"Inti's no slouch," Gwen remarked as she surveyed the aftermath of the alpha-strikes. A movie quote came to mind, but she refrained from her Gwenisms. "Look at that."

On the western slope, Fudan had done a bang-up job of erasing Trollic occupation. As for the eastern side, Inti's solar flare had eradicated all signs of the previous squatters. With exhibitions like that, it wasn't difficult to imagine why NoMs worshipped Mages as ready idols.

"There's more hiding in the temple itself, in the underground chambers," Tei gave his evaluation. "The prince is impressive, but his Radiance possesses poor penetration. I prefer a well-trained Fire Mage. I bet if we had your VMI and Jiro's abilities, we could bake the temple like a clay oven. Let's see if anything survives that."

"Low penetration, eh?" Gwen chuckled. "Someone must have forgotten to pass Gunther the memo."

"Well- the Morning Star isn't your average virtuoso," Tei corrected himself. "He's one in a million, perhaps a billion?"

"He's a decent bloke." Gwen batted a hand, waving an invisible handkerchief. "I heard he's a desk jockey now."

Besides them, Petra snorted, imagining the great Gunther Shultz stuck behind a mountain of paperwork, fighting the urge not to burn it all.

"EE! EE!" Ariel kneaded Gwen's thigh.

"Good work, Buddy!" she kissed him on the nose. "Well done!"

"How was the Maelstrom?" Petra tapped a data slate. "From one to five, how exhausting?"

"Three?" Gwen reviewed the tier 6 AoE. "I guess sucking things into the Void and not consuming them isn't that bad. Toward the end, with those trolls, I'd say four? The effect isn't Sobel-tier."

"…And how do you feel…" Petra tapped her forehead.

"EE!" Ariel nuzzled Gwen's cheeks.

"I am okay." Gwen buried her chin in her Kirin's mane. "There was neither distress nor pleasure. I guess Sobel's talent is unique, after all."

"Just making sure." Petra saved the entry on her slate. "Right, shall we proceed with the next phase?"

"We'll stand guard," Lulan and Rene both offered.

"Cheers." Gwen gestured to a vacant lot that had once been a fishing port of sort. All the flimsy structure surrounding the inlet from the river had been wiped out, leaving a patch of unearthed vegetation, mud and debris. "We'll do it there."

Tei was the first to alight, marking the earth with glyphs to establish a beachhead.

Lulan hovered just above the team, her heart-seeking projectiles ready to snipe whatever dared to show its face. Beside her, Rene likewise readied a Lava Spear. Should something like a hidden tunnel open up close to the party, she could clog the entrance with a word.

"I am beginning!" Gwen drew the usual mandala in the air, carefully invoking her magic to maximise her output. "… Morden's Hound Pack!"

Eight lightning-clad draconic deerhounds emerged into the Material Realm.

"…BloodHound!" They were soon joined by a ninth.

"You can summon a pack of eight now?" Lulan inspected the lively dogs as they scented Gwen and her allies, licking their hands with paralysis-inducing tongues.

"We've been fighting and training non-stop," Gwen recalled her coaching under Walken and Alesia with a wince. "I think I am very close to tier 6 Conjuration."

"You were tier four when we met one and a half years ago," Petra pointed out.

"Hahaha… yeah," Gwen passed off her cheat-like growth awkwardly. "Tier happens, you know?"

While her hounds stood guard, she initiated a second variant.

"… Morden's Hound Pack!"

This time, her party gave her ample distance.

Inch by crude-oil inch, eight slick Void Hounds emerged, each faceless beast possessing jaw-slits that encompassed more than half of their body length, propped up by skeletal legs, with segmented whippet-tails waving like rapiers.

"Give me a second." Gwen steadied herself while her Essence circulated. Her tank wasn't running low, but eight pony-sized Void Hounds were enough to make any girl woozy. "… Blood Hound!"

The alpha of the pack was a head taller than the rest, a magnificent obsidian fiend, smouldering motes of dissipating Void.

"Ergh, so handsome." Gwen patted her big boy.

The hound's head-carapace split, revealing four tongues amid rows of chainsaw teeth. Slobbering with glee, it gave her fingers a tongue bath.

Petra measured a dog with her eyes, then prodded it so that it could open its mouth to be inspected.

"Hmm… very nice," the Russian murmured contemplatively. "A five per cent increase... extra tongue..."

