Gwen was mid-meditation when the tunnel began to shake like the interior of a maraca.

"Rene!" Tei instantly erected his Dust Tendrils "Lulan!"

"No, wait!" Petra hindered the Magma Mage's Stone Shape. Rene's pause was enough to prove her earlier theory, for though the stones shifted, the tunnel did not collapse.

Still holding her breath, Gwen marvelled at her cousin. "Bloody good call, Pats."

"Earthquake?" Tei furrowed his brows. "Amaru must be 'turning' on the regular if their temples are built to withstand it."

"How long do you think this—"

The ground jolted.

_KE-KE-KE-KAKAKA—!_

The door to the cathedral-cavern slid opened, drowning out all conversation, making a din akin to jousting angle-grinders.

A multitude of gaping mouths, human and demi-human, huffed at one another from across the open space.

"Duleakum ushhuth guntrudeum!" a booming voice erupted where the Chieftain held court. A cauldron of Almudj knew what bubbled atop the raised dais, filling the cavern with a putrid stink.

"Formation C!" Tei bellowed from behind.

But before either side could move, the cavern shifted yet again. The ceiling structure, which had been glowing intensely with crimson moonlight, began to lower, dropping as an inverted pyramid.

_Ka-Kak-Kakaka—KAK!_

A cacophonic crunch of overstressed stone heralded the catastrophic failure of the capstone portion, crashing directly atop the Troll Chieftain and the Arch-Hag's brew. With a great _"Clang!"_ the cauldron tumbled from the Incan pulpit, forming a foul tide.

Hopping mad, the Arch-Hag and her sister dodged the falling debris, rolling and tumbling down the platform's incline. Besides the Trollic witches, it was every Troll for itself. The Chieftain, a tremendously armoured brute with a hawk's nose and forelimbs long enough to drag the floor, fled for cover. His stunned minions were then caught between debris and a hard place, cold-pressed into Troll mince.

"What the hell is going on?!" Gwen commanded her dogs to form a perimeter just outside the gate. "Tei—"

"SKRII! KEKEKEE—!"
"Hiss—SA!"
"KAAAK! KYAA"
"JIIII! Ook! Ook!"

A menagerie of Magical Beasts poured through the ceiling into the sanctum's interior, hanging, tumbling, flying and falling over the sides of the half-broken inverse-pyramid. Those lacking flight or too enraged to realise their predicament fell onto the Troll structures below. The lucky ones landed on the incline, slowing their fall. The unlucky few impaled themselves or were suddenly face-to-face with angry Trolls.

"Look there—!"

Gwen caught sight of Cuzco's Undead Harpy descending with the waterfall of roving, snarling, clawing shapes.

"AEEEEeeee—"

She then saw Musi, covered from chin to shin in wounds, dropping with the Beast Tide. Above the twin spectacles, she caught sight of a glowing Inti, holding back the waterfall.

"I-It's a Beast Tide!" Rene burst out. "It has to be! There's no other explanation for the red moonlight and this many creatures converging on us!"

"Rene, calm yourself." Petra's eyes narrowed. "If this is a Tide, why weren't we told? There's no way the Tower knew nothing."

"Maybe its a part of the test?" Tei attempted a hypothesis.

"Or politics." Petra had seen how the game was played.

"Either way, it's going to take until morning to kill all of this." Lulan wetted her lips. "These are all CCs, right?"

"We should retreat."

"No, we fight."

"It may not be our fight." Petra frowned.

"Tei, what do you think?"

"Hold up," Gwen checked her teammate's enthusiasm for the time being. Now was not the time for in-fighting. Now was time to squeeze out a win. Tapping into her Conjuration Sigil, she called for her Planar Ally. "GOLOS! What the hell is going on out there?!"

"..."

Crickets.

"Idiot!" Gwen ground her teeth. Once they got back, she would have to rip her Wyvern a new one.

"Can't we go back through the tunnel?" Rene's voice grew uncertain, more so when the stream of incoming creatures included among their number everything from poisonous vermin to giant snakes. There was even a Displacer Jaguar.

"Mass Aid!" Petra buffed the party. If they didn't make it through their present crisis, there would be no use for the cubes anyway. "Resist Elements!"

"No. We'll be trapped both ways," Tei refuted Rene's caution. "We need to push our way out."

Lulan materialised her blades, then measured the distance with her eyes. "I can take the Hags if I can get some height."

"!" Gwen sensed a familiar tingle of danger. "Tei! INCOMING!"

"TOMB SHIELD!"

Buck dived in front of Gwen just in time, catching a spear in the chest. The missile travelled clean through the Void hound's body, splintering as it struck Tei's barrier a split-second later.

The sneak attack had come from the anarchic melee. With Fudan's limited field of view, it was impossible to make out what was going on. Even so, at least one troop of Trolls had chosen Fudan for its enemies. The Blood Harpy, conversely and to their surprise, wailed upon the lycanthropic Musi. Up above, Inti spluttering like a flickering bulb, sending a blast below to clear the lesser beasts crowding Musi.

"!"

Gwen's Divination Sigil had been pinging non-stop, but this one struck a four on the Mayuree meter.

"Tei, with me! Everyone else, SCATTER!" Gwen made the call. "Dimension Door!"

A split-second later, necrotic energies engulfed the space where the team had stood, sizzling the granite with foetid black bile.

"The Hags are going to be trouble," Gwen remarked after teleporting herself and their captain to higher ground. When she reappeared, a burst of tenebrous ink from her offensive Dimension Door cleared their landing area of all hostiles. As for survivors, they fell instantly to her faithful hounds. "Tei, can you set up a safe zone?"

"It won't be safe until the casters are silenced." Tei surveyed the battlefield. "We need the Hags removed. Shall we ask Inti to join us?"

Gwen nodded, affirming her captain's command.

"Ariel! Clear a space!" She materialised then transformed her Kirin. With a "EE EE!" a resplendent Ariel unleashed its latent Dragon-fear, abjuring all lesser creatures within a radius of a dozen meters. Those caught within the sorceress and Ariel's consolidated aura either fled, froze, or fainted.

"Gwen!" Petra appeared a second later, utilising one of Gwen's Dimension Doors. With a touch, she buffed both Tei and Gwen with Mage Armour harvested from Anita. "Where's the other two?"

"There!" Gwen's eyes were sharper than most. "I see them!"

Lulan's armour was already in tatters after deflecting half-a-dozen javelins. However, the Troll's interceptions proved no deterrent to the iron-clad battle-maiden as she Misty Stepped into the air to launch her blades against the hated Hags.

_THUNK!_
 _THUNK!_
 _THUNK_
 _P-PANG!_

Across the cavern, a Brutaliser ate her Panzerschrecks, taking two in the chest and one in an outstretched hand, deflecting the final two with its shield, making a mess of beasts caught in the projectiles' path.

Rene meanwhile, had transformed herself into a living battering ram, charging forward like a horizontal meteor, smashing through beasts and Trolls alike, hissing jets of sulphur as she carved out a trail of magma and lava.

"Musi! Retreat!" Inti's voice boomed across the cavern's interior.

A flash of radiance briefly turned the chamber bright as noonday. Inti rained down a volley of radiance, pummelling the Harpy to keep her from Musi.

"Inti! Where's the rest of your team?" Gwen's Message questioned why Cuzco was sans its other members. "Also, why's the damn Harpy attacking your teammate?"

"Someone interfered with Kusi's magic," Inti's voice came across colder than Elemental Ice. "As for the others… They've returned to Cuzco."

"Strewth." Gwen's shock was genuine. "Sorry mate, I hope they're safe."

"I hope they're safe as well," Inti Messaged back, not at all the voice of a man surrounded by raging fauna. "What are your plans?"

"Help us with the Hags. We'll get out together."

"Agreed," Inti replied. "In return, please help Musi. She cannot defeat the Blood Slave."

"Yeah, no kidding." Gwen watched her opponent fighting in her Puma form, bounding from wall to wall to dodge the Blood Harpy's wing scythes. Whenever Musi passed the Harpy's side, a flurry of feathers filled the air, followed by an arc of dark blood. The Harpy, however, paid its injury no mind. Swinging its wings, it appeared fully committed to slicing Musi in half so that it could feast on the Transmuter's entrails. Thus far, a dozen exchanges had transpired, matting her fur with corrupted blood. Were it not for her transformation, Gwen would've guessed that the girl's current complexion was paler than printing paper. "Will do. Tell her not to resist my Dimension Door."

To make good on his promise, Inti marked the two Hags with beams of light. When the Hags responded, one with a curse and the other with the black blood of ruin, Inti erected a unique variant of Shield of Faith, negating both effects.

"Gwen," Tei's voice came from behind, "Wards are done. Waiting on you."

"I need to bring their cat back before she runs out of lives. Pats?"

"No problem. I got restorations and heals by the dozen."

"Alright!" Gwen turned to her dogs. "Everyone, on me!"

"AROOOOO!"
"GUUUARRGH!"

Wolf howls filled the cavern, momentarily drowning out the mayhem.

From the ceiling, new monsters cascaded inward ceaselessly, threatening to drown the chamber if the flow couldn't be checked. Even now, the Trolls fought the Mages; the simians fought the avians; the avians strafed the beasts; while lesser fauna fought each other and everything else, including the undead Harpy in their midst. Meanwhile, the Harpy hunted Musi, harvesting Essence and vitality from creatures dying by the score. Behind the crumbled ziggurat, the Hags fought Inti, and finally, Inti fought the Hags, simultaneously keeping the Soul Slave pinned and the Tide at bay.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Gwen felt her fingers tingle.
In a moment, sans Cuzco, she would fight them all.

