The Sharaji Desert stretched endlessly in every direction—a harsh, shimmering wasteland of sand and broken stone—but occasionally, there’d be a small oasis town built here and there capable of sustaining some lower, sadder form of life. The oasis town just a few hundred metres in front of the two wandering sisters was one of those towns, though it was evidently abandoned, probably vacated decades ago like most other oasis towns across the desert.

  Why would anyone choose to live out here in the middle of nowhere when they could live in the City of Feasts instead?

  It was a question Thracia was glad she didn’t know the answer to, because the two of them needed the peace and quiet. Her cloak clung to her thin frame, the fabric sticky with sweat despite the dry air. Her legs ached with every step, but the pangs of hunger gnawing at her stomach were worse—she hadn’t eaten anything filling in a few weeks, and she hated the sensation of her flesh and blood shrivelling up.

  “I hate this place,” she muttered, her voice muffled by her scarf and hood.

  “It hates you too,” Apocia replied, her tone clipped and dismissive.

  Thracia scowled, but didn’t respond. Her older sister’s patience for complaints was nonexistent.

  “Is it really there?” Thracia muttered, quickening her step to keep up with Apocia. “I need to eat something real. Those humans we found in the City of Feasts—”

  “Weren’t enough,” Apocia finished. “They never are for you. You’re always starving.”

  “Like you aren’t,” Thracia countered, grumbling under her breath. “You’re thrice my size and four times as strong, and you’re telling me you only have to eat half as much as me? That’s some bull. I wish—”

  “We’re here,” Apocia interrupted. “Focus.”

  Entering the abandoned desert town, the endless dunes gave way to jagged remnants of an old settlement, broken walls, and crumbled towers half-buried in the sand. Harsh sunlight beat down, heat bouncing off the pale sandstone and turning the air into a shimmering haze. If it wasn’t already obvious enough that nobody lived here, the silence was the final nail in the coffin.

  But they weren’t here for humans. They were here for the head of the giant Mutant-Class sun moth they’d watched explode into a million pieces a few days ago—the Hasharana’s cleanup crew had yet to pick up all of its scattered remains, so if they could just get ahold of its head…

  Thracia’s breath caught as the two of them found the oasis at the centre of the town. The moth’s head, sticking out the still emerald sheen of water, was the size of a small building. Its once-glowing orange exoskeleton dulled, but it was still radiant, patterns etched across its surface like molten veins.

  “This’ll do,” she whispered under her breath, her vision pulsing red with hunger. “Let’s go, sis. Time to—”

  “Wait.” Apocia said sharply.

  Thracia froze mid-step, turning to her older sister with a frown. “What now?”

  But Apocia wasn’t looking at her. Her older sister was staring past the ruins, squinting at the horizon, so she looked in the same direction and cupped her hands over her eyes.

  Then she saw it.

  A small figure stood on a distant dune, nearly a thousand meters away. She could barely make out the details, but the wide stance and the silhouette of a quiver on their back was unmistakable.

  It was an archer.

  The glint of sunlight on polished metal chitin gave Thracia just enough time to react. She tensed as the archer raised her bow, the movement fluid and precise, and then released a single arrow into the sky with a terrifyingly sharp whistle.

  Apocia grabbed her head and took a calm step back as the arrow suddenly started glowing and accelerated, crossing a thousand metres in five seconds and crashing into the oasis in front of them. The explosion that followed was instant, a roaring column of fire that sent a shockwave rippling outwards, evaporating the entire oasis in a hiss of steam and smoke. Thracia grimaced. The heat seared her skin even through her cloak.

  When the smoke eventually passed and sand stopped falling from the sky, the archer stood perched atop the burning moth head, having grabbed onto and flew with her own arrow like a comet across the desert.

