Bonded Summoner

Book 9. Chapter 26: The Carnex Draconid

The descent through the middle layers of the Tartarus Prime Instance had been an absolute meat grinder, and not just because of the monsters.

Over the next day and a half, the Battlegroup pushed through miles of jagged, corrupted tunnels as they killed waves of Carnex, collected valuable gems, and looted tons of chests. They cleared the second and third Major Encounters with a methodical, ruthless efficiency.

As they pushed deeper, the ambient corruption of the Carnex actively compounded. It wasn't just a dampening field anymore. It had become a localized, radioactive timer that clung to their auras. Every hour they spent fighting or lingering allowed the corrupted energy to build.

Jake realized with a chilling clarity just how lethal those earlier greed traps truly were. A standard raid group would only be able to rely on paladins or standard clergy to protect against or cleanse the taint, and faith energy could only go so far. A Hearthian’s Aura was just qualitatively superior, and he was thankful for just how effective this was for them.

If the other Raid Instances had stopped to open every chest or mine every geode, the ambient corruption would have permanently crippled their mana channels before they even reached the halfway mark. Instead of getting any rest at the cleansed geode after a boss, they would be forced to clear their channels or lose vitality, or worse, be unable to cast any spells at all as they faced the boss.

Only the overwhelming, overlapping protection of the Clan Hart’s Champion Auras allowed them to purge and prevent the building miasma and maintain their marathon pace. Lissandra and Jasmina helped as well. Out of curiosity, Jake had tested Darris and Grayson’s capabilities with their water-based auras; while they worked, the beastkin simply could not keep up their protection forever.

Though Jake certainly understood the danger would be scaled down for the other groups. Perhaps their protection would have been enough for much longer. He’d have to wait to hear from Morwen and others.

Then, the mechanics of those intermediate bosses had been grueling, and Jake had learned why they were called ‘Major Encounters’ instead of mere Boss Battles. The second was a towering crystalline arachnid that flooded the arena with localized gravity and web traps and seeded the shadows with cursed, stealth-oriented assassins called Carnex Stalkers. They could vibrate themselves in a corrupted frequency to obscure themselves from view and even pass through walls and geodes.

The environment was deadly enough all on its own. In fact, the boss was a pushover in comparison once they finally reached the end of the lair and could actually face it.

The third was a subterranean leviathan that forced them to fight on crumbling pillars over a massive lake of acid while monsters shot at them. They had been unable to truly damage the boss until they reached the end of the platforms to fight it on the largest, safe ground.Jake knew these mechanics would be an absolute nightmare for a standard raid. A normal guild may not have wiped from a lack of damage, but they would have inevitably lost people simply because they lacked the coordination to move across the chaotic environments without getting in each other's way, and then been forced to resurrect them on the field.

This would leave them weakened for the final boss, though some may have recovered enough from their Resurrection Illness by the time they arrived–assuming they were protected from the corruption as they did.

But Hearthtribe was not a normal guild. The beastkin’s auril hearts sang the song of battle, creating a supernatural resonance that allowed the entire mixed force to move as one. They flew and dashed between gravity wells and acid geysers in perfect, musical synchronization, never stopping their assault. Bows and javelins rained down on their enemy while on the move, with the highly mobile beastkin picking up the slack for the slower native forces.

Jake had initially been worried about Garona's sheer bulk in the leviathan's acid lake arena, but the newly bedazzled behemoth handled the trek just fine. Instead of trying to leap, she simply used her earth magic to grow, repair, or violently tilt the massive stone pillars over the acid lake, creating her own heavy-duty ramps.

The massive Treants were similarly self-sufficient. Their Dryad and Naiad riders rapidly grew thick, reinforced vine bridges between the crumbling rocks, allowing the heavy Elysian Treants to march across the hazard with ease.

The entire trek had been a masterclass in adaptability. When the stealth assassins tried to slip into their backline during the arachnid encounter and fight, Jake had seamlessly shifted into the State of the Monarch to lock them down.

Then, he summoned a swarm of deep-cavern bat Templates whose natural echolocation completely bypassed the magical invisibility. This was in addition to having several of his wives’ peerless detection systems–Nessa’s Gaze of Truth, Fhesiah’s Tier-breaking Divine Sense, and Ruby’s blood sensory allowed them to detect assassins easily, though he kept Ira completely focused on the family’s protection.