A year ago, such a prospect would have seemed absurd, but now, not only did she feel confident, she knew exactly how she could do it. Even in the worst-case scenario, she had contingencies in place to ensure she emerged as the king of the hill.

"Shaa!" Caliban stirred in her Pocket Dimension, prodding its owner, demanding to be born.

Gwen took a deep breath, fighting both vertigo and nausea. If tonight she succeeded, Fudan was off to round two. If she failed, then she would be finding out exactly how much she owed Gunther.

"Astro! Buck! Ariel!" she commanded her minions, concurrently imparting a silent command to Caliban. "Chow time!"

"Track the three from Cuzco," Auberon commanded. "And find the Wyvern."

Auberon had lived through two Beast Tides. His first baptism, like many Magisters his age, was the awakening of the Black Dragon. He had been a young man then, fresh out of Eton and a year into his studies at Oxford. As an inheriting Lord, he had joined the front even before the Queen dipped her quill and called for conscription. In those days, Mages and NoMs fought without the support of Towers and Shielding Stations, leaving few veterans to tell the tale.

The second instance had been in Tripoli. Auberon had served a stint as the city's Paladin, defending the colony against the Mermen of the Mediterranean Sea. The defence he mounted had been successful, and for his efforts, Auberon received a medal and an Order commendation from her Majesty.

Half an hour into the "Beast Tide", Auberon relaxed. From the way the beasts were reacting, he recognised that it wasn't a true Tide. If Magical Beasts attacked one another in a Beast Tide, they wouldn't be half as troublesome.

Considering the circumstances then, the chief proctor congratulated himself on making the right call even with incomplete information. Just now, his suspicion of politicians playing silly buggers was further affirmed by Lucy, whose region-wide Divination pointed to the presence of man-portable Resonators.

What mattered then, was the recovery of Inti, Cuzco's key to future archaeological endeavours— that and the completion of the IIUC match.

"Sir," a proctor interrupted. "I believe subject Golos is using obfuscation magic. I am reading enormous Illusion spikes on the spectrometer."

"Impossible," Auberon snorted. "The brute can't even use Lightning Evocations."

"I believe subject Golos may be using expendable items, Sir."

Auberon knitted his brows. Why did Gwen Song make everything so complicated? "What's the rule for conjured Allies using unregistered items?"

The proctors looked at one another, searching for answers.

"Do Planar Allies come equipped?" another raised a curious point.

The others shrugged.

"Find out what Golos used and log it for CC deductions." Auberon's brows twitched. "What's it doing now?"

"Er...he has wandered out of range just now," the first proctor apologised. "Sorry, sir."

The Baron of Shenfield groaned.

"Sir— Cuzco reports they have received the contestant Kusi, Tupaq and Mallqu. The Sapa has also ordered a mobilisation of his eastern garrison. The Master of the Tower has committed two rapid-response flights. They should be here within half-an-hour. The king's forces will take longer."

"Half-an-hour?!" Auberon snorted. "Bleeding colonials… alright. That's fine. Thank them for their prompt response."

The proctors' minds returned to the grand melee.

Fudan's grave keeper had by now set up a sizeable force barrier, reinforcing his wards with Fudas and additional layers of Abjuration. Rene, who had made a one-woman charge into the Beast Tide now aided the Abjurer by creating a two-metre moat of flowing lava. As for Petra, the Russian Enchantress, she delighted the proctors by simultaneously maintaining a Wall of Water, Crystal and Lightning, forming a concentric ring of death around the Pillars.

"Turtling up during a Beast Tide?" one proctor observed. "Are they fools? How long do they think their mana will last? Retaining one's mobility is the first lesson taught in tactics."

"A curious tactic indeed. Miss Pritchard, are our contestants aware that Inti's father has summoned his Mage Flights?"

"No, sir."

"And yet they're preparing a final defence?" Auberon cocked his chin. "Where's our Void Sorceress?"

"She's fighting the Soul Slave, sir." A proctor manipulated the central vid-caster.

"My word, that's Kilroy's Dimension Door, isn't it?" A British Magister adjusted his spectrometric lens. "AND her creatures trigger the secondary effect? What's the girl's VMI?"

"Just over three hundred." One of the proctors cited from memory.

"That's more than mine," a Magus-proctor sulked.

"Lord Shultz did vouch for the girl," Auberon reminded them before exploding with a "Golly— Well done!"

On the screen, Gwen Song materialised with her dogs, instantly paralysing the Soul Slave with ten consecutive blasts from her Dimension Door. The joint lightning strike wasn't fatal, but it was enough to clear the space between Musi and the Harpy.

"Lightning Bolt!"

Impressively, between the sorceress and the Kirin above, three bolts crisscrossed with the Blood Harpy as the locus. Where the spells conjoined, the scarlet-winged cadaver transformed into a being of pure plasma.

"KREEE!" the Soul Eater keened, pulling at the Mages' Astral Souls, hoping to stun the sorceresses.

Its targets, however, were long gone. What was left was only a pack of Void Hounds, hungrily eyeing the half-cooked hen in their midst. Beings without souls and possessed only of insatiable appetites, "Buck" and his pack boxed in the wary Soul Eater, leering at its Essence-rich flesh.

"KREEEEAAA!"

With a grand sweep of its wings, the Soul Eater drove the deerhounds back, taking to the air.

_TISSS!_

A timely divine punishment from Inti sent the Harpy reeling back to earth. Snarling with sadistic delight, the Void dogs closed in, tearing at the Harpy's throat, its limbs, its arms and wings.

"KREEEEAAA!" the creature keened. Though each bite could only damage a portion of the Blood Slave's reinforced flesh, what was taken no longer regenerated. In seconds, the seemingly unstoppable Soul Eater became buried under a roving mass of undulating dogs.

"Horrible…" A female proctor wrung her hands. "My God! She's going for the Hags!"

After depositing the half-drained Musi within the safe zone set up by her team, Fudan's sorceress reappeared amidst the Troll camp, right behind the Arch-Hag and her minions.

Auberon found it impressive that the teleport had been timed with Inti's Radiant Blast.

With the lightning sorceress' arrival, the area instantly electrified, stunning all but the gigantic Brutalisers. A second invocation issued from the girl's petal-lips, enveloping her foes with twin sets of Chain Lightning.

Auberon's mood rose and fell.

The assault should have been enough, but the Hags were cunning beings who had survived for centuries in a region where might makes right. Even as the livid plasma seared their infected skin, the curse of Kernunno, the dark God of the Deep Woods, left the Hags' pestilent tongues to bewitch Fudan's sorceress. Against all their expectations, the Hags had been neither stunned nor beaten. They had instead been waiting for an opportunity.
The Brutalisers moved in.

_THUNK!_
 _THUNK! CLANG!_
 _THUNK! CLANG!_
Missiles from across the room sank into the Troll bodyguards' bodies.

_TSSS!_
 _TSSSTH!_
Beams of sunlight struck the apathetic hulks, failing to overcome their resistance.

"Arrrgh!"
Fudan's sorceress fell onto one knee, guarded by an agitated Kirin. Her complexion grew instantly pale, indicating that at least one curse had caught the sorceress unaware. In one exchange, from an avatar of lightning and destruction, Gwen Song had transformed into a mewling, defenceless young woman.

"Poor lass." A proctor winced when the sorceress' eyes rolled back. "Too hasty, that's inexperience for you—"

A semi-dome Void Shield sprang into place. The girl wasn't out of commission yet.

"What? How is she—"

"SHUT UP!" Auberon snapped. "Keep the instruments attuned! What's she saying?"

The Eye of Providence attempted and failed to penetrate the Void barrier, though it was capable of picking up the subtle vibrations on its surface.

"Turn up the volume." Auberon furrowed his brows.

"…vee… ve…"

"What is that?" A Proctor found the glyph to clarify sonic projections. "I think it's a ritual of sorts."

The chant grew clearer.

"Evee…Evee Evee Evee EVEE…"

The proctors fell silent, not only because of the nonsensical mantra but also because of the planar tear that had just appeared atop Gwen Song's Void Shield. Soundlessly, the slit opened; an all-consuming eye staring into the Material Realm.

"SHAA! SHAA!" came a horrid screech that rocked the barracks, splitting their ears, announcing the arrival of imminent oblivion.

Inti wished Tica was here with him.

Whenever he felt down or that the burden of the kingdom was too much, her soft voice and wise advice comforted him. Now that she was away, he began to realise just how much he missed and needed his better half.

"RADIANT STRIKE!" Inti gestured with his right while his left hand dextrously completed the necessary incantations.

When the Rite of Dusk and Dawn activated, the prince of Cuzco had received the collated Faith the temple had gathered within its mystical circuits. His only regret was that after so long, the Rite's energies were long exhausted.

The disaster thus far had been one serendipitous event after another. If Cuzco hadn't been ambushed; if Kusi hadn't lost control of her Undead; if it weren't the full moon; then he would have never activated the Temple of Mama Killa.

Just as well, when his companions had been overwhelmed, what Inti felt wasn't regret, but relief.

