The retreat strategy was simple in theory.
Arachne was, by far, the most capable of getting back to the wall fast enough to gain distance from most enemies. Eight legs against the ground, and a mobility none of my other creatures came close to matching.
Of course, that didn't take into account an adult Burman.
And, much less, two of them. In my head, the escape plan had always been drawn against races I could know — against Tyrin, against Lycans, Firewood, against anything that ran on the ground and needed time to cross five hundred meters. I had planned the escape against the wrong enemy. And the right enemy had just arrived.
"Livina! Cast your summons to hold that Burman!"
Going up was the easy part — Arachne had already crouched, her enormous body flush against the ground, waiting for us. The retreat process wasn't the fastest I could have done, but it was the most we could manage in that moment.
Livina's summons had a single function: to prevent that Burman from reaching us while we climbed.
Then he threw a dagger.
A dagger. In an unpretentious, almost lazy manner — the gesture of someone swatting a fly. And it simply crossed through nearly all four of Livina's Treebeards, one after another, stopping only at the last. Living wood of thick trunk pierced like wet paper.
I saw Livina's face at the instant that happened. Not fright, not rage. Just the silent recognition of someone who has just discovered that their own strength serves for nothing there. And, if the summons of an Aqrabuamelu didn't serve as a barrier, nothing I had would serve.
It was a frightening power.
The problem is that it wasn't only him.
Because, at the exact instant the dagger left the warrior's hand, the other already had the bow raised. Coordination without a single word traded — the kind of synchrony that only exists between creatures that fought side by side long enough to dispense with commands. One opened the path. The other fired through it.
"Damn! Morgana, WATCH OUT!"
I advanced as fast as my body allowed and pushed Morgana to the side of Arachne's head — creating the shield with my mark in the same movement, to withstand the impact of the arrow the other Burman, farther away, had fired.
"AHHHHHHHH!"
It was like trying to stop a runaway car with your own hands.
I felt the tip of the arrow spinning against the shield — rotating like a power drill, insisting, boring — trying to open a path to me. Fortunately, the shield made with my ability wasn't common. So, even with the arrow seeming made of an almost indestructible material, it stayed long seconds there, spinning over the surface without managing to pierce.
My scream accompanied each of those seconds.
Two. Maybe three. That's too much time for an arrow — arrows are instantaneous things, things that hit or miss and are over. That one stayed. Working. As if it had received an order and intended to fulfill it to the end, with or without the permission of physics.
Because, despite the shield having held, the heat generated by the rotation crossed the barrier and fried my flesh on the other side. And the impact cracked my arm — I heard the snap from within, that sound that doesn't arrive through the ear, but through the bones.
And I was sure of one thing: before the power granted by the dragon, I would have been crushed by my own shield. Exploded into a pool of blood before even understanding what had hit me.
Those two Burmans weren't common.
And the worst part is that neither of the two had made an effort. A dagger tossed to the side. An arrow fired without ceremony. That wasn't their maximum power — it was the initial greeting. The kind of gesture one makes to measure the adversary before deciding how much to spend on him.
And, from what I saw in their eyes, the account they did on me was low.
"Damn… DAMN! Run, daughter! Fast!"
Arachne didn't need a second order.
The enormous body shot off, and I felt the world tilt beneath me — legs driving into the earth, ripping out clods with each stride, the wind cutting the burned flesh of my arm like salt in the wound. Morgana clung to the chitin at my side. Livina held the only two things she could still hold: her own body and Morgana's hand.
In less than ten seconds, Livina and I were moaning in pain, in equal intensity. Me, with my arm broken and fried at the same time. She, feeling each of her own summons be run through without ceremony.
Five hundred meters never seemed so far.
With each stride, I expected the second shot. The one that would come from behind, in the middle of the escape, when no one can raise a shield. I counted the seconds with clenched teeth — one, two, three — and it didn't come.
Not because they couldn't. But because they decided it wasn't worth it.
✦ ✦ ✦
I fell on my back over Arachne's body while she shot off, desperate, in the direction of the wall.
And, looking back, something caught my attention: the archer's face.
He was surprised. Almost shocked. Maybe wondering what the hell that shield was made of. Maybe just trying to understand how a human had survived that shot. I couldn't say.
But there was another thing I could perceive with absolute clarity — and it had nothing to do with the shield.
They could smell it.
The Achadrar. The mark Bestaria had left in me at the instant of her own death — odorless to any other race, but blaring to a Burman. A poster hung on my chest that I couldn't see, but that they read from afar: this human killed a noble of our house.
That was why they did what they did to their own allies.
