I needed to think seriously about a strategy for the Zhur'kai.
Not as a distant threat. Not as a medium-term problem.
As my problem. Now.
Of course, they weren't just my problem — they were a problem for every human in that territory. But unlike most other Lords, I was on the frontier. Without the protection of great kingdoms. Without a neighboring territory absorbing the first impact.
I would be one of the first to see their army up close.
The central problem was simple: despite knowing I would be attacked, I didn't know the enemy's strength. I didn't know which direction they would attack from. I didn't know if they were coming with their main force or a reconnaissance detachment.
Counting on luck had almost killed me once, but the options didn't seem very solid.
Two paths.
First: appear weak. Draw in a small detachment, surprise them, destroy them quickly — as I had done with the Chimera. The risk was obvious. If I miscalculated and received the main army, it would be over before I could react.
Second: strengthen the defense. Walls at level 10. Towers maximized to level 10. Enough deterrence to force a siege instead of a direct attack. The risk was different — but equally lethal. Organized races didn't attack soldiers. They attacked ore extraction, wood production, food sources, water supply. Starvation. Slow. Methodical. The kind of defeat that has no final battle — just the moment when the numbers stop working.
The water issue I was resolving with the river diversion, but that wouldn't stop them from simply poisoning it.
Food, in the long run, was still a problem.
"Zeus, calculate the time needed to raise the wall and towers to level 10."
[ Calculating… 40 days. ]
Forty days.
I didn't have forty days guaranteed.
I closed my eyes for a second.
There was no real choice. There was a gamble — and I needed to make the right one.
Appear smaller than I am.
If the Zhur'kai Lord-King was advancing against human territory with coordinated force, the objective was probably the richest territories. The most developed. The most conspicuous. I was frontier. Recent. "Less important." A reconnaissance detachment would come first — and if I destroyed it quickly, before they called for reinforcements, I would remain forgotten as a territory that had been getting plundered for too long.
It was the only bet I could calculate — after all, the Zhur'kai were proud and powerful in great measure, but they were also arrogant and presumptuous in equal quantity.
Everything depended on perfect execution.
✦
Workers doubled their production after the houses evolved to level 5. With the auction capital still available, I invested in quantity — more houses, more workers, more summoning capacity. The logic was simple: real military strength in the Oasis didn't come from walls or towers. It came from numbers with enough quality for the numbers to matter.
Constant training — not the kind that produces obedient soldiers, but the kind that produces soldiers who keep functioning when the plan stops functioning.
"Zeus. Summary of active strength."
[ ACTIVE STRENGTH — SPARTA | QUADRANT 24B ]
[ Archers — 30 units ]
[ Armored soldiers — 100 units ]
[ Knights — 5 units ]
[ Heroes — Morgana (Legendary) | Livina (Legendary-Unique) ]
[ Treebeard— 6 units | summoned ] [ Urskra — 4 units | bond 99% ] [ Cockatrice — 1 unit | cub | bond 100% ]
I breathed deeply.
It wasn't a colossal force. But it already rivaled mid-tier Lords — and mid-tier Lords hadn't survived a Chimera with zero casualties.
The price had been stagnant development. Little technological advancement. Little static defense. Everything invested in a force capable of moving, adapting, surprising.
It was a trap. Not presumption.
"Morgana." — she approached. — "Do you agree with the strategy?"
"It's bold." — she said. — "But coming from you, I wouldn't expect less."
I turned to Livina.
She remained silent. She never openly disagreed — but her gaze said everything. For her, hiding strength was weakness. For me, it was a trap.
We were the same thing seen from different angles.
"Livina. Can the Treebeard wield weapons?"
"No, my Lord. They are too simple for that."
"Armor?"
"Possible. But useless." — she paused. — "If they die, I summon others."
She was right. Treebeard were expendable — and brutal in the way only things without fear can be. I had tested it: two together could contain an adult Urskra for a few minutes. Absurd strength. Absurd endurance. No hesitation.
"They will be our trump card." — I said. — "They can camouflage, emerge from behind, destroy the rear before they realize where it came from."