Relief that he was alone.
Relief that he was no longer responsible for their safety.
Relief that his decisions were finally his own.

"Solar Blast!" Inti carefully portioned his mana, using just enough to keep the Hags stunned and on the defensive. When Gwen made good on her word to rescue Musi, Inti extended his artillery support, hammering down the Undead slave so that her aberrant dogs succeeded in their monstrous labour.

Soon, the Soul Eater perished.
Inti felt a moment of exhilaration.
Was it strange that he preferred working with Fudan? There was great satisfaction when objective, action, and skill fitted like a well-cut puzzle. From his vantage, Gwen's Dimension Doors were easy to follow, for her lightning novas made her whereabouts self-evident. When furthermore the sorceress unleashed a torrent of lightning to encircle the Hags, Inti matched her spell for spell.

"ARRRGH!" the girl unexpectedly reeled, falling to the floor.

A curse! Inti swore. Lacking the ability to read magic, he could only predict the Hags' actions based on their body language. In that regard, the creatures' low cunning had deceived them all.

He must save her! An urgent desire flashed through Inti's mind, though before he could move, a cynical voice interceded. Guiltily, Inti wondered if the Void Sorceress's loss meant that his team could still win in the competition. After all, between Kusi and himself, they had subjugated almost a thousand Harpies.

Below, a Void Shield sprang up where the girl had stood.
She didn't need his help.

Paying no heed to Inti's dilemma, a slit opened mid-air, filling the cavern with an aura of vertigo.

Soundlessly, the Void vomited forth a fiend more terrible than Amaru itself.

Inti shuddered, realising that he would never want to be the girl's enemy, not now, not ever, not so long as her sweet body drew breath.

The proctors fell into a dumb silence.

A faceless head emerged, bullet-shaped and armoured in transparent obsidian, beneath which a writhing mass of tentacles was just visible.
Soon, a second phallic appendage emerged.
Then a third.
And a fourth.
A fifth.
The violence in the cavern slowed as all eyes fell upon the emerging beast. Even partially emerged, the fiend's aura was enough to drain the choler from the frenzied combatants.

"SHAA!"

The final head emerged, totalling six as it made a sound like the tearing silk.

A bulbous, elongated body followed; legless so that the faceless Naga resembled a fat slug, its semi-transparent torso filled with alien, irrelevant organs. It's rear followed after what seemed an eternity, stretching the creature twenty meters from tip to tail.

"SHAA! SHAA!" The leading head split open, revealing a dozen lamprey-lipped tentacles, tasting the air for prey.

"SHAA! SHAA! SHAA! SHAA!" The others quickly followed, their faces splitting from bullet-head to neck-shaft so that when it once again began to slither, the Void Naga resembled a roving, ravenous mass of malicious mouths.

The first Troll to make a move was a Brutaliser. Hoisting its shield and club, it charged the mass of tentacles, diving into a sea of lamprey-lips.

_SQUELCH_!

The massive Troll succeeded in penetrating the Naga-slug's armour, crushing the smooth obsidian as it barrelled into Caliban's side.

Two hundred kilometres from the site of the fiend's manifestation, Auberon felt a chill.

"Gulelush! Gulelush gloguth! Glogother!" the seemingly indestructible Troll howled, its body language suddenly terrified.

Where the Troll had made a man-sized wound in Caliban's flank, two dozen thigh-thick intestines came to life. With a sick sibilance of squirming and slithering, the tentacles enveloped the howling brute, resembling a mass of pallid worms.

Back in the proctor's barracks, the reticence was punctuated only by the whining emitted by Divi-engines. The Brutaliser's skin was dense, its armour formed of hardened hide, but even so, the Troll possessed many orifices that did not enjoy the protection of its ritually enhanced body.

Behind the first, the second Brutaliser dropped its shield. From its expression, the proctors witnessed that a hysterical madness had snapped its sanity.

"Ulubag!" the giant turned from the writhing mass of hunger, then fled toward some distant corner, crushing fellow Trolls and Wildland fauna alike.

_TSSS_!

The prince of Cuzco took the opportunity to strike the Hags again, stunning them even as Caliban approached.

By now, Gwen's dogs appeared to have recovered as well. The Lightning hounds guarded their mistress while the Void hounds, having finished the Soul Eater, closed in from all sides.

Auberon checked the secondary projection centred on Fudan's Ace. Despite the spectacle, her biometrics indicated a semi-conscious delirium. He frowned. If the girl was senseless, how was she controlling her Familiars?

Meanwhile, the bare-breasted Hags shrugged off the spells wearing away at their blood-caked hides, even now smoking with Inti's holy fire and Gwen's punishing lightning.

The Arch-Hag muttered, then raised both hands in the air. A visible source of vitality suffused the Hag's body as she drained the life from her fleeing bodyguard. Her wounds instantly healed, as did that of her companion. Like an epidemic, the vital energy spread from Troll to Troll, dispensing her blessing to her followers, restoring and reinvigorating her kin.

Not far, the Troll Chieftain tore away a massive green-iron blade embedded in its navel. Now invigorated, it caught its Sword Mage assailant by surprise, walloping her across the torso. Though the Chieftain broke its club in the process, the riposte was enough to send Lulan across the room to crater the granite.

"ULOAR!" The Chieftain's bulk doubled. The bark armour it wore seemed to grow as well, enveloping the Troll leader's body.

"Glogzag dol-in, dol-ilrag ushhesuth guntruders! Guoum Kernunno!"

"ULOAR!" The surviving Warriors, their bodies wet with gore, raised their weapons. "Kernunno! Kernunno! Kernunno!"

The Warband had been riled up.

"Sir…" a young Magus chose this moment to carefully raise an arm, unsure if this was the best time to speak.

"What is it?" Auberon spoke without moving his eyes.

"Lord Lucas…" the Magus gulped. "Her Wyvern's back, but it's not alone."


The curse was proving to be most potent.
Caught in its power, she was sans sight, sans taste, sans smell and sans touch. She couldn't even orientate herself, tell which way was up.

"Evee Evee Evee EVEE!"

But— she could hear herself think, and that was the important thing.

Compared to her previous affliction, the Arch-Hag's spell was perfect, for it made Gwen face a prospect she loathed more than any other, her overactive imagination.

"Just know that curses, illusions and Enchantments aren't all-powerful," she recalled Petra's advice. "You can skirt around them through discipline and distraction. The first thing they teach in mental domination is how to resist total incapacitation."

Discipline wasn't her forte, but presently, she had distractions plenty.

_Evee..._ she calmed herself. _El-Vee-Ya._

With a silent word, she activated a Void variant of Gunther's Shield. Then, calmly absorbing the dogged vitality of the Soul Eater, she let loose Caliban.

Her feverish mind cooled.
Her mana conduits grew hot and cold. Despite the induced sensory oblivion of the curse, her empathic links activated.

"Evee..."

After that, she connected Link Sight via Ariel.

A wide-angle vista of her present surroundings came into focus.
She couldn't see, but she was no longer senseless. Ariel provided sight through its sky-blue orbs, while Caliban's mass of feelers gave her more tactile sense than was proper for a mortal woman.

A few seconds later, the hallucination ramped up its intensity. As anticipated, Elvia's angelic face appeared, begging for release from torturous agony. Taking Petra's advice, she instead channelled her misery into happy thoughts.

_Evee awaits in London!_ Gwen told herself. _All I have to do is WIN._

Her sanity thus preserved, she set to work. First, the guards had to go. The elemental resistance of the Hags was outrageous, while their guards deterred physical attacks.

"Cali! Get rid of the Brutalisers!"

As if on command, one of her targets chose suicide by Caliban.

"Consume!"

The Brutalisers screamed for sweet death. Caliban burped. The other brute, smarter than the average Troll, turned and fled.

Ariel took to the air, broadening her view of the battle.

Seeing herself shielded in a vitality-fed Void egg, Gwen wondered whether she resembled a budget-Sobel. From the sky, she could also see the Hags empowering the horde of Trolls, riling up the crowd to rail against Caliban.

_THUNK!_
 _WHAM!_
 _PLAT!_

Thrown weapons crunched against Caliban's body, making holes the size of sewer covers. A few may have struck her egg, for she felt her vitality fluctuate. Anticipating the payoff from the Brutaliser, however, Gwen welcomed the abuse, hoping that she could dispense enough to keep herself on her feet.

"SHAA!" Caliban slithered toward the topless Hags.

The Hag hollered, quickly retreating. The rest of the Trolls converged on her lumbering fiend.

_Thwack!_
 _THUNK!_

Her semi-dome rippled like an obsidian pudding, consuming both metal and wood, dropping her vitality just a smidgen.

"Caliban!"

"SHAAA!"

_A buffet!_ Her fiend seemed to be saying.
Still, she should first stun the Hags.

"Ariel! Barbanginy!"

Sparks flew, her Kirin lit up the room. An incandescent Lighting Sphere blossomed where the two Hags retreated toward the Chieftain, catching all three within the plasma ball's expanding circumference.

With Ariel-VR as her point of view, Gwen marvelled at the sight of her lightning-nova rolling over the Beast Tide in a text-book display of wide-area bombardment.

"ASTRO! BUCK!"

Her packs spread out, keeping the Trolls penned as Caliban shot forward like a fat pilum, propelled by its Golos-sized body. Rearing, her Naga's necks distended, suddenly doubling or tripling in length so that its tentacle shower descended from above.

