The transformation of the plain into a muddy swamp, and the helplessness of the Zar-Kay riders as they became trapped in the mire, created a massive wave of panic and distrust among the steppe tribes. Taking advantage of this chaotic environment, Korzar Fire-Core’s spies and flame seers specializing in mind manipulation launched a covert operation from the shadows.
In particular, the leaders of the Taz-Çar tribe had begun to believe that the "systemic protection" promised by Veylahr was insufficient against the mud.
The flame seers of Fire-Core began influencing the wills of the Taz-Çar leaders through frequency-based mental illusions hidden within the smoke and sulfur storm. Under magical pressure, the tribal lord moved behind Veylahr’s resonance towers and pointed his spear directly at their allies, the Kaz-Çor riders.
System Diagnostics: ASTRA
WARNING: Allied unit desynchronization detected.
STATUS: Taz-Çar community displaying mental frequency distortion.
"The Taz-Çar tribe is switching sides!" Captain Vane shouted over the tactical network. "Fire-Core’s magic has clouded their minds! They’re turning against each other!"
In the middle of the steppe, two brother tribes stood on the verge of slaughtering one another. Through the Astra Lenses in his tower, Tair instantly detected abnormal frequency spikes in the brainwaves of the Taz-Çar leaders.
This was not simple political disloyalty; it was mental manipulation fueled by Fire-Core’s Flame Runes.
System Diagnostics: CHRONO-ANCHOR
ANALYSIS: Mental distortion wave evaluating.
ACTION: Neural-temporal neutralization pulse assembling. Transmitting to allied helmets.
"The Taz-Çar tribe is not acting of its own will," Tair’s calm voice spread from the communication towers across the plain. "Kael, tune the resonance towers to the mental neutralization wave."
Kael turned the crystal focuses of the mobile towers toward the exact center between the two tribes. An indigo reverse-phase wave penetrated the smoke and sulfur haze across the plain, cutting off the frequency of the corrupted Flame Runes.
When the Taz-Çar raised their spears against the Kaz-Çor, Vane's first instinct was to place the Iron Vanguard between them.
Tair stopped him.
"Distance first."
Vane understood.
If the manipulation spread through smoke, sending more soldiers into the affected zone could create more enemies.
The two tribes screamed accusations across twenty paces of sucking mud.
"Traitors!"
"Machine slaves!"
"Fire worshippers!"
None of the insults sounded foreign enough to prove mind control.
That was the danger.
Manipulation rarely invented thoughts from nothing. It amplified fear already present.
The Taz-Çar had genuine reasons to distrust Veylahr. Their horses were trapped. Their wells were changing. Their alliance had promised protection that currently looked like mud and sulfur.
Fire-Core's seers had found the cracks and pushed.
Tair could neutralize the frequency wave. He could not honestly call every grievance artificial.
Kael tuned the reverse-phase pulse on the master console. "Ready."
Tair hesitated.
A neural intervention, even defensive, was still an intervention.
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"Minimum strength."
"That may not clear the pattern."
"Minimum first."
The pulse crossed the plain.
Several warriors staggered in their saddles.
Some lowered their weapons.
Others did not.
The Great Kharun of Zar-Kay rode his horse into the open mud between the tribes without a helmet.
Vane swore. "He'll get killed."
Tair did not order him back.
The Kharun stopped in the muck between two opposing spear lines. "If you hate Veylahr," he shouted over the wind, "hate it tomorrow with your own mind."
The words cut through the smoke more effectively than another system message.
Kael increased the neutralization pulse one controlled step.
Redness faded from the Taz-Çar lord's eyes.
He looked down at the spear in his hand.
Then across the divide at his cousin.
Horror arrived all at once.
"I almost—"
The Kaz-Çor lord answered, "You did not."
Not immediate forgiveness.
A bridge.
Tair ordered the pulse stopped as soon as the distortion fell below threshold.
No continued calming.
No emotional smoothing.
No attempt to make the tribes more cooperative than they had been before the battle.
The Taz-Çar lord immediately turned his horse toward Vane. "Your machine entered my head."