Ambush. That was my real wall.
I looked at the field beyond the wall. At the horizon that had been silent for weeks.
It wouldn't be silent for much longer.
✦
Inside a mobile fortress made of bones and raw metal, three Zhur'kai Lords argued.
The structure rolled on enormous wheels of wood reinforced with iron. Tents strapped to the sides. Black banners bearing the symbol of VRAKUR — the Zhur'kai Lord-King — snapping in the wind like a declaration of intent.
The three were giants. Nearly three meters tall. Bodies of dense muscle like rock. Dark green skin marked by the scars of wars no human record had documented. Lower canines projecting almost to touch their cheeks.
Brutal. But not stupid.
Their intelligence was focused — simple tactics, maximum efficiency, destruction as objective and method at the same time.
"That bastard handed us nothing but worms." — The oldest-looking one growled, eyes fixed on the leather map. — "While he takes the glory at the center, we're left with these insignificant newcomers for my glory."
One of the other Lords spat on the ground.
"How long do we need to clear this area and rejoin VRAKUR?"
"If we crush them quickly, three days." — the third answered. — "If we besiege… much longer."
"We didn't come here to waste time."
The oldest Zhur'kai opened the map. Five human territories marked. One of them was different from the others — heavy defenses, catapults, a structure that suggested the union of two Lords.
"That one is a problem." — he pointed. — "I suggest we go through the smaller ones first. We take the heads and return to assist in the main siege."
The old Zhur'kai wasn't the strongest among all his race. But he was the strongest there. And that was enough for no one to question what would come next.
"We divide forces. I lead the main army in the siege." — he pointed to the most developed territory. — "You two destroy the four smaller territories. Pillage everything. Return with supplies and the heads of the Lords."
If they were fast, they could crush everything before human reinforcements could react.
At that moment, the tent flap opened.
A silhouette entered.
Taller than the Lords themselves. Humanoid body. Buffalo head. Curved horns like blades. Heavy armor adapted to the massive frame — not equipment, but an extension of the body.
"Hero Tauros." — the old one said. — "What happened?"
His presence was different from the Zhur'kai. Dense. Controlled. Tauros was not Zhur'kai — he belonged to a race of the same name that dominated the blood plains, one of the most dangerous territories in the known Oasis. Being bound to the old Lord said more about the old one's ability than any title he could claim.
An epic summoning. Among the three Lords, he was respected not through diplomacy — but because he had the strongest hero. For Zhur'kai, strength was authority. Simple. Absolute.
"Lord Druvikai." — Tauros's voice came from a deep place, each syllable carrying the weight of a language he had mastered, not chosen. — "We located a sixth territory to the east. Small. Newcomer."
He extended a carved tablet.
Few towers. Mediocre defenses. Unknown strength.
Druvikai barely looked.
"This is a joke, Tauros. Don't waste my time." — he handed the tablet back. — "Take some soldiers. Raze that territory. Bring me the Lord's head."
The other Lords laughed.
One more newcomer. One more supplies.
Tauros inclined his head.
Left the tent without another word.
But as he left — his smile was different from the others' laughter. Wide. Eager. With the specific quality of something that had waited a very long time for exactly that kind of order.
The Tauros were ancient warriors. They shared the Zhur'kai's thirst — but Tauros's fury had a different root. A human had destroyed his life and what remained of him had ended up enslaved to a race that should have feared his name. A race that hadn't even given him one — they called him only by the name of what he was, as though what he was sufficed to define everything that remained. Now he would lead soldiers over human territory. After everything, at least that.
He closed his eyes for an instant.
The wind carried the distant scent of freshly cut wood.
"I hope you fight." — he murmured to himself.
Because he didn't just want to kill.
He wanted to crush.
✦
The wind changed first.
Then the silence — the kind that isn't an absence of sound, but the presence of something that hasn't arrived yet but has already displaced the air ahead of it.
"Lord…" — Morgana spoke quietly. — "They've arrived."
My heart slowed.
Curiously calm.
"Everyone at their posts?"