And Sanctum worked exactly as planned. Jake had kept it in a slow-moving, mobile state to counter the chaotic terrain, the golden temple of hearthflames drifting steadily alongside the Battlegroup. The stealthy creatures tried, and failed, to enter Jake’s domain unseen to get at those he protected.

Their unique gem-like resonance that hid them might have allowed them to vibrate themselves into another plane of some kind and pass even through walls, but that didn’t allow them to sneak through Sanctum's borders. And the cursing, bile-shooting insect creatures on the lake that unfortunately resembled swimming Muckbills a little too much failed to curse anyone who arrived within Jake’s domain.

His wives had answered his tactical shifts perfectly as well. Fhesiah used her illusions to trick the leviathan into swallowing explosive, flame spirit decoys. And Ruby’s bloodblades swept the shadows clear of cursed stalkers before they could ever reach the healers or melee who were forced to move outside of Sanctum.

They were a well-oiled machine. Jake found a deep sense of relief knowing his other teams were in good hands. Morwen and Rookard among others such as Timone and Dahlia, were leading their respective instances and would continue to do so in the future raids. They possessed the exact brand of grit and grounded pragmatism needed to coordinate their forces and survive this attritional warfare. They would not let their people break.

Now, sitting around the final Cleansed Node outside the final Major Encounter, the Battlegroup took a much-needed rest before the Final Boss. There was a near electrical energy flowing, a static charge of tension as people made their preparations and rested.

Eventually, Jake let his shoulders drop, tapping into his bond to check on the home front. The dungeon naturally prevented standard communications, but that didn’t stop Jake’s powerful bond–and it certainly couldn’t stop a being with multiple bodies like Avalara.

Avalara suddenly turned to Jake. “Oh! You want to talk to them? I can be the telephone.”

Jake side-eyed Avalara and then Tanda, whose tail started to wag when he looked at her. This reminded him of the boob telephone that she suspiciously had him use when it wasn’t required.

It was both cute and creepy at the same time.

Before the girls chimed in, Avalara’s own serene voice echoed through his mind. [Just a warning, my love. Yona allowed them a bit of a gaming party last night to keep their spirits up. They are still running on pure adrenaline and sugar.]

In the end, the visual result was nothing short of comical.

Avalara was still resting in her massive, imposing tree-reindeer form. So when the connection was established, the towering, majestic forest spirit opened her wooden jaws, and the bright, energetic voice of his daughter Nora piped out. The kids were happy to chat with their father and mothers. They all talked for a time, listening to their oasis of happiness among the gloom.

“And then I sent a whole squad of drop-troopers right into their mineral line!’ Nora’s voice echoed from Avalara’s imposing, stag-like visage. “I totally wiped out their economy while Clara blasted their frontlines with gunners, Dad! It was a flawless pincer maneuver!”

Jake chuckled, leaning back against the cool crystal of the Cleansed Node. “A pincer maneuver, huh? That sounds suspiciously like the results of that late-night Space Wars tournament Ava just tipped me off about.”

Avalara's giant wooden reindeer face winced in a remarkably human expression of a child being caught. “Oh no... Ava is a snitch?” Nora squeaked through the avatar.

Ophelia stepped up beside Jake, a fond but firm smile on her lips. “We knew and approved. As long as you know that a successful campaign requires well-rested generals, Nora,” she interjected, her tone carrying the perfect balance of a commanding Champion and a loving mother. “An occasional late night to blow off steam is entirely acceptable, but do not let it become a habit that impacts your studies or your growing bodies.”

“Yes, Moms,” Nora replied dutifully, along with several of their other children who were there and listening. Then Avalara’s head snapped, and then her expression slightly changed, and a new voice came out.

It was Clara who replied. “Yup, yup! Everything in moderation, just as you always say.”

Jake couldn’t help but smile at the whole thing. He wholeheartedly approved of the distraction. He genuinely loved that the kids of a magical fantasy world were completely obsessed with a sci-fi real-time strategy game. They were learning authentic battlefield mechanics disguised as pixels and plasma rifles...well, that might be a tiny bit of a stretch, but it was certainly a lot better than mindless scrolling, anyway.

