The Covenant did not panic.
Panic was inefficient, visible, and beneath an institution that had ruled through absence for centuries. What it did instead was far more dangerous.
It convened.
Deep beneath layers of nullstone and void-suppression arrays, a circular chamber awakened after decades of dormancy. No banners hung on its walls. No symbols were displayed. Identity, within the Covenant, was a liability.
Figures arrived without sound.
Some walked. Some phased through sealed corridors. Some were already present, having never truly left.
A projection ignited at the center of the chamber—not light, but subtraction. Space folded inward, forming a hollow sphere where information could exist without being observed by the world itself.
The first report appeared.
Atmospheric hesitation detected.
Non-elemental.
Non-hostile.
Non-repeatable.
A pause followed.
Then another entry.
Wind-class anomaly probability: rising.
A low murmur spread through the chamber. Not fear. Calculation.
"So it has reached the sky," one voice said. Genderless. Filtered. "Earlier than predicted."
"Prediction assumed intentional manifestation," another replied. "This appears to be passive."
"That makes it worse."
Silence returned.
A third report surfaced, older, drawn from sealed archives.
Designation: GALE
Status: ERASED
Cause of failure: Conceptual contamination
The word contamination lingered longer than the rest.
The Covenant had erased kings, bloodlines, even entire elemental paths. Those were manageable. They existed within frameworks that could be dismantled.
Concepts could not.
"Is it him?" a voice asked.
"No," came the reply. "Reincarnation signature incomplete. Identity unstable. Name unconfirmed."
"Then what are we dealing with?"
The projection shifted, displaying layered models of reality—mana flow, elemental hierarchy, void boundaries. A faint distortion appeared not as force, but as absence of rigidity.
"This," the analyst said. "A mind that understands permission."
Several members stiffened.
"That knowledge was sealed."
"It was suppressed," the analyst corrected. "Not destroyed."
Another silence.
Orders began to form.
Not declarations.
Not edicts.
Movements.
Surveillance arrays were reoriented—not to search for power, but for irregular calm. Anti-magic hunters were mobilized under false pretenses. Records were quietly altered to reframe anomalies as natural atmospheric variance.
Most importantly, observation protocols changed.
"Do not engage," the presiding voice said. "Engagement confirms existence. Track only."
"And if it escalates?"
"Then we proceed to Phase Silence."
Several figures nodded.
Phase Silence had only been used once.
It had ended an era.
Far away, unaware of the meeting, Vale walked through an unremarkable settlement at dawn. No wind followed him. No phenomenon occurred. The Aether Ring remained tightly regulated.
Yet somewhere in the fabric of the world, attention had settled.
Not on his power.
On his presence.
Vale paused briefly, a faint unease passing through him, then continued walking.
Behind him, nothing moved.
Ahead of him, the Covenant began to.