From what my father discovered… apparently, no one spread the news of the nest."
"Makes sense. They're still going to try to conquer that place. Even without having the power for it."
Eris seemed shocked. Those cowards who preferred to simply flee upon seeing Bestaria dragged away now had the audacity not only to keep trying to enter that place, but to keep the information to themselves.
I, on the other hand, wasn't surprised in the slightest.
Greed kept secrets better than any oath. Every race that knew of the nest wanted it only for itself — and spreading the news meant inviting competitors to the table. The silence wasn't honor. It was appetite.
"But, in this case, what are we going to do? I mean… do you intend to allow them to enter the territory and descend through the tunnel?"
"Of course not. We'll be dead if we allow that."
The tunnel through which the guardian rose to kill the Tyrin queen — and the crater we used to climb up right after — were, now, the only known doors to the nest. And both were inside my territory. That made my kingdom two things at the same time: the padlock… and the target.
Another problem was that now I had to protect Eris. And it was clear that that whole situation left her extremely nervous.
And I didn't blame her. Probably, she had understood, along with her family, that her options were small, narrow, and totally dependent on me. There is no more bitter discovery for someone proud than that of their own size.
But I must say: I myself was happy to know, up close, the financial and influential capacity of that family.
Honestly, after a few days, I was beginning to believe they had infinite money. She not only got all the materials I needed — wood, stone, metal, all in quantities that would make my old Warehouse weep — but also got an item I believed existed… but was never sure of.
The item in question allowed her to bring her territory to the point of merging it with a chosen territory. And there was an elegant lock on it: the merge depended, exclusively, on the will of whoever would receive the grouped territory. No one glued a kingdom to yours without your permission.
Honestly? It wasn't something I wanted.
One thing was having her nearby. Another, quite different, was a merge. The rules of that place were still strange and complex — and, honestly, it was hard for me to understand what the fusion of two territories truly meant.
More territory meant more perimeter, more wall, more attack front — more of everything I already couldn't handle. But I accepted anyway. And a large part of the decision came from a detail she told me about her own family — and about her own future.
Going through the Oasis wasn't something she actively wanted. In truth, it was a rite of her house: everyone went through it, without exception, generation after generation. But, the first year completed and the Purge overcome, staying stopped being an obligation. From that achievement on, each one chose their own future. And most of those who left… never came back.
Eris was one of those.
I didn't ask the reason. I didn't need to. It was enough to look at what this place had done to her in less than a year — and imagine what it would do in ten.
She didn't want that future. And it made sense: she already had everything she wanted outside the Oasis. No one, except those driven by greed or by insufficient money, would accept living the way this place demanded. So it was clear that, the moment she completed the first year and finished her own Purge, she would leave the Oasis.
With all of this connected, the abandonment of her merged territory would mean, for the absent one, the loss of control of the territory — while, for the one who accepted the merge, a significant increase in the quantity of constructions I could command.
Of course, I still didn't quite understand how she would do that.
What she explained to me was that that item served an ancient purpose of her family — an ingenious way of guaranteeing that the house always had someone powerful inside the Oasis. The logic was brilliant: whoever chose to stay inherited not only their own power, but that of all who had departed. Each relative who left abandoned their territory behind, and that territory added to the one of whoever remained.
A way, in my view, elegant to respect whoever left and, at the same time, to strengthen whoever stayed — raising, for the permanent ones, an enormous and powerful kingdom, sewn from patches of entire generations of the same family.
Simply fascinating.
But what was clear, above any mechanic, was that she wanted to give me that. Maybe out of fear that I would abandon her. Maybe it was just the price she was willing to pay. In the end, it didn't matter. What it really meant was that, at that moment, I had a much larger territory to take care of. But it also meant that, if I didn't die, the investment would bring a return I never imagined when I first set foot here.
And, like every decision I made in that place, this one too was already past the point of no return.
