I repeated the name several times.
Chimera.
As though repeating it made it easier to process. It didn't.
Even in regions where they were considered common, they were still rare — the kind of rarity the Compendium covered in dense pages with the specific language of someone who had written about something they had observed from a distance and survived to document. Creatures as cunning as hydras, as intelligent as Wyverns, with the specific capacity to analyze territories, identify patterns, and exploit weaknesses in a way that most monsters of the Oasis simply didn't.
Unlike most monsters, chimeras learned.
And applied what they learned methodically.
For human Lords, the informal name was another: Lord Slayers. Not for brute power — there were stronger creatures in the Oasis. But for the method. They didn't attack territories. They consumed them, piece by piece, leaving nothing behind
"How could I be this unlucky…"
The answer was simple and useless: I was on the edge. The information I had purchased didn't mention chimeras because chimeras didn't inhabit established human territory — they inhabited more distant territories, the quadrants where Lords rarely arrived and more rarely survived. Quadrant D. Low risk. No flying creatures.
Right. Low risk.
"What a joke," I muttered.
I had treated the absence of flying creatures as an advantage.
I hadn't calculated what inhabited the same space for other reasons.
"Zeus. Call all mine workers back to the castle. Until further notice, collection only within the wall radius. Everyone else stays sheltered."
"Order confirmed."
I looked at Morgana.
"This will be our biggest fight."
"Yes, Lord."
There was something in her tone — not fear, but the silent recognition of someone who had faced enough things to know how to distinguish a large problem from an existential one. Chimera was existential.
✦
She didn't attack immediately.
Which was what I had expected — and what made everything harder. An immediate attack I could respond to. A siege was another category of problem.
On the first night, she circled the perimeter for hours. Testing angles, evaluating the towers, always outside the range of the bolts — and outside my line of sight. I could hear her. Steps that made the ground vibrate at a low, constant frequency, without any pattern that would let me predict where they would come from. She never advanced. She never fully retreated.
I stood on the parapet listening to something I couldn't see.
It was worse than seeing her.
"Zeus, monitor every step."
On the second day, she positioned herself to the west. Between me and the river.
"Son of a bitch…"
Intelligent. Very intelligent. She had identified my natural water source and cut off access without needing to enter the territory. I had stored water in the ring — five thousand liters, enough for me for a long time, enough for the Urskra for less time than I wanted to calculate. Even drinking like the colossi they were, with natural losses from evaporation and waste, I had days. But days was exactly what she wanted to turn into weeks.
On the third day, I temporarily disabled the towers.
The bolts didn't penetrate her skin — they only irritated her. And an irritated chimera without strategic reason was a variable I didn't need to introduce. She wouldn't act rashly if I didn't give her reason to. And I wouldn't give her reason.
"Zeus, reduce tower range to 10 meters. Let her move."
It was counterintuitive. But the advantage I had was fragile and depended on a single premise: she wouldn't attack without calculating first. If I disrupted her calculation with pointless provocation, I would lose the only margin I had.
On the fourth day, I posted on the market.
"Chimera installed in territory — quadrant 24B."
The system classified it as low priority. Local problem. Problem of the affected Lord. Nobody would buy information about a threat confined to a peripheral territory unless out of curiosity — and curiosity didn't pay bills.
I almost laughed.
Even in the market, I was alone.
I had Morgana sell wood for ore — two for one initially, three for one after two days. I opened an offer for meat: ten wood per fifty kilos after eight days. The market was predatory under normal conditions. Under siege, I had no position to negotiate from. I would pay whatever was asked.
On the fifth day, the Urskra cub tried to get out through the palisade.
I pulled it back before it reached the edge. I ran my hand along its neck for longer than was necessary, processing what had almost happened.
On the sixth day, I realized I had cut down too many trees.
The plain inside the territory was almost an open field — excellent visibility for battle, zero cover for workers, and wood production reduced to nearly nothing. I had prioritized defense over sustainability and was now paying the compounded price of every previous decision. Resources were draining. Barter compensated part of it, but production wasn't keeping up.
On the eighth day, my Crukoton supplier informed me the stock had run out.
On the tenth, the Urskra began to grow restless.
Hunger in creatures of that size wasn't abstract — it was visible in the posture, in the rhythm of breathing, in the way their eyes followed every movement inside the stable. I had tamed four colossi and now needed to feed them with resources that were running out faster than I could replenish them.
On the eleventh day, I calculated for the first time the possibility of losing.
Not in battle. Without battle. Just exhaustion — resources, provisions, the capacity to sustain the territory to the point where anything I tried to do would be too late. It was her strategy. And it was working.
"At the current rate, I exhaust supplies before thirty days."
I stared at the numbers for a while.
There was only one way out of the siege without abandoning the territory: make the chimera come in on my terms, instead of waiting for her to decide when to attack. That meant turning her siege into my war. It meant choosing the moment — and that meant I needed to be ready before I chose.
On the twelfth day, I was.
✦
The territory had changed.
Three additional houses, all evolved. Twelve level 2 workers, three of them already at level 3. One tamer. Two knights. Three lancers. Four Urskra at 98 percent taming — which activated the bond bonus combined with the territory flag, an advantage I couldn't quantify in numbers but knew existed. A Cockatrice that wasn't yet large enough for battle but had stayed glued to my side throughout the twelfth days as though it sensed something was wrong and had decided that staying close was the answer.
The palisade had evolved four times. Expensive — very expensive. But each evolution expanded the radius without requiring new connections, and on the fourth it had finally reached the mine. The territory was closed. Not impenetrable, but closed.
"Zeus. How many knights can I create before the peak of the night?"
[ Resources sufficient for one knight. ]
"Proceed."
One was better than none. I would ride the largest Urskra — the male that had been the first to fall into the trench, now at 99 percent bond and the size that made any other mount irrelevant by comparison. The knight would take the smaller male. The female was still recovering from her wound — operational, but not at peak.
"Morgana."
She turned.
"You will stay with the cub. Inside the castle. You don't leave until the battle begins."
She frowned.
"My healing…"
"Will be useless if she discovers you exist." — I interrupted, without harshness, but without room for negotiation. — "Chimeras don't fight on impulse. They eliminate support first. If she realizes there's a healer, you become the priority target before the first impact."
She understood before I finished.
"The only chance is to absorb the first impact and survive it." — I continued. — "If we manage that, you heal. If not…"
I didn't finish. She simply nodded — with that composure of hers that I had learned to recognize as her way of processing things that had no better answer than acceptance.
I pulled out the medium Nectar Stone.
It was my last economic trump card — I had set it aside to sell if the situation became critical enough. The situation had become critical. But survival was worth more than liquidity, and I wouldn't economize on anything that could make a difference.
I placed it in my mouth.
The sweet flavor exploded before I finished swallowing. Then heat — not external, but internal, starting at the center of my chest and spreading to my extremities with the speed of something the body recognized as an urgent resource. My senses sharpened. The world became slightly slower, slightly clearer, with that specific quality of moments when the nervous system decides it needs all available information.
The Blood Magic ritual was prepared. But I wouldn't activate it yet — not at the start. If I was going to lead, I needed a clear head for as long as possible. The magic came later, when there was no other option.
"Zeus. Evolve the towers. Upon completion, activate automatic attack."
With the evolution, the bolts stopped being an irritation and started leaving marks. They didn't penetrate deeply — but they hurt. I didn't know what pain did to a chimera. Whether it made her cautious or furious. Whether it accelerated the attack or changed the method.
I needed to find out before betting on it.
✦
On the thirteenth day, I made the move.
She had gone out to hunt — Morgana had seen her leave with a creature in her mouth two days before. She never moved away completely, but there was a pattern: she left, hunted, returned. I had mapped the interval. And when the evolved towers received her back with bolts that left marks for the first time, the roar that cut through the air was different from anything that had come before.
It wasn't pain.
It was surprise.
She had left before nightfall. When she returned, the territory was already dark — and the evolved towers received her with something she hadn't encountered in the previous nine nights.
"Lord… she's coming."
"I know."
The ground began to tremble before she was visible. Each step a small earthquake, the specific frequency of mass in motion that the soil transmitted before the eyes could confirm.
"Formation."
Three lancers at the front — lances leveled, positions locked, with the expression of workers who had been turned into soldiers and who I knew were too underequipped for what I was asking of them. Myself, mounted on the largest Urskra, flanking from the right. The knight closing the opposite side. Morgana on the cub, behind — far enough not to be an obvious target, close enough to act if needed. The last knight protecting her rear with the Mother Urskra.
The plain of felled trees gave us fifty meters of clear vision. It had cost production and cover. Now it delivered a battlefield.
She cleared the seven-meter wall.
She didn't climb. She didn't force. She leapt — with the specific elegance of something that had always treated obstacles built by humans as terrain features, not barriers. She landed on the inside with an impact that made the ground tremble beneath my Urskra's paws.
And then I finally saw clearly what had been just beyond full visibility for thirteen days.
Six meters to the dorsal ridge. The main trunk of a colossal feline — not a lion at increased scale, but something that had evolved beyond any reference I had, with a thick mane that rippled like a material different from fur, denser, darker. Above the feline head, the second head emerged with caprine features and twisted horns that moved independently, sweeping sky and ground at simultaneous angles that no single-headed creature could cover. At the rear, the serpentine tail moved with a life of its own — not appendage, but extension, spitting venom in drops that smoked on contact with the ground as though the ground wasn't resistant enough for the contact.
She measured us.
Assessed.
And then — something happened on the feline face that I couldn't immediately classify. It wasn't the kind of expression I had trained myself to read in Oasis creatures. It was the kind I had trained myself to read in people.
She smiled.
"You son of a bitch… COME ON!"
The roar came before the impact. Three heads in simultaneous motion — the lion advancing, the goat channeling something I couldn't see but felt as pressure in the air, the serpent sweeping the flanks in search of an opening. It wasn't an attack. It was a system.
"NOW!"
The lancers planted their feet. The lances gleamed under the moonlight — and for a second, with the formation locked and the clear field and the Urskra trembling with energy beneath me, it seemed like we had a real chance.
The chimera collided with the line.
Metal screamed. Two lances penetrated the lion's chest — deeply, with the sound of something that had met resistance and overcome it. The roar was deafening, with the specific quality of pain that hadn't been expected.
The third lance didn't reach the chest.
The serpent seized the iron shaft before impact. A dry snap — the haft broke like wood, not like metal. The lancer was hurled backward by the force of something that hadn't even fully committed. He rolled across the plain. Lay still.
"Damn!"
My Urskra advanced without order — the bond transmitted intent before words. He rose on his hind legs and brought his claw down with the full force accumulated by a colossus that had spent ten days confined and now had no more restraint.
The caprine head partially deflected it. The blow opened a deep cut along the side of the feline neck — dark blood, thick, with a smell my Urskra recognized as victory before I finished processing what had happened.
The serpent came for my flank.
The knight's Urskra advanced from the opposite side and shoulder-charged the chimera before she could react to my attack — an impact that shook the ground and deflected the serpent away from my flank for half a second.
It was enough.
"Morgana!"
An arrow passed through the caprine head's eye. Not deep enough to end it — but deep enough to disorient, to make the head recoil involuntarily, to open one second of gap in the aerial coverage the chimera had maintained perfectly until that moment.
She retreated one step.
Just one.
And then the feline face did it again.
The same movement I couldn't classify. The same expression that didn't belong to the repertoire of creatures.
She smiled a second time.
And this time I understood something I should have known from the start.
She was never besieging me.
She was playing with me.
There is no truce between lions and men.