Arvey picked a direction they hadn’t taken yet and set his line parallel to the barrier. He didn’t want to drift far from it, because the barrier was their anchor in this part of the forest.

  Kozlo stayed on his shoulder and watched the ground ahead. Arvey kept his pace steady and listened for movement. The warmth of the mana in his chest stayed present, and he tried to keep it circulating in a slow controlled loop while he walked.

  It wasn’t comfortable. The loop pulled at his muscles and made his joints ache. Arvey kept it anyway. He didn’t have a plan beyond getting stronger and staying alive. For now, that was enough.

  As they walked through the forest, a faint clicking reached him from ahead, repeating in short bursts like a signal. Arvey’s ears caught it before his eyes did. The mana loop tightened when he stopped, and the skin along his forearms prickled with reflex. Kozlo leaned forward on his shoulder, trying to listen. The clicking came again, and it was too patterned to ignore.

  Arvey sank lower and slid behind a wide trunk, keeping his knees bent so he could move again fast. He waited one full breath, then listened for the next burst. Kozlo hopped to a branch above him, landing with a soft scrape on bark. The owl stared at a hollow trunk a few meters ahead, split and dark where rot had eaten the center. Arvey peeked around the trunk and kept his hands close to his daggers.

  The clicking resumed from inside the trunk, and Arvey heard light scratching under it. He leaned out enough to see the trunk’s mouth and kept one shoulder pressed to the trunk for balance. A small black beetle crawled into the light, finger-sized with thin legs and a chitin shell that looked too dark to be real. The armor seemed to absorb the little light it touched, turning the creature into a moving patch of black. It didn’t rush out, and it didn’t scatter, it kept clicking as if it had a job. Only when it continued with the clicking did more follow, careful and very slow, slipping out of the hollow one by one. They left the trunk in small numbers at first, then more and more, and their bodies moved like they were searching for something, exploring their surroundings.

  Arvey kept his eyes on the cluster, the clicking filling his ears in steady bursts. Their antennae tapped, and their mandibles kept working even when they weren’t biting anything. They didn’t wander far, but they didn’t stay still either, and the group adjusted in small shifts that looked practiced. Kozlo leaned down from the branch and whispered, “Hal’Krik,” like it was an obvious fact. Arvey looked at Kozlo and didn’t question the name, because Kozlo was the expert, not him.

  Arvey looked back at the monsters and spoke in a low voice so he wouldn’t throw the pattern off. “They are searching for something, systematically,” he said, and he tracked how the front ones paused to click before the others advanced. The sound came in aligned bursts across multiple bodies. He noted the chitin plates and the softer seams at the joints, and he marked where a blade would actually bite.

  He drew the dagger without scraping and moved forward in controlled steps, keeping his weight low and his shoulders loose. The moment his boot brushed a dry leaf, the first insect clicked and the whole cluster froze like someone had pulled a string. Arvey stopped too and watched them hold still, antennae raised, mandibles still working even without a bite. He didn’t like how fast they reacted, and he didn’t like how coordinated the stop looked. He made the decision anyway and sprang forward.

  His dagger flashed down in a tight thrust and punched under the head seam of the first Hal’Krik before it could retreat. The body snapped once and went limp. The second insect began clicking extremely fast. Arvey heard the tempo shift like an alarm being hammered. All the others joined in, antennae snapping in a frantic chorus that filled his ears. Then they fled, extremely fast, legs blurring as they poured back into the tree trunk and vanished into the dark. Kozlo leaned down from the branch and snapped, “Arvey broke everything,” like a scolding he’d been saving.

  “Sorry, Kozlo,” Arvey said under his breath, keeping his eyes on the hollow. “We know—” Several clicks cut him off from inside the trunk, harder and closer than before. Arvey turned fully toward the trunk and lifted his dagger, letting his stance widen for stability. “Kozlo, make yourself ready,” he said. The last echoes of frantic clicking faded into the wood, and the silence that followed felt like something waiting.

