The Seeker crossbow on Zaria’s porch opened fire as the giant balehen charged in. With the added accuracy of the enchantment, it could hardly miss - especially against a foe nearly as massive as Zaria was herself.

The flock diverted to the side, heading towards the mimics and Vysala. Zaria could only shout a warning, then had to brace herself for impact. She turned her finger towards the giant balehen and let loose a cackle, adding her own magic to the arrows. Both provided a barrage of assaults against the monster. Against the onslaught, a lesser balehen would have crumbled in an instant.

This was no lesser balehen. This was two tons of enraged chicken that feared no dungeon nor god, and knew no mercy, only chaos.

The giant balehen slammed into Zaria, goring the side of her hut with its horn eyes and sending Zaria stumbling to the side. The ground shook with every step as she tried to keep herself upright. For one deadly moment, it looked like she would fall, teetering on one talon, and the giant balehen lunged in, trying to take advantage of her precarious posture.

Then Zaria whipped out the talon that wasn’t on the ground in a sideways swipe, slashing the balehen across the face. She drew a couple of thick lines of blood, and the massive creature leapt back, squawking in indignation. The worms that filled the creature rose up to its face, sealing the injury, but first blood was Zaria’s.

Seeing how useless her cackle was against this monstrosity, Zaria turned her finger to the battlefield, casting it blindly and cackling at the smallest balehens that fluttered through the air. Against those small creatures, her blows could shatter bones and send them plummeting to the earth, where they were trampled by the larger combatants.

Still, the giant balehen charged in, crowing its rage. Zaria leapt back to gain some distance, lashing out with her talons at the giant’s side and forcing it to step quickly to avoid her.

She needed more weapons. It had never occurred to her that the death of her mobs in the battle would be a good thing, but right now, she needed every advantage she could get. And since command had been freed up already…

Zaria spun up a pair of uncommon crossbow mimics on the roof alongside her, each with a moon heart. They immediately turned on the balehen, but before they could open fire, the behemoth caught Zaria off guard. The beast’s tail whipped around, smacking into Zaria’s side and sending her staggering again. The balehen moved like lightning, charging in and ducking under Zaria’s countering kick. It came up under Zaria, driving its eye horns into her underside, further unbalancing her.

Before it could send her to the ground, the crate mimics she’d kept inside sprung out from the trapdoor, their tongues lashing out to wrap around the balehen’s throat and shoulders to pull them in. They were only Tin ranked mobs, but their bites were still doing some damage, and the Balehens squawked in indignation, thrashing to try to free itself of the assailants. The distraction gave Zaria a chance to catch herself and take quick stock of her house.

Dungeon reinforced wood was far stronger than normal materials. The balehen’s strikes would have splintered normal planks like they were toothpicks. But Zaria’s house was reinforced with dungeon mana. As such, so far the creature had only managed to score deep gouges on her surface, but none of them had punched through to the house within. That was probably for the best. Aside from the obvious reasons, Zaria had no idea what would happen if something from the outside managed to force a hole into her extradimensional interior.

A problem she’d just have to make sure she avoided, then. Zaria whirled, stepping fast to let the crossbows on her roof and porch focus their attention on the monster. she commanded the crate mimics.

At her command, each of them bit down, activating the Impact runes granted by Vysala to match the blow. These bites let the crates take large chunks out of the giant balehen’s form, and for the first time, the demonic chicken’s reaction turned from annoyance to pain.

Then the crossbows opened fire.

The seeker crossbow kept up a steady stream of bolts, but the Uncommon Moon Crossbows did some real work. With each shot, the bolt transformed the moment it was fired, becoming a beam of light that struck the balehen, tearing away slivers of its skin. Once the beam had resolved, there was still a bolt stuck in the creature, shining with the pale luminescence of the moon.

That wasn’t the strangest part, however. The strangest part was what was happening over the creature. An image of the moon took shape, ghostly and transparent, but growing more solid and real with every blast. It tracked with the balehen’s movements, moving along with the creature as it thrashed about.

The balehen was injured, but hardly down. Felworms began to erupt from its skin, now striking directly at the crate mimics, latching onto the crates with their lamprey mouths and splintering wood as they chewed through the mimic’s hides. The mimics had to let go to deal with these new threats, freeing the balehen from the minor annoyances and allowing it to refocus its attention fully on Zaria.

The balehen didn’t charge, however. Instead, it reared up, taking a deep breath, before letting out a deep sound somewhere between a bakaw and a lougie being hocked.

Then it let loose with a veritable stream of felworms, the demonic parasites washing over Zaria’s house. They latched onto her wood and tear into it. The sensation wasn’t painful, exactly, but it was unpleasant, and Zaria clenched her fists in frustration before turning her cackle on the worms. she commanded the Moon crossbows. was the order she gave to the Seeker crossbow, before checking her command total.

During the chaos, she’d lost a couple more mimics on the main battlefield. A quick glance told her Vysala and Rav were still alive and well, although the Witch had taken a few slashes that would need attention. Zaria used the freed up command to create a few sword mimics on the side of her house, ordering them to hunt down and cut off the felworms.

Then the balehen charged in again, and it slammed into Zaria with much more force than it had before. The creature had been gripped by some kind of demonic rage ability, driving it to a greater frenzy, and its strikes had been augmented as a result. Now it was dealing real damage to Zaria’s wood.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, a voice spoke from the air high above, harsh and monotone. “Command acknowledged. Following orders.” Zaria glanced upwards at the drone, which had been hovering overhead this entire time. “Playing recording.” Its voice had, up until that, had been flat and grating. What came out immediately afterwards was nothing like what it had sounded like before. Now it was upbeat and feminine, save for segments when it dropped back into that unnaturally flat voice. “Attention local sapients. This drone has detected a [unknown classification] in your area. Unusually high presence of lunar energy detected. Please seek shelter as countermeasures are deployed.” The voice switched back to the robotic tone. “T-Minus Ten until countermeasures. If you are caught outside, precautions have been taken to minimize sapient casualties. Distance yourself from non-sapient targets.”

Zaria couldn’t worry about that. The balehen was pressing in on its advantage, trying to force its horns through one of the holes its felworms had carved. A couple times it drew too close to a sword mimic, which took advantage of the proximity to lash out at the monster, but it was coming in strong, goring Zaria. She had to move as quickly as she could to keep her crossbow mimics trained on the creature.

“T-minus Five until countermeasures.”

Zaria kicked at the creature and glanced at the battlefield. The ground base balehens had been defeated. Now it was just up to the group to take out the fliers, and their numbers were rapidly dwindling. “Vysala!” she shouted. “Get to cover!”

Vysala didn’t need to be told twice. With Rav still lashing out, sending moonblade beams flying at the fliers, the witch broke from the battle and dove behind a rock.

“Three. Two.”

Vysala’s crossbows fired one more time.

“One.”

Everything happened at once. One was the moon that had been floating over the Balehen’s head solidified. The instant it did, it lit up, glowing with the intensity of a full moon and letting loose a beam of energy down on the Balehen. Pale light washed over the creature - and then every single one of the moon-based crossbow bolts inside the creature detonated in a flash of light, ripping new chunks out of the creature. Zaria could feel the experience flow into her as it died.

As the explosions were going off, the drone’s underbelly split open, revealing rows of dozens of metal fingers. The fingers roared like miniature dragons and erupted from the drone’s stomach, streaking down towards the battlefield. The moment they reached the level of Zaria and the balehen - as well as the balehen fliers - they detonated themselves. These explosions were more traditional flame detonations, but they sent shards of shrapnel flying out to the sides, shredding balehens and embedding themselves in Zaria’s side as well. Interestingly, none of the finger bombs that flew like crossbow bolts reached the ground. The shrapnel burned bright white and turned to ash before hitting the ground. Since all of Zaria’s mobs were ground based, none of them took any damage.

Then notifications popped into Zaria’s vision.

Hidden Quest Completed: Defeat an Elite Corrupted Animal. Bonus experience awarded!

New Quest Available: The Otherworldly Dungeon. An alien dungeon is loose on the world, with unusual mob types. Find it and drive it from this world before it drives the demons into a greater frenzy! Reward: Bonus experience, Title: Warden of the Shattered Moon Kingdom

New X000V[ERROR] Available! The Moon Has Seen. The moon has seen the moon has seen the moon has seen the moon has seen the moon has seen the moon has seen the moon has seen. [Repeats for Error: Value INF, terminating count to prevent system corruption.] Reward: 250% chance to control Moonborne Mobs, Moonborne Mobs now available for purchase. Beware: Moonborne mobs may resist control.

Beware: The Moon Has seen.

For a moment, in the thunderous aftermath of the explosions, the battlefield was silent. Vysala poked her head out from behind the rock, looking at the mess. Every balehen was dead - every balehen saved one, a smaller balehen that Broil had wrapped in its stovepipe. It struggled and squawked, but Zaria had wanted to feed it to her Oven, so Broil was keeping it alive.

Then the drone spoke again. “Lunar energy presence has ceased. You are now safe. Retreating to observation altitude. Any attempt to pursue will be seen as hostile.” It started to rise into the air again. Zaria wanted to order her crossbow mimics to shoot at it - but she was nearly drained. Most of her mana had been spent on that fight, and if the drone wanted to get out of range, Zaria would let it.

Vysala watched it retreat too, then flashed Zaria a fierce grin. Per what Zaria could see from the Witch, she was exhausted, but the earlier wounds were not deep enough to put her in any danger. Vysala leaned against her spork, trying to stand up, but her arms wobbled. She must have burned through almost all of her stamina in the fight, but she would live. “That was,” Vysala said, her voice thick with excitement and fatigue intermingled, “the single greatest fight of my life.”

Then she collapsed face forward into the dirt, unconscious.