He asked the question calmly and continued to eat without missing a beat, as if they were discussing the weather rather than the killing of one of the most powerful beings in the known Lands of Stone.
Uncle Adam didn’t flinch from the question.
"I believe the Young Lugal knows his capability the most and exactly what your Land and Sky Physique can help you accomplish."
His eyes were steady, certain.
"If you’re confident enough that within your bloodline lies the true right to rule, if you’re confident in what your power can do to stand against that murderous saint, then the only way for you to achieve the action of bathing the Lands of Stone in his blood is to use a force of equal proportion to smash into him and crack his skull like an egg."
A force of equal proportion.
Damian blinked at this, because it was something he’d already thought about in the quiet hours when sleep wouldn’t come and his mind wandered to possibilities that seemed so distant they might as well have been dreams.
Build an army.
Gather strength.
March against those who had taken everything from him.
It felt so distant and even unachievable, like trying to grasp smoke or hold water in your palms.
But Uncle Adam continued, his voice taking on the fervor of a man who had waited eight years to have this conversation.
"Power attracts people in the Lands of Stone, Young Lugal. Grandmother Essun told me how in your return, multiple now seek to follow you and even bring their families here."
He leaned forward.
"You have the inheritance of your father. Of your mother. Of the whole Vakochev Bloodline that ruled for twelve generations and earned the loyalty of hundreds of millions."
His hands gripped his knees with intensity that made his knuckles pale.
"After just a day of regaining your power, you already have those willing to follow. If the Young Lugal becomes serious about it, you can expand and have many more followers. You can begin to raise a force to give yourself the power that you need to confidently stand against the armies of that murderous saint."
Damian was silent at these words.
He stopped eating and looked at Uncle Adam with eyes that had grown heavy with something that wasn’t quite disagreement but wasn’t quite acceptance either.
"The women that I saved last night were going to be used as playthings by a vile Bone Tempering Warrior," he said quietly. "I don’t regret saving them, and I never will."
He set down the piece of meat he’d been holding.
"But if I do what you propose, if I tell them it’s okay to bring their families here, they’ll bring their fathers and their sons and their brothers to this tribe. And if I continue to gather more and more families like this, I’ll obtain a force as you say."
His voice grew heavier.
"But that force will be the one that I have to direct like a blade toward my enemies. Those fathers, those sons, those brothers of those families that I bring in, many of them would then die in my name."
He looked at Uncle Adam with eyes that burned with Mana.
"I would make many widows and orphans. Where is the glory in this? To raise a force just to have so many of them die under my name?"
His hands clenched on the table.
"I would be something so cruel, Uncle Adam. I would be promising safety to those who look up at me and think they’ve found protection in me, when instead I’m only looking at them as weapons to raise and increase in numbers before sending them to be shattered and for their blood to bathe the Lands of Stone in a cause they don’t even understand."
The Mana in the room seemed to grow still, as if even the ambient power of the Lands of Stone was listening to his words.
"I don’t want anyone to go through what I went through. I don’t want a child losing their Ama. I don’t want a child losing their father."
His voice cracked slightly, the grief of the previous night still burning beneath his composure.
"All in the name of the Vakochev Bloodline that they don’t even know."
His words hung in the air between them, and Uncle Adam stared at him in silence for a long moment.
When the old warrior finally spoke, his voice was gentle but unyielding.
"Every soul living in the Lands of Stone must pay a price for living here, Young Lugal. That price is paid in blood and sweat and tears, whether we choose to pay it or whether it’s simply taken from us."
He reached out and placed his hand on the table between them.
"I understand your sentiments. I really do. Your mother raised you to have a kind heart, and your father raised you to think of those beneath you as people rather than tools."
His eyes held Damian’s without wavering.
"But if not build a force, will you alone walk across the sacred stones to right the wrongs done to you? Will you alone face entire armies of Warriors burning with Mana, their bones tempered and their blood singing with power, their numbers so vast that they could fill the horizon from end to end?"
At such heavy words, Damian drank from his cup and allowed the milky texture of the Auroch’s Grace to truly be felt, the sacred liquid coating his throat with warmth that seemed to strengthen him from the inside out.
Then he looked up at Uncle Adam with eyes that released tendrils of Mana, blue wisps that curled around his face like smoke from a fire that burned without fuel.
"Why not?"
BOOM!
The word landed like a stone dropped into still water, its implications rippling outward into silence.
"Who decided that an army was needed to crack another army?"
Damian’s voice grew stronger, more certain, as if speaking the words aloud was solidifying something that had been formless within him.
"Who decided that I couldn’t walk across their sacred stones and crack their skulls with my very own hands?"
He rose from the table, his body burning with Mana that seemed to respond to his conviction.
"Who decided that?"
...!
The words were heavy ones that seemed to press against the very walls of the hut, and Uncle Adam looked at his Young Lugal as his body began to tremble with fervor.
Not fear.
Not doubt.
But something that looked very much like the rekindling of a hope that had been buried for eight long years!