The next six days blurred together in a way Keizeix was beginning to appreciate.
Not because nothing happened.
Quite the opposite.
There was simply too much of the same kind of violence to justify remembering every individual beetle.
Wake.
Eat.
Hide Tiestra's equipment beneath his natural appearance.
Fight.
Avoid being crushed.
Kill beetles.
Argue with Sia.
Eat again.
Sort cores.
Trade pieces of dead beetles to strangers across worlds nobody around him knew existed.
Sleep.
Repeat.
The northeastern warfront became less alien with each passing day.
Keizeix learned which Iron-shell beetles favored their left side when charging.
Which horned varieties instinctively lowered their heads when silk touched their eyes.
Which burrowers produced a subtle vibration half a second before erupting from beneath the soil.
Shirespoke noticed.
On the third morning, Keizeix laid a web line between two shattered stone columns before the battle had even begun.
His mentor stopped beside him.
"What is that for?"
"The beetles keep pushing through here around midday."
"You know that?"
"They've done it three days in a row."
Shirespoke studied the terrain.
Then the web.
Then Keizeix.
"Hm."
Keizeix looked at him.
"Hm what?"
"You may eventually develop into something resembling a competent soldier."
"Eventually?"
"Do not become arrogant. You're still short."
Keizeix stared down at his eight legs.
"I'm six months old."
"Excuses."
Marike passed behind them.
"Shirespoke required eleven years before anyone called him competent."
Shirespoke turned.
"Who told you that?"
"I was there."
Sia laughed.
Keizeix joined her.
Shirespoke looked betrayed.
"I regret mentoring either of you."
"You only mentor one of us," Sia pointed out.
"I regret that too."
---
The kill counts rose.
Slowly.
Exactly as they should against enemies who actually required effort.
One day Sia won by seventeen.
The next Keizeix beat her by nine.
Then she won by two and behaved as though she had personally conquered an empire.
"Two," Keizeix said during dinner.
"A victory is a victory."
"Two."
"Perhaps count faster next time."
"You used lightning on a beetle already missing three legs."
"It was still alive."
"It was crawling in a circle."
"Threateningly."
Marike nearly spit out her drink.
Shirespoke stared down at his meal.
"I used to command soldiers."
Keizeix looked toward him.
"You still do."
"I commanded serious soldiers."
Sia leaned closer to Keizeix.
"I think we're hurting him."
"Good."
Shirespoke's head rose.
"I heard that."
"We intended you to."
For all the insults, however, their mentors continued teaching.
Marike worked with Sia on conserving movement even when her lightning wasn't available.
Shirespoke increasingly forced Keizeix to think beyond his own kills.
"Three beetles," Shirespoke said one afternoon.
They crouched behind a ridge overlooking an enemy formation.
Keizeix counted.
"Nine hundred."
Shirespoke stared at him.
"I meant three groups."
"I knew that."
"No, you didn't."
Keizeix ignored him.
Shirespoke pointed.
"Which do you attack?"
Keizeix studied them.
One formation was mostly Iron-shell.
One contained burrowers.
The third was a mixture of horned warriors and smaller beetles.
"The mixed group."
"Why?"
"Easiest kills."
Shirespoke struck him lightly across the back of the head.
"Wrong."
Keizeix glared.
"Then why ask?"
"Because someday you may be commanding soldiers who cannot afford your obsession with numbers."
Shirespoke pointed toward the burrowers.
"Those."
"They're harder."
"They're also preparing tunnels beneath our western supply route."
Keizeix looked again.
Now he noticed the subtle earth movement.
"If they collapse it, the entire forward position spends two days without ammunition, medicine, or food."
Keizeix's expression changed.
Shirespoke nodded.
"A battlefield is larger than your kill count."
Sia, standing with Marike nearby, looked unbearably smug.
Keizeix pointed at her.
"She didn't notice either."
Sia's smugness disappeared.
Marike smiled.
"She did not."
"Why would you tell him that?"
"Because humility builds character."
Keizeix grinned.
Sia looked offended.
Balance restored.
---
His hidden trade operation grew alongside the fighting.
Estros became increasingly useful.
And increasingly annoying.
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*Why does this beetle horn have three offers worth more than twenty intact shells?*
**Estros:**
*Because you finally found one that isn't ordinary.*
Keizeix deliberately opened Marketplace appraisal and selected the horn.
**Master-Grade Horn Material**
**Notable Trait: High Mana Conductivity**
Keizeix stared.
