I woke to the smell of rice, hot broth, and freshly cleaned silk.

  For a heartbeat, I wanted to cover my head and pretend to be dead: my limbs felt like stone, my muscles throbbed in protest when I tried to sit up, and my shoulder reminded me I’d been webbed, bitten, and very nearly crushed by something the size of an SUV.

  The tent flaps rustled gently in the morning breeze. I crawled out and blinked. Outside, Weavershall’s morning was in full swing. The sky was that same pale white you only saw in the mornings in Bloodline Realm: the kind of light that made shadows look crisp and the air feel strangely sharp. I could hear the sound of boots on packed dirt and voices, low and steady.

  Yon was already up and barking orders, fully recovered as if he hadn’t collapsed just yesterday.

  He stood in the courtyard inside the walls, commanding a trio of younger misfits.

  “Reinforce the east wall. No, I said east, not north. And you! Do you even know how to hold that glaive? Put it down and grab a normal spear.”

  He looked fine. Better than fine. He looked fully recovered from the Perfect State crash.

  I was halfway through a stretch when Raik Agame arrived, Katar Okain and Ja’a of Skylift Lake close behind him. Raik strode up like he owned the place. As a bloodline noble, maybe he did. Their trio’s gear gleamed, looking new and expensive. Except for Katar’s swords. While they were well cared for, they still looked like they had been used for years.

  Raik stepped up to Yon with a nod. “You must be Yon, the brawler of Hano. I didn’t expect to find someone like you herding silk haulers.”

  “I’m just a sergeant guiding the youth,” Yon replied, sounding like a grizzled veteran, despite barely being twenty-three.

  He gave Raik a good look. “You look like a younger Kitchi Agame. Are you his brother?”

  “That’s me. Raik Agame,” the flame-blooded boy confirmed, “I’m traveling to Hano to join the Freelancers.”

  “Really? If you’re half as good as your brother, you’ll make it in Hano without trouble.”

  “So, do you know my brother well?” asked Raik.

  “I served under Kitchi when he was still a sergeant,” nodded Yon.

  “Why join the freelancer guild, if I may ask?” added the brawler. “I’m sure there are more lucrative endeavors back here in the Bloodlines.”

  Raik shrugged. “I’ve been stagnating, fighting only fire beasts back home. I figured Hano was the place to push myself.”

  “So, how do you want to handle this?” Yon asked.

  “Well, once we’re in Hano, you’ll outrank me anyway,” Raik said. “So I might as well get used to it now. You’re in charge.”

  Yon smiled. “Fine then. You three are folded into my operation.”

  I found my way to a bench where Kan and Vena were already halfway through breakfast. Kan quietly munched on a rice ball while Vena poured tea with slightly shaking fingers. I grabbed some boiled eggs and a bowl of rice pudding.

  “Did you sleep?” Vena asked. Her eyes were sunken, but calm.

  “Barely. You?”

  She shook her head with a wry smile. “I kept feeling trapped in webbing… even in my dreams. But I have had worse nights.” The girl looked proud to be having a rough day. This had something to do with her path to power.

  As I chewed, the conversation in the courtyard drifted closer.

  Katar’s voice cut in, sharp and impatient. “Why don’t we just kill all the spiders and be done with it?”

  “The silk funds this village’s entire economy, you glorified scissors,” Ja’a snapped. “No spiders, no silk. No silk, no village.”

  “She’s right,” Raik said, pulling out a folded regional map. “Weavershall is a key producer. These villages are woven into the Elemental Bloodline Realm’s trade routes. Losing this place would ripple all the way to Sky-Daisy.”

  Yon nodded toward the edge of the courtyard, where the forest pressed too close.

  “Seven matriarchs were aggro’d by that idiot Da’i and his squad. There could be more, deeper in. This kind of disruption doesn’t fix itself.”

  Rodal arrived just in time to catch that last bit. He gave a tired nod.

  “We usually keep the matriarchs in check, but we’ve been overdue for a cull. My guess? Overcrowding was already a problem. This just pushed things over.”

  Raik tilted his head. “My uncle Blaik oversees this region. That explains it, he was always lazy.”

  “If you permit it, my Duke,” Rodal said, “we’ll cull four matriarchs to be safe. Push the rest back past the perimeter. It’ll hurt production, but the village will survive.”

