Sera narrowed her eyes at the glowing map.
"What is all this?" she asked. "When did it start? And why am I only hearing about it now?"
Her brother leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. The tension in his shoulders didn't go unnoticed.
"It started small. Just a few strange energy spikes showing up on underground scans. At first, we thought it was nothing.
Just background mana—maybe some natural shifts underground. Nothing unusual."
He paused before continuing.
"But then those energy patterns started to change. They weren't random anymore. They started to look like activity from monster nests, coordinated surges, pulsing like something alive.
And they weren't in unexplored regions. These signals came from areas we've already cleared. Places that have been stable and quiet for years."
Another vice president, an older man with streaks of white in his hair, added, "And it's not just happening in one place.
