82: Chapter 83 The Emergence of Multiple Nests

The moment the Ash Casket was opened, the first thin fire pattern cracked across the ground of the sacrificial shed.

The pattern was not long, crawling only three inches forward along the base of the Ash Casket.

Yet, as soon as it lit up, all the fires within the temporary sacrificial shed shifted slightly in response.

Grey Pupil's gaze immediately tightened, and he struck his sacrificial staff directly against the ground.

"Don't touch it."

Wu Fu was even faster than him.

She practically sprang from the row of temporary brooding troughs in the back, nest silk still hanging from her wrist, her eyes already fixed on the Ash Casket.

The clump of Court Fire Ash, half-purified, had not yet fully returned to red, but her nostrils twitched slightly, as if she had caught the scent of something extremely appetizing.

"This batch of ash belongs to the Brood Nursery Court," Wu Fu said, her voice tight.

"Give it to me; I can stabilize two out of three egg trays first."

Grey Pupil didn't even turn his head.

"Establish the formation first."

Wu Fu was ready to snap back immediately.

"If I feed it into the incubation pool, I can see results today—"

"See results for a few egg trays, or see three nest points turning together?"

Grey Pupil cut her off with a single sentence, his grey eyes as cold as a freshly whetted blade.

"Look closely. It has recognized the fire."

Wu Fu's fingertips paused.

Of course she could see it.

The clump of Court Fire Ash hadn't been completely purified yet, but the heat within the ash had already come alive.

Once it came alive, the old fire patterns remaining on the three sides—the main shed, the Post Station, and the Fire Well—all began to resonate faintly within the Sea of Consciousness.

If this thing were used solely to feed the incubation pool, it could raise a batch of more stable soldiers.

But if used to anchor the formation, what it would connect would be far more than just a pool.

Lu Jin reached out and pressed the lid of the Ash Casket halfway shut.

"Split it up and use it."

Wu Fu narrowed her eyes.

"You're really willing to part with it?"

"Willing or not, it has to be split." Lu Jin looked up at Grey Pupil. "How many points can you raise?"

Grey Pupil didn't answer immediately.

He held his sacrificial staff horizontally over the Ash Casket, drawing a very thin wisp of black fire.

The moment that wisp touched the ash surface, the three nodes in the Sea of Consciousness lit up with shadows: Furnace Cave Fortress, Grey Stele Post, and Outer Fire Well.

All three lit up, but they all appeared faint.

After watching for a few breaths, Grey Pupil's Adam's apple bobbed slightly.

"All three points can be connected."

"But your current skeletal structure cannot support actual multiple nests."

Wu Fu sneered.

"I knew it."

Grey Pupil ignored her and continued:

"The Main Nest has the brood, the storage, and the soldier troughs."

"The Post Station has the forward fire, the accounts, and the garrison point."

"The Fire Well only has enough to supply fire; it doesn't have a nest cavity yet."

"If you force all three to turn together, the first thing to crack won't be the Fire Well—it will be the bone layer in your Main Nest."

When these words fell, the sacrificial shed went quiet.

Yet Lu Jin did not back down.

He had fought all the way to this point precisely to mold these three points from scattered pieces into a single entity.

The Post Station had been taken, the Fire Well had been reconnected, and the foundation for a frontline sub-nest had been glimpsed.

If he continued to manually support them one by one just because the skeletal structure was still thin, then as long as someone forcibly cut off a section, his entire line would scatter again.

Lu Jin lowered his head, looking at the half-red, half-black fire ash in the Ash Casket.

"Then we won't fully turn them."

Grey Pupil looked up.

Wu Fu looked up as well.

"Connect the skeletal structure first," Lu Jin said.

"Brood, sacrifice, ground, and air—these four points will run the bones first, without filling them with flesh and blood."

"The Main Nest will remain the Main Nest."

"The Post Station will first take the garrison fire and the sub-nest cavity."

"The Fire Well will only provide continuous fire and supply pressure."

A glimmer of sharpness appeared in Wu Fu's eyes.

"How big of a cavity?"

"I'll give you one chamber for now," Lu Jin said, looking at her.

"It can hold egg trays, store materials, and replenish a wave of small soldiers. Any bigger, and you won't be able to defend it yourself."

Wu Fu pressed her tongue against her teeth, clearly finding it too small.

But she didn't argue further.

Because she understood, too.

A sub-nest cavity and a simple frontline incubation pool were two different things.

"Go to the Post Station." Lu Jin fastened the Ash Casket shut.

"The formation will be established there."

The sky had just begun to brighten.

Yet, inside the Grey Stele Post, it was already heating up.

Since the forward station's accounting fire had suppressed the First Flag of the Perimeter last night, it hadn't fully faded even now.

