It was, Umji reflected, a lot like playing a tower defense game.

If the first part of the mission had her playing Cortana to the rest of her team as they broke through floor after floor to reach the top, the second section was where she finally took an active role in engaging with the enemy rather than being their lock breaker and GPS.

Umji knew she wasn’t a frontline fighter like the rest of the team were. That didn’t mean she was completely helpless. Sure, if anyone actually burst into the room where she was, she wouldn’t last very long, but first they would actually have to get there.

And she was very good at making sure they wouldn’t. Umji smirked, looping the camera feeds to make sure no one at their posts saw anything out of the ordinary. At the same time, she was carefully monitoring any and all communications in the building. Any suspicious movement of any kind was right within her purview, and she had a thousand and one ways to make sure they would get redirected somewhere else.

The team had bust in through the last door they had her crack earlier. That had been a good fifteen minutes ago, and it would be a lie to say that Umji wasn’t nervous. There were no cameras on the final level. Her last view of the team sans Sowon was when they had taken the final elevator up to the top. The radio signal had gotten choppy not long after they had left the elevator, and it was a good thing she had asked Yerin and the rest to plant relays. There was no way a regular signal would penetrate the interference up there.

She had only had enough time to confirm that Sowon had joined up with them, and shortly after Yerin’s “Atta girl” comment, the signal had shorted out. Either there were jammers, or the magical field up there was just too strong for the comms to work. Neither scenario was a good sign, and Umji couldn’t help but worry. She was unable to watch over them this way, and it made her nervous.

Unless. Umji carefully opened up a little pouch, revealing one of her newly constructed drones. It fit snugly in the middle of her palm, more toy-like than anything else. She had based the design on one of the movies of the old world, and the tiny golden ball with its delicate rotors on both side was the closest thing she could manage to replicate while still remaining aerodynamically stable. It had no weapons, barely any armor, and was basically only good as a flying eye in the sky, but Umji had made it for a very specific reason.

The electrum coating had cost a pretty penny, but it was also the best material for magic shielding. Umji had consulted Yuju extensively regarding the matter, and they had stress tested it in a controlled environment prior to this, but Umji was relatively certain that her replica golden Snitch would remain airborne even in a magically saturated area. Airborne, and able to transmit images back, if she linked herself to it.

Umji needed to know what was going on. She couldn’t afford to be blind to what happened above, and she certainly wasn’t going to ping Yuju using the little figurine the shaman had given them before. Only in emergencies, Yuju had said. Breaking a magic user’s concentration could be fatal in a combat situation, and Umji certainly wasn’t going to cause trouble for any of her unnies.

That said, Umji was never one to dawdle when it came to things she could do. Linking up with her tiny drone took little to no time, but Umji spent a wee bit longer establishing a deeper link so that she wouldn’t lose connection when she sent it flying upwards. She wasn’t fully certain about the maximum range, but the relays planted every few floors up should help her boost the signal past her natural range. When she opened her eyes again, her left eye took on a weird double vision as the camera on the drone activated, whirring to life as she tossed it into the air.

This was the best she could do. Umji switched channels to open a backdoor she had planted in the Spartan network. Old habits die hard, and even if they were allies, Umji felt better knowing what exactly they were doing, and it’d be easier to signal for help if she already had the communications channel open. One of their evacuation plans hinged on the Spartans, certainly. Sowon hadn’t put all of her eggs in one basket though, so they did have backup plans. Umji knew she was key to most of them, and she wouldn’t fail her team.

She couldn’t fight with them, but she sure as hell was going to make sure she could extract them when the time came. Umji grit her teeth.

Everyone, stay safe.

There was no warning when it came. The sudden wave of pressure was enough to knock them to their knees. Sowon staggered, gritting her teeth at the overwhelming force projected at them. It was as if someone had dropped a building on them, except it was invisible, and heavy.

It lasted for a moment, then a familiar wave of energy surged from her chest, emanating from the talisman she was still wearing. Further ahead, SinB gasped aloud, finally able to stand; on the opposite side, Yerin pressed herself deeper into a pillar, cold sweat running down her forehead as she tried to keep her knees from shaking.

