The sharp hum of mana rang through the training grounds. Adam lunged forward, his mandibles glowing with condensed light. The ghostly hologram of the spider hissed, its massive limbs slashing down with bone-rattling speed.
Adam ducked beneath a claw, his shield flaring into existence just in time to block the follow-up strike. Sparks of mana crackled off its surface as he slid backward across the dirt. He breathed heavily, gasping for air at every breath.
"Damn it," he muttered to himself, trying to regain his composure.
The spider pressed. Its legs stabbed like lances, each thrust a test of his timing. Adam parried with mana infused armor plates, then released a thin, shimmering arc of mana from his mandibles. Mana Slash. The glowing blade slashed through the air as it carved across the spider's projection, splitting one of its limbs apart before the image flickered and reformed.
He gritted his mandibles. The skill wasn't as easy as he had imagined. Through relentless trials and errors. He had learned to shape it like water, envisioning himself surrounded, forming a channel through which the current could flow. When the image was right, all he had to do was let it go.
He had failed countless times at first. Slashes veered off in crooked arcs, shields shattered too early, armor weighed him down rather than protected him. But now… now he felt it. Control.
The spider lunged for his head. Adam inhaled sharply, braced, and unleashed everything into one decisive swing. A crescent of mana split the hologram in half. The ghost spider shrieked as its body dissolved into flickering light and faded away.
Adam stood in silence, his chest heaving, mandibles aching from the strain. Then a low laugh escaped him. "Better… this time it was much better." The book has done wonders for him. Inside it contained knowledge about mana, though simple and basic, it was enough for him to grasp a better understanding on its mysterious ways.
Mana seems to be a finite resource, existing within the atmosphere and objects that could harness it, known as mana crystals. It can be foreseen as air, though it requires quite a bit of concentration to "sense" it. It's as if the wind is moving ever so slightly, shifting dimensions, playing with the endless possibilities limited only by one's imagination. Yet, he can't blindly create skills on his own free will. He could feel the system making it easier for him as if guiding him to the right path.
He glanced at the faint trails of mana still dancing on his shield, then at the shimmering webs he had reinforced earlier. Even those pulsed faintly, hardened by his energy. "I doubt even the real spider could cut through that now," he whispered.
The system panel blinked into view.
[Map Panel – Active]
Ants: 70
Range extenders: 12
Small glowing dots scurried across the map, each representing an ant on duty. Lines pulsed where scouts had placed hidden crystals further from the colony. The hive was alive, busier than ever before.
Adam felt a pang of pride. In his absence, the ants had worked tirelessly. Mira bore the brunt of responsibility, dragging herself from task to task with exhaustion etched into every step. Brill was in his passion, tunneling happily as if the world was his playground. Norkk, Zell, and Skitt had taken to sparring with the others, sharpening the colony's edge.
Peaceful. Yet beneath the order, an unease stirred.
The beetles had vanished.
It had been nearly a month since the last attack. It's impossible for the beetles to know that ants had built a home for themselves within these grounds, after all, the beetles were consumed by the core, never to see another day. So why now? Are they preparing something much more sinister? Why the silence? Adam clenched his mandibles. Were they gathering an army? Preparing for something larger? Or… had they simply given up?
"Unlikely," he murmured.
He thought back to that day. The beginning that led to it all. Beetles chasing Skitt like a cruel toy. The rage that had consumed him. The deaths that had followed. Could it have been different? Could they have been allies, if not for that moment?
He doubted it. The beetles had shown no mercy, no desire for peace. And yet… not all beetles could be like that, could they? Just as the moths had proven different, despite their flaws.
And the crickets. Nomads who thrived by exploiting others, who tricked and traded lives like coin. Mophius had said both beetles and crickets were enemies to his people. Maybe to Adam's ants as well.
Still, Adam made a note in his mind. "Next time, I'll capture one alive. I need to know more on what's really going on".
His thoughts wandered briefly to Mophius. Had the moth reached his kingdom safely? Was he already sending word back? Adam hoped so.