The ancient battle map beneath the main fire pillar flickered on and off, and the three nodes—the old bridge path, the Post Station fire platform, and the Outer Fire Well—were connected by a thin, dark red line, like three fire nails freshly embedded into bone.

When Lu Jin walked into the main hall carrying the Ash Casket, the Night Wing guarding on the high beam let out a low cry.

Two Bone-Armor Furnace Guards stood horizontally inside the doorway.

Several Work Rats were moving ash bricks and cleaned old fire troughs along the base of the wall.

As soon as Wu Fu entered, she began scouting for a location.

She walked halfway around the main fire pillar and quickly set her sights on the low stone chamber in the back, which had originally been used only for piling waste.

"Give me this one."

Grey Pupil glanced at it.

"The doorway is too narrow."

Wu Fu snorted coldly.

"Narrow is better for defense."

Lu Jin nodded.

"This one it is."

Wu Fu immediately raised her hand, and several strands of nest silk flew from her fingertips, landing one by one along the doorframe, beam crevices, and corners of the floor tiles.

She didn't rush to hang the egg trays; instead, she first identified all the load-bearing points of the low stone chamber.

After finishing, she had the Work Rats push in three boxes of purified ash, two cases of egg membranes, and the remaining fire bricks from the Post Station that hadn't been used last night.

Once she started, Grey Pupil also began setting up the formation.

He didn't use any fancy tricks.

He simply took three of the oldest fire bricks and pressed them down on the east side of the main fire pillar, along the lower edge of the accounting wall, and in front of the stone door leading to the underground channel, respectively.

Only then did he open the Ash Casket, using his fingertips to divide the clump of Court Fire Ash into three small piles, his movements so slow they were almost miserly.

Wu Fu watched from the side, her teeth itching.

"Are you dividing ash, or picking out your lifeblood?"

Grey Pupil replied coldly,

"Lifeblood is more valuable than ash."

Lu Jin didn't interject.

He had already submerged himself into the Sea of Consciousness.

In the Sea of Consciousness, the Furnace Cave Fortress sat firmly in the center.

The lower subterranean caves, incubation pools, storage caverns, and soldier troughs were layered one after another, like an old beast with its claws retracted.

The Grey Stele Post hung at the front, like a piece of exoskeleton just nailed on.

The Fire Well was even thinner, just a vein of fire sinking downwards.

Each could be used on its own.

Together, however, they still lacked a single total pressure point.

"Begin." Lu Jin's command fell.

Grey Pupil first tapped the fire brick on the east side.

As the black fire fell, the pile of Court Fire Ash beneath the main fire pillar immediately lit up by an inch.

Then came the lower edge of the accounting wall.

Then the front of the underground channel door.

The ash in all three places began to heat up simultaneously.

The entire Post Station gave a slight tremor.

At the same time, the main furnace in the deepest part of the Furnace Cave Fortress responded with a pulse of fire.

The strands of nest silk that Wu Fu had left in the Main Nest tightened simultaneously, as if someone had suddenly bound three scattered beasts into a single net.

The next instant, the pressure arrived.

The beams and pillars of the Post Station creaked first.

From the Fire Well, a violent backflow of fire surged up immediately after.

The three old soldier troughs in the lowest level of the Main Nest sank in unison, as if the entire fortress had been yanked from below.

Wu Fu's expression changed on the spot.

"Pull back! The Main Nest is dropping!"

Grey Pupil pressed down with his sacrificial staff, the veins on his forehead bulging.

"The Fire Well is pushing too hard!"

Yet Lu Jin did not waver.

He stared fixedly at the three nodes in the Sea of Consciousness, forcibly holding back the momentum that was trying to swallow all three sides at once.

The Grey Stele Post wanted more, the Outer Fire Well was pushing frantically, and the Main Nest was instinctively protecting itself.

With none of the three lines willing to retreat first, they had collided like this.

"Grey Pupil, cut the accounting wall."

"Wu Fu, close the Main Nest soldier troughs, keep the incubation troughs."

"Night Wing, raise the air markers!"

The three commands fell at once.

Grey Pupil didn't even think; he raised his hand and smashed a corner of the fire brick under the accounting wall.

The momentum that had originally intended to devour everything along the battle merit accounting fire was immediately cut in half.

Wu Fu was even more ruthless.

Though she was at the Post Station, her consciousness plunged back into the Main Nest via the nest silk, forcibly shutting down the three most energy-consuming soldier troughs, leaving only the incubation pool, storage troughs, and the newly opened sub-nest cavity glowing.

The Night Wings on the high beams took flight at this moment.

They didn't fly far.

They merely circled above the Post Station, the bridge path, and the Fire Well, drawing a very narrow line of air markers.

Once that line was set, the three nodes that had previously been colliding only underground and within the fire sequence finally gained a place to vent their pressure upwards.

