Not everyone survives a world where power must justify itself.
Some beings were not built for balance.
They were built for dominance.
And when the covenant of life stripped that away, they did not adapt.
They resisted.
⸻
The first refusal comes from the south.
Jason feels it as a pressure spike that should not exist anymore—sharp, aggressive, artificial.
“That’s not imbalance,” he mutters, fingers flying across the arrays.
“That’s defiance.”
Zane looks up from the heir’s cradle instantly.
“Who?”
Jason’s face tightens.
“A coalition calling themselves the Ascended Remnant.”
The name alone makes the wolves bristle.
“They’re old blood,” Jason continues. “Former gods, demi-kings, divine generals. Beings who survived Hunger by standing close enough to power that it never touched t