"Hee-hee, that tickles." Lulan was a fan favourite, attracting the draconic dogs with her newly acquired Naga-scent. When she petted them, the hounds drooled, soaking her greaves.

Rene suppressed a gag, waving the dogs away.

Tei nodded appreciatively, glad he wasn't the only one. Their Void sorceress tended to warp the outlook of those caught in her orbit.

"Buck, you take the left flank." Gwen motioned to the Void leader.

"Gawrrr..." Buck mimed an alien bark, then commanded its pack to scour the ruins.

"Astro! Right flank!"

"WOOF!" The Lightning alpha led the way.

"Are they sapient?" Tei raised a brow. "I thought they were shaped Elementals."

"Naw, it's a dog thing," Gwen refuted the claim. "It's built into the spell. A smart dog has half the intelligence of a Gogo."

"Yip! ARRROOOO!"

"WOOF! WOOF-WOOF!"

A hundred meters out, a mound of heavy stone erupted, revealing a Troll warrior who'd been doing its best to regenerate. Unlike Inti's victims, Gwen's survivors were at worst bruised and disorientated by being tossed about like rag-dolls.

"ULOAR!" The warrior brandished a teeth-studded club.

Unmoved by its frothing spittle, the party watched from a distance as Morden's Hounds performed their original duty.

With a distended limb, the Troll swung at an agile hound, missing when the beast feinted, dodging the blow and forcing it off-balance. Instantly, the blue-white blurs assaulted its rear, tearing at its calves, acting as living tasers as they struck.

"GARRK!" The Troll stumbled to its knees.

"It's over." Lulan whistled as the foremost dog tore out the Troll's throat with a snarl, painting its electric muzzle with oxidising bronze. The party doubted the original spell had Gwen's efficacy. After all, it wasn't as though Morden possessed draconic Essence.

"Is it going to regenerate?" Rene readied a fistful of cleansing fire.

"Let the Void feast." Gwen motioned her second pack to move in. "Save your mana."

True to her intent, the Void alpha reached the Troll's side. An unnatural sound of shifting bone resounded as its jaws distended, dislodging itself so that in one bite, the upper half of the Troll's twitching body joined the Void.

"Mao!" The corner of Tei's eyes twitched when the rest of the Void pack shredded the remains.

"Alright," Fudan's captain conceded to Gwen's show of force. "Let's clean up."

With Gwen's dogs ferreting out the occasional Troll too foolish to retreat into the temple's interior, the party patrolled the western slope, hell-bent on picking up every spare CC, as well as purifying their future escape route.

"Golos still up there?"

"Yep." Gwen nodded. "Ariel's Maelstrom's better than I thought. Maybe we should have left some fun for Gogo, eh?"

Before long, the team arrived at the foot of a gentle rise.

From the western wall, the Temple City of Mama Killa began in earnest. Where Inti's eastern entrance held the Sun Gate, Fudan's side marked the Moon Gate. Between the walls and the tiered temple, there was a distance of over two kilometres, all of which held hidden perils.

With half the structures burned and the other half vacuumed, some of its ancient glory was now visible to the visitors. Their immediate objective was a mid-tier entrance into the temple's underground catacombs, sealed with forgotten magic. Fudan's passage through the central boulevard, unfortunately, took them through dozens of underground granaries, each a shattered ziggurat converted into interconnected Trollic warrens.

A direct flight was possible and at worst, Lulan and Rene would transmute their way into the vaults, but that would leave them vulnerable to becoming surrounded.

On the other side, they were sure Inti likewise worked his way forward, purging the Trolls as a secondary objective.

"Let's hope one of these things holds a Hag or the Chieftain," Gwen remarked as her dogs dragged yet another victim from under a cascade of rubble. This one was a tuskless labourer, lucky enough to survive the vortex, but not so her hounds. "We wouldn't want to fight either without room to manoeuvre."

TOOM—TOOM—TOOM—

The sound of tolling war drums interrupted the butchery. Fudan quickly formed up as the stones throbbed and the ground shook.

"Gogo, get ready," Gwen mentally commanded her drake. "If it's the chieftain, act as we've planned. Link Sight!"

"EEe! EE!" Ariel, now aloft and acting the invisible spy satellite, reported commotion from beyond the crested hill.

"It's coming from one of the smaller pyramids- ten O'clock." Gwen switched between her real eyes and drone-vision.

