one of the features of the crystal pillars throughout the city. King Edward had implored everyone to stay calm. Which wasn't working at all, but that was human nature.

Said royal was waiting in full regalia, with a small army of nobles and advisors done up to match. Surrounding them in a ring were a full company of army cultivators, armed to the absolute teeth. Their job if things went sideways was to get the pretty people out of the way and buy a few moments for the defenses to kick in. Not that it would come to that. Positive thoughts only.

In the center of the field, Martin had flexed his own improved control, covering the area with a topographical map of the country. Special attention paid to the conveniently-unpopulated mountaintops they thought would suit their new resident.

Where Verilia should be on the map, was instead an almost perfect replica of the pedestal in the sect house. Unlike some of the others, anchored to the buildings that were the perks of an advanced Core, this one could reach into the spirits of those who touched it. Crafting the thing had taken an absurd amount of their mana budget, putting everything else behind. What was more, having it out in the middle of a field was fucking idiotic.

Unfortunately it was also their best option. Even if the bird could fit in the sect house, there was no way Laurel would have allowed it. The army would be constructing a small building around it once everything was settled. If others wanted to make magic-backed oaths they would do so under supervision.

"Madam Stormblade, any news?" the king asked.

She walked over to stand beside him. "Soon."

From behind she could hear the annoyed mutters and shifting feet of a group of men and women were unused to waiting around. The king himself nodded and continued to look out at the ocean, hands clasped behind his back.

Minutes passed, and Laurel let herself drift, half focused on her surroundings, half communing with the City and the local mana. She felt it like an electric shock the moment the bird entered the area of influence around the Core. Pleasant, but dangerous enough for some caution to be warranted.

"He's coming."

That got mutters of a different kind, as everyone drew themselves up to their most impressive bearing. Neither Laurel nor the king moved a muscle.

She saw him first, a speck in the distance, flying close to the ocean and rapidly getting larger.

Then came the pressure. It weighed the whole world down, the calm potential before the storm. A piercing caw reached them next, loud enough to rattle bones and controlled enough that the mortals were unharmed, if terrified.

"Stars, I'm not waiting for this," someone said. Laurel had long ago lumped the nobles into buckets of those worth remembering and not, and that voice firmly belonged to the latter.

"Hold!" General Mansfeln was ostensibly addressing the troops, but the panicked noble didn't try to run.

With an impressive display of control, the beast came to rest across from the humans. Laurel took her time evaluating the threat. Ocean spray glistened on the soft feathers, still capped with trapped lightning. The clouds across its back were a dark, roiling mass, but none escaped the area around the bird itself.

It was stronger than when they first met. Because it had hidden its true prowess or because the beast wave provided something extra, the outcome of a fight had just gotten far less certain.

The standoff stretched on, neither side wanting to break the silence, nor knowing what to say. Laurel felt the mana around the field quaking from stored potential.

"Fledgling, I cannot hold back much longer, let us be done with this."

At a nod from the king, Laurel stepped forward. Placing both hands on the pedestal, she channeled a fraction of the mana swirling around the crowd.

In the air on either side of the field, golden letters appeared, one after the other, tracing out the terms of the contract. More mana reached into everyone present, ensuring they could understand the content, even if they couldn't read the words.

The final terms had been determined after a frantic council meeting. An area to roost and a mutual defense pact for the bird, in exchange for leaving each other alone otherwise.

All around, the mana roiled. They were subverting a beast wave and the universe did not take kindly to being outsmarted. Lightning arced from the birds feathers down into the ground, each strike causing the mortals to flinch back, and the cultivators to grip weapons a little tighter. Laurel would need to buy Maria a drink in congratulations for their training.

That would be a problem for later, as right then Laurel had her hands full keeping the oath stable. Ozone scented the air as the wind whipped around her. Every ounce of concentration was on keeping things from falling apart. Teeth gritted and hands busy, she could only jerk her head to remind everyone to get on with it.

King Edward started talking, but she didn't bother listening. His nobles would be enough of an audience to carry the tale.

Every moment the speech went on, it got harder and harder for Laurel to hold the mana calm. A few of the lightning bolts hit closer to the crowd, and Edward wrapped it up.

Now for the hard part, as though anything about this hadn't been difficult.

The bird was fighting the call valiantly, but it was losing. She had to do this fast.

"Everyone push your intent into the contract, now!"

For the spirit beast it was a straightforward process, allowing the Core to carve the oath onto his spirit. For Laurel it was the same. But easy did not mean free of pain. Like a brand, she felt each clause and detail burning into her soul. Regular oaths didn't hurt at all, didn't feel like much of anything. The more complex ones, her admittance to the master rank of the sect her only personal example, those could be worse. But that pain was a whisper, a promise of what would happen if the oath was broken.

This was agony.

All the mana built up before a beast wave had to go somewhere. Instead of empowering or creating monsters to attack, it was pushing down on Laurel's spirit. She thanked every star she had no intention of breaking the oath, she was sure she wouldn't survive the attempt

Some of the overflow ran into the others. This wasn't an agreement between Laurel and the beast, but the whole country. The King, the Generals, the Councilors, all the rest that had some sort of authority gathered around, they all felt a droplet of the same pressure. Some choked, others sank to their knees as the oath took hold.

Across the barren field, on the other side of the meticulously created map, the spirit beast underwent its own tribulation. Mana buffeted the creature from all sides, ripping away defenses and storming the last bastion of his soul.

More of the mana leaked from Laurel's control. The ground shook, some of the grasses, just poking up in defiance of the snow, shot high as they were filled with energy. Others withered to dust in front of their eyes. Snow kicked up in a flurry, blinding some of the mortals.

But that was just the excess. The rest blazed through the bird. Lit up like a sun, Laurel could see the meridians of the beast, glowing against the backdrop of their physical body, despite existing on a different plane entirely.

The energy increased. More and more mana. From the surroundings, from the infinite cosmos themselves, all channeled through the handful of arrogant beings standing like fools in an empty field. It built to a crescendo. Laurel felt her own mana strain to hold her body together.

Then it cut out.

From the middle of a raging ocean, they were thrust onto dry land. The mortals that had retained their feet through the onslaught slumped onto the ground. Soldiers staggered but maintained their feet, and their weapons, more fearful of what their superiors would do if they left a gun in the slush than of whatever was going on.

Laurel laughed. And she kept laughing until the worry and tension bled away from her body, and her own mana calmed down enough to speak. That was it. Beast wave conquered. Job done.

Not bothering with the others, she approached the reason for the whole ordeal.

"Do you have a name? I've just been calling you the Stormbird."

The bird looked down from where it had been preening feathers back into place. "My name is Hesduras. I am a tempest eagle . I must thank you, fledgling. I can feel the oath is settled. The Cores have claimed their due from me and I still live. A fate my kind so rarely achieve."

"You'll like the Ataran Range. Our fliers say the wind currents up there have a mind of their own."

"I felt your desires at the end. You may come visit, or send others. No harm will come to the fledglings in my domain."

"Enjoy then. I'll be up to visit when I can."

"Good." Wings fluttered and a feather longer than Laurel was tall fell to her feet. "Come see me when your storm has formed. Do not take too long."

Without any further parting words, the beast took off into the air. Great gusts of wind sent sheets of slush over the field, keeping anyone else who thought to approach back as the beast turned and soared off.

Laurel watched until it was out of sight before she rejoined the others. But first, she nudged the feather with her foot and sent it into her storage tattoo. That was one treasure she was keeping for herself. And if the beast's presence caused an actual storm treasure to form up in the mountains, being sectmaster had some privileges.

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