The farmland was where they died first.
Verdantis Nexus wasn't a village of thirty people.
It had been nearly two hundred—families spread across terraces, workers tending grain stores, herders guiding cattle through the rainforest outskirts.
The marauders struck there.
In the open fields.
Along the irrigation paths.
Far from shelter.
By the time the screams reached the inner stone streets, most of Verdantis was already gone.
Tlandar ran through smoke with his family close behind, his lungs burning, his mind struggling to accept what he was seeing.
This wasn't a raid for supplies.
It was slaughter for sport.
The Ixtielans loved bloodshed and loot, and they had found both in the Oasis.
"Tlandar!" Almira cried, gripping his youngest sister's hand so tightly the child whimpered.
"I'm here," he said, breathless. "Don't stop."
Kaelis was ahead of them, scanning through the haze.
"The central hut!" he shouted. "Go!"
Tlandar's stomach tightened.
The central hut was the heart of Verdantis Nexus.
Every path in the village led to it eventually.
It was where the elders spoke during gatherings, where disputes were settled, where harvest plans were discussed beneath calm voices.
It had never been meant as a fortress.
But it was the only structure built to endure.
***
They weren't the only ones running.
Survivors emerged from side passages and broken terraces—bloodied, coughing, dragging children, carrying the wounded.
Tlandar recognized faces.
Too few.
A woman stumbled near the stone steps, and two others hauled her up without slowing.
A boy screamed for his father.
No one answered.
The smoke was too thick.
The marauders were too close.
Verdantis was burning behind them.
And ahead—
The central hut rose from the mist.
A circular structure carved directly from the valley stone, capped by a smooth Kuprix dome that caught faint reflections of firelight. High windows ringed the upper walls, meant to bring in sun and air during peaceful meetings.
Now they looked like distant, unreachable eyes.
At the entrance stood six figures.
The elders.
Old, robed, faces drawn tight with strain.
They were not warriors.
But they were the ones who remembered what Verdantis still kept hidden.
"Inside!" one elder shouted.
The gate was already opening, grinding outward with a deep resonant groan.
Villagers surged forward.
Tlandar pushed his sisters through first.
Almira followed, trembling.
Kaelis grabbed Tlandar's shoulder hard.
"Go!"
Tlandar stumbled inside.
The air was cool, dim, crowded.
Stone walls curved around them, and the ceiling rose into the Kuprix dome above. The high windows let in thin shafts of pale light, now muddied by smoke.
At the far end stood the raised pulpit—a broad platform where the elders once sat to speak calmly to the village.
Now it overlooked thirty terrified survivors.
Thirty.
That was all that remained.
The last villagers rushed in behind them.
The elder at the doorway counted quickly under his breath, eyes wide.
Then he looked up sharply.
"Shut it!"
The gate began to close.
Stone and Kuprix locking together with a sound like a tomb sealing.
A scream rose outside—too close.
The gate slammed shut.
Silence followed for half a second.
Then pounding.
Marauders striking the outer surface.
Laughing.
Shouting.
Trying to pry their way in.
Inside, children began to cry.
Someone whispered a broken prayer.
Tlandar's chest heaved as he fought for breath.
"We're trapped," a man muttered.
"No," one of the elders snapped. "We are sealed."
That was different.
That was intentional.
---
The six elders moved together toward the hut's center.
Embedded in the floor was a circular lattice of crystal and Kuprix, old and worn, half-hidden beneath decades of dust.
Tlandar had seen it before but never understood its purpose.
Now the elders knelt around it, placing their hands down.
Their faces tightened.
Their breathing slowed.
The air changed.
A low hum began to rise, vibrating through the stone beneath their feet.
This was not electricity.
Not machinery as humans knew it.
This was resonance.
Soul-bound power.
The elders weren't feeding it with fuel.
They were feeding it with themselves.
Outside, the pounding grew louder.
A voice shouted something sharp in Ixtielan.
Then—
A crash.
The outer wall shuddered.
Dust fell from the dome.
Villagers screamed.
"Hold," one elder whispered, voice shaking.
"Hold…"
The hum intensified.
The lattice flared.
And suddenly—
A translucent field snapped into place around the hut.
Invisible at first, then faintly outlined in pale crystal light.
A barrier.
An energy veil.
The marauders outside didn't realize it immediately.
They rushed forward anyway.
The first one crossed the inner perimeter.
And burned.
A flash of white heat tore through the air.
The marauder screamed—high, horrible—before collapsing backward, armor smoking.
The others froze.
Then one tried again.
Another step.
Another instant incineration.
The field did not strike like a weapon.
It simply refused intrusion.
Anything hostile that entered was erased.
Inside, the villagers stared in stunned silence.
Kaelis's jaw clenched.
"We still had this?" he whispered.
An elder's voice was strained, shaking.
"Only once."
His hands trembled against the lattice.
"This field will not last."
Outside, the marauders began circling, shouting angrily now instead of laughing.
They had found resistance.
They hated resistance.
---
Tlandar stood near the back wall, his family pressed close.
His sisters clung to Almira.
Kaelis stared at the sealed gate like he wanted to tear it open himself.
Tlandar's staff hummed faintly in his grip, responding to the fear in the air.
The Spirit's words echoed in his mind.
*The Oasis is under siege.*
This was only one village.
And already nearly two hundred lives had been reduced to thirty.
A child's voice broke the silence.
"Will they go away?"
No one answered.
Because everyone knew the truth.
The Ixtielans didn't leave empty-handed.
And somewhere above the Veil…
something far worse was watching.
Tlandar swallowed hard.
The central hut held.
For now.
But Verdantis Nexus was only the first spark.
And the siege of Astashica had begun.