The battlefield shifted again.
After Primira and Cerys carved legends into the world with spells long buried and now reborn, Aurelion's retaliation faltered, unsure whether to strike or retreat. For every step they took, it felt like Vastelune was already there, waiting.
But Ari knew what came next. He didn't send another battlemage.
He sent Eluin Velastra.
Not with legions.Not with fire.But with knowledge.
The Agent of the Echo Vault
Clad in her Veilmantle of Threadsleep, Eluin stepped quietly into the war council's chamber at the front lines. Her presence didn't crash like lightning or burn like flame. She simply arrived—and the room changed.
The generals stood to attention. She did not bow. She only looked at the war table and said:
"There are seven possible futures. In four, we lose. In two, we survive. In one—we erase their command structure without lifting a single sword."
Ari, seated at the head of the table, gave a small nod.
"And which future are we in now?"
Eluin smiled slightly, eyes glowing with teal spirals.
"The one I've already mapped."
For the next 48 hours, Eluin worked in silence. Her dreamwalking ability was pushed to its limit, mind split across seven timeline threads—each with its own strategic cascade.
While others slept, she wandered the Veil Between, mapping every move Aurelion might take—every ambush, every reinforcement, every lie.
In one future, Aurelion summoned a Leviathan-class siege beast.
In another, they tunneled underground.
In a third, they disguised their elite casters as wounded refugees.
In a fourth, they baited Vastelune's armies toward a mana mine rigged to collapse.
The fifth involved poisoned rations.
The sixth, the betrayal of a minor noble.
The seventh—most horrifying—was a collapsing reality dome meant to delete the battlefield from the System's memory entirely.
Eluin prepared for them all.
She set illusions within illusions.Planted false visions in the enemy's dreamers.Redirected spies to find "classified leaks" that were traps.Even positioned decoys—images of herself and Ari—where enemy eyes would fall.
And then, she whispered into Ari's thoughts through a shared dream:
"Now. Tell them to strike."
The enemy never knew they were already in checkmate.
Every Aurelion operation collapsed within hours. Their siege beast turned on them, redirected by a forged dream of its own master. The underground force fell into a reversed gravity trap. The disguised casters were intercepted by illusions of themselves, which exploded into reality-breaking glyph storms.
None of Vastelune's soldiers were present. Not one sword was swung.
It was a war of intellect, waged in dreams and probability, in the silence between seconds.
And when Aurelion's generals tried to regroup—they all fell unconscious.
Each struck down by a recursive dream loop Eluin had seeded days ago. A trap that required no mana, only intention and time-layered patience.
The Veilbound Oracle
When news reached the king, the royal court was silent. Even King Vastelune leaned forward and asked:
"Who did this?"
And Ari, quiet beside him, answered:
"Eluin. The dreamwalker of Velastra. The veil that watches every timeline and remembers."
The people soon whispered her new name:
"The Oracle of Seven Threads.""The Dream that Commands Realities."
And as Eluin stood atop the parapets that night, veil blowing in the wind, she whispered softly:
"We haven't won yet. But I've already seen the moment we do."