The armor cracked and splintered. The Colossus staggered, its leg folding beneath it. The creature toppled sideways, releasing a piercing shriek.

Then Jake's War Mastiffs swarmed it, tearing at the exposed flesh in the joints, ripping chunks out of the creature while it tried to stand.

Reidar watched the battle flow, processing the thousands of inputs from his summons because of his skills. It wasn't easy, but he didn't even need that fine control, and if he wanted, he could even cut them off.

A Death-Stalker Scorpion fell beneath a Colossus's crushing weight, while another scorpion broke through the armored shell of a different monster. The battle was brutal. There was no doubt about it.

Blood, or whatever the substance coming out of the colossi was, sprayed across the clearing, mixing with the dust and the mana mist of dying summons.

Reidar looked around and saw the heaps of crushed chitin. He realized that ten of the Hive Colossi were already down. He watched the severed legs twitch in the dirt, the nerves still firing spasms that scraped against the broken armor plates even though the massive bodies lay still in ruined piles.

"Keep pushing!" Reidar said. "Don't let them regroup!"

But the Colossi weren't retreating.

Lena sensed the shift in the monsters' minds. She noted their panic had evaporated, and that it was replaced by rage. There was now only a drive to destroy whatever stood in their way.

The lead Colossus let out a low hum, and it was so deep that Reidar felt it in his teeth.

The surviving monsters stopped their flailing. They planted their weird feet. Their vents flared wide open, and they activated one of their skills [Pheromone Cloud].

The thick gas erupted from the monsters, flooding the clearing in seconds.

Reidar covered his mouth, Lena and Jake retreated before the cloud could do anything to them, but their summons couldn't because otherwise the monsters would attack them.

The War Mastiffs snapped at the air, confused as the pheromones scrambled their minds.

Even the Archon Rift-Lords seemed to hesitate, which caused the connection to their summoned Titans to waver as the confusion set in.

"Dispel it!" Reidar said.

His Spectral Mages tried to blow the cloud away with wind magic, but the gas was heavy and oily, clinging to the ground.

Through the haze, the Colossi charged, activating another one of their skills, [Chitinous Rampage].

Five of the monsters lowered their heads and sprinted. They moved with terrifying speed for their size, becoming battering rams of organic steel. The monsters plowed through Reidar's front line.

Some Twin Boulderbacks, disoriented by their summoners' confusion, were smashed to gravel. The Terran Bulwarks shattered like glass under the momentum of the charge.

Spectral Knights were sent flying, and their bodies started flickering as they took massive damage.

"Jake! Watch out!" One of the Colossi was barreling straight for him, ignoring the Mastiffs biting at its legs.

It reared up, its six legs lifting high, and it used [Seismic Stomp]. The monster slammed down with its entire body.

The earth rippled like water, releasing a shockwave of dirt and stone that exploded outward in a wave that traveled thirty feet in all directions. Dust filled the air.

Jake was knocked off his feet. He flew backward through the air for several meters before his body slammed into a tree trunk, which gave in under the massive energy behind the attack.

The shockwave hit the Undying Legion, and dozens of skeletons simply disintegrated.

Reidar staggered, fighting to keep his footing as the ground pitched beneath him.

"Hold the line!" Reidar said, summoning Terran Bulwarks again to plug the gap in the shortest time possible, but the chaos was too high and they were killed soon after.

"This damn fog!"

The Colossi weren't done. A Colossus that Jake and his Mastiffs had severely wounded earlier began to glow.

It wasn't healing. It was overloading as [Dimensional Shockwave] activated.

The creature collapsed, dying, but as its life force faded, something snapped. A pulse of energy blasted outward. Reidar's vision swam. The world tilted sideways, and sound became a muffled roar, as if he were underwater.

Vertigo hit him so hard he fell to one knee, retching. His control over the summons wavered.

Lena, caught in the blast radius, stumbled out of stealth, clutching her head.

She was exposed. A Colossus saw her. It turned and lunged, its jaws opening wide enough to bite a horse in half.

Lena attempted to evade, but her equilibrium was compromised, her ears buzzing with disorientation. Nausea washed over her, and her movements became sluggish as dizziness overwhelmed her senses. She tried to roll away, but her reactions were too slow.

"Lena!" Jake pulled himself out of the debris. His S.H.I.E.L.D. was high, so getting thrown against a tree was inconsequential.

He tried to throw his dagger to intercept the monster, but the surrounding air shimmered as that thing activated [Reality Distortion Aura].

The dagger veered to the left, missing the Colossus by three meters and burying itself in the dirt.

Then the monster activated [Exoskeleton Fortification], and its armor darkened, shifting from green to a dull gray.

The Spectral Archers fired a volley into its flank to distract it, but the arrows bounced off the hardened carapace with metallic clinks, doing low damage.

The Colossus loomed over Lena, its shadow swallowing her.

Reidar forced his mind to focus through the vertigo. He couldn't order the Archons to summon a Titan in time to block it.

He raised the Void-Caller's Baton, aiming at the monster. He cast an Event Horizon Javelin.

An obsidian black Javelin caught the Colossus in the side just as it snapped its jaws shut.

The impact threw the monster's aim off by inches from Lena, and the mandibles slammed shut on empty air, the force of the bite creating a shockwave that blew the woman's hair back.

The woman didn't waste the chance Reidar gave her. She scrambled backward, regaining her footing as the vertigo began to fade. But the situation was far from good.

Half of Reidar's army was gone. The skeletons were decimated. The Titans were crumbling into dust.

The surviving Hive Colossi had formed a defensive circle, using some more skills to buff their speed and damage to insane levels.

They were glowing with power, their pheromones were choking the battlefield, their armor hardened.

Reidar wiped blood from his nose.

"Okay," he said, gripping his baton until his knuckles turned white. "Now I'm annoyed."

He looked at the remaining monsters, his eyes cold.

"Jake, pull the Mastiffs back. Lena, come here."

He reached into his mana pool, tapping into the deep reserves provided by Mana-Forged Will.

"Let's see how they handle a real army."

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