Eunha and Yuju had joined hands behind them, the shaman’s eyes glowing as she warded her team against the magical field the dragon had established. Absolute territory, it was a spell only the most powerful of mages could execute, and then only imperfectly. It rewrote the rules of space in a limited field, tied to the whims of the caster within that zone. Within a territorial spell, the caster’s will was absolute. The drain was hideous, which meant that most people couldn’t sustain it on a large scale or for long periods of time, but clearly the dragon wasn’t bound by the same limits. Yuju’s wards would allow them to move normally, but they had already started at a disadvantage. This was not good.

“So this is how you greet your guests.” Sowon bit out through clenched teeth. If not for Yuju’s quick counter action, they would be no better than meat on a chopping block.

Her fury seemed to amuse the dragon on the dais. Except it was no serpent right now, presenting instead as a middle aged man in a dapper suit. Yet it was most definitely not a man in any sense of the word, down to the reptilian eyes and inhuman cast to its features. It was as if the dragon had taken the ideal of a human shape, and cast its essence into it without modifying it for humanity.

The end result was too sharp features, the whisper of a forked tongue, and an inhuman grace in its movements. No one would ever mistake it for a real human being if they had the eyes to see. Certainly, that fact failed to bother the dragon in its barely adequate human skin. It never had any intention of passing as human, and why should it?

“Certainly no more rude than being attacked in one’s own home, is it not?”

The deep bass of the dragon’s voice rumbled through the air, calm and resonant. It seemed supremely confident, as if the five human intruders were no more threatening than an invading bug to be quashed at leisure. It was currently focused on the mages with a languid curiosity, first at Yuju who had negated the worst effects of his gravity field, then with greater interest at Eunha.

“You look familiar, child. Have we met?”

Eunha’s irises shrank to dark points, and her grip on Yuju’s hand tightened almost painfully. The shaman glanced over, concerned by Eunha’s spiking agitation. Scaly patterns ghosted to the surface of the fire mage’s skin, but Eunha managed to suppress it with some effort.

The dragon did not miss the changes. It rose off its seat in a sinuous motion, tasting the air with a forked tongue. Its eyes were hungry as it studied Eunha with a covetous greed. Yuju stepped instinctively in front of Eunha, eyes narrowed as she eyed the dragon warily.

“The dragon orb, you have assimilated it.” The dragon was still staring at Eunha, though Yuju was in between them. “Impossible, a human could not possibly have…” It trailed off, revealing teeth sharper than any human had any right to possess.

“And yet, here we are…” A sudden fury rose beneath the calm exterior it had been projecting. A sudden burst of automatic fire cut it off, but the bullets hit an invisible shield that hadn’t been immediately apparently earlier. A protective bubble revealed itself as it absorbed the force, shimmering into sight with the energy from the attack.

The dragon raised a contemptuous hand, lightning bolts arcing towards Sowon, who quickly rolled out of the way even as Yuju followed up instantly with a shield of her own to prevent any splash damage. Behind her, Eunha gave up any pretense of holding back and allowed the scales to envelop her skin, leaving only her eyes exposed as fireballs coalesced all around her.

The barrage of fire splattered against the shield woven around the dragon, even as the others continued firing in an attempt to get through it. Yuju’s eyes flashed, scanning for weaknesses even as she defended the others from the elemental bolts the dragon tossed out.

“Focus fire!’ Yuju barked out, eyes glowing as her hands moved rapidly. Sowon, SinB and Yerin shuddered involuntarily for a second when a second burst of energy from Yuju’s spell hit them, their senses sharpening as a glowing mark appeared in their vision. Eunha didn’t need help to see the marker, and the team reacted instantly to the command.

The dragon hissed in frustration when its shield shattered, and it was actually forced to move off the dais before the next wave of fire and bullets shredded it where it stood. Sowon and SinB moved closer, approaching from different angles to try and pin the dragon down without getting in each other’s crossfire. Yerin stalked from another direction, biding her time as she squeezed off calculated shots. Eunha fired off needle sharp spikes of concentrated flame, fast and deadly as any bullet, and the dragon’s skin broke and regenerated constantly under the assault.

“Enough!” Scales of its own burst into sight, not unlike the set that covered Eunha, though it was patterned differently. A massive aura seemed to emanate from the man-shaped dragon, throwing SinB and Sowon back for a second and making Eunha flinch. Yuju was forced back a step, but she held steady as she bit into her lip to reinforce the spell that kept everyone moving.

Space warped all around them, making sight difficult. The gunfire slowed, both Sowon and SinB afraid of hitting friendly targets by accident. The dragon snapped its suddenly clawed fingers, and servitors rushed out from hidden chambers on either side. Sowon cursed and drew the vibro-blade as she blocked an onrushing lizardman with it and fired off another armor-piercing round through the stomach of another, and was soon mobbed by at least three others. SinB was equally tangled by no less than three servitors, while Yerin danced circles around the two that had magically managed to notice where she was.

That left Eunha and Yuju alone with an angry dragon. Eunha’s fire was barely scratching the surface of the scales, and aiming for the eyes was no easy feat. A fire rose within Eunha, screeching for release, and she dived recklessly forward, wanting to rip tear shred and…

Yuju hauled her back, grunting as she tossed up another shield to break the spectral claws that had been aimed directly at Eunha. The shadowy talons ripped through the shield even as Yuju threw up one after another to slow the impact, backing up and trying to break Eunha from the frenzy spell that had snuck in past her notice. Fire curled between them, searing her skin, but Yuju healed through it as she grabbed Eunha by the head, leaving her back open to the dragon.

Clarity returned to Eunha’s eyes as she met Yuju’s clear orbs, her fire receding in confusion before her eyes widened again. She tried to pull Yuju out of the way, but the ghostly talons had already shredded through the last shield and raked into the shaman’s back. Yuju staggered, falling forward as Eunha backpedalled, hauling Yuju out of range. Fear and fury warred in the mage’s eyes, war flashbacks coming fast and hard as she took in the bleeding mess of Yuju’s back.

Never again. Lightning arced around the furious mage, forming an electric net around them both. The dragon paused in its step, sudden amusement sparking with a certain recognition.

“Ah, now I do remember. It was you who freed me, was it not?” Reptilian eyes swept across the two mages, thin lips curved into a mocking grin. Eunha growled.

“You lied back then.”

“And yet, here you are with all your friends.” The dragon made a sweeping gesture with one arm. “That is what you asked for, is it not? I have kept my bargain.”

“ Everyone died! ” Eunha spat. Yuju stirred in her arms, and the mage looked down as the shaman straightened with a shaky smile. The talons hadhurt, but they were merely flesh wounds. It had taken a little while to repair, and the shaman had gone pale from the effort, but at least she was still standing. Eunha exhaled with mild relief, but she didn’t let go of Yuju. The shaman patted Eunha’s shaking hands, trying to reassure her, and the dragon sneered.

“Details, child. Your souls were reunited in this life. I see how you could have assimilated the orb then.” It seemed thoughtful. “Though I can’t imagine why father’s orb would have chosen a human bearer.” The word ‘human’ was spat with a certain disdain.

“The orb was supposed to be mine. Come to me willingly, and I will spare your little friends.”

Yuju tightened her hold on Eunha as she turned to face the dragon. The shaman’s eyes were cold as ice.

“I won’t let you have her. You failed, imugi. You wouldn’t need an orb to ascend if you were a true dragon. You’re nothing but a fake.” Yuju’s lips curled into a sneer as she continued taunting the suddenly frozen figure.

“I AM A DRAGON!” The dragon, or should we say, imugi? Roared its rage as it charged forward, targeting Eunha. Yuju pressed her lips together as she dodged the swing, and Eunha cooperated by tightening her net, forming a shield of pure electricity that Yuju conveniently reinforced. The two magic users worked in tandem to slow the imugi, but they were still forced to give ground step by step.