The item had already been used. All it took was to look at the horizon: where before there was only devastated plain, now her kingdom's walls rose glued to mine — two kingdoms breathing side by side, her houses visible from my towers, her market a walk from my gate. You could even see the seam in the ground: a thin line where the packed earth changed tone, marking the exact point where two pieces of world had been mended like patchwork.
The Oasis sewed continents with the naturalness of someone mending a pair of pants.
✦ ✦ ✦
"What are we going to do now? I mean… they're going to kill us if we don't let them in."
Eris had a point. But I had five days of advantage — five days those cowards gave us, for some reason I supposed to be a fight over hierarchy, or the search for some stratagem to enter that place.
With the materials she got, I not only fixed the wall — I also fixed the towers. And, in truth, I was even enjoying having someone with an apparently infinite fund of capital at my side: in less than five days, we structured a protection perimeter capable of, together, holding any conventional invasion.
It was funny to think that, even after losing the queen, the Tyrin still attacked us.
Of course they came neither in quantity, nor in force — which turned them into something closer to food than to a headache. The Yokais fattened up. The owl-bear feasted. And, with the towers repaired, the service became routine before it became risk. My theory was that the Tyrin were born somewhere already bringing the last order imposed by the queen — attack. They kept obeying a dead one, without knowing she was dead. It was pathetic. And almost comic. But it was exactly that way that my Yokai army grew a little more each day.
There is an honest measure of how much a kingdom has grown: the day the monster that terrorized you becomes a pantry item.
Our only real concern was another.
"What we need is to have the advantage against the belt's attack."
In the end, our problem came down to this: dealing not with the advance of the Tyrin… but with the coalition that would come in search of the nest.
Attacking first was madness. From what Eris told me, they were spread too thin, dominating practically the entire ravine — while my army was extremely limited. In truth, if it weren't for Arachne keeping a constant production of Yokais, I wouldn't even have an army to begin with. So, all attack options eliminated, defense remained as the only safe way to survive.
And our advantage was in the enormous wall that separated us from them. The same one that once protected the Belt from the Tyrin invasion was, now, the one that protected us from the Belt itself.
At least, that was what Eris believed.
I, on the other hand, didn't bet on the enormous wall.
That wall had been made to stop armies that thought like armies. What was coming in our direction thought like hunters — and hunters look for gaps, not the door.
"But, if they attack, we have no way to defend ourselves. Honestly, I myself have no way to ask for more army — any entrance to the ravine must already be blocked. The most I can bring is supplies for construction, using the market."
"You don't need to worry about the defense. I'm going to protect this place. What I need are the supplies. Get me everything I ask for… and I'll give you the maximum victory."
"But… how?"
Eris spoke, shocked at my certainty.
"Well… it's better to show you. Follow me. It should be almost time."
✦ ✦ ✦
Of course, my confidence wasn't a lie.
In truth, it came almost exclusively from my new abilities. And I had to admit: the powers that dragon gave me were something totally out of the box. I still hadn't discovered what most of them did — five names on the sheet, five vaults without a key — but the two I had already deciphered were enough to give me a deep belief that I would manage to win that fight.
The second, I would save for when its hour came.
The first… the first was about to present itself on its own.
[ — Power of Inheritance (Unique) ]
[ Congratulations. You have discovered the power of Vo'ruun. ]
[ You are the first human to merge the blood of your soldiers with dragon's blood. ]
While I walked, the information arrived at me — pulling a smile from my face.
First human.
The Oasis wasn't in the habit of spending words for nothing. When the system made a point of registering a first, it was because the first was worth something. I quickened my pace toward my objective, with Eris accompanying me — and, when we finally stopped before the barracks, she couldn't resist.
"Is this it? Honestly… I don't know what a human barracks can generate to protect us from all these enemies. If you notice, not even my heavy cavalry would be capable of beating a Brutal Birman. In truth… I think not even a hundred could. We're weak."
