Chapter 86 Multiverse.

Chapter 86: 86 Multiverse.

Clementine walked beside us, close enough that her shoulder occasionally brushed mine. She didn’t say anything else.

Back inside, Juniper tended to my wounds and Ayra’s with efficient healing magic that left the skin pink and tender but intact.

The claw marks on my ribs sealed up in a minute flat. Ayra’s arm and thigh closed with a faint green shimmer and she flexed experimentally.

"Good as new! Well, almost. There will be some soreness tomorrow." She turned to me with eyes full of concern. "Master, are you truly alright? When that wolf pinned you, I thought my heart would stop."

"I’m fine, Ayra. Thanks to our new teammate."

Clementine had been hovering near the kitchen doorway like she wasn’t sure she belonged in the group debrief, and she stiffened at the word "teammate." Her tail flicked once. She said nothing.

Elsa had wrapped herself around my arm and was inspecting the healed skin where the claw marks had been, running her fingertips over the fresh pink tissue like she was verifying Ayra’s work.

"These Shadow Wolves," she said, her voice dropping. "They fought in formation. And they came in pairs, likely due to their ability to link up with each other. We should expect more threats like this one in the future."

"I figured that too." I sat down on the couch, and Elsa immediately climbed into my lap. Ayra took the spot beside me and leaned her head against my shoulder, her tail resuming its metronome of contentment now that the danger had passed.

Juniper coiled herself on the floor near the coffee table, her expression troubled. "That’s what concerns me. The trolls, the skeletons, even the ground dragon from before I arrived. They all fought on instinct. Powerful, yes, but predictable. These wolves were coordinating with each other. It makes me realize how much more dangerous things will be when we have more threats coming in teams."

The room got quiet. My stomach gurgled a bit, but otherwise—very quiet.

Juniper spoke the thought everyone was circling. "Black Lazarus may be testing our capabilities. Sending scouts with enough intelligence to report back."

"Can they do that?" I asked. "Report back after they’re dead?"

"If they’re sufficiently enchanted beforehand, yes. A simple observational hex would allow their experiences to transmit to a linked receiver upon death. The more we fight, the more data he collects."

"Outstanding," I muttered. "So every time we win, we’re basically filing a performance review for the guy who wants to end the multiverse."

"An apt analogy, Champion."

The implications sat heavy in the room. We’d been treating the nightly portals like a grind. Show up, fight, earn XP, go to bed.

Rinse and repeat. But if the encounters were reconnaissance and not just random spawns, that changed the equation. Every fight was a two-way mirror. We could see only what Lazarus sent. But he could see what we did about it.

"We need to vary our tactics," Juniper continued, the strategist in her fully engaged. "If he’s studying our patterns, predictability becomes a vulnerability. Grey, your Return Blade is our most distinctive weapon. He’ll be calibrating against it."

"So I stop relying on it?"

"No. You develop secondary approaches so he can’t anticipate your full capabilities, and figure out new ways to use it so that he won’t be able to predict when it comes into play. Tonight’s mounted combat was exactly the kind of variable we needed. It’s new, he hasn’t accounted for it, and the Cavalier bond adds dimensions he can’t easily counter."

I looked at Clementine, still standing by the kitchen. She’d been listening to all of this with her arms crossed, but her expression was a lot more unguarded than I was used to from her.

"So basically," she said, "the horse thing isn’t optional."

"Nobody’s forcing you to fight," I said.

"Bullshit. I’m not an idiot, Grey. I can see the chess board. If I don’t help out, you’ll get killed—and then who knows what happens to me? Or Earth? I don’t have a choice."

She was right. I knew she was right. And she knew I knew she was right. And I knew she knew I knew she knew—I’ll stop.

"We can figure out—"

"I said I’ll do it, fuckface." She cut me off sharply. "I’ll train. I’ll fight. I’ll figure out what this bond shit is about, but you better treat me good. I know you got some horny shit going on with these interdimensional sluts, but I will not be neglected if my destiny is tied to you. Got that?"

I glanced at the others. Ayra and Juniper were smiling, but Elsa was looking away pointedly. Still, it seemed like her way of saying she wouldn’t protest. "Deal," I said.

She held my gaze for a beat, then turned and clack-clack-clacked upstairs without another word. I heard her bedroom door close. At least she didn’t slam it.

Elsa yawned against my chest. "I require sleep," she announced. "And also to be carried upstairs, as my legs have turned to jelly from the emotional toll of watching you nearly perish."

"You were sitting on a stump drinking hot chocolate."

"The emotional toll, Sir Grey, was immense. I will require much love and affection tonight to get over it."

I looked at Ayra, who was already falling asleep against my shoulder. Then I looked at Juniper, whose expression was still troubled but who managed a little smile when our eyes met.

"Alright," I sighed, scooping the princess up with one arm. "Everybody to bed. We’ve got a long day of figuring out how to outsmart an evil wizard’s homework assignments ahead of us."

As I carried Elsa upstairs with Ayra trailing behind us like a sleepy duckling, I found myself thinking about what Clementine had said. The best she’d ever felt in her entire life.

That kind of feeling was hard to walk away from. I knew because I’d been chasing a version of it since the first time I swung a sword at something from another dimension and realized my body could do things I’d never imagined.

Tomorrow, I’d train with Clementine. And every night after that, something would come through the portal, and we’d fight it together, and we’d win, and on the other side of the multiverse, our enemy would take notes.

But now it was time to rest, because the three-million-dollar Russian mattress was calling, and even existential dread couldn’t compete with space age sleep technology developed in the darkest reaches of Siberia.