Chapter 9: Toad Lord(1)
The sun was hot, but the mud was cool.
Forty-five days.
That was the count Krug kept on the Elder Tree. Forty-five notches carved into the rot-wood, marking the time since they had claimed the swamp.
In the desert, forty-five days would have been a lifetime of hunger. Here, it was a season of fat.
Krug ran his hand along the wall of the Cistern. It wasn’t just packed mud anymore. It was lined with grey, sun-baked bricks—clay dug from the deep pits, mixed with straw and beetle-shell dust, fired in the central hearth until it rang like stone.
Foundation Blood.
The Architect’s blessing wasn’t flashy magic. It was quiet. It was steady. It was the knowledge that a wall sloped *inward* held more weight than a wall standing straight. It was the instinct that told a hatchling which clay would crack and which would hold water.
And the hatchlings...
Krug looked toward the Nesting Rise.
It was a playground now. The twenty-four young ones were no longer helpless infants. They were the size of wild dogs, their limbs thick with muscle, their scales a shifting pattern of greens and browns that made them vanish against the moss.
They didn’t play tag. They played war.
Two hatchlings—males, barely two months old—were wrestling in the mud. It wasn’t a chaotic scrap. They moved with low centers of gravity, looking for leverage, tails acting as counterweights.
Standardized combat reflexes. Born soldiers.
"Priest."
Vark approached. The enforcer wore a new adornment: a chest-plate made from the carapace of a Giant River Crab. The creature had wandered too close to the perimeter a week ago. Now, it was armor.
"Reeds are thick today," Vark reported. "Hard to see the water."
"Cut them," Krug ordered. "Sight is life."
Vark nodded, but he didn’t move immediately. He looked east, toward the Boundary.
"Water is low," Vark said quietly. "Lower than I have seen it."
Krug followed his gaze.
The white stones of the boundary line were usually lapped by gentle waves. Today, there was a gap of three paces between the stones and the water’s edge. The exposed mud was slick, black, and smelled of ancient rot.
"The sun drinks," Krug said, though he felt a prickle of unease at the base of his neck.
"Maybe," Vark grunted. "Or maybe the lake breathes."
The tribe had grown used to the sleeping monster. Fear, sustained for forty-five days, eventually became background noise. The Sentries still stood watch, but they didn’t tremble. The gatherers stayed in the shallows, but they laughed while they worked.
They had forgotten the terror of the first night. They had begun to trust the peace.
Peace is a lie, Krug thought, gripping his staff. The Architect does not give us peace. He gives us time.
He walked to the edge of the camp, past the busy Processing Pit where the smoke of curing meat filled the air. He stopped at the boundary line.
The lake was a mirror of black glass. Silent. Still.
Too still.
Even the insects, usually a deafening cloud of noise, were quiet today. The air felt heavy, charged with a static that made Krug’s scales itch.
He looked at the water line. Vark was right. It had receded.
As he watched, the water didn’t lap against the shore. It pulled back.
Just an inch. Then another.
Like a lung taking in a massive breath.
And then, far out in the center of the lake, in the deepest part of the black void...
A bubble broke the surface.
It wasn’t a small bubble. It was a dome of gas the size of a hut. It rose, shimmered for a second, and burst with a wet, heavy *GLORP* that echoed across the silent swamp.
The smell hit them a second later. Methane. Sulfur. And something else.
Old, wet musk.
Krug didn’t need the Voice to tell him. He didn’t need a sign from the heavens.
The forty-five days were up.
The season of fat was over.
"Vark," Krug said, voice low and steady. "Clear the perimeter. Get everyone behind the walls."
"Priest?"
"Now," Krug commanded, turning his back on the lake. "The sleeper is waking up."
***
High above, Zephyr watched the resource counters tick up.
[Clay: +15]
[Fish: +8]
[Faith: +3]
It was a soothing rhythm. The kind of idle game loop that could eat hours of a player’s life. He was just about to open the *Research* tab to see if he could unlock *Basic Pottery* when the music changed.
The serene, ambient flute track cut out.
It was replaced by a low, throbbing bass beat.
*Thump. Thump. Thump.*
Zephyr didn’t freeze. He didn’t gasp. He simply nodded.
"System. Source."
[Alert: Environmental Shift Detected.]
[Zone: The Green Basin]
[Reason: Apex Predator Activity]
He pulled up the map. The blue dots of his tribe were clustered near the center. The green dots of the resource nodes were scattered around.
And the massive red blot in the lake... was moving.
"Right on schedule," Zephyr murmured.
He checked the internal clock. Day 45. In most games, boss rushes started arbitrarily. But this was a simulation. Everything followed logic.
He clicked on the red icon.
[Entity: Giant Swamp Toad (Variant)]
[Rank: Lord]
[State: Waking (Hungry)]
[Action: Suspending Dormancy]
"Hungry," Zephyr read.
He had spent the last two weeks analyzing the mana density charts. The logs showed a cyclical dip in the ambient mana of the lake every sixty days. But the waking period began fifteen days prior to the peak hunger state.
Day 45.
"Fifteen days to feed until it hits saturation," Zephyr said, confirming his calculations. "It starts small. Local fauna. Then it expands."
He looked at the map again. The red dot was accelerating toward the shore.
[Estimated Time to Landfall: 2 Minutes]
"No grace period," Zephyr noted. "Aggressive AI."