“I am glad you are having fun, and drop ships are a very sound and clever tactic,” Jake said, keeping his tone light. “Just remember what your mother said. Even a great commander needs to rest.”

The voice shifting through Avalara softened, turning into Rena's slightly more subdued tone. “It is not just for fun, Dad. Yona let us play a little later because... well, it helps keep our minds off things. Space Wars requires a lot of focus. If we pay attention to our drop troopers, we do not have to think about how much everyone on Serthune is hurting. Or how much we miss you all.”

Jake felt a tight pull in his chest. He reached out, gently patting Avalara's massive, mossy leg. “I know, sweetie. I miss you all too. You are being incredibly brave holding down the fort for us. We are at the final door now. We are going to finish this, save their world, and then we are coming right back home. And then...well, I remember we have a few bits of partying with the natives and meeting people, as we promised to do that with you. But on our way to Morvalis...there should definitely be some time for us all to do a late-night game party.”“Promise?” Rena asked softly.

“I promise,” Jake swore. “Now go get some sleep. The Raid Leader orders it.”

Avalara's massive head nodded, and the connection gently closed out. The giant tree-reindeer let out a very normal, heavy sigh of relief.

Jake stood up, the warmth of the parental moment hardening into cold, absolute focus. He looked around the Node as his wives finished stretching and the native allies fell into formation.

“Game faces on,” Jake announced, his voice carrying the full weight of a Sovereign. “Let's go see what Tartarus has waiting for us at the final door.”

They broke camp and marched down the descending tunnel. It widened drastically, terminating at a wide stone precipice overlooking a massive, subterranean arena. Glowing golden Framework script was etched deeply into the stone bordering the entrance.

Jake stepped forward to the threshold, reading the translated text aloud for the Battlegroup.

[Final Encounter: The Parasitic Carnex Draconid]

[Primary Mechanics: Corrupted Resonance Breath, Carnex Stalkers, Lesser Siege-Beetles, Flight Thresholds, Crystalline Consumption, Parasitic Arcing, Adaptive Healing.]

Most of the mechanics seemed simple for Jake to guess what they might do, but Parasitic Arcing was an odd one. Once the monster got below half, the parasite within the monster would begin lashing out with its corruption.

Ophelia frowned, her tactical mind immediately searching for the most efficient path to victory. “Adaptive Healing? That means it has no health pool like the others. If we lock it down, can’t we just cut off its head or pierce its heart and be done with it?”

Fhesiah scoffed, her golden eyes flashing with innate draconic pride. “Please. The parasite aspect aside, any true draconic lineage at the Third Tier does not rely on something as fragile as a single neck. It likely has multiple hearts, and its physical vessel is anchored directly to its soul. If Bulldozer snaps its head off, or we manage to get a heart, it will merely be a bloody inconvenience while the beast rapidly grows a new one.”

“The prideful lizard is right,” Bree chimed in, grinning brashly as she cracked her knuckles. “Strong bloodlines like dragons don’t have that kind of weakness. An elite beast at that Tier does not die just because you poke a hole in its meat suit. You want to actually kill a titan? You have to batter it down until its core cracks and its soul loses its grip on this plane. We have to rot out its entire reserve.”

Jake had learned about this. At the Fourth Tier, nearly every being would be like this. Nascent Soul Cultivators and beings with advanced bloodlines would be able to display these kinds of properties much sooner at the Third Tier. And some extremely rare beings, like phoenixes, could show this kind of property even earlier.

“Exactly,” Jake agreed, tapping his Champion Hearth in spearstaff form against the stone. “We cannot treat this like an execution. It is a marathon. Those elevated highways are acting as a conveyor belt, and while we will have moments of requiring high damage, like the breath phases against the geodes, what will win the fight is maintaining high damage over a long period of time.”

After discussing strategy for a time, they stood at the entrance, taking in the daunting geometry of the killbox. It was a massive, sunken central basin. Flanking the left and right sides of the cavern were two elevated, parallel highways of petrified stone, with long, sloping onramps connecting the high ground down to the basin floor.

Fhesiah peered past the archway into the sprawling arena. Her golden eyes narrowed in absolute disgust. Thick, fleshy Carnex limbs–an advanced, grotesque insectoid evolution–woven tightly through the dark violet scales of a massive, resting draconic form, anchoring the beast to the heavy, corrupted geodes littering the floor.

