Bonded Summoner

Book 9. Chapter 25: Greed Traps and Deadly Artillery

When Jake emerged on the other side, the familiar, comforting echoes of the staging cavern were gone. The Battlegroup stood at the precipice of a sprawling, jagged nightmare. The subterranean world of Serthune had been beautiful on the surface and underground, but Tartarus had seemingly warped the deep crust into a claustrophobic hellscape of shattered, pulsing geodes and corrupted stone within the dungeon.

Before Jake even had a chance to assess the lighting, the Framework intervened, projecting a message in his Menu.

[Welcome to the Tartarus Prime Instance: Serthune]

[Environmental Modifier: Corrupted Resonance. The ambient mana of this area has been hijacked, tainted with the parasitic powers of the Carnex. Natural mana and stamina regeneration are severely dampened outside of Cleansed Nodes. Proceed with caution and haste, as the density of the corruption will increase over time.

There are four Major Encounters in this descent. A Cleansed Node will be provided upon the defeat of a Major Encounter and just before the final, allowing time for recovery.]

[First Encounter ahead: The Resonant Siege-Beetle.]

Jake swiped the notification away, his eyes narrowing as he read the implications. It wasn't a ticking clock like their first dungeon raid on Highlands. It was a siege of attrition. Tartarus was going to try and bleed them dry before they even reached the bosses. They would also be responsible for establishing their own safe areas before facing the bosses.

“Stay tight,” Jake ordered, his voice echoing slightly in the crystalline tunnel. He kept Sanctum in its passive, invisible state, letting the anti-assassination ward wrap snugly around his family while his overarching Champion Presence washed over their allies.

Without that golden, protective aura radiating from him and his wives, normal Adventurers would have started experiencing difficulties within the first hour. Merely projecting a mana aura around oneself was not enough protection, as it would naturally corrupt even that.

Nearly twenty-four hours later, the sheer psychological weight of the dungeon had become apparent to everyone. The march down toward the first Major Encounter had been a grueling, methodical slog through spawned and roaming insectoids. The shattered geodes jutting from the walls didn't just look sharp–they hummed with a parasitic frequency that constantly scraped against the edges of their spirits.

Tartarus had also laid out its bait perfectly. Branching off the main path were narrow, treacherous tunnels glowing with veins of pure, uncorrupted Serthunian gems or the unmistakable aura of high-grade loot chests.

Jake recognized the game instantly. Those were greed traps designed to force greedy raiders into heavy ambushes, draining the mana and stamina they desperately needed to conserve. Furthermore, even if a group had unlimited time, their overall rating would plummet if they wasted hours fighting unnecessary enemies.

He allowed only a minimal amount of mining. Guided by Lissandra, the native Vouivre could naturally resonate with the safer clusters to extract valuable resources quickly. Reclaiming that stolen wealth was part of their world's justice, so he allowed them the low-hanging fruit before pushing the Battlegroup relentlessly forward.

Ambushes would spawn and traps sprung when they looted the chest or went too deeply into the geode mine, and each grouping of enemies would wear them down. Thankfully, Jake’s party had unparalleled scouts between Ira, Nessa, and Fhesiah, ready to spring any traps on their terms, and they could safely loot any trapped chest with Garona and Bulldozer tanking anything. Their Battlegroup had marathon fighters filled to the brim, their Champion Auras providing amazing recovery and protection that exceeded the dampening.

But the other raids... Jake was extra thankful his Hearthtribe would all have someone like Rookard or Morwen leading them. They would ruthlessly decline to go after an undefended chest that looked too good to be true for the mere sake of conserving their people’s battle strength, and he was sure they were balancing their greed with grounded pragmatism. They would take from the enemy and give nothing back.

Having scouted the first encounter, they took a break before the large boss room–a luxury afforded to them by the Champion Auras in his party, along with something Jasmina and Lissandra could accomplish. With some minor testing, they determined that they could use resonance in pure crystals, or the Naga Siren’s song, to push away the corruption. Hopefully, the other teams would have noticed this, and all teams would be receiving minor benefits from bringing the natives along for this reason alone.

When they finally broke camp and approached the Boss Arena, the tunnel widened, terminating before a massive archway of sickly glowing geodes. Glowing golden Framework script was etched deeply into the stone bordering the entrance.

Jake stepped forward, reading the translated text.

[First Encounter: The Resonant Siege-Beetle]

[Primary Mechanics: Corrupted Artillery, Geode Shatter, Reflective Carapace, Carnex Nullifiers, Fueled Regeneration.]

It was a standard feature of Dungeon Raids, and one Jake was deeply thankful for. In the old days of Earth’s MMORPGs, a raid team seeking to earn the world's first clear would wipe a dozen times just trying to learn a boss’s mechanics and find the path to victory through mere trial and error alone. But this was a planetary liberation with winner takes all in the Prime Instance, and not a game.

If the Framework expected a Battlegroup to ironman a dungeon blindly with gamelike mechanics without a single mistake, every world would fall. The Script existed to give the natives–and the Alliance–a somewhat fair crucible.

“It has an artillery of some kind, a reflective phase, and those nasty Carnex with the magic dampening fields,” Jake called back to the Battlegroup, digesting the warnings. “And it has a regenerative health pool. We cannot just cripple a leg and wait for it to bleed out. We have to burn through its entire reserve to actually kill it.”

The last part was definitely normal for the vast majority of Raid Boss battles, and some of the mechanics were detailed more in-depth as he read the Script.

Jake looked back at his forces. The Battlegroup consisted of roughly sixty warriors. Between Jake’s immediate family, their Divine Descendant statuses, and massive allies like Garona who took up more than one slot, Clan Hart alone accounted for over forty of the one hundred allowed Battle Power slots, and only as ten people. Even Bulldozer took more than one, thanks to his large size, besides.

Even Vesuvius received a warning from Valtor that he would take up two slots soon. Thankfully, he grew as he readied himself for battle, bringing him close to the size of Bulldozer.

For Hearthtribe, Jake’s favorite reptile beastkin he loved to use as Templates were all present–Vesuvius, Darris, Roxo, Grayson, Vexana and Jarrix, and their families and support. Combined with the mixed Hearthtribe forces of Elysians led by two Treants, a couple of Eternum including Falcor the unliving axe, the Clergy of Arawn and their Servants, and the natives of Serthune, their Battlegroup was already diverse. When added together with a party from each of their allies and Jake’s large party, it was quite the eclectic fighting force.

“Casters and archers, watch your output when its body glows,” Jake instructed. “The clergy and some of our bigger allies should stay focused on the boss. Then I want a team of our more mobile melees as roamers taking down those nullifiers. It’s not clear where they will be reinforcing from, so be ready for anything. I’ll call out changes to the plan as needed. Be ready.”

Jake made this choice because the clergy’s abilities were videogame-like–friendly fire was not an issue for them. Positioning over sixty elite combatants–many of whom were the height of a house–was a logistical nightmare. Thus, he would have some bigger allies on the boss and make sure enough of them were a part of the roamers to allow for a larger available hitbox for both his melee and ranged allies.

He made a closer inspection of the inside arena of the boss encounter. The Siege-Beetle was in the back of the cavern, and it was quite the sight. Garona was already incredibly huge, to where she nearly defied belief. But this monster was even larger, making her look like a younger turtle in comparison.

It had a large horn that seemed to hum with power, and on its back was a giant protruding crystal structure that was comparable to a smaller castle–a keep. It was like a massive hump on the back of its thorax, and it glimmered with unique magic, humming along with the horn.

The cavern was a wide battlefield, with quite a bit of terrain covered in stone and crystal. Stone pillars dotted the large landscape, with a ravine-like area in the middle of the cavern, which led to a lower section where the beetle stood, as if in a large bowl area.

“Good. I am anchoring us on that elevated stone ridge to the right,” Jake pointed into the cavern. “It gives our ranged fighters and casters a commanding line of sight over our front line, and it forces the beetle to fire uphill to target us. Still, we’ll spread out to hit it from all sides and to be ready for the Carnex Nullifiers.”

Some discussion went toward who would place themselves where and how certain mechanics might behave, and Jake made a decision about his summons to bring. Jake brought out Zephyr, the Garuda, and Jasmina, the Naga Siren.

The Garuda’s protection, offense, and mobility were exceptional and would no doubt be useful. And as always, Jasmina’s song was special with the beastkin, in addition to having special interactions with the gems. He had let her rest before the battle and now patted her snout and thanked her for her help.

Eventually, it was time. They walked through the archway, Hearthtribe in formation. As he passed through, Jake felt an odd feeling that he hadn’t felt in the dungeon before–a feeling of being watched, but not in a malevolent sort of way.

Jake was in the middle of the formation but paused and looked up toward the source. It felt familiar, somehow...

Nessa looked up. “That’s definitely my father. He won’t be able to talk to us, but he’s watching.”

“Reassuring. Let’s keep moving; the encounter will begin at any moment.”

