The Naga Matriarch rose from the centre of the western swarm like a nightmare that had taken the time to dress for the occasion, tattered ceremonial silk dragging across the obsidian tile behind her, the staff in her clawed grip pulsing violet once, twice, and then the floor beneath the horde began to shimmer with the specific light that meant something was about to get significantly worse.

Out of thin air, the elite Nagas began to materialise, larger and faster and wreathed in purple that made the air smell like copper and old magic, their fangs already trailing venom, their tails thick as tree trunks coiling beneath them with a patience that had nothing reassuring in it.

Liam tightened his grip on his gauntlet and looked at the numbers. The Dragon-Slayer Aura that had made the Kitsune Matriarch flinch was doing nothing, the system reading these creatures as undead rather than scaled, a categorical difference that his entire offensive toolkit had not been designed for, and his absorption counter was spinning without locking, trying to process something it didn’t have a recipe for yet.

He looked at Noir.

She was on the ground. Mirra had both hands pressed flat to her chest, blue mana streaming from her fingers in threads so thin they looked like they might snap, and Mirra’s MP bar was at nineteen per cent and falling with the specific urgency of someone spending currency they couldn’t afford. Noir’s chest barely rose. Her cheetah tail was completely still, which was the most wrong thing in the room.

He looked at Elizabeth, who had a gash across her forearm; she hadn’t noticed yet because she was too busy covering the gap where two people should have been standing.

His brain stopped calculating. It had been calculating since the Matriarch walked into the light, and it had not arrived at anything useful, and sometimes the pan is too hot, and the only thing left to do is commit to it.

"Indestructible," Liam said.

The skill activated with a sound like a cathedral bell struck underwater, and gold light poured through his skin, his features burning white in the dark of the catacomb, and for the next two minutes, nothing in this chamber could touch him.

"HEY."

The shout came out of him raw and massive, his deep register carrying across the entire western corridor like a physical force, and every Naga head turned simultaneously, elites freezing mid-strike, the Matriarch’s hood flaring wide with the specific reaction of something that had identified a threat and was reconsidering its priorities.

"OVER HERE," Liam said "ALL OF YOU."

He slammed his gauntlet against the obsidian floor and the clang rang through the chamber like a dinner bell, and his aggro meter turned solid crimson, and they came.

All of them.

The first wave hit him like a freight train and broke against gold light, fangs shattering on his neck, tails whipping across his torso and bouncing with zero damage numbers, and he stood there and let them come because the two minutes he had were the only two minutes Mirra needed, and he was going to make them count.

"Noir’s going to be fine," he said, not loud, not to anyone in particular, but the catacomb was close, and Elizabeth was close, and she heard it.

"You don’t know that," Elizabeth snapped, cutting a Naga clean in half without breaking stride, blood spattering across her cheek, her eyes finding him through the chaos with a raw focus that had nothing to do with the fight and everything to do with the woman on the ground behind them.

"I know," Liam said, absorbing a tail strike that would have ended someone else, "because I’m not letting anything past me."

Elizabeth looked at him for exactly half a second and then repositioned without being asked, sliding into the gap between him and the barricade, covering Mirra and Noir with her body, Berry reading the shift instantly and moving to her flank.

One minute forty seconds remaining.

"How long does the skill last?" Elizabeth said, appearing at his shoulder with the specific proximity of someone who had stopped pretending she wasn’t trying to stay next to him.

"Two minutes."

"How long has it been?"

"About thirty seconds."

"And after that."

He didn’t answer. Another wave of elites materialised out of thin air, the Matriarch cycling her summoning magic with the steady patience of something that understood attrition, and he absorbed the hit and the next one and kept his body between the horde and the people behind him.

"Liam after."

"Thirty-minute cooldown," he said.

Elizabeth’s jaw did the thing it did when she was processing something she didn’t like, which took three full seconds, which for her was practically a meditation retreat.

"Then we kill as many as we can in ninety seconds," she said.

"Yeah."

She moved up beside him, not behind but beside, her shoulder almost at his arm, her blade already raised, and a Naga lunged, and she cut it out of the air with the kind of instinct that only comes from someone who has been fighting since the moment they spawned, her body twisting clean and efficient and angry in a way that made her faster rather than reckless.

"Mirra," Liam said, his voice flat, "how long?"

"Don’t talk to me right now," Mirra said through her teeth, sweat rolling down her temple, her hands shaking slightly from mana burn. "I’m holding her organs together."

Forty-five seconds.

Elizabeth’s blade carved through a Naga’s throat to his left, and she spun and kicked the body into the one behind it and was already swinging before the first dissolved, Berry beside her pulling aggro on three at once with a speed that looked reckless and wasn’t, the two of them moving like they had been fighting together for years rather than days.

Liam felt a tail crack against his skull. Gold light held, but the force of it rattled his teeth, and his brain ran the number involuntarily: thirty seconds left, thirty-minute cooldown after, a horde that was not getting smaller, a Matriarch that was still standing, a buffer who was unconscious on the ground and a healer who was almost out of mana.

[TOOL TIP: THE "GOLDEN HOUR" BUFFET]

Status: The Chef is Indestructible (And Highly Distracting).

Active Skill: [Indestructible] — Liam has traded his ladle for a god-tier tan. For two minutes, he is a 6’6" golden brick wall. Current strategy: Let the monsters break their teeth on his neck while he worries about the aesthetics of Elizabeth’s face.

[Party Status]:

Noir: Undergoing a mandatory "internal organ puzzle" session. [Status: Stable-ish].

Mirra: Operating on 15% MP and pure spite. Currently "holding it together" (literally).

Elizabeth: Confused. Is it a boss fight? Is it a date? Is it a tactical thumb-wipe? Her DPS has increased by 200% out of sheer frustration.

Berry: is keeping herself distracted.