  Ja’a grinned slyly. “I’ll buy up all your unsold silk at market rate to help the village recover.”

  I narrowed my eyes. Market rate? Sure. Helpful for the village, but she was strategically cornering the market while supply dropped. Smart girl.

  “What’s the plan?” Raik asked.

  “We lure one matriarch at a time,” Yon said. “Keep it five hundred meters from the others. Kill it. Butcher the body; matriarch silk and armor sell ten times better than normal spider parts. Then we toss the brood corpses back into the forest with a few rabbits. Let the colony rebuild into a new equilibrium.”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Raik and Katar, you’re with me on the main kill squad.”

  He turned to the rest of us, eyes scanning.

  “Calr, you’re on watch. Report any movement from the forest.

  Vena, you stay in camp. Heal whoever needs it, but mostly, rest. You’ve earned it.”

  Then he looked at me and Kan.

  “You two are on guard duty. Escort Rodal while he lures the matriarchs. And protect the butchers while they process the corpses.”

  Kan and I nodded.

  “All right!” Yon called, clapping his hands once. “Let’s go hunt some spiders.”

  The way he said it made my blood hum.

  He was so confident that everything was going to be fine.

  I needed that, especially after yesterday’s fiasco.

  Otherwise, I was not sure if I could’ve faced a giant spider ever again.

  The first kill went smoother than I expected.

  Rodal rode with a cart stacked high with rabbits. His aura kept them calm, their little hearts beating steady, their paws quiet. Compared to Da’i’s psychic power, which rattled my teeth and made me want to agree with everything he said, Rodal’s presence was more like a blanket: subtle and controlled. It barely affected the rest of us. Just the rabbits. Exactly what was needed.

  When we reached the forest edge, Rodal sent the first wave in. The rabbits scattered, guided by invisible threads of will.

  And then she came.

  A matriarch, warhorse-sized and slow-moving, with long black legs and silk trailing behind her like war banners. Her carapace was cracked in places, with fresh wounds, likely from when Yon tossed her against a tree the other day.

  She paused at the line where the forest gave way to the field, her many eyes fixed on the rabbits.

  Then she moved.

  Calr’s whistle echoed from the watch post. “Matriarch approaching. One target. No brood in sight.”

  She followed the rabbits halfway, then stopped again. Her attention shifted, not to the prey, but to the man behind them. Rodal met her gaze without blinking, his expression unreadable. The driver beside him turned the cart slowly, taking the headman further from the trees.

  The spider followed.

  When she was far enough from the forest, Yon moved.

  He launched upward with no warning. His aura flared once, a pulse of coiled strength, and landed in front of her and struck a single devastating blow.

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  The matriarch screamed a warble of sound and silk, and collapsed like a tent.

  That was it.

  The butchers moved in immediately, village men with sun-hardened skin and arms like hammer shafts. They worked fast, knives flashing through flesh and carapace. Silk glands. Armor plates. Venom sacs. Nothing was wasted.

  The second matriarch was in the after noon.

  She was smaller. Younger. More erratic. The rabbits barely had time to scatter before she charged, breaking the pattern and heading straight for Raik.

  He dodged the first strike, barely, and let out a low growl as fire spread along his arms. His aura blazed like a bonfire, and he moved through her legs in a dance of flame. With a series of heavy punches, he scorched her left side until she shrieked and twitched violently before falling in a smoking heap.

  “Raik!” Ja’a shouted from the cart. “What did I say about burning the good parts?”

  She was sitting cross-legged beside the crate of rabbits, peeling fruit and occasionally feeding bits of small animals. It was hard to tell if she was helping or heckling.

  “That was self-defense,” Raik muttered, brushing soot from his gloves.

  “Burnt carapace sells less at auction,” she said, biting into her snack.

  “You’re acting like this is a picnic,” I muttered as I dropped beside her.

  “You fight better with good nutrition,” she said, unbothered.

  Katar, checking his blades nearby, rolled his eyes. “You didn’t do any fighting.”

  “That’s what I have you and Raik for.” She grinned at the swordsman.

  “I’m starting to think you’re more of a merchant than a fighter,” I said.

  “You can be both,” she said cheerfully. “One funds the other.”

  It made sense. Too much sense, maybe every adventuring team should have a merchant, especially if they are traveling a lot.

