The massive subterranean implosion had shaken the foundational bedrock of the entire continent. The blast bypassed King Voranthar’s mortal politics and violently woke the slumbering gods of the Fourth Continent.

Red watched four crimson markers detach from the primary divine signatures. The markers plummeted toward the digital representation of the Sovereign’s Path at terrifying speeds.

he deities realized their mortal King had failed to protect the border, and they immediately took matters into their own hands.

’They are deploying their Sovereign Pets,’ Red calculated, watching the markers enter the deep crust of the land bridge. ’They are hunting the assassins.’

’Syra,’ Red projected his voice across the void, locking onto her faith signature. ’Do not stop moving. The explosion woke the pantheon. They just dropped four apex predators directly into your extraction route.’

Miles below the surface of the Sovereign’s Path, Syra stepped out of the shadow portal alongside the Troglodyte sappers. They materialized inside a vast, rocky crevice located perfectly between the two continents.

She received the Sovereign’s telepathic warning just as the stone beneath her boots began to violently tremble.

"Keep moving west!" Syra ordered the sappers, drawing her condensed shadow dagger. "Do not stop until you reach the desert!"

The Troglodytes immediately sprinted down the subterranean corridor. Syra covered their retreat, her draconic eyes scanning the absolute darkness of the cavern. The trembling stone amplified into a chaotic, violent earthquake.

The cavern wall to her right abruptly exploded.

Massive chunks of bedrock rained down across the path. A colossal subterranean serpent burst through the shattered stone. The beast measured easily over a hundred feet long, completely encased in interlocking scales of molten gold.

Dozens of glowing white eyes lined its angular head. The creature opened a massive jaw filled with spinning, crystalline teeth, letting out a screech that physically cracked the surrounding stalactites.

The serpent ignored the fleeing sappers entirely. Its multiple eyes locked directly onto Syra. The gods had explicitly commanded the beast to eliminate the assassin who broke their engine.

Syra channeled the mythic Ley-Crystal embedded within her core. She bypassed the ambient lighting and pulled pure darkness straight from the shadows of the falling debris. She manifested a barrage of solid black spears and launched them directly at the creature’s multiple eyes.

The golden serpent lunged forward. The beast possessed unnatural agility for its massive size. It twisted its armored head, allowing the shadow spears to glance harmlessly off its molten scales.

Syra melted into the floor just as the spinning crystalline teeth snapped the space where she previously stood. She traveled rapidly through the two-dimensional darkness, moving beneath the serpent’s immense body to reach the far end of the corridor.

She emerged from a shadow cast by a broken boulder. The serpent instantly tracked her exit, whipping its massive golden tail toward her new position. The kinetic impact shattered the boulder entirely, forcing Syra to dive aggressively to the side to avoid being crushed.

’Its armor deflects physical strikes, and it tracks my exits perfectly,’ Syra analyzed, rolling gracefully to her feet. ’I cannot kill a monster of this scale in an enclosed space.’

Up in the sanctuary, Red watched the telemetry of the fight unfold. He saw three more massive crimson markers rapidly converging on Syra’s exact coordinates. She was buying time for the sappers, but she was about to be completely surrounded by apex predators.

Red keyed the communication rune.

’Iron-Scale,’ Red commanded, routing the signal to the golden palace. ’Your assassin is trapped in the deep crust. Take the other commanders with you and slay those beasts.’

Down in the golden palace, Iron-Scale tapped his chest plate twice to acknowledge the telepathic command.

"General Krax," Iron-Scale ordered, turning away from the stone war table. "Syra is pinned in the deep crust beneath the land bridge. The enemy deployed their apex predators."

Krax grabbed his greataxe from the floor. The violet Ley-Crystal embedded in the hilt flared brightly. "Gulag cannot stop digging the highway. We leave her here."

"Take the desert warriors," Iron-Scale instructed. He gestured toward the battalion of native fire mages waiting in the outer courtyard. "Ignisar is absent, but his troops know how to burn monsters. We move now."

Within minutes, the Vanguard commanders and a thousand desert warriors sprinted across the golden dunes. They reached the edge of the Sovereign’s Path.

The ground trembled violently beneath their boots. The subterranean clashes between Syra and the golden serpent threatened to collapse the entire land bridge.

Iron-Scale looked at the solid red rock beneath his feet. They lacked the time to navigate the winding crevices Syra used for her infiltration.

"Open the floor," Iron-Scale told Krax.

Krax grinned. He inverted his gravity field, launching himself thirty feet into the sky. He focused the absolute weight of his core into the head of his axe and brought it crashing down onto the foundational bedrock.

A localized singularity detonated on impact. The stone pulverized instantly, opening a massive vertical shaft straight into the dark caverns below.

Down in the deep crust, Syra narrowly dodged another snapping bite from the golden serpent. She manifested a shadow portal to retreat, but three new colossal energy signatures suddenly burst through the cavern walls around her.

A giant armored centipede, a subterranean arachnid made of crystal, and a glowing white basilisk surrounded her completely.

Suddenly, the ceiling caved in.

Iron-Scale dropped through the newly formed shaft. He channeled his emerald core to generate a massive cushion of wind, landing flawlessly between Syra and the golden serpent. Krax crashed into the floor a second later, shattering the bedrock beneath his boots.

The desert warriors slid down the rocky incline, igniting their scimitars with bright orange flames to illuminate the pitch-black cavern.

"You took your time," Syra commented, dismissing her shadow portal.

"This... should be enough to take care of the pets." Red muttered to himself. "If not, I will send Glitch." He glanced at Glitch who responded upon hearing his name. "I want to test how strong he got after his recent evolution."