"Yes."
"Perfect."
I climbed to the top of the wall slowly. Without hurry. The kind of movement that communicates control before any word is spoken.
In the distance — green shadows.
Moving in formation. Not like a horde. Like an army.
And at the center — something larger.
"That is… a Tauros." — Livina was visibly tense at my side. Her tail rose slightly, ready. — "Where is the Lord?"
I kept my eyes fixed on the figure in the distance.
Enormous. Buffalo head. Wide horns. Heavy armor. Almost twice the height of those surrounding him — and yet it wasn't the size that weighed. It was something else. The quality of something that had survived long enough to develop its own gravity.
"Good." — I answered.
Livina turned her face toward me.
"Good?"
"Yes. They sent only one hero. No Lord." — I paused. — "Heroes don't retreat. The last order holds. He will fight to the end — and when he falls, the army falls with him."
It was the confirmation I had calculated. A detachment. Not the main force.
I had bet right.
Now came the hard part. I needed to crush them.
"Morgana, can you estimate the enemy's strength?"
She closed her eyes for a moment. Her gaze became distant — concentration in the specific way of someone reading something others can't see.
"Four hundred warriors, Lord. Not counting the hero."
Four hundred.
Against a hundred armored soldiers, thirty archers, five knights, three adult Urskra, one young one, six Barbavores.
The count wasn't comfortable. But I had a wall. And a funnel.
One clear advantage against Zhur'kai: they despised mounts. They despised archers. For them, ranged combat was cowardice — honor came from crushing bones, direct contact, strength against strength. It was the reason I had invested specifically in archers and armored soldiers instead of heavy cavalry.
Common warriors would be torn apart. Armored soldiers cost five times more — but they were the living wall the funnel needed.
"Archers on the towers. Ranged attack. When they get too close, fall back behind the line."
"Morgana, hide with the young Urskra. Livina, protect Morgana."
The scorpion raised her chin.
"I want to fight. I won't hide."
Even after a month, her presence still disturbed the air around her. But firmness was essential — and I had learned how to speak with her.
"Your strength and Morgana's are not the front line." — I spoke carefully. — "You are the key to my victory. I trust you to finish this battle — not to start it."
Silence.
She hesitated. Then nodded.
Livina needed to feel essential. Not subordinate. The difference was small in words and enormous in result.
She entered the castle with Morgana, becoming visible only when she appeared on the parapet of one of the towers.
"Zeus. Half the archers on the wall. Towers active. Armored soldiers in tortoise formation at the gate. Cavalry to the holes and remaining archers with me."
[ Orders received. Formations active. ]
I would stay behind the armored fighters with Pegasus, riding atop the Father Urskra. I was the bait—and the prize..
My strategy was simple. They would have to come through the gate. The problem was the excess of archers — too much ranged attack and they might simply retreat and return with more soldiers. I couldn't allow that. The answer was to appear weak. Not be weak — appear weak.
The second problem would come when they entered the territory. I needed them to keep advancing, but I knew that multiple Urskra would frighten them — after all, they were C+ creatures, even as mounts. The solution was to dig two holes on the flanks of the armored line, cover them with a thin layer of wood, and keep two Urskra hidden inside. They would be the main piece if something went wrong with the armored soldiers.
There the terrain narrowed. Funnel. Meat grinder. If everything went right, it wouldn't be fast — but it would be solid.
If everything went right.
✦
The ground began to vibrate before they were visible.
Then the sound arrived.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
The Zhur'kai drum was a construction exclusive to their race — designed to transform rhythm into fury and fury into momentum. Drumbeasts, they called them. When the drum sounded, the beasts smiled.
I expected an immediate attack.
But they were organizing. Forming a line.
"Are they planning a siege?" — I murmured.
If it was a prolonged siege, I would have a problem. More time meant a greater chance of Zhur'kai reinforcements arriving.
I couldn't let time work in their favor.
"Morgana. Fire." — I shouted.
"Any specific target?"
"Those closest to the Tauros."
Irritate. Provoke. Force a hasty advance.