“A dragon crossed with a parasitic insect and gems,” Fhesiah sneered, her celestial flames flaring in sheer offense. “What an absolute insult to the bloodline. It is genuinely an abomination.”

“Ugh, tell me about it,” Berri groaned, hefting her massive axe. “I seriously hate these dungeon bugs. They just hide in the shadows, spit nasty stuff, or eat the snake girls’ gems. It’s tiring.”

She reached over and affectionately slapped Bulldozer on his massive shell.

“Not like our boy Bulldozer here,” Berri announced loudly. “Now that is a proper bug. Did you guys see him on the second floor? He did not hide. He clamped his mandibles down and literally suplexed that giant crystal arachnid once he weathered those gravity storms and finally got a hold of it! Tartarus needs to take notes on how a real insectoid should fight.”

Bulldozer let out a loud, incredibly smug series of clicks, puffing out his armored chest.

Jake smiled briefly before tapping Pyros against the stone floor, drawing everyone's attention back to the strategy.

“Listen up, this is the final plan before we cross the threshold,” Jake commanded, pointing down into the arena. “Those elevated highway-like areas are going to spawn Lesser Siege Beetles to walk across. When they reach the end of the highway, they will march down the ramps, and if they reach the center area, the Draconid will rush over and eat them, healing the damage we’ve done and empowering it. Tanda, Avalara–you each take one ramp and path. Bog those lanes down with your Sublimative Domains and help kill the beetles before they deliver the payload.”

Jake also aligned some allies, melee and ranged, that would help them take down the Siege-Beetles. He continued, “At seventy and thirty percent health, the boss takes flight. When it does, the massive geodes in the center will drop their invulnerability shields and help charge its breath attack. Ignore the boss and shatter the geodes to ground it and stop its aerial assault. Faye, Sati–you two intercept the breath if it fires, and Lia and I will act as backup.”

“And the Stalkers?” Ruby asked, casually tracing a finger along the edge of her spinning bloodblade.

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“They will spawn from everywhere trying to break our melee and healers,” Jake replied. “Bleed them dry, Ruby, and help defend us with her, Nessa. We’ll have our standard tank and melee vanguard pushing the center and locking the dragon down. I will anchor Sanctum outside of where the boss is engaged off-center. We establish our domain, and then we work to manage the damage across numerous targets at once and find the right pace for the beetles–there’s no telling how much damage they can soak up until we fight them.”

Jake couldn’t weaponize the domain of Sanctum as part of his Covenants. He could place his Sanctum down, and the boss could ultimately rush toward it and try to take it out, but Jake couldn’t place his domain directly in front of it aggressively or walk it into the boss.

The two raised highways, which had offramps trailing downward, were diagonal from one another, so the domain would have to be closer to the left ramp than the right. But those within his domain could still add damage to the beetles early on his right upper ledge if they needed to.

Jake continued, “Focus on your roles, and be ready for me to change the plan. Are we ready?”

A unified, resounding shout echoed from the Battlegroup, as they roared in challenge. It was time for the final battle to decide the outcome of the war on this world.

Jake turned and stepped over the threshold, the group marching toward their positions.

The moment the last Elysian Treant crossed the line, a massive wall of golden energy snapped shut behind them, sealing the exit. The air in the cavern instantly grew heavy.

Jake paused, a familiar, electric tingle running up his spine. It was not the oppressive, malevolent aura of the dungeon. It was a heavy, evaluating weight from far above. Tyr was watching. The god of Law and Justice had his eyes locked directly on Clan Hart for the final audit.

Jake looked up into the cavern's vaulted ceiling.

The Carnex Draconid was perched high above them, its massive claws dug deep into a petrified archway spanning the cavern roof. Its massive, unblinking eyes tracked the Battlegroup with eerie, silent intelligence.

For a breathless second, the entire raid stood frozen under the gaze of the abomination.

Then, the Draconid unhinged its jaw, unleashing a multi-tonal, glass-shattering shriek. It released its grip on the ceiling, unfurling its massive, geode-encrusted wings, and plummeted like a dark meteor directly toward the central basin where Garona, Bulldozer, Vesuvius, Bloodberri, and Ophelia on Valora were ready to receive it.