It wasn't arrogance. It wasn't impatience. They arrived, smelled it, and understood at once that the entire envoy was negotiating with the killer that their own race is obligated to hunt.
Pollux didn't die for having failed. He died from ignorance and pride — in equal measure, and both high.
And, in the code of that race, talking with the bearer of the Achadrar was probably worse than any defeat. It was treason.
Bestaria had tied, with her own death, a knot that hanged not only me, but any creature that tried to negotiate with me. The lioness was still playing. And still winning pieces — even after dead.
It was clear that, with those two, there would be no kind of conversation.
It was war.
Not the war declared with flags and emissaries. The other one. The one in which one side simply appears and the other simply ceases to exist.
And the most bitter part of all was knowing that I myself had accepted that mark. With open eyes, exhausted on the floor of the nest, knowing exactly what it meant. In that moment, it was the price of killing Bestaria. Now it was a beacon lit in the middle of the night, calling every Burman of the universe to my door. I had bought the victory on credit — and the first installment had just come due.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Can they reach us?"
Livina approached me while Morgana was already throwing herself in my direction, beginning to heal the cracked arm and the burned flesh.
My eyes ran across the horizon. And, despite the two brothers being clearly irritated, it became clear that they had not the slightest interest in following us.
"Unfortunately… I think they're not going to follow us."
The confusion on Morgana's and Livina's faces was almost a plea for me to explain my sadness at not seeing the enemy coming after us.
Of course it would be a hard fight. Very probably, I would have to give my absolute maximum, counting on my own towers to slow an enemy that was, clearly, as strong as the Tyrin queen. But fighting those two — and winning — would mean winning two entire kingdoms at once. Cutting off the heads and watching the bodies fall.
That was how it worked in the Oasis: kingdoms weren't institutions, they were extensions of a single will. Kill the Lord and the rest becomes administrative dust. And it was exactly for that reason that I wanted the two of them coming after me, alone, far from the armies that obeyed them.
Not choosing to fight meant something completely different: being bombarded by Burman warriors, wave after wave, until I couldn't take it anymore.
Honestly, I could see a way out fighting against those two. But not against their kingdoms. And much less against their elites.
"If they choose to besiege us… we're not going to manage to win."
The girls' eyes changed from relief to worry in less than a second.
They understood: we were leaving the pot to fall into the fire.
A siege doesn't need any genius to work. It only needs patience and more soldiers than the other side can kill. And, against two entire Burman kingdoms, I had neither one thing nor the other. All it would take was for them to sit outside and wait for my Warehouse to empty.
"Do you think they're going to attack now?"
Morgana questioned while Arachne began to climb the great wall, legs driving into the stone.
And it was a good question.
Probably I would have a day. Maybe less. Those sons of bitches, very probably, hadn't arrived there with the intention of doing what they did — but smelling the Achadrar on my body told them much more than any words of mine could have said.
"I think we need to assemble some way to endure as much time as possible. We'll probably have action for a long while."
My eyes still wouldn't leave the horizon.
And, fortunately, the two Burmans continued observing our retreat with a strange interest. It was like being followed by a predator that decides to give the prey an advantage just to make the hunt more interesting. You know you're not going to escape — they've already locked onto you — but they seem to want to give you a chance.
And I needed exactly that.
Each minute their arrogance gave me was a minute I would transform into wall, into tower, into soldier. They thought they were playing with their food. Let them play. The only thing more dangerous than a strong enemy is a strong enemy with time to spare — and, in that moment, the time to spare was mine.
"Holy shit! How could this have gone so wrong?! I had never seen those sons of bitches fighting!"
The one who shouted to me was Eris, who, from the top of the wall, had managed to see the entire action.
"Let's go down to the kingdom. We need to prepare for the fight… Tell me about those two."
✦ ✦ ✦
Prince picked up Eris while we descended into my kingdom.
And, from up there, you could see everything I had built spread out below us. The patched towers. The new wall, with the lighter color in the repaired stretches, like scars that haven't yet darkened. The Yokais patrolling in a line. The workers who didn't even know that, a few kilometers from there, two Burmans were deciding how many days of life they still had.
All of that fit into an afternoon. And could cease to exist in the same afternoon.
And, as soon as we arrived, I went straight to the barracks — because I would spend every drop of my mana on the maximum number of units I could build. Eris accompanied me, talking nonstop about the two enemies who now lurked at my door.
"I had never seen the two of them fighting. I didn't know they were capable of doing what they did. But, looking from afar, I know that Leda is the archer — and the assassin warrior you saw is Dioscuros. They were Bestaria's right arm and left arm. And, honestly, I myself never understood why the two of them weren't present when Bestaria went back to the nest… Deep down, I think Bestaria didn't trust those brothers."
The more Eris spoke, the more I understood that those two weren't anything simple.
Bestaria probably knew that — and it was exactly for that reason she didn't trust them. Because they were intelligent. They could simply have advanced toward me, in search of blood, the instant they smelled the Achadrar. But they preferred the drawn-out fight, the one that offers less glory and more certainty of victory.
That wasn't something a common Burman could think of.
Those two were forged in war — but also saw too many fights to understand that certain attitudes generate more loss than victory. And it was exactly that which worried me. We were talking about a race known for being strong, but impetuous. And those two had broken half the stereotype.
They kept only the strong part.
Impetuosity is a gift when the enemy is stronger than you. It's what makes the giant advance without looking, fall into the trap, spend its own advantage out of pride. Every victory I had until today passed, one way or another, through someone's haste. Against Leda and Dioscuros, that door was closed. They weren't in a hurry. And, worse: they knew they didn't need to be.
"Damn… I'm going to need the maximum of materials you can get. Try to come back as fast as possible. We have a few hours… maybe less."
"Understood."
Eris ran off in the direction of the market.
She knew that the most she could do in that moment was help me get strong. Because, if I fell, she would fall along. It was the closest thing to loyalty the Oasis allowed — and, honestly, it served.
Nothing unites two people more than the same rope around the neck.
✦ ✦ ✦
While she moved away, I did a silent calculation.
With the amount of mana I had, I would manage to build at least fifty units before zeroing out completely. Another advantage was that, with high intelligence, I recovered mana quite fast.
But not as fast as I would like.
It was strange to realize that, of all the attributes the Oasis gave me, the one that mattered most in that moment wasn't strength, nor dexterity. It was intelligence — and not for the reason anyone would imagine. It didn't make me smarter. It only filled the bucket faster. And, that afternoon, each drop of that bucket was worth a three-meter soldier.
"Zeus… calculate how many units I can build in the next three hours."
[ Understood. Calculating… ]
[ 20 units per hour. ]
[ Estimated total: 60 units. ]
A paltry number.
Sixty warriors. Sixty three-meter bodies with dragon's blood running inside — and, even so, a number that sounded like a joke before what was coming in our direction.
I would be left without a single drop of magic to summon Zaetar — and, even so, I wouldn't have more than a hundred and sixty units capable of actively fighting the Brutal Birman. Against two kingdoms. Against two elites. Against two brothers who crossed Treebeards with daggers thrown any old way.
I felt my fingers going numb while the nervousness rose.
And it was then that an old promise came to my head.
"Zeus… let me see him."
Zeus didn't ask who I was talking about.
After all, there weren't many possible answers to that sentence. But Morgana and Livina, who accompanied me, couldn't hold back.
"Are you sure…?"
"That son of a bitch isn't trustworthy, my Lord."
I knew exactly what they were talking about.
But, if it weren't for him, I would have died down below. That son of a bitch might not make so much difference now — but I felt he would make some. And I needed strength. All the strength I could gather, wherever it came from.
There is a point at which the list of options gets so short that the danger of a choice stops mattering. I had passed that point the instant a dagger crossed five Treebeards as if they were curtains.
The moment had come.
I had postponed that since I came back from the nest. All the time, passing by the Temple, I felt the weight of the debt waiting inside — patient, silent, in no hurry at all. Debts with creatures like Zaridan don't come due. They just wait for you to run out of alternatives.
And that was, officially, the day.
✦ ✦ ✦
I advanced to the Hero's Temple.
And, from inside it, a creature came out.
He was exactly the same as when I put him there — nothing in him had changed, not a thread, not a wrinkle. But the presumptuous smile on his face said a lot.
"Seems someone keeps their word… This is rare."
"Shut up, Zaridan… I need your help."
Zaridan's smile stretched until it became terrifyingly large.
It was like looking at the smile of death itself — too wide, too satisfied, the kind of expression that only appears on the face of someone who waited a long time for that exact instant. But I had already come down the stairs. I had already said the words.
I needed him.
Morgana and Livina stopped a few steps behind me. They said nothing more — but I felt the two of them draw a little closer to each other, like those who prepare for something they can't prevent.
Zaridan took a step forward, and the air around him seemed to grow heavier — as if the Temple itself breathed with difficulty upon letting him out. He opened his arms slowly, facing the sky, the wall, the horizon where two Burmans waited.
Then he turned his eyes to me. And, for the first time since we met, they didn't carry disdain.
They carried expectation. Which, by far, was much worse.
"Okay… Tell me: what do I need to do?"