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He caught his breath, checked the arrow path, still towards the fort. Timer now 7d 20h.
Kai grumbled, "I’m still two days out. Maybe three with patrol dodges. System, can you point to the fastest route?"
[Ding! SYSTEM: Recommended path uploaded yesterday, host ignored. Current deviation: 14 leagues.]
"Wonderful," he snapped. "Any more wisdom?"
[System Observation: Average search time for a conscious ant brain to open a menu is 4 seconds. Host required 48 hours. ]
Kai flipped the spear in mock salute. "Very funny. Lead on."
A dotted line highlighted a narrow canyon network eastward. It was shorter but infested with higher-rank beasts or predators at night. He accepted. High risk, but more EXP and maybe cores to barter for inside help.
Kai reached the canyon mouth as the sun bled red over basalt ridges. He found a niche cavity under an overhang, masked entrance with dead brush. He ignited a small fire for a faint heater glow, enough to warm the egg. He gnawed dried mole jerky, sipped water from cactus.
He allowed himself a single minute’s memory of Mia’s eyes swimming with a lustful mating face at the gate of any kingdom. Something inside twisted, then hardened into steel. "I’ll invoice later," he whispered the line she’d loved. "With Darius’ head."
At midnight, His predator Instinct jolted him awake. Outside, chitin scraped stone. Six Spine-Razor Runners paced the ledge, wolf-like insects with turbine hind-legs and bone saw ridges on the spine.
[Ding! System notifications: The host target by Spine-Razor Runners, Two star rank.]
He had purposely left a scrap of basilisk flesh fifty metres downslope as decoy, but hunger drew them closer. He decided to lure some beast for stats point farming. He also needed EXP.
He kicked out of the cave, hurled a pebble for attention. The pack whirred toward him. He grounded stance, letting the first leap, sidestepped, hamstrung. Second he front kicked into third. Two star rank beasts fell quickly under precise stabs, only their speed made them lethal.
Five minutes later, all six bled out on gravel. EXP +120. (Total 350). Six more essence liquid bites (+6 stats points). Inventory now stuffed with more two-star cores, he will trade with weaker ones later.
He cleaned the spare blade, listened beyond the canyon. Silence returned. Timer ticked: 7d 14h.
At first light Kai scaled the final black ridge. The fortress lay below, a stepped pyramid three hundred metres tall, sided by crumbling towers. Banners of crimson beetle-skin hung on the sigil of the Carrion Tong Guild, a mercenary army.
Spot fires, ballista nests. He counted maybe three hundred fighters, most two-star rank, some three, they’d be fodder. A single five-star aura in the central court, must be guildmaster. And there was a faint four-star aura flicker he knew intimately. It was Darius, inside the second tier keep, flanked by two guards.
Kai’s mandibles pulled a grin. "A sweet grave for my meal." Kai made a mental map and A plan for his victory.
Step One: Entry! Service tunnel on the south wall belched smithy smoke, a shift change at dusk.
Step Two: Currency! Guilds valued star cores. He had many one, two, three, star beast cores. Enough to bribe or pose as a seller.
Step Three: Locate & isolate! He’d ingratiate under the guise of core trader, request audience with "Captain Darius" to sell stolen Ant weapons.
Step Four: Kill! Use silent Essence Overlord, spear thrust if alarms, detonate one charge of Ruler’s Roar to blow escape route.
He checked the quest pane progress was still 0 %. He exhaled. "Tonight, Miryam, we cash this timer out."
Miryam the Egg pulsed approval.
Kai crouched in the lee of a basalt fin and stared at the fortress below, letting his pulse settle into the rhythm of the desert wind. 172 leagues behind him, an army mourned his death. Ahead, wrapped in stone and mercenary steel, waited the man who had tried to kill him multiple times.
"Eight days left," he muttered. "No my bad, it’s seven."
The Quest Timer pulsed at the edge of sight: 7 d 03 h 12 m. He brought up his sheet, fingers drumming the haft of his new scavenged spear.
Unallocated points: 62
Time to forge the last edge. "Need raw hitting power first." He dumped +30 into Strength. His bones thrummed as fibres thickened.
"Can’t stab him if I can’t reach him."
That left +12; he pushed them all into Stamina.
[New status window:
Strength : 187
Speed : 140
Stamina : 130
Aura : 3000 / 3000
HP : 2000 / 2000
Unallocated: 0 ]
A surge of heat rolled through him, plates cracking then settling. Miryam the egg purred at his hip, as if approving the upgrade.
Kai flexed his claws. "Darius... let’s debit the invoice."
Entry came at dusk exactly as the System predicted. The south-wall smoke tunnel, shaped like a broken flute, exhaled smithy fumes. Kai scrambled up the sheer basalt and slid feet-first into the vent, letting ash cloak his scent.
The shaft opened into a forge hall where merc ant-smiths quenched scimitars in troughs. Kai lingered in rafters until shift bell rang and workers trooped out for stew. Then he dropped, padded across slag and stacked ingots to a side passage.
The first guard he met was a bored two-star halberdier nearly fainted when Kai produced a trio of two-star cores.
"Trader from the Drift Wastes," Kai whispered. "I was told by a stranger that a noble person from the Ant Kingdom pays well, especially a man called Darius. Can I get an audience?"
The guard’s eyes glittered. "We... may arrange an audience. But Tribute first."
Kai flicked another core. Five minutes later he was escorted, hood up, through corridors of heat-smoothed brick. Murals showed carrion beetles feasting on fallen kings; comforting décor.
They paused outside an iron-banded door. Inside the room was full of voices. One was an unmistakable oily baritone boasting of battles, of slaying ore-eaters "single-handedly." It was Darius.
The guard rapped. "Core-seller, sir. He came to see you."
"Send him." Darius replied.