Sowon wanted to pull back to reinforce them, but she was still busy with three of the servitors. She had managed to decapitate two of the ones harassing her, but the other three were a lot more wily and working together to keep her pinned while staying just out of range of her deadly blade. Their fallen compatriots had not expected the sword to be able to slice through their scales, and had paid the ultimate price. Sowon was running low on ammunition as well, and she scanned the room quickly to see if anyone else could help.

SinB had managed to down one of her attackers, and cut off the hand of another, but was too far away to assist even if she could extricate herself from her own fight. Her speed was serving her well, but Sowon knew how much strain it put on the girl’s body when used for extended periods of time. SinB was pacing herself, only applying added bursts when necessary, but she would be at a disadvantage the longer the fight drew out.

Where was Yerin though? Sowon managed to lop off an arm and grunted when a return gashed across her shoulder, but she accepted the blow in order to twist her blade upwards and take the head off her one-armed opponent. She rolled to avoid another spray of bullets, and then blocked another downward slash to her head with the flat of her blade. She risked a quick glance at the two mages, hoping they could hold out long enough for her to get to them.

Yuju was still taunting the imugi, which was unusual behaviour for her, and it was making the imugi even more frenzied in its assault. Sowon’s eyes narrowed, then sparked in realization when she caught Yuju’s smirk.

Yerin closed the distance with terrifying certainty, having already finished her opponents in record time. Her twin blades were wet with gore, and she moved with the deadly precision of an assassin. Yuju had seen her earlier. Yuju always saw her. One look was all it took. They had known each other long enough to know what was needed. Yerin needed a distraction, and Yuju had given it to her.

A knife sank into the imugi’s back, straight to the heart, and twisted. The imugi stopped midstep, looking down at the blade that had penetrated through to the front. A second blade reached upwards to slice across its windpipe, and the imugi shrieked, a painful soundwave that blasted everyone to their knees.

The human form split like a wet sack as the true form of the imugi released itself, a serpent with the deformed horns of a true dragon. Three talons spaced across the length of the thirty foot long serpent, with the stub of a fourth on one side. Yerin was still on its back as it reared upwards, clinging on for dear life as she stabbed her other knife in to steady herself, eliciting another scream of pain from the furious imugi.

Yuju and Eunha struggled to their feet even as SinB took the opportunity to finish off her opponents, Sowon doing the same to hers. Yerin looked small perched on the back of the giant serpent, and she was just out of reach of the head as she tried to keep herself from getting thrown off. The others tried to rush it, but the imugi took to the air, smashing against the stained glass roof of the chamber.

“Yerin!” Yuju cried out, desperately trying to weave something, anything, to catch the assassin. The imugi flailed again, and the rest of them caught sight of Yerin bleeding down half her face, teeth tightly clenched as she twisted her knives inward, determined to wound the damn thing before it could throw her off. Another violent shake, and this time it was finally enough to dislodge her.

SinB leapt upward, boosted by Sowon, in an attempt to try and catch Yerin as she was violently thrown off the imugi’s back. Yuju’s spell was still only half woven when SinB’s fingers brushed against Yerin’s ankle, but the gunslinger couldn’t get a good enough hold, and all of them watched with horror as Yerin crashed right through a window on the far side.

“ NO! ” Yuju howled. The air around her seemed to go deadly still, and next to her, Eunha flinched away as Yuju’s aura darkened with raging streaks, crackling with a vicious energy. A ghostly howl of a wolf seemed to echo Yuju’s own, and the already damaged ceiling cracked and fell in a shower of glittering shards, revealing the blood red moon that hung above in its full glory.

Yuju’s eyes had gone as red as the moon that illuminated her. The specter of a wolf seemed to superimpose itself on her hunched form, and the shaman screamed as she accepted Wolf into herself, vivid markings running across her skin and crawling up her face like a rippling tattoo. When she stood again, Wolf Spirit cloaked her like a second skin, and spectral claws seemed to extend from her hands, humming hungrily.

“Berserker…” Sowon in a breath, quickly pulling Eunha back before the fire mage could step forward to try and reach Yuju. “Don’t, I’ve seen it before, she can’t tell friend from foe right now.”

