A Just Die mage lowered his staff without noticing.

"That thing is a pet?" he whispered. "Bullshit."

Another player beside him swallowed hard. "That’s not a pet. That’s a raid mechanic."

Ao Tenshin blinked her sapphire eyes and squealed adorably.

The sound bounced through the cave, bright and cute enough to belong to a plush toy. The skill that followed belonged to a natural disaster.

[Ao Tenshin has summoned the Dragon Turtle Domain.]

The water answered her. It rose with purpose, moving as though it had been waiting for her command.

Currents that had been slamming randomly through the cave suddenly turned. Water curled toward Ao Tenshin’s crystal shell, climbed around her body, and spread outward in violent rings. The flood pulled away from some stones and struck harder against others. Shallow pools deepened, knee-high water climbed to waists, and broken gaps between rocks became rushing channels.

Players felt the change before they understood it. A Just Die tank planted his shield and leaned against the current, only for the pull to shift sideways and drag his stance open. A mage tried to cast, but the water struck her legs from the wrong angle and broke her aim before the spell circle stabilized. A healer reached for higher stone, slipped, and had to be dragged up by another player before the current took her fully.

"What the hell?!"

"The current changed!"

"Since when can pets change terrain?!"

More water poured from Ao Tenshin’s shell as though a riverbank had opened inside her. It spilled down the crystalline layers, joined the cave flood, and pulled the entire cave closer to her rhythm.

Then she followed with Whirlpool.

The current tightened as foam spun around her shell, dragging loose weapons, broken stones, and unlucky players into curved paths they had not chosen. The flood stopped behaving like random chaos and became a disaster with direction.

On the high ground, Kuro A narrowed his eyes. He still did not know exactly what Martin had done beneath the bank, but the explanation could wait. Ao Tenshin’s domain had twisted the water away from Night Espresso’s stone pockets and driven it into Just Die’s front line, and that shift gave him everything he needed.

That shift gave him an opening.

[Kuro A: Do not fight the current. Move with it.]

[Kuro A: Rangers, punish anyone who loses balance.]

[Kuro A: Healers, stay on stone. Do not step down unless called.]

Night Espresso steadied, and Just Die lost the clean rhythm they had been relying on.

Ao Tenshin lowered her crystal-crowned head with the same innocent determination she had shown when she was smaller, cuter, and far less terrifying. She was going for her favorite move, and the water carried her massive body forward like a living battering ram.

The collision hit with a brutal crack of crumpling armor and buckling shields. Three players hit the wall at once and burst into respawn light. The impact sent a tremor through the cave, and water jumped from the stone as the entire battlefield shook around her.

A fourth player survived only because a tank dragged him aside at the last second.

He stared at the empty space where his party members had been, then looked back at Ao Tenshin.

"She headbutted them," he said, his voice hollow. "That turtle just headbutted them into death."

Ao Tenshin squealed again, sounding terribly proud of herself.

Martin moved with her. He did not charge separately from Ao Tenshin. He rode the shape of the flood she created, turning every surge into a path and every pull into a weapon.

When Ao Tenshin forced a line of players sideways, Martin shot through the gap. When she slammed her shell into the current and lifted a wave, he used that wave to launch himself over a shield wall. When a Just Die assassin tried to slip behind him, Ao Tenshin shifted her massive body just enough for her shell to block the attack.

Martin turned with her movement and drove his shield into the assassin’s chest before the man could regain his angle.

[Shield Bash]

The hit broke the assassin’s balance and sent him stumbling backward into the flooded ground. The player splashed down hard, and a dark mark flickered across his chest where Martin’s shield had struck him.

Martin kicked off Ao Tenshin’s shell and swam away from him.

The gap opened fast, first ten meters, then twenty, while the assassin forced himself up through the water and tried to chase. Ao Tenshin’s current dragged at his legs, and by the time he realized Martin was not retreating, the distance between them had stretched to thirty meters.

[Kraken’s Tentacle]

A dark tendril burst out of the water beneath the shield-bashed assassin and wrapped around his torso.

The player had just enough time to understand the mistake before Kraken’s Tentacle pulled him toward Martin.

He thrashed as the tendril dragged him across the flooded ground, clawing at the water while his boots struck broken stone and his skill icons flashed uselessly. Ao Tenshin’s current kept turning his body sideways, and the tentacle hauled him through the flood like prey being reeled back to its hunter.

Martin waited at the end of the pull with his shield raised.

The assassin came skidding through the water and slammed into the shield hard enough for the last of his health to disappear. His body dissolved into respawn light at Martin’s feet.

"This is fucking crazy!"

"Unfair as fuck!"

"He didn’t even bring a party!" someone shouted. "He brought a map event!"

"That thing is controlling the flood!"

"Stop calling it a thing!" another Just Die player snapped. "That thing is killing us!"

"Stop yelling and break the ridge!" Just Die’s second shotcaller barked. "Rangers, force Night Espresso off high stone! Tanks, keep Emperoar boxed!"

His eyes snapped toward the water each time Martin moved. He had seen enough to read the pattern. Emperoar needed shield contact first, then distance. Once thirty meters opened between him and the marked target, the dark tendril dragged the enemy back toward him.

"If he bashes you, anchor yourself!" the second shotcaller shouted. "If you slip, someone grabs you before he hits thirty!"

Their outrage spread faster than the water, but the command kept it from turning into panic.