  Several Hal’Krik suddenly spilled out of the tree trunk at once, no longer cautious, and the clicking turned into a hard, urgent rhythm. They rushed Arvey’s boots in a tight wave and tried to attack him. Arvey snapped his breathing back into the mana pattern and forced the circulation to kick in again, the familiar pull running from chest to arms and down to his legs. The pressure they gave off stayed light, and he felt it clearly through the loop. “Only Tier 1,” he muttered, and he drew his second dagger.

  He worked both blades in short, targeted thrusts, puncturing seams at the joints and under the head instead of wasting motion on plates. Bodies dropped fast, but more crawled over them, and the sound underfoot turned wet and gritty as he shifted. Arvey kept the loop steady, even as his forearms started to burn from strain. “Kozlo, attack,” he said, as he angled his stance to leave the owl space to dive and retreat.

  Kozlo attacked the moment Arvey gave the order, diving low and snapping workers off the ground before they could climb higher. Arvey kept stabbing in tight, efficient motions, counting the kills. A few dozen beetles later, the clicking changed again, turning sharper, like an order passing through them. The workers broke off at once and fled, extremely fast, pouring back into the trunk. Kozlo landed on the trunks’s rim and leaned forward, ready to dive after them.

  “No,” Arvey said. Kozlos wings twitched like he didn't want to stop, his eyes stayed locked on the dark. Arvey stepped closer, keeping his daggers up, closing the distance in two quiet steps. He looked at Kozlo and spoke. “Not alone.”

  Arvey reached up, took Kozlo carefully, and set the owl back on his shoulder. He crouched at the trunk’s mouth and peered into the cavity, listening to the clicking fade deeper into the wood and earth. "That tunnel is big enough for me,” he said, eyes fixed on the black cut through the roots. Thinking about the Hal'Kriks they fought against, he continued to speak, “If the workers are this small, then something bigger has to fit through here.”

  He slid down into the tunnel just far enough that the light behind him thinned, then stopped and listened. The clicking pulled to his left, like a path being marked by sound. He turned his head the other way, and a faint green shimmer caught his eye deeper in a side passage. Arvey tightened his grip and followed that green, shoulders brushing wood and root, until the tunnel ended at packed earth glowing from within. The green barrier wasn’t only a wall in the forest, it sank into the ground too. “Seems like the barrier is endless into the sky,” Arvey whispered, “.. and also down.”

  He backed out the way he came. When he climbed back to the forest floor, he looked at Kozlo and pointed at the ground around the trunk. “Search for anything not looking normal,” he said, starting to scan the ground for subtle rises or lines that suggested hollow space beneath. Kozlo hopped off his shoulder and moved in short steps, eyes sharp, then stopped at one spot and tapped the soil with his claws. “Here,” Kozlo said, and the dirt looked scraped compared to the rest.

  A scraped line of leaf litter and disturbed soil ran away from the trunk. Arvey’s eyes locked on it immediately. He crouched, traced it with his gaze, and felt the direction match what he had seen in the first retreat. “That’s it,” Arvey said with certainty. “It matches the direction the first wave had fled.” He stood and nodded once.

  Following the trail, it pulled them deeper along the surface. He heard faint clicking ahead, then it stopped and began again, like messages being passed while they moved under roots or through side gaps.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  The forest shifted into a corridor of use and Arvey could see it in the way plants stopped growing where the traffic seemed constant. Undergrowth thinned along the track, and soil looked scraped and compacted like something had been stripping it bare for a long time. Arvey slowed once to avoid loose bark, then resumed the jog. He kept his breathing stable so the mana loop wouldn’t spike and trigger pain. Kozlo landed on trunks in quick hops, then glided again, head snapping toward the trail’s pull.

  The path led them to a massive tree with bark cracked into thick plates, larger than the stump and older than everything around it. At the base, where roots met soil, a black big opening yawned and it looked used in a way the stump hole didn’t. The lip was worn smooth by passage, and the ground around it was packed hard with countless small grooves, like the true entrance sat here. Arvey stopped several meters back and watched, letting his ears catch the clicking from inside. He maintained the mana flow through his body.