"Mister Giant…"
Adam turned. Mira lay sprawled on the ground, mandibles drooping, antennae twitching with fatigue. She looked as though she might melt into the stone floor.
"…when will you… be back?" she murmured.
Adam softened. He reached out, patting her head gently. "Soon, Mira. Just rest for now."
Her antennae flicked weakly, and she drifted into sleep.
Adam gathered his things: healing mushrooms tucked into a pouch, armor adjusted across his body, his resolve sharpened like a blade. He carried some of the range extenders as well. It was time to finish what was started. It was time to prove his worth and defeat it once and for all. Glancing one last time at the colony, a sense of pride rushed his veins.
Then he turned, stepping into the tunnels once more, ready to face the phantom that haunted him.
In a Count's house not so far away. The corridor smelled of oil and old wine. Carabus's estate stretched in carved extravagance. Tapestries hung heavy with dust, portraits of stern ancestors lining the walls, their painted eyes watching the passage of time with the patience of marble. Each frame was a lesson in lineage: generations who had bent knees and sharpened daggers for the beetle throne. Their faces seemed to whisper as Varas passed, a procession of loyalty and long-dead favors that haunted the hallway like a slow, polite wind.
A brown slave beetle padded ahead of him, carrying a tray with measured steps. Varas kept his hands folded. An old habit of nobles that made the bluntness of his posture look like courtesy. Varas followed until the corridor opened into the chamber.
Carabus lounged on the soft sofa like a predator on a throne of velvet, one leg slung, one claw curled around a cup. He rose with a grin that never reached his eyes. "Back so soon?" he drawled, voice smooth as lacquer.
"Unfortunate indeed, such forsaken times have befallen me." Varas remarked with a faint arch of one mandible.
Carabus's smile collapsed into business the moment Varas eased onto the opposite chair.
"So," Carabus said before Varas could set himself, stirring his tea with the bone of a finger, "what brings the queen's favorite man into my den this early?"
"You seem famished," Varas ignored his questions, taking a jab with practiced politeness. "Trying a new diet?"
The brown slave poured the tea with a steady hand. A red liquid sloshed into the cup. Red, dark and threaded with herbs that curled faintly at the edges. When the slave left, closing the door with the soft click of servitude, Varas lifted the cup to his mandibles and tasted. Bloody and sweat. The flavor was intoxicating in a way the fancy banquets were not; it awakened a satisfying predator's urge to consume more. Just how he likes it.
Carabus watched the gesture like a man who measured appetite. "Tell me what bothers you so much, that you seek me out again in such short notice," he prompted. The bone in his stirrer tapped the rim of porcelain like a metronome.
Varas set the cup down, letting the steam fog the air between them. "I am in a predicament," he said slowly. "I need a high-mana creature for... a project."
Carabus's smile sharpened. "A high-mana creature. Quite the find. I am afraid I do not traffic in the live and dangerous, such animals are poor for business." He finished his tea, set the cup down, and from beneath the sofa produced a folded map. He pushed it toward Varas with two precise claws.
Varas unfolded it. The bloody ink showed the interior of a mansion in obsessive detail: corridors, rooms, guards posted where no guest would expect them, watch rotations inked in the margins. It was a study of complacency, a blueprint of a private nest.
Carabus leaned back, the grin now a blade. "House of Staghorn," he said. "Remember them? Their count was found dead last night. Head gave part to his body. Foul play, surely, but the sort of useful foul play that tells you where the scab runs thin."
Varas let the map fold into his memory, eyes flicking to the small notations that marked guard shifts. "I remember," he murmured, voice smooth as silk yet edged with irony. "And if I recall correctly, you were on rather favorable terms with them… once."