_TSSSTH!_

A beam of radiance made the Hag stumble.

The Troll witch screamed just once before it was consumed, despairing as her black blood harmlessly slid from Caliban's carapace. The second faired a little longer, for the Troll Chieftain had reached its side.

_PANG!_
 _PANG!_
 _PUNG!_
 _TSSS!_

Three heart-seekers from Lulan, now freed from her melee against the trolls, knocked the Chieftain aside, the first catching the giant in the thigh, then the second in its shield and the third against the side of its armoured head. As a follow-up, a Radiant Glyph turned the Chieftain's bark-helmet red-hot, filling the air with the stink of sizzling flesh.

Caught off-balance, the Chieftain stumbled just enough so that Caliban's trajectory remained true. Its lamprey-tongues descended from above, swallowing the Arch-Hag in a shower of pink-tentacles, drowning the maleficient caster in a torrent of corrosive, void-tinged goo.

Caliban's remaining heads turned to face the Chieftain.

The Troll leader visibly gulped. Gwen wondered if Trolls could sweat, for the Chieftain was drenched enough to slip from its armour and make a run for it.

"SHAA! SHAA! SHAA!" Caliban's happy heads hissed in tandem as two gravid bulbs, kicking amidst futile bouts of necrotic energy, travelled down its serpentine necks toward its torso.

Even armoured, Gwen could see that the Chieftain fought an intense inner-battle.

_Ah, the problem with sapience,_ Gwen empathised with the beast. Cognisance brought all kinds of troubles, like hopeless despair.

If the Chieftain had been a mindless beast; if it could rage against Caliban until its blood ran dry, then she may very well suffer a pyrrhic victory. But now, the Troll's leader feared its indomitable foe, not only impacting the morale of its clanmates but dooming them to become Void fodder.

Caliban swallowed its prey.

Evee's crying face faded.
Gwen's soul returned to her body.

Within the recess of her Void Shield, there was no exterior source of light. What little illumination she possessed came from the Ioun Stones and the concentric rings of electricity shed by her cobalt irises.

"Shaa!" Caliban's belly rumbled.
"EE!"
"Grruuugn!"
"Woof, Woof!"

Her menagerie welcomed the return of their mistress. A Wyvern was missing, but that was an absence she would address in time.

Gingerly, aided by her barrier, Gwen rose from the cold granite floor.

"Cali, everyone, good work," she commended her minions. "Let's finish up."

She had at best a few minutes before the combined assault from a Brutaliser and two Essence-infused Hags saturated her physical and Astral Body. One was a substitute for Nephres, three would surely blow her top.

"Tei. Keep everyone behind the barrier. When my Swarm starts, you're going to be swarmed."

"Will do," Tei's voice returned from her Message bangle. "Welcome back, Vice-Captain."

"Thanks, Cap. Pats, I may need a modesty barrier if my shield fails."

"Got it covered," Petra replied.

"Lulu, are you alright?" Gwen had seen Lulan's incapacitation through her Ariel Vision.

"Nothing's broken." Lulan's raspy voice was like sandpaper. "Leave the Chieftain to me. I want its head."

"Alright, take care," Gwen relayed Lulu's desire to Caliban.

"Inti." She then switched channels. "I am going to use Void Swarm to finish things, how's it looking on your end?"

"The Hags are dealt with?" Inti's tone quickly regained its usual calm. "Thank the sun for that. The Beast Tide is stemming, as far as I can see. I'll be able to manage my end from here."

"Good work and great news." Gwen thanked her lucky stars. "Looks like we're almost home free."

"Indeed." The prince wasn't very good at hiding his emotions. "Thank you for staying with us. Miss Song, had you not been here, we would have been wiped out and disgraced, in our own country, no less."

"No worries, bud," Gwen chuckled. "It was the right thing to do."

"Gwen," Inti's reply was rich with gratitude. "You are a better person than I."

"Aww, chin up." Gwen hung the call, then prepared herself. As of now, she could sense the latent vitality in Caliban's engorged body. In the next minute, when the South China sea flooded her Tonglv, she wouldn't want to be without a proverbial release valve. "Okay, I am starting."

Her hands made the necessary somatic gestures taught to her by Henry and improved by Petra's Master. Her lips dextrously formulated the incantations, biting each arcane syllable with precision. Opening her conduits and allowing the flood of Void-tinged mana to course through her body, she willed into place the tiny portals that connected the Quasi-Elemental Plane of the Void and the material world.

"Shaa—Shaa—aa—Shaa…"

"SHAA! SHAA!" Caliban exalted as its brethren joined the fray.

Through Ariel, Gwen watched her performance.
Below, in an enclosed cavern boiling over with beasts and demi-humans, a dark egg of Void gave birth to an endless multitude of slithering lampreys, migrating from the spherical locus in an all-consuming, ever-hungry tide.

As though shifting schools of baitfish, the Magical Creatures trapped within the cavern fled the advancing swarm of slithering mouths. Trolls scrambled past anacondas and hogs to climb at the walls. Lesser creatures sought out higher ground, seeking to escape the glistening, slimy, insatiable shoal.

Fudan's Mages kept at their posts, drinking mana potions, burning Fudas and spell cubes as wave upon waves of desperate things crashed against their barrier. Monsters and animals numberless and many-limbed, snarling with fury or mad with terror, fell into the lava moat, got caught between the Walls of Fire and Water, or tangled themselves in Dust Tendrils.

While Caliban stood guard, understanding that further action on its part would only complicate its mistress' plans, Gwen's hounds pursued the Chieftain, directing its escape so that it fled toward the tunnel from which Fudan had arrived.

And at its destination, an iron-clad maiden awaited with her dancing swords, bruised and battered but undefeated, thirsty for its green blood.

Gwen rejoiced, expending her influx of vitality. It was a moment worthy of exaltation, for she did not doubt that after a public display such as this, she would have proven to the world her control over the Void.

"!"

Her Divination tinged, registering a five on the Mayuree meter.

A bone-chilling cold held her hostage. Gwen wanted to act but was held in place by her channelling of the Void Swarm.

"CALAMITY!"

Gwen's Conjuration Sigil pulsed.

"CALAMITY!" Golos' bark was worse than an air siren. "HELP!"

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Outside the shadowy silhouette of the temple, Hardin Smith dumbly recorded the proceeding, numbed by the events.

With a record of Inti's survival in hand, he was safe from demotion.
Any superior who wasn't an idiot could see that the Void Sorceress and her six-prong slug was a solid alibi. Potentially, the unedited, uncut, first-hand account may even earn Hardin a reward, assuming the data reached the right hands.

Hardin wasn't a vain man, nor was he one to be hung on failure.
Shit happened, and it should come as no surprise when it hit the fan in a place like Amazonia; especially when a bona fide Void sorceress was involved.

After all, it wasn't as though Hardin hadn't performed to his usual standard. He had scouted the region for Amaru, recovered relics for his clients and even secured a second temple. Then, he had planted Resonators, disabled the Necromancer's monsters, and triggered a faux Beast Tide - all the while remaining undetected.

If there was another operator in Dark Water who could perform better, Hardin was happy to apprentice under the man or woman for a year.

Hardin sighed; either way, with the Troll-eater rampaging below, he was done.
It was time to leave.

"KAAK! KA-KAAA!"
"KAA!"
"KAA-KAAK!"

"CALAMITY! LETOCOLO!!"

A trio of crow-cries, interceded by what sounded like Draconic, drew his goggles toward the sky.

Hardin's jaws dropped as the spectacle above unfolded.

A Thunder Wyvern— Fudan's Wyvern, was rapidly descending from the moonlit sky in the manner of a silvery-dark comet.

The silvery "tail" of the comet consisted of the Wyvern itself, its wings folded and its clubbed tail whipping the wind. The black "head" portion of the comet was, to Hardin's renewed capacity for surprise, one of those human-faced birds from the Wall of Wood the locals called "the Ancients". While falling with style, the Guardian's distended jaws latched around the Wyvern's breast, a terrible choice for the fact that the armour there was the thickest. Despite a lame wing flapping at the joint, the bird's hand-claws scraped at the Wyvern's belly, making a mess of the lizard's undersides.

Hardin counted the seconds it took for the duo to strike the top of the temple, where a hole had prior been made by the Beast Tide.

_CRASH!_

The top-most portion collapsed from the collision, falling through the Sanctum of the Sun into the Moon Sanctum's midst.

"KAAK!"
"KAA-KAA!!"
Turning in a gyre, the second Ancient swooped in, sleek as a bolt.

The third was intercepted by a blast of sunlight, sending it crashing into the interior.

Hardin's heart fluttered with hope. Was this Inti's Blessing or what?
Adjusting his Scrying device, Hardin charged up his optic camouflage, then detached from the tree, transforming into a wisp of wind as he made for the entrance. Right now, Cuzco's idiot prince was helping Fudan fight the big birds!

Glyphs glowed, then faded from view.

Hardin's suit whirled into action, activating a suite of enchantments designed for obfuscation. He had one chance, one strike— then no matter the result, he was home free.

Inti counted the monsters by his side, most of which, by his standards, where harmless critters forming the bottom half of Amazonia's food chain. Having promised Gwen that he would stem the tide, he had kept up Radiant Blast until the stench of smoking flesh smothered the sanctum.

"KAAK!"
"KAA! KAA!"