The tanks got closer to the target, and Jake decided to hurry. Wrapping himself in some hearthflames, he flew past the open floor and up the hill to the right to take the high ground. It was a solid, elevated outcropping of rock and gem that overlooked the center on the right side of the cavern.

The ranged healers, casters, and archers followed to where Jake would give them plenty of mana to work with and protection to boot. Jasmina arrived and began her wordless song, bolstering the nearby beastkin’s auril to a higher level.

And Jake had Ira check. While there were certainly crystalline structures nearby and underground that the beetle could use its Geode Shatter ability on, they weren't all that significant. It was the same throughout the entire cavern; in truth, it seemed he didn’t really have a choice but to place Sanctum near some, though near the larger pillars or geodes would certainly be the worst options.

He planted his boots and anchored Sanctum as the warriors rushed and arrived near the boss, the flaming mist spreading out in a ring around him and blanketing the casters in his protection.

Bloodberri was on Garona’s back, with Avalara, Bree, and Bulldozer in the lead, with their large bulks ready to take on the giant six-legged beetle. With the five combined, the boss still looked huge–a towering behemoth that most warriors would have to leap up to strike the main body or settle for striking only its legs–but it felt a lot more manageable.

As they got close, the massive golden barrier barring the exit snapped into place, and the cavern trembled.

The Resonant Siege-Beetle roared, and its body began to hum. Its thick obsidian chitin was completely covered with pulsing, corrupted geodes in a sickly rainbow of dark colors, and a massive, scythe-like siege horn jutted from its head. It charged at Garona, and she roared back as stones gathered around her head in protection like a helmet, though Bloodberri was there too.

“Wooo! Let’s get ‘em, Garona!” Berri shouted, hefting her axe as she swayed back and forth, ready to strike like a cobra resting near Garona’s long-necked head.

The five titans crashed into one another.

The physical impact echoed through the cavern like a thunderclap, shaking dust from the ceiling. Bulldozer clamped his massive mandibles against the enemy beetle's front leg, while Garona threw her sheer, armored weight directly against the boss's center of mass. Between them, Avalara and Bree’s massive size and spiritual weight brought a localized gravity field bearing down with their natural manifestations, locking the colossal monster in place and hitting it hard.

It was a perfect, textbook engagement, with two treants crashing into it shortly after, their rider’s elemental spells and vines wrapping around it. The Siege-Beetle’s melee would be devastating as it swung its scythe-like blade like a deadly lance as it pushed with its six legs, but Jake’s titanic allies slowed and diverted the monster with surprising ease.

“Hold the line! Ranged, open fire!” Jake commanded from the ridge.

The Battlegroup unleashed hell. A localized storm of arrows, elemental spells, and condensed Qi attacks rained down from the high ground. Vesuvius and his brothers, Darris and Roxo, and his Clanson Jarrix all cut deep furrows into the monster’s leg as their Echidnean and Celtic Clergy supports blasted it with the elements.

For the first few minutes, it felt like a perfectly standard, albeit massive, monster hunt. The boss's health pool steadily chipped away, dropping by five, then eight percent. The Battlegroups’s rhythm was flawless, and dealing with its melee attacks as it swung with its own head was a joke, Darris’s water shields slowed the attacks further, and their attacks truly caused it to stumble.

Then the Siege-Beetle let out a vibrating, multi-tonal shriek. The massive, scythe-like horn on its head began to hum in a higher pitch like a tuning fork, emitting a sickening, parasitic frequency. In response, the crystalline castle fused to its thorax lit up with a blinding, corrupted purple light.

Thwump. Thwump.

Two massive, ballista-sized stalagmites of corrupted crystal ripped themselves from the castle structure and fired at nearly supersonic speeds–the sound could certainly be heard before the strike landed, at least.

The first was aimed directly at the high ground. Jake didn't even flinch. The massive projectile slammed into the flaming shield of Sanctum, golden, flaming mist rushing into it to support it. The divine Hearthflames instantly burned away the anti-magic frequency lacing the crystal, leaving the kinetic impact to shatter harmlessly against his spiritual shields.

The second projectile arced down toward the roamer group forming on the flanks.

Ophelia focused as she rode on Valora, even as she struck the boss with her polearm as they dashed around, cutting into the monster deeply. With her full Champion abilities sealed, she couldn't summon her flaming valkyrie sentinel. Instead, she used her Hearth Guardian.

The hearth within the shield held the flames of Hestia and floated up and expanded with a mere thought. The corrupted stalagmite struck the Winged Kite Shield with a deafening crack. The shield held, absorbing the sheer kinetic force, before firing a condensed spear of golden flame right back into the Beetle's face.