"Cao, you're a one-woman army," Rene blustered. The Magma Mage had armed herself with no less than four self-buffs, but had yet to set fire to a single Troll. "Should I come back later?"

"Ha, you wish." Gwen slapped her teammate's back. "Your real worth is when we're indoors. Chin up!"

"AROOOOO!"

"WoooOOO!"

Her dogs scented the incoming enemies.

"Ariel, stay." Gwen held her Familiar in check, taking in the battlefield from above. "Lulu, care for some exercise?"

"Any time." Lulan's adorable smile betrayed her innate battle lust. "Iron Skin!"

Though the Transmutation remained the same one the Sword Mage had always utilised, a layer of green-bronze now covered her skin, assuming a pattern of serpent scales. Lulan's pupils as well took on a jade-green sheen as five airborne blades, each enormous, hilt-less slabs of iron, materialised on either side.

Stolen novel; please report.

"Lucky Lulu." Tei smacked his lips. "To think a single Spirit could do so much."

"A high-tier draconic Naga Spirit," Petra reminded their captain. "One extracted from a flawless Core."

"Glad you like it. INCOMING!" Gwen opened her eyes. "Tei, any time now!"

"SIX PILLARS!" Tei wasted no time in erecting an all-consuming pillar-barrier that impeded all forms of harmful sorcery. The defence was well-timed, for a mere two seconds later, a stench of rot and decay rolled over the party.

"Cao! What is that?" Rene swatted at a glob of falling flesh, watching it sizzle as a Lava Blast sent the accused offal flying.

Against Tei's dust-strewn barrier, blackened-blood splattered, hissing offensively.

"Jackpot." Petra checked her data slate. "We've got a Hag! That was one of its signature spells. Bestiary says sacrificial blood is infused with Negative Energy to create flesh-eating necrosis."

The team gave pause at Petra's tone; the Mineral Mage had spoken as if she had found a rare butterfly.

"Tei, can we move the Pillars up?"

"Slow and steadily." Tei shifted the foremost pillars up the avenue so that his coverage leap-frogged. "If we're not physically bested, it is doable."

Outside the protective barrier, Gwen's dogs engaged the Troll-fodder released by the unseen Hag. A roving throng of tuskless slaves accosted her whelps, enraged and foaming at the lips, wielding make-shift armaments of teeth and stone.

Gwen sent a mental message to Golos to stay put, then focused on relaying the conditions of the emerging battlefield.

"I am going." Lulan turned to Tei.

"Tomb Ward!" Fudan's captain bestowed a single-use charm onto his melee Mage. "Stay safe."

Lulan nodded. "I'll draw them out of the underground."

"I am going as well." Rene had been itching to work her magic.

Tei planted another ward on their Magma Mage. "Then the three of us shall remain here. Don't forget to return if you're in danger."

"Yes, Captain!" the girls affirmed Tei's advice.

"Misty Step!"

"Blink!"

[https://i.imgur.com/BJhWXZ0.png]

For Gwen, the bird's eye view made the bloody battle surreal- like she was playing a 90s real-time strategy game.

With Tei's considerable turtling skills, she and Petra remained snug as a bug, nestled inside the Tomb Mage's shell. For now, at least, they were at a curious stalemate. The Hag could not reach them with long-range AoEs, while they had no desire to rush headlong into a trap.

Though the tuskless Troll slaves were no match for her dogs, they still possessed significant threat as an enraged berserker-mob. With Ariel as her telepathic drone, she tactically applied her hounds, slicing into the slobbering mass surgically. With each Troll obliterated, her obsidian critters grew more substantial.

In a moment, Lulan arrived, an impromptu whirlwind of green death, her chain-linked blades slicing a path into the Troll horde. Whenever an iron slab lodged inside the body of a frothing Troll, she discarded the spent razor, then summoning another to continue the slaughter.

Behind Lulan, Rene cleaned up, paving the path below and around them with molten magma. Though the Mage lacked Seoul's bloodline talent, she was nonetheless an especially selected Transmuter for an international tournament, proving her prowess through fire and brimstone. With each swing of her arm, a glob of liquid fire engulfed a straggler or deflected an assailant from Lulan, showing herself equally adept at offence and defence.

"Lulu, incoming." Gwen spotted the beginning of yet another volley from the hidden Hag. "It's an AoE, looks nasty as anything. Get out now!"

The girls obliged, through Gwen's Void Hounds remained.