The physical impact sent a shockwave of shattered stone and corrupted dust rippling across the arena. Bulldozer was there to meet it. The massive insectoid reared up, his heavy, metallic-plated mandibles clamping directly onto the dragon’s descending jaw.

The sheer kinetic force forced the giant bug to skid backward, carving deep trenches into the petrified floor, but he held the line. A split second later, Garona crashed into the beast’s flank with the weight of a falling mountain, followed by Blood layering her curses and the weight of her telekinetic fields to forcibly slow and pin the titan to the earth as she smacked it with their maul.

A distance from the entrance, Jake anchored the raid. He pushed his mana into the floor, a massive, multi-layered golden fortress of Hearthflames erupting around the casters and healers. This time, Jake entered the State of the Guardian right away, the Vajrafire flames of Guan Yu replaced his flames of Hestia, and his Aura became incredibly protective and helpful in getting their engagement started without issue.

With the two enhanced Presences combined, it was like a small barrier of golden, electrified flames surrounded those in his range. No longer was it just a mere minimal attack that would be defeated. Now, a medium-strength attack could be deflected autonomously.

If Ophelia had been unsealed at this time, then the effect would have become even greater, and it would have even empowered Ophelia to a whole new level as she protected the raid from heavy blows with her Sentinel ability.

The opening minutes of the fight settled into a brutal, deafening rhythm, the monster taking wounds and shifting its gargantuan body as it was struck from all sides. Wings, claws, and its tail lashed out frequently, crashing into the melee surrounding it periodically and knocking even treants aside or smacking Garona’s stone helmet with a dull thud.

The monster was nearly as tall as the original Siege-Beetle thanks to its raised upper body. Jake would be surprised they could take any hits from such a monster at all, but it was just like the odd twin demons they had faced on Highlands. The monster actually pushed the peak of the Third Tier, an entire Tier above them.

Normally, its claw and weight behind its attacks would shatter Garona’s stone helmet in one swing, perhaps even killing her despite Jake’s protection from its sheer might alone. But the encounter had been gamified. Its attacks and the weight it could bring about had been weakened to a manageable, yet still dangerous, level, following the rules of the boss battle.

And its breath would probably kill them all on its own, requiring Jake to call Hestia for a chance to even survive it. It wouldn’t need to wait to absorb breath energy from the geodes; it would just blast them dead moments after the encounter started. So this monster had been modified to give them a relatively fair crucible.

The Carnex Stalkers began to spawn from just about everywhere on the battlefield, including dropping from above. They were hunted down with ruthless efficiency. Ruby was a tempest of crimson around the battlefield, her bloodblades tracking the invisible assassins by their heartbeats and shredding them into bloody mist. The few that managed to ambush anyone were blocked by Jake’s Guardian protection and then promptly dealt with.

And Nessa was racing around on her river of justice, her new tail weapon biting outward and snagging them as her blades tagged others, laced with deadly venom. She even found time to tag the boss, infusing a venom that slowly tore the boss apart, only using fractions of her Nascent Divine Essence to enhance it.

But the Abomination’s twisted anatomy made locking it down an absolute nightmare. The Carnex Draconid did not just have two legs and a tail. It stood on four heavy, insectoid legs like a grotesque centaur, wielding two massive draconic arms with deadly talons and four geode-encrusted wings, which it would use to cover damaged places on its body.

There were simply too many limbs for the tanking vanguard to completely cripple its movements, and its Adaptive Healing passively mended its torn scales almost as fast as the melees could cut and crack them.

Worse, the elevated highways were acting as a conveyor belt of artillery. There were never just two Siege-Beetles. As soon as one heavy bug neared the top of an on-ramp, another spawned at the entrance to take its place. Thankfully, they found the pace to take them out before they ever arrived at the bottom of the ramp to heal the boss, but the issue was that they were barely making progress on it anyway.

The Siege-Beetles were thankfully smaller, a bit smaller than Garona. Their artillery shots were comparatively weaker too, but the fact that four could be firing them at the same time meant that it was risky for Jake to change States. But he realized it was the strongest choice to make some real progress on the boss.

