"NOW!" Ryan's roar shattered the tension like breaking glass.

The battlefield erupted.

Dozens of abilities launched simultaneously—a cascade of destruction that turned the air itself into a maelstrom of power. Fire bolts screamed forward, ice spears crystallized mid-flight, lightning crackled between charging warriors, and blades of compressed wind sliced through the space between attackers and target.

The sheer volume of attacks was staggering. The combined assault lit up the darkened battlefield like a miniature sun, casting harsh shadows that danced and flickered wildly.

The Blood Monarch didn't move.

It simply watched, that terrible smile never wavering, as the wave of destruction bore down upon it.

Then, just as the first attacks were about to connect, it moved.

Not away. Not to dodge.

Forward.

The Monarch blurred into motion, so fast it seemed to teleport. One moment it stood in the center of the killing zone, the next it was among them, moving through the barrage like a dancer through falling rain.

A fireball the size of a grown man exploded where the Monarch had been standing. Ice spears punched into empty ground. Lightning arced harmlessly through vacant air.

"It's too fast!" someone screamed.

The Monarch appeared beside a sword-wielding adventurer—a grizzled veteran who'd survived countless battles. The man barely had time to register the presence beside him before a pale hand gripped his face.

And squeezed.

The sickening crunch of bone echoed across the battlefield. The man's body went limp instantly, dropping like a stone as the Monarch released him and moved on.

"Scatter! Don't cluster!" James shouted, his chains lashing out toward where the Monarch had been. But it was already gone, appearing thirty feet away beside a group of mages who'd been preparing a combined spell.

Three bodies hit the ground in rapid succession, their throats torn open with casual brutality.

"It's picking us off!" Nyla's voice cut through the chaos as she launched a wave of freezing air. The temperature plummeted, frost spreading across the ground in a expanding circle. "We need to corner it! Force it into—"

The Monarch was suddenly in front of her.

Nyla's eyes widened. She'd barely formed the thought to defend when the creature's fist rocketed toward her face. Instinct took over—she threw herself backward, ice erupting from the ground to form a barrier between them.

The Monarch's fist punched through the ice like it was paper, shattering it into countless glittering fragments. But the momentary delay was enough. Nyla rolled away, coming up in a crouch twenty feet distant, breathing hard.

'Too fast,' she thought, heart hammering. 'Even faster than the Titans we fought before. How is that possible when Akhil's body is so exhausted?'

"SURROUND IT!" Ryan bellowed, charging in from the Monarch's blind side. His fist blazed with crimson energy as he threw a devastating punch aimed at the creature's ribs.

The Monarch twisted, catching Ryan's wrist mid-strike. For a single frozen moment, their eyes met—Ryan's filled with desperate determination, the Monarch's with cold amusement.

Then it twisted.

Ryan's arm bent at an unnatural angle. The snap was audible even over the sounds of battle. Ryan's scream tore through the air as he was flung bodily away, his body tumbling across the scorched earth before slamming into the wreckage of Langdon's bot.

"RYAN!" Aria's voice cracked with anguish. She accelerated, her blade singing through the air in a perfect arc aimed at the Monarch's neck. Speed and precision combined—a killing blow that would have decapitated lesser opponents.

The Monarch caught the blade between two fingers.

Aria stared in disbelief as her weapon—honed to a razor's edge, empowered by her abilities—was held motionless by nothing more than a casual grip. She tried to pull it free, but it wouldn't budge.

"Predictable," the Monarch purred, its voice a mockery of warmth.

It yanked the blade, pulling Aria off-balance. She stumbled forward, and the Monarch's knee came up to meet her stomach. The impact drove all air from her lungs, sending her flying backward to crash among a group of supporting adventurers.

"Keep attacking! Don't give it time to breathe!" Nibo's massive form charged in, war axe raised high. The weapon descended like a falling mountain, powered by all of the giant man's considerable strength.

The Monarch sidestepped, letting the axe crash into the ground. The earth split, a massive crater forming from the impact. Before Nibo could recover, the Monarch was inside his guard, too close for the axe to be effective.

A palm strike to the chest sent Nibo staggering backward, blood spraying from his mouth.