Came the sound of strange cries from above.

Harpies? Inti wondered, or overlarge crows or condors, both of which were common in the Andes.

"CALAMITY! LETOCOLO!!"

The voice that boomed against the temple was familiar to Inti. He could make out the first nonsensical word, but what was the other? "Let go?"

His confusion lasted a second, for the mounting repression from Golo's Dragon-fear told Inti the drake was rapidly descending toward the temple.

Inti readied a Blink.

_CRASH!_

The ancient, inter-slotted stonework that held the temple's uppermost tier exploded, showering the combatants below with yet more crushing debris. Among the chaos was Golos, a blaze of lightning, while held in its claws was the strangest bird Inti had ever seen.

"Kaak!" The avian coughed up lungfuls of blood, painting Golos half-way crimson. From what Inti could make out, the aberrant bird had a human face on a condor's body. Grotesquely, its feet were human hands tipped with scimitar-like claws.

A thunderous fulmination engendered, then the two struck the chaotic pool of combat below, landing not far from where Gwen had constructed a dark egg of sorts, splashing into a river of obsidian lampreys.

"LOREAT!" Golos barked, blasting the thing in the face with a breath of pure plasma, causing one of its eyes to boil in its socket. Exultant, Golos caught the creature in its jaws, then with a great tug, ripped out its oesophagus— tubes, vessels, ligaments and all.

"OPSOLA! Si tepoha authot coi!" Golos howled, blasting stabs of lighting all over. "ROAR!"

Below its claws, a river of eels washed over Golos' still-quivering prey.

"KAA—KAAK!"

A dark shadow descended, reminding Inti of his promise to Gwen— that he would hinder the tide of creatures coming in so that she could finish up below. Two birds were excessive, but one wasn't an impossible task.

"Sol Strike!" Inti waited for the last beast to dive before he directed a spell to turn its trajectory. Unlike the first two, this one was smaller and possessed a feminine profile, appearing as the weakest of the three.

"KAAA!"

Inti's aim stayed true, for his Radiant magic had little if no travel time, always landing precisely where its caster aimed.

"Come! Foul beast!" Inti rose into the air, engaging his faith-empowered flight. "By the Sun, let me be your opponent."

"Kaak!" His challenger emerged from the rubble, its face a mask of unadulterated fury. Like its larger counterpart, the gentler specimen was an ugly thing, possessed of sharp and angular features that resembled a Hag's. From the side, the fiend's hooked nose appeared cruel like that of a beak, while its snarling lips revealed rows of dagger-teeth yellow with tartar.

"Radiant Bolt!" Inti opened with his quickest skill to gauge the bird's resistance. As a general rule, higher-tier creatures possessed various forms of quasi-immunity, some more explicit than others. Radiance, for instance, worked well against Negative beings like the Undead, as well as Water and Ice Elementals. Against variations of Earth, however, as well as things wrought of fire, his firepower waned.

The bird retaliated, but not before its face broke out in boils.

“KEEEEEAAAAAAAAK—!!!”

Inti hadn't anticipated a sonic-attack.

As the sound struck, the interior of the sanctum resonated with the creature's wails, catching him unaware and off-balance.

"Shield of Faith!" Inti instantly erected a semi-rigid barrier imbued with golden strands of faith-infused mana. He quickly recovered even as visible cracks spread from the base of his wall.

Like a stalking raptor, the bird lowered its head and began to charge.

Inti fortified his conduits with a surge of mana, taking advantage of the hyper-clarity conveyed by the Potion of Heroism. While the potion was active, he wouldn't panic, and all feelings of fear and danger dulled.

The prince of Cuzco waited until he could smell the bird's foulness before Blinking behind his assailant.

"Radiant Strike!"

A sizzling array of dancing lights toasted its crow-black feathers. When the spell ceased, the prince was dismayed to find that the beast remained unscathed.

"Just the face, huh?" Inti muttered to himself, readying a follow-up.

Sure enough, the creature turned, leading another attack with its head. Unfazed, Inti kited the thing around the spacious room, watching it kick and trip over the corpses filling the sanctum, wondering how Fudan was fairing with their alpha-specimen.

"That Wyvern is the most counter-productive Ally I have ever seen," Auberon critiqued sullenly. "It's inefficiency is such that I want to deduct CCs from Fudan for the simple fact of possessing such a useless thing."

"It just slew one of the dragon-eating birds, Auberon," a Magister pointed out. "That's plenty impressive to me."

"It LED the Dragon-eaters to Fudan's party!" Auberon ground his teeth. "It brought THREE enemies that are at least its match, into an IIUC match, while its owner was incapacitated and may very well still be incapacitated! The match was almost over! Finished!"

"Inti appears to be doing well." A Magus' fingers danced across the instruments. "Maybe the birds are not that strong?"

"Lord knows how strong they are." Auberon watched the screen with a complicated expression. "They haven't existed in Europe since forever."

"The Chinese say that the last one perished in a stew."

"A what?" Auberon turned to the cheeky Magus.

"A stew, sir." The Magus sweated. "In popular legend, the Yellow Emperor cooked the last Big Bird in a big pot, then he and his dragon-allies ate it. That would have been at least two-and-a-half thousand years ago. Maybe when this is all over, we can cook one ourselves."

"And follow the footsteps of Meister Darwin," another Magister joked. "Sir Darwin never catalogued a single Magical Creature without tasting it first."

A few of the proctors laughed to break the tension. Initially, with the Beast Tide receding, the atmosphere had relaxed— but then Golos had arrived, bringing its crow-black omen.

Auberon grunted.

"Lucy, what's the ETA on Cuzco's Mages?"

"Ten minutes, sir. They passed Amazonia's teleportation circle a few minutes ago."

"How many?"

"Two Flights, Ten military Mages, one Magister."

"Which one?"

"Magister Orccosupa, he is the Security Chief overseeing Lima."

Auberon nodded. It wasn't anyone he knew personally.

"The Sapa's forces are another thirty-minutes out. There's four flights, Twenty Mages, one Magister. Magistrate Huaman Yupanqui leads them."

"Tica's father?" Inti raised a brow.

"Yessir."

"And what of Amaru Paullu-Yupanqui?" Auberon asked after the Tower Master.

"He says he is tending to the wounded students."

"SIR!" The Magus overseeing Inti projected his screen without permission. "It's happening again! The intruder is here!"

Overhead, the vid-cast showed Inti tussling with a female bird-thing. Having sustained significant injuries to its face, it was hopping mad as it fought the prince of Cuzco.

"There!" the Magus pointed to the screen where the spectrometry for Illusion shot to tier 6.

In the next moment, Inti fired off a spell that connected with the wall, fumbling the spell entirely. Not one to miss an opportunity, the dragon-eater caught the prince by the right arm, grabbing Inti by the shoulder.

Inti blinked, looking surprised, then screamed blue murder as blunt, yellow incisors cut into his flesh.

"BLOODY HELL!" Auberon swore. Inti was done. The boy's ring would soon activate. "FIND THAT SIGNAL!"

The chief proctor looked to the diagnostic screen, then paused when the familiar burst of quicksilver failed to materialise.

"Why isn't his Contingency activating?" Auberon knitted his brows as Inti howled, fastened between the monster's sadistic lips as it tossed him like a lettuce leaf. With evident cunning, the bird rotated its head like that of an owl, severing Inti's arm. "Jesus! What the hell is happening?"

Inti slammed against the wall, sending a cascade of tiles to descend upon his mangled body.

In the bird's mouth, the Contingency Ring activated.

"It sent back the arm?" Auberon spluttered. "THE FUCKING ARM?!"

A Magister winced. "Poor bugger. I rather liked the boy."

"His vitals are falling fast!" The Magus in charge of Inti hammered on the reading. "Sir! Can we help—"

Auberon shut the Magus with a gesture, his mind furiously filtering the potential outcomes. There was a play here, one only the chief proctor could make. Follow the competition's rules? Or to act in the Mageocracy's best interest? A wrong move meant Auberon would lose his accreditation, but with the right outcome, even an out-and-out violation was lauded as wisdom. Auberon glanced at the other screens, watching Fudan's Mages. Golos had brought the birds, meaning its owner was to blame. "Magus Evans, patch me to Fudan's sorceress."

"Done."

Though it would count against neutrality, Auberon persisted in hijacking the Panopticon Glyph inscribed upon the contestant's Astral Souls.

"Gwen Song," the chief proctor spoke quickly and calmly, leaving the choice to the girl. "Inti is on the upper level and near death. You've got ten seconds until he's bird feed."

"Wha—" came the confused reply.

Auberon closed the circuit. Any more interference would bring the competition's vigour into question.

"Sir." The Magus staring at Inti's fading vitals retrieved a Long-Range Message device from beside the Divi-Engine. "Cuzco's Tower Master wants to know why Inti's arm just teleported into his medical bay."

Golos landed with his prey in a pool of Gwen's lampreys, sending two dozen of her fattest specimens back into the Void.

Gwen winced, but that was fine. She had resources to burn and countless worms to spawn. When the vitality had knotted her innards, filling her with nauseating pleasure, she had instantly popped out some five-hundred eels. The Hags weren't anything to scoff at either, generating at least a thousand between the two. Now, she waited for the lampreys to feast, self-multiplying as the temple cleared.

Her mind, in spite of eye-rolling waves of orgiastic pleasure, had retained control— until the moment she recognised what Golos had caught.

