The viewing chamber of the Citadel pulsed with sudden light—no longer veiled by camouflage or masked by spatial turbulence.
The event had unfolded clearly. Publicly.
And the chamber reacted as though the very laws of reality had just… blinked.
Silence followed the display—one that wasn't born from awe, but disbelief so complete it swallowed sound.
Dozens of mages froze mid-sentence, mid-calculation. The aetheric projections circling the main observation pillars replayed the moment again and again.
There was no violence. No explosion.
Just a white cat walking across moss-covered stone, its steps elegant, measured. Toward the Warden Beast.
And then the Warden simply—
Knelt.
Its monstrous form—immense, ancient, and coiled with territorial aggression—had bowed. Not under threat. Not under spell. But willingly.
Its mana hadn't shattered.
It had surrendered.
A senior analyst broke the silence first, voice cracking slightly. "The… the beast didn't fight. It submitted."
