The farmstead huddled under the bruise-purple sky of the Calamity Field like a wounded animal, its boarded windows like clenched eyelids. The air, once carrying the dry scent of harvest, now tasted of ozone, spilled blood, and a deeper, more primal fetor wafting from the distant, buzzing dark. Inside the main house, the tension was a live wire, humming just beneath the surface of forced order. The Captain of the Guard moved with a stiffness that had nothing to do with his armor, barking orders that were more plea than command. Barricades of grain sacks and tool crates grew like fungal growths against every portal. The gathered tenants and workers were a silent, wide-eyed flock, their fear a cold mist in the already-chill air.
A few hundred meters out, where the neat lines of harvested wheat gave way to wild scrub, a flyer set down with a soft crunch of dried stalks. The hatch hissed open, and two figures emerged. One was a young woman, her clothes stained and torn, moving with a predator's economical grace despite her slight frame. The other was a round, golden-furred marmot, hefting a rifle almost as long as he was tall, his snout twitching as he sampled the complex bouquet of dread and decay on the wind.
"Thought we were s'posed to case the joint first," Gronk grumbled, his gravelly voice at odds with his fluffy appearance. He scratched at a patch of dried ichor on his fur with a look of profound distaste. "Why're we landin' just 'cause we saw some empty fields?"
Aqi, the young woman, didn't look at him. Her eyes, a flat, unreadable gray, were already scanning the farm's perimeter, the boarded windows, the defensive preparations. "The fields aren't just empty. They're harvested. Cleared. Recently." Her voice was as quiet and precise as a scalpel cut. "If this is truly a Scorpid-Tail swarm, their reproductive rate is obscene. We could be trapped for days. A week. The most critical resource won't be Spirit tonics or scrolls. It will be food. This place has it. That makes it the most valuable real estate under this damnable dome."
Gronk's beady eyes widened, then narrowed in understanding. "Oooh. Right. Stockpiles." He puffed out his furry cheeks. "You clever types. Always thinkin' with your guts. The twisty, scheming parts of 'em."
Aqi finally glanced down at him, a flicker of something that wasn't quite a smile touching her lips. "And you are a monument to straightforward sincerity."
Gronk blinked. "Hey. Was that…? Felt like an insult wrapped in a fuzzy blanket." He couldn't decide if he was offended or pleased.
There was no malice in her, he sensed. Just a dry, observational honesty. He reminded her of a particularly sturdy, well-loved toy—one that also happened to be a walking arsenal. It was no wonder their erstwhile, inscrutable captain had tolerated him. As they began a cautious approach, keeping to the deeper shadows, Aqi's mind circled back to the enigma of the woman in the mask. "Our… captain," she began, the title unfamiliar on her tongue. "She struck me as profoundly cautious. Calculating. Yet she entered that hive. It was a significant risk." She paused, choosing her words. "And then she shared the spoils. Generously. I am not accustomed to such transactions."
Gronk shrugged, the motion making his fur ripple. "Me neither. Don't even know what she looks like under that mask. Probably got three eyes or somethin'. Only way to be that smart."
Aqi shot him a look, her gray eyes suddenly sharp. "I think you do know."
Gronk froze, his whiskers drooping. "…I plead the Fifth. Or whatever the equivalent is here. With cuteness."
Aqi let it go, turning her attention back to the farm. But her thoughts churned. A cautious person, taking a disproportionate risk for a hive that likely only contained a few Green-tier chests at best. They'd already secured significant loot. Why?The answer was simple: the hive contained something she wanted more. Something specific. It couldn't have been the Insect Marrow Crystals; no one parts with those out of mere gratitude. So what was it? The curiosity was a quiet, persistent itch in her mind.
