[Emperor POV] Around when Courtesans arrived to Borderwatch

  The Emperor couldn't sleep.

  He sat in his chambers. Vaulted ceilings inlaid with precious metals. Walls covered in tapestries depicting millennia of conquest. Furniture crafted by masters whose skills had been lost to time.

  Everything perfect. As it always had been.

  But sleep wouldn't come. Frustration keeping him awake.

  Two years.

  Two years since the oracles had detected it. An isekai arrival. Foreign divine power entering the world. Untainted. Pure. Exactly what the empire needed.

  He'd sent everything he could spare immediately. Hunters. Trackers. Diviners. Find it. Capture it. Bring it back.

  Nothing.

  Complete disappearance. Like the isekai had simply vanished from the world. No trace. No trail. No whisper of where it had gone.

  Two years of searching. Two years of wasted resources chasing ghosts. Every method tried. Every contact questioned. Every oracle pushed to their limits.

  Seven had died trying to locate it. Burned themselves out attempting impossible divinations.

  And still: nothing.

  His eyes burned. Exhaustion pulling at him.

  Finally, it took him. Dragged him down into darkness.

  —

  The dream shifted.

  Not gradually. Just—shift. From his chambers to somewhere else.

  A garden. Moonlit. Flowers he recognized from millennia ago. Before the catastrophe.

  And a presence. Old. Familiar. One he hadn't felt in seven thousand years.

  "No issue for you to visit an old friend in the land of sleep, is there?"

  The voice came from behind him. Female. Carrying amusement and authority in equal measure.

  He turned.

  She stood there. Old now—genuinely old. White hair. Lined face. The weight of seven thousand years showing clearly. But eyes sharp as ever. Mind as cutting as when they'd ruled together at the empire's height.

  His Head Mage. The one who'd taken the power and left.

  "You."

  "Me," she agreed. Smiled slightly. "Miss me?"

  "Seven thousand years of silence."

  "I'm consistent. You always appreciated that about me." She gestured at the dream-garden. "Nice, isn't it? Took me three centuries to perfect dream manipulation at this level. Completely undetectable."

  Despite everything—the anger, the shock—he felt something else. Relief. Seeing her again. Hearing that tone that had irritated and comforted him for so long.

  "Why now?"

  "Because something changed." She moved closer. Studying him with those ancient eyes. "I know what you tried to do. Two years ago. New isekai arrived, didn't it?"

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  His expression gave it away.

  "And I'm guessing it got away." Her smile turned knowing. "You've been searching ever since. Two years of hunting and nothing to show for it. Run out of ideas yet?"

  "If you came here to gloat—"

  "I came here because I finally figured it out." She cut him off. Efficient. "How the isekai system works. Why the reincarnation destroyed this region. What went wrong. And how to fix it."

  That stopped him. "What?"

  "I've been working on the problem for seven thousand years. Since I left. Since you refused to listen." No accusation. Just fact. "It was hopeless. The complexity was beyond anything I could solve. The system was dormant. Inaccessible. Locked."

  She stepped closer. "But two years ago, something happened. When that isekai your oracles detected arrived. Parts of the system reawakened. Dormant elements stirred back to life. Things that were impossible became merely difficult."

  "You're saying—"

  "I'm saying I can hack it now. The isekai summoning system. Force it to activate. Bring them here. As many as we need." Her eyes glinted. "And I know you. I know what you tried to do to that one two years ago. Still practical. Still willing to do what's necessary."

  The Emperor stared. "You can summon them. Controllably."

  "Yes."

  "How many?"

  "I don't know the maximum." She paused, then smiled. Sharp. Satisfied. "But significantly more than the random spawns we used to wait for. Before, they arrived one at a time, unpredictably, decades or centuries apart. We had to harvest what we could from each one and hope another would come eventually."

  "And now?"

  "Now we control it. The reactivation will take time—a few years if we're lucky. Ten, maybe fifteen at the outside. Could be as much as twenty in worst case." She paused. Considered. "Hard to predict exactly. The system's more damaged than I initially thought. Need to rebuild pathways carefully. One mistake and the whole thing could collapse permanently."

  "But after that?" Her eyes gleamed. "Steady production. Regular harvests. No more waiting. No more hoping the gods accidentally send us another one."

  The Emperor went very still. "Regular."

  "Yes. I can't give you exact numbers—the system's capacity depends on factors I'm still analyzing. But compared to what we had before?" She smiled. "This is abundance. Enough to rebuild. Enough to restore what was lost. Enough that we won't spend another seven thousand years rationing and hoping."

  The implications settled slowly. Not unlimited. But enough. A steady supply instead of desperate scarcity.

  "A few years," he repeated. "Maybe twenty."

  "Worth the wait," she said simply. "We've already waited seven thousand. What's two decades more for this?"

  "The divine power you took," he said quietly. "You still have it."

  "Every last drop. Fifteen percent of the empire's reserves when I left. Haven't used a single piece." She met his eyes. "You would have wasted it. Fighting wars you couldn't win. Holding territory you couldn't keep. I preserved it. For when it could actually matter."

  Seven thousand years of anger should have flared.

  Instead: "You were right."

  "I know." No gloating. Just acknowledgment. "You needed to hear it from yourself though. Took you long enough."

  Despite himself, he almost smiled. "Smart-ass."

  "Loyal smart-ass," she corrected. "There's a difference."

  "Prove it."

  She didn't hesitate. Extended her hand. Power flowing—not divine power, just personal magic—forming the structure for a soul oath.

  He matched it. Creating the binding. Absolute commitment that couldn't be broken.

  They'd done this before. Millennia ago. When she'd first become his Head Mage. When the empire had been at its height and the world had trembled before them.

  The oaths formed. Layered. Reinforced. Ancient friendship and absolute loyalty binding together across seven thousand years of separation.

  When it finished, she lowered her hand. "There. Now stop questioning my loyalty and let's get to work."

  "How long to set up?"

  "As I said before—two to twenty years. Once I start, I'll know better." She started pacing. Dream-garden responding—flowers blooming and dying in her wake. "Rebuilding divine infrastructure. Establishing pathways. Creating the framework. Complex work that can't be rushed."

  "And then?"

  "Then we open the floodgates." Her smile turned sharp. "Bring them through. One after another. Steady harvests. Regular supply."

  "To be harvested."

  "To be harvested," she agreed. No hesitation. No moral qualms. Just practical acknowledgment.

  The Emperor looked at her. His oldest friend. His most trusted advisor. The one who'd been right seven thousand years ago when he'd been wrong.

  "The empire will rise again."

  "Yes. We'll drain every isekai that comes through. Take everything they have. Rebuild what was lost."

  She paused.

  "Just like we used to. Before everything went wrong."

  The dream-garden began to fade. Her control releasing.

  Her final words echoed:

  "I'll come to you soon. We have a lot of work to do. The harvest will begin, old friend. Finally."

  —

  The Emperor woke.

  Dawn light filtering through his chambers. The dream fading but knowledge remaining.

  Hope. For the first time in millennia.

  Dark hope. Built on planned slaughter. On farming heroes like cattle.

  But hope nonetheless.

  He rose. Began his day. To the world, nothing had changed.

  But everything had changed.

  The hunt for the lost isekai no longer mattered. Two years of failure. Seven dead oracles. Countless wasted resources. All irrelevant now.

  Soon, they'd have all the isekai they could ever need.

  And the empire would feed.