The Zombie System.

"Get up, Leon!"

Elise's voice cuts through the haze of venom clouding Leon's vision. He lies on cold stone, chest burning where the hag's claws tore through leather and flesh. The poison spreads through his bloodstream like liquid fire, making his muscles seize.

His mage zombie materializes between Leon and the Night Hag. Blue fire blazes in empty sockets as it raises spectral hands. A concentrated mana bolt erupts from its palms, streaking toward the creature's head.

The hag moves like flowing shadow. Her body bends at impossible angles, spine twisting as the bolt sails past her ear. Stone explodes behind her where the magic strikes.

She pivots on one clawed foot, attention fixed on Leon struggling against the venom. Her arm draws back for another killing strike.

Sarah's lightning bolt catches the hag center mass. Electricity arcs across black skin, cooking flesh and filling the chamber with the smell of burnt meat. The creature's screech makes everyone's ears ring.

Smoke curls from the charred wound, but the hag recovers with inhuman grace. Her burned flesh already begins knitting together, new skin growing over exposed muscle.

"That should have dropped her," Sarah gasps. Her staff trembles in both hands, crystal focus dim from the massive energy discharge.

Jake hefts a chunk of broken stone, muscles bulging as he hurls it at the hag's skull. She shifts sideways like liquid mercury, the rock smashing into the wall where her head had been.

Mist begins pouring from cracks in the floor. Thick gray fog that tastes of grave dirt and forgotten screams. The hag's form wavers, becoming translucent as she merges with the supernatural haze.

"Where is she?" Marcus spins in place, shield raised but unable to target what he can't see.

Leon's mage zombie casts a flare spell. Brilliant white light floods the chamber, burning away shadows and revealing the hag's true position.

She drops from the ceiling like a falling star, claws extended toward Sarah's unprotected back.

Marcus spots her immediately and plants his feet and raises his shield quickly behind her back. The enchanