The Zhur'kai Lord didn't wait for permission to enter.
He invaded the command tent with the heavy breathing of someone who had run in armor soaked in blood — not the blood of victory, but the kind that accumulates in retreat. To him, Druvikai was a living legend. Son of an ancient lineage. Brother of a conqueror who had devastated entire solar systems. A heritage of destruction concentrated in a single Lord.
When he had been summoned to that campaign, the old one hadn't minded being subordinate. Being under Druvikai's command meant certain victory.
Humans were weak. Divided. Newcomers.
They had been wrong.
The humans had waited. Planned. More than twenty Lords uniting in silence — not reaction, but preparation. Someone had leaked the advance plan. What should have been an invasion had become an ambush. Druvikai's advance — and even the Supreme's — had been stopped.
Defeat.
Complete.
"Lord Druvikai…" — the old one swallowed hard. — "We need to retreat."
Silence.
He raised his eyes.
What he saw was not the proud warrior from before. Druvikai was seated, motionless — his gaze empty with the specific quality of a gaze that had lost something that had been holding everything else together.
"Ah… of course… raise the retreat banner… and…"
The sentence died.
He sank into the improvised throne. Aged. Small. With the appearance of something that had been emptied before the body realized it.
The old one felt something cold down his spine.
"What is happening, Lord Druvikai?"
The green eyes rose slowly. Without light.
"We are retreating to our territory… leave my presence."
It wasn't a furious order. It was empty — the kind that comes from someone still processing that the ground had disappeared.
The old one didn't wait a second longer.
He ran out.
"RETREAT! RETREAT! RETREAAAT!"
The shouts echoed through the camp. The Zhur'kai army began to move with the specific noise of a large structure trying to change direction — slow, heavy, inevitable.
The tent fell silent.
Shadows danced on the canvas.
And inside them, Druvikai murmured.
"How…?"
He wasn't brilliant. But he knew when something was wrong — and he had felt it at the exact moment. The connection snapped like a burned wire. Tauros had died.
Tauros had not been his first summoning. The first was mediocre. Weak. Disposable. But Tauros had been an investment — time, resources, training, accumulated growth until he became the strongest adult of his race. Proof of power. Position among equals.
And now.
Nothing.
The hero's death wasn't just a military loss. It was political. Among the Zhur'kais, strength defined position — and Druvikai had just lost his. He could smell weakness spreading before the other Lords even knew.
Among his race, weakness meant two things.
Submission.
Or death.
He squeezed his fists until blood ran from his palms.
"No…"
The humiliation was worse than the defeat. He didn't fear the humans. He feared his own equals — and what they would do when they realized.
Then something changed in his eyes.
Something hard. Something that had processed everything and arrived at a conclusion that left no room for anything else.
"I will have my revenge before my death."
He knew exactly who it had been. The small territory. Underestimated. The human who killed Tauros.
While Leonidas celebrated — he didn't know.
But in that moment, in the heart of a retreating army, something far more dangerous than an invasion was born.
Personal hatred.
And Druvikai would not retreat forever.
He would retreat to return stronger.
When he returned — it would not be for territory or supplies.
It would be for a head.
✦
"I must admit… your idea was unexpected."
Livina crossed her arms, her tail swaying behind her in the slow cadence of a mind still weighing before deciding.
"But it was extremely effective."
"Well, well…" — I rolled my eyes. — "Finally something intelligent coming from you about me."
Our relationship had climbed a few steps after the battle. It wasn't just respect — it was recognition. The kind that doesn't need to be declared because it has already been demonstrated in the field.
The laurels of victory had fallen on her. The six treebeard had been colossal — even against Zhur'kai, creatures of pure physical force, they had operated like living walls crushing everything between them and the objective. I finally understood what Livina was on a real scale.
Against armies without magic, she was devastating.
But she herself had already made it clear, without mincing words:
"If we face an experienced mage… my summons become firewood."
It was the honest limitation of something that knew exactly what it was and didn't pretend to be more.
"Don't worry, Lord." — Morgana said with the light smile that appeared when she had observed something long enough to have an opinion. — "Her race was always proud. She would never admit that someone had a better idea than hers."
