The tranquility shattered beneath the impact of heavy, deliberate footsteps. This time, no one bothered to conceal their presence.
From the high ridge, Lusian watched the arrival of the first vanguard of herbivorous demi-humans. They spread like a slow-moving tide across the mountain's lower terraces, drawn by something the savanna had never been able to offer them: mana-infused flora. At a glance, those plants were no different from the vegetation of their homeland in either size or abundance, but the nature of their energy was different. Sweet, concentrated, pure. The herbivores sensed it in the air, and their march came to an abrupt halt.
They did not build stone walls or defensive ditches. Instead, they drove sturdy stakes into the ground, raised makeshift roofs of wood and dense foliage, and marked off plots with rows of stones carved with ancient glyphs.
At the heart of the fledgling camp, they raised the main structure: the leader's shelter. Above the lintel of the main entrance, they hung the skinned skull of a leonid. The remains served no ornamental purpose; they were an explicit warning. This territory belonged to someone capable of bringing down an apex predator.
Lusian held his gaze on them for a few moments. Down below, a youngling scampered awkwardly between the legs of two adults while the others prepared the first furrows for planting.
"They're settling too close," Selvryn stated beside him. The diplomatic undertone had vanished from her voice.
Lusian glanced at her from the corner of his eye.
"They're still keeping their distance from the forest boundary."
"For now," the elf replied, folding her arms rigidly. "If they start moving higher..."
"We'll talk to them."
Selvryn turned sharply toward him.
"And if diplomacy doesn't work?"
"We'll assess the situation then."
"It would be more efficient to eradicate them before they become a real threat."
Lusian let out a weary sigh.
"No."
"Lusian..."
"I said no."
The elf held his gaze, implacable. Whenever the safety of the Mother Tree entered the equation, Selvryn was capable of abandoning every trace of impartiality.
"Every life matters," Lusian reiterated firmly. "As long as they don't cross the agreed-upon boundary, we'll let them stay."
Selvryn narrowed her eyes, her expression icy.
"You speak with absurd calm, as though the Tree weren't at risk."
"It isn't."
"Yet."
Lusian gave a faint smile.
"That 'yet' of yours is becoming a troubling habit."
Selvryn did not argue. Instead, she kept her eyes fixed on the campfires beginning to burn below, their smoke starting to stain the sacred sky above the mountain.
Over the following days, the herbivore community gave no reason whatsoever to justify intervention.
They simply planted the land. Gathered the mana-infused vegetation. Built new shelters from wood and straw. And, above all, remained strictly clear of the sacred slope.
The weight of the legends surrounding the mountain seemed to be enough to command respect. From time to time, one of the settlers would pause their work and raise their head toward the heights. They would gaze upon the thickness of the forest canopy, fix their eyes on the majestic silhouette of the Mother Tree, and, after a moment of reverence or fear, lower their gaze back to the earth.
There was no ambition to conquer the heights in their eyes yet.
At least, not yet.
"The Tree requires the forest boundary to expand," Selvryn pointed out one morning, her gaze fixed on the settlement below. "With that many mouths consuming every sprout along the edges, its growth will be slowed for years."
Lusian merely shrugged.
"Then it will take years."
The elf stared at him in utter disbelief, as though her ears had just registered an outrageous absurdity.
"That's your entire answer?"
"Look at it this way: they also serve as a first line of defense."
Selvryn frowned skeptically.
"Defense?"
Lusian extended a hand, indicating the expanse of the valley.
"Carnivore hordes will have a hard time approaching without first running into thousands of herbivores stationed between the plains and the mountain."
The elf fell silent, weighing the argument without being entirely convinced.
"The vegetation can spread downward from the summit," he added calmly. "There's no pressing need to claim every inch of land immediately."
Selvryn released a long, resigned sigh.
"You behave like an utterly irresponsible father."
Lusian turned toward her. A slow, teasing smile began to form on his lips.
"And you act like an absurdly overprotective mother."
Selvryn parted her lips, ready to fire back at the provocation, but the words caught in her throat. In the end, she chose to turn her gaze toward the horizon with feigned indifference.