When the spell struck, the acid cloud melted what remained of a dozen Trolls that had been disabled by iron and magma.

Her Void Hounds smoked as they skittered through the devouring corrosion, ignoring the dosage.

TOOM—TOOM—TOOM—

WHAM!

A stone slab slid from the entrance of a hidden warren. With an earth-shaking crash, it crumbled, spilling from the darkness a dozen warriors armed with darkly-gleaming obsidian, armoured with enchanted bark.

Behind them, through Ariel's trained eyes, Gwen could spot a vaguely female figure giving out frenzied commands.

From its gestures, the Hag had not enjoyed the slaughter of its slaves.

A dim, red glow suffused the Troll warriors. Their collective mass appeared to double, then the troop broke into a run, making for Tei's pillars. With their long limbs, the berserkers closed the distance.

"CONTACT!" Gwen called out. "HOUNDS! SIC 'EM!"

Lulan Misty Stepped into the air, then let loose all five of her blades, launching the volley with a thrilling shriek of "Panzerschreck!"

"Magma Wall!" Rene back peddled, shrinking from the charging horde, erecting no less than three offensive barriers.

"ULOAR!" The Trolls arched their spring-like arms. Veins bulged, musculature ballooned, then they tossed their weapons.

"TOMB SHIELD!" Tei gestured without delay.

Shreeee—THUNK!

Lulan had made a mistake in lifting into the air, for she became a willing target. In the next moment, a near-supersonic spear shattered Tei's shield, exploding into fossilised fragments of hardened obsidian.

CLANG! BAAM!

A second spear and then a club struck Lulan successively, the first clanging off her Parry, and the next striking her thighs, drawing a line of sparks before shattering against her Iron Skin.

The weighty projectile exploded like a grenade, shredding the armour, exposing one thigh and deforming the scaled-flesh beneath.

"Holy shit," Gwen spat. That was a close call. Had Lulan not attuned with a flawlessly extracted Earthen Sprite of hardened jadeite, her right leg would have painted Tei's dust wall.

Lulan wiped a smidgen of blood from her lips. In her mind, the sword versus Troll exchange had gone swimmingly, for she had disabled no less than three warriors, pinning their howling bodies to the ground.

"Don't do a Lulan," Tei cursed. "Rene! Get back here!"

"Coming!" Rene reappeared an instant later. Unlike the battle-crazy Sword Mage, if she took a stone hammer to the gut, there may not be a body left to teleport back to Cuzco.

As if flaunting her resilience, Lulan manifested new blades, then danced across to the Trolls' flank, dicing at limbs and throwing the occasional Heart-seeker into the group's midst.

"Come on!" Gwen kept an eye on the Hag while adding some love of her own. "Lightning Storm!"

A crash of thunder rolled over the mass of charging Trolls as her lightning Ice Storm manifested, pelting the warriors with arcing electricity. The berserkers, however, remained defiant to her elemental assault. Where her spell struck, their bark-armour sizzled in place of their bodies.

"ULOAR!"

"ULOAR!"

"ULOAR!"

Gwen swore. "HERE THEY COME!"

The warriors had reached their prey; with a crash that near-dislodged one of Tei's pillars, a mass of flailing bodies compressed against Fudan's barrier. Swirling dust smouldered and dissolved as a band of frustrated, frenzied Trolls beat down the Six Pillars of Taishan, said to possess the power to hold back ten thousand Jiangshi.

"Dust Tendrils!" Tei wasted no time in supplementing his wall with the vitality of his enemies.

The Trolls meanwhile, moved out to surround the hexagon formed by the six-pillars, bashing at the anchors and the invisible dust-wall.

"EEEEYAAAH!" Lulan's assault exploded as though an iron lotus, Misty Stepping above, below and beside her prey. Following her passage, tens of severed appendages twitched. Conversely. whenever Lulan suffered a blow to her iron-wrought body, there was the sound of clanging metal as the Troll's obsidian weapons shattered.

Rene meanwhile, took advantage of their temporary invulnerability to gift the Trollic conga line with a river of churning, smouldering stones spilling from the ground, half-cooking the hapless Trolls while they exhausted Tei's barrier.

"ULOAR!" The Trolls were no less frantic than Fudan's Mages in churning out as much damage as possible. Within seconds, a pillar crumbled, reducing Fudan's shelter. A triumphant roar echoed from Troll to Troll, then a viridescent flow of healing energies enveloped the hooting mob, renewing their vigour. A few of the trolls who Lulan had made bereft of limbs even sprouted new ones.

