The glowing numbers floating above the tactical grid were not a simulation. They were the raw, bleeding reality of the Sovereign Imperium's divine architecture.
69,980,000.
It had been forty-eight hours since Harsk Fenward violently dispersed the starving crowds in Oakhaven Ridge. Forty-eight hours since the faith of the four hundred frontier towns had shattered, dragging Zephyr's daily Faith Point generation permanently below the seventy million threshold.
For two days, Zephyr had compensated for the deficit by draining his own personal reserves.
But the Morreth Entity was pushing. The swirling, gravity-dense void beneath the crust of Ashenveil sensed the structural weakness in the iron shell holding it back. It was vibrating constantly, a relentless geological pressure that required a constant, unyielding stream of golden aether to contain.
