The air in the farmhouse dining hall was thick enough to taste—a cloying mixture of sweat, stale ale, and the sharp, metallic tang of fear. Flickering candlelight from the iron chandelier overhead cast long, dancing shadows across the grim faces of the assembled Arcanists. The news delivered by Xie Guangyu had settled over them like a shroud, chilling the room into a tense silence. A formidable force, lurking in the shadows, waiting to pick the bones of the survivors? The notion was as terrifying as the endless drone of the Scorpid-Tail swarm outside.
"Can we find them?" The question, voiced by Chen Xiaoling, sliced through the quiet. Her voice was small, yet it echoed the desperate hope in every heart—the simplest solution, to face the enemy directly rather than endure this gnawing paranoia.
"We cannot. At least, I have no means to." Xie Guangyu's reply was flat, devoid of false comfort. His eyes, cold and sharp like shards of winter ice, scanned the room. "Lin Qing of the Skybull Arena is no common thug. He is a strategist, a weaver of traps. Do you truly believe he would leave his flank unguarded, allowing us to simply stumble upon his hideout?" The unspoken answer hung heavy in the charged air: Of course not.
The collective silence that followed was profound, a well of shared dread. It was broken by the sound of creaking wood.
All eyes snapped towards the staircase.
A figure descended with an infuriating lack of urgency. Oaks—the farm's owner, the man they all loved to loathe. He leaned against the banister, his posture a masterpiece of casual insolence. A smirk played on his lips, not quite reaching his eyes, which held a glint of predatory amusement.
"You called for me? If this isn't about buying something, let's not waste time. Unless, of course, you're willing to pay a premium for my counsel." His voice was a lazy drawl, dripping with mockery.
A wave of palpable disgust rippled through the room. Even Aqi, who maintained an air of detached neutrality, felt a familiar stir of irritation. Next to her, Gronk the marmot let out a low, guttural chitter, his fluffy tail lashing in open contempt.
One of the Arcanists, a firebrand with a short temper, found his voice. "Master Xie! This farm holds countless lives! Your own included! Hiding behind us, extorting coin while we bleed—do you call that leadership? A man who does not strive for strength deserves the fate that finds him!"
Oaks merely blinked, feigning bewilderment. "Strive for strength? And you presume my method of acquiring wealth—a perfectly legal transaction, I might add—constitutes a lackof effort?" He spread his hands wide, a picture of injured innocence. "Perhaps you've never visited the core worlds? Even on a simple pleasure planet, a bottle of water costs ten times its value near a scenic overlook. This is basic economics! My farm is the scenic overlook in this particular… predicament. I'm simply leveraging my assets."
He took a step forward, his gaze sweeping the room, challenging anyone to contradict him. "You speak of protecting lives. Yet you grudge the very people whose land you shelter on a chance to profit from this misfortune? Is it the farm's produce you scorn, or the farmers themselves?"
His words, twisted yet infuriatingly logical, tied their arguments in knots. A muttered complaint from a tenant farmer about ingratitude was the final straw. The Arcanists exchanged exasperated glances. Arguing with this man was like trying to grasp smoke.
"Enough." The single word from Xie Guangyu cut through the brewing storm, cold and absolute. His authority was no longer questioned; the dynamic had shifted since their return. Yao, observing the subtle change in the hierarchy—the way Xie Yong and his son deferred—felt a cold certainty crystallize in her mind. He's the one. The corrosive mist-wielder. That's his value to Xie An.The prodigal son, not the bastard.
With a dismissive snort, Yao hooked a nearby chair with her foot and slumped into it, crossing her legs. "Get on with it, then."
"We require the food stores," Xie Guangyu stated, his tone leaving no room for negotiation. "We will use them as bait to draw the main swarm into a killing zone. Once their numbers are thinned, we can break out and assault the hive directly."
"Expecting a charitable donation?" Yao raised an eyebrow, a cynical smile touching her lips.
"I will purchase it."
"How generous. Let's draft a contract. I'll take a percentage of the loot from the hive core as well." She began to turn, as if to call for a servant.
It was a fatal miscalculation, a step too far in her charade.
The movement was a blur. In the span of a single heartbeat, Xie Guangyu closed the distance. His hand, cold and unyielding as iron, snapped around her throat. The impact drove the air from her lungs. Before she could even register the shock, her head was slammed down onto the heavy wooden table with a sickening CRACK.