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*So magical craftsmen want it.*
**Estros:**
*Congratulations. Your brain continues functioning.*
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*You could simply answer normally.*
**Estros:**
*Where would be the joy in that?*
Estros taught him to examine more than grade.
Conductivity.
Hardness.
Residual affinity.
Alchemy compatibility.
Structural integrity.
A cracked horn might be nearly worthless to a weaponsmith and still valuable to someone planning to grind it into powder.
A damaged carapace could be useless as armor but perfect for reinforcement resin.
Burrower sensory organs sold to alchemists and craftsmen producing vibration-detection equipment.
Keizeix began wasting far less.
He also learned not to accept the first offer merely because it contained something he wanted.
**Estros:**
*The seller wants six Master carapace plates for one Intermediate magic core.*
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*Seems fair.*
**Estros:**
*Then you deserve to be robbed.*
Keizeix frowned.
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*Explain.*
**Estros:**
*Those plates are intact. Sell them separately and you can buy three cores of equivalent magical development.*
Keizeix checked.
Estros was right.
He hated that.
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*I knew that.*
**Estros:**
*Of course.*
Keizeix was beginning to understand why Estros had nearly nineteen thousand successful trades.
Experience was its own form of power.
---
Tiestra was learning too.
Her replies came faster whenever Keizeix mentioned another order.
Her prices became noticeably friendlier.
She began including small samples with larger purchases.
A stronger silk tonic.
A healing moss patch.
Two weaker Mana-recovery draughts.
Keizeix suspected she was attempting to make herself difficult to replace.
It was working.
He sent her another payment in Beginner cores.
Her response arrived almost immediately.
**Tiestra:**
*That's more than last time.*
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*Your products improved.*
A pause.
**Tiestra:**
*I could get used to compliments.*
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*That wasn't one.*
**Tiestra:**
*It absolutely was.*
Keizeix smiled.
Then another message appeared.
**Tiestra:**
*My family has started setting aside better materials for your orders.*
That mattered.
Keizeix leaned back.
A month ago she had been another Marketplace seller.
Now her family was adjusting production around him.
Exactly the kind of relationship he wanted.
Not charity.
Dependency through value.
He benefited from their products.
They benefited from his cores.
And every time his battlefield supplied more resources, both sides gained more reason to continue.
---
His magical growth remained the slowest part.
Keizeix refused to rush it.
He consumed Beginner magic-bearing cores regularly.
Intermediate cores more carefully.
Master cores only when he had properly rested, eaten, and had enough time afterward to monitor how his body responded.
Some were sold instead.
A strongly developed elemental core might technically contain excellent magical energy, but if Estros thought its affinity was questionable, Keizeix didn't gamble.
"You have only one core," Shirespoke had told him.
Estros unknowingly echoed the same philosophy.
**Estros:**
*You can make another trade. You cannot conveniently acquire another body after detonating this one.*
Keizeix had typed:
**Keizeix Silversilk:**
*I can heal.*
Estros replied:
**Estros:**
*Can you heal being vaporized?*
Keizeix didn't answer.
Point taken.
By the end of the sixth day, he opened his status after dinner.
**Strength: 94,271 / 100,000**
**Health: 92,886 / 100,000**
**Magic: 61,734 / 100,000**
**Intelligence: 97,118 / 100,000**
**Mana: 61,734 / 61,734**
Keizeix stared at Intelligence.
Less than three thousand from the limit.
Strength wasn't far behind.
Health followed.
Magic still lagged by more than thirty thousand.
But it was moving.
That mattered.
He closed the display.
No answers came with it.
He didn't expect any.
The numbers were his.
The problem was his.
So was the solution.
He simply needed more magical catalysts.
---
Unfortunately, Commander Vaelcor noticed something else first.
The following morning, the Intermediate Epic Lord appeared at the forward encampment without warning.
Every soldier nearby straightened.
Keizeix did too.
Mostly.
Vaelcor walked past several officers before stopping near Keizeix's web preparations.
He looked over the layered traps.
Then toward the battlefield.
"Yours?"
Keizeix nodded.
"Yes, Commander."
Vaelcor pressed one armored foot against a silk strand.
It barely moved.
"You're using considerably more silk than when you arrived."
Keizeix's heart skipped.
Shirespoke answered before Keizeix could.
"His body has adjusted to battlefield strain."
Keizeix kept his expression neutral.
Not technically impossible.
Vaelcor looked at Keizeix for another moment.
