After three near-catastrophic crashes that nearly turned her into a permanent part of the landscape, Yao finally managed to guide the wobbling 'Flying Fish' skimmer towards the vicinity of the farm. Her plan was to stash it in a wooded hollow and slip back under cover of darkness. But as she approached, a flicker of crimson on the skimmer's rudimentary threat radar—a small, grainy display in the corner of the console—caught her eye.
What in the…?
A field fire? Someone burning chaff? But no, it wasn't the season. Most farms in Jingyang held off harvest for another half-moon to maximize market prices, avoiding storage losses. Her tenants were the exception, driven by desperation and a terrible boss.
A cold, sharp understanding pierced her fugue of piloting terror. Scouts. From the dungeon.
The crimson blob meant a massive heat signature. A horde.
Oh, sweet mother of—
She jerked in her seat, sending the skimmer into a sickening lurch that nearly planted it into a drainage ditch. Frantically, she stomped on the acceleration rune. The cheap craft whined in protest but surged forward. The red mass on the screen seemed to pulse, spreading with terrifying speed.
No, that's not right…
A new sound reached her ears, cutting through the hum of the engine—a low, menacing drone, like a million angry strings being plucked. She glanced at the rear-view orb. Not a distant mass, but individual shapes, dozens of them, already much closer. Rat-sized, moving with a horrible, skittering purpose. They were too small, too spread out for the basic radar to cluster as the main threat. In the skimmer's own tail-light glow, she saw them clearly: locusts. But wrong. Their bodies were a mottled, ugly青色 (qīngsè - greenish-blue) and褐色 (hèsè - brown), abdomens too long, heads too large. They looked grotesquely plump, edible even. But the glint off their serrated mandibles promised anything but a meal.
Tier 1 Calamity Creatures: Verdant-Brown Swarmers. A child could crush one. A hundred could strip a field to bare dirt in minutes. A thousand could strip the flesh from a grown man.
Flying was now suicide. Even a dozen clogging the intakes or chewing at the mana-lines would send her crashing. The swarm was closing, drawn to the heat and noise of her vehicle. They didn't just eat crops; they consumed all organic matter. Including pilots.
Gunning the engine, she veered sharply towards the treeline she'd originally targeted, the skimmer groaning as she pushed it to its pathetic maximum velocity. The dark shapes of the forest rushed up to meet her. Just a little farther…
THUMP-THUMP-CRUNCH!
The skimmer jolted violently as several of the fat, fast-moving insects slammed into the canopy above the cockpit. The sound was like hailstones made of meat and chitin. The craft slewed sideways, the horizon tilting crazily. Ahead, the massive trunk of an ancient fir tree filled her view.
"SHIT!"
Yao hauled back on the control grips with all her strength, simultaneously stomping a lateral stabilization rune. The skimmer's nose pulled up, its belly scraping against the rough bark of the fir with a scream of protesting metal. The starboard rear-view orb shattered against a branch. She didn't have time to care. The swarm, momentarily delayed by the initial impacts, was reforming, a buzzing, vengeful cloud gathering in her wake. A hundred pairs of multi-faceted eyes locked onto the glowing vessel.
Twenty meters above the forest floor, with no room to climb, she pointed the skimmer into the densest part of the woods. The 'Flying Fish' became a crazed metal eel, slaloming between trunks, under low branches, the droning pursuit growing ever louder. They were faster in a straight line. Ahead, a thicket of barbed Ironthorn bushes loomed, their spiny canopy a natural ceiling.
Her mind clicked into a cold, calculating space. Distance: eight meters. She began to chant, layering the syllables of Wind and Fire, her voice a low counterpoint to the engine's whine and the closing buzz.
Seven meters. Her left hand came off the grip, hovering palm-up. The skimmer's interior lights, glowing softly, illuminated her skin. The scent of living flesh, amplified by sweat and adrenaline, wafted through the hastily opened cockpit canopy.
Six meters. The lead Swarmers, driven by primal hunger, zeroed in on that exposed, tantalizing target. Their mandibles clattered.
Five. Three.
Now.
Arcane Missile and Emberburst erupted from her palm not as separate projectiles, but as a combined fusillade of cutting wind and clinging fire. It wasn't enough to annihilate the swarm, but it formed a brilliant, roiling wall of death for the front ranks. A dozen Swarmers were shredded or ignited, their bodies becoming flaming, tumbling projectiles that crashed into those behind. Confusion rippled through the insect cloud, their simple sensory inputs overwhelmed by sudden light, heat, and the deaths of their kin.
In that split-second of chaotic blindness, Yao wrenched the controls. The skimmer didn't turn. It dropped. Like a stone, it fell into a near-vertical dive, plunging beneath the ominous Ironthorn thicket.
The pursuing swarm, committed and disoriented, couldn't react. They flew headlong into the waiting embrace of the barbed canopy. There was a horrific, wet crunch-pop-sizzleas dozens of soft-bodied insects were impaled on thorns as long as a man's finger. Those not immediately speared were tangled, then caught as the lingering magical fire from Yao's spells, carried by the wind, gusted into the thicket. Dry thorns and desiccated insect husks were perfect tinder.
Whoosh.
The entire thicket became a brief, roaring pyre, a funeral bier for a hundred Swarmers. The skimmer, now skimming just above the loam, felt the wave of heat on its underside.
[Tier 1 Verdant-Brown Swarmer eliminated. Experience +1.]
[Tier 1 Verdant-Brown Swarmer eliminated. Experience +1.]
