The Broodmother’s claw came down exactly where Helios was standing, and the Radiant Bulwark shattered instead of holding.
Gold light burst outward in every direction at once, no longer a wall but a detonation, and the shockwave of its collapse hit the Broodmother’s outstretched limb hard enough to knock it sideways mid-strike.
The claw that should have ended him instead gouged a furrow into the earth a foot to his left, and Helios found himself thrown backward through the air, landing hard enough to drive the breath from his lungs.
For one long, disoriented second he genuinely couldn’t tell if he was still in one piece.
[Radiant Bulwark: integrity 0%.]
[Ability entered failure state. Reconfiguring…]
Reconfiguring.
Not gone.
Helios scrambled upright, ears ringing, and understood with sudden, adrenaline-sharp clarity what had just happened.
The shield hadn’t just broken.
It had discharged, all of its stored capacity releasing at once in the direction of the thing that finally overwhelmed it.
“It’s an option,” he said out loud, mostly to himself, filing the discovery away for later even as the Broodmother recovered its balance and turned back toward him with what looked uncomfortably like fresh irritation.
His whole arm still tingled faintly where the light had passed through it a moment ago.
“Helios!”
Kaelen came out of the tree line at a dead sprint, blade already out, the tracker apparently handed off to someone else in the retreating line.
He didn’t slow down as he closed the distance, cutting across the Broodmother’s flank in a move clearly meant to split its attention rather than actually hurt it.
Blood still ran freely down his forearm from the earlier Broodling bite, and he didn’t so much as glance at it.
It worked.
The Broodmother’s bulk swung toward the new threat, giving Helios exactly the few seconds he needed to get his feet fully under him again.
[Radiant Bulwark: reconfiguration complete.]
[Effect updated: Bulwark may now be manually discharged as a repulsion burst at any integrity level, at the cost of remaining duration.]
Helios almost laughed at the timing of it.
“Kaelen, draw it left! I need one more shot at this!”
“Working on it!”
Kaelen was, in fact, not having an easy time of it.
The Broodmother’s counter came fast, one of its many legs sweeping low in an arc that Kaelen barely cleared by throwing himself sideways, rolling once and coming back up already moving.
Behind them both, the last of the Broodlings still in the basin were being methodically cut down by the soldiers guarding the retreat, the tide of small, vicious bodies finally starting to thin.
Somewhere further off, Helios could hear Seraphina’s voice again, sharper now, coordinating the withdrawal with an urgency that suggested she was watching this unfold through whatever channel had opened between them earlier.
Helios raised his hand, calling the Bulwark back into existence, smaller this time, tighter, built for one purpose rather than sustained protection.
[Radiant Bulwark: forming.]
[Discharge available on command.]
He waited, watching the Broodmother’s rhythm, the way it favored its uninjured side after the arrows and Kaelen’s earlier cuts.
When it lunged again, aiming for Kaelen this time, Helios stepped directly into its path and released the discharge point-blank.
[Radiant Bulwark: discharged.]
[Critical exposure: target staggered.]
The blast of light caught the Broodmother square in its exposed underside, and for the first time since the fight began, the massive creature actually reeled, legs buckling under it as it let out a shriek that shook loose dust from the basin’s rib-like structures.
“Now, Kaelen!”
Kaelen didn’t need telling twice.
He closed the last few feet in a single motion, driving his blade up under the staggered creature’s jaw with every bit of momentum he had left, and this time the shriek cut off completely.
[Evo — Broodmother, Adult: eliminated.]
Silence spread through the basin like something physical, broken only by the ragged breathing of everyone still standing.
Even the handful of surviving Broodlings scattered near the edges seemed to sense the shift, retreating into the shadows without further prompting.
Reinforcements arrived a full minute after it no longer mattered, a squad of Rexnest soldiers crashing through the tree line with weapons drawn, skidding to a halt at the sight of the fallen Broodmother and the two scouts already being carried out on makeshift stretchers.
One of them, a young Dark Elf soldier barely more than a boy by the look of him, stared at Helios with an expression that had nothing skeptical left in it at all.
“Long live the King,” he said, quiet at first, and then louder, picking it up from someone else in the party who’d already started saying it.
Within seconds the whole squad had joined in, ragged and out of breath but unmistakably sincere.
[Council Recognition Threshold: met.]
[Title “Supreme Elven King” — status updated: Active.]
Helios stood in the middle of a basin full of dead monsters, exhausted, aching, and read the notification twice before it fully landed.
Provisional, Seraphina had called the title back on his very first day.
Cosmetic status only, until it was earned.
It didn’t feel cosmetic anymore.
Kaelen clapped him once on the shoulder, hard enough to make him stagger.
“Congratulations. You’re officially my problem now, permanently.”
“I thought I already was.”
“Provisionally. There’s a difference.” Kaelen’s grin faded into something more genuine for just a moment.
“For what it’s worth, that discharge trick probably saved both our lives. Don’t let it go to your head.”
“No promises.”
[System Notice.]
[New evolutionary branch available: Lumen Ward chain evolution detected.]
Helios’s stomach dropped for an entirely different reason this time.
He’d barely had time to process becoming an actual, recognized king before the system was already demanding his attention again.
“Of course there is,” he muttered.
“Of course there’s more.”