“We need constant, stacking pressure to rot out that regeneration,” Jake muttered, his thoughts shifting gears. “I am changing States. Ophelia, I am releasing the Covenant. Blood, with me.”

Jake reached out, deliberately breaking the heavy, protective mantle of the Guardian. The yellow golden light of his flames shifted, turning into a deep, oppressive dark gold as he synced with Blood. The State of the Monarch descended over him, his flames taking on the power of holy dark.

The transition was jarring. Dropping his shield while his family was under fire went against every instinct in Jake's body. His mind violently rebelled, a desperate urge to recast Sanctum's thickest barriers nearly tearing him out of the Monarch form. But Blood’s absolute, ironclad will anchored him. Through the Covenant, her desire for total battlefield control washed over him.

Her actions didn’t protect allies by cowering behind walls; she protected them by dominating the board so completely that the enemy could not breathe.

Grounded by her ruthless confidence, Jake raised Pyros and tapped into his vast vault of stored Templates. He decided against summoning massive bruisers or flying interceptors. He wanted the darkest, most venomous, and, frankly, most obnoxious creatures he had collected to punish the dungeon.

Jake paused over one specific template, a phantom wince crossing his mind. He rarely ever used this one because he knew exactly how much Berri absolutely despised them. Ever since that grueling, lane-pushing floor, she had nursed a loud, aggressive hatred for the bizarre creatures–a hatred she currently managed by aggressively cooking and eating their lower-tier variants for pure, petty revenge.

But through their deep connection, Berri felt his vindictive urge. A vicious, entirely unhinged grin spread across her face down in the basin.

[Do it!] Berri's voice echoed through the Bond, thick with dark, petty amusement. [You know what to do. This is justice!]

A genuine, tension-breaking smirk touched Jake’s lips.

A dozen shadowy, reptilian beastkin materialized in the basin, perfectly mirroring Vexana’s toxic, javelin-wielding visage. But right behind them, materializing in a chaotic, waddling swarm, was a small army of Muckbills.

The bizarre, bloated creatures immediately let out a chorus of obnoxiously loud, echoing 'QUACKS!'

“Stack more DoTs!” Jake roared across the cavern, a fierce, nostalgic smile touching his lips. It was a direct callback to the very first raid leader, who had screamed nearly those exact words at him back on Earth, a lifetime ago–just with a whole lot more condescension mixed in, and significantly fewer exploding plague-ducks.

The shadow-Vexanas and venomous summons scattered, descending on the Draconid and the continuous line of creeping artillery bugs. The Muckbills, however, simply planted their feet. Tilting their heads back, they began raining a relentless, high-arcing artillery of corrosive magical plague and venomous spit directly onto the Draconid and the Siege-Beetles.

Even better, whenever the heavy beetles actually managed to trample one of the waddling terrors, or the Stalkers took one out, the Muckbill wouldn't just die. It violently detonated in a massive, acidic suicide explosion that melted the bugs' crystal armor to slag.

Jake’s State of the Monarch, combined with Tanda and Avalara’s domains, snared the beetles in their grueling march. This allowed the summons plenty of time to rain hell down on them, applying stacking layers of nethril poison, bleeding curses, and magical plague across the many targets at once.

And Jasmina was an absolute terror from the backline. Jake hadn't sidelined the Naga Siren when he shifted tactics; her sustained effects were simply too good to pass up in a war of attrition. Her enchanting, multi-tonal voice wove perfectly into the beastkin's dirge, projecting a massive, localized aura over the basin.

Her song not only amplified the power of the roaming squads hunting down the invisible Stalkers and striking the beetles from above, but it actively degraded the Draconid’s elemental and magical resistances, ensuring every curse, poison, and shadow-strike bit twice as deep into the Abomination's crystalline carapace.

The Echidnean and Bastet clergy didn’t disappoint, able to unleash devastating poisons and acids on targets in range despite being healers as their primary focus.

With the beetles slowed and damage over time attacks applied, ranged attackers focused on the highways now had more time to turn their efforts to the boss.

The abomination shrieked. Unlike standard light-based healing mechanics that instantly purged debuffs, the boss's regeneration could only slowly burn the poison away. The compounded, multi-target damage-over-time effects finally began to outpace its healing, and Jake added a few of Blood’s devised curses and debuffs as his own onto the Boss, slowing and adding DoT’s that would bring its health down even more.