Yuju cracked her neck ominously and bared her teeth at the airborne imugi coiled in the air, before taking a running jump into the air to pounce on the lowest point available to latch on. Sowon swore and gestured to SinB to circle from the other side, warning her to stay out of Yuju’s direct path if she could.

On the magical plane, Eunha could see the glowing forms of a serpent and a wolf locked in combat, tearing at each other in ways that the physical realm did not reflect. The wolf was mauling the serpent, but the serpent was also tightly coiled around it.

Something was off about the situation though. Yuju’s wolf was entirely reckless, which made sense considering how out of control she was now, but the serpent wasn’t pressing the advantage. If anything, it only seemed to be trying to pry the persistent lupine form off it, without going for the exposed jugular or any of the vulnerable points. Eunha’s eyes narrowed, thinking quickly as she tried to find an angle to attack without hurting Yuju in the process.

For your freedom, I will ask for Yuju to live.

A distant memory came back to her, and something clicked. The imugi had exploited the loophole in their old bargain, considering it fulfilled when their reincarnated selves had been reunited. But that wasn’t the only clause in their deal. Her first request had been for Yuju to live, and Yuju was alive right now. Which meant…

He couldn’t kill her. No, he wasn’t allowed to kill her, not without the deal backfiring. Magical pacts had exploitable loopholes, but one couldn’t flagrantly break the rules as stated. Not without major consequences, and with a bargain this large, the backlash would be...considerable. Threatening even to the imugi, and it knew this.

The potential implications of everything this entailed cascaded through Eunha’s mind, and she shuddered, suddenly understanding the things she had overlooked before.

Yuju had pulled her soul back through time. That should have been an impossible feat for a single person to achieve. It required more power, more magic than any one person had to offer, even drawing upon the natural leylines to amplify what Yuju could safely channel. Both she and Yerin had suspected blood magic to offset the difference, but there had been no one else to sacrifice in that chamber that they knew of.

Except one. Eunha clapped one hand to , tears welling up in her eyes. Yuju had offered up herself as a sacrifice, and if not for the still active pact acting as a magical wellspring to replenish her life force, Yuju would have died for her again in this lifetime.

But she couldn’t afford to wallow in sentimentality right now. Their priority was the imugi, and if the imugi couldn’t kill Yuju right now, they had a chance to turn the tables. Eunha sprinted towards Sowon, calling out.

“Sowon! It can’t kill Yuju! If you’re going to do something, now is our chance!”

“What?” Sowon halted in midstep. “What do you mean?”

“The pact! In the cave! I asked for Yuju to live, the imugi can’t do anything to her right now!”

Sowon’s eyes widened as she took it in, then nodded sharply as she looked back up at the circling imugi still entangled with a frenzied Yuju. Amazingly, the berserked shaman’s claws were digging into the imugi’s flesh, allowing her to cling on and tear new wounds into the coils. The imugi was thrashing and trying to shake her off the way it did Yerin, but Yuju clung on with the tenacity of a bulldog. She was bruised and battered bloody, but it didn’t slow her one bit as she ripped and tore her way upwards.

“SinB! See if you can force it down!” Sowon yelled across the room. SinB gestured okay and gauged the terrain, looking for something she could use. The imugi was still almost ten meters off the ground, and there really wasn’t much hanging above it now that the stained glass ceiling was gone. There were massive wall-mounted chandeliers ringing the base of the circular dome of the chamber though, and SinB eyed them speculatively.

Eunha cast another electric net and tossed it up, sealing off the ceiling exit. It wouldn’t do for the imugi to escape before they could deal with it. The imugi might be able to penetrate the wall of lightning and fire, but Eunha was counting on it to not do so, because Yuju probably wouldn’t survive it intact. It was a gamble, but she had little choice at this point.