Then shrugged.
"Useful."
Keizeix internally exhaled.
Vaelcor turned toward Shirespoke.
"The beetles are shifting."
Shirespoke's humor disappeared.
"Where?"
"Everywhere."
Vaelcor crouched and drew several lines into the dirt.
"Their magical castes withdrew from the northern ridge yesterday."
Keizeix immediately paid attention.
"Why?"
Vaelcor looked toward him.
"I wasn't speaking to you."
Keizeix closed his mouth.
Sia made a tiny choking sound that was suspiciously similar to laughter.
Vaelcor continued.
"We assumed they were reinforcing the eastern heights."
Shirespoke studied the rough battlefield map.
"They weren't."
"No."
Vaelcor tapped the section representing their current position.
"They're moving downward."
Marike's expression tightened.
"Into weaker sectors?"
"Apparently."
Keizeix tried very hard not to look interested.
Magical beetles.
Coming toward them.
Exactly what he'd needed.
Shirespoke noticed his expression anyway.
"Do not smile."
"I'm not."
"You're smiling internally."
"How can you possibly know that?"
"I've known you too long."
"You've known me six months."
"Unfortunately."
Vaelcor stood.
"Nobody pursues them outside assigned boundaries. If magical units enter your sector, you hold formation and wait for stronger support."
Keizeix nodded.
Sia nodded beside him.
Vaelcor looked specifically at both of them.
"That means you."
"Understood," they answered together.
Vaelcor left.
Sia watched him go.
Then glanced toward Keizeix.
"You're going to do something stupid."
Keizeix looked offended.
"Why does everyone assume that?"
"Experience."
He couldn't argue.
---
The first half of the day remained normal.
Iron-shells.
Horned beetles.
Burrowers.
Keizeix killed them.
Sia killed slightly more.
By midday she had a small lead and made sure Keizeix knew it.
"Twelve."
"It's noon."
"Twelve."
"You understand the battle isn't finished?"
"Twelve."
"I liked you better yesterday."
"No you didn't."
Keizeix opened his mouth.
Then stopped.
A sound rolled across the battlefield.
Not thunder.
Something sharper.
Like thousands of pieces of glass vibrating together.
Every beetle in front of them suddenly changed behavior.
They withdrew.
Keizeix froze.
They had never withdrawn voluntarily before.
Shirespoke drew his sword.
"Back."
The order was immediate.
Spiderkin soldiers began retreating toward defensive positions.
Then light appeared over the ridge.
Blue.
Green.
Violet.
Dozens of beetlekin crested the hill.
Their shells were thinner than the Iron-shell variety.
Translucent in places.
Light pulsed beneath their carapaces.
Magic.
Keizeix felt his attention sharpen.
There were his catalysts.
Then Shirespoke's hand struck him across the thorax.
"Stop looking pleased."
"They're magic users."
"They're also trying to kill you."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive."
Marike stared at him.
"There is something wrong with your prince."
"Deeply."
The magical beetles spread apart.
Mana gathered.
The air itself began humming.
Keizeix watched carefully.
Most felt dangerous.
But manageable.
Master-level opponents.
Real opponents.
Ones he might actually be able to kill.
Then something much larger rose behind them.
A beetle with a translucent white shell stepped onto the ridge.
Patterns of violet light flowed through its body like veins.
The pressure coming from it was nothing like the others.
Shirespoke stopped.
Marike's clones appeared instantly.
Sia's posture lowered.
Keizeix's excitement vanished.
The white beetle raised its horn.
Mana condensed above it into a sphere of violet light large enough to engulf a wagon.
Shirespoke swore.
"Heroic Tier Breaker."
Keizeix stared.
Not Heroic.
But standing directly at its threshold.
Stronger than anything Keizeix and Sia had been assigned to fight.
Then horns sounded behind them.
Keizeix turned.
The ground split open across their retreat route.
Burrowers erupted in a solid line.
Hundreds.
Their way back to camp disappeared beneath armored bodies.
Shirespoke looked forward.
Then behind.
His expression hardened.
"They didn't wander into our sector."
Marike finished the thought.
"They drove us into this position."
The violet sphere above the white beetle grew brighter.
Every magical beetle on the ridge lowered its horns.
Keizeix's silk lines trembled in the suddenly charged air.
Shirespoke raised his sword.
"Defensive formation!"
Sia moved beside Keizeix.
For once, neither of them mentioned the kill count.
The white beetle aimed.
And the sky turned violet.