  Thracia narrowed her eyes. The woman was tall, lithe, and clad in light northern-style ranger armour that gleamed with an almost crimson ceremonial shine. An archer through and through. Her helmet sported two curved horns, and her bow was obsidian-black—both Swarmsteel made out of bombardier beetle chitin, no doubt—but both the weapon and the helmet looked so casual on her that the first thought Thracia had was ‘danger’.

  This was a woman who’d been fighting with her Swarmsteel for a long, long time, to the point they felt like they were a physical part of her.

  “... I thought it might be you two trying to nab the sun moth’s head,” the archer said, her voice carrying twenty metres across the desert town easily. “The recent spider-related deaths in the city made it obvious you were here, so all I had to do was set up around here and wait for you to come—but what’s up with the Swarm in recent years? Why are you all being so sneaky recently?”

  Thracia glanced at Apocia, whose expression was unreadable. Her own heart was pounding as the archer tilted her chin back, looking down on the two of them.

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  “Take what happened a few months ago. The titans of the Rampaging Hinterland Front managed to fire thirteen cocoons thousands of kilometres down south without any of the De Balla’s aura radars picking them up. Then there was that ‘Madamaron’ case a bit west of here. I know she’s not the greatest tracker, but it shouldn’t have taken her months to find a little low-rank Mutant-Class,” the archer continued, gesturing vaguely around with her bow. “Then there’s what happened to the Whirlpool City in the far west six years ago. Three Insect Gods, hundreds of Mutant-Classes, and thousands of Giant-Classes, all just popped up out of nowhere without anyone being able to detect their auras. Then there’s what happened to the Parasitarch in Bharncair eight years ago, then there’s what happened with the Ladybug God in the Harbour City ten years ago, and… well, you get the point.

  “It’s like all of you just received a Swarm-wide evolution.

  “It’s not just the Insect Gods. Even the lower ranks like your Mutant-Classes, your Giant-Classes, your Critter-Classes… it’s like someone just taught all of you how to suppress your aura signals. The two of you would have never made it this close to the City of Feasts ten years ago without someone detecting your aura.

  “So how are you doing this?

  “Even now, your aura’s a bit… faded. It’s like I can’t really detect it unless I’m really paying attention, but I don’t feel like you’re doing anything special.

  “Is it a new mutation?

  “When did it start?

  “How is it that all of you managed to mutate the same ability across the entire continent?”

  “...”

  Apocia didn’t answer.

  Thracia didn’t dare speak.

  And the silence stretched, the desert wind whispering through the ruins.

  So the archer sighed eventually, shaking her head. “Not that it matters to me personally. The Hierophant, the High Priestess, and Judgement are already dissecting your kin to figure out what mutation is letting all of you suppress your aura signals. My job here as the Sun is much simpler.” Then she raised her bow, nocking a black-chitin arrow with practised ease. “I’m here to kill the last of the Seven Spider Spinners.”

  Then she released her arrow, and it turned into a churning, spiralling flame-tipped missile.

  Thracia didn’t wait. She didn’t hesitate. She spat a spiraling web that twisted through the air and smothered the flames, and at the same time, Apocia dashed in front of her to block the arrow with her forearm. The impact sent a concussive shockwave behind the two of them, kicking up a cloud of sand.

  For a second, the explosion stripped the air of all sound. Smoke swirled around Apocia’s charred limb, exposing cracks in her exoskeleton. Both of their undersized beige cloaks had burned away as well, so Thracia saw no point keeping their true forms hidden anymore. She ripped hers off in one hand, Apocia’s off in the other, and with six arms bristling with fury, the two of them finally looked like the inglorious Spider Gods they were.

  We won’t be hiding anymore, huh?

  Fine by me.

  A sudden barrage of arrows followed, each one streaking with fire. Thracia and Apocia weaved back behind a crumbling wall as explosions erupted around them, and the Sun leaped from the burning moth head to a broken archway, firing mid-air. Each explosive arrow cut off their retreat before they could put much distance between them.

  “Damn her,” Thracia muttered, darting behind cover. A charred arrowhead stuck out of the sand nearby, still smoking. “That unwieldy bow isn’t slowing her down at all.”

  “But she’s not invincible,” Apocia snarled, crouching beside her. One of her arms flexed, the cracked exoskeleton already beginning to knit itself back together. “We need to box her in.”

  The Sun wasn’t giving them time to think, though. Another arrow whistled through the air over their heads, its fiery trail carving a streak across the sky before it suddenly swerved down at them. Apocia tossed her away. Thracia spat a web and jerked Apocia to the side. The arrow slammed into an old fountain a second later, shattering the structure and forcing the sisters to scatter, separate.

  Thracia sprinted into the shadows of a half-collapsed building. She leaped onto a wall, her claws digging into the sandstone as she clung there, waiting. Below her, Apocia smashed through two, three, four more half-collapsed buildings, sending sand and debris flying into the air just to lower the archer’s visibility.

  After all, they had no idea where the Sun was firing at them from.

  Where?

  Where would an archer who can swerve arrows be now?

  As Thracia surveyed the crumbling desert town from her vantage point, more arrows grazed Apocia below her. A burst of fire detonated at Apocia’s feet, forcing her to shield herself with two of her arms while the others tore chunks of rubble from her path. Even more arrows swerved in from ten, twenty, thirty different directions, none flying along the same path as they exploded on contact with Apocia—but then Thracia noticed a glint of black behind a small window just ten metres to the side.

  The archer was far, far, far closer than she’d expected, and that was precisely why she didn’t even think to check the vicinity.

  She didn’t wait. She immediately spat a cluster of sticky webs, aiming for the Sun’s face. The strands spiraled out, weaving an unbreakable net that’d suffocate the archer if it landed for sure, but the Sun noticed and vaulted effortlessly, jumping out her window as the webs missed her by inches.

  She immediately leapt onto the adjacent rooftop ten metres away, already nocking another arrow.

  “She’s toying with us,” Thracia grumbled. “She can definitely volley arrows at us from hundreds of metres away without putting herself in harm’s way, so the fact that she’s this close to us means she’s confident. She has some close-quarter ace up her sleeve.”

  “No,” Apocia corrected, grunting as she swatted ten more explosive arrows out of the air. “She’s just stalling.”

  “You sure?”

  “A decade ago, she might’ve stood a chance, but things have changed,” Apocia said quietly, stomping and raising a slab of sandstone in front of her like a wall. Three more explosive arrows detonated on it, shattering the wall and buying her a bit of reprieve. “We grow stronger at a faster rate than the humans, and apart from the top eight of the Arcana Hasharna—the Fool, the Magician, Strength, the Empress, the Chariot, the Tower, Judgement, and the Devil—the rest of them need to double-up even against F-Rank Insect Gods like us these days. The Sun is ranked eleventh. She can’t kill us alone. Unless one of the top eight is around, she’d need three more Arcana Hasharana in order to deal with the two of us.”

  Thracia frowned, curling a lip. “But we’ve been keeping tabs on the Fool. He’s still in the City of Feasts. Who is she stalling fo—”

  “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here! Sorry I’m late!”

  And right on cue, a crimson shadow swept over the two of them. Thracia didn’t look up. Neither did Apocia. Both of them leapt back on instinct as a second Arcana Hasharana crashed down in the middle of the street, sand and debris exploding outwards.

  As Thracia clicked her tongue in irritation and stood abreast with her older sister, the dust cleared, and an even younger girl staggered out of the crater with a sickle, a curved saif, a spear, and a double-sided axe in four hands. She was young—barely out of her teens—but her hair was ashen white, her crimson cloak was patterned like moth wings, and she had a mad, mad smile on her face.

  Then she glanced over her shoulder to wink at the Sun.

  “... I’m here!” she said cheerily. “The Hangman, ranked eighteenth of the Arcana Hasharana, is here to squash a few bugs!”

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