The debrief ran thirty minutes.
He and Rosalind stood in the Commander's space while the mission footage replayed on the monitoring array — not the combat sequence, the mana-density readings from the Chieftain's emergence. The numbers were specific and they were wrong, and the Commander's expression, as they looked at them together, had the quality of someone who had been looking at this category of wrongness for long enough that it no longer surprised him but hadn't stopped being concerning.
"The development timeline," Markus said. "Seven days post-cull to Early Tier-2. What's the standard recovery window for this sector?"
"Sixty to ninety days," the Commander said. "For a Chieftain to consolidate from cull-baseline to Tier-1 maturity. Four to six months to the Tier-2 threshold under normal mana-saturation conditions."
"Then the Maw isn't recovering at the standard rate," Markus said. "Something is accelerating the development cycle. Either the atmospheric mana concentration in this sector is significantly higher than the post-sweep baseline assumed, or the organisms within the Maw are integrating available mana more efficiently than they were before the cull." He looked at the density charts. "Or both."
The Commander was quiet for a moment. Then: "You aren't the first to report this kind of anomaly. The pattern you're describing — development rates that don't align with standard saturation models — that's being observed across multiple sites. Not just here." He paused. "Beyond that, I'm not in a position to brief you. The relevant data carries an Imperial classification that sits above my clearance to disclose."
"The Emperor has the full picture," Markus said.
"The Emperor has the full picture," the Commander confirmed. It was neither confirmation nor denial of what that picture contained. "If you want the context for what you saw today, that's the conversation you need to have."
He turned to Rosalind, whose expression had carried the focused attention of someone cataloguing every word of the exchange.
"The Maw gave you what you came for," he said to her, with the professional directness he used when he wasn't performing deference. "Above threshold throughout. Clean sequence on the coordinated engagement. If you want the detailed debrief on your technique analysis, that's a morning conversation."
"I want it this morning," she said.
"Tomorrow morning," Markus said.
She accepted this, which told him she was more tired than she was letting on.
The team was quiet on the way back to the Annex.
Not the quiet of people processing something difficult — the quiet of people who had been running at high output for several hours in a biohazard environment and were now in the specific physiological state that followed that kind of expenditure. Shiela's hemographic sense had been running continuously for the full descent; the mana-channel cost of sustained wide-range monitoring across a hostile ecosystem was not small. Donna had held the wind sphere for most of the mission. Mika and Jessica had worked in the high-precision register that coordinated formation fighting required.
They made it to the Annex.
He covered each of them with the specific blankets from the guest wing storage before he did anything else, because the autumn temperature in the residence had dropped during the evening and a Tier-2 practitioner in mana-exhaustion had reduced thermodynamic regulation capacity that most people didn't account for.
Then he went to find Obama.
"The Emperor," he said, when Obama appeared at the door with the specific promptness of a person who had either not been asleep or had a system for waking cleanly.
Obama's eyes moved to Markus's cuffs briefly — the residual mana-staining that the Maw's atmospheric toxicity left on anything that had spent time in it without full protective coverage. He absorbed this without comment.
"East Sanctum," Obama said. "Meditating, most likely. Follow me. Keep your mana signature neutral — he doesn't appreciate energetic interruptions mid-trance."
They moved through halls that had a different quality at this hour — the defensive nodes' blue light present in a way that the daytime's ambient illumination softened but the night made visible.
At the East Sanctum's entrance, the pressure changed.
He had been in the presence of Tier 8 practitioners before — Sloane and Isolde at full output, Alistair's contained field. Valerian's ambient expression at rest was different in character, not only in magnitude: the specific quality of wind-and-fire dual cultivation at this level, both elements present simultaneously in the space they occupied, the air carrying warmth and movement that came from the practitioner rather than from the room's physical properties.
Obama knocked in a specific pattern that was clearly a known signal rather than a general notification.
The jade doors parted.
