The fourth wave broke faster than any wave before it.

With Almond, Lily, Ainen, and Rudra back on the field, the southeastern arc stopped being the weak point of the defense and became the deadliest. The torrent of Grimblades did not tire. The seven Spirit Lord domains did not lift. The Dreadgates Lily had seeded into the ground poured out fresh Dreadlings faster than the Doom Army could kill them, and Ainen’s exotic flame world consumed everything that crossed into it.

The Doom Army threw seven hundred thousand units at the Mountain.

The Suryax-Regalon arc accounted for more of them than any other arc on the field.

The kill counter climbed.

Rudra had built the line into a machine while the others were gone, and now that machine had its full strength back. Natalia’s predictive layer read the Doom Army’s movements three seconds before they happened. Kayla’s threads passed that read to every unit at once. Aryan assigned targets faster than the enemy could reach them. The 100,000 Regalon troops, grown and sharpened across days of fighting, moved as a single body that did not waste a motion.

And at the front of it all, four X-rank deck holders fought without restraint for the first time in this event.

By the end of the fourth wave, the leaderboard had moved for the first time in days.

[Star Mayhem Mountain Defense]

[Rank 1: Thalmyr Ascendancy | Ronethis Apex Sovereignty: 512,300]

[Rank 2: Virexion Dominion | Kezryx Void Imperium: 478,910]

[Rank 3: Suryax Kingdom | Ananta Regalon: 451,660]

[Rank 4: Celestara Sanctum | Dravokh Tyrant Conclave: 389,120]

Suryax-Regalon had climbed out of last place.

It did not stop there.

---

Over the next day, they climbed again.

The waves kept coming, and the Suryax-Regalon arc kept clearing them faster than anyone else. Almond’s Grimblades cut through Doom infantry by the thousand. Lily’s Dreadlings grew into an endless tide that drowned the monsters before they could reach the line. Ainen’s flames burned everything that entered his domain. Rudra moved across the battlefield with his bare hands, and every Doom creature he touched simply broke.

The other alliances noticed.

Thalmyr-Ronethis tightened their pattern and pushed harder. Virexion-Kezryx, with Jaskrit committed fully now, fought to hold their lead. Celestara-Dravokh fell further behind, unable to match the new pace.

By the end of the day, the leaderboard had shifted again.

[Star Mayhem Mountain Defense]

[Rank 1: Thalmyr Ascendancy | Ronethis Apex Sovereignty: 894,540]

[Rank 2: Suryax Kingdom | Ananta Regalon: 871,200]

[Rank 3: Virexion Dominion | Kezryx Void Imperium: 858,770]

[Rank 4: Celestara Sanctum | Dravokh Tyrant Conclave: 612,330]

Suryax-Regalon had taken second place.

Rudra studied the numbers with a small, satisfied expression.

"One more," he said.

But the next wave was not one more of the same.

---

The next day, the Mountain changed.

The break ended, and the inland horizon did not fill with the usual tide. It filled with shadows. Enormous shadows, rising over the ridge one after another, each one taller than a Mega Dreadship, each one casting a darkness that spread across the plateau as it advanced.

The sensors struggled to read them. Aryan’s slate cycled through estimate after estimate before it settled.

When it settled, the command deck went quiet.

[Doom Titan. Combat Power: 800,000,000.]

"Eight hundred million," Aryan said. His voice was flat with disbelief. "Each."

Big D leaned toward the projection. "How many?"

The shadows kept rising over the ridge. One. Three. Six. They counted them as they came.

Ten.

Ten Doom Titans, each carrying eight hundred million combat power, advancing on the Mountain in a slow, unstoppable line.

The scale of them was difficult to process. They were not monsters in the way the earlier waves had been monsters. They were walking catastrophes. Each Titan stood like a moving mountain of dark, layered armor, veins of crimson light pulsing through the gaps in their plating. Their footsteps cracked the plateau. The air bent around them. The ambient red of the Doom Monarch’s sky darkened where they passed.

The first Titan raised one arm and brought it down on the open ground a kilometer ahead of the alliance lines.

The plateau split.

A shockwave rolled outward in every direction, and every alliance fleet rocked under it. Skydread Crafts spun. Mega Dreadships groaned. The defensive lines staggered.

And the Titans had not even reached them yet.

Rudra’s voice cut across the command channel, calm and absolute.

"This is the wave that decides the event. Everyone, full commitment. No holding back. Not anymore."

Almond was already moving.

---

The battle that followed was unlike anything the Mountain had seen.

All four alliances committed at once, and the sky above the plateau tore open with light.

On the western arc, Thalmyr-Ronethis fired first. Their crystalline arrays spun up in unison, and from every ship in their fleet, a single hairline beam lanced out, hundreds of them, all converging on the same point on one Titan’s chest. Where they met, the air screamed. The Titan’s armor held for a full second against the focused convergence, glowing white, then orange, then splitting along a seam no wider than a finger. The Thalmyr beams poured into the gap.

On the eastern arc, Virexion-Kezryx answered with thunder. Their entire storm fleet discharged at once, and the sky turned solid violet. Lightning did not strike the eastern Titans so much as bury them, column after column slamming down with enough force to flatten the plateau beneath their feet. The Titans walked into it and kept walking, crimson veins flaring as their armor drank the punishment, and Jaskrit Kezinos rose at the head of his fleet, his own combat power flaring like a second storm, driving the assault forward by will alone.

And on the southeastern arc, Suryax-Regalon went to war.

There were two battles to fight at once, and Rudra had split the line for both before the first Titan reached them.

The Titans were the headline, but they were not alone. Behind and around the ten giants came the rest of the wave, seven hundred thousand Doom infantry and monsters and siege creatures pouring across the plateau in the giants’ shadow. If that tide reached the line while the X-rank holders were busy with the Titans, it would flood the arc from the flanks and pull the whole defense apart.

So the X-rank holders took the Titans, and everyone else took the war beneath them.

Rudra’s orders went out through Kayla’s threads before he moved. "Almond, Lily, Ainen, with me on the giants. Everyone else, hold the tide. Do not let a single Doom unit reach the inner line."