Sugimoto Sora has been injured, finally; it took quite some doing, but his most recent opponent has managed to savage his right leg a bit. He reflects on this, limping slightly, as he leaves the scene of the battle; the cooling corpse of his opponent bears a mute testament to the savagery of their clash, situated as it is at the center of a six-hundred-foot smear of glass upon the black plain of the Lava Mountains, where temperatures comparable to the core of a star seared a burning land beyond its capacity to endure.

Unbeknownst to him, his erstwhile foe --Tek-Ezred Crethamas, Stealer of Nightmares and one-time protégé of Hox Manceris -- was among the most powerful of the remaining demons, and his loss is a tremendous blow to an already-precarious ecosystem. The mute puddles of black goo which formed the demon's entourage -- Class 17-A of the Junior Cadet Corps -- are, incredibly, an even more hideous tragedy of which Sugimoto Sora is likewise entirely unaware; such is the nature of war, where innocents die long after official hostilities have ceased.

More pressing to Sugimoto Sora, however, is the fact that his most recent foe was apparently a prestigious enough kill for him to finally reach Level 50; as a result, a new Skill called "Pursue Nemesis" has appeared in his Status. He does not yet know quite how to use it, but he will get the hang of it around the time his leg finishes healing (in roughly forty-five minutes); what occurs afterwards will be rather grim, but the observant will detect a theme.

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Across the land, other pieces are being deftly maneuvered into position; Tok Rockbrand, now short two limbs and an eye but sporting an impressive set of prosthetics, ascends the newly-vacated position of Master Craftsdwarf of the Merchant's Guild, while Dakath Xyrmaer (who has worked for nearly a century to accomplish this particular ambition) becomes Deputy Headmaster of the Mage's Guild. Both of them, by virtue of a heady mix of coincidence and political maneuvering, are also in the process of being installed into recently-vacated seats of the Assembly of Peers -- the ruling instrument of Thoxen -- while Archmage Sahlerra Siukh, finally succumbing to the twin pressures of both political expediency and ego, assumes emergency stewardship of the throne of Pioren (now not so much divided as exploded). Everyone assumes this will be temporary -- words that any student of history knows are a sign of the most dire peril imaginable.

With exquisite precision, the stage is assembled -- a delicate interlocking of agreements, gambles, and desperate temporary solutions that, in real-time, coalesce into a self-dissolving machine of uncompromising, fragile exactness. Unseen, a web takes shape across the four nations -- a gossamer, invisible construction of bonds and emotions, twisted and pulled by an adroit hand to become a dagger at the throat of an enemy. In less than an hour, the design will become complete -- another trap in an endless, fractal march of snares and goads -- and it will be an unwelcome surprise to everyone when one of the load-bearing strands is unexpectedly severed.