Nice block, Jake sent Ophelia mentally, keeping his eye on the battlefield and observing the Siege-Beetle with his Umbral Gaze.

He noticed it immediately. The crystal castle on the Beetle's back wasn't just an ammunition store and artillery battery. As the battle raged, the vibrations from its horn were harmonizing with the geodes and drawing the crystalline structure into the wounds.

The deep gouges Vesuvius and Bulldozer had carved into its chitin were rapidly filling with pulsing, crystalline scabs. It was feeding its own regeneration.

Just after the siege beetle began firing its first several volleys of shots around the room, cavern walls near the floor shattered inward. Dozens of Carnex Nullifiers poured into the arena, their jagged bodies emitting localized fields that made the air visually warp around them.

“Adds are up! Roamers, intercept the Nullifiers before they blanket the melee!” Jake ordered. They would struggle to heal their allies with nullification fields near them. The beetle’s siege-like attacks with the corrupted geodes continued happening, and every so often it would blast a melee from nearly point-blank range. It wasn’t enough to kill them, especially not thanks to Jake’s Aura, and already Bloodberri’s Dark Siphon began feeding health to restore any wounds.

The roaming squads broke off, intercepting the magic-dampening bugs before they could disrupt the Clergy's healing tethers. But the Siege-Beetle, realizing its artillery wasn't breaking Jake's bunker on the ridge, suddenly shifted its tactics in the chaos.

It completely ignored the titans wrestling it and pushed toward the ridge. The boss then whipped its massive, humming horn downward, burying it directly into the crystal-laced bedrock at the base of Jake's elevated ridge.

It was the Geode Shatter ability.

Jake had expected a localized earthquake, maybe dropping the front half of their cliff. He underestimated the resonance when it came to selecting this spot. After just a moment, the entire right side of the cavern violently detonated. The bedrock beneath their feet cracked and exploded upward in a geyser of jagged, lethal crystal spikes.

Still, Jake had been ready, just in case. He had preemptively charged his domain with the flames and blocked the incoming shrapnel, the glowing shields blazing with Hestia’s fire. Even as the earth beneath them crumbled, he held up the casters as they safely drifted downward along with Sanctum’s mist. Jasmina was a bit too heavy to easily manage, but that was not a problem. Her snake-fish tail easily reached the ground, allowing her to land safely.

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“We are moving!” Jake roared, collapsing Sanctum as the domain reached the bottom. If they stayed where they were, it was safe, but it was like they now stood within a crater with the boss on the other side of a wall. Not a valuable place to be.

With a mental nudge, Berri instantly ordered the turtle to do Jake’s bidding. “Garona! Fortify that pillar across the room!”

Garona roared in acknowledgment. She backed up a little as she disengaged from the front line, with Bloodberri taking her spot as she whirled her tail and slammed into the monster. The tortoise’s massive paws then slammed into the earth. Instead of wasting precious time and mana trying to repair the devastatingly shattered terrain under Jake or remove the wall, it was better to channel her earth magic directly into the giant pillar across the cavern.

Thick, overlapping walls of reinforced stone rose around its base to create a perfect, heavy-duty trench. While Jake could probably just have his domain tank all the blows, he would much rather use that mana to blast that beetle.

He ignited his Hearthflames, taking to the air. With a thought, he cast out thick, gentle tendrils of pyrokinesis. He wrapped the warm flames around a fragile Priestess of Arawn and a lighter-armored Shrine Maiden from the Warrior Brotherhood, literally lifting them off the crumbled floor and flying them across the cavern toward the new bunker.

The more agile casters and archers leaped and bounded across the shifting terrain and continued their efforts against the boss, eventually diving into Garona's newly fortified trench just as Jake slammed his boots down and re-anchoredSantum. Ophelia, Valora, and Ruby protected their transition, floating swords and a flying shield stopping several of the crystal missiles as they crossed, before they returned to hunting down the numerous adds.

“Domain set!” Jake shouted, setting the golden flaming barriers on opposite sides of Garona's stone walls. A nullifier encroached on his domain near the back, and with a wave of Jake’s hand, he threw Pyros at its face, and it exploded. Their resonance protection of the beetle was no match for his Divine weapon, and he drew it back to himself after the monster was destroyed.

There was a near-constant stream of them coming from the cracks on both sides of the battlefield, and they were fast and deadly to those without physical prowess. Now in a good place, Jake monitored the battlefield with a critical eye. There was one ability left they hadn’t seen, and he wanted to make sure he fully understood it before he went all-in on a strategy.

