Orion made the call. He would leverage the full might of the Conquest Legion, channeling their collective resources into the defensive ward to turn this into a war of attrition.

He would turtle up. He would hold the line until the Abyssal Ruler finally purged the Graying from this layer of the Abyss.

As the decision settled in his mind, a sudden realization hit him. I'm an idiot.

Most of the other Abyssal Lords were likely doing exactly this—hunkering down behind their walls, burning resources, and waiting out the timer. Very few were insane enough to go toe-to-toe with an Unhallowed using their body of faith.

If he told anyone what he'd just done, they wouldn't call him brave; they'd call him a tryhard with a death wish.

"I was way too reckless," he muttered.

***

The second layer of the Abyss, Vigil's Point.

The immediate crisis brought by the Unhallowed was over, but the defensive ward remained at full power.

No one could guarantee a second Unhallowed wouldn't spawn.

Statistically, it was unlikely. In the eyes of the Abyssal Ruler, a single Unhallowed was usually enough to wipe a standard Abyssal Lord off the map. Two at the same time? That only happened if you had seriously pissed off the system admins, or if the RNG gods truly hated you.

Orion and Makareth were insignificant ants to the Abyssal Ruler; they weren't worth the targeted harassment. The only other possibility was aggro overflow. If a neighboring Lord's defenses collapsed and their territory was consumed, the Unhallowed might wander over looking for dessert.

"My damage is severe. Keep the shield up. Do not lower it," the body of faith commanded.

As for Orion's mirrored avatar… it was already crashing.

Survivor's Platform // Champions Alliance Public Channel

Leonidas: Where's Hulk-bro?

Leonidas: Bro, listen to me. Don't try to be a hero. Do not face-tank the Unhallowed. I learned that the hard way.

Leonidas had tried. He'd thrown a peak arch lord avatar and a demigod phantom at the problem.

The result? His avatar got wrecked, and his phantom was beaten within an inch of its existence. He had burned through an obscene amount of divine power and faith just to kill the damn thing.

And the loot? A single gray crystal. He didn't even know if it was worth the cost because the server-wide inventory lock meant he couldn't transfer it to his World Dragon avatar to appraise. In his opinion, the drop table for these things was trash. It wasn't worth the resources he'd wasted.

Kraken: Big boss, Hulk and Mak went radio silent a while ago.

Kraken: I'm betting they ran into one of those things.

Kraken, the ever-loyal hype man, was quick to respond.

Isabella: I messaged Makareth earlier. He said a massive battle was breaking out. We should hear something soon.

Like Kraken, Isabella didn't have territory in the Abyss, but she was keeping tabs on the meta. Intel was currency.

They didn't have to wait long. Once the situation at Vigil's Point was stable, Makareth logged on.

Makareth: @Leonidas Battle's over on our end.

Leonidas: How's Hulk doing?

Kraken: Who won?

Isabella: Did anything drop?

Leonidas was anxious. He knew exactly how hard these things hit. Orion hadn't achieved true demigod status yet. If Leonidas had struggled, Orion should have been flattened.

Makareth: The Unhallowed… it was the biggest, scariest mob I've ever seen.

Makareth: It blocked out half the sky. If that thing had landed on us, the city would be a pancake.

Makareth: I've heard you guys talk about Hulk's DPS before, but seeing it IRL?

Makareth: The man is cracked. He's actual demgod-tier.

Makareth wasn't exaggerating. He wasn't an arch lord yet. To his eyes, the duel between Orion and the Unhallowed looked like a cutscene from a high-budget game. It was beyond his comprehension.

Leonidas: Okay, but how is he now?

Leonidas had a feeling. He needed someone else to share his misery. He'd taken a massive L, and he secretly hoped Orion wasn't walking away unscathed.

Makareth: I don't know the specifics. The second the fight ended, his avatar passed out cold.

Makareth: Oh yeah, Hulk used his body of faith. It was this four-headed, eight-armed Titan being. Absolutely sick design.

It was sick. To a Demon like Makareth, the Asura Titan Form was the peak of aesthetic perfection.

Leonidas: He popped his body of faith?

Leonidas: Is he insane? Who grinds that hard?

Leonidas: I'm calling it now. Hulk is definitely hiding in a corner somewhere, crying over his resource pool.

Leonidas: HAHAHAHA.

It wasn't malice. It was experience. Leonidas knew the cost. If Orion's body of faith had taken critical damage, that was a permanent stat loss.

As it turned out, Leonidas was right on the money.

Orion was indeed crying.

Not because of his body of faith, but because his mirrored avatar was experiencing a catastrophic system failure.

After using Blood Sacrificetwice in a row, the avatar's life energywas completely depleted. The tank was empty.

And that's when the glitch happened.

His passive skill, Siren Regeneration, kicked in automatically. It tried to repair the damaged body. But regeneration requires fuel—life energy—and there was none left.

Orion had frantically stuffed life essence into the avatar's mouth, trying to refill the bar, but it was too little, too late.

The avatar stood on the precipice of death, and the code broke. The bloodline mutated.

The mirrored avatar wasn't just healing; it was changing. It was a forced evolution driven by a starving engine. The system, in a desperate bid for survival, decided that the humanoid form was too costly to maintain. Aesthetics were a luxury; survival was a necessity.

Before they were singers of the sea, Sirens were apex predators—descendants of the ancient Leviathans that ruled the primordial depths. The glitch unlocked this dormant, primal sequence.

Efficiency replaced elegance.

The bloodline mutated. The mirrored avatar wasn't just healing; it was changing. It was a forced evolution driven by a starving engine.

A dormant, primal sequence within the siren DNA took over. The avatar's body expanded, bones cracking and reshaping. Its head elongated, jaws stretching wide and filling with rows of serrated, needle-like teeth, resembling a prehistoric mosasaur.

Its limbs dissolved and fused, morphing into four powerful, draconic claws. Along its spine, jagged ridges of bone erupted through the skin like dorsal barbs. From its flanks, thick, grotesque tentacles burst forth, writhing blindly in the air.

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