  “Just like I thought,” Arvey muttered. “The nest.” He looked to Kozlo before he did anything stupid and kept his voice low. “We’re not stupid enough to enter the lion’s den,” Arvey said, eyes on the black mouth between roots. “So we lure the lion out, right?” Kozlo nodded happily and said, “Grinding!”

  Arvey picked up a fist-sized stone and rolled it once between his fingers. He tossed it into the opening and kept his weight back, ready to jump if something lunged out. The stone hit dirt, rolled deeper, and disappeared. For one heartbeat everything held still. Then the clicking erupted fast and aggressive.

  Workers poured out in a living spill, dozens at least, streaming over the lip and spreading into a shallow fan. Arvey heard their legs scraping dirt and each other before he could count them. The smell of churned earth and crushed chitin rose as the Hal'Kriks pressed together. His hands tingled as mana ran through his fingers, and he tightened his grip on the dagger. Kozlo’s feathers fluffed with excitement, and his wings twitched like he wanted to dive.

  “Let’s start the second ground,” Arvey said. He pointed the dagger at the wave. “Kozlo, go. They are your foes.” Kozlo straightened with pride and pushed off with a snap of wings. At first the Hal'Kriks focused on Arvey, he could tell by the ones streaming toward him. Clicking shifted into sharper bursts that looked like quick commands. Arvey stabbed low and withdrew fast. The bodies cracked, twitched, and fell, but more climbed over them without hesitation. He felt legs scraping his pants, and he stomped to crush what he couldn’t stab in time. The swarm kept coming in waves, and the waves didn’t break, which told him someone inside was feeding them out on purpose.

  Kozlo fought like the sky belonged to him. The owl dove, crushed a worker, then retreated to a low branch before anything could swarm him. He targeted antennae and eyes first, then the head, and he didn’t stay on the ground longer than a heartbeat. Arvey watched the pattern to avoid stepping into Kozlo’s dive lane while his daggers kept working in short thrusts. “How long until Tier two?” Arvey asked between stabs. “What do you think?”

  Kozlo snapped another Hal’Krik off the ground and crushed it, then landed on a branch and answered without hesitation. “Near,” Kozlo said, and the word came out proud and certain. The owl dove again immediately, talons first, and the workers started adjusting to him with sharper clicks.

  Just when Kozlo killed another Hal'Krik, a loud and deep click echoed from inside the trunk, sounding like a command. Every worker froze in place. The forest went quiet except for Arvey's breathing and faint leaf rustle above. Kozlo landed near him.

  The workers fled on that command, but they didn’t scatter like prey. They turned as one and streamed back into the hole, antennae snapping in synchronized bursts as they ran. Arvey watched and felt cold settle in his stomach. He let the mana loop slow a fraction so his breathing could stabilize. Kozlo’s eyes stayed bright, but his wings tucked tighter.

  Movement pushed into the light from the tunnel, bigger than the workers by far. A Hal’Krik crawled out on all fours, plated and thick, built like a battering ram with overlapping armor. It was the size of a Hal’Grag, and its chitin looked dense and ridged, made to deflect. Arvey felt pressure rolling off it, heavier than Tier one, and his mana circulation tightened as if his body recognized the threat. He shifted his feet, keeping a root under his heel, and raised his daggers as he settled into a fighting stance. Kozlo’s voice dropped with certainty. “Warden,” Kozlo said. Arvey nodded once without taking his eyes off the plates.

  “So workers are Tier one,” Arvey said under his breath. “And the Warden is Tier two.” The warden clicked once, the sound much deeper than the workers’, and then charged. The ground trembled under its weight. Arvey heard chitin scraping dirt as it built speed. He stepped aside, and the warden slammed into a root, splintering bark and throwing dirt. Arvey stabbed at the side plate, but the blade skidded, leaving only a shallow line. His wrist jolted, "Damn!"

  The warden pivoted and snapped its mandibles with a sharp click that rang in Arvey’s ears. Arvey tried a second angle, and the point slid off overlapping plates again. The mana surged in his chest, trying to drag his breath faster. He forced both back down because he didn’t want that stabbing pain in the middle of the fight. “Joints,” he whispered. “Underside.”