The timeline was tight. His tribe was still in the Stone Age. They had mud walls and wooden spears. Against a Lord-class entity? They were paper.
But he wasn’t playing Age of Empires. He was playing Theos Online.
He had known this was coming. He had seen the dip in the mana charts weeks ago. He had calculated the curve.
He pressed the [Alert] button.
"Get them behind the walls."
***
The Voice hit Krug like a physical blow.
WAKE.
HUNGER.
MOVE.
It wasn’t the gentle guidance of the builder. It was a command.
Krug staggered, nearly dropping his staff. He looked at the tribe. They were confused, looking around at the sudden silence of the swamp.
"Back!" Krug roared, voice cutting through the stagnation. "To the walls! Now!"
They didn’t question him. The fear in his voice was enough. Mothers grabbed hatchlings. Crafters dropped their tools. They scrambled away from the shoreline, rushing toward the safety of the mud fortifications.
"Vark!" Krug shouted. "The gate!"
Vark was already there, heaving the heavy log barricade into place.
"What comes?" Vark yelled over the sound of running feet. "The neighbors?"
"The landlord," Krug grimaced.
He turned back to the lake. To the boundary stones.
The water was gone.
The shoreline had receded fifty paces, leaving a sucking plain of black mud.
And then, the lake returned.
It didn’t come as a wave. It came as displacement.
A shape rose from the center.
At first, it looked like an island. A moss-covered hill bursting from the depths. Then, two golden eyes opened.
Each eye was the size of a wagon wheel.
The water cascaded off its back as it rose... and rose. Massive, webbed hands slammed into the mud, shaking the ground with enough force to crack the new drying bricks in the camp.
A toad.
But to call it a toad was to call a hurricane a breeze. It was a mountain of warty, grey-green flesh, easily twenty meters tall. Its throat sac expanded, a balloon of pale, translucent skin that pulsed with a sickening yellow light.
GROAAAAAAK.
The sound wasn’t heard. It was felt. It vibrated in their chests, rattling their teeth.
The tribe cowered behind the walls. Some of the hatchlings began to wail, a high, thin sound of pure terror.
The Toad Lord ignored them. It didn’t even look at the camp. It simply sat there, massive and impossible, breathing in the scent of the swamp.
Then, its tongue lashed out.
It was a blur of pink muscle, faster than an arrow. It struck a grove of ironwood trees near the shore. With a crack like thunder, three massive trees were snapped in half and dragged into the maw.
CRUNCH.
Wood, leaves, and whatever birds had been nesting there were swallowed whole.
"Architect save us," Grak whispered, peeking over the wall. His face was pale, hands shaking. "The wall... it is nothing."
He was right. The mud wall they had built with such pride looked like a toy fence against the scale of the beast. If that thing decided to hop forward, it would flatten the entire camp without noticing.
The Toad Lord swallowed, its massive throat rippling. Then it turned one golden eye toward the shore. Toward the scent of cured meat and concentrated life.
It didn’t attack. It just watched.
It knew they were there. It could smell the hatchlings. It could smell the fear.
But it had just eaten three trees. It was savoring the appetizer.
Krug stood frozen. He gripped the Shepherd’s Stick until his knuckles cracked. He looked at the monster, then at his terrified people.
They couldn’t fight this. Spears? Against that hide? They might as well throw twigs.
They couldn’t run. The beast could cover the distance to the treeline in one jump.
They were trapped.
"Architect," Krug whispered, closing his eyes. "We are not iron. We are grass."
***
Zephyr stared at the screen.
The camera was zoomed in on Krug’s face. The pixelated lizardman looked defeated. He looked... small.
Around him, the tribe was huddled against the mud walls. The hatchlings were crying. Vark was gripping his club, but his knuckles were white.
Zephyr looked at the Toad Lord.
[Entity: Giant Swamp Toad]
[Type: Apex Predator]
[Rank: Lord]
It wasn’t a fight. It was a harvest.
"Right on time," Zephyr said, voice calm in the quiet room.
He leaned back in his chair, watching the monster tear through the ironwood trees like they were twigs. He didn’t scramble for the **[Smite]** button. He didn’t panic. He just took a sip of water.
He checked his resources.
[Faith: 4,500]
Forty-five days. Morning, noon, and night. The tribe had poured their belief into him, and he hadn’t spent a drop. No rain dances. No healing miracles. No flashy displays of power.
He had hoarded it. He had watched the Toad Lord’s timer tick down, knowing this moment was coming. The feeding cycle wasn’t a surprise event; it was a scheduled boss encounter.
And he had prepared the arena.
Zephyr smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. It was the smile of a player who had already read the wiki.
"You think you’re the landlord?" Zephyr whispered to the toad. "You’re just the tutorial boss."
He dismissed the **[Divine Intervention]** tab without looking at it. Lightning bolts were clumsy. Shields were temporary.
He wasn’t a War God. He wasn’t a Guardian God.
He was the Architect.
He moved the mouse to the far right of the interface. To the tab that had been greyed out since Day 1. The tab that required not just points, but *proof* of civilization.
The walls. The cistern. The brick-firing. The hierarchy.
The tribe had done their part. They had built the foundation.
Now, it was time for the blueprint.
The tab was pulsing with a deep, golden light.
[Creation]
Zephyr’s finger hovered over the mouse button.
"Let’s see what we can build."
He clicked.