_A Da-Peng?!_ Within the recess of her Void egg, Gwen rioted.

Ten thousand llamas danced across the foothills of her dopamine-mad brain, blowing on Peruvian pan-flutes.

"GOLOS! YOU DRACONIC-TARD!" she sprayed her Ally from crown to tail. "For fuck's sake, why are you doing this?! We're almost done! Some of us are fucking OoM! And you bring us a bloody Da-Peng?"

The Wyvern responded by maiming the screeching Da-Peng in a fantastic display of ultraviolence, making such a show of the kill that she wondered if an announcement-banner with "When Dragons Ruled the Earth!" was about to flutter from the ceiling amidst a sudden fanfare of trumpets.

Gurgling blood, the Da-Peng expired.

Gwen felt an unmentionable part of her anatomy unclench.
Refocusing her mind, she willed the black river toward the fallen Da-peng, ensuring that its vitality didn't go to waste. Grudgingly she acknowledged that at least the Wyvern wiped its arse.

"KAAK!"

As if in mockery, the silhouetted shape of a condor blotted out the scarlet moonlight.

Still borrowing Ariel's eyes, she saw a second Da-Peng enter the fray, bigger and meaner than the first, its expression leaving no doubt as to its inclination for violence. Surveying the interior, the bird turned its attention toward the hissing Caliban.

"Golos, you piece of shit!" Gwen's ire re-ignited, she was so upset that her breathing grew ragged. "You flying turd!"

"Kaa! KA—!"

A third Da-Peng attempted entry, only to be intercepted by a blast of radiance to the face.

"Inti, you beauty!" Gwen exalted, wishing she could summon Inti as a Planar Ally for five grand a pop. "Be careful!"

"Gwen, leave the Swarm and get back here!" Tei grew paranoid. They had all seen what the Da-Peng could do from their last bout. No matter the rigidity of her Void Shield, a good squeeze may very well turn her into Gwen-pâté.

"We'll use the same tactic!" Petra's voice followed. "Get it within twenty meters of us, and we'll disable it with Bilby. Lulu should be done with the Chieftain soon!"

"WOOF! WOOF!" Her hounds bayed at the flying beast, knowing they were out-matched.

"KAAA—AAAK!" Perhaps it was the vitality Caliban possessed, or its draconic-essence, or its serpentine form, or the fact that six heads were screaming "Shaa-Shaa!" the Da-Peng descended on her Familiar.

"Cali! Consume!" Gwen concurrently willed the swarm to move toward the Da-Peng. If they could keep it pinned and immobile, her lampreys may also suffice.

About ten meters from Caliban's coiled body, the Da-Peng suddenly changed trajectories. Instead of diving into Caliban, it swooped upwards.

Caliban followed, its serpentine necks swimming upwards to catch its ascending prey.

"KAK!"

A burst of mana blew from the Da-Peng's wings. Within the space of a few meters, the buffeting gale turned into a mass of scything feathers.

"SHAA!" Caliban reeled, torn open by a thousand cuts. In the blink of an eye, the bird's assault de-gloved Caliban's exterior armour.

"CALI!?" Gwen was in shock, both from the vitality her pet demanded to repair itself and the fact that her Familiar had been pushed back by a single ability. "Shit! Dodge!"

Caliban turned its bleeding body even as the Da-Peng wheeled around to strike at its side. In its Naga form, Caliban's agility couldn't hope to match an Elemental beast of Air.

"KAAA!" The Big Bird made its first pass, its fingered claws grasping at Caliban's pliant, sluggish body.

"SHAA!" Caliban didn't feel pain, but it's master did, vividly so when linked through their empathic bond. In one strike, the Da-Peng had snatched up a portion of Caliban's flesh, crushing two fistfuls of writhing flesh. After it passed, Caliban's sleek form became unmistakably mangled, bleeding grey goo and vomiting the odd tentacle, appearing as though an obscene fountain.

"EE! EE!" Ariel demanded to be let loose, but Gwen held her Kirin back.

"We're going to Tei's!" she recalled Petra's advise. "Cali! Use your—"

_DING!_

A Message spell of the highest tier played itself against her ears.

"Auberon?"

"Gwen Song." The chief proctor's voice came across without emotion. "Inti is on the upper level and near death. You've got ten seconds until he's bird feed."

Gwen spluttered. "Wha—"

The Message died.

The Da-Peng circled, returning to 'finish' Caliban.

"Gwen! Get back in here!" Her teammates' voices hollered in her ear. "It's coming!"

Gwen dispelled her Void Shield.
Her Essence-infused eyes searched the sanctum above.
A Da-peng stalked within, cackling cruelly at an unseen victim.
Now, she had a choice to make, and a split-second with which to make it.


"Dimension Door!"

Gwen made the call.
Under less urgent circumstances, she would have given the matter some pause, consulted her teammates, reached a consensus, but now she could only go with her gut feelings. Auberon's invitation was akin to putting Inti in front of a freight train, and either she pulled him out of the way, or she could wait to wipe his blood from her face. Though Golos brought the Da-Peng, she was the one arrogant enough to utilise Golos in the match, even knowing the Wyvern was slow in the head. Likewise, whatever Auberon's intentions, she sensed no reason for malice, least of all under the Eye of Providence.

"HOLY SHIT!" Her eyes widened when she materialised to find the prince looking like a torn-up ragdoll. An inch away from Inti, a female-faced Da-Peng prodded at his lolling head with a blistered tongue, lapping up the prince's royal blood.

Her hands blurred.
 _BUNG!_
 _BUNG!_
 _BUNG!_

A series of Flashbangs went off an inch from the Da-Peng's head, reinforced by a screeching Ariel, jarring its brain with shockwaves of light and sound.

"Dimension Door!"

The Da-Peng reeled; while the bird shook its head confusedly, Gwen picked up Inti's still-warm body, an arm under his limp legs and another around his mangled shoulder.

"KAAA!" Sensing Gwen's presence through the vibrations in the air, her foe lashed out in all directions with both wings. Before she could duck, the equivalent of a steel bar took her across the posterior.

Agony ripped through Gwen's lumbar as her ribs squeaked. To her miscalculation, the Da-Peng wasn't stunned, but now the same couldn't be said of herself.

Inti shuddered as they struck the murals on the wall. From the prince's mangled stump, fresh gouts of arterial blood poured over her hands.

"Shield!" Gwen erected her barrier a split-second before a massive hand-foot performed a follow-up strike.

Even with the reinforcement from her new Ioun Stone, her double-glazed barrier proved insufficient, turning instantly opaque. Sensing the force push against her body, she knelt over Inti to avoid crushing his limp body.

"!" Her Divination Sigil fired needlessly as Gunther's lauded signature-shield shattered.

The Da-Peng continued its offensive, aiming for a length of her leg. Foul phlegm splattered across her Shen-tei armour as its female-face darted forward with a prehensile tongue poised like a putrid spear.

Dizzy from the blow, Gwen could rely only on her reflex. Fuelled by both Essence and adrenaline, she dodged the bite, lifting her leg so that she appeared to perform a ballet-split— then dropped her heel with an axe-kick.

This time, it was the Da-Peng who miscalculated. Her boot heel connected with the avian's nose, deforming the soft-cartilage and smashing the appendage back into its skull. With a violent snap, the creature locked its jaws.

"KA—!"

A fountain of foul iron expelled from the bird's battered face, painting Gwen from head to crotch. A split-second later, a severed tongue slapped her across the thighs.

"EE!" Ariel swiped at the howling bird-beast.

"Tei, Pats! Get ready!" Gwen pushed past the revulsion, then with Inti gore-clad and cradled in her arms, she activated her Dimension Door, taking the prince and her Familiar below.

Hardin slinked from the sanctum, his passage subtler than a water ghost pissing in the murk.

A consummate professional, he had stayed until the moment the Prince lost his arm, waiting until the Da-Peng was toying with its prey to make his escape.

In his opinion, it was a shame that Inti had to die, especially considering that the Radiant bloodline could potentially access un-looted temples. But, as Mister Price might say, "Better no one wins than the company not receiving its due."

Unconsciously, he tapped his Storage Ring.
This time, his task had been a long and arduous one. Thankfully, when Hardin returned to civilisation, it would be in the company of fine wine and finer women.

Hastening his descent, the former marine dove freely into the forest's depth, fading into the emerald sea.

"Cyka Blyat!"

Petra almost dropped her spell cube when Gwen re-materialised a second later, bloodier than the Countess of Bathory.

"Not mine." Their sorceress promptly deposited Inti so that he laid flat on the floor against the barrier's interior. "Pats, he needs help."

"Wocao!" Rene erupted with sympathy. "Poor bastard!"

"Gwen, I can't heal him like this. We need to take care of the—"

"CALAMITY! HELP ME!" interrupted the familiar cry of her Wyvern.

Gwen's Planar Troublemaker was now duelling the biggest Da-Peng of the lot, and from the looks of their aerial joust, he was losing badly.

"HOLD ON!" Gwen hollered back without sympathy. "I am saving a life here!"

"IT'S TEARING ME APART!"

"TOO BAD! WIPE YOUR ARSE!"

"… we need a clean wound, else the flesh-stitch isn't going to take." Petra coldly ignored the shouting match between master and monster. "The highest heal I've got cubed is Mend Flesh at tier 5 and Greater Restoration. That's Eunae's limit."