The beetle tried launching its shots at his barrier, but several rounds struck the nearby stone instead before crashing against the barrier and draining their mana. His allies were constantly striking the boss and sending it off-kilter, so it was only natural that it couldn’t be precise with its attacks.

With every strike, his wives and his brethren knocked off crystal from the boss, cutting into its body and crushing its chitin. Its health was steadily declining, the periodic spells chipping away from its health.

Bree, Ophelia, Fhesiah, Tanda, Ruby, Roxo and Nessa were all roving around and facing off against the Nullifiers with a few of the melee Hearthtribe. During their journey through the tunnels, they had learned that ranged attackers suffered from the cancellation far more, and a hearthblade or auril-infused weapon barely deteriorated because it was protected by the warrior’s aura.

Bloodberri, Vesuvius, Darris, Garona, Avalara and the two treants stayed on the boss, keeping it from moving too far from its place. It was clearly trying to get a better shot on Jake’s domain, but it was forcibly shifted off course by the large warriors’ bulks. And looking more closely, Jake noticed something else.

Fhesiah was unsealed, and so she had released her flame elemental spirits for the first time in a long time. Nearly a dozen fiery women appeared, made up of different unique fires, and began blasting into the boss monster from all sides as they flew around. They now truly looked a lot more like Sati, and many of them were sitting in lotus poses as they launched flaming attacks of all kinds. Others danced more like Fhesiah as she had done her sun and moon dance, and he noticed some of them even had flaming kitsune tails or draconic appendages.

The Boss also had Fhesiah’s opposing twin curses, weakening and burning through its body and spirit. She built up flames into her claws and unleashed devastating blasts of Celestial Alchemy from them periodically.

Ruby had her bloodblades out, and the nullifiers failed to stop these unique weapons at all as they spun and swayed, cutting into them effortlessly. The woman herself actually stayed near Jake’s domain, while most of her blood blades roamed around and cut down enemies, drawing their ichor into a blood orb that she used to recreate blades.

It wasn’t too long before, out on the arena floor, the Siege-Beetle shrieked in frustration. It suddenly lowered its massive body, burrowing its legs deep into the stone to anchor itself, as its previously onyx-colored chitin was covered in an odd, violet crystalline layer.

“Halt your attacks!” Blood’s voice suddenly rang out across the battlefield. “Hold your fire, and prepare for its explosion!”

The crystal castle on the boss's back had stopped humming and started acting like a vacuum. Every stray spell, arrow, and pulse of errant energy that struck its shell wasn't damaging it–the energy was being sucked directly into the geodes. The castle of gems above it swelled, glowing with a terrifying, blinding intensity as it hoarded the Battlegroup's own kinetic and magical force.

It was the Reflective Carapace ability. It wasn't a mirror of the attacks heading toward it; it was more like a sponge attached to a bomb.

If they kept hitting it, the boss was going to detonate all that stored energy outward in an omnidirectional barrage that would turn the entire cavern into a blender of crystal shrapnel.

Jake had only noticed a few errant strikes hit it before they halted their attacks, but the effect was still drastic. Thankfully, his people had dug in and formed clusters to defend each other as planned, but crystalline shrapnel blasted outward from the castle in all directions powerfully, like it was fired from a shotgun. Much of it missed his people entirely, and people were ready with their magical defenses on top of Jake’s Hearthian Aura blocking the attacks with countering explosions.

Garona was now pissed, as a few pieces of gems had lodged themselves into her face and shell. She leaped into the air and crashed into the downed beetle with a roar before it could fully stand up. Jake then felt a shift, and the cavern above trembled. A giant stalactite fell down, torn from the ceiling, and accelerated downward to strike the beetle from above.

As big as the stone was, it only took off a minor chunk of the boss’s giant castle of a health bar, but it was still an impressive single action. Unfortunately, Jake thought it would be a little too much effort to repeat the feat with some of the other stalactites.

Now that Jake had seen all of the boss’s abilities, he was ready to put his finger on the scale.

The boss was barely grazed, sitting at perhaps eighty-five percent of its massive health pool, but the immediate threat was the swarm of Carnex Nullifiers pouring from the cracked walls. Many of his people who were assigned to them were handling the swarm, but Jake felt it was taking too much of their effort to be able to return and focus on the boss.

If he could just free up Ophelia and a few more, it would make a big difference. Tanda’s spriggons had already done a fantastic job of locking down one of the entrances within Avalara and her combined jungle Sublimation as they focused on the Boss, so Jake would take on the other side with his summons.

Jake tapped into his nearly limitless mana provided by Sanctum. He didn't use grand, complex spells against the anti-magic fields. He could surely overpower the dampening effect with sheer force, but that was a waste of resources. Instead, he reached into his vast collection of saved Templates and rapidly forged dozens of Volatile Ash-hounds.

