The ground trembled first, a low, thrumming vibration that rattled loose pebbles down the basalt gorge walls, followed by the dry, rasping scrape of thousands of chitinous legs on stone. The first wave of abyssal vescover wasps spilled over the northern ridge a heartbeat later, their glossy black carapaces glinting purple in the mist, every one of them fixed on the modified compass glowing in Laia's hand. Thousands of crimson compound eyes burned like scattered embers, and the air turned sharp and acrid with the stench of their corrosive saliva.
Tobias stumbled back a step, his hand flying to the star-iron ward amulet tucked under his tunic. He'd known the swarm would be sizeable, but nothing quite prepares you for a rolling wall of mandibles and venom pouring over a cliff straight at you. He patted the bulging spatial bag slung at his hip, heavy with half a dozen top-tier defensive artifacts his father had overnighted to the outpost, and steadied his breath. It was fine. He had enough gear to tank a fifth-tier beast for an hour. A horde of overgrown bugs were nothing.
Laia did not flinch. Her eyes were fixed on the narrow mouth of the gorge, counting the ranks of the swarm as they funneled in, tracking the last stragglers as they drifted past the stone markers she'd set the day prior. Eight thousand. Nine. Maybe ten thousand total, just as she'd estimated. More than enough merit points to close the gap to the Box of Avarice, if they could kill every last one.
"Steady," she said, her voice flat and calm, never taking her gaze off the churning black mass. "Wait until they're all inside the kill zone."
When the last of the vescover had pushed past the narrow ravine entrance, their mandibles clicking in hungry frenzy as they closed in on the compass's amplified energy pulse, Laia curled her fingers around the rune trigger in her palm and squeezed.
The gorge erupted.
Dozens of explosive charges she'd buried in the cliff walls detonated at once, sending sheets of jagged basalt and searing alchemical flame crashing down onto the dense swarm below. The roar of the blasts bounced off the stone walls, loud enough to rattle teeth, and the air filled with the sharp crack of bursting chitin and the high, shrill buzz of dying wasps. Whole rows of the swarm were crushed flat under falling rock before they even realized they'd walked into a trap.
Tobias stared, his mouth hanging open. He'd helped her haul crates of raw explosive powder out here, but he'd had no idea she'd packed this much of it into every crack and crevice of the cliff face.
"Remind me never to get on your bad side," he yelled over the ringing in his ears. "And here I thought that compass was just a fancy trinket for academy prize tables. Who modifies a treasure-hunting compass into a bug lure?"
"Official use is useless if it doesn't make you money," Laia said, already reloading her hunting rifle, her gaze sharp as she picked out the larger, thicker-shelled drone wasps that had survived the first blast. "If it works, it's a good tool. Cover the left flank. The survivors are pushing through."
The initial detonation had torn through nearly half the swarm, but the remaining vescover were furious, surging forward in a churning black wave, their mandibles dripping corrosive venom that hissed and smoked when it ate through stone. Tobias fumbled in his spatial bag, pulled out a palm-sized shield core forged by his family's master artisans, and slammed it onto the ground between them. A wall of glowing golden light flared to life just as the first spray of acid hit, fizzling harmlessly against the barrier.
"Got the front!" he yelled, grinning a little despite himself. This was way more exciting than hanging around the garrison cycling through the same three dessert options on repeat.
Laia nodded, darting along the cliff edge to trigger the second line of defenses: rows of pressurized venom injectors she'd rigged from salvaged ashscale viper sacs, spraying concentrated abyssal toxin down onto the swarm from above. The vescover dropped by the dozen, their nervous systems seizing up before they could gnaw through the stone to flank them. She picked off the stragglers with clean, precise shots from her rifle, each bullet laced with diluted venom to punch through their thick carapaces. It was efficient, methodical, almost clinical—no wasted movement, no wasted ammunition.
It took just over an hour for the last high, buzzing drone to die away.
The gorge floor was carpeted with broken black carapace and oozing abyssal ichor, not a single living vescover left crawling. Laia lowered her rifle, did a slow visual sweep of the cliffs to make sure no hidden hives had been missed, and ran the numbers in her head, fast and precise.
Ten thousand, two hundred and seventeen worker wasps, at one merit each. Plus the three queen drones she'd spotted in the back rank, worth fifty each. Add in the salvageable venom sacs and high-grade chitin plates they could turn in for extra resource credit.
Her breath caught a little, even as her face stayed perfectly neutral.
Thirty-two thousand starting balance, plus roughly ten and a half thousand from the swarm. That put her at forty-two thousand, seven hundred and change. Barely seven thousand left to go. She'd hit her fifty thousand target before the week was out.
Tobias was prodding a dead drone with the toe of his boot, looking far more pleased than he had any right to. "Not bad," he said, brushing dust off his tunic. "Way more fun than wandering around picking off random spawn. We should do this again. I've got a stack of fire rune cores back at the villa that'd make this even faster next time."
Laia hummed a noncommittal reply, already kneeling to start stacking salvageable chitin into piles for turn-in. Her mind was already three steps ahead: turn in the haul tomorrow, pick up the last few thousand merits from a few scattered third-tier dens, and then the Box of Avarice would be hers. No more counting every crystal twice. No more panicking when realm maintenance fees went up. No more worrying if she could afford to keep the lights on in her realm another month.
The sun was dipping low over the gorge by the time they hauled their last load of salvage back toward the garrison gates. Neither of them noticed the lone figure standing on the western ridge, watching them go.
Liora stood silent for a long minute, her gaze fixed on the distant garrison walls, then turned and started back toward her villa. The letter she'd drafted to Lyra was folded tight in her pocket, the words already finalized.
She was done gambling with both their lives. It was time to leave the clan.