"Where's Lulu?" Gwen looked for their Sword Mage.

"Still fighting the Chieftain in the tunnel." Rene pointed to their prior entrance. "I don't think we should distract her."

"I need a clean-cut." Petra drew a line over where Inti's shoulder began. Presently, the ligaments were a mess, for the girls could see Inti's scapula buried in the mutilated flesh, while the knobbly end of the humerus hung by a tendon. As for Inti himself, the man was knocking on Ukhu Pacha's door.

"I'll do it." Gwen raised her hand, created the thinnest Chakram she could muster, then severed the mangled portion of Inti's right shoulder. Now, they must rely on the prowess of Petra's spell cubes.

"Mend Flesh!"
"Restoration!"
"Cure Wounds"
"Aid!"

Not missing a beat, Petra activated four restoratives in the blink of an eye. It was brute-triage; for usually, a specialist utilised the spells through targeted applications.

_CRASH!_

The second Da-Peng burst through the ceiling, angry as anything.

"EE! EE!" her Kirin yelped, demanding to go toe to toe with the bird. When its master had been assaulted, it couldn't do anything at all.

"Ariel, settle down!" Gwen reigned in her creature. Though Ariel could arguably do some damage, she had no desire to see her Familiar crushed and broken then sent back into its pocket dimension for twenty-four hours.

"Caliban!" Gwen called out to her sturdier Familiar. "Keep it busy— WOA!"

Golos slid into the barrier wall, cascading fire, water and razor-sharp crystals from his resistant body. The Da-Peng was likewise resistant to Petra's wards, for the Mineral Mage lacked the affinity of the spells' original casters.

"Help me! Leave the mortal!" her Ally barked, reeling from the Da-Peng's assault. As a whirling tornado of teeth, nail and feathers, the duo crashed against Tei's wall, taking out a pillar before Golos managed to wrestle the bird away. Hearing Golos' laments, Gwen's anger abated. Her last command was telling Golos to wipe his arse, an order he took to heart.

But the fight wasn't equally matched. Already, splotches of upturned flesh on Golos' silvery body indicated places where the Big Bird had "plucked" some scales. Conversely, Golos was having a great deal of trouble penetrating the Da-Peng's armour-like feathers.

Nonetheless, Gwen remained preoccupied with her human company.

"Is he breathing?" Petra stood unsteadily, fighting the spell fatigue.

Gwen placed a hand against Inti's nostrils, then rested her head against his heart. Now stripped of his body armour and ceremonial costume, the prince was bare-chest and crudely Prestidigitated. After the healing spells ran their course, his shoulder had knitted into a smooth, fleshy stump.

Beside Inti lay Musi, unconscious for an entirely different reason. Once restored and out of danger, Petra felt no obligation to cure the girl of her Negative Drain.

"No." Gwen breathed out, her breathing growing ragged as dread set in.

"I don't think more healing is going to help." Petra pointed to the scabs and the polyps forming on Inti's flesh-stump. "Any more and he is going to need a whole other type of healing."

"Rene, help me with the barrier," Tei commanded. "Petra, Gwen. We've done all we can. Focus on the bird."

Caliban taunted the second Da-Peng with cries of "Shaa!" and "Shaa!" insulting its whore mother.

"Gwen?" Petra paused when she realised Gwen wasn't moving.

"Pats, I have to perform CPR." Gwen placed a hand on Inti's chest. "I can revive him."

"You mean…" Petra knew her cousin well enough not to argue. "What you performed back in Burma?"

Gwen nodded, her lips forming into that familiar, stubborn pout.

"Then do it!" Tei's tone strained. "There's no time to waste."

_CRASH! CRACK!_

Their captain's conjecture was correct.

Golos and the Da-Peng were bouncing from wall to wall, shaking room-sized sheets of shale and granite from the cavern and making a general mess of the Moon Sanctum. Caliban enticed the female Da-Peng by menacing it with its six serpent heads, pilfering vitality from the Void Swarm even as the Wildland tide thinned.

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Gwen wasted no time.

She divested herself of the cumbersome Mage Armour, likewise stripping off the gloves of her armoured suit. Kneeling beside the unconscious prince, she pinched Inti's nose, pulled back his head, then delivered two lungfuls of air. Concurrently, she conjured Almudj's Essence on her tongue, then ran a current of electricity through her hands.

"Wake up, you Son of a Sun!" She pounded on his chest with her draconic-enhanced strength. "Your country needs you! Tica needs you!"

Her next breath brimmed with emerald-green Essence. As Inti's chest inflated, she could feel the renewal filling his bruised organs, sense the nodes of electricity firing away in Inti's bosom as his body jump-started.

"Okay!" Gwen brimmed with confidence. It was working.

Again, their faces met, her pink-petals enveloping Inti's pasty lips, injecting a concoction of oxygen and Essence. Against her cheek, his mouth twitched; underneath her palm, his diaphragm rose and fell.

"COUGH!"

Gwen withdrew as Inti violently expelled blocks of congealed blood all over his chest. Jelled, yellow bile followed, indicating that without her assistance, the prince would have died all over again.

"Wha— where— Gwen?" The resuscitated prince looked about him, confused by the sudden change of scenery. "The monstrous bird, is it dead?"

As if heeding Inti's call, the bird proved itself very much alive.

"KAAK! KAA! KAA!!!"

Petra's crystalline wall shattered.
Tei's lost the pillar he had just replaced.
Inti's awakening had attracted its undivided attention.

_CRASH!_
 _"KAAK!"_

Her Wyvern fell from the ceiling, falling into a bed of squirming lampreys.

"CALAMITY!" Golos' cry now lacked its prior vigour. Visibly, the princeling of Huangshan was injured from neck to its shin, even the membranes of his webbed wings were wet with gore.

Above the Wyvern, the Da-Peng lorded over its battered prey with an expression of pure sadism, toying with its defeated foe.

"BUCK! ASTRO!"

There was no helping it now; sacrificing her dogs was a strategic necessity. Currently, her lampreys had the critters and the surviving Trolls well under control, meaning the deerhounds' utility was diminished. As such, rather than waiting for the Void Hound's slow rate of return or having her mana trickled away by Astro's pack, it was better to put them to use.

Gritting her teeth, Gwen ordered her dogs to menace the Big Birds. With one pack defending Golos and the other Tei's pillars, they could hopefully buy her the time needed for what came next.

"Aroooo!"
"Gurrgn!"
Her hounds were happy to obey.
"EE EE!" Ariel promised to conserve her faithful canine companions.

"SHAA!" Caliban had waited patiently for its mistress to finish her task. It had sensed her turmoil, and now it demanded from her more life than she currently possessed.

"Pats, how many heals do you have left?"

"Not enough. We'll have to use supplements."

It was an assessment to which Gwen concurred.

In the next moment, she materialised a red wooden box inscribed with ancient Chinese glyphs. Exuding Dragon-fear, she slid back the lid to reveal a quivering root-vegetable. According to Ayxin, five-hundred years of Huangshan's earthly Essence was stowed in the thing. If taken in excess, she could very well explode from the eruption of vitality.

"Kii? Kii-kii?" The Spiritual Ginseng, awakened from its long slumber, gazed up at Gwen with its faceless mien. It attempted to move, but her dragon-fear held it in place. "Kii?"

"Sorry," Gwen apologised. Then, with a mote of Void wrapped around her finger, she removed its right-most root.

"KII?! KIIIII?!" The ginseng bellowed, betrayed by its owner.

The box slid shut with a " _Click!"_ activating the sealing Glyph. With a deft hand, Gwen then popped the still-wiggling leg into a porcelain jug housing her favourite rice wine. This way, Ayxin had explained, the mellowed vitality could be absorbed without mangling her mewling mortal organs.

"I am going to transform Cali, when I do, feed me the heals." Gwen turned to face the birds outside the barrier. Golos was just about done to death. Tei could hold out for a few minutes more. Rene wasn't OoM but lacked the means to fight high-tier monsters. Petra was also at her limit. Apart from herself, their second-best damage dealer was Lulan. "Lulu? Are you done? We could use some support here."

"Almost!" Lulan's laboured voice came across in huffs. "One minute— No, half a minute!"

"C— GWEN!" Golos howled, ripping enthused lampreys from his armour. "It's coming back!"

"SHAA! SHAA!" Caliban urged its mistress to hurry.

"Allow me to help." Inti attempted to stand. "Sun's Blessing!"

A woeful spurt of Positive Energy suffused Gwen's back.

"Should have saved it for yourself." Gwen maternally patted the young man's head before facing the two Da-Pengs, one menacing her Wyvern and the other Fudan's pillar-barrier.

"Cali..." Gwen swirled the vitality-infused alcohol, then drank from the draught until the bottle was dry, transforming her pale complexion a vivid scarlet. Thus infused, her eyes grew misty and alluring even as she exhaled the command for their foes' oblivion. "...BIG BIRD FORM!"

In her mind, she fought down the vision of an eight-foot-two canary with the ability to skate, dance, swim, sing, write poetry and ride unicycles. Instead, she called upon her Lovecraftian lore.

Caliban's Naga-slug body began to bulge.

"Cure Wounds!" Petra burned her remaining restoratives.

"SHAAA!" Caliban pulled into the air, tearing through its membranes in the shape of a fist punching through darkly-dyed silk. Rapidly, Caliban's avian form took shape, expanding to encompass a pair of wings a dozen-meters across.