Combined with Fhesiah’s curses of the sun and moon and elemental sprites blasting the dragon from all sides, and releasing her flames of Celestial Alchemy, the wounds were now truly starting to build.

The rhythm was perfect. They had the boss locked down, the adds controlled, and the health bar finally ticking backward.

But as Jake actively swept the massive killbox with his Umbral Gaze, he knew how fragile their formation truly was. Sanctum was an impenetrable fortress, but it could not hold the entire Battlegroup if they wanted to actually win.

Tanda's dense jungle on the front-left ramp and Avalara's murky swamp on the diagonal, back-right ramp naturally choked the cavern's lines of sight. To keep the pressure on the dragon and manage the continuous Stalker spawns, roaming squads and support casters had been forced to spread out.

This left the far-right flank–where Vexana was constantly shifting to maintain her lethal DoTs, supported closely by Jarrix anchoring her position–exposed just outside the absolute safety of Sanctum.

They were relying only on Jake's overarching Champion Presence combined with their situational awareness to weather the artillery strikes. Jake’s hidden guardian spirit, Ira, was strictly dedicated to the family. Its odd interplanar mind was wholly consumed with calculating trajectories and blind spots for his wives.

They had already learned the rhythm of the bugs. A sharp, building crystalline hum always preceded the heavy, near-supersonic thwump of a launch.

Then, Tartarus proved exactly why it was a Prime Instance.

As the boss's health neared the seventy-percent threshold, the Draconid executed a sickeningly coordinated assault. The beast lunged forward, throwing its massive, geode-encrusted shoulder into the vanguard to violently knock Garona and Bulldozer off-balance. In the exact same motion, it whipped its massive tail around in a blinding arc, slamming directly into Ophelia’s golden shield. The sheer kinetic force pinned the Champion in place, completely occupying her defensive focus.

Simultaneously, up on the far-right highway, Avalara slammed her staff into the geode-covered insect, sending a massive wave of nethril sludge crashing into a Lesser Siege-Beetle, and Bree breathed out a blast of powerful flames, knocking it off course further. The heavy artillery bug stumbled, its massive crystal castle shifting violently just as it fired its payload with a thwump.

Jake watched the trajectory through his Umbral Gaze. He instantly dismissed the right-side shot as a wild miss, just as Ira dismissed it as a non-threat to the bloodline. Jake's focus snapped to the front-left beetle as it emitted that lethal, crystalline hum and fired a perfectly aimed volley directly at Vexana.

Vexana reacted instantly. Moving with the fluid grace of a gymnast, she executed a flawless aerial backflip, easily twisting out of the predicted blast zone of the incoming crystal.

But the deflected right shot did not hit the cavern wall.

Whether it was a freak bounce, a one-in-a-trillion probability, or a blatant manipulation of physics, the errant crystal deflected off the top of the stone and arced impossibly across the cavern. It seamlessly converged with the left shot, the two massive projectiles' explosion striking the exact coordinate Vexana was dodging into.

The kinetic explosion laced with corruption was devastating. There was no time for Elysian healers to raise their staffs, and Ira's wards were focused elsewhere. Vexana, a lightly armored skirmisher, took the direct, unmitigated brunt of the dual impact, and it slammed her body into a sharp geode far faster than anyone could react.

Her aura winked out.

Her voice abruptly vanished from the auril choir of the beastkin.

Jarrix stumbled. The massive beastkin warrior did not drop his weapon or fall to his knees. He knew they had resurrection magic, he knew she would return, but the sudden, violent severing of his wife's harmony from their collective battle song hit him like a physical blow. He caught his balance, his armored hands tightening around his chaotic-flaming glaive until the metal groaned.

When Jarrix opened his mouth, his grief did not manifest as despair. It erupted as a roaring, jagged note of pure, world-ending fury, rejoining the choir as a song of vengeance.

From the front ramp, the tempo of Jasmina's song abruptly shifted to match it.

Tanda froze. Her bubbly, vibrant nature vanished in an instant, replaced by a cold, absolute void. The green vines of her Jungle Domain withered, turning a stark, ashen black as it changed into a deadly swamp.

One of their own had fallen. Death had touched the Hearthtribe.

