The muddy courtyard of Sector 4G had transformed from a staging ground into a graveyard of enchanted steel.
General Kastor's war-charger reared, its iron-shod hooves kicking frantically at the air as the beast panicked. All around him, his elite vanguard was falling. They weren't being slaughtered in a shower of gore; they were simply freezing in place, dropping like heavy stone statues into the caustic mud as Prime and the Scale-Guards systematically pierced their armor with amber-glowing spears.
"Pyromancers! Form a firing line!" Kastor bellowed, his voice laced with the desperate authority of a cornered commander. "Aim for the treeline! Cut off their retreat!"
The twelve Mages' Guild pyromancers scrambled backward, raising their staves to unleash a volley of explosive fire.
But the temperature in the courtyard suddenly plummeted.
The roaring flames of the burning forest didn't extinguish, but their heat was swallowed by a sudden, oppressive wave of cold, dense mana radiating from the gaping black archway of the dungeon. The ambient magic in the air grew so heavy it felt like breathing water.
[Skill Activated: Sovereign's Aura Lvl 1]
A subtle, pulsing shockwave of golden-green light swept across the mud. The moment it washed over the human army, the Pyromancers gasped, their chanted spells sputtering and dying on their lips. The [10% Agility Reduction] and the unnatural, mind-altering dread woven into Kaelen's aura hit the humans like a physical blow. Men who had fought in a dozen wars suddenly found their hands shaking violently.
From the absolute dark of the Sunken Vaults, Kaelen emerged.
He didn't slither out quickly. He moved with the terrifying, deliberate grace of a monarch descending his throne steps. His massive, fifteen-foot lower body, armored in overlapping plates of copper and emerald, glided over the cracked stone threshold. His humanoid upper torso was held high, his broad shoulders squared, and his golden, slit-pupils locked directly onto the General.
A collective gasp rippled through the surviving human infantry. They had been briefed to expect a Dungeon Master, perhaps a grotesque troll or a lich. They were not prepared for the dark, divine majesty of an Aurelian Naga.
"Hold your ground!" Kastor roared, drawing on his Level 42 Paladin core to forcefully expel the dread from his mind. His dawn-steel armor erupted in a blinding, holy white light. "It's just a beast! I will take its head myself!"
Kastor spurred his massive war-charger forward. The beast, terrified but bound by magical reins, lunged across the mud toward Kaelen. The General raised his heavy greatsword, channeling a massive amount of his own mana into the blade.
[Skill Activated by Hostile: Radiant Guillotine Lvl 6]
The greatsword elongated, extending into a twenty-foot blade of pure, concentrated sunlight designed to cleave through castle gates. Kastor brought it down in a devastating, vertical arc straight toward Kaelen's head.
Kaelen didn't blink. A Level 42 Paladin, he calculated. Vastly superior in raw destructive output. But power without precision is just wasted energy.
Instead of retreating from the massive holy blade, Kaelen surged forward. He whipped his heavy copper-threaded tail against the mud, propelling his torso to the right at an angle impossible for a bipedal creature.
The Radiant Guillotine slammed into the earth exactly where Kaelen had been a fraction of a second prior. The impact was cataclysmic. A shockwave of holy fire blasted the mud into glass, and the deafening BOOM threw several nearby soldiers off their feet.
But Kaelen was already inside the General's guard.
Using the momentum of his dodge, Kaelen coiled his lower body like a massive spring and launched his upper half upward. He didn't aim for Kastor. He aimed for the war-charger.
Kaelen's obsidian-taloned hands slammed into the armored chest of the horse. With his base [Strength] stat augmented by his Tier 1 evolution, the impact shattered the horse's ribs instantly.
The massive beast shrieked and crumpled, flipping forward head-over-heels.
General Kastor was violently thrown from the saddle. He hit the mud hard, his heavy plate armor saving his life but entirely robbing him of his breath. He skidded ten feet, stopping just short of one of the acidic, punji-filled trenches his men were drowning in.
Before Kastor could even push himself up, a shadow eclipsed the sun.
Kaelen loomed over the fallen Paladin, his fifteen-foot body coiled like a metallic mountain. Kaelen reached down with one clawed hand, moving with terrifying speed, and wrapped his fingers around the General's throat, lifting the armored man entirely off the ground.
Kastor choked, dropping his greatsword as he grabbed Kaelen's wrist with both gauntleted hands, desperately trying to pry the Naga's fingers apart. But Kaelen's grip was like an iron vise.
"You march into my kingdom," Kaelen spoke, his dual-toned voice vibrating in the General's chest, loud enough for the trembling Pyromancers and surviving infantry to hear. "You burn my forest. You bring the usurper's stolen light into my shadows."
Kastor struggled, his face turning purple. "Demon..." he choked out, a faint spark of holy light trying to ignite in his palms.
Kaelen tightened his grip, extinguishing the man's spell instantly. He leaned in close, until his aristocratic, scaled face was mere inches from Kastor's visor.
"Look closely, General," Kaelen whispered softly, so only Kastor could hear. "Look at the eyes of the boy you swore an oath to protect three years ago. Tell me, did Valerius pay you well to look the other way when the wine was poured?"
Kastor's eyes widened in absolute, paralyzing horror. The holy aura around his armor completely shattered as the psychological blow landed. He stopped struggling. The realization that the creature holding him wasn't a monster, but the murdered Prince of Aethelgard, broke his mind entirely.
"My... Prince...?" Kastor wheezed, tears of sheer terror and guilt mixing with the mud on his face.
"I am no longer your Prince," Kaelen said coldly.
He didn't use venom. He didn't need to. Kaelen simply flexed his arm and slammed the Level 42 General face-first into the unyielding stone of the dungeon's threshold. Kastor's enchanted helm dented inward with a sickening crack, and the General's body went entirely limp.
Kaelen dropped the unconscious commander onto the flagstones. He turned his golden eyes toward the remaining, terrified human soldiers. His Scale-Guards had finished paralyzing the vanguard and now stood in a perfect, imposing ring around the survivors, their amber spears leveled.
The First Legion had been broken in less than ten minutes.
[Boss Defeated: General Kastor (Level 42 Paladin)] [Incredible Feat! Host has incapacitated a military commander far above the Host's level using environmental tactics and psychological warfare.] [Massive Experience Gained. Calculating...] [Level Up! You are now Level 13.] [Level Up! You are now Level 14...]
The System chimes began to ring like a continuous bell in Kaelen's mind, but he ignored them. He raised his hand, pointing a taloned finger at the trembling Pyromancers.
"Drop your staves," Kaelen commanded, his Sovereign's Aura pressing down on them like physical weight. "Or join your vanguard in the mud.