The first to move were the ones who believed strength alone would be enough.
They always were.
---
The Sunward Advance
The Lion-kin pride that marched east did not call it an invasion.
They called it a demonstration.
Fifty warriors—seasoned, disciplined, armored in sun-forged bronze and hardened leather—advanced across the grasslands in a tight wedge formation. Their banners bore the mark of the Red Mane Pride, a lineage known for decisive strikes and unyielding will.
Their leader, Karveth Redmane, walked at the front.
He was tall even for a lion-kin, his mane braided with bone rings earned in prior campaigns. His confidence was not reckless—it was proven. He had fought monsters larger than siege towers and broken warbands twice his number.
This was not arrogance.
It was certainty.
"The land recoils because it remembers fear," Karveth said as they moved. "We will remind it who hunts."
The warriors answered with low, unified growls.
Scouts reported signs exactly as the shaman's message described—patches of discolored earth, faint heat distortion, strange silence where insects should have sung.
Karveth took this as confirmation.
"If the threat spreads," he said, "we cut it at the source."
They pressed on.
---
Contact
The first sign that something was wrong came without sound.
One moment, the grass ahead swayed gently in the wind.
The next, it collapsed inward—as if the land exhaled.
The front scouts halted.
"Hold," Karveth commanded.
A ripple passed through the formation. Shields lifted. Casters began channeling low-level detection spells.
Nothing appeared.
Then the ground moved.
Not erupted. Not exploded.
It parted.
From beneath the earth, shapes emerged—sleek, segmented forms the size of hunting dogs, their carapaces dark crimson shot through with veins of dim ember-light. Their wings vibrated without lifting them fully from the ground, producing a low, droning screech that clawed at the nerves.
Fire-draining cicadas.
Not the greater forms spoken of in old records.
Foot soldiers.
They did not charge.
They spread.
Karveth reacted instantly.
"Shield wall! Forward burn—do not let them encircle!"
The Lion-kin moved with practiced precision. Flames roared as sun-aspected mana surged, searing the first wave of insects into ash. Blades crushed carapaces. Roars shook the plain.
For a brief moment, it worked.
Then the heat vanished.
Not dispersed.
Consumed.
The cicadas swarmed the fire itself, clinging to it, feeding, glowing brighter as the flames weakened. Spells faltered. Enchantments dimmed.
The warriors faltered—not in fear, but in confusion.
Karveth's eyes narrowed.
"Adapt," he growled. "Cold iron! Physical—"
The command died as the second wave hit.
They came from beneath the formation, not ahead of it.
The ground ruptured in uneven lines. Warriors stumbled as the earth softened, cracked, and gave way. Screeches multiplied, overlapping into a pressure that rattled teeth and blurred vision.
This was not a battle.
It was containment.
The cicadas did not pursue kills.
They disrupted. Isolated. Drained.
Karveth fought like a living sun, cleaving a path through the swarm, but even he felt it—the unnatural resistance, the way his power dulled with each strike.
When the retreat horn finally sounded, it was already too late to withdraw cleanly.
Only thirty-eight returned.
They carried the wounded.
They left the dead where they fell.
And behind them, the land slowly sealed itself, as if nothing had ever passed through.
---
The Reports Begin
By the time the survivors reached allied territory, the story had already begun to fracture.
Some spoke of ambush.
Others of cursed land.
One wounded warrior swore he saw the insects organize—forming lines, herding prey rather than attacking blindly.
Another insisted the fire-drain was a temporary phenomenon.
A third claimed the screeching wasn't sound at all—but pressure inside the skull.
No two accounts matched completely.
Messengers carried these reports outward, each adding interpretation, each subtracting uncertainty.
By the time the information reached Urrakar, it arrived as contradiction.
---
Urrakar – The Problem with Partial Truths
Captain Thorian listened without interruption.
He stood over a stone table etched with topographical markers as messengers spoke in turn. His ears twitched—not from agitation, but calculation.
"Losses confirmed?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Enemy classification?"
"Insects."
"Numbers?"
"Unclear."
Thorian exhaled slowly.
Incomplete data was more dangerous than ignorance.
A fox-kin analyst spoke up. "Some reports claim the swarm retreated when the fire ceased."
"And others claim the fire failing triggered the collapse," a panther-kin scout countered.
"Which is it?" a council observer demanded.
Thorian raised a hand.
"Both," he said evenly. "Or neither. That is the point."
Silence followed.
"The Red Mane Pride advanced without reconnaissance depth," Thorian continued. "They engaged a spreading force without understanding its purpose. Their failure tells us nothing definitive—except that raw strength alone is insufficient."
"And yet," a lion-kin delegate growled, "they survived. That proves—"
"That proves the threat is not finished," Thorian cut in. "If it were, they would not have been allowed to leave."
That landed heavily.
Raygen, standing quietly near the rear with Asa, felt it settle into his bones.
"They were tested," Asa murmured. "Just like the land."
Raygen didn't respond.
He was thinking about patterns.
---
Conflicting Signals
Within days, new reports arrived.
A river tribe caravan vanished without signs of struggle—no bodies, no scorch marks.
A bear-kin patrol reported heat anomalies but no insects.
A panther-kin scout swore he felt something watching him from beneath the earth—something that did not move.
Some claimed the cicadas avoided certain regions.
Others insisted they were spreading uniformly.
The shaman's message echoed through all of it, reframed and distorted by distance.
The world was no longer reacting to a warning.
It was reacting to each other.
Trade slowed.
Borders tightened.
Independent warbands began to form—some seeking glory, others seeking profit.
And beneath it all, the land continued to change.
---
Raygen's Quiet Observation
Raygen trained harder than before.
Not recklessly—but deliberately.
He watched beastkin drills with new eyes, noting how they adapted without being told, how formations shifted organically, how instincts guided action when plans failed.
The wolf spirit within him stirred—not violently, but attentively.
This is not chaos, he realized.
It's pressure.
Asa noticed the change.
"You're thinking too much again," she said one evening as they sat overlooking the city.
"Someone has to," Raygen replied calmly.
She smirked, then winced slightly, pressing fingers to her temple.
Still light.
Still manageable.
For now.
---
The First Lesson
When word of the failed advance reached the Wolf-kin plains, the shaman did not react outwardly.
She simply closed her eyes.
"They moved too loudly," she said to the elders. "And the land answered softly."
"What now?" an elder asked.
She opened her eyes.
"Now," she replied, "the world learns that not every enemy wants to be fought."
Far to the east, beneath cracked earth and fire-starved soil, the cicadas continued their work.
And something older than pride listened.
End of Chapter 19