  While the butchers were trying to salvage spinnerets, Raik leaned back against a mossy boulder, heat still seeping from his skin. Kan sat near him, not saying much. Her eyes stayed on him like she was waiting for something... A mask to slip, or a temper to surface. Most bloodline nobles hate her for her heritage, so I wasn't surprised she had trouble trusting him.

  It didn’t. The guy was as friendly as ever.

  “Two down,” Yon said. “Two more to go.”

  The third matriarch didn’t come to us. We had to go to her.

  Calr had reported strange disturbances in the west side of the forest: screeching, falling trees. But even when Rodal tried to lure in nearby creatures, nothing came. The animals wouldn’t go near it. We had to go deeper.

  “This one’s different,” Raik muttered, crouching behind a ridge. “Too many scars. She’s been fighting the others.”

  Ja’a tilted slightly from behind cover.

  “Albino matriarch,” she confirmed. “Some kind of mutation."

  "Outliers usually get stronger and evolve further than the rest," added Yon, "She was probably cast out by the others.”

  I peeked over, too.

  The spider was huge. The size of a room. Her carapace was pale and cracked, riddled with jagged scars that gleamed like glass. It looked like the one her front limbs moved stiffly, but her rear legs danced with unnerving grace. Her silk shimmered, almost crystalline in texture.

  “She doesn’t look like she’ll fall for a rabbit trail,” I muttered.

  “She won’t,” Yon said, tightening the wraps around his fists. “We take her head-on.”

  Raik nodded, and Katar grinned.

  “Katar, take the right. Raik, find cover and use your range. I’ll go center.”

  “Try not to crack the entire thing this time,” Ja’a called from behind us. “I’d like to recover at least some armor.”

  “You’re welcome to step in,” Raik shot back.

  “I am stepping in, financially.”

  They moved without another word.

  Katar darted low and fast, boots silent on damp ground. Yon surged forward like a boulder rolling downhill, slow at first, then building speed and force. Raik vanished behind a tree, reappearing atop a branch with two fireballs swirling in his hands.

  The matriarch noticed them instantly.

  She hissed, reared up, and launched a net of silk at Yon.

  Yon ducked and rolled, letting the web hit the trees behind him. The moment he was clear, he leapt upward, three meters, and slammed a punch into her front leg. The crack echoed like a snapped beam. Not deep enough to break it, but enough to shift her weight.

  “Now!” he barked.

  Before the spider could retaliate, two fireballs struck her face, making her flinch.

  Katar appeared beside her, twin blades flashing. He hit the joints, slicing just enough to stagger her. She twisted to counterattack, but Raik hurled another fireball into her side. The explosion of heat made her scream and flail.

  The spider turned on Raik, venom dripping from her fangs. Yon slipped under her again, punching up into her abdomen. Another sharp crack rang out.

  “She’s weakening!” Yon shouted. “Again!”

  They moved like clockwork.

  Katar swept in low while Yon spun into a roundhouse kick, slamming his heel between the spider’s eyes, a second after Raik scorched the carapace. A chunk of chitin shattered from its head.

  “I can finish her if I get her on that spot!” Katar shouted.

  “Need a boost?” Yon asked.

  Katar sprinted toward him. Yon knelt, laced his fingers, and launched the swardsman skyward with a shout.

  Katar soared like a stone thrown from a trebuchet. He twisted midair, drew back both blades, and drove them down, right into the broken segment. The albino spider was distracted enough from a barrage of fireball thrown by Raik to not react on time.

  The blades hit true.

  The spider convulsed, legs flailing, silk flying in every direction, then collapsed in a twitching heap.

  Dead.

  I sat down hard on the grass.

  It wasn’t just their speed or strength; it was their coordination and trust. Yon’s power, Raik’s control, Katar’s ruthless precision. Every move is connected. Every piece landed.

  I thought back to all my drills, the street fight, the rat hunts, and even my spars with Edmond.

  And then I looked at them.

  I wasn’t anywhere close.

  Even with my lightning, with everything I’d learned, I was still in the kiddie pool while these three were out here wrestling real monsters.

  “They make it look easy,” I muttered.

  Kan appeared beside me. “It’s not.”

  “I know,” I said quietly. “But I want it.”

  She didn’t respond. Just nodded once.

  We watched as the butchers moved in, knives gleaming. Ja’a already had her ledger open, scribbling away.

