As Moriko’s bout was about to begin, Mordecai felt on edge. He knew better than most that she would be perfectly safe from a long-term, physical point of view, but he also khat tractors did not get the same adjustment to their instincts about death that inhabitants did. If somethihal did happen to her, the experience could be traumatic despite the dawn revival.

  Her opening gambit made him want to ugh even as he sent a mental grumble her way about obligating him like that. Mordecai didn’t actually mind, and she k, but it was an expected part of the game. It also made him feel relieved, as with Takehiko off the board there was less likely to be acts all around.

  It was worse than Shizoku’s analysis made it to be, really. The closer you wao run a fight where you were dealing with multiple paps, the more ces there were for something to g. And Moriko would have needed a lot of support to actually push Takehiko sieam of five-tails should be capable of clearing a dungeon’s tenth floor.

  Even with that ge of dynamics, he worried. It was an insidious whisper in his heart, and he ks source, so he ruthlessly squashed it. Mordecai had lost a lot when the vilge he’d created had beeroyed, and it still affected him. This was exactly why he was going to push Kazue and Moriko to go traveling and experiehe world as soon as Kazue could form a fully ied avatar. He did not want to smother them with protectiveness, and refused to let his own irrational issues hihem in any way.

  When the fight eventually ended, Mordecai could finally rex. “I’ll be right back with our wife, love.” He said to Kazue, kissing her before shifting his avatar to Moriko’s position, drawing her up into his arms and giving her a lingering kiss as he maniputed his shadow to remove the bullet. And thehe kiss a moment longer as he used the tact as a el to cast a healing prayer. It was hardly necessary, but it was fun. And the whimper she’d allowed herself when he cleared her wound was strangely cute, because he retty certain she’d not have allowed herself to make that sound if she wasn’t giving herself over to his care.

  It e of trust to let herself be that vulnerable to him, and he appreciated it more than he could articute. Even more toug was that he retty certain she hadn’t sidered what she was doing. Mordecai was in a good mood as he carried his wife across the ke and toward the exit for the floor.

  Then his core was distracted by an odd eddy of mana in the feast hall, and he’d barely had time to loto what he quickly identified as a sg sensor before there was a sensation of pierg viotion and fourteen people suddenly appeared in the hall. Even in his moment of shock, Mordecai made a quick t: six in heavy armor, five more in light armor, and three in battle robes, about human size and proportion, and roughly even gender mix. As he started swinging Moriko down to her feet, he mentally beled them as Heavies, Scouts, and Mages.

  “ASSAULT! Protect the core!” He mentally shouted across all his es, then shifted his avatar into the feast hall, trusting that Moriko would figure out what to do. Mordecai was about to be very busy.

  The attackers had appeared in a half circle, with mages in the ter and their backs against a wall. This didn’t go as well for them as they had pnned, and Enki’s fist erupted from the wall to grab one of the mages around the waist and drag her up against the stohe elemental couldn’t just submerge her like he could for himself, but he could apply pressure. The woman screamed in pain as the others nearby turoward this threat to start tearing at the wall or attag Enki’s fist directly.

  “Proted clear the guests from here, but don’t interfere with Takehiko, Akahana, or Ricardo. Isote and observe those three guardsmen.” His core she and out while maing his avatar, then despawned Zushi and respawhe void rabbit he ceiling, to the edge of but directly above the intruders, ahe massive raid boss fall toward their foes.

  Mordecai’s avatar focused on calling forth his Eidolon, Shenlong, and the dragon-form summons appeared in front of the group with an explosive bst. Zushi nded on one of the heavies at about the same time, half abs and half crushing the man, who was shouting and struggling still as the pressure began pulling him into Zushi’s void while the prolonged tact started sapping at his life energy.

  Despite the speed of Mordecai’s terattack, the invaders were responding quickly as well. The grappled mage was managing to ma a corrosive aura on her hand to try a Enki’s fist enough to escape, and the other two mages were doing the same while two of the heavies had closed in to chop at Enki’s wrist.

  Two of the remaining heavies moved to fnk Shenlong as soon as they had recovered from the bst, while the st heavy and two scouts moved to assault Zushi. This wehan well for one of them as a scout thrust her bde toward Zushi’s eyes, only to have the void rabbit open his mouth wide instead of fling, and her bde and arm disappeared into the darkness of his maw. When she jerked back, the woman shouted in horror: most of her arm was missing, and the end of her stump was withered, gray flesh. Zushi wasn’t pying nice.

  The remaining three scouts were seemingly abandoning their panions and headed toward the back of the room, where the entrao the private chambers was. It seemed clear that they were tasked with log the core, and then they would all attack it. There was some small ce that the mages were going to try to subdue the dungeon instead, but that seemed foolish if they were here because of who Mordecai was.

  The scouts were interrupted by several figures rushing out from the back, as that was where Kazue, her parents, and the two sixth-floor bosses had been. Mordecai shouted, “Akahana! Sensor!” and had his core light up a sphere where the nigh invisible probe floated, slowly headed in the same dire as the scouts had been. The druid narrowed her eyes angrily, then spat out a magic dispersing spell at the highlighted area. The sensor shuddered uhe assault and then popped out of existence.

