The thermal pulse vaporized fur and corrupted tissue, but the wolf only convulsed, its jaws snapping wildly at Garrett's face. The dark magic suturing its flesh together held fast.
"They're augmented!" Nathan shouted, drawing Moonlight. "The Court's corruption... it's acting as a kinetic buffer!"
"Then we break the buffer!" Mirko shifted seamlessly into her humanoid form, her D-Rank sword singing as it cleared the scabbard. [Impenetrable Fortress] erupted around her in a blinding jade sphere. "Hmph! You twisted abominations of dark magic! This Knight has stared down the Last King! You are merely a rabid dog with too many legs!"
A second monstrosity slithered from the ruins—a massive serpent boasting three distinct heads, each one hissing with venomous, coordinated malice. Its scales were a sickly, necrotic green, stitched together by bulging purple veins. Thick saliva dripped from its fangs, hitting the dirt with a violent HISSS-POP, dissolving rock into slag.