  Raik turned back toward us, his aura still faintly warm. “One more,” he said.

  “One more,” echoed Yon.

  The final matriarch fell by midafternoon. Not as big as the albino, not as aggressive as the young one, but still, she wasn’t something I could’ve handled.

  Raik, Yon, and Katar dispatched her like they were wrapping up a training session.

  When it was over, Rodal declared the operation complete.

  No more matriarchs stirred. The broodlings retreated to their old web zones. And the silk traps stopped appearing near the roads.

  Whatever balance these woods needed, it had been restored.

  We spent the next two hours finishing the cleanup. Yon’s Misfits had already handled a big chunk of it while we were off hunting. Apparently, Da’i and his squad had left the village quietly that morning. No one seemed sad to see them go.

  Spools of web were gathered. Broodling corpses were kicked or carted past the perimeter to be recycled. Rodal released a few more rabbits into the trees just to make sure the matriarchs that remained were fed, settled, and too full to bother expanding again.

  The work was quiet, but peaceful.

  Ja’a walked past me at one point, her bag of holding practically glowing. She kept stuffing it full of silk and chitin armor all evening with a wide grin.

  “Not bad for a day’s work,” she said. “This’ll pay for my Guild entry fee three times over.”

  I looked at my scraped hands. “This was supposed to be an easy mission.”

  She shrugged. “If it wes easy, it wouldn’t be this profitable.”

  And kept walking.

  Back in the village, the mood had shifted. The fear that had clung to every face that first night had lifted. The weavers were talking again. Kids ran between the drying lines. Someone had started a fire and was boiling stew.

  Spider meat. Crispy, slightly sweet, it reminded me of crab, if crab had legs the size of my arm.

  Yon’s Misfits, for all their flaws, were helping. The battle tailor was untangling adhesive silk from a busted loom. Shingo, the human pack mule, was helping villagers repair the roads. Even Vals was assisting an old tanner in drying carapace.

  The next morning, after our first full night of uninterrupted sleep, Rodal gathered us near the gate just as the sun crept over the palisade.

  “The village owes you its survival,” he said. “We don’t have much, but you’ll be compensated with extra silver for the matriarch culls.”

  Yon nodded. “Everyone earned their cut.”

  Raik added, “I’ll also be writing to my uncle. He’s neglected this sector long enough. Weavershall needs a permanent ranger. Someone who can manage the spider population before it becomes a threat again.”

  Rodal bowed. “Thank you, my lord.”

  “Don’t thank me,” Raik said. “I’m just doing my duty, as a bloodline noble and a new freelancer.”

  We packed up not long after.

  Raik, Ja’a, and Katar joined us for the return to Hano. Apparently, they’d been heading there all along; this little detour was Ja’a’s idea. She’d wanted some silk. And she got that and more.

  As we crossed the road leading out of the village, I took one last look back.

  Weavershall stood.

  Bruised, but unbroken.

  A place that had nearly been overrun by nightmare monsters… and somehow found its balance again.

  There are thousands of villages like this scattered across the Bloodline Realm, farming monsters for parts and cores, harvesting souls for books and enchantments, surviving by always staying at the edge of equilibrium.

  Next to me, Vena walked in clean green robes, her blond hair radiant in the morning light. She looked calm and well-rested. Steady, like she belonged in the sunlight.

  On my other side, Kan moved with her usual quiet grace. Her chains were coiled tightly along her forearms like a pair of gauntlets. But her gaze kept drifting toward Raik.

  He didn’t notice.

  He was walking ahead with Yon and Katar, moving with the easy confidence of people who knew exactly what they were capable of and who didn’t need to prove it to anyone.

  Ja’a had drifted toward the Misfits. You could make the mistake of thinking she was having a casual chat, or laughing at a joke.

  But she wasn’t.

  She was gathering intel, quietly fishing for names, shops, and places of interest. Rule-makers, philanthropists, gang leaders. Her voice was pleasant, but her eyes were busy.

  I glanced at all of them.

  At Yon’s steady stride, at Raik’s flicker of heat aura, at Katar’s silent posture. At Kan, focused and strong. At Vena, too good for this world. At Ja’a, reading the world like a book, she meant to buy and resell at a profit.

  I think I’m surrounded by competent people.

  And I’d better make sure I don’t get left behind.