"Wow, she's so—"
"Beautiful, right?"
"I was going to say huge. But I mean—"
That made sense.
Morgana and Livina hadn't seen Arachne since she had settled in the stable — months ago, when she was still a fraction of what was now before them. The stable had a magic of its own that I still hadn't managed to fully explain: the interior was clearly larger than the exterior suggested, accommodating creatures of a size that any conventional architecture would make impossible before even beginning to try. It was the kind of Oasis detail I had learned to accept without insisting on understanding.
Arachne had surpassed her mother.
Nearly seven meters tall — with the height that wasn't just a numerical figure but was presence. The ivory cut through by the opaque black markings that had become more defined as she grew — no longer soft as they had been at the beginning, when each marking was still being established, but definitive, with the precision of something that had found the form it would be and had stopped looking.
The growth had decelerated exponentially in the last few days — the rapid stretching of adolescence had come to an end with the naturalness of a process that existed to be temporary, and what remained was consolidation. She wouldn't get much larger. But what had arrived was enough. More than enough.
I watched both girls processing her size with the expression of someone trying to find a reference that would make what they were seeing fit into something known.
"Yes. She's large."
A pause — to let that exist before continuing.
"But that's not what I want to show you."
✦ ✦ ✦
I pulled the item from the ring directly above Arachne — with the movement I had practiced enough times for it to be precise, that had learned that initial positioning determined everything that came after.
I had already done this with her before — tested the positions, adjusted the fit, found the forms that worked and those that didn't, arrived at the result by the path the result required. From her thorax now extended an enormous saddle of leather and metal that descended contouring the entire abdomen and rose to the top in a reinforced metal structural support.
The saddle had been built with a single objective.
Once it was secured, I placed what I wanted in the support — with the care of someone positioning something that had cost a great deal and that needed correct positioning before any other verification.
The Turkish Bombard appeared above her with the weight of something that shouldn't be where it was — not from physical weight, which Arachne absorbed without it appearing in what her body communicated, but from the weight of incongruence, of a long-distance destruction object coupled to a close-combat creature in a way that neither category had been designed to be combined with the other.
And for that very reason produced exactly the effect I had planned.
"Wait."
Morgana looked shocked.
"Are you saying she's going to be able to fire that while moving?"
I couldn't contain it — with the kind of satisfaction that came from seeing the exact point of arrival that had been planned being reached by the path that had been calculated.
That was it. That was exactly it.
"That's right. Arachne has no difficulty with the weight — and since she uses ground vibration to locate the enemy, the sound of the shot wouldn't be a problem either." — a pause. — "Ready, Arachne?"
"Of course, father. Watch what I can do."
From her spinnerets came silk — but not the common silk I had seen her produce before, that existed as material and not as tool, that had been produced for purpose and not for instruction. It was the same substance, yes, but manipulated with a precision I was still learning to recognize as distinct, that went beyond what I had imagined would be possible when I had first observed how she used what she produced.
The threads moved as though they were alive — which was an approximate description of something that had no better description available, that captured the quality of intentional movement without capturing the mechanism. Filling every gap between the saddle and the cannon, wrapping the metal with overlapping layers that adjusted with the precision of something being built by someone who knew exactly what they were building, until the cannon no longer seemed like an object attached to her.
It seemed part of her — with the integration that made the distinction between creature and equipment less obvious than it had been a second before.
"Perfect."
I looked at it for a moment longer than necessary.
The idea had arisen from a simple observation. The Infernals had no containment force for long distance. They didn't need one — it had never been necessary to develop what had never been missing. Their skins were resistant enough to absorb arrows and crossbow bolts with the efficiency of natural armor that had been developed before any artificial armor existed, and speed compensated for any window archers tried to exploit before the window closed.
Over time, the need for ranged attack had become irrelevant to them — a capability they had simply stopped developing because developing it would have had a cost without verifiable return. Each generation had received what the previous one had left behind, and what the previous one had left behind didn't include defense against what had never felt like a threat.
That was a vulnerability.
If I could maintain a front line resistant enough to absorb the first impact, the bombardment could be the variable that would bring chaos to the field — not in a way that guaranteed victory, which would be expectation above what the situation allowed. But in a way that would force the Infernals to react to something they hadn't trained a response for. And creatures that had never needed to react to distance tended to react poorly when forced to do so for the first time.
