"So we must do something else. Or we pack our bags."
A devilish glint appeared in Kaiden’s eyes. He already had a plan.
The girls saw it. Every single one of them recognized the shift, the way his posture loosened, the way the fury in his jaw settled into the cold architecture of a man who’d found the answer and was already three steps past it.
"We need something bigger," he said. "Something New Dawn won’t dare fight with a squad like this."
Luna’s grin died.
Calypso’s tail went still.
Aria opened her mouth, closed it, then looked at Kaiden more carefully.
He wasn’t reckless. He was never reckless. Reckless was Ash throwing himself at monsters he hadn’t scouted because his ego demanded it. Kaiden threw himself at monsters he’d spent hours studying, because the math said he could win.
There was a difference.
A few of the girls smiled inwardly while keeping the facade of concern up, because they knew. Wherever he was going, they were going. The question was never whether. Only when.
Kaiden pulled up the tactical overlay again.
He studied it differently this time. Before, he’d been filtering for targets his team could safely engage. Isolated. Manageable. The kind of monster a coordinated group of level fifties with their prowess could grind down with good positioning and no mistakes.
Now he was looking for something else entirely.
His eyes moved past the level seventy-sixes. Past the seventy-sevens. Past the markers he’d already been denied.
He stopped on a cluster of red deep in the northern corridor. Level eighty. Solitary. A Deepvein Colossus, according to the Association’s notes. Massive subterranean predator. Thick mineral-encrusted hide, devastating ground-pound attacks, and a territorial rage response that made it chase intruders for over a kilometer before giving up.
The veteran reports flagged it as a "do not engage without S-tier support" threat.
’Perfect.’
"Found it. Let’s move."
He dismissed the overlay and started walking. Faster than before. The careful navigation from earlier, the wide berths around migration routes, the constant cross-referencing of patrol patterns, all of it was gone. He moved with purpose and visibility, cutting straight lines through terrain he’d previously circled.
"Girls, this will be a brutal battle. We might sustain injuries. But we must push through, or else we’ll never be able to fight a battle of our own. The only solution is to fight something New Dawn doesn’t dare."
...
The plateau came into view. A broad shelf of dark stone overlooking a basin where the Deepvein Colossus had carved itself a nest in the mountain’s root system. The creature was partially visible, an enormous bulk of mineral-crusted hide shifting in the shadows of its den, each breath sending small rockslides cascading down the walls.
It was massive. Five times the size of the Borer Queen.
Kaiden stopped at the edge. His girls formed up around him. Below them, the Colossus shifted in its sleep, and the ground trembled.
Aria’s eyes went wide as she took in the scale.
Luna whispered, "That thing is huge."
"Yep."
"And we’re fighting it?"
"We are."
Luna blinked. Before she could ask what the fuck he was thinking, the sound of boots on stone reached them from the south.
Ash and Chinedu’s squad crested the ridge.
"What? They dare fight a monster at level 80?!" Kaiden grumbled with disbelief.

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