  The warden lunged again and clipped Arvey’s chest, throwing him sideways. His boot caught on a root and he stumbled, and for a heartbeat he felt the edge of falling and losing the line. Before he could reset, the warden clicked, and the sound hit him like a pulse in the ground. A vibration ran up through the soil into his legs and ribs, and it made his balance go soft for a split second. His vision blurred at the edges and his teeth buzzed like the click had passed through bone instead of air. He clenched his jaw, forced his body to follow and caught himself with a hard step that jarred his knee.

  Arvey spat grit and lifted his dagger again, but the warden clicked a second time. The vibration shoved at his focus, and it made the mana loop stutter until he forced his breathing back into rhythm. “Kozlo,” Arvey said through his teeth, eyes locked on the plated head, “surface only. Distract.” Kozlo skimmed in, raked talons across armor, and snapped at the antennae to steal the beast's sight for a heartbeat. The warden reared and shook, angry at the irritation, and its clicking turned uneven as it tried to time another pulse.

  That gave Arvey the opening he needed. When the warden lifted its head to dislodge Kozlo, Arvey saw the softer strip at the base of the neck where plates didn’t overlap. Kozlo kept it busy with shallow strikes, never committing long enough to get grabbed, and Arvey didn’t waste the window. He drove the dagger into the seam and felt the blade punch through into something wet. The warden jolted hard. It clicked louder, but the sound came out ragged, and the vibration that followed was weaker and off-timed. Arvey twisted just enough to widen the damage, then stabbed again into the same seam, deeper.

  A few workers appeared at the tunnel lip, but they hesitated instead of swarming. Kozlo snapped at them and forced them back, then returned to skim the warden’s face with quick, shallow hits. The warden thrashed and tried to ram Arvey, and it attempted one more heavy click to shake him, but the pulse came late and didn’t land clean. Arvey drove his shoulder into the plated body and forced it away from the entrance. His forearm burned from the circulating mana as he angled for that soft seam again. The warden’s legs buckled out in the open, and it collapsed onto the forest floor.

  Arvey stepped back only when he felt the mana enter his chest, the pull sharp enough to tell him the beast had died. The circulation slowed on its own, then steadied again. He forced his breathing to match the circulation. He looked at the workers vanishing deeper inside, listening to the clicking fade down the tunnel like a retreat being reported.

  Kozlo landed on the warden’s body and pressed his talons into the chitin. Arvey felt a pull in the air drawing toward Kozlo. The owl went still for a moment, then his feathers puffed and his wings spread wide in a proud posture. “Kozlo… Tier two,” the owl declared, voice thick with victory. Arvey stared at him and let his grin return.

  Arvey felt the Tier two pressure from Kozlo clearly, and it wasn’t just excitement. He bowed his head once in an exaggerated move. “Congratulations,” he said. “Ruler of the skies.” Kozlo let out a pleased hoot. The owl bounced once on the corpse, then hopped back to Arvey’s shoulder and settled with proud tension.

  Just when they allowed themselves to enjoy the win, clicking started again from inside the entrance, short and steady at first. Arvey’s head snapped toward the hole, and the mana still moving through him tightened in his chest. The ground began to tremble under his boots, stronger than the warden’s earlier pulses, and the vibration climbed into his knees and ribs. Kozlo’s feathers settled from celebration into tension, and the owl leaned forward. Arvey kept his daggers ready and didn’t step closer.

  The clicking shifted into a deeper pattern, and the soil shook again, heavy enough to make loose dirt slide off the roots. Shapes pushed into the light, plated and thick, and then a second followed, and then a third, each one built like the first warden. Three Wardens. They clicked in sequence, and the vibration hit like a command meant for the whole nest, not just the surface. Arvey’s grip tightened as he kept his stance wide, staring at the three bodies filling the entrance. “This is bad,” he said.

  Kozlo opened his wings wide and puffed his chest like he was making a vow. “Kozlo fight,”