Snow Fox’s voice had lost its sweetness entirely. It was a rapid, hoarse set of commands now, barely recognizable. "Keep going! Don’t stop! Potions when mana drops! Watch Brother Finch’s bar! Don’t let it drop below a quarter!"

Sweat ran freely down Finch’s face. His voice was tight but controlled. "Two more minutes. Give everything. This thing’s almost out of health."

One of the junior priests, apparently too flustered to engage his brain before speaking, said something about Diana in comparison to Finch that Don caught in fragments, something about Diana not being able to stand up to Finch even if she tried, phrased in a way that made several people wince.

Don thought, with sincere internal heat: If you’re going to curse my sister like that, you deserve whatever happens to you next.

He barely finished the thought.

Nightmare Wings turned its head directly toward the rock they were hiding behind.

Don’s heart stopped.

The boss galloped two steps in their direction, then veered sharply and drove both scythes into the unfortunate priest who had been speaking. The impact launched the boy’s head in a clean arc through the air. It traveled in a long, almost elegant parabola before rolling to a stop directly at Don’s feet.

The entire group froze.

Don and Vera moved simultaneously. Don clamped a hand over Lily’s mouth. Vera covered Quinn’s.

Lily bit down on Don’s hand so hard he nearly made a sound he couldn’t take back. The pain radiated up his wrist in a white-hot line.

Kira, silently and without ceremony, pressed her own palm over Don’s mouth before he could make a noise.

Since they weren’t very well acquainted, Don was too embarrassed to bite her in return. He simply stood there in muffled agony, feeling strongly that he had gotten the worst of this particular arrangement.

The severed head dissolved into light and vanished, and the young priest’s indicator shifted to the village respawn. But Nightmare Wings had already turned away, and now it raised both scythes and swept them through the cluster of priests behind the War Fire front line in a single devastating group strike.

What followed was not clean.

The sound was unmistakable, sharp weapons tearing through flesh, rapid and relentless, undercut by the cracking of bone. Fresh blood hit the ground in sheets, erupting upward in layers of crimson mist that hung in the air for a moment before settling.

Most of the group looked away. Only Vera kept her eyes on the scene.

Amidst the blood-red light, a voluptuous figure collapsed. The chainmail across her chest had been nearly split open, revealing what lay beneath. War Fire Snow Fox, it seemed, had a story to her. Whether Elias Finch was part of that story was anyone’s guess, but the available evidence was suggestive.

The area-of-effect sweep had cleared almost the entire War Fire priest contingent in one pass. The few players remaining in the surrounding area were scattered, disoriented, and not in any condition to be useful.

Don’s expression shifted. He didn’t need to say anything. Everyone understood immediately. They moved quietly into the tree line behind the boulder, spreading out just enough to have clean sight lines.

Don stayed at the edge, watching.

Nightmare Wings did not disappoint. It turned toward Elias Finch, scythes rising, and charged. Finch, his health still below half, his composure visibly cracked, ran. Actually ran. In the wrong direction.

Then a cold realization landed in Don’s stomach.

Fies Village was barely three minutes away. If Finch ran toward the safe zone, Nightmare Wings would follow. And if it entered the vicinity of the village before dying, it would heal, and everything, every minute of attrition, every corpse on the field, would be wasted.

Don exhaled.

But then the War Fire players regrouped at a distance, and Finch, seeing the boss’s depleted health bar, apparently decided the risk was worth taking. His voice came through the open field with what sounded like desperate resolve. "Brothers, smash this thing to pieces!"

The attacks resumed. Ice arrows, fireballs, halberd strikes, everything converged on Nightmare Wings simultaneously.

And then a blood-red membrane rose from beneath the boss’s feet, spreading outward like something alive.

[System: Nightmare Wings’ HP below 10% — Dying Struggle triggered. ATK and DEF +30% for 5 minutes. Nightmare Wings has learned Bloody Strike.]