"How—" Nibo gasped, struggling to stay upright. "How is it this strong?"

James appeared behind the Monarch, his chains already in motion. They wrapped around the creature's arms and legs in complex patterns, binding and constricting. "Got you!"

The Monarch glanced down at the chains almost curiously. Then it flexed.

The metal links groaned, straining against supernatural strength. James gritted his teeth, channeling more power into the chains, reinforcing them with everything he had.

For a moment—just a moment—it seemed to hold.

Then the chains shattered.

Metal fragments exploded outward like shrapnel, forcing nearby adventurers to duck and shield themselves. James was thrown backward by the backlash, his hands bleeding from where the chains had torn through his grip.

"It's not working!" someone screamed from the crowd. "Nothing's working!"

Panic began to spread like wildfire. Adventurers who'd been pressing forward hesitated, doubt and fear creeping into their movements.

The Blood Monarch stood in the center of the chaos, barely winded, not even breathing hard. Its eyes swept across the scattered forces with that same detached amusement, like a cat watching mice scramble.

Blood dripped from its hands—not its own, but from the dozen adventurers it had already killed. The crimson liquid pooled at its feet, and slowly, almost lazily, it began to absorb again.

'It's feeding,' Nyla realized with horror. 'Every person it kills makes it stronger.'

"Don't let it absorb the blood!" she shouted, launching another wave of ice to freeze the pooling liquid. "Cut it off from—"

The Monarch was in front of her again.

This time, there was no warning. No chance to dodge. A hand gripped her throat, lifting her effortlessly off the ground. Nyla clawed at the fingers, ice forming across the Monarch's arm, trying to freeze it, to force it to let go.

The creature didn't even flinch.

"Fragile," it murmured, tilting its head as it studied her struggling form. "So very fragile. How does this body tolerate such weakness around it?"

Nyla's vision began to darken, spots dancing before her eyes as her air supply cut off.

Then Aria was there, blade flashing in a desperate strike aimed at the Monarch's arm. The creature released Nyla to deflect, and she fell gasping to the ground.

"Fall back!" Aria commanded, positioning herself between Nyla and the Monarch. "Regroup! We need a new—"

The Monarch moved.

A blur of motion, too fast to track. Aria felt something slam into her side with the force of a battering ram. The world spun violently as she was sent flying, her body tumbling end over end before crashing into a cluster of debris.

Pain exploded through her ribs. At least three were broken, possibly more. She tried to stand, but her legs wouldn't support her weight.

Around the battlefield, similar scenes played out in rapid succession. Adventurers attacking desperately, only to be swatted aside like insects. Bodies accumulating on the scorched ground. Blood spreading in ever-widening pools.

Ryan struggled to his feet, cradling his broken arm against his chest. His vision swam, but he forced himself to focus. They were losing. No—they'd already lost. This wasn't a battle. It was a massacre.

'We can't win,' the thought echoed through his mind, hollow and terrible. 'We can't even hurt it.'

The Blood Monarch stood tall amid the carnage, surveying its work with satisfaction. Twenty adventurers dead. Dozens more injured. The strongest among them broken and scattered.

And it hadn't even broken a sweat.

Slowly, deliberately, it began to walk toward where Ryan knelt. Each step measured, unhurried. There was no need to rush. No need to exert itself.

The prey was already defeated.

Ryan met the Monarch's gaze, and saw his own death reflected in those black, pitiless eyes.

'I'm sorry, Akhil,' he thought, too exhausted even to feel fear anymore. 'We tried. We really tried.'

The Monarch raised its hand, blood dripping from pale fingers. The killing blow was coming, and Ryan had nothing left to stop it.

Then a voice cut through the despair—young, desperate, and filled with raw determination.

"GET AWAY FROM HIM!"

A massive surge of power erupted from the edge of the battlefield. Golden light blazed through the darkness, so bright it was almost blinding. The temperature spiked dramatically, heat washing over everyone in waves.

The Blood Monarch paused, lowering its hand as it turned toward the source of the disturbance.

There, standing at the battlefield's edge, was a figure wreathed in golden flames. The power radiating from them was immense—far beyond what any single adventurer should possess.

But it wasn't an adventurer.

It was an orc.

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