Twenty days passed beneath the surface of an island that, to every outside observer, had done nothing at all.
The Suryax-Ananta Alliance maintained the rhythm of Operation Illusion through the entire period. Visible patrols ran their predictable routes. The dome held its standard idle pulse. The kingdom continued to look like a stable but unremarkable mid-tier power that had narrowly survived a contest and was now content to wait out the warfare event from behind its walls.
Beneath that surface, in a sealed facility carved into the bedrock below the central palace, the real work continued.
The facility had no entrance that an observer could find. It was reachable only through the [Vault of the Sovereign Keymaker], which meant that the only way in or out was through Almond, and the only people inside were people Almond had chosen to put there.
There were nineteen of them, and all nineteen had once belonged to Oblivion Tyrant Sovereignty.
...
