Even with the bioluminescent reeds growing on the walls of the cavern, Dahlia recognised the pure black mass of skittering bugs beneath her.

  Fog-bask beetles.

  There were than thirty of them standing on their heads, lifting their dorsal sides to catch as much oasis water trickling down from the ceiling as they could. The water trickled down the natural grooved ridges on their backs, sliding down to their mouths, and then they fed it all into the newly dug tunnels leading deeper underground—far, far, beneath the Sharaji Oasis Town, to a place no human could reach without being crushed by the subterranean pressure.

  Suddenly, one of the fog-bask beetles stopped collecting water from the ceiling and snapped its head up. Alice yanked her neck back with an invisible thread, pulling her away from the edge of the tunnel she was peering down at them from.

  “... Well. Even I get what’s going on here now,” Alice mumbled, peeking over the edge with just the top of her head as Dahlia choked on her thread. “So there’s a bunch of giant bugs living at the super bottom of the town, and then they dug tunnels up here to start draining water from the bottom of the oasis. These beetles are all of the same species, so they’re probably one big team, but the water bug that attacked you last night was probably just a straggler that climbed up the tunnels with them. It was a bit greedier than these beetles. It wanted than water, so it tried to eat you and that little girl by actually surfacing on the oasis.”

  Dahlia managed to untangle herself from the invisible thread, rubbing her neck and frowning as she did. “But… fog-bask beetles aren’t colony insects. They don’t typically live and work together. How were they coexisting with a water bug all the way down… wherever they all came from?”

  Alice glanced around, giving her a puzzled look. “I thought you dealt with one in Alshifa. You should know what can compel a bunch of giant insects that don’t typically work together to move like a coordinated army.”

  Eria said, and Dahlia tightened her lips.

  “Like the Mutant-Class firefly,” she whispered. “But that one was different, wasn’t it? All the bugs in Alshifa came out from that one cocoon, so they were already in a team. Can all Mutant-Classes just… attract completely different species of giant insects towards them and have them dig tunnels like this?”

  Alice shook her head. “We typically grade and classify bugs based on the strength of their aura,” she said curtly. “The Mutant-Class firefly I was tracking down was a low rank one. F-Rank, I think. It probably wouldn’t have been able to attract lots of giant bugs outside of the ones in the same cocoon, but if a Mutant-Class is A-Rank or S-Rank—strong enough that it’s bordering on the verge of becoming an Insect God—then Madamaron could probably get fog-bask beetles and water bugs to work for it.”

  Dahlia tilted her head. “An Insect God?”

  “What, your Archive didn’t tell you?” Alice said, raising a brow as she started pulling crimson threads from her nails; all four of her hands moved independently. “There are five classes of bugs. Critter-Classes and Giant-Classes are the unintelligent rabble, but then there are the Mutant-Classes like the firefly you killed. They’re kinda smart, they look kinda humanoid, and they can use weak Swarmblood Arts. In the grand scheme of things, though they’re not too strong—tons of Mutant-Classes die on the frontlines of the Seven Swarmsteel Fronts every single day. All Hasharana are expected to be able to kill one by themselves as well, so if Madamaron is just a normal Mutant-Class, this will be an easy job.”

  Then she paused for a second, staring down at her hands as she started weaving something out of thin air. Dahlia couldn’t tell what it was just from the skeleton of the construct, but she it was some sort of… weapon.

  Was she weaving some sort of blade out of silk?

  “Whenever a bug goes from F-Rank to S-Rank, they’re eligible to evolve into the next class, and after a Mutant-Class bug reaches S-Rank, they’re capable of evolving into the fourth class of bugs known as ‘Insect Gods’—and are the ones with names assigned to them by the Hasharana,” Alice continued, eyes flickering back and forth as she twirled all twenty fingers with expert precision, weaving not one, not two, but swords out of silk. “Insect Gods can talk. That’s the main distinction between them and Mutant-Classes. Because they can talk, they can also adapt to human strategies much faster than their weaker variants, so thank the Great Makers there aren’t a lot of them on the continent. It usually takes at least two Arcana Hasharana to deal with one of them.”

  It was Dahlia’s turn to pause, freezing where she stood. It wasn’t like she was moving much to begin with, but she felt if she even so much as made a squeak on the sandstone floor, the horde of fog-bask beetles below her would be alerted to her presence.

  “The fifth and final class of bugs are called ‘Greater Insect Gods’, but, judging by the look on your face, you already know what that is,” Alice finished, and, in the silence of the tunnel, lifted four crimson curved swords each as long as she was tall. She grinned back at Dahlia, and there was real bloodlust in her eyes. “Whether Madamaron is an Insect God or just a normal Mutant-Class bordering on the verge of one isn’t important. As a Hasharana, my job is simply to slaughter every bug I see—so just stay up here and watch, okay?”

  Dahlia didn’t properly process what Alice said until she snapped her head and looked, mouth parted in surprise.

  “... What are you going to–”

  Alice dragged her blades against the sandstone walls, making her entrance as obnoxiously loud as possible to drag every fog-bask beetle’s attention towards her—and by the time they realised they weren’t alone in the cavern, she’d already leaped thirty metres down onto one of their heads, jamming all four blades through its grooved chitin.

  Killing pressures be damned.

  With a cacophony of guttural screeches, the beetles came alive. Dahlia felt water droplets flying into her face as they started jerking themselves around, each of them five-metre-class giants with more mobility than they appeared to have; their horrendously long hind legs gave them reach and speed like no beetle she’d ever seen. They bunched together and crawled on each other and spit balls of water each solid enough to put dents in the walls of the cavern, and Dahlia pulled herself from the edge of the tunnel, just narrowly avoiding getting her head blown off by a stray water ball.