"Yes," Vane said.
The blunt answer surprised him.
"To remove Fire-Core."
"How do I know what else it removed?"
Tair transmitted the intervention log publicly to every clan receiver: frequency, duration, target range, known effects, and unknown effects.
The lord read the slate. "This proves nothing."
"Correct," Tair said.
Silence followed.
Trust could not be forced by producing more data.
The Taz-Çar demanded that independent healers inspect their leaders before any further coordination.
Granted.
They demanded future neural pulses require tribal approval unless immediate violence made consultation impossible.
Granted.
Vane rubbed his forehead beneath his helmet. "You're negotiating rules in the middle of a war."
Tair answered, "That is when rules are easiest to abandon."
The alliance held.
Not because suspicion disappeared. Because suspicion was allowed to remain without becoming slaughter.
Far to the west, Fire-Core watched the tribes lower their weapons. His next move would have to be stronger. Tair knew it, and so did everyone else.
After the neutralization pulse, the Taz-Çar demanded that one of their own healers sit inside Kael's resonance wagon during every future mental-defense operation.
Kael hated the idea. "She doesn't understand the equipment."
The healer, an old man with scarred hands and observant eyes, answered through an interpreter. "And you do not understand the minds you are touching."
Kael stopped arguing.
The healer could not operate the tower. He could watch the people.
That proved useful within an hour.
Astra showed neural distortion declining in a group of recovered warriors. The healer noticed one man had stopped responding to his daughter's name.
Kael cut exposure immediately.
The system had classified the warrior as stable. He was not.
The pulse settings were adjusted on the fly.
Tair added a rigid requirement: technical success could not be defined only by the removal of a hostile signal. Human function had to be checked by humans who knew the person before intervention.
The rule made the process slower. It also prevented defensive medicine from becoming another form of overwrite.
Fire-Core's manipulation had failed. Tair refused to let the cure imitate the disease.
Later, the Taz-Çar lord asked to see the raw neural log from the primary server.
Kael warned that he would not understand most of it.
“Then explain.”
They spent two hours over pulse graphs. The lord pointed at a jagged vertical spike. “What is that?”
“Fear response.”
“Fear of what?”
Kael could not answer. The system knew magnitude, not meaning.
The lord laughed bitterly. “Then your machine saw my fear and still didn't know me.”
Kael had no defense. He changed the interface so future logs separated measured signal from inferred interpretation. Tair approved. A nervous system could be observed; a person still exceeded the observation.
The Taz-Çar lord's daughter watched the healers test her father after the neural pulse. She asked Kael whether the machine could make someone love a person.
“No.”
“Hate?”
“Influence fear. Anger. Attention.”
She thought about it. “So you don't know.”
Kael hated the child's precision. “No. We don't know enough.”
She nodded. That answer reassured her more than confidence would have.
Vane found the Taz-Çar healers standing beside the sulfur smoke. The battle reports had already reduced the day to numbers: distance gained, equipment lost, bodies treated, pressure stabilized. Standing there, none of those numbers felt sufficient.
A runner arrived with a dispute involving the neural intervention log. Under ordinary campaign logic, the issue could have waited. Under the rules Tair was trying to build, it could not. Small unresolved harms became precedents, and precedents hardened into systems faster than anyone noticed.
The final solution pleased nobody completely.
As darkness settled, the soldiers around the divided tribal line performed maintenance by hand. Cooling lines were cleaned. Manual valves were checked. Paper maps were corrected from local reports. The work lacked the drama of combat.
Before dawn, the dispute over the neural intervention log was recorded in the public campaign log along with the names of those who disagreed with the final decision.
That evening, Kael asked to see the raw data from the neural audit tent.
The request exposed a daughter asking what the machine could not infer about fear—a detail the filtered report had treated as irrelevant.
Tair stared at the omission.
As the redness faded from their eyes, the Taz-Çar warriors shook themselves back to their senses. They lowered their spears and realized with horror what they had been doing. Fire-Core’s attempt to destroy the alliance from within had been neutralized just in time by Tair’s mental frequency intervention.