He had specifically hunted and hoarded this Template after remembering the suicidal imps they faced in their first Trial back on Earth. To anyone else, a fragile construct made of ash and stone seemed useless in a high-tier raid. But Jake recognized the mechanical exploit.

The little beasts took barely any mana to summon, as they were comparatively small, and they immediately began to gorge themselves on Hestian fire, drawing the volatile heat deep into their fragile bodies. On their homeworld, these hounds had evolved their magic to take on and hunt lava elementals and other fire-using beasts, learning to sacrifice themselves to take them down for their pack.

He sent the flaming hounds sprinting directly into the swarm of oncoming Carnex. Jasmina’s song wrapped around them, protecting their auras just long enough to reach the target zone.

The moment the hounds crossed the Nullifiers' dampening auras, the anti-magic frequency disrupted the magical binding holding the hounds together. It was exactly like pulling the pin on a grenade. Jake didn't even have to activate it or order it mentally–the enemy's own nullification field triggered the explosion. The constructs violently detonated, bathing the bugs in blinding, superheated rock and shrapnel.

It was a perfectly efficient, deeply satisfying ranged delivery system. He continued summoning the little creatures, trading an absolute fraction of his mana and some of the available environmental mana drawn by his Sanctum for a steady, devastating screen of explosions that wiped the flanks clear.

With the lanes open, Jake's highly mobile party blurred through the lingering smoke, hunting down the stragglers to keep the arena clean so they could immediately pivot back to the primary target. A few of the reptiles also had excellent Damage over Time, or DoT abilities, which enabled them to continually do damage to the boss and help somewhat with the Nullifiers.

Back on the boss, a brutal, undeniable rhythm took hold. Over the next ten minutes, the Battlegroup perfectly answered the Siege-Beetle's scripted abilities. When it prepped and fired its artillery, the heavy shields stepped up.

When it tried to absorb energy, the raid instantly paused their barrage. Through it all, Jasmina's wordless song echoed through the cavern, harmonizing with the beastkin and elevating their combat prowess. Even Lissandra and her Vouivre casters felt their gems hum with a special resonance, their spells striking just a bit harder.

In all, Jake was impressed with their capabilities gained from the Vouivre people becoming Clergy, and looked forward to their elemental prowess growing in the future. They were an excellent addition to Hearthtribe. When combined with the Elysian casters, he was excited for what they would be able to accomplish once the Hamadryads joined their teams.

Seventy percent. Fifty percent. Thirty percent.

During the grueling battle, Tanda had sung the song of battle alongside the beastkin’s roaring auril hearts. She rode the rhythm of Jasmina's song, letting her Cyclic Strike build. Verse after verse, phrase after phrase, she wove the cycle of the seasons into a devastating weapon. Spring represented the initial wound–the planting of the grievance. Summer was the boiling heat of righteous conflict. Autumn brought the inevitable harvest of retribution. And Winter... Winter was the cold, inescapable finality of death.

With each passing season, the auril and nethril gathering within her body grew impossibly dense.

When the massive crystal castle on the Siege-Beetle's back finally withered and dimmed after its reflection failed to harm anyone and its deep health pool crossed the twenty percent threshold, Jake smiled.

Any veteran raider knew this feeling. The mechanics were solved. Thanks to the Mana Font feature of his Sanctum, his casters and wives were practically overflowing with resources. The win condition had been reached. They just needed to execute before the boss Enraged or someone made a fatal mistake.

“Dump it all!” Jake roared, his voice cutting through the din. “End it!”

Victory was a foregone conclusion. This entire time, Jake had only used his flames of Hestia to heal and defend his allies, along with his buffs and his Template summons. His wives could absolutely destroy the monster now without him showing any of his offensive cards.

But Jake was perfectly fine showing his upgraded States. He welcomed his enemy to find holes in his defenses. They were fighting an information war as well as a magical arms race, preparing for the eventual War Trial. He wanted Tartarus to look for holes so that he could patch them up before he made his final items and had nearly no room to improve the enchantments.

Jake reached out, finding resonance with Tanda to enter the State of the Avenger.

Years ago, tapping into pure wrath had nearly consumed him, turning him into a blind spirit of destruction when he was overwhelmed with emotion–when Ophelia died temporarily. But now, even anchored with a deeper sympathetic link with his wives, he safely embraced the role. He felt Tanda’s bubbly, gentle nature peel back, replaced by a cold, protective fury on behalf of the beastkin and the Serthunian natives who had suffered.

