The Kigendoro hissed and recoiled, its massive form writhing in agitation. Yet it quickly regained composure, its many eyes narrowing in calcuted malice.

  For spirit beasts, the body was as much a spiritual construct as it was physical flesh. Their true strength wasn’t alway apparent from their outward appearance — that was simply a shell. More often than not, it was their spiritual pressure that told the true story. A powerful spiritual pressure typically signified a stronger or more refined form, reflecting the creature’s real power.

  But something about the Guardian unnerved the Kigendoro. Its spiritual pressure felt faint, almost insignificant — like a smoldering ember compared to the roaring fme of its own. To the Kigendoro, it was the scent of… weakness. Emboldened, the Kigendoro rose higher.

  The Guardian crouched low, its sleek, insectoid frame coiled like a spring. Luminous, predatory eyes stayed locked on the Kigendoro as it prowled to the right, each movement measured and deliberate. Rear legs shifted subtly, hinting at a strike, while the foremost limbs twitched like the poised bdes of a mantis. Its shimmering wings folded into a protective shell, an armored predator ready to unleash.

  Above the forest’s eerie stillness, the Kigendoro released a clicking rumble that could have been mistaken for ughter. It had seen creatures like this before: beasts mimicking predators, bluffing with theatrics to mask their frailty. This one would be no different. It would call the bluff, as it always had.

  The Kigendoro reared up, its mud-caked armor cracking and shifting. A thin line split its upper body as its jaw unhinged, stretching wider… and wider. Flesh and membrane pulled taut as a gaping maw revealed countless rows of spinning, obsidian-bck teeth. Alpha was instantly reminded of a pelican eel, though twisted to nightmarish proportions. An abomination magnified a hundredfold, designed only to devour and destroy.

  It roared, but the sound wasn’t merely auditory. A wave of spiritual pressure erupted from the Kigendoro’s core, rolling across the forest like a choking haze. The air itself seemed to thicken, light dimming as if filtered through yers of stagnant, muddy water.

  On the wall, Robert and Bert crumpled to their knees, gasping as the oppressive domain pressed down on their bodies and spirits. Boarsyer stood firm, though her armor’s life support bred with critical warnings, barely keeping her conscious. Alpha watched through the Guardian’s sensors as nearby wildlife plummeted from the treetops, lifeless before they hit the ground.

  The Kigendoro’s many eyes gleamed with cruel satisfaction. Its dominance was absolute. This was true power, the pinnacle of existence.

  This was—

  A blur of motion shattered its reverie.

  The Guardian moved.

  With a sudden, calcuted leap, it became a streak of bck that blurred past the Kigendoro’s vision. Before the beast could process the motion, the Guardian reappeared in front of its gaping maw, a streak of energy lingering in its wake.

  Shock rippled through the beast. Its many eyes widened in disbelief. Impossible! Its mind raced to comprehend what it was seeing. The Guardian’s spiritual pressure had been faint, insignificant. By all logic, this creature should have been paralyzed under its domain, incapable of anything beyond trembling submission. And yet, here it was.

  The Kigendoro’s lower jaw snapped upward in a reflexive attempt to crush its attacker, but the Guardian was faster.

  A middle leg smmed down on the Kigendoro’s lower jaw with precise force, pinning it to the forest floor. Bck teeth cracked and splintered under the pressure. When the Kigendoro snapped downward in retaliation, the Guardian’s front limbs shot forward, catching the upper jaw mid-snap and holding it in pce.

  For a breathless moment, the two titans cshed in a raw contest of strength. The air trembled under their strain, every muscle and sinew engaged in the primal battle of predator against predator.

  The Kigendoro shed out again, twisting its serpentine body in an attempt to coil around the intruder while spiked columns of earth erupted from the ground. But its awkward positioning rendered its movements sluggish, and the stone spears shattered harmlessly against the Guardian’s armored hide.

  Nothing was working. Why wasn’t anything working?!

  Then, with a calcuted twist, the Guardian wrenched the Kigendoro’s jaws apart. A wet, tearing sound filled the air as the beast screeched in pain, the thin membrane connecting its jaws splitting under the brutal force.

  From the control room, Alpha couldn’t help but admire his own handiwork. The Kigendoro had underestimated its foe. Suppression through spiritual pressure was a common tactic, but countering it was simply a matter of preparation. Alpha had seen this phenomenon before, during the Deadwood incident and his encounters with Bosco’s group. All it had taken was some attuned energy shielding and counter-pressure methods — not unlike those employed by Federation Gas Miners — to turn the Kigendoro’s domain into an empty threat.

  Alpha’s mental grin widened as he watched the data from the Guardian’s systems compile. He had worried for a moment that Garrelt’s modifications to the arrays wouldn’t hold, but these numbers were… promising.

  The Kigendoro’s screech pierced the air, a sound of agony. Its spiritual pressure wavered, the oppressive haze flickering before dissipating entirely.

  Before it could fully gather its senses, a sharp blur of motion caught its many eyes. One of the Guardian’s frontmost wings, now extended and glowing with razor-thin energy, sliced down in a deadly arc. The Kigendoro’s survival instincts screamed, and it recoiled at the st moment, narrowly avoiding a strike that carved a deep trench into the ground where its neck had been. Dispced mud hissed and smoked, a testament to the energy bde’s potency.

  The Kigendoro hissed in response, retreating several meters. Streams of thick, viscous mud poured from its torn jaws, hardening into a crude patchwork of armor. Its eyes darted across the battlefield, no longer underestimating its opponent. This wasn’t a mere brawl — it was a battle for survival. Every move needed precision, every decision a calcution.

  With a deep, resonant pulse, the Kigendoro summoned its power. The ground beneath it liquefied in a wide radius, and it sank into the mud with an almost serpentine grace. Around the Guardian, the forest trembled as tendrils of sludge erupted, wrapping around its legs and pulling with unrelenting force. Simultaneously, pilrs of water rained down from above, hammering the Guardian’s carapace in a coordinated assault meant to confuse and immobilize.

  But the Guardian didn’t falter. Its legs flexed, breaking free of the muddy binds with mechanical ease. Cyan patterns shimmered along its bck shell, briefly illuminating the now swampy forest as a hexagonal energy shield deflected the incoming water strikes. In one fluid motion, the construct leaped into the air, wings unfurling with a resonant hum.

  Hovering above the battlefield, the Guardian scanned the chaos below. Its glowing eyes locked onto a patch of swirling mud, dense with Spirit Energy. The Kigendoro was attempting to hide, but it couldn’t mask its presence from the construct’s advanced sensors.

  The Guardian descended like a meteor, sharp forelimbs poised to strike the epicenter of the disturbance. At the st second, the Kigendoro erupted from its hiding pce, its gaping maw snapping shut just shy of the descending construct. The Guardian twisted mid-air, narrowly evading the jaws, and countered with a crushing blow to the beast’s fnk.

  The impact sent the Kigendoro skidding through the mud, scales splintering as bck ichor mixed with the swamp.

  Its wounds already hardening into fresh armor, the beast gave its own defiant roar. Streams of mud shot outward, not toward the Guardian, but into the surrounding terrain. The swamp transformed in moments as towering serpentine mud golems took shape, their jagged, bded limbs glinting ominously in the dim light. Some charged headlong at the Guardian, while others fnked and encircled it, boxing the construct in.

  Unfazed, the Guardian shifted its stance. Its wings spread wide, emitting a faint, protective hum, while its limbs moved in a blur. Each strike was devastatingly precise, shattering the mud constructs with surgical efficiency. But for every golem it destroyed, two more rose to take its pce, the swamp churning with Kigendoro’s relentless will.

  From his control room, Alpha’s virtual mind observed the battlefield with clinical precision. “Clever, but short-sighted. Kigendoro’s overreliance on its environment is predictable.” He issued a single command. “Change the terrain.”

  The Guardian’s head tilted ever so slightly in acknowledgment. Driving its hind legs into the ground, the construct released a powerful energy pulse. The swamp quaked violently, and steam erupted as the liquefied mud began to harden. In moments, the once-soft battlefield transformed into jagged, unyielding stone. The Kigendoro’s golems froze mid-motion, their flexibility stolen, and crumbled into lifeless heaps of dirt.

  A guttural roar echoed as the Kigendoro thrashed against the shifting terrain, its body struggling to adapt. But the Guardian didn’t wait. With a burst of energy, it surged forward, its wings crackling as they propelled it into a devastating collision. The impact sent shockwaves rippling through the cavern as one of the Guardian’s forelimbs pierced the Kigendoro’s hardened chest, fracturing its scaled armor in a web of cracks.

  The spirit beast screeched, coiling its massive body around the construct. Thick, muscur coils pinned the Guardian’s cutting wings against its carapace while its cwed limbs grabbed hold of the Guardian’s free arm, locking it in pce.

  Then the Kigendoro opened its maw. Deep within, a vortex of bck, swirling energy began to form, growing brighter and faster with each passing second.

  On the wall, Bert’s eyes widened as he pulled himself to his feet, still weak from the earlier spiritual domain. “MOVE! THAT’S DRAGONBREATH!” he shouted hoarsely, panic etched across his face.

  But the Kigendoro had abandoned all caution, pouring every ounce of its energy into this single, all-consuming attack. Its body stretched beyond natural limits, straining against the Guardian’s relentless resistance. Even if it tore itself apart, it would survive — with enough time and energy, it would literally pull itself back together.

  The vortex reached its zenith, the Kigendoro’s six eyes glowing with an unholy purple light.

  BOOM!

  The Guardian’s tail whipped around with explosive force, the massive hammer at its tip connecting with the side of the Kigendoro’s head. The beast’s head snapped to the side just as the dragonbreath erupted.

  A pilr of bck energy tore through the air, grazing the Guardian’s head and sgging a quarter of its armor before shooting past and over the dungeon wall. The beam scorched the cavern’s ceiling, cutting a jagged scar through the bright mat of lumoss far above. Massive chunks fell, crashing into the distant depths with thunderous echoes.

  When the beam finally dissipated, the Kigendoro’s limp body slumped to the ground, its gaping maw still aglow with faint embers of its failed attack.

  Alpha ran a quick diagnostic. The Kigendoro was alive. Barely.

  “…It’s going to have one hell of a headache when it wakes up, though” Alpha muttered, a hint of satisfaction in his voice.