  Mordecai might have been able to do it himself, but Akahana was the more powerful spellcaster right now, and there was no room for error. He winced in pain as Shenlong exged blows with the two Heavies, as eidolons were not indepe summons and drew on the life force of their jurer to sustain themselves. His avatar gave a mental and causing Shenlong to turn toward Zushi a loose a cloud of dark energy, catg the enemies iween them while leaving the void bunny unharmed, then charged into the fray himself, using a spell-strike to surround his fist in a flickering atic aura right before he struck the heavy that was assaulting Shenlong.

  The aura fshed inte, corrosive magic that ate at the man’s armor and flesh, and as he fought Mordecai tinued coordinating the battle. “Kazue, get your mom to the entrance so she try to find the mage who cast the sg spell, but tell her to retreat if things look difficult.” He retty certain that he had a rough idea of how the sg sensor was activated directly in the hall, but telep fourteen people through a dungeon’s territory was still a difficult feat.

  The three scouts that had been heading toward the back were now engaged with Ricardo, Jasi, and Kulle. Jasi had shifted inta form and cast a slowing spell oarget before attempting to him in her coils, but the kelpie chose to keep his human form and focus on his water magic. He’d encased one of the scout’s heads in a bubble of water, and she was attag him with wild desperation, but the water also made it harder for her to see. Still, she’d mao nd a couple of shallow slices, and Jasi a few small injuries as well.

  Ricardo’s target was fairing the least well of the three scouts, his leather armging slightly from being sliced by the man’s daggers, and the wounds Ricardo had inflicted were bleeding freely while the scout’s flesh started turning an infmed red from poison. Mordecai’s a out to the bunkin and rabkin. “Capture, strip, and theo any invaders who fall. risoners.”

  As Kazue led her mother to the shortcut to the first floor, Mordecai’s core pulled Kstoria into the battle, pg the slime boss approximately halfway between the scouting group and the primary group. While a dungeon couldn’t generally spawn its creatures adjat to outsiders, the hall was big enough to give him some flexibility. The giant slime turned her attention toward the rger group and shed out with acidic, crystal-tipped tendrils at the two who had been assaulting Shenlong.

  Enki had been forced to release his grip before he lost his hand, and had fully emerged from the wall, but his attack had at least distracted the mages while Mordecai had worked on breaking the formation proteg them. The dungeon was gaining momentum in its terattack, and now Moriko burst into the room, followed shortly by Takehiko. The mo straight for the three scouts while Takehiko focused on the mages o Enki, casting a spell that sent three searing rays of fire at the group, one for each of them.

  There was some fusion and pani the enemy mages as they found themselves in a far more promised situation than they had anticipated. One of them unched a lightning spell that assaulted Enki and then ed to Zushi, Shenlong, Mordecai, and Kstoria, while another one narrowly missed Takehiko with a green ray of energy that disied the table behind him instead. Mordecai hissed at the pain as the electricity scorched his avatar’s flesh, but he was more worried about Takehiko. “Watch yourself, these guys are strong!” Both of those spells were a rank higher than any of the spells at Takehiko’s and.

  The third mage, the woman who had been assaulted by Enki, had focused on the earth elemental instead of their other attacks, assaulting Enki’s mind with an attempt to dominate him. Enki was able to resist, but only with a struggle that left him momentarily stunned.

  The heavy that Mordecai had assaulted turo hack at him with an axe, but suddenly twisted ao the floor with a shout of surprised pain instead. Mordecai blinked in surprise at the dagger that had been thrust into the man’s foot, trying to figure out what had just happened. He was fairly certain that the attack had been made from Shenlong’s shadow, but with the full attention of both his core and avatar on this room, it should have been almost impossible for ao cloak themselves in shadows deeply enough to hide from him, especially given his boons as a priest of Ozuran.

  Almost impossible.

  But he did have one friend who was quite capable of it, and that friend had the most iing sort of luck. A shark-like grin spread aordecai’s face, and his morale was only improved as several feathered serpents swooped in through the entrance from the sixth floor, and more were on their way.

  Bunkin and rabkin were also swarming into the surrounding spaces, ready to support or attack as he warrens had to reach this far if the ganthros were going to be able to py host for their guests and serve food, so they had all the access they o bypass the main halls a into position.

  Their attackers had been pnning on taking advantage of the ret sixth-flht, anticipating that some of the stro bosses wouldn’t be avaible, or at least be badly injured, and they had inteo crush through the dungeon’s defenses while they searched for the core. Whoever had set this pn in motion hadn’t had enough information about the dungeon’s guests, nor uood all the advantages of a dual-core dungeon, and had no way to guess what the iion of Mordecai’s expertise with Kazue’s need for a more normal looking social situation would do to the less visible parts of the dungeon’s yout.

  Zagaroth