I sympathized with what Eris felt. And I understood: some truths were hard to swallow.
Humans weren't below rank five hundred of the Oasis for being dumb. The core of our problem was another, more cruel: a Lord's army follows the Lord's species. And humans were inherently weak. Comparing one of our soldiers with a Burman, an Infernal, or so many other races, was like comparing a cheetah with a legless, blind rat. It wasn't competition. It was taxonomy.
But what I wanted her to see was exactly what I had managed to change in that equation.
Of course — even knowing something different would come out of that gate, I understood that, to her, there was nothing there capable of changing a battle.
I thought differently.
"It's coming."
✦ ✦ ✦
The barracks gate opened.
And, from inside it, came out what seemed to be a warrior in armor.
Seemed. Because Eris understood, right away, that that wasn't a common warrior: the bipedal creature was nearly three meters tall, and the muscles beneath the plates made it a walking cabinet — shoulders that wouldn't pass through any door of my castle, a neck the thickness of my waist, hands that would make the grip of any sword look like a toothpick.
And, even so, it moved like a person. Walked like a person. Stopped before us and waited for orders like a person. That, somehow, was the most absurd part of all.
"What is this…?"
Eris seemed shocked. And I, honestly, wasn't far behind her.
"This is a basic warrior. Level one."
Eris almost fell on her backside — for the second time since I've known her — while the great warrior approached me and knelt at my side, the ground sinking slightly under the weight of the knee.
"Wait… Are you trying to say that this warrior here is the WEAKEST a human can build?"
Yes. She was right.
But I just shook my head while I analyzed the new soldier — because no number, no word, would prove what a demonstration would prove. So I created a shield and a sword with the mark… and asked the warrior to attack me with all his strength.
He didn't wait for a second order.
He just advanced — fast in a way a body of that size had no right to be — and hit me with a punch square on the shield. I felt the arm holding the armor soften at once. And fall, limp, to the side.
"What happened?!"
Eris shouted upon seeing the warrior attack me. And I, with my eyes squeezed with pain, looked at the creature with a mixture of admiration and agony that had probably never been stamped on my face before.
"The son of a bitch broke my arm."
I was shocked.
I expected something out of the ordinary — I had seen the numbers, had felt the mana drain in the construction. But that was on another level.
My shield — made of the same material that held Lycan claws and dragon fire — was intact. The problem was never the shield. It was the body behind it.
"Wait… What?… How… Better: what's the construction cost?"
And there was the complete portrait of Eris: the girl who, until seconds ago, seemed anxious and worried about the end of her life… now displayed a merchant's smile while she analyzed the enormous warrior from top to bottom, already doing the math. Her dread had a price. And it had just found the merchandise.
Meanwhile, I cast healing magic on my own arm, mending the damage quickly — and swallowing the lesson along with the pain.
"I should have put the full armor on my body. Trusting only the shield made me break my arm… I'm still very weak."
And it wasn't modesty.
My status was far from the best that could exist, but even so I carried more than a hundred of strength — and my body didn't withstand the impact of a single punch. The conclusion was as simple as it was absurd: that basic warrior was as strong as a Brutal Birman.
Of course, it was evident that what he had in strength, he lost in all the rest — speed of reasoning, technique, versatility. The very punch he threw, despite being fast, was something I would manage to dodge. And, if I observed the speed of a real Brutal Birman, I would never manage it. In the end, even after all that, I was still talking about a mere warrior — and comparing him to one of the Burmans' elite constructions.
But I had the theory that this would change as I built other types of soldier. Maybe a spearman would be more agile. Maybe an archer would see farther. I would still have to test every possible construction — and, for the first time since I arrived at the Oasis, testing my own army seemed a privilege, not an audit of weaknesses.
"How many of those can you build? Does it have the same construction time as a normal warrior?"
Eris didn't waste time — and began to machine-gun questions about how the ability worked. So I explained.