Finally, a flying form! Gwen exalted as fire and ice seized her body, with Petra's warmth roasting her insides even as Negative Energy ravaged her conduits. Fighting the sensation, she broke out in a terrific sweat, realising that Caliban's new form took a toll far exceeding her one-woman body.

The male Da-Peng reacted instantly, increasing its velocity as it swooped at Golos. The grounded Wyvern responded by whipping its tail around to meet his descending assailant.

_CRANG!_
Golos possessed the advantage of reach; at the cost of a dozen tail spines, the Da-Peng was forced to land.

"WOOF! GRRRRR!"

Gwen's hounds closed in, latching onto the Da-Peng for dear life. Their fangs, however, proved insufficient in penetrating the bird's defences.

"KAAA!"

The bird lifted into the air. The dogs were flung aside easily, one crashing into the wall, while two were caught as they fell. The lightning hound perished instantly, while the void hound clung on for dear life, biting and snarling while the Da-Peng wrung out its vitality like water from a rag.

Cackling with glee, the Big Bird righted itself, opening its mouth to mount a sonic-attack.

"KREEAAAAAA!" The air in front of its human face distorted as though asphalt on a summer's day.

"ROAR!" Golos' dragon-breath proved futile, his line of lightning may as well be lukewarm water from a garden hose.

"Caliban, hurry!" Gwen willed more of her life into her Familiar, turning her complexion ashen.

_PING!_
 _KRUNG!_
 _CLANG!_
 _PTHUK!_

Four Panzerschreck struck the Da-Peng alpha, three deflected by its hyper-dense feathers, while the last lodged in an old wound. Howling, the Da-Peng hopped through the air, attempting to shake loose the missile.

"Lulu! Get in here, quick!" Tei called out. Their Abjurer's stamina was waning. Since the battle's unexpected beginning, he had successfully defended their position against Trolls, the Tide, and now the Da-Peng, all without ley-lines or mandalas.

The newly emergent Lulan was covered in welts, cuts and bruises, her tattered armour hanging only by virtue of its limited self-mending property. Gwen winced. Though Lulu suppressed the Iron Heart, the drawbacks of a female using pure 'Yang' energy remained.

"DANCE OF IRON!" Lulan shouted, conjuring five slabs of green-iron to her side, her eyes brimming with battle lust. "Monster! I'll be your opponent!"

"KAAK!" The male Da-Peng shrieked.

"KEEE!" The female Da-Peng ignored the dog pack harassing its passage. Instead, it spiralled upwards amidst a bell-beat of wings, crushing a dog in one claw.

Lulan launched her swords to no avail, for the Da-Peng knew her blades were dangerous. With subtle shifts of its trajectory, it deflected Lulan's missiles, all the while accelerating with supernatural haste.

"Caliban!" Gwen huffed, her vibrant voice rising to a crescendo. "Start with the fat one!"

Auberon and the proctors lurched from one miracle to another.

Thanks to Burma, they had been inoculated against the possibility that Gwen could bring the newly dead back to life through assisted breathing and chest compressions.

In truth, Magus Evan had recorded Inti's vitals as hopeless even before Gwen's arrival. Already, a few proctors sighed sympathetically at the loss of so great a future Mage, lamenting the loss of human potential.

A few minutes later, Inti returned, ushering both jubilations from Auberon's peers as well as sullen silence from those who whispered accusations. Of course, CPR wasn't Necromancy, Auberon was sure of that, as sure as the silent spectrometer. Seeing it performed, however, was no less unsettling.

With Inti saved, only two monsters remained. Golos, the incompetent Planar Ally, proved no match for the largest of what Fudan called the Da-Peng, a term another proctor translated as Big Bird. Moments later, the female Da-Peng joined the fray, pushing Fudan against the wall, forcing Gwen to sacrifice her dogs.

In all honesty, the team had performed well and truly beyond their expected capacity. Now, it was a matter of endurance. If Fudan could hold out for just five more minutes, then two Mage flights would soon be bearing down on the Da-Peng.

But expecting Gwen Song to stay put was an impossible thing, for the girl then produced a Sapient Plant Spirit.

"The reading on that thing is off the charts!" the Magister in charge of Gwen Song's biometrics hammered at her Glyphs, bewildered by the numbers.

A few of the proctors stood from their seats. Flora Sprites weren't common cabbage. They only occurred in Black and Purple Zones where the ley-lines were thick, and in most cases, they were either eaten by the local monsters or reared by supreme creatures capable of levelling cities.

"KII!" the Sprite screamed blue murder.

"What the bollocks?" another proctor paled. "Is she… eating it?"
"Barbarian!" a second wailed indignantly.
"If the Elves find out…" a particularly well-connected Magister scoffed. "My word, she's mixing a cocktail!"

"Did she register the Sprite?" Auberon turned to Lucy.

"Yessir, its logged as 'five-hundred-year-old Chinese herb for restoring vitality'…"

"…" the proctors had no words; since Gwen wasn't using the Sprite as a Spirit, the girl was in the right.

"Sir." Gwen Song's presiding proctor frowned at the spectrometric disco playing across his projection. "Her biometrics are a mess."

"To be expected, I suppose." Auberon focused on the screen. "Looks like our Naga slug is about to become a butterfly."

"SHAA! SHAA!"

Gwen's Familiar did not disappoint.

When its tenebrous body finally broke free of the Naga-shell, it measured just under ten meters from faceless tip to tentacled tail. At first glance, the creature appeared as the Void facsimile of a Wyvern, for its faceless head conjoined a distended neck and powerful shoulders with arms forming into a pair of wings. From the waist, however, the similarities ended. Where Golos sported powerful hind-legs, Caliban's avian form took on the lower half of the Da-Peng. Sensuously, the fiendish avian's underside sported a pair of six-fingered female hands, pink and flawless with nails of ivory, reminding the proctor of Caliban's owner. Finally, from behind the Void Fiend's rear, plumage consisting of a dozen tendrils tasted the air, forming the "tail" of Caliban's new anatomy.

"SHAA!"

The male Da-Peng met its bizarre doppelgänger in combat. Wings clashed, raining grey goo and fluttering feathers below, indicating that Caliban had replicated a portion of the Da-Peng's unique physique.

"What an abomination!" A proctor gagged when Caliban's hand-limbs flexed.

It was the strangest sight, for the Da-Peng possessed the hands of a man, while Gwen's creature was visually a female one. With the two jostling for dominance, their hands met, forming a disembodied spectacle of two lovers with their fingers entwined. This way joined and dancing through the air; the Da-Peng gnawed at Caliban's neck, leaving dark welts of upturned tissue.

"Consume!" came a command from its mistress below.

Caliban's faceless head, similar to its obsidian serpent form, peeled back to reveal an interior full of tongues, beside which rows of lamprey teeth formed an unending spiral leading into the Void fiend's maw.

"SHAA!" Obeying its mistress' command, her creature tongue-kissed the Da-Peng opposite so that its peel-back face enveloped its opponent's head.

The proctors shuddered.

On another vid-caster, concurrent to Caliban, Fudan's Sword Mage engaged in close combat. With Sweeps and Strikes, Lulan Li kept the creature at bay even as it snatched at her swords, bending, breaking and crushing her green-iron implements.

As they fought, the proctor noted that Lulan Li wasn't just fighting blindly, but slowly leading the creature toward Fudan's wall.

Launching and throwing enough blades to equip an army, the battered Sword Mage from Huashan grew slick with sweat until finally, the duo was close enough for the trap to be sprung.

"Bilby's Hands!" both Petra and Gwen activated the last big spell they could muster.

Sensing imminent danger, the Da-Peng attempted to retreat, only to cop a sword to the face, parting its cheeks and missing its remaining eye by an inch. The bird kicked, taking the Sword Mage in the abdomen with a claw-tipped finger, shattering Lulan's Crystalline Mage Armour.

Lulan Li faltered, flying back, vomiting blood as she skittered toward the pillar barrier. Thankfully, before she connected with the many-layered walls, a selfless Rene Blinked into place to catch the Sword Mage before she fell into the channel of lava.

The distraction was enough for the Hands to manifest. With a great clap, Bilby's supercharged Mage Hands slammed the Da-Peng against the granite floor, with both hands pressing it against the ancient stonework so that it couldn't gain purchase to free itself.

"Shaa… shaa… shaa…"

The lamprey swarm approached, having near-eradicated all creatures from the faux Beast Tide.

Up above, the leading Da-Peng panicked, beating its wings even as Caliban's deep-throated kiss turned to slow digestion. The struggle continued for a dozen more seconds, their hands below clasped in anguished passion as Caliban's tentacled tails sought out other weaknesses.

Finally, the Da-Peng's wings fell limp. With its meal still attached, Caliban circled the chamber as though parading its kill, then spiralled downwards to land with a thump, displacing a dozen lampreys.

Not far, Golos groaned, too exhausted to move.

"My God, it's over!" A proctor sat back in his chair. "By George! They did it! Incredible!"

Auberon exhaled, hoping that there would be no more complications.

"CALI, WAIT! SPIT IT OUT!" came a resounding cry from Gwen Song, filling the proctors' barracks with her husky voice. "Gogo! If you want to avert my wrath, eat those Big Birds! I want Cores! I want ALL of their Cores!"