Sowon was firing off her last shots at the imugi’s head, only succeeding in pissing it off, and out of the corner of her eye she saw SinB take off at a run and leap up the walls, looping one of her wires to swing onto one of the gigantic chandeliers. The move placed her just above the level where the imugi was still thrashing in midair, and the gunslinger’s grin was savage as she swung the vibro-dagger she was still holding, cutting through the metal clasps anchoring the lights to the wall. As it came free, she kicked the entire monstrosity of glass and steel onto the imugi’s head, bounding to the next chandelier to repeat the process.

Eunha winced at the amount of broken glass raining down on them, casting another worried glance at Yuju, who seemed heedless to the cuts she was suffering through it. Sowon’s eyes were still fixed on the sight above, her boots crunching on the glass shards beneath them.

“Eunha, do you think you can…?”

Eunha frowned. SinB’s tactic was working to some degree, the bombardment of heavy metal frames forcing the imugi to fly lower to dodge the projectiles. Five to six meters was well within Sowon’s reach, with a little boost. But cutting off the serpent’s head alone would not be enough. They needed the simultaneous strike on the astral plane, and Eunha didn’t know where to hit. Yuju was supposed to be doing this, but Yuju was a little...preoccupied at the moment.

The fire mage clutched at her chest, calculating if she could do it without endangering Yuju’s life in the process. They were too closely entangled, and Eunha was never precise enough on that astral plane to risk it. Her fingers brushed across the little wooden carving Yuju had handed her before the mission, and an idea came to her.

“Sowon, give me a minute!” Eunha yelled.

“Hurry up! SinB’s running out of material!” Sowon yelled back, positioning herself at the right angle to make the jump when necessary.

Eunha bit her lip and focused on the figurine in her hand. Yuju had said that she could reach any of them within a certain radius as long as they were wearing it. Logically, it meant the connection also worked in reverse. Delicate magic was never something Eunha specialized in, but sometimes brute force had its applications. She closed her fist around the figurine.

The figurine cracked, and on the astral plane, she saw Yuju jerk visibly, her rabid wolf seeming to pause mid-bite. Eunha closed her eyes, sending her thoughts through the suddenly open connection, trying to rouse the shaman from her frenzy.

And then she realized she wasn’t alone.

An alien consciousness was there, trying to get to Yuju as well. The connection she opened had been a crack in the walls, and Eunha was violently aside by the imugi’s will in the same breath, staggering her as she coughed up blood from the backlash, landing on her .

She wasn’t the only one who had crashed to the ground. The tangled mess of human and serpent also fell with all the grace of a boulder, sending up a cloud of dust and glass splinters as they left a crater in the floor. Before the dust settled, Sowon bounded to the center of the crash, either to take off the imugi’s head if either one of her mages could back her up, or at least to drag Yuju out if nothing else. There was only so much punishment a human body could take, even reinforced with magic.

Except she couldn’t get any closer. Sowon was joined by SinB who rappelled down to ground level, and they stared at the glowing cocoon that isolated the imugi and Yuju in the middle of crash site.

“, what the hell?” SinB tossed a broken metal frame at the cocoon experimentally, and it rebounded off harmlessly. Eunha tossed a small puff of flame, but it dissipated against the material without doing any damage.

“The imugi was trying to invade Yuju’s consciousness just now, before he threw me out.” Eunha looked pale, her constant spellcasting and the earlier astral struggle starting to exacerbate the drain on her body. Sowon swore.

“Can we stop it?”

SinB moved to Eunha’s side, supporting her best friend as Eunha wavered on her feet. The fire mage pressed her fingers to her temples.

“It can’t kill her, but it can try to break her.” Horror dawned on Eunha’s face as she thought it through. SinB squeezed her arm comfortingly, and Sowon grit her teeth, glaring at the seemingly impenetrable cocoon.

“We’ve got to cut through that as fast as possible. Can’t let it have her.”

SinB cocked her head as she turned towards the entrance. The elevator that had brought them up to this level had frozen several floors below, no doubt Umji’s doing, but even the genius hacker couldn’t block off the stairs. Distantly, there was the thump of boots on marble, the vibration so minute that one could barely feel it. Call it instinct, but SinB always had hers finely honed.

“Guys, I think we’ve got incoming.”