"This ability is called Power of Inheritance. It allows me, at a cost of mana, to interfere in the construction of a unit — and merge its blood with a dragon's blood. The cost in resources stays the same. But, with my current mana, I shouldn't build more than a hundred of these per day. And I believe a knight is much more expensive. A mage too."
Eris quickly understood the shape of the thing: the limitation wasn't in the price in resources.
It was in my magical capacity to interfere in the creation of each soldier. The factory's bottleneck was me.
"Wait… If I manage to get mana potions for you… you can build as many as you want?"
I gave a smile.
"That's where you come in. Isn't it?"
Eris let out a smile back — and ran off in the direction of her own market, her dress kicking up dust, the calculations practically visible over her head.
It was clear what she was going to do. And it was clear, too, what the two of us had just founded there, without contract and without a handshake: I manufactured the impossible. She financed it.
✦ ✦ ✦
While she moved away, I still observed the warrior — and then turned my eyes to the barracks.
"Zeus… enumerate the constructions available in the barracks."
[ Understood. Enumerating available constructions — Barracks Level 5 (MAX). ]
[ Warrior — Inheritance Merge (1 mana) ]
[ Spearman — Inheritance Merge (3 mana) ]
[ Archer — Inheritance Merge (4 mana) ]
[ Mage — Inheritance Merge (10 mana) ]
[ Knight — Inheritance Merge (50 mana) ]
[ Heavy Archer — Inheritance Merge (100 mana) ]
[ Heavy Spearman — Inheritance Merge (100 mana) ]
[ Advanced Mage of the Order of Fire, Wind, Earth, or Water — Inheritance Merge (100 mana) ]
[ Heavy Knight — Inheritance Merge (100 mana) ]
[ Drake — Inheritance Merge (5000 mana) ]
I read the list slowly, savoring each line like someone reading the menu of a restaurant too expensive.
And the lines told a story of their own. A warrior cost one coin of mana. A knight, fifty. The elites, a hundred. The price didn't rise — it scaled. As though the Oasis itself were warning: dragon's blood isn't distributed. It's rationed.
But, among all the types of construction, one caught my attention in a different way. Unfortunately, all it took was to look at the amount of mana to understand: I wouldn't manage to build it even if I had fifty potions stacked.
"So… even a Drake."
My mind flew to the fight against the Infernals.
I knew what a Drake was capable of. I had seen it. I had felt the ground tremble and the air burn. And, honestly, I wanted that creature very much — I wanted it in an almost childish way. But, however much I did the math, I simply saw no way to reach that number. Never.
Maybe… only if I were a dragon.
I let the thought pass and went back to what mattered: which constructions to prioritize, in what order, with what mixture — the silent arithmetic of assembling an impossible army with a limited mana budget. Warriors for the line. Spearmen for the flanks, if the agility theory was confirmed. Merged mages for the towers…
It was in the middle of these calculations that I saw the Prince approaching through the sky.
✦ ✦ ✦
The great griffin descended in a clean curve and stopped right at my side, his wings folding with that military precision as always.
"Prince… did something happen?"
"I believe the negotiators have arrived."
After nearly a week of silence… finally things began to go where I thought they would go.
"Honestly, I thought they would take longer to choose a new leader… Which race is in command of the negotiators?"
The Prince looked at the sky for an instant, as though trying to remember which flag guided the others.
"Lycans, my Lord."
My face closed.
Honestly, I didn't expect a Lycan to manage the command of the other races — and, much less, so quickly. By my count, they would spend at least a month fighting to choose who would lead the belt and the nest venture. But no: in a week, they not only chose a substitute for Bestaria… but chose one of the weakest races among all of them for the chair.
That didn't make much sense.
And, in the Oasis, the things that don't make sense tend to be the most dangerous of all.
"I think we're going to have to find out what they want… and what they'll give in exchange. Call Morgana, Livina, and my daughter."
"We're going to welcome them."