She raised the gastraphetes.
Fired.
Silence.
In the distance, a Zhur'kai screamed.
"One."
Shot.
"Two."
Shot.
"Three."
Each arrow. A death. Legendary hero. Stationary target. Even at a distance, it was execution — the kind that has no glory, only results.
Morgana was a welcome advantage. Her crossbow reached distances beyond any tower's range — which meant she could hit the enemy even when they were too far for the towers to reach.
"Eleven… twelve…"
The Zhur'kai began to stir.
"Thirteen." — Morgana whispered. — "Lord, they've started moving."
The drum changed rhythm.
Faster. More aggressive.
Tauros raised his face. Looked directly at the wall — even from a distance, I felt it. He wasn't stupid. He understood provocation. And he had decided it was time to respond.
He advanced to the front of the line.
And then they ran.
Not like a disorganized horde.
Like a compact block. Four hundred bodies. Armor clashing. Axes raised. The ground trembling with the specific frequency of mass in motion that had decided there was nothing left to calculate.
"Archers, continuous fire!"
Arrows rained down.
But Zhur'kai didn't retreat. Didn't shout. Didn't break formation. They simply advanced — absorbing what came, discarding it as cost, continuing.
And the Tauros smiled.
He wanted this. I needed him to want it.
"Hold position!"
I descended from the tower while the archers still fired and went to my position behind the armored line. I couldn't see the enemy — I heard them. Arrows cutting through the air. Drums echoing like a giant heartbeat. Heavy footsteps approaching — slow, certain, with the inevitability of something that had never learned the word obstacle.
My stomach ached.
Against the Urskra I had intelligence. Against the Chimera I had numbers. Against the Wendigos I had Morgana.
Fewer numbers now. A hero on their side. On mine, a gate and a tight space that needed to be worth everything.
It was enough. It had to be.
"Archers, come down! Fall back behind the line!"
The gate began to tremble.
One blow. Then another. Each impact made my chest vibrate with the frequency of something that was on the outside and very much wanted to be on the inside.
The archers behind me drew their strings, waiting for the inevitable.
Wood cracking.
Four blows.
Silence.
Only the drum.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
"Armored soldiers! Whatever comes through that gate — hold the line at any cost!"
The fifth blow wasn't a blow.
It was an explosion.
The gate shattered — wood flying in every direction with the specific violence of something that had been built to resist and had found something that resistance couldn't solve.
And then he entered.
✦
Nearly five meters tall.
Horns wide as blades. Thick armor covering shoulders and chest. An enormous axe that I hadn't seen him carrying until that moment — because until that moment he hadn't needed it.
His smile was grotesque. Surprised. Excited.
Even he hadn't expected such resistance from such a small kingdom.
"It's me you want — come and get me!" — I shouted more for myself than for my men.
It was war. And I had chosen to be visible to the enemy.
The Tauros opened his lungs.
"UUUUUUUURRRRRAAAAAAAA!!!"
And the Zhur'kai advanced.
The tortoise formation closed. Shields raised. Lances extended. The Zhur'kai collided with the sound of metal against flesh and flesh against metal — and there they stayed, locked against each other, as though the entire battlefield had forgotten how to move.
In the funnel between the gate and my territory, the Zhur'kai couldn't use their numbers or full strength. They compressed. And were cut through.
Lances penetrated throats. Arrows rained from the flanks. Bodies began to pile up.
It was working.
It was actually working.
Then I remembered.
The Tauros.
A roar cut through the chaos — different from the battle noise, deeper, more personal.
He ran. Not against the line — through it.
He ignored the lances. Some pierced him. Others broke. He simply walked through the armored soldiers, stepping over two of them as though they were terrain obstacles — not enemies, just things in the way.
I understood in the same instant.
The moment had come.
"Knights! Advance!"
Two Urskra burst from the improvised holes and charged.
They collided with the Tauros just as he reached the last armored soldier. Bites. Claws. Impacts. He hadn't expected two — it was there in his eyes.
While the two held him, I advanced.
My sword struck the arm holding the axe while my mount bit into his exposed belly.
It was like striking solid rock, but Pegasus was with me. With his claws, he tore chunks of flesh away, finally forcing him to drop the giant axe—though not before he hurled Pegasus away..
The other knights were faring worse — their lances barely scratched the surface. But the Urskra managed to open wounds. Dark blood flowed with the putrid smell of something that shouldn't exist outside a nightmare.
The Tauros roared. Even with one arm pinned, he reached for something on his back.
Another axe.
If he used that, the strategy would be at risk.
"Morgana! Shoot him!"
The arrow came like lightning.
Hit the face.
He didn't fall. But he screamed — and the scream was different from the roar. It was involuntary. Real pain, the kind he hadn't expected to feel.
It worked.
I rose over the Urskra.
"FALL ALREADY, YOU BASTARD!"
I leapt. Tried to drive the arrow deeper.
Mistake.
The Tauros abandoned the axe and grabbed me. As though I were nothing — fingers like metal claws closing around my torso with the naturalness of something that had done this before.
I was pulled toward his mouth.
The stench was unbearable.
"DIE!"
I drove my sword into his inner cheek.
He closed his jaw.
The snap was dry. The pain came after — absurd, total, the kind the body registers before the mind can process it.
But I didn't let go.
I grabbed Morgana's arrow with my other arm. Pulled it free.
He smiled. He thought I was desperate.
Then I drove the arrow straight into his eye again.
All the way in.
"TAKE THAT!"
His cry was deafening.
I was hurled. Rolled across the ground. The world spun with the specific speed of something that had been thrown and hadn't yet decided where to stop.
When I managed to focus, the three Urskra and pegasus had brought him down and were now on top of him.
Biting the face. Tearing flesh. Savage. Brutal. Necessary.
The Tauros fell.
Heavy. Final.
I felt someone beside me. Instinctively tried to rise.
"Lord! I need to heal you now!"
Morgana.
I looked at my arm.
It wasn't right. It hung — not the way arms hang, but the way things hang when they lose the structure that kept them in place.
The pain finally reached me in full.
"I… can still fight…"
I tried to stand.
The world went white.
"If the arm still exists, I can save it." — she said with the steadiness of someone who had seen worse wounds and had learned that urgency was more useful than gentleness.
I breathed deeply.
"Then do it."
I sat. As green light enveloped my body, I watched the field.
Without the Tauros, the Zhur'kai were lost. They still fought — but without direction. Without strategy. Without the center that had transformed a horde into an army.
It was the moment.
✦
"LIVINA! NOW!"
She appeared at my side.
Smiling.
"Finally. My moment."
Ancient words echoed — not human sound, but the sound of something that had learned to speak at the same time it had learned to exist.
From outside, near the drum.
The ground trembled.
Six thirty-meter trees emerged from the soil with the sound of roots detaching and trunks bending and wooden arms rising with the speed of something that had been waiting for permission.
The Barbavores stepped on the Zhur'kai.
Crushed.
Tore.
The drum stopped.
The silence that followed had a different texture from the silence before — not the absence of battle, but the absence of rhythm. Without the drum, the Zhur'kai lost the cadence that had transformed fear into momentum.
Between front and rear, they were crushed.
There was no flight. There was no retreat. Only the methodical process of something that had come to an end.
I breathed deeply.
The smell of blood was suffocating. But it was the smell of victory — and I had learned to tell the two apart.
The first battle against the Zhur'kai was mine.
I looked at my arm. Morgana had rebuilt what had been destroyed — not perfect, not immediate, but functional. The kind of healing that reminded the body it had survived before reminding it that it had suffered.
"Thank you." — I said to her.
She didn't respond. Only nodded with the expression of someone who had done what was necessary and was already calculating what would need to be done next.
I looked at the field.
Four hundred Zhur'kai. One epic hero. Territory intact.
I had lost nearly half my armored soldiers. An acceptable loss.
But the Zhur'kai were still out there.
And the Lord-King was still marching.
I had won the battle.
The war hadn't started yet.