Building a Kingdom as a Kobold
Chapter 72: They Drew My Signature and Set It on Fire

Chapter 72: They Drew My Signature and Set It on Fire

We were three days into the return journey when the system pinged me like it was apologizing.

[Sovereign Signal Drift: Peripheral Thread Conflict Detected]

[Node Authority Reading: Flameprint Match – Source Invalid]

[Recommendation: Manual Reassertion Suggested]

So. That was a fun message to get.

Relay tripped over a root at the exact moment the update hit my vision, which felt appropriate.

"You alright?" I asked him, not slowing down.

He groaned. "Physically? Yes. Emotionally? I’m starting to understand why you talk to the air so much."

"I talk to the system," I said. "Big difference."

I let it go. The others were just catching up—Glare mumbling something about cursed roots, Cinders muttering about ration timing, and Flick silently appearing next to me like a guilt-shaped shadow. The squad was tired, travel-worn, and starting to smell like a golem forge in mid-summer.

I was too.

But now the system was telling me someone else was using my name.

The flame relay tower came into view just past a dip in the ridge. There shouldn’t have been a relay tower there.

I stopped walking.

"New construction?" I asked no one in particular.

I felt my stomach twist in a way that had nothing to do with the half-elf stew we’d eaten two nights ago.

We approached slowly. Cinders stepped up beside me.

"You’re really quiet," she said.

"Someone stole my glyph," I said.

She blinked. "Wait, your glyph?"

"My early one. From the southern wall defense days."

"Why would anyone want that one? It barely worked."

"I know."

The tower wasn’t tall—just two stories of rough stone and mosscrete, wired together with copper lines and old scavenged node bricks. It had no core engine. No mana reservoir. But it was pulsing.

And carved into the base platform, clear as day, was my old Sovereign firemark.

Crude. But accurate.

The loop pattern on the lower arc was slightly off. The flare curve on the top spike was narrower than I remembered. And the final pulse tail? That one I only ever used once—when Ashring was first declared a defensive holding zone.

I hadn’t drawn that tail since before the siege.

Someone remembered it.

Or someone recorded it.

Flick circled the structure twice and whistled. "This is real weird. Not ’we’re-about-to-be-eaten’ weird, but definitely ’I-shouldn’t-be-standing-here’ weird."

"Get back," I said.

I stepped forward. The node pulsed again.

Then a second glyph appeared—projected mid-air, like a faint ember echo.

I didn’t draw it.

It matched mine. Exactly. But mirrored. Tilted slightly counterclockwise. Like someone was trying to say, this is mine now.

The system chimed again.

[Recognition Signal Interference – Node Identity Conflict]

[Current Authority Match: 91% – Source Verification Pending]

[Authority Reassertion Available]

"Go ahead," I muttered. "Try and stop me."

I stepped onto the platform. The fire surged.

And someone stepped out of the fog behind it.

They were cloaked. Not in magic—just in travel-worn cloth the color of old emberstone. Not tall. Not imposing. But their walk was measured, like they had every right to be here.

I raised one claw. The squad didn’t need instruction. They fell into quiet formation, circling the outer edges.

The figure stopped six paces from me and tilted their head.

Then they said, "Ashring’s flame has many keepers."

I didn’t blink.

"And only one Sovereign," I replied.

They didn’t flinch.

But their flame—because yes, they had flame—rose behind them in a flicker that echoed my own old fireprint. The pulse was wrong. Too slow. But the rhythm was close.

Close enough that even the system hesitated.

[Flame Authority: Duplicate Detected]

[System Thread: Provisional – Conflict Unresolved]

I opened my jaw.

Then shut it.

Because this wasn’t a duel.

This was a challenge.

And it wasn’t going to be won by shouting.

They didn’t draw a weapon. Didn’t spark a node flare. Didn’t even raise their voice.

But every inch of them hummed like a relay under stress.

The worst part?

It was working.

Flick shifted uneasily behind me. Glare stepped closer, eyes narrowed, the kind of stance he used when deciding whether he was about to say something heroic or deeply unhelpful. Cinders just stared at the stranger like she was sizing up whether a turnip could break their kneecaps.

I stepped forward.

"You’re not me," I said calmly.

The stranger’s cloak fluttered. "That depends on who answers when the system calls."

The fire behind them flickered again—an old-school glyph pulse, flat and hollow. But it matched the early style from Ashring’s southern trench cycle. Someone had done their homework. Or their surveillance.

Probably both.

The system chimed again.

[Command Conflict – Sovereign Pattern Detected]

[Verification Delay – Cultural Thread Contention (Passive)]

[Sub-Flame Nodes Repeating Inconsistent Signals]

I exhaled slowly.

So that’s what this was. Not a duel. Not even sabotage.

This was a test broadcast. A mimic relay.

Someone had recreated just enough of my command style to confuse the flame network. Not enough to take control. But enough to make it ask questions.

And if there was one thing the system hated, it was unresolved questions.

"They’re watching response times," I said to no one.

Cinders grunted. "Watching what?"

"They’re not trying to fight," I said. "They’re trying to see if anyone flinches."

The figure didn’t speak. But their fire shifted again—burned low, then flared high, mimicking a surge pattern from our old siege-day drills.

I stared.

It wasn’t just mimicry.

It was history. Our history. The kind you only learn from the inside.

"Whoever built this didn’t just study Ashring," I said. "They were part of it. Or they had access to someone who was."

Flick muttered, "Like... a traitor?"

"No," I said. "Like a collector."

I planted my claws in the dirt. Not dramatically. Just enough to feel the earth and heat beneath me.

I drew a single glyph. Not one of the old ones. Mine. Current. Live. Recognized by the system.

The moment it flared, the mimic glyph twitched.

Not recoiling.

But adjusting.

It mirrored my new flare pattern—wrongly. It tried to echo the tail sweep but got the node lock timing off by half a second.

Enough to look real. Not enough to hold.

The system chimed again.

[Thread Asserted: Primary Flameprint Verified]

[Conflict Node Retraction: Partial]

[Warning: Signature Emulation In Progress]

The fire behind the figure dimmed.

They didn’t speak again.

They just turned.

Walked back into the fog.

Gone.

We stood in silence.

Stonealign exhaled. "That wasn’t a soldier."

"No," I said. "That was a message."

Cinders looked up at me. "What kind?"

"The kind that waits."

I turned to the relay. My relay. The real one, buried somewhere under mimic glyphs and soot.

I drew my mark again—slowly. Carefully. Pressed it into the fire with one claw.

"Let’s answer back," I said.

The flames surged.

System ping:

[Thread Reasserted: Sovereign of Ashring]

[Impostor Node – Flame Retreated]

[Recognition Delay Cleared: 2% Residue Linger]

I clenched my jaw.

Two percent was too much.

I wasn’t worried about a fight. I was worried about the silence that followed it.