"It's a shame you can only do this with her."
Morgana had arrived exactly where I wanted — at the point of perception that was the beginning of the next part, that had been waiting for that point to be revealed.
"Arachne — bring two of your children. Let's test the second weapon."
She struck a leg on the ground with the sound that had become a recognizable call within the stable — the specific frequency that had been developed over months of coexistence between her and the offspring, that communicated instruction before any word.
Two grey ones of nearly three meters emerged from the back of the stable and aligned before me with the discipline of creatures that had grown up knowing they were soldiers.
I activated the ring. A simple chariot appeared — the simplest I had managed to build in the available time, because the available time had been consumed by what I was pulling from the ring at the same moment, and simplifying was what remained when complexifying had become impossible within the existing deadline.
From inside, a cannon.
Clearly smaller than the Turkish Bombard — less than half the size, with the dimensions that had been calculated by elimination: what the Yokai soldiers could carry without the Oasis imposing restrictions, without the weight exceeding what the body had been built to sustain in motion, without the recoil toppling what needed to remain upright for the next shot to be possible.
It couldn't be too large — the creatures wouldn't hold up, and a creature that didn't hold up was artillery that destroyed itself before destroying the enemy. It couldn't be too small — the Oasis would block any attempt to circumvent restrictions through a dimension that fell below what the system recognized as an individual weapon. The size that remained after testing the limits in both directions was this — not the ideal, which would have been something between the two extremes and which time hadn't allowed calibrating with precision. But acceptable.
I positioned the mini-cannon on the chariot — not fixed, but seated in a rotating mount that allowed angle adjustment without the structure needing to be completely reoriented. It was the same principle that ancient armies had used when they discovered that stationary artillery was dead artillery: the chariot existed to move, the cannon existed to fire, and both needed to be capable of doing both things without one function compromising the other.
The two Yokais carrying it clearly felt the weight in ways Arachne didn't — the effort distributed between two bodies with the asymmetry of load not designed to be carried by two, but that two could sustain. It wasn't elegant. But there was enough lightness in the movement for the whole to function — stop, fire, move, stop again, with the rhythm that artillery in the field had always demanded of those who operated it.
"Wow. With this force, maybe we don't even need to enter the battlefield." — Morgana was running her hand over the mini-cannon with the expression of someone who had finally understood what I had been building inside the iron and steel house for weeks — the hours she had seen pass without seeing the result. — "Wait, how many did you make?"
I let the pause last a moment longer — with the pause that existed not from hesitation but from choice, from knowing that what came next was better received after a second of anticipation.
"Five units. Plus Arachne's."
Morgana's happiness deflated slightly — with the specific deflation of someone who had imagined a number and had received a smaller one.
I understood — without needing her to explain, because I had calculated the reaction before communicating the number. Five was little compared to what she had imagined it could be, given what she had seen of the process and what she had imagined the process could have produced with more time. But five units committing ten Yokais was real force — not the maximum that time had allowed imagining, which was a separate category from what time had allowed building.
✦ ✦ ✦
"What's the tactic then?"
Livina stepped forward still analyzing the mini-bombards with the attention of someone verifying what existed before calculating what could be done. I had the answer.
"Six bombardiers that can devastate any fixed line."
I paused — so that would exist as data before being connected to what came next.
"My idea is to create chaos in the enemy and force the mistake."
It wasn't an innovative tactic. It was the kind of approach that any commander with limited access and a superior enemy had tried at some point in history — because when you can't win in direct confrontation, the only option is to make direct confrontation impossible. It was the logic that had produced all the armament I had spent weeks building, each piece being a response to the same question: how to create a condition where my disadvantage was so exposed.
The Infernals were superior in brute force — with the superiority that wasn't an exaggeration, but was verifiable data by any honest analysis of capabilities. In speed. In individual resistance that had been developed over generations in an environment that had selected what survived and discarded what didn't. A direct combat line would be total defeat.
But a solid defensive line was rarely broken without long-range firepower — which was a principle that had survived enough time in human history for me to trust it even outside the human context. And long-range firepower was exactly what the Infernals hadn't developed because it had never been necessary to develop.