"B'lyad'! Regeneration and restoration!" Petra cursed. "AND they're resisting Lightning and Magma! Should we use Cloud Kill?"

"Not until the old witch takes the bait." Gwen sent a mental command to her dogs. "Buck! Astro! Bring me the Hag's head!"

A dozen of her dogs broke from the pack of warriors, forming two streams — her alphas, one blue-white, the other crow-black, sped toward the temple entrance.

"Incoming DECAY!" Tei steeled his pillars with yellow Fudas as a second round of the Hag's demi-human magic landed. "Lulu, get back!"

"Arrrgh!" A squall of black blood slipped past Lulan's Parry. Her one-time Fuda dissolved at once. Her Shen-tei armour sizzled, exposing her Iron Skin to the corrosive hunks of dark flesh. A chunk struck her exposed thighs, corroding her flesh almost to the bone. "M-Misty Step!"

She reappeared inside the barrier, a detox injector in hand. Willing away her Iron Skin for the briefest second, she stabbed herself, then grunted as the influx fought off the Negative Energy.

Rene let loose the two-meter ball of Magma she had been constructing above the Trolls, then turned to her companion. "Lulu, are you alright?"

"Hold on." Petra materialised a nephrite Spell Cube. "Knit Flesh!"

"TAMAAADE!" Lulan howled, forcing herself upright. On one shoulder, a piece of her armour had been corroded down to the Saurian leather straps. As for her ruined thigh, all she could manage was a moan as her muscles rejuvenated.

"I knew that would come in handy." Petra inspected her work. "Gwen?"

"Almost!" came the response from their vice-captain. "Fucking bitch! I'll get this old Hag yet."

Up ahead, her dogs surged into the temple proper.

"WOOF! WOOF!"

"GRRRR!"

"YIP!"

One of her dogs, a lightning deerhound, perished without so much as a chance to dodge, catching Gwen by surprise. The rest of her dogs bolted from the interior, informing Ariel that the inner chamber was a narrow tunnel that made pack-tactics impossible. That and there was a huge stinking heap of befouled flesh blocking their way.

"ULOAR! Ashmasarg!"

From the darkness emerged an ungainly giant, thrice the size of an already enormous troll.

"What the fuck?! They have the HULK?!" Gwen spluttered when the green-skinned colossus emerged into the light. In one hand, it carried a dark iron club larger than Gwen from toe to torso. In its off-hand, it equipped a shield studded with dagger-like spikes. Its entire body sported thick plates of aged leather, painted with strange sigils in Trollic. "Pats, there's a copy-right violation!"

"A Brutaliser." Petra ignored Gwen's insensible splutterings. "Harass it with your dogs. Maybe Golos can take care of it?"

Gwen hesitated, tempted by the suggestion.

CRACK!

Another one of Tei's pillars collapsed, turning their safe-space into an irregular rectangle.

"Tei?"

"Let's move with Formation D," her captain gave the command. "Gwen, you're with me. We'll regroup on the hill and get LOS on the Hag. Leave these Trolls a souvenir."

"Right! Cloud Kill time," Gwen agreed, passing command of her dogs to Ariel. She then disabled her Link Sight, then placed a hand on her captain's shoulder. "Petra, Rene, Lulu, ready?"

"Ready!" Petra withdrew two cubes at once.

"Dimension Door!"

"Dimension Door!"

"Blink!"

"Misty Step!"

As one, the party reappeared fifty meters away, now nestled atop an abandoned ziggurat.

Tei's pillars collapsed at once.

Where the Trolls had been beating on Fudan's defences from all sides, they now fell into the centre. Dozens of obsidian armaments swung at empty air, crushing the weather-worn cobblestone. Troll warriors stumbled, falling over one another, too enraged to relocate their prey, so incensed by the Hag's frenzy magic that Gwen was sure that the red-eyed fiends would momentarily fall upon one another.

"CLOUD KILL!" echoed cries issued from the girls' lips.

"LAVA WALL!" Rene followed up as practised, encircling the pack in a circle of smouldering lava taller than Gwen.

Twin-eruptions of noxious smog, flare-filled and flaming with ionised pyrite, exploded across heaving green bodies, igniting as the vapour kissed the sulphurous air.

"GARRRK!"