That righteous anger bubbled in his own veins, sharp and undeniable. Thanks to this resonance, Jake embodied the true spirit of vengeance–not a mindless monster, but an empathetic, razor-sharp blade.

The link locked into place. The Void-Divine flames in Jake’s Hearth were instantly replaced with Tanda’s deathly mixture of flames, his Hearthian Nexus converting his power in a perfect one-to-one ratio thanks to the Covenant.

Out on the floor, the Battlegroup unleashed everything. Mages and archers emptied their massive, reserved mana pools into synchronized, devastating ultimate spells that rained down on the battered insect all at once from all sides.

His wives lashed out with devastating dual resonant spells. Nessa and Sati created a cyclic river of ice that flash-froze and ionized into plasma, stripping the monster’s carapace away. Ophelia and Fhesiah’s Vajrafire and Kitsune-flames merged into a sickly, purple lightning-fire that cursed the beast's innards. Sati and Ruby mixed flames of compassion with a storming lotus of blood blades, while Avalara and Bree unleashed a towering beam of Celtic Conflict-flames that nearly severed the beast's remaining legs.

Garona slammed her massive paws into the floor, launching a cluster of heavy crystal boulders into the air. Zephyr the Garuda instantly caught the payload in a shredding cyclonic vortex. Blood and Berri then dropped their Light and Dark Eclipsing Sun directly into the center of the windstorm, turning the cyclone into a grinding, twilight-infused meteor that violently cratered the boss’s side.

Tanda opened her eyes. The Cyclic Strike had reached the absolute, freezing peak of Winter, and the cycle had been completed and merged into a rebirth of their vengeance. She drew her bowstring back, the arrow radiating a blinding, golden, twisting helix of light, and loosed it.

Jake planted his boots and channeled a massive surge of black-gold flames directly into Pyros, the transforming hearthflame solidifying into the dense, gem-like structure of a massive javelin. The anger he felt on the natives’ behalf was palpable as he sacrificed his internal stores to the power of the attack, greatly enhancing the condensed weapon and covering it with Demonic Runes.

With a heavy pulse of pyrokinesis, he hurled the blazing javelin of righteous vengeance upward, its crystalline surface infused with runes embodying the punishment of the wicked.

The two attacks crossed the cavern in a fraction of a second. Shot from the ground, they intersected directly inside the Siege-Beetle's mass and angled upward, forming a massive, blinding 'X' of piercing and explosive force. The intersecting strikes detonated its internal structure, obliterating its organs before punching cleanly out through the crystal castle on its back.

The twin beams of nethril and auril tore through the cavern air, crashing into the ceiling and rear wall with enough force to violently dislodge a rain of massive stalactites and shattered geodes. The monster froze, its core completely hollowed out by the lingering energy, before collapsing heavily to the ground, its geode finally depleted and unable to heal it.

The moment the massive Siege-Beetle collapsed, the remaining Carnex Nullifiers froze. The magic of the encounter no longer anchored them, and the jagged bugs crumbled into fine, ash-like dust that quickly settled over the ruined arena.

A localized cheer erupted from the Battlegroup. A second later, the ground rumbled softly, and a pristine, glowing white crystal sprouted from the center of the ruined arena. The Cleansed Node, which cleared away the corruption in the room rapidly. Right beside it, a massive, ornate chest materialized with a heavy thud.

Jake let Sanctum fade, taking a deep breath as the sheer tension of the battle washed away. He dropped down to the arena floor, joining his wives and the native leaders near the loot.

“That’s one down!” Berri cheered, raising her axe, which howled in victory, and was excited to begin chewing on the monster’s corpse.

Tanda arrived next to Berri, her tail wagging. “That was an easy win! Good job, BB! You and Garona really kept that beetle busy.”

Before Jake knew it, the other girls all gathered, giving their high fives and accolades for what they did well for the fight. They then turned to their Hearthtribe brethren, pointing out all the good things they noticed, as well as areas for them to improve.

Lissandra looked over to the group and then at the chest. “How come nobody’s rushing for this thing? Don’t people want to see what’s inside?”

Darris laughed, hefting his axe and shield that Jake and Ophelia had made. “Are you kidding? What’s inside that thing is just scraps that need collecting.”

Vesuvius chuckled at that. “You said it, Brother. But you’ve seen this, my Queen. The previous raids had little worth keeping.”

“Yes, but... I figured this Prime Instance would be far greater.”

Hearthtribe operated on a strict Need before Greed system. Clan Hart rarely needed standard weapons or armor, but dungeon-generated Accessories often possessed unique, reality-bending properties that were incredibly difficult to craft by hand.