The advantage I had was the capacity to fight as a unit — to create a system where each part covered the other, where the whole was more than the sum because the parts had been chosen to complete each other. The disadvantage I would create in them was forcing them to react in ways they hadn't trained for.
The chaos would come from the bombardiers. The time would come from the defensive line — which existed not to win but to last long enough for the chaos to have time to work. And time was what needed to exist for the chaos to do the work that only chaos could do.
"Prince — how are the Griffins?"
The large creature that had been observing the entire interaction in silence — with the specific silence of something that had decided that observing was the right contribution for that moment and had maintained that decision while the moment had lasted — emerged from the stillness with the naturalness of something that had been waiting to be called and had decided not to rush the moment when it would be called.
"As you said — ten Griffins were produced. They're still adolescents, so I wouldn't count on ground power." — a pause that was data and not hesitation. — "But in the sky they will be very capable."
"Perfect. Prepare the best eight. Leave one male and one female behind."
"Understood, my Lord. I'll make the preparations."
The large Griffin flew toward the construction that rose in my territory — a structure that from the outside looked like a cage of spectacular proportions, but that on the inside was something else entirely. Like the stable, the interior was much larger than the exterior suggested — with the difference of scale I had stopped trying to explain and had simply utilized. But where the stable still carried the idea of containment — of a delimited space where creatures existed within a limit —, that construction had abandoned any pretense of it.
Inside, it was a mountain range. Complete — with altitude that made flight not just possible but necessary to cross from one point to another, with vegetation that had grown after the construction as though the environment had accepted that this was what it was, with the kind of space that flying creatures need to truly exist rather than just existing in confinement that reproduced the form without reproducing the function.
The Griffins that had been born once the construction was completed didn't have the Prince's personality — which was the product of decades of arena and time, of having thought about things that young creatures hadn't yet had reason to think about. They were army creatures, not companions — developed for function rather than relationship.
I hadn't minded. In fact, I had preferred it — with the preference of someone who had calculated that in the battlefield, cohesion was more useful than personality, that a creature that executed instructions was more reliable than one that arrived at its own conclusions at the wrong moment.
The Griffins would serve as a second level of bombardment — operating on the axis the Yokais didn't cover, in the space where ground artillery couldn't reach but where the enemy would try to reorganize before reacting. While the Yokais pressed on the ground with the mini-cannons, forcing horizontal reaction, the Griffins would operate in the sky with the archers — eliminating anything that tried to flank the artillery positions from angles the ground didn't cover, and dropping stone balls filled with gunpowder on the enemy when the distance allowed the shot to arrive before a response was possible.
As for the rest of the army, I had provided giant shields — structures that covered most of the soldiers' bodies, making them less attackers and more living barriers that existed to last rather than to advance. It was what I had done against the Yokai queen, and it had worked well enough for me to trust the principle even at a different scale.
Everything revolved around time. The more I managed to absorb before close combat, the more the bombardment would have the opportunity to work — more shots, more chaos, more uncoordinated reaction that created openings the front line could use as windows.
I knew, with a clarity I preferred not to verbalize because verbalizing made permanent what could remain merely calculated, that the clash of armies would be considered defeat in any conventional analysis. There was no chance of winning any direct confrontation between forces — the numbers and individual capabilities made that result the most likely before any additional variable was introduced. But while the enemy was far away, there was a chance — the chance that existed in the space between where the enemy was and where it would need to arrive for the result to be inevitable.
"Zeus — summarize the expeditionary force."
[ EXPEDITIONARY FORCE STATUS
1 — Turkish Bombard coupled to Arachne (S- Creature)5 — Mini Turkish Bombard coupled to 10 Yokai soldiers (B- Creature)15 — Yokai soldiers with light armor2 — Urskra8 — Griffins8 — Last generation Archers15 — Last Generation Armored Soldiers with retractable shields27 — Last Generation Armored Knights
Status: Approved for incursion ]
I looked at the numbers with the attention of someone verifying whether what had been built corresponded to what had been planned.
The fifty-unit limit, counting mount and rider as one, had favored me more than it had hindered me. I had focused on quality from the beginning — not from a philosophical choice that had arrived from some prior principle, but because it was the only way to make sense with the resources I had and with what I had calculated would be possible to manage.
