The northern beach ran red with the tide.
The first wave of the Tide Pact's landing had looked like a feint—thin lines of trident warriors, merfolk raiders darting through the shallows, throwing fire and lightning at the Covenant's shore fortifications. The Radiant Covenant's forces had met them with a roar, all bottled fury from months of tunnel rat ambushes, and for the first hour it had looked like an easy victory. The sea folk broke and fell back again and again, harried by volleys of light arrows and searing holy fire.
Then the water had bulged.
A Dread Crab the size of a castle keep had heaved itself out of the waves, its chitinous shell glinting with embedded gemstones, one claw big enough to crumple a watchtower like tin foil. It had marched straight through the Covenant's front line, pincers snapping, and torn through three full cohorts before anyone could even scream for reinforcements. Lightning bounced off its shell. Fire slid away like water. Steel shattered on its plating.
Up in the observation spire, the examiner leaned forward, his eyes wide. "Fifth Rank?" he said, disbelieving. "That thing is Fifth Rank? Murong Xue is barely Fourth. How—" "Gamble," Corvin said, his tone dry. "He stacked his entire roster around it. Third Rank peak crab at entry. Gemscale fish as support stock. Siren Bubbles to stabilize the essence surge when they're consumed. Feed it all at once, force an evolution. No rule against it. Rank limits apply to the god, not the subjects."
The examiner stared. Someone had bet everything on one single beast. One monster. All or nothing. The tournament was supposed to be about army management, logistics, cooperation. This was pure, reckless overspecialization. And it was working.
Down on the beach, the crab pivoted and snapped its claw clean through a stone watchtower. The Covenant's lines broke. Soldiers ran screaming for the inland tree line. The merfolk surged after them, cackling, harrying the retreat. Standing on the conning tower of his flagship, half a mile out to sea, Soren Shaw smiled. He had known the tournament format would be a free-for-all. He had guessed there would be a catch. He had poured every resource he had into that crab, fed it every last gemfish he'd bred, sacrificed every siren bubble colony to force the evolution. His father had called him a fool. His cousins had laughed. Who was laughing now? With a Fifth Rank beast on his side, nothing on this field could stop him. Not the Covenant. Not the tunnel rats. Not anyone. He would crush them all. He would take first place. He would study under Lord Thorne. He would drag the Shaw clan up from second tier and make them great. Father, he thought, his eyes fixed on the burning shoreline. You'll see. I'll rewrite the family tree. Starting with me.
Word reached Murong Xue's command tent an hour later, carried by a bloodied messenger who'd ridden hard from the coast. When the man finished speaking, the pavilion was dead silent. Murong Xue sat very still in her gilded chair, her face impassive, but her knuckles were white where she gripped the armrests. A Fifth Rank crab. She had expected ambushes. She had expected flanking maneuvers. She had expected the Tide Pact to play dirty. She had not expected someone to dump their entire kingdom's worth of resources into a single overgrown crustacean.
"Coward's trick," one of her generals spat. "Hiding behind a monster. No honor." "Honor doesn't win wars," Murong Xue said, her voice cool. "And we cannot kill it. Not with what we have. Our Fourth Rank units might scratch it. Scratch. Nothing more." She leaned forward, her gaze sharp. "We do not fight the crab. We run from it. Every outpost, every patrol—if they see that shell, they retreat. Immediately. No exceptions."
She traced a finger along the coast on the map, north and south of the landing zone. "Instead, we hit everything else. The merfolk raiders. The supply barges. The shore camps. Every fish-man, every pearl-worker, every scout crew. We kill every last subject of theirs that isn't that crab. We starve it of support. We cut off its supply lines. We trap it on land, away from the water. Then, when it's alone, when it's tired, when it's got nothing left to feed it? We wear it down. One arrow at a time. One spell at a time. For as long as it takes."
The generals exchanged looks. It was slow. It was inglorious. It was not the glorious charge they had been hoping for. But it would work. "Move out," Murong Xue said. "No more heroics. No more pride. We fight smart."
Deep underground, in the temporary eastern burrow they'd dug while the two big armies marched north, the three clan leaders stared at the scout's report and forgot all about the Covenant and the Tide Pact and the war.
Korg leaned over the table, his eyes practically glowing. "Fifth Rank," he breathed. "All that meat. All that shell. Think of the soup. Think of the steaks." "Steady," Borgul rumbled, but even he was leaning in, his tail twitching with poorly concealed interest. "It's Fifth Rank. Gemscale-forged shell. Fireproof. Iceproof. Our strongest spells will barely mark it. We can't just charge it."
"Who said anything about charging?" Lirael said, her pale fingers tapping the map where a network of narrow, deep caves honeycombed the coastal cliffs. "We don't fight it on the beach. We bring it here."
She traced a line from the shoreline, up a narrow gully, straight into the cliffside cave network. "It's huge. Too big to turn around in the tunnels. Too heavy to climb. Its shell protects it from magic and blades, but it can't fly. It can't squeeze through tight spaces. And it's heavy. Very heavy."
Korg's grin slowly spread across his face. "Collapse the roof on it." "Part of it," Lirael said, nodding. "First we lure it in. Fire slime charges to make it angry. Stone slime paste on the walls to slow its claws. Water slimes to flood the floor and make the rock slick. We lead it to the big central cavern. We bring down the support pillars. Pin it. Trap it. Then we wear it down."
Borgul rumbled thoughtfully. "And the meat?" "Half steamed in sea water," Korg said at once. "Half spicy rock-broth. No arguments." "Steamed first," Lirael said, very seriously. "Fresh from the sea, you don't waste good crab meat on heavy spices. Save the spicy for the claws. The body meat is delicate."
For a minute, the three of them just stood there, nodding, planning menus like they weren't about to hunt a Fifth Rank monstrosity with homemade slime bombs and holes in the ground. Then Borgul clapped a claw on the table. "Alright. Let's go get our dinner."
Outside the chamber, the order rippled out through the tunnels. Drakes grabbed sacks of fire slime charges. Apes hauled wooden supports to the cave mouths, ready to knock them out. Wraiths wove illusion spells at the gully mouth, making the cave entrance look like nothing more than shadow and rock. They had fought invisible wars. They had raided granaries. They had outwitted two great alliances. Now they were going crab hunting.
Somewhere far to the north, the great Dread Crab roared, and the ground shook. Down in the dark, three clan leaders smiled. Dinner was on its way.