"I'm not their mother."
"Of course you're not."
"I mean it, Lusian."
"Sure, sure."
He let out a muffled, restrained laugh.
Below, along the lower stretch of the terraces, a youngling happily ran between two huts. For a while, silence settled between the two once more atop the ridge.
The scene radiated an almost absolute peace. A fragile serenity that both of them knew was not meant to last.
The problem had never been the presence of the herbivores themselves, but the domino effect their arrival had unleashed across the entire region.
Day after day, the flow of refugees intensified. What had begun as a modest group of a hundred soon became several hundred, eventually reaching thousands of souls. Entire families arrived: elders transported in crude carts, younglings wrapped in worn blankets, and youths carrying sacks of seeds, tools, and the few belongings they had managed to salvage from their former lands.
They were not driven by a desire for conquest, but by a primal need: food and, above all, mana.
The savanna still retained vegetation and water sources capable of sustaining life, but the quality of the land had deteriorated. The mana within ordinary flora had become meager, and for creatures that depended on that energy to grow stronger, develop, and evolve, the difference was vital.
New settlements began branching out along the lower terraces. Driven by instinct, the herbivores chose to cluster tightly together, a simple measure that immediately altered the hunting dynamics across the savanna.
Because predators needed to eat as well.
The first night the beasts descended to hunt, alarms echoed all the way to the summit. Lusian needed no warning; torches began waving chaotically throughout the valley as roars tore through the night air.
Selvryn emerged from the foliage beside him.
"It has begun."
Lusian watched the scene in silence. The carnivores had waited until darkness covered them. They advanced in small patrols, probing the camp's perimeter in search of their usual prey: stragglers, younglings, the sick. It was the tactic that had guaranteed their survival for generations.
Only this time, they encountered a different reality.
When a group of predators lunged at a family unit, three horned beasts responded in formation. The impact was brutal: one hunter was sent flying through the air, another was crushed beneath a rain of hooves, and the third barely managed to retreat in time.
Lusian raised an impressed eyebrow.
"Well."
Selvryn kept her eyes fixed on the battle.
"They're defending themselves as a unit."
"They have no other choice."
A second charge followed, ending in another crushing failure. The herbivores were no longer scattered or vulnerable. To the predators, there was no longer an isolated creature waiting to be struck; instead, there stood a compact mass of thousands of bodies armed with horns, tusks, and muscles prepared to endure.
The predators searched for a gap through which they could slip, but the wall was impenetrable. A leonid was brought down after a brutal charge; a hyena was sent rolling several yards across the earth after taking a direct impact. The surviving predators, bewildered, had no choice but to retreat into the shadows.
They learned the lesson the hard way: attacking head-on was suicide.
As the silhouettes of the carnivores dissolved into the darkness, Lusian continued watching the valley.
"The rules of the game have just changed."
Selvryn nodded gravely.
"And they're still not aware of it."
As the days passed, the reports did nothing but confirm the trend. The exodus toward the mountain terraces showed no sign of stopping: more settlements rose, more fields were cultivated, and, in parallel, more hungry predators prowled the surrounding areas, searching for a way to break through the defenses.
One afternoon, Selvryn once again found Lusian watching the horizon from the ridge.
"The population keeps increasing every day."
"I know."
"If they continue expanding at this rate, the pressure on the ecosystem will eventually affect the forest."
Lusian kept his gaze fixed on the plains.
"Lusian."
"It hasn't happened yet."
She frowned, dissatisfied.
"And how long will that 'yet' last?"
He nodded toward the foot of the mountain. The camps were expanding horizontally, but none had dared cross the natural boundary marked by the stones.
"As long as they don't cross that border..." Lusian turned his face toward the elf. "It's not our concern."
Selvryn held his gaze for several seconds.
"And what happens the day they decide to cross it?"
Lusian turned his eyes back toward the camp. Below, around a bonfire, a youngling slept peacefully wrapped in its mother's arms, while nearby a guard of warriors watched over the darkness of the savanna.
Lusian remained silent, fully aware of the answer.
"Then it becomes our problem."
Far beneath them, something responded to the growth of the Mother Tree.