A lean army, each unit with a defined function before entering the list, each position calculated to multiply what the others did rather than simply add to what the others did. The difference between those two ways of organizing an army was the difference between a unit and an aggregate — and a unit worked when an aggregate failed precisely in the moments when the pressure was sufficient for coordination to be the only available advantage.
The knights would stay on the Yokais — including those carrying the mini-bombards, with the latter being responsible for reloading the bombards while the Yokais moved. It was the most efficient form I had found after testing alternatives: the knights protected the artillery while the artillery did the work the knights couldn't do alone, and each unit covered the other's weakness in a way that the weakness stopped being a weakness when the whole was working.
I knew my choice wasn't the most common among the newcomers — that there were patterns most had followed for reasons that made sense within certain logics. There were those who had invested everything in becoming personally stronger — ignoring the territory, ignoring the army, betting that individual strength would be sufficient. There were those who had focused exclusively on economy, building rich kingdoms and armies that didn't correspond to the wealth that had built them. And there were those who had tried to do everything at once, being mediocre at everything and good at nothing — which was the specific result of distributing attention that had been applied without priority criteria.
I didn't know if my choice was the right one.
I knew it was mine — which was the only certainty available, and that had been enough to make the choices that had produced what was before me.
✦ ✦ ✦
"What now?"
Livina asked with the tone of someone who knows time has run out and still needs to hear there's something to do.
There was.
"I'm going back to the iron and steel house. I want to reinforce the Yokai soldiers and make the chariots more functional. If something goes wrong with them in the field, the mini-bombards become useless." — a pause. — "The artillery is the variable that most depends on what supports it. If the support fails, the variable disappears."
While I mentally listed what needed to be done — the list that had been growing over the days and that had stopped growing not because it had reached the end but because time had reached the end before it did — something changed in the environment.
Morgana stepped forward first — with the step of someone who had made a decision before having a reason to make it, who had arrived at the movement before arriving at the thought that would justify it. Livina a second later — with the second of difference that communicated she had arrived at the same decision by the same path but with the interval that existed between the two processes.
I hadn't reserved space in the schedule for that — which was the honest way of describing the state of someone who had been so focused on what needed to be done that they had stopped calculating what was around them.
Both their arms arrived at the same time, and for a moment I stood still not knowing how to respond to something I had avoided thinking about since the scroll had arrived — not because it was a bad thought, but because it was a thought that required emotional capacity I had redirected toward what needed to be done.
The real weight of leaving people who mattered to me behind. Or of being left behind by them. And the difference between the two possibilities that I preferred not to calculate out loud because calculating out loud made each of them more concrete than was comfortable in that moment.
"You are the best warrior I've ever seen. Even being human."
I laughed before I could stop myself.
"Thank you, Livina."
"I believe in you."
Morgana spoke more softly — with the volume that existed when what needed to be said didn't need volume to arrive, that had chosen the register that made the sentence heavier than it would be at higher volume.
"And above all that you'll come back. You need to come back. Understood?"
I let them hold me for a moment I hadn't planned and that was exactly what I needed — with the precision of something that had arrived in the right form at the right moment, which was rarer than it should be.
"Understood. I'll come back."
A pause.
"Don't worry, girls. You saw our army."
I looked at both of them.
"We're going to give any enemy a very hard time."
A longer pause — so what had been said could arrive before what was coming next, so they wouldn't compete.
"Besides — I leveled up. Remember?"
Both their expressions changed.
I activated the status.
[ STATUS — Leonidas Aquiles | Lv. 1 ] +3
[ Strength: 9 ]
[ Intelligence: 6 ]
[ Dexterity: 8 ]
[ Agility: 6 ]
[ Magic: 2 ]
[ Aqrabuamelu — Zaetar (Unique) ][ Archons — Superior Healing (Legendary) ][ Blood Magic (Rare) ]
Available points: 18 ]
I looked at the numbers with the attention of someone reading for the first time something that had been waiting to be read.
Eighteen available points. The Colosseum had delivered more than I expected — with the more that wasn't an exaggeration of expectation but was a real result that exceeded what had been calculated as probable before verifying the result. And I still hadn't distributed anything, because distributing was a decision that needed to be made with the battlefield in mind and not the territory.
The good news was that the points had doubled — with the doubling that needed explanation before being received as reliable data. I would normally receive nine for that level — the other nine came from a variable I still hadn't completely mapped, that had appeared without the system having communicated its origin. The thought about this difference made me think of Zaridan and especially of the power I had taken from him.
I shook my head — there was no time to try to find answers, at least not yet.
In the moment, I just wanted to enjoy the embrace of both girls for a few more seconds before getting back to work.
✦ ✦ ✦
The few hours that remained had served to adjust the chariots.
Just that — with the just that wasn't disappointment but was honest recognition of limit. There was no time to reinforce the Griffins, no time to create new weapons, no time for anything beyond the essential that was still missing when time had reached its limit. I had learned to accept that.
The large portal had appeared in the territory as a warning — luminous, impossible to ignore even for someone focused on something else, communicating that the moment was approaching without needing words to communicate what its presence had already communicated before any word.
I still had margin. I took advantage of it.
I went over each bombard one last time — checking the gunpowder supplies. The cannonballs. The joints I had reinforced in the chariots over the last few hours, each reinforcement being a response to a weakness I had identified before the field revealed it.
Nothing could go wrong in the field for a reason I could have prevented here — which was a principle I had developed over the months in the Oasis and that had proven more useful than any specific technique.
It was the kind of verification that didn't resolve the anxiety. But that was the only honest response I had to the anxiety, the only available gesture that produced verifiable results before the field.
[ Advance to the Purge. You have 01:00:27 ]
"Alright. I still have time to check the creatures."
✦ ✦ ✦
The Urskra were the oldest creatures I had.
And there was something about old age that the Oasis taught in a way I was still learning to read — not of superior intelligence, which was what most assumed as the product of time. But of emotional experience. Of having seen enough to recognize patterns that younger creatures didn't yet know existed — because the patterns existed before being named, and naming required having encountered them first.
They were anxious. The Prince too. And I knew the reason.
Old age in the Oasis taught about war. And war taught about death — not as a concept, but as data about what happened when certain conditions met.
The mother Urskra was standing in front of her husband's trough with the posture of someone who had decided she wasn't leaving until she received a satisfactory answer — not a threat, not negotiation, just presence communicating that there was something that needed to be resolved before anything else was possible.
"Don't worry."
I said it with the firmness the situation required — the firmness that communicated certainty before certainty existed, which was what the situation needed me to offer — and the honesty she deserved, which was the honesty of someone saying what needed to be said and committing to what needed to be committed to.
"I'll bring your husband back for the birth of the baby."
She looked at me for a moment.
Then stepped back.
I hadn't expected that would be the hardest part of the day. Not adjusting tactics. Not calibrating bombards. Not calculating force distribution or checking joints or mapping the last variables before the field.
A mother Urskra worried about her husband — without the sophisticated intelligence of Arachne, who had reached the point where the abstract was accessible. Without the Prince's abstract understanding, who had lived long enough to develop what long time produced. But with the fundamental understanding that the danger was real and that someone she loved was heading toward it.
It was remarkable how certain things crossed any intelligence barrier — how there were things that arrived without needing the path that most things needed to arrive.
I needed the Urskra. The additional power was a real differential in a field where any differential mattered because the margin I calculated having was sufficiently small.
But I had made a promise now. And promises had weight — the kind of weight I had decided to carry when I had chosen to make the promise, with the awareness that promising without intention of fulfilling was an integrity cost I preferred not to pay.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Pegasus — unfortunately you won't be able to come."
The confused eyes that gradually filled with understanding were more articulate than any verbal response he could have given.
It was clear he understood that that limitation wasn't natural. The Oasis had decided that a young growing Cockatrice, even still far from the peak of what it would be when growth reached its end, had already crossed the threshold that made his participation impossible under the rules that made other participations possible.
S+ rank.
Even while still growing.
Sometimes I was still surprised by the speed at which he processed things. It wasn't the kind of surprise that diminished. It was the kind that grew each time it happened.
I finished talking with the creatures that would stay — FireWood, Pegasus, Arachne's offspring that still hadn't reached sufficient maturity for the field and that had received that information with the varied reception of creatures at different stages of development. Each received what I could give: enough information to understand what was happening without detail that would produce unnecessary anxiety. Context for what the territory would be without the two parts that were going and without part of the army that had been present. And the honesty of not pretending everything was under control when it clearly wasn't completely.