Only then was the net in the Sea of Consciousness not torn apart by the first impact.

Lu Jin's shoulders and back were completely soaked.

Yet the fire in his eyes gradually steadied.

It had succeeded.

At least the bones hadn't broken.

Grey Pupil let out his first long breath at this moment.

"Press again for another round."

This time he didn't seek speed.

He pushed his sacrificial staff down bit by bit.

The fire sent from the Fire Well was slowly washed through the pile of Court Fire Ash in front of the underground channel door before being sent into the main fire pillar.

Having consumed the fire, the main fire pillar no longer just lit up and recorded accounts like last night; it began to distribute fire on its own to three places: the back hall, the underground channel, and the low stone chamber.

Wu Fu's eyes narrowed immediately.

For she saw that the floor of the low stone chamber she had seized had lit up with a faint ring of nest patterns on its own.

The pattern wasn't large.

It was only enough to hang one layer of egg trays.

But since it had lit up, it meant that the Post Station had transformed from a "garrison point with fire" into a sub-nest point that could "raise, store, and replenish."

Wu Fu practically pounced over.

When she hung the first egg tray, her hand was half as light as usual.

Several Work Rats followed, pushing in the purified ash, fire bricks, and the small bits of meat scraps that hadn't been stored last night, and the circle of nest patterns didn't fray at all; instead, it incorporated these things into its own rhythm one by one.

"It can store materials." Wu Fu looked up, her eyes shining.

"This cavity can really consume materials."

Lu Jin didn't answer her.

He was watching the Fire Well.

The Outer Fire Well was also different from last night.

Previously, it had just been a well for continuous fire, a source that required someone to watch, feed, and guard after it was conquered.

But now, as soon as the Post Station's main fire pillar stabilized, the old copper main trough at the bottom of the well lit up with return patterns on its own.

The fire no longer surged chaotically; it began to push upwards, section by section, along the formation path.

What was being pushed out was not just fire.

There was also a path.

The stone crevice under the Post Station, which originally only led to the old material storage, had been forcibly carved out into a new, thin channel by the Work Rats and Burrowing Spear Rats after the Main Nest and the Fire Well exerted force together.

It wasn't wide.

It was only wide enough for two Work Rats to walk side-by-side.

But it was connected.

Purified ash, fire bricks, and small portions of sacrificial materials transported from the Furnace Cave Fortress no longer had to be carried by people through the war zone for the first time.

They could be passed forward, section by section, along this newly formed thin channel.

Wu Fu's breathing quickened as she watched.

"Give me another half-day, and I can hang the two small egg trays from the back here as well."

"There is no half-day." Lu Jin watched the nest bones in the Sea of Consciousness, which had already begun to tremble.

"Stabilize this point first."

Wu Fu gritted her teeth, but she didn't greedily push for more.

Because she also saw it.

The skeletal structure on the Main Nest side was still groaning.

If this formation were pushed any deeper, the sub-nest cavity that had just lit up would likely collapse in an instant.

But even if it only turned to this point, the change was already significant enough.

The Grey Stele Post now had its own sub-nest point.

The Outer Fire Well began to steadily send fire along the formation path.

The brooding troughs, storage caverns, and underground thin channels on the Main Nest side were also, for the first time, connected with the front line.

The subterranean caves were moving.

The Sacrificial Fire was turning.

The brooding nest could replenish.

The Night Wings patrolled overhead, and the air markers stitched the wind and vision of the three sides together.

Standing before the main fire pillar, Lu Jin suddenly felt very clearly—from this moment on, he was defending more than just a Furnace Cave Fortress.

He had begun to possess a second heart in his hands.

Just then, the deepest part of the Sea of Consciousness suddenly trembled again.

This tremor was not as fierce as the previous one.

It felt more like a heavy door that hadn't been opened for a long time being pushed from the inside.

Lu Jin's gaze sharpened, and his consciousness immediately sank downwards.

Passing through the Main Nest.

Passing through the brooding troughs and soldier troughs.

Further down was the empty nest hall whose outline he had always been able to see but whose door he could never touch.

At this moment, that place finally lit up.

It didn't light up much.

It was just a layer of very old, dark red fire slowly crawling from the center of the hall up the surrounding stone walls.

There were no maps on the stone walls.

There were no soldier patterns either.

There were only three ancient carvings, deeper than anywhere else, slowly emerging one stroke at a time within the fire.

Nest King Platform.

Lu Jin stared at those three characters, remaining motionless for a long while.

Above, Grey Pupil also seemed to have sensed something and suddenly looked up toward the depths of the main fire pillar.

Wu Fu, holding the egg tray that had just been hung securely, felt her little finger tremble slightly, and she even softened her breathing.

No one in the Post Station spoke.

There was only the fire, the three points just connected into one, still burning low.