Even as I shook off my rippling fear, I had to move.

The Priestess' soul exploded into a blast of Bronze-ranked mana, thick and rich like water from a melting glacier, but I didn't exactly have time to sample it. I snatched the mana and rushed to my creatures, to those dead and dying.

Seros' kobold was injured but stable, her eyes milky and scorched by the boiling water, scales ripped loose and horns twisted; an electric eel curled and twisted around the spearhead embedded in his side; the armourback sturgeon left tried to flee from the sword pinning his back fin to the ground. Gods. They'd brutalized everyone.

I grabbed the Bronze-ranked mana and did my best.

Blood hazing through the water got sucked back into its original body, flesh regrowing and scales popping over top like a coat of armour once more. I tugged the spearhead out of the electric eel, the metal clattering to the ground. A handful of silverheads gasped, thrashing, and though I sprang for them I couldn't clear the salt that had crystalized in their gills; they died a truly horrifying death. Sparks of mana drifted towards my near-full core.

Seros. The seabound monitor shot up to attention, the fins over his tail quivering as he held the waters at bay, circulating air over his kobold. Take her to safety.

He nodded, leaning down with almost hesitance in his eyes; I'd never seen him so worried before, tension all but rippling under his scales as he bent down. He wrapped his jaws carefully around the kobold's upper arm, every ounce of his hydrokinesis coming to play as he kept a bubble of air around her face even as he kicked off the ground and swam up—but not back to the second floor. He wriggled his way up the farthest tunnel, laying her carefully next to the pillar that held my core.

That was… a choice. I guessed he wanted to make extra sure she would be safe? Nothing I would begrudge; not quite a dragon, but having a kobold's loyalty was something I imagined spoke right to the draconic part of his soul. I curled an errant piece of stone around the entrance. No one would be sneaking up on her in any meaningful way.

And then I took stock of my dungeon halls.

From all of my creatures, perhaps a third had been killed, if not more; the Priestess' ranged attacks hadn't been limited to just Seros and his kobold but had also hit the massive schools of silverheads and silvertooths, leaving only scraps sadly drifting through my third floor. On the upper two floors, only those incapable of swimming had stayed behind, alongside the cowards; everywhere was depleted. All the floors were strangely silent.

My points of awareness bled back upwards, guiding the last scraps of the Bronze-ranked mana to help repair the floors; when I'd wrenched my ambient mana away some of the walls had weakened, trembling under the weight of the mountain above, and I slammed as much reinforcement into them as the limestone would hold. I was rather interested in not having my dungeon home crumble around me, thank you kindly.

Something tickled at the edge of my thoughts. I glanced back at my core.

Your creature, a Luminous Constrictor, is undergoing evolution!

Please select your desired path.

Colossal Boa (Uncommon): Growing to titanic lengths, this constrictor lurks in the shadows and strikes at passing victims. With its immense strength and size, there is little that can successfully fight off its fatal hold.

Umbral Constrictor (Rare): It foresakes its previous life in favour of its new hunting style, shrouding itself in shadows as it slinks through the undergrowth. Its prey never sees it coming, and they rarely have time to regret that mistake.

Silver Krait (Uncommon): Adapted to life both in water and on land, this creature strikes at night. Its bite causes no initial pain, fooling its prey into never noticing they were bit at all, only to suffocate later.