Carabus's face hardened. "A mutual agreement. Nothing more. The new Count? A radical. A fool and an ambitious one at that. He thinks he has mastered power and authority when he has barely tasted it." His tone fumed with anger and rage. "He's been buying slaves. Brown workers, at least a hundred of them. He claims he needs them for his mines. But mines do not require whole regiments." He paused, a disgusted snort vibrating through the room. "He's building an army that answers only to him. Not to the Queen."
Varas's mandibles brushed together in a small sound of interest. "You don't mean..."
"I do." Carabus's voice was flat as a stone dropped in a pool. "We suspect treason. It's impossible to amass such numbers in secrecy without allies in shady places." He steepled a claw over the map, eyes glittering. "A rebellion will sprout where there is need. The Queen's abductions, her taxes, the hunger. People grow tired of being ground. We can disguise such deeds by blaming them on the rising corps for it, sew panic, or we provide just enough so they last another season. But! I won't lose control to some rash new Count."
The chamber's air grew thick, variegated with the scent of old blood and the sweet tang of ambition. Varas took a slow sip of tea and set the cup down with a steady motion.
"What has this got to do with me?" he asked at last, not without a hint of edge. Carabus laughed short, sharp and wounded by vanity.
"So, you wish to hop from one master to the next like a parasite?" Carabus's voice rose a notch. "What if the next lord decides crickets are pests to be crushed? What if you are not welcome at the next banquet? If the Queen is overthrown. Do you think parlor favors will protect you? Even if they do, do you think you can replace ME?"
Varas watched Carabus unsettle himself. He had found the man's soft spot: rank and title, the very currency Carabus hoarded like a miser. The Duke fluttered in his own anxieties, eager to keep the structure that fed him. Varas let the moment stretch.
"You know I will survive whatever the world throws at me," Varas said quietly. "But I understand your fear. You would keep the throne in place, not for the Queen, but for the stability it promises you."
Carabus straightened. Pride and fear braided across his features. He moved, opening a drawer and producing a small vial wrapped in oilcloth. He set it on the table with a soft sigh. "You'll have what you want, Stagerous. The new Count has creatures unknown. Some valuable, some… delightfully rare and pleasuring, dare I say." He gestured at the inked rooms. "You may take whatever you please from his manor."
Varas inclined his head. It was almost too generous. "That would simply not do," he said. "I require more than a trinket raid. I want the mines. I believe, fairly, that if the Count's holdings fall, the flow below will be mine to route. Give me the rights to the nothern mines once he is disgraced."
Carabus let out a breath that might have been a laugh or a curse. He folded his fingers in thought, then shrugged as if conceding to an old, unpleasant truth. "Alright," he said at last. "But only the mines up north. But I have one condition and a plan."
Varas's gaze sharpened.
"You will make it look like a rebellion," Carabus continued. "Gather proof, enough that the nobles can call it treason. When you strike, I want the praise. My name will be the one spoken when the people clap. You will do the dirty work; I will be the herald."
Varas's mandibles twitched in something that might have been amusement. "So you want me to crown you hero while I do all the work."
Carabus smiled like he had remembered a particular feast. "Precisely. Glory looks good on names. It will surely help in me occupying his land once and for all."
Varas folded the map, eyes lingering over the marked watch rotations, the brittle margins with the Count's favorite lounges. He extended a claw. They shook, a silent pact sealed with the press of polished shell.
Carabus produced a small pouch from the folds of his robe and laid it atop the carved table. When Varas opened it, the red powder puffed out like a breath from a kiln. It shimmered with the dull, hungry light of crushed stone. Just dust with hunger in its grain.
"Good luck," Carabus said smoothly, tucking his fingers into the crease of his suit. "And be discreet. I'll be there to lead my men in the final charge. But do not forget. If you fail, I will not stand with the losing side."
Varas rose. In the doorway he paused, glancing back at the portraits that watched with their long-lidded eyes. A half-smile touched him, polite and cold.
"As always. I shall ensure that things return to their rightful order."
He stepped into the corridor. The slave at the threshold bowed low, and the hall seemed to swallow him whole, as if the shadows themselves sought to dissuade him from what he intended.