  Eria said, nodding on her shoulder.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  Eria raised her front legs, feigning a nonchalant shrug.

  ....

  Alice did.

  She’d just been trying not to.

  One moment, the Hasharana was standing on the head of a beetle, and in the next she was twirling through the air, four blades spinning around her in blinding crimson arcs. When she jumped, it took less effort than skipping off the ground. When she swung her blades, it was more graceful than how Dahlia used her claws. The cavern rumbled with each beetle felled, legs severed, heads decapitated and carapaces carved open in crosses. With two swords guarding her back as though they had minds of their own, she moved nimbly, her wing-like cloak fluttering after her and struggling to catch up—her lithe and bony figure betraying the expectation of a weak and frail little girl.

  Each of her swift and heavy blows was as powerful as the last.

  Eria mused, resting its head on her shoulder as the two of them stared quietly down,

  Dahlia frowned. When one of Alice’s swords was caught in a beetle’s mandibles mid-swing, she thought the Hasharana might drag the blade through with sheer, brute force—but instead the blade was let go, and a wriggling of blood silk burst out of Alice’s nails, twirling into a completely different weapon in the span of a single second.

  A spiked mace.

  In a single, smooth movement, Alice leaped onto the beetle chewing on her sword and bashed its head open with her mace. Her new weapon bent almost immediately. Its construction was rushed and hurried, after all, so when four more beetles piled on her at the same time, she slapped her remaining three swords together and disappeared under their bulky bodies for half a second—half a second later, there was a flash of crimson light. The heated visage of a wandering bug slayer. All four beetles were cleaved in half by the massive staff blade Alice swung with four hands, their bodies flying back and slamming into another small group of beetles to crush them against the walls.

  Eria muttered, as Dahlia bit her nails and watched Alice switch through a dozen more silk-woven weapons in the span of half a minute; there were all manners of swords, daggers, axes, spears, and some so strangely shaped she couldn’t even begin to put a name to them.

  Dahlia’s eyes drifted slowly across the cavern of carcasses below with an odd mix of awe and—unsurprisingly—fear.

  The four-armed crimson Hasharana was still wearing her face, after all.

  Eria continued, head tilted up as though it were looking and reciting from a status screen in the air even she couldn’t see.

  Alice dashed back up to the edge of the tunnel with a funnel of wind, licking blood off her lips as she unwound her silk weapons and blinked straight at Dahlia.

  For her part, Dahlia didn't move.

  Didn't breathe.

  She didn't think… that her face could look so empty.

  “... I have just the faintest feeling your Archive is saying something bad about me!” Alice chirped a moment later, tugging a cheery smile onto her lips as she flicked a hand behind her. A single red thread shot into the mountain of carcasses, a trail marker to remind herself how to get back to this cavern. “Well, we're done here. I've plugged the tunnels leading deeper underground with their corpses for now, so if the wells run dry again, we’ll know exactly where to cut down the bugs. Give or take a few days and this cavern will be completely filled with water again, so let’s lug about ten bugs out of here and give them to uncle—I’m sure he’ll make us something reasonably tasty with how watery these beetles already are!”

  With that, Alice started skipping back through the tunnel, extending the thread under her nail as she walked.

  She’d leave all the beetles behind if Dahlia didn’t cough and call out to her, making her glance around with a playful eye.

  “What?” she asked. “We’ll come back for them later. We have about an entire day to haul ten beetles to the surface. It’s more important that we don’t forget how to come and leave this cavern–”

  “I can remember,” Dahlia said, biting her lips as she turned to peek down at the mountain of carcasses. “But… Madamaron to be at the bottom of those tunnels, right? That water bug and these beetles were working on its orders, so… if you’re strong, can’t you just go down there right now and kill it?”

  Alice’s lips thinned into a line. “And fight what could possibly be an Insect God in its home territory? No thanks. There are ranks even among the Arcana Hasharana, you know—maybe the Fool or the Magician can beat an Insect God solo, but I’m not there yet. I need to copy more weapons and fighting styles before I can even about challenging an Insect God in its home territory, and that’s where you come in.”

  Dahlia pointed at herself, wobbly and unsteadily. Alice winked and started walking forward again, fully intent on leaving her behind at the edge of the tunnel.

  “I checked with my Archive!” Alice said, carefree as ever. “Your class is an ‘extinct’ class dangerous enough that the Worm God had to personally redact a ton of information even can’t access, so I wanna know what makes you so special! You’ve gotta have a special fighting style or 'weapon' worthy enough for me to mimic, right?”

  “...”

  “We’ll haul the beetles up and resume investigations on Madamaron tomorrow,” she finished, waving back at Dahlia. “I’m not fighting it down there, so while you try to figure out what species it is exactly, I’ll try to figure out how to lure it up to the surface. If it’s on plain, open sand, then I could even beat an Insect God by myself? There’s no rush, though—I’ll eat tons more bug meat and put more points into my attribute levels first!”

  … It was quite strange seeing Alice walk away, leaving a single glowing thread behind for her to grasp onto and follow; Dahlia felt as though she simultaneously understood more about the Hasharana, and yet understood even about her now.

  Eria mumbled.

  She pursed her lips, casting one last look at the cavern behind her before trudging through the tunnel.

  she started, lowering her gaze,

  A long pause.

  Eria had gotten comfortable with doing that lately.

   the Godsent Talent of Alshifa,] Raya whispered, interjecting before Eria could reply.

  Amula grumbled back, and the sound of someone getting kicked in the head made Dahlia giggle.

  she thought, shaking her head to clear her thoughts. Eria might’ve tried to say something on her shoulder, but she didn’t hear it; she’d already made up her mind to focus only on one thing at a time.

  She felt as though she could hear Issam perk his ears.

  she thought.

  Days until Storm Strider launch: 14

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