Upstairs, in the room that smelled of mildew and now, overwhelmingly, of cheap instant noodles, Yao exhaled a breath she felt she'd been holding for years. The synth-foil cup steamed in her hands, its salty, artificial aroma a bizarre anchor to a past life—cramped rooms, endless code, the electric buzz of shared ambition with friends whose faces were now fading ghosts. That world was gone, dissolved into the pixelated mist of memory. This was her reality now: the coarse blanket under her, the thrum of danger beyond the walls, and in her palms, the cold, crystalline weight of four S1 Keys and the fever-warm pulse of three Insect Marrow Crystals.
Survival isn't a goal,she thought, the clarity bone-deep. It's the prerequisite for everything else.
The theory was a fragile thing, spun from half-remembered alchemical footnotes and the brutal logic of her own unique circumstance. The Marrow Crystals were for purifying companion beasts, yes. But at their core, they were concentrated life-essence, raw genetic potential ripped from a species in the throes of violent mutation. And she… she was already a genetic chimera, two templates forced into unstable harmony by the Consumption Scroll. The hardest part—her body's refusal to reject foreign code—was already bypassed. She lived in the borderlands of what was biologically acceptable. The Crystals weren't a key; they were a battering ram. A dangerously elegant one, sourced from the lowly, manageable genetics of locusts. Anything stronger would have shattered her from the inside out. It was, in its own terrifying way, perfect.
"Three," she whispered to the silent room. "Three is the limit. Any more, and the tree breaks." This was why she'd parted with two so easily. The calculus was cold, absolute.
With movements born of a focused, surgical calm, she set to work. The Marrow Crystals, like ugly, throbbing geodes, were cracked open with a small hammer. Their interior was not crystalline, but a viscous, phosphorescent syrup that glowed with a sickly green-gold light. It smelled of crushed herbs and hot copper. She drained it into a prepared reagent vial, where it swirled with ominous energy. Then, the S1 Keys. One after another, she swallowed them, the familiar, cool gelatin slide giving way to the internal storm of re-creation. The first two did little, their energy washing against the dormant third branch of her Gene-Sequence tree like waves against a seawall. The third caused a tremor, a faint, hopeful glimmer that began to fade almost immediately. Seizing the moment of peak vulnerability, she took the fourth.
CRACK.
A soundless, internal fracture. The third branch ignited, not with a steady glow, but with a cascade of brilliant, chaotic sparks, threatening to fly apart. Now.
She upturned the vial. The Marrow syrup was not a drink; it was an invasion. It hit her system like liquid lightning, a corrosive, vital flood that sought out the fissures in the awakening branch and poured into them. The effect was instantaneous and catastrophic. The ordered energy of the S1 and the feral chaos of the Marrow fluid clashed, then merged into a torrent of transformative agony. It wasn't confined to the third branch. The connected pathways to the first and second lit up like overloaded circuits, energy screaming back and forth in a recursive loop of dissolution and re-forging. This wasn't an awakening; it was a supernova contained within the lattice of her soul.
A white-hot pain, clean and absolute, erased the world. She felt her bones vibrate like tuning forks, her blood flash-boil and cool in the space of a heartbeat. She doubled over, a silent scream locked in her throat, fingers clawing at the rough wool of the blanket. Something was pushing out from within—waste, corruption, the discarded slag of her old, inferior self. The "Oaks" glamour fractured, unable to hold under the internal cataclysm. She stumbled, fell, crawled towards the washroom, retching violently. Bitter, blackish bile and strands of iridescent mucus splattered the floor. But her focus was on her hands. They were on fire. Not burning, but unmaking. Skin flushed, then translucent, showing the frantic, glowing dance of muscles and tendons realigning, bones subtly reshaping under a sculptor's hand of pure energy.
What am I becoming?The fear was ice in the fire. A monster? A locust-kin?
Three minutes. An eternity in a heartbeat. The pain receded, not like a wave, but like a tide pulled by a distant moon, leaving behind a strange, profound stillness. Yao pushed herself up, leaning against the cool stone of the washbasin. She looked at her hands.
They were… not hers. And yet they were.
