CHAPTER 1027: TOO GOOD

Erend lay down after the telepathic call ended, but sleep refused to come. His body was weary but his mind churned with too much unease to allow rest.

Every time he closed his eyes the image of Arty’s calm sleeping face returned, pierced by the memory of Sylmira’s words.

"Something is influencing her."

The thought stabbed at him relentlessly. He clicked his tongue then sat upright with a low growl of frustration.

Sleep would not come tonight and he was certain of that.

Instead, he folded his legs beneath him on the bed, placing his hands on his knees. He slowed his breathing and let it sink into the rhythm of meditation.

His focus was ready to center itself on the steady stream of Magic energy flowing in and out of him. The power of Dragonborn blood steadied him and dulled the burning storm of helplessness even though it did not erase it.

He stayed like that for hours, his body was sitting still and his mind suspended between vigilance and weary calm.

Finally dawn arrived. The pale rays of morning light seeped through the narrow window of his quarters.

The sounds of the facility stirred with life. The voices in the halls, footsteps, and hum of machines awakening for the day.

Erend opened his eyes and rose, still feeling the anxiety from before but composed enough to face the day.

The drill began as usual.

In the wide yard outside the facility the candidates, staffers, engineers, and even officers moved through their morning exercises together.

The atmosphere was lighthearted. Laughter and easy chatter mixed with the rhythm of coordinated drills.

The air seemed brighter with warm sunlight, supported by the collective mood.

Progress had been undeniable these past days and the tension that once haunted the facility had lessened.

The Magic assimilation experiment was going better than anyone had expected. They had feared uncontrolled outbursts or catastrophic failures to happen but then they found only minor incidents like a flicker of lights, electronics sputtering, or the occasional short burst of unstable energy.

Nothing dangerous or beyond control.

So their spirits lifted. Relief was contagious and the yard buzzed with the kind of optimism that they thought would be rare in this place.

But among them stood Erend, moving through the drills in silence, his expression was hard. While others saw safety and progress he saw only a fragile illusion.

The knowledge of what Sylmira had told him clung to his chest like a shadow.

If something is happening to Arty in that world, could it truly be peaceful here? Or was the storm just waiting for its moment to break?

His gaze drifted toward Marcus who jogged alongside other candidates, laughing at a joke one of them had made.

Marcus’s steps were steady and his demeanor is natural, no trace of the strange things that had once set the staff on edge.

His progress appeared normal now. No one treated him as something different anymore.

No one but Erend.

On the surface, Marcus was fine. But Erend’s instincts whispered otherwise.

The enemy is watching and possibly manipulating. They’ve eased suspicion from Marcus deliberately. They want him to be forgotten and dismissed until it’s too late.

There was no proof or evidence of that. Only the sharpened instinct of a Dragonborn.

Still, Erend knew better than to ignore it.

He tightened his jaw and focused back on the drill, choosing for now to keep his suspicions buried.

—

About an hour later, the others arrived at the facility.

Captain Adrien, Billy, and Jessica stepped into the office they shared with Erend.

Inside, they found him already seated with his eyes fixed on the computer screen and face carved with stern focus.

Billy slung his bag off his shoulder with a grin and asked in his usual easy tone, "So, did you get a good sleep last night?"

Erend didn’t lift his gaze from the screen. "I didn’t sleep."

Billy raised a brow. "Why? Something happened?"

"Nothing happened," Erend answered flatly. "I just couldn’t sleep."

Billy shrugged it off and dropped his bag onto his chair.

Adrien and Jessica quietly set their things down as well, their attention shifting to Erend.

Adrien folded his arms, studying him. "Did you find something unusual?"

Erend shook his head. "No, Captain. Everything’s fine."

"Then why do you look so serious?" Adrien pressed, his tone calm but firm.

Erend finally leaned back, his jaw tight. "Because this is going too smoothly. Too easy. It makes me anxious."

Jessica, standing near her desk, tilted her head at him. "But isn’t that a good thing, Sergeant, that everything is going smoothly?"

"It’s just too good to be true, Major," Erend said. His words were blunt, weighted with quiet suspicion.

Jessica’s smile faltered, tension creeping across her expression.

She had been the most worried about this project from the beginning, never fully convinced it was safe.

Now, as she looked at Erend’s hard eyes and heard his words, she realized the same thought had been gnawing at the back of her own mind. Things were going well, far too well.

Billy chuckled and waved a hand dismissively, leaning back in his chair.

"Don’t mind him too much, Major. Right now nothing bad’s happened." he said.

Jessica pressed her lips together and gave a small nod, but the weight in her chest didn’t ease. The worry lingered beneath her calm expression.

The office settled into work soon after.

They pulled up reports, graphs, and logs of candidate progress on the screens before them.

One by one, they went through the results, tracing the steady improvements, the stable assimilation levels, and the marked increase in physical and mental resilience.

No signs of instability.

Adrien eventually leaned forward, his hands resting on the desk as his gaze swept over them.

"We’ve pushed the candidates far enough in controlled settings. The next step has to be real combat training. They will learn to apply what they’ve gained when it matters most."

No one argued. Billy gave a slow nod, Jessica nod as well, and Erend kept his eyes fixed on the screen though his stillness carried an unspoken agreement.

They all knew the truth that this was where the project would either prove itself or collapse.

The unspoken arrangement was already clear.

Erend would take the lead in this phase.

Billy and Adrien exchanged a glance, both knowing their part in this stage was to stand ready on the sidelines. They would watch, prepare the countermeasures, and move the instant something broke out of control.

—