Valerian was suspended in the centre of the sanctum's space, the silver-white of his hair drifting in the mana-current his cultivation produced. He descended as they entered, the trance resolving with the practitioner's precision of someone who could exit deep states cleanly rather than gradually.
"Obama," he said.
"I'll leave you," Obama said, and his footsteps were quiet and immediate.
The sanctum's doors closed.
Valerian looked at Markus with the specific expression he used when he had already made several assessments about what was coming and was waiting to see how accurately he had made them.
"The Maw," Valerian said. "The Chieftain's development timeline."
"Yes," Markus said. "The Commander confirmed the anomaly is being observed across multiple sites. He was not cleared to go further than that." He looked at the Emperor directly. "I'd like the context."
"I suspected you would." Valerian moved to the room's single seating arrangement — not the formal positions of a throne audience, the specific configurations of a space designed for private conversation. He gestured, and Markus sat. "What have you concluded from what you observed?"
"The mana concentration in the Maw's atmosphere was above what the post-sweep baseline should have produced," Markus said. "Not by a small margin — the density I read during the Chieftain's emergence suggested the surrounding ecosystem was operating in a significantly enriched environment. If that elevation is not specific to the Maw's sector but is a broader atmospheric condition, the development cycle acceleration we saw is the expected consequence. Organisms integrate available mana at rates proportional to its ambient concentration. Higher concentration, faster integration, compressed development timelines."
"And if the atmospheric concentration is rising globally," Valerian said. Not a question.
"Then everything in the environment is accelerating," Markus said. "Not just the dungeon populations. Every living organism's mana-integration rate shifts upward. The threshold cycles that used to take decades might take years. The practitioners the Empire has been training on standard timelines may be developing faster than the training models account for — which is potentially an asset. The threat populations in the dungeon network are definitely developing faster than the containment strategy accounts for — which is not."
Valerian held his gaze for a long moment.
"The Falcon's warning," Markus said. "Calamity in years, not decades. I have been thinking about that warning since Oakhaven. The timeline he gave was not pessimism. He was reading the same thing I read in the Maw today — the ambient concentration shift, and what it implies for development cycles."
"Yes," Valerian said.
It was a complete answer, which told him what the Imperial classification on the data actually contained: not uncertainty, confirmation. The Emperor's researchers had reached the same conclusion. The information was classified not because it was uncertain but because what to do about it remained an open question.
"How long," Markus said.
Valerian looked at him with the specific expression of a man who had been carrying a weight for long enough that setting it down briefly, to let someone else see how heavy it was, produced its own particular kind of relief.
"The models range," he said. "Three years is the optimistic projection. Seven is the pessimistic one. The Falcon's estimate is closer to the pessimistic end." He paused. "My most trusted researchers put the practical window at four."
Four years.
He held this.
"The Ghost Sense programme," he said. "If the atmospheric concentration is rising, the practitioner population that develops Perception sensitivity is going to have access to mana-density readings they currently don't have. That's not just a combat advantage. It's an early warning system. Every practitioner with functional Perception above a threshold becomes a distributed sensor network for atmospheric concentration changes."
Valerian's expression shifted slightly. "I have not thought about it in those terms."
"I'll write it up," Markus said. "The specific parameters — Perception level, sensitivity range, atmospheric read resolution. It belongs in the expanded documentation for the faculty review, but it also belongs on the military planning desk."
"General Braveheart's desk," Valerian said.
"Yes."
The sanctum was quiet for a moment.
"There are things I can tell you that I have not told you," Valerian said. "About what the atmospheric shift implies for the Forbidden Forest's boundary integrity. About what the Falcon's warning means in context of what we know about the portal network's deep structure." He looked at Markus steadily. "You're going to need the context for the next phase of your cultivation, and I have been waiting for you to reach the point where the context is actionable rather than simply alarming."
"Tell me," Markus said.
Valerian settled back in his chair.
The night was long enough.