Gone were any traces of work, of X5's grit, of the vague softness of her former life. In their place was a predator's elegance. Long, slender fingers, perfectly proportioned, with tendons that promised terrifying speed and strength lying coiled under skin so smooth it seemed poured from moonlight and cream. They were hands that belonged to a master pianist or a master assassin, possessed of a cruel, captivating beauty. If they weren't attached to her wrists, she'd have felt a shiver of desire at the sight of them, a promise of exquisite skill.
She flexed. The movement was silent, effortless. A thought formed, and her status flickered behind her eyes.
[Level: 9]
[Spirit: 2070]
[Strength: 5200]
[Constitution: 4500]
[Agility: 9900]
[Skills: Arcane Missile Lv.9, Emberburst Lv.5, Forest Thorns Lv.5, Verdant Locust Wing Lv.4, Locust's Daze Lv.1]
The numbers were a silent roar of triumph. This was the power of a Level 20 journeyman, concentrated in the frame of a Level 9. This was what money—or in this case, ruthless optimization and staggering risk—could buy in the early game. The true chasm between genius and mediocrity opened later. For now, she had bridge-jumped the gap.
"The foundation is laid," she breathed, the sound echoing in the quiet room. Her eyes fell again to her transformed hands. "And the first gift has been granted." A genetic talent, awakened at the third branch. An insectile legacy. The nature of it was still a mystery, humming just beneath her skin, but its presence was a solid, warm weight in her core. Her start was no longer just good; it was aberrant.
A commotion from below—raised voices, the stamp of boots, the Captain's tense baritone trying to rise above the din—shattered her reverie. She moved, a blur of motion that felt as natural as breathing. A quick splash of water on her face, the damp towel scrubbing away the last traces of her ordeal. Then, the mask of Oaks settled back into place, not just as a glamour, but as a performance. The petulance, the arrogance, the glorious, weaponized stupidity.
She swept out of the room, just as a harried-looking guard arrived, bearing her now-tepid cup of noodles like a religious offering. She took it without a glance, the smell of artificial broth now clashing with the ascending stink of human fear from below.
The scene at the main gate was a pressure cooker about to blow. A crowd of thirty-odd Arcanists, bloodied, wild-eyed, and radiating desperation, faced off against the thin line of Xie guards. The air crackled with barely-contained violence.
"You want money? Are you out of your damn minds?"
"It's the goddamn apocalypse out there, you greedy bastards!"
"Let us in, or we'll makea door!"
Gronk and Aqi lingered at the edge of the mob, observers. Gronk shook his head. "Told ya. Not smart. Pissin' off the paying customers."
Aqi, meticulously cleaning a speck of gore from her vambrace with a handful of damp grass, didn't look up. "It's not about intelligence. It's theater."
Before Gronk could ask what she meant, a new voice cut through the cacophony, sharp and laced with a spoiled, imperious rage.
"Then leave! See if I care! You'll be bug-food in two days! We've got walls! We've got food! Who's begging who?!"
Heads swiveled. On the second-floor balcony of the main house, framed by the gloomy sky, stood the picture of decadent, fragile nobility. A young man, hair mussed, wrapped in a simple bathrobe, his face a mask of impatient contempt. The absurdity was capped by the guard beside him, solemnly holding out the cup of noodles. The aroma of cheap broth wafted down, a surreal counterpoint to the tension.
It was the "Young Master." The bastard. He looked every inch the useless, cosseted lordling. He took in the mutinous crowd, his gaze settling on the loudest agitators—a cluster of Level 7 or 8 youths, probably academy students, their bravado paper-thin over their terror. "I'm not bargaining with you," he sneered, the words dripping with disdain. "Piss off. Now."
The crowd erupted. Weapons were brandished, spells flickering at fingertips. The boy on the balcony didn't flinch. He pointed a shaking, accusatory finger. "You dare?! Draw steel on Xie land? Do you know what that means?"
A hesitation rippled through the mob. The name, the legitimacy it implied, was a cold splash of reality.