[Tier 1…]
The prompts cascaded. The Thorn-thicket, a neutral environmental hazard, had delivered the killing blows, but the chain of causality—her spell, her maneuver—granted her the spoils. Over a hundred points of experience flooded in. She didn't bother with the carcasses; Swarmer drops were garbage. Gunning the engine, she guided the rattling skimmer the rest of the way to the hollow, the comforting smell of ozone and hot metal now undercut by the acrid stench of burnt chitin and sap. A glance at the empty, silent sky showed no further pursuit. The main swarm was elsewhere. These had been scouts, driven by a voracious hunger that had now made them casualties.
The dungeon was at the doorstep.
Inside the farmhouse, the guards—professional, equipped, and currently tasked with babysitting—were the first to react. The Captain started awake as the threat-alert on his wrist console chimed a sharp, urgent red. He was on his feet and striding down the hall before the second chime finished. He hammered on the wretch's door.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Silence.
"Young Master! Master Keli!"
"Is he even in there? Could he have—"
"I'm kicking it—"
The door flew inward. The 'Young Master' stood there, wrapped in a bathrobe, his hair mussed, face a thundercloud of sleep-deprived fury. "What is the meaning of this infernal racket?! I'm convalescing!"
"Calamity dungeon, sir! Swarm signature! It's upon us!"
The transformation was instant. The anger melted into wide-eyed, panicked disbelief. He spun, darted back into the room, and began frantically stuffing belongings into his pack. "We have to go! Now! Pack! Move! Damn that Xie Lin and his stupid face! I knew beating him was bad luck!"
The guards watched, a mixture of disbelief and profound contempt settling over them. He's gathering his socks while a dungeon descends.The Captain's earlier, grudging assessment of "low cunning" evaporated. This was pure, unadulterated cowardice and greed. The man would bankrupt a lemonade stand.
"Sir, we cannot depart. The dungeon barrier is likely already forming. Once the calamity field is active, egress is impossible until the core is broken or… all life within is extinguished."
The wretch stared, perfectly playing the ignorant rube from a resource-stripped mining rock. The guards, exasperated, launched into a terse explanation about Calamity Fields, dungeon boundaries, and the rules of engagement.
As if on cue, a voice, cold, genderless, and vast, echoed not through the air, but directly into their minds, from the sky itself.
"Tier 5 Calamity Dungeon initialized. Location: Unnamed Agrarian Holding, Southern Jingyang Outskirts. Radius: Thirty Leagues. Calamity Field active. Duration: Seven Solar Cycles. Maximum Participant Load: 250."
Two hundred and fifty? Yao's mind reeled even as her face stayed fixed in a mask of terror. A Tier 5 dungeon was beginner-friendly, true. A safe playground for Level 5 aspirants. But a 250-participant cap was huge for a low-tier event. It meant the rewards would be diluted, the experience thinner. And more crucially…
"The family!" she blurted, the picture of a scared child wanting his parent. "We must contact my father! Immediately!" She fumbled for her communicator.
The Captain winced. Of course.The moment the family got wind, the place would be swarming with Xie scions and their entourages, here for easy, risk-free grinding. The guards would be lucky to get table scraps. He needed to frame this right. "Your safety is paramount, Young Master. However, notifying the main house is, of course, your prerogative. Though… I am confident in our ability to secure your well-being." He left the unspoken hanging: If we do, we get the loot.
The wretch paused, communicator in hand. A crafty, suspicious look narrowed his eyes. "Father… would he come himself?"
The Captain barely stifled a snort. "For a Tier 5 event? Unlikely, sir. He would dispatch a cadre of guards to escort some of the… younger clansmen. For training purposes. It's considered low-risk."
He saw the moment the idea took root. The wretch's face twisted in genuine, spiteful horror. "Them?! Those smug, sneering bastards? Come here? To take the spoils and laugh at me while they do it? OVER MY DEAD BODY!"
The guards held their breath. A path, narrow and selfish, had appeared.
"Then… your orders, sir?" the Captain prompted gently.
The wretch chewed his lip, the gears of a petty, avaricious mind almost visibly turning. "The… the communication array. For the farm. If it were to be… damaged. By the monsters. An unfortunate accident. We'd be tragically isolated, forced to heroically defend ourselves… Father would be so worried. He might even… reward us. And the others… they couldn't blame us, could they? Could they?"
The Captain felt a surge of pure, undiluted admiration for the sheer, unvarnished gall of it. The boy was a worm, but a brilliantly self-interested worm. He bowed slightly. "Young Master, I must say… in the arts of cunning stratagem and self-preservation, you possess a singular gift."
The wretch blinked. "Was that… a compliment? It sounded backhanded."
The Captain ignored him, already moving. The farm's communication relay was found and discreetly disabled with a sharp kinetic tap. The local net died.
Now, to mobilize the tenants. The guards expected the worst—to be ordered to herd the civilians as cannon fodder. The wretch confirmed it, jabbing a finger at the huddled, terrified farmers. "You lot! You think I'm trusting my life to just these clowns?" He jerked a thumb at the guards. "You'll do as I say! Or we all die here!"
The tenants stared, numb with fear and fresh hatred. They'd be butchered.
Then the wretch added, his voice a shrill, desperate bark, "But you're useless as you are! You'll do it MY way! Listen and obey, or I swear I'll see you all dead myself! BUT! Do as I say, and when this is over, you get your wages! PAID! IN FULL!"
A spark, faint but undeniable, flickered in the dead eyes of the farmers. Paid. The magic word. In the face of monstrous insects and a selfish noble, the promise of coin for labor was the only gospel they knew. They looked up, a fragile, desperate hope cutting through the terror.
The game was on.