Livina entered the stable at a quick pace — with the speed of someone who had noticed something that needed to be communicated before the moment to communicate passed.
"Lord, you're going to be late."
"Calm down. The portal closes in ten minutes."
"Lord, you're wrong. You were so busy here you didn't notice — there's one minute left."
I looked at the corner of my field of vision where the counter existed.
[ Advance to the Purge. You have 00:00:58 ]
"Damn."
I got up too quickly and stumbled on my own momentum. I advanced toward the front line adjusting what could still be adjusted while walking.
The nervousness arrived in my stomach with the intensity of something that had been contained by constant occupation and had taken advantage of the moment of disorganization to escape what had contained it. Anxiety. Nervousness. Probably both at the same time — with the specific coexistence of states that were different but had found reason to exist simultaneously.
"Lord — don't forget this."
Morgana reached me with the object I had made, tested, chosen — and that in the chaos of the last minutes had simply been left behind while I had been somewhere else doing something else that had seemed more urgent.
The helmet.
✦ ✦ ✦
It was a piece built to leave the enemy no choice.
The front covering descended in two parallel struts that protected the cheeks and met almost at the chin, leaving only a narrow vertical slit for the eyes — wide enough to see what needed to be seen, narrow enough for any frontal blow to meet metal before meeting flesh, before the distance between the blow and what needed to be protected was traversed. The nasal descended from the center of the forehead like a flat blade, dividing the field of vision in two and protecting the point that any experienced fighter learned to aim for first.
The back descended in a curve over the nape, sealing the fit with the neck so that head movement was possible but cost effort — a deliberate compromise between mobility and protection that had been resolved in favor of protection because I had calculated that mounted, head mobility was a less critical variable than it would be on foot.
The fit was by pressure. No strap, no buckle — calibrated to the specific circumference of whoever wore it, settling with the kind of firmness that only released when there was intention to release. In combat, that was an advantage: no blow displaced it without toppling whoever carried it along, which was a critical difference between equipment that remained and equipment that was removed before fulfilling its function.
It was very similar to a Hoplite helmet — with the resemblance that was the product of having arrived at the same solution by the same path.
It protected — which was the obvious function, the one any observer would identify first. But against the Infernals, it had a more specific function than protection.
It hid my face.
"How does it look?"
"Great."
"Handsome."
I laughed — with the laughter that had come from the contrast between the weight of the moment and the lightness of what had been said, that had found the most convenient available exit.
"Thank you, girls."
A pause — with the duration that existed when there was something that needed separation from what had been said to exist with the correct weight.
"See you shortly."
I advanced without waiting for an answer — with the step of someone who had reached the point where waiting had a cost the deadline didn't allow paying.
The army moved behind me with the coordination that had been built over weeks of organization — each unit in the place that had been planned before any movement was necessary, each creature knowing what it should do when on the terrain on the other side.
I had spent weeks building this — with the accumulation that made what was before me the product of time that had been spent in a way that every hour had contributed to what now existed. I had slept little, had made mistakes, had adjusted, had made mistakes again and adjusted again with the persistence of someone who had arrived at the conclusion that error was part of the process and not failure.
I crossed the portal with three seconds to spare.
What was on the other side surprised me.
I was the last to arrive. The field was already occupied — Lords and their armies of all sizes and origins distributed across the plain with the distribution of those who had arrived before there was instruction about where to stand, who had found position by their own logic before any collective logic was established. With their eyes turned not toward the horizon where the Infernals would appear — which was where the threat was and where any situational analysis would point — but toward what had arrived behind me.
Arachne.
With a Turkish Bombard coupled to her thorax and war silk covering every joint — with the integration that made the whole different from anything that had arrived before, that had produced something for which no reference was available on the field.
I understood the reaction — with the understanding of someone who had seen Arachne through the eyes of someone seeing her for the first time enough times to know what that reaction was before it was described.
"Hello everyone."
My voice came out calmer than I had planned — with the calm that had arrived before I decided I was calm, that had found the state before the state was chosen.
"I hope I didn't miss the fun part."