"How dare you?!"
"Enough, you two. The battle is over."
At least our part of it.
✦
After organizing the archers on the walls and sending orders to rebuild the gate, I went to the market.
Not to buy. To listen.
Information about the war circulated faster than any messenger — and since that war involved all of human territory, I wouldn't need to pay for anything. Just be present at the right moment.
As soon as I entered, the chaos was evident.
"WE WONNNN!"
"VICTORYYYYY!"
Lords appeared one after another with the specific energy of people who had calculated bad odds for too long and now didn't know what to do with relief. Euphoria. Survival. The kind of celebration that only exists when the alternative was real enough that the victory still hadn't been fully processed.
I observed for a few minutes.
"They probably already knew about the invasion…" — I murmured.
The victory itself had been a welcome surprise. But this fast? That wasn't normal.
Against Zhur'kai, battles tended to be brutal and prolonged — the kind that ground you down over days, not hours. I had braced myself for three, maybe four more fights before it was over. Before survival stopped being a question.
It hadn't come to that.
If it had ended this quickly — there had been preparation. An ambush. Coordination that isn't improvised at the moment of attack.
Someone had known beforehand.
Someone had planned.
I left the market quickly. The signal had been given — it was time to reap the rewards and invest.
But as I walked, the thought wouldn't leave.
I had found out by luck. In all likelihood the more influential or noble Lords had been warned — time to prepare, position, coordinate. The rest, well… the rest were acceptable losses.
I had won. But not because anyone had bet on me.
I had won because my apparent weakness confused my enemies and drew pity from those who knew better — and I had squeezed every drop out of that mistake.
Not with my fists. With an axe.
✦
"And now, Lord?" — Morgana asked when I returned.
I raised my hand.
In the palm — a small stone. The size of a marble. Deep purple, with lighter threads pulsing through it with the regularity of something that had been absolute force and had been compressed until it fit there.
Tauros's soul.
When heroes died, part of the essence remained crystallized. Fuel for new summonings at the temple. And that one was from an epic hero — the kind most Lords would never see once in their lives.
If I sold it, I would never set foot in the Oasis in need again.
But I still needed to survive for months. And keeping power sitting idle was a luxury I couldn't afford.
"You know the probability of summoning another Tauros is high." — Livina said, her voice carrying the specific tension of someone who despised something and needed to warn that she despised it before it happened. — "And I am not prepared to work alongside that race."
I looked at her calmly.
"Think about the other side. A Tauros would protect you. You know how strong he was."
It was true. Three adult Urskra had barely been able to contain him. If he were on my side, my front line would be unlike anything any frontier Lord could offer.
Deep down, it was exactly what I wanted.
But there was real risk. The soul could generate another creature of the same lineage — or something equally brutal and uncontrollable. Strength without direction was also a threat. And I had learned, with painful precision, that the battlefield doesn't forgive variables I can't predict.
"Zeus, how long to gather the materials needed for a third summoning?"
[ Analyzing… estimated time for full accumulation: 183 days and 23 hours. ]
I had already expected something absurd.
The first two summonings were relatively accessible — with luck and capital, a Lord could have three heroes in the first year. After that, the costs became exponential. The most powerful known human didn't have more than six heroes after nearly thirty years.
I already had two legendaries and an epic soul waiting.
That alone was already absurd.
I sighed.
"Zeus, ignore accumulation for a third summoning. Focus on territory evolution."
The time had come to stop acting like a virus — consuming everything, trees, ore, resources, growing too fast to have form. I had enough strength to breathe. It was time to stabilize.
Sustainability. Continuous production. Infrastructure.
"Lord…" — Morgana. — "Did you give up on the Tauros?"
I looked at the stone one last time.
It pulsed. With the regularity of something that had been life and hadn't completely forgotten what that felt like.
"No."
I put it away in the ring.
"I'm just not going to act like a fool."
I had neglected my territory for too long. Now it was time to act without haste. Without investment rushed on the eve of battle.
"Let's evolve the castle."