Just Die had entered the fight with clean lines, superior pressure, and the confidence of a guild that believed the battlefield already belonged to them. They understood how to fight players, how to break formations, isolate healers, pressure tanks, and punish bad retreats.

This time, Just Die was facing something they could not solve with cleaner formation work.

Martin had returned with more than a stronger weapon or a better buff. He had brought a creature that made the entire cave answer him.

A tank tried to anchor himself against Ao Tenshin’s current with a heavy shield skill. Martin saw the golden outline lock around the man’s boots and smiled.

"Angel, left."

Ao Tenshin’s sapphire eyes flashed, and the current shifted left.

The tank’s skill held him perfectly in place, which became a problem when the water stopped pushing from the front and slammed into his side instead. His shield turned with the force, his shoulder opened, and his formation bent around him.

Martin hit the exposed gap with his shield first.

[Shield Bash]

The shield strike knocked a mage off her feet and sent her splashing into the water. The dark mark appeared across her chest, and Martin immediately kicked away, letting the water carry him out.

The mage tried to roll onto one knee before he reached the limit, but Ao Tenshin’s Whirlpool dragged at her balance and slowed every step she took. Martin crossed the distance before she could break the mark.

[Kraken’s Tentacle]

A dark tendril snapped up beneath the mage and dragged her back toward Martin through the flooded gap.

A second shield bash knocked a ranger loose from the formation, and a sharp kick from Martin sent a healer splashing backward into waist-deep water. He did not need to finish all of them himself. He only needed to break their positions.

Kuro A saw the break instantly.

[Kuro A: Right gap. Fire.]

Night Espresso’s rangers answered.

Arrows cut through the mist, and short, compact spell triggers flashed from the high stone. They did not waste wide casts that the water could ruin. They struck the players Martin and Ao Tenshin had already forced out of position.

Three more Just Die members vanished into respawn light before their tanks could close the lane.

At the same time, a few Just Die members began to understand the mistake they had made much earlier.

"Beasts are an important part of the lore..." one player muttered, watching Ao Tenshin redirect another current with a turn of her shell. "And now we can see why."

"Yeah," another said bitterly. "Raze always had dibs on the good stuff because of Ashy."

"This is worse than Ashy."

"Shit..."

The resentment in their voices cut sharper than fear. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Fear made sense. Anyone could be afraid of a huge dragon turtle controlling floodwater inside a cave. Their resentment came from something uglier.

Martin looked too natural here, and Ao Tenshin was too large, too useful, and too perfectly suited to the water ruining their formation. Every current seemed to welcome him, lift him, and carry him exactly where he needed to go.

Most of all, they hated the way Night Espresso’s morale changed.

A few moments ago, Night Espresso had been climbing because Kuro A had ordered them to survive. Now they were aiming down from high stone with their eyes bright again.

"Brother EMP!" someone shouted.

"He brought the lake with him!"

"No," another Night Espresso player said, watching Martin ride a surge around Ao Tenshin’s shell. "He turned the lake into a weapon."

That realization moved through the ridge faster than any order. Shoulders straightened. Players who had been climbing only to survive planted their feet and aimed down again. Night Espresso was no longer scrambling away from defeat. They had something to fight behind.

Martin heard some of it through the chaos, but he did not look back.

His focus stayed on the flood, the enemy line, and Ao Tenshin’s movements beneath him. Every shift of her shell changed the water, and every flash of her sapphire eyes revealed another path.

Ao Tenshin read the flood as she moved it. She softened the currents near Night Espresso’s stone pockets, twisted harsher streams through Just Die’s front line, and opened brief lanes wherever Martin needed to move.

With every shift, she shaped the battlefield beneath his feet and turned him into part of her current.

A volley of arrows came from Just Die’s rear line.

Ao Tenshin reacted first, lifting the edge of her shell so the crystal plates caught the arrows with a rain of sharp impacts. Several snapped, others skidded off into the water, and a spell bolt struck her shell a moment later before bursting into blue-white sparks.

Ao Tenshin shook her head and released a tiny offended squeak.

Martin laughed.

"Yeah, rude of them."

He stepped up the slope of her shell as she rose through the flood. Water streamed off his armor, mist curled around his broken mask, and Ao Tenshin’s crystal shell glowed blue through the spray behind him, large enough now for several Night Espresso players to see her clearly from the ridge.

The whole cave went still around that image. Martin stood above the flood while every current, every threat, and every stare seemed to gather around him.

He sent his weapon back into his inventory and drew the Crystal Spear.

The spear flashed in his hand, bright as a thousand stars, and every reflected point of light caught a different face from both guilds, from shocked allies to furious enemies to players who were only now realizing that the battlefield no longer belonged to them.

Just Die’s front line tightened below him.

Their players were angry now. They still had discipline and numbers, but their anger made them easier to read, and Martin could work with that.

Angel’s small horns glowed faintly through the mist above him, and the flood curled around Just Die’s boots below as if waiting for his next command. In that brief stillness, every enemy player had to look up.

"This is our turf from now on," Martin declared, his voice carrying over the water. "So the best thing all of you can do is... Just Die."

Every member of the enemy guild gritted their teeth.

Ao Tenshin squealed beneath him, proud and adorable.

The flood answered around her shell, and for the first time since Just Die had pressed Night Espresso against the wall, the fight moved in Martin’s direction.