Through his deep Sympathetic Link and his connection to the raid's resonance, Jake felt the collective grief wash over him like a physical wave. But as a veteran commander, his tactical mind immediately processed the impossible trajectory of the crystals. He looked up into the vaulted ceiling, feeling the heavy, evaluating weight of Tyr.

That was not a random coincidence. Tartarus had just blatantly put a finger on the scale.

Jake's grief instantly twisted into pure, icy, divine outrage at the injustice. And because of the Covenant, he didn't feel it alone.

His righteous fury echoed straight down the bonds to his wives. Tanda, Avalara, Bree, and Bloodberri felt their Sovereign's wrath, and they unknowingly broadcasted it to the rest of the Raid. Their auril and nethril hearts were all tuned to the same radio station–and the beastkin had already been able to feel his will from his flames, besides.

The followers of Cernunnos and the Clergy of Arawn latched onto that feeling of outrage, and it intermingled with the beastkin's sorrow.

The grief instantly refined into a deep, consuming desire to punish the wicked.

That collective, roaring need for retribution echoed back up the Covenant to Jake, magnified tenfold by the choir. It was a runaway emotional feedback loop. The sheer, unfiltered weight of his people's fury forcibly injected itself into his mind, making his instincts scream.

He felt a violent, nearly overwhelming urge to abandon the Monarch State, to throw up the Guardian shield, or to surrender completely to Tanda’s pull and become the Avenger to personally execute the dragon.

This was the double-edged sword of the Sympathetic Link. Jake had deliberately chosen this path, accepting this terrifying emotional vulnerability in exchange for unparalleled, synergistic power. He had made that gamble solely because he counted on his wives to act as his anchor–to pull him back from the precipice if he ever became lost in the storm.

The Covenant worked exactly as intended.

[Do not flinch!] Blood’s voice cracked like a whip across his mind. She did not reprimand him; she anchored him. Her twilight aura gripped his soul with unrelenting force, perfectly reinforcing the Monarch State he was fighting to maintain and cutting through the intoxicating feedback loop. [We have the resurrection magic. She will return. But if you lose control of this board right now, we just might lose everyone. We will win, and then we will have our answers.]

Jake tasted blood as he forced himself to stay planted at the threshold. Blood was right. The sheer friction of wanting to protect but needing to command was agonizing, but the anchor held. He locked the emotion down.

Channeling the overwhelming surge of empathic fury into his Templates, he commanded them to tear into the Draconid with suicidal aggression, summoning even more Muckbills, and even more copies of Vexana. The beastkin cheered as they saw her with the special tabard, easily identifying that she was exacting vengeance against the Boss through the Chief.

Out on the ramp, Tanda’s body began to glow with a terrifying, powerful flame. The unsealed power of her Champion class answered the beastkin's fury. The Avenging Flames ignited around her, a manifestation of pure, retributive justice fueled by the death of her ally and friend.

Down in the basin, the Abomination let out a deafening roar. The beast's health plummeted across the seventy-percent threshold, and the dungeon script triggered.

The Carnex Draconid ripped its heavy insectoid legs free from the stunned tanking vanguard, its four massive wings beating with hurricane force as it launched itself toward the vaulted ceiling, hovering far out of melee range.

At the exact same moment, several massive, corrupted geodes in the center of the killbox dropped their protective shields. They began pulsing with a blinding, radioactive violet light, funneling a massive stream of energy directly up to the hovering dragon.

The beast unhinged its jaw, the air warping around its maw as the unavoidable, arena-wiping breath attack began to charge.

“Geodes!” Jake roared, his voice cutting through the chaos, and quickly forming some destructive bolts of his own and launching them as he was able.

Tanda did not need to be told. She stepped up to the edge of the ramp, her Avenging Flames turning her into a black and red avatar of destruction. With a fluid twist of her wrists, her transformative weapon of Cernunnos shifted, elongating into a massive, sickle-like crescent moon halberd covered in deathly flames.

She drew the ambient death energy and the choir's roaring vengeance directly into the blade, locking her Avenging Strike onto the pulsing batteries below.

From the threshold, Jake watched the black-and-red flames reach critical mass. Tartarus wanted a war of attrition, but they had just given Hearthtribe a reason to burn the entire arena down.