The health bar was still falling, but the crimson light had spread like a flood, reaching the feet of every player still standing in the field, and creeping toward the boulder where Don stood.

Elias Finch’s voice carried a quality Don had never heard in it before.

"Run—"

The explosion cut him off.

The sound was felt more than heard, a detonation that seemed to compress the air and then release it all at once. The crimson light fractured into shards, each one driven outward by the shockwave in every direction simultaneously, carving through everything in range with the precision of glass in a tornado. The field became something Don had no clean word for.

System notifications cascaded across the team channel.

Player Zord Kane has been struck by Bloody Strike — 5,621 damage. Dead.

Player War Fire Brahma — 5,012 damage. Dead.

Player War Soul — 10,385 damage. Dead.

The chimes continued. One after another after another, until the sound blurred together into something continuous and impersonal. Don stood very still and watched the silver-white light of a dozen death animations rise simultaneously from the field, each one drifting upward and dissolving into the air above the grass.

No survivors remained near Nightmare Wings. The few limbs that hadn’t fully dissolved were already fading, blood and light intertwining as they went.

Don had to admit, even to himself, that it was genuinely tragic.

But Nightmare Wings had not died. Despite the suicidal last stand, a sliver of health remained on its bar. And now it had turned its head, locked eyes with Don across the open field, and charged.

The berserk effect had expired. Only the Dying Struggle buff remained active. Don raised the Larsel Bow, nocked, and released a Rhinoceros Gazing at the Moon shot that struck Nightmare Wings for 789 damage. Not impressive. But enough to hold its attention.

He fired four more arrows in rapid succession, running backward into the tree line as he went. "Ladies, it’s coming. Get ready."

The women were already positioned at the forest entrance, each gripping a ranged weapon, every one of them wearing an expression that could only be described as businesslike greed.

Don reached their position and lowered his bow with a shrug. "One spit each should finish it."

They spit more than ten times total, in the metaphorical sense. Ranged attacks, arrows, bolts, spells, stripped the last fraction of health from Nightmare Wings as it stumbled beneath a low shrub, its massive frame folding inward as though the effort of staying upright had simply become too much. It collapsed without ceremony.

The killing blow was delivered by Bernita, who currently had the lowest level of anyone in the group.

Golden light descended in thick, simultaneous columns.

The unspoken rule of Realms Online had taken effect, when the primary damage-dealing team was wiped, the system transferred credit for all their accumulated damage to whoever finished the kill. There was no workaround. Large teams paid the price for their own failures.

Bernita, having landed the final hit, received both the standard team experience share and an additional 50 percent solo kill bonus. She leveled to 33 and, for the first time, appeared on the American region leaderboard. Quinn reached 32 despite having joined late. Lily hit 34. Kira and Don both reached 35. And Vera, with her higher base level, surged to 37, overtaking Elias Finch to claim the top position in the American region rankings. Don, for the first time, broke into the top three.

They exchanged one brief look, smiled, and began sweeping the field with the practiced efficiency of people who had done this before.

Ninety-four gold coins. The most generous single boss drop any of them had seen.

Gold was nice, but it was fleeting, good for rice at best. Equipment was what mattered.

Nightmare Wings had dropped four pieces. Worth noting was that only one was bronze-grade, a Level 35 metal breastplate. Both Kira and Vera declined it immediately. That one would go on the market after the official trading boards opened at noon. At this stage, a bronze piece that high-level would attract buyers immediately.

The remaining three were something else entirely. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

The first was a silver-grade chainmail upper garment with intricate surface patterns, clearly high-quality at a glance. The second was a silver crossbow forged from fine steel, its surface carrying a faint chill even in still air. The third, and the one that drew a sustained silence when Don held it up, was a pair of leather shoulder pads with wisps of fire curling off their surface.

Gold grade.

At this stage of the game, a gold-grade piece was comparable to a divine artifact. The gap between gold and silver was not simply a matter of raw stats, it was a category difference that most players at this level had never held in their hands.