It was the moment a different kind of predator had been waiting for. A young man stepped forward from the crowd. He moved with an easy, athletic grace, his clothes fine and unscathed, a stark contrast to the bedraggled survivors. A tasteful, silver clan pin gleamed on his lapel. He offered a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"We know perfectly well where we are," he said, his voice a cultured, reasonable baritone. A practiced performance of nobility. He executed a shallow, flawless bow. "And we know whoyou are. My apologies for the… directness. I am Teng Yunli, of the Teng family. Given the… exigent circumstances, we must all make difficult choices for the greater good. If you insist on obstructing that good, well…" He spread his hands, the picture of regretful necessity. "I'm afraid familial courtesy only extends so far."
The message was clear, elegant, and deadly. I have the name, I have the power, I have the crowd. Step aside, bastard, or be trampled.The mob sensed the shift. Here was a realnoble, a leader. They began to coalesce behind him, a wave of desperate approval. The Xie guards paled. The tenants inside whimpered.
Teng Yunli allowed his smile to deepen, just a fraction. The farm was his. The narrative was his. This squalid little drama was over.
The boy on the balcony took a loud, obnoxious slurp of his noodles. Then he spoke, his voice cutting through Teng Yunli's poised silence like a rusty saw.
"Brains turn to soup? What's with the speech? You wanna play king of the castle, use my castle, get all these losers to fight for you, and take the biggest cut of the loot. Just say it. All those fancy words just mean you passed middle school. Congrats." He took another slurp. "But I get it. You're a stray dog, the big bad wolves are coming, and you've decided my kennel is the only safe spot. So you're telling me I have to give it to you, or I'm the bad guy. You're also saying your family is scarier than mine. That it?" He leaned over the railing, his eyes suddenly sharp. "Answer the question. I'm recording."
The sheer, brutal coarseness of it, the reduction of his elegant power-play to the level of a street brawl over trash, struck Teng Yunli like a physical blow. His cultivated mask slipped, revealing a flash of pure fury before he smoothed it over. "It seems a… lack of proper upbringing leaves one unable to appreciate civic duty. Or the value of these people's lives. Very well. If you won't do what is right, I will."
He raised a hand. It was the signal. His core group stepped forward, joined by the emboldened agitators. The mob solidified into a weapon. The Xie guards tightened their grips on their weapons, faces grim. This was it.
The boy on the balcony set his noodle cup on the railing with a deliberate click. "So that's it, then? You think because we're in the murder-box, you can kill us, take our stuff, and waltz away? Congratulations. You're all morons. Diploma-incompetent morons." He leaned further, his voice dropping into a conversational, venomous patter. "This is a farm. That grain in the barns? It's been counted. It's logged. It's disaster-relief inventory. The Imperial Assessors willcome after this. You kill me, the dungeon might not care, but the moment this dome drops, there's a property dispute, a theft, and a murder case with my family's name on it. You." He pointed straight at Teng Yunli. "You think your family name is a shield? My family will nail your hide to the courthouse door and use the scandal to gut yours in the Provincial Assembly. They'll hand you over wrapped in a bow to make it all go away. And the rest of you?" His gaze swept the crowd, and for a terrifying instant, every person felt uniquely, personally addressed. "Accessory to murder. Theft of Imperial-regulated goods. Think they'll let your kid take the civil service exams after that? Think the academies will want you? Go on. Make your move. I dareyou."
Silence. Absolute, suffocating silence. The grand, righteous narrative Teng Yunli had woven lay in tatters, replaced by the ugly, practical tapestry of law, politics, and familial vengeance. The mob's fervor died, replaced by the cold sweat of imagined repercussions—official censure, ruined futures, families disgraced. The weapons in their hands suddenly felt incredibly heavy, incredibly stupid.
The boy on the balcony picked up his noodles. He didn't smile. He just took a long, final slurp, the sound obscenely loud in the quiet. The challenge hung in the air, unanswered.