As good as Jake and his artisans were, the sheer condensed potential of a Prime Instance could occasionally produce a ring or an amulet that defied standard crafting logic. Then, there were often amazing things like the Storage Rings or special tokens, so it was true that it was worth looting.

Lissandra stepped up to the chest, her lizard-like tail swishing slowly as she pulled out a beautifully carved staff topped with a swirling, deep-purple geode. She examined the weapon, her eyes narrowing as she felt its impressive resonance. Then, she glanced down at the custom staff Jake had personally forged for her.

“I admit, I harbored some doubts about the Hearthtribe Alliance’s loot policies before this descent.” Lissandra murmured, turning the dungeon staff over in her hands. “This weapon from the Prime Instance is a legendary artifact that my people might have fought and bled over before. Yet... the guild would rather see this in the hands of someone who can use it instead of increasing its coffers? Still, this feels sluggish compared to the multi-faceted, refined gemstones Lord Hart made for me.”

Jake offered a small smile. “Of course, the guild needs more money, but we value our people’s individual success and capability more. Then, dungeon loot typically provides raw, generalized power, unless you’re lucky and it perfectly resonates with you. A crafter who knows your spirit provides something truly tailored to you. Give it to someone who may make use of it, or we’ll just store it for materials.”

Lissandra nodded, turning and handing the legendary staff to one of her wide-eyed subordinate casters who had bravely weathered the artillery phase. The rest of the high-tier loot was quickly cataloged and sent straight into the Hearthtribe Alliance war chest to be distributed to others that it best resonates with or to be sold or reforged into something better. Unfortunately, there were no tokens of value at this first encounter.

Silence fell over the cavern, save for the soft clinking of falling gems. Because the boss had constantly regenerated and fired its crystal payload, the entire arena floor was now littered with thousands of raw, uncorrupted Serthunian geodes.

Garona let out a low, rumbling huff, aggressively pawing at her own armored face. Several sharp, glittering gems were still lodged deep into her thick scales from the earlier shotgun blast.

Berri hopped down from her mount's shoulder, inspecting the damage. “Hold still, big girl. I can help you clean those if you want. But honestly? It makes you look incredibly cute. Like you got bedazzled!”

The ancient stone tortoise paused. She blinked her massive eyes, looking at her reflection in a nearby crystal shard. She gave a low, entirely different rumble of approval. The armored behemoth puffed out her chest, deeply pleased with her new, terrifyingly glamorous battle scars.

With a sweep of her massive paw, Garona tapped into her earth magic. It wasn't refined enough for combat spells involving gems, or she would have torn the gem monster in half on her own, but it was perfect for this. A low hum vibrated through the floor, and thousands of loose, glittering gems began to slide across the stone, gathering into a massive, shimmering pile right at her feet. She was officially collecting.

And of course, so were members of the Raid Group. The Boss was entirely too large for Auto-Loot to trigger, and they had to gather a large amount of mana to even perform the Loot function.

When they did, it carved and separated the gargantuan monster’s valuable parts onto the ground to be grabbed up by individual Storage Rings. Then, groups of people went through the cavern, triggering the function once more on large areas of the gems, and some of the larger geodes within the cavern were mined in groups.

Jake chuckled at watching people gathering the gems, turning his attention back to the warriors of the Battlegroup. The fight itself had only lasted perhaps twenty minutes, but it had been an absolute crucible. The sheer intensity of the mechanics combined with the dampening environment had pushed the mana channels of the natives and the weaker allies to their absolute limits. They needed time to process the strain.

“Everyone, circle up around the Node once looting is complete,” Jake ordered. “We’ll rest here until our channels are completely flushed and our cores recovered, and then we’ll move. The corruption will only get stronger the longer we wait.”

The pristine crystal radiated a wave of pure, uncorrupted mana, carving out a massive safe zone within the hostile dungeon. As his people settled in to meditate and recover, Jake looked back toward the dark tunnels leading deeper into the crust and then up at the ceiling, where he felt he was being watched from.

This was the true danger of the Dungeon Raid this time. It was a marathon where every drop of stamina mattered.

For Clan Hart, it was also a stage. Tartarus was watching every move they made, trying to audit their capabilities just like the Sector’s politicians. By relying on their baseline tactics, leveraging their hoarded Templates, and hiding their true limits, Jake was actively feeding the dungeon flawed data.

He would let the enemy only see the abilities he wanted to show it, like the tip of an iceberg. That way, when the War Trial arrived, Tartarus would find itself planning for a threat much deeper than it imagined.