"Glogzag hakungs!"

"Athrietess, ashavuth lugs!"

Incoherent howls burst from the flaming mound as the Trolls failed to flee, filling their lungs with inextinguishable fire. Though their armour and their scabby dermis provided ample protection against the elements, rarely did Abjuration shield the organs of a living being. It was one of the chief reasons why Cloud Kill remained restricted magic, for whether Mages or monsters, neither proved immune to the loss of one's respiratory system. Caught under a flame-wreathed sea, the Trolls floundered as though in quicklime, choking and guttering and coughing fire.

"Gudiots!" Came a cry from the inside the abandoned side-temple. In the next moment, the Hag emerged, wielding spells of healing in one hand and invocations of decay in the other. Beside the spindly female figure, the Brutaliser stood as her stalwart defender.

"There she is!" Petra maintained her borrowed magic.

Gwen recoiled at the sight of the fabled Hag. From a distance, the monster's gnarly feminine physique sported dreadlocked hair that ran the length of its bowed spine. Horrifically, its nude body was caked in a layer of dried blood in the texture of festering bruises. Immodestly, its lower body was a mess of twigs, cloth, leather and utensils wrought from severed limbs and pilfered digits. When the Hag opened its mouth to speak, a slithering tongue distended, milky with pus.

"Golos!" Gwen commanded her Planar Ally.

Her Wyvern confirmed its trajectory.

"Duccusemar gunvaders!" The monster shrieked as its followers burned. Then to Gwen's surprise, it screamed at her party in ancient Quechua. "By the Heart of the Wood, your intestines will wreath the trees! Gulorrifzag!"

A burst of Negative Energy erupted from the Hag. From what Gwen could see, the creature was drawing vitality from her guardian, the monster known as the Brutaliser.

"PILLAR WARD!" Tei recognised the incoming debuff. Whatever happened now, they would have to weather the assault, hoping the barrier held for the duration of the incoming incantation. "It's a Curse! Stay CALM and DON'T MOVE! WATCH FOR FRIENDLY FIRE!"

Gwen countered by filling her conduits with Essence. Her lips worked her next spell furiously, as did her hands, simultaneously informing Golos that the time had ripened for its grand entry.

The Curse struck.

Fudan's Mages simultaneously lost all vision.

Curses, also known as Hexes, were different from Spellcraft in that while traditional magic invoked phenomena to assault the mind or the body; Curses besieged one's spirit. It was a class of Magic unique to demi-humans and utilised only by Mages born from select bloodlines. Though counterspells to Hex Magic existed, the official solution involved preventative Faith Magic, or Positive Mind Mages specialised in dispelling, a rare bird in any wood.

Either way, anti-Hex Spellcraft wasn't something a godless communist country could provide. According to Petra, Fudan's only solution was to rely on first-strike doctrines and third-party defenders like Familiars, Summons or Allies.

In the bewitching darkness, a stark fear consumed Fudan's frail, human hearts. Each caster felt a quickening horror that, if left unchecked, would turn to madness.

"Shit!" Gwen fought back with a feeling of complete futility. "GOLOS! DO IT NOW!"

Within the interiority of her mind, she saw her family in Shanghai suddenly perishing by unknown powers. She saw her uncle Jun, his face a mask of anguish, mouthing strange, incomprehensible accusations. She saw Percy, his eyes bulging and his face bloated, floating across fetid water, she saw Babulya—

"CALAMITY!"

A fulminating roll of thunder woke her from the cascading horror.

Gwen opened her eyes, as did her team.

Their vision had suddenly returned, the Curse lifted.

A line of charred stone, cracked from both the roaring lightning and the violent passage of her Wyvern, marked the boulevard from one end to the other, interceding with a Brutaliser spluttering ichor, its shield and chest concaved by a terrific blow from a Wyvern tail.

As for the Hag, it now decorated the path leading up the temple steppes. For all the monstrous female's unholy command of life and decay, it was no match for the force of a Thunder Wyvern's full-forced strike. Against the relentless physics of a multi-ton draconic-brute obliterating its body, dragging it face-first some hundred meters over coarse, jagged rubble: the Hag was little more than a greasy meat-crayon.

"Nice work, Gogo!" Gwen cried out. "VOID SPHERE!"

She muted the surviving Bruitaliser. Before it recovered, ink-blots exploded across its battered body, consigning its indestructible flesh to the Void.