Plates rattled; a bowl of dark, vinegary sauce overturned, splattering its contents across her face and hair. The smell of fermented grains and spices filled her nostrils, mixing with the coppery taste of blood from her split lip.
Gasps echoed in the hall. Captain Liang surged forward, but was immediately blocked by Xie Guangyu's guards. The others looked on, frozen between shock and a grim sense of satisfaction.
Xie Guangyu leaned down, his voice a venomous whisper meant for her alone, yet carrying in the dead silence. "I am not requesting. I am informingyou." The pressure on the back of her neck intensified. "You will surrender the provisions. Or I will shatter your Arcane Core and leave you a broken husk. Who will hold me accountable? My father? The magistrates? Remember, you are a ghost in the imperial records. A necessary casualty in the defense of lawful property."
He knew. He knew about her past on X5, her lack of standing. The threat was real, precise, and utterly merciless.
Yao, pinned and humiliated, felt a white-hot fury ignite within her. Every instinct screamed to fight back, to let the Gossamer threads coiled beneath her skin lash out and sever the hand that held her. But she also felt the subtle hum of energy from the data-reader on his wrist, scanning her even now. Reveal nothing.She forced her body to go limp, allowing a tremor to run through her limbs—the perfect picture of cowed terror.
Aqi watched impassively, her hand resting on Gronk's head, her fingers unconsciously kneading the soft fur between his ears. The marmot squirmed in protest, but her gaze was fixed not on Yao's face, but on the chair she had been sitting in. It hadn't budged an inch during the violent act. Interesting.
"Wait! Stop!" Yao's voice emerged as a strangled gasp, laced with desperate bravado. "I'll sue! I'll take this to the imperial courts! I'm a citizen! You're a bastard too! Your family won't protect you if this scandal gets out! Let me go!"
The pressure on her neck increased slightly. Xie Guangyu's free hand came to rest on the small of her back, a finger pressing against a point where spiritual energy gathered. A silent promise of annihilation. "What was that?"
"The food! You can have it!" The surrender was swift and complete.
A smile, chilling in its cordiality, spread across Xie Guangyu's face. He released her, even going so far as to straighten her collar with feigned brotherly concern. "Excellent. My thanks, Second Brother." The title was a deliberate insult. "We are, after all, bound by blood. Let us work together to resolve this… inconvenience. I was merely jesting earlier. I trust I didn't startle you overmuch?"
Yao shoved his hand away, stumbling back a step. She wiped the sauce and blood from her face, her expression a mask of fury and humiliation. "You know the limits. That's good. Who doesn't want to clear this dungeon? Must we resort to violence? Take the food. But the price is fifty times the market rate. Payment upfront. And you get only a tenth of the stock."
Even beaten, the relentless avarice was a performance in itself. Xie Guangyu simply tossed a heavy purse of credit chips onto the table. It landed with a definitive thud. "Consider it done. Now, return to your room. And stay there."
Under the watchful eyes of Xie guards, Yao was escorted upstairs. The heavy door to her room clicked shut, locking her in.
Alone, the mask fell. The trembling stopped. She touched her throbbing cheek, the skin warm and tender. A cold, analytical calm settled over her. He scanned me during the assault. But he didn't cripple my core. Oaks is valuable to him… and to Xie An. Why?A series of possibilities flickered through her mind—a political pawn, a sacrificial lamb, a body double? The "replacement" trope fit the aristocratic dramas she'd read about.
She pushed the thoughts aside. The game had escalated. Moving to the window, she peered through a narrow gap in the boarding. The night was alive with the chittering of the swarm. But something was wrong. The piles of Scorpid-Tail carcasses that had littered the grounds hours before had noticeably dwindled.
They're being moved. Eaten? Or harvested?A cold knot tightened in her stomach. The Brood-Prime. It's not just hiding. It's strategizing.If the mother of the swarm was intelligent enough to coordinate retrievals, the threat was exponentially greater than mere mindless hunger.
She had to find its new lieutenants, the local commanders. Now.
Uncurling her hands, she focused. Fine, almost invisible strands of Gossamer slithered from her fingertips, not as weapons, but as sensory filaments. They crept through cracks in the floorboards, down the outer walls, becoming a network of unseen nerves extending into the darkness. She would track the movements, trace the patterns, and find the minds behind the swarm.
Hours later, as a pale, sickly dawn bled into the sky, the plan conceived in violence was set in motion. Under Xie Guangyu's ruthless direction, a pit was dug before the main gates, filled with a tenth of the farm's precious food stores. The scent of fresh grains and preserved meats was a siren call.
As the sun rose, the swarm, restless and hungry after a night of dormancy, stirred. The scent hit them like a physical wave. A collective, chittering hunger seized them. They broke from their loose formations around the farm, a black, living tide surging towards the bait. Thousands became tens of thousands, a heaving, seething mountain of chitin and gnashing mandibles piling into the trap.
Then, the ground erupted.
From hidden trenches, colossal serpents of pure fire—Emberburst spells woven together by a dozen Arcanists—exploded upwards. They coiled and twisted through the packed swarm, the intense heat igniting the desiccated bodies instantly. The air filled with the horrific sizzle of burning exoskeletons and the acrid stench of roasted insects. The trap was a masterpiece of coordinated destruction, a roaring inferno that turned the swarm's mindless hunger into its own funeral pyre.
From her window, Yao watched the slaughter. She would gain no experience from this, but that was irrelevant. Her focus was on the trap's design—brutal, efficient. I wouldn't survive three seconds in that,she mused, a professional respect for the craftsmanship warring with a deep-seated caution. Xie Guangyu was dangerously competent.
Cheers erupted from the defenders as the swarm's numbers were decimated. But the elation was short-lived. As the main force of Arcanists poured out of the farm to mop up the stragglers, Yao noticed something odd. A contingent of the Scorpid-Tails, more frenzied than the others, ignored the fighters entirely. Instead, they hurled themselves at the farmhouse itself, focusing their fiery projectiles on a single, specific window.
Herwindow.
The reinforced metal shutters glowed cherry red under the concentrated assault. With a shriek of tortured metal, the locking bar gave way. A blast of superheated air and a tongue of flame licked into the room, setting the edge of a rug smoldering.
Sabotage,she realized with icy clarity. Someone had planted an attractant on her room while she was downstairs. They knew the trap was coming. They knew she'd be confined here. They were using the chaos to assassinate her.
Before she could react, a new sound dominated the battlefield—a deep, thrumming roar. The remaining swarms, previously disorganized, suddenly moved with a single, terrifying purpose. They coalesced into a spearhead, aimed directly at Xie Guangyu, who was orchestrating the final phase of his plan: a series of miniature tornadoes, infused with his own corrosive mist, that ripped through the sky.
He stared, stunned, as the swarm he thought broken now moved with an intelligence that should have been impossible. They had pinpointed him, the architect of their destruction. "The Brood-Prime! It's here!" he yelled, retreating towards the farmhouse.
His warning was drowned out by a shriek that tore the very air. From the distant tree line, a massive, bloated shape ascended. The Scorpid-Queen, easily the size of a small freighter, her wings beating with a sound like tearing canvas. Behind her, a fresh wave of at least twenty thousand Scorpid-Tails emerged, blotting out the wan morning light.
The real battle had just begun.
Meanwhile, two hundred meters away, hidden in an underground burrow, Lin Qing watched the chaos through a long-range scrying orb. "Not yet," he murmured, a smile touching his lips. "Let them wear each other down a little more."
His complacency was shattered a moment later. One of his men, monitoring the ambient magical field, stiffened. "Boss! The energy readings… there's something out there! Close!"
It was the last thing he said. The ground above them exploded inwards. Five elite Scorpid-Tail Lieutenants, each radiating power comparable to the mini-boss Yao had slain, led a tidal wave of insects into the confined space. The ambush was total, devastating.
Lin Qing, shielded by a last-ditch protective amulet that flared and shattered, was the only one to burst free from the collapsing burrow, his robes smoldering, his face a mask of rage and disbelief. He saw the five elite forms, saw the strategic precision of the attack, and came to the only logical conclusion.
"That Xie brat!" he snarled, deflecting a hail of venomous spikes. "This was a trap within a trap! Helaid this for us!" The genius of it was maddening. He rallied his surviving followers. "Wind Formation! Now! To the farm! We use their defenses!"
He had been the hunter waiting to pounce. Now, he was the prey, forced into the open, his strength halved. And the true architect of his ruin was not the arrogant noble in the distance, but the seemingly helpless bastard, alone in a smoke-filled room, her Gossamer threads still tracing the paths of the warring factions, a cold, calculating smile finally touching her lips. The board was set. The pieces were in motion. All according to plan.