System: Daily login!!, jackpot on the first day!!!

Just as the last sprite was pierced by holy light and vanished in a flicker of silver dust, leaving behind only a Magic Stone, a rumble stirred the roots beneath their feet.

The golden haze in the air suddenly warped, twisting as though reality itself refused to remain still.

The oppressive sweetness returned, now tainted with a new scent: rot masked in perfume, honey curdled by corruption.

Daniel's breath caught in his throat. He could feel it.

Caldwell's instincts screamed again. "... Something's coming"

The trees groaned, bowing unnaturally inward, as if pulled toward a dark gravity. The vines that had once fled the Holy Ground now coiled at its edge like a wounded beast preparing to strike.

Then... She appeared.

Floating just above the ground, emerging from the twisted bark of a massive, hollowed-out tree, the Sprite Swarm Matron.

She was tall for a sprite, nearly human-sized but her body was far from mortal. A grotesque fusion of beauty and decay, her figure shimmered with tattered wings of crystalline green, cracked and glowing faintly like stained glass caught in firelight. Her torso was wrapped in bark armor that pulsed as if alive, and from her back erupted thorned limbs like insect legs, twitching, grasping, reaching for something unseen.

Her face still bore a trace of the sprite she once was, elegant and fey but it was ruined by what she had become. Her eyes burned with sickly gold, leaking foul mana with each blink. Her mouth curled in a smile too wide, too broken.

She hovered just outside Daniel's Domain. The ground beneath her feet rejected her presence, hissing where her corrupted mana touched the edge of the Holy Ground.

Then, she spoke.

Her voice came not in sound, but as a whisper into the mind, layered with thousands of chittering voices beneath it.

"You… desecrate my womb. You poison my swarm... You burn the cradle of the green... with light that does not belong here"

Daniel raised his sword again, the radiant crosses behind him glowing hotter, crackling with energy like miniature suns.

"…I sanctify what you've defiled"

The Matron shrieked, a piercing, psychic wail that split the air and cracked bark from trees. Her screech wasn't just a sound, it was a curse, a hex that rippled through the forest like a shockwave of rot. Trees screamed. Leaves curled and blackened midair. The vines lunged like serpents, barbed and wild, striking toward the party with blinding speed.

"Hold the line!" Caldwell roared, moving to intercept. Excalibur had bathed inside Daniel's Holy Ground, shining with holy resistance, as he cleaved through the first wave of vines.

Asahi launched into the air with a single beat of his mana-wings, his form a blur of steel and blue light.

"Let's see if she can bleed." His katana sang as it clashed with one of the Matron's flailing limbs, slicing off a chunk of blackened bark that hissed and steamed when it hit the ground.

Reza, standing tall beside Daniel, anchored his feet as his sword pulsed with aura. "We finish it. Now"

Then-

From behind them, a familiar voice rang out.

"Don't worry, guys-" Rijal's voice was steadier now, breath regained. He raised his staff high, light swirling around him in golden arcs. "I got your back!"

He slammed his staff into the ground.

*BOOM!*

A second sphere of protection bloomed just behind Daniel's Holy Ground, this one woven of layered barrier runes and defensive threads, constantly shifting to intercept projectiles and shockwaves.

Suddenly, every vine that slipped through the edge of Daniel's domain slammed into invisible walls, detonating into harmless sparks.

The Matron let out a frustrated screech.

Her thorned limbs twisted into claws and spears, reshaping midair. She launched a volley of acidic spores, her wings flapping once and she shot forward.

"She's charging!" Reza warned.

Caldwell intercepted her mid-lunge, their weapons colliding in an explosion of light and corrupted mana. Bark and blood flew as he pushed her back with brute force, only for her limbs to split into writhing tendrils and wrap around his blade.

She opened her mouth and from it, a blast of raw corruption surged toward Daniel.

Daniel didn't flinch.

He whispered a single word: "Lux"

The crosses behind him responded.

*FWOOOSH!*

They ignited and rushed forward, forming a radiant shield wall in front of him.

The corruption hit and disintegrated, consumed by the raw divinity of the spell.

Daniel's voice rang out across the battlefield, calm and commanding.

"Push forward. I'll keep the ground pure"

"About time," Asahi grinned, vanishing in a flash and reappearing above the Matron, blade gleaming. "Let's clip her wings"

Asahi dove from above like a bolt of blue lightning.

His blade struck true, cleaving clean through one of the Matron's wings in a flash of silver light. The severed wing spiraled through the air, dissolving into ash.

The Matron screamed.

Not in pain but in rage.

She flailed wildly, slamming into Caldwell and hurling him back. She twisted midair, dark energy pouring from her wound like black fire.

Her body convulsed, joints snapping in unnatural angles as her shape began to twist and break.

Daniel's expression hardened.

"…She's changing"

The glow in the air dimmed, Holy Power retreating slightly, reacting to the Matron's corruption reaching a new height.

Then-

The forest died.

The surrounding trees withered instantly, their bark cracking, roots curling in on themselves. All mana was drawn into her body like a black hole of power. Her form exploded outward, a pulsing cocoon of vile energy wrapping her like a chitinous shell.

Reza stepped back. "... That's not good"

Asahi landed, blade smoking. "Did we just make her stronger?"

*CRACK*

The cocoon split open.

What emerged was no longer a sprite.

The Matron had become something else... something monstrous.

Her new form towered, now easily twice their height. Her wings were replaced by vast webs of rotting silk, laced with glowing thorns. Her limbs had elongated into razor-bladed branches, her bark body now armored with fungal growths that pulsed with spores.

From her back, eggsacks pulsed, swollen and squirming, ready to burst.

Her face… was gone. Replaced by a gaping maw that opened vertically across her head, revealing rows of teeth made of bone shards.

"... YOU BURN MY CHILDREN. I SHALL BURY YOU IN MINE!"

With a shriek, she slammed her claws into the ground.

Eggs exploded open.

Dozens of Lesser Sprites poured from her body, more twisted, faster, sharper than before. They buzzed wildly, high on hatred and frenzy.

"Here it is," Daniel said quietly, raising his blade again. "Everyone... brace!"

Caldwell, blood running from a split brow, spat to the side and readied Excalibur. "We've come too far. We don't fall here"

"Barrier's still holding!" Rijal shouted, reinforcing the barrier with a surge of mana and a bit of holy power.

"Then let's turn the tide," Reza said. He flared his Aura. "Asahi! Go high. I go low. Daniel, finish what you started"

Daniel nodded. He pulled his sword close to his chest and whispered again.

"Let this Holy Ground become Judgment"

The glyphs on the earth shifted, spiraling in a new formation. The crosses behind him multiplied, glowing even brighter.

And as the Matron lunged, her swarm crashing down like a wave of death.

The corrupted Matron surged forward, her twisted limbs crashing down like spears.

She howled, not as a mother mourning her children, but as a godless husk, maddened by the purity she could never touch again.

Daniel stood firm at the center of the glowing Holy Ground, eyes locked on the abomination before him.

The crosses behind him hovered in a perfect ring, twelve now, each one pulsing like the heartbeat of heaven.

"This land was not yours to corrupt…" Daniel whispered, raising his sword high.

The air turned still.

Light began to fall like snow... golden, soft, endless.

The glyphs underfoot brightened until they carved themselves into the earth, permanently etched into stone.

Reza clashed with the Matron's limbs from below, locking her in place with brute force.

Asahi rained strikes from above, tearing through her silk-webs and winged mass.

Caldwell, bloodied and grinning, dashed through the swarming lesser sprites, clearing Daniel's path with sheer rage and steel.

And then, Daniel struck his blade downward.

"Let this land be cleansed... Let this monster be judged... Let divinity descend... NOW!"

"Final Judgment: Spear of Sanctum"

The twelve crosses merged into a single towering lance of pure Holy Power, shaped like a spear as wide as a tree trunk and as tall as the sky. It hovered above the battlefield, crackling with enough energy to burn the corruption from a continent.

The Matron raised her head to scream... Too late.

*KRA-KOOM!!!*

The Spear of Sanctum fell.

It struck her dead center, piercing through her monstrous body with a sound like heaven tearing open. A beam of light erupted skyward, splitting the clouds above and shining into the Realm gate itself.

The Matron didn't explode.

She burned, slowly, silently... disintegrating from the inside out, her body unraveling into white ash. Her swarm fell with her, the lesser sprites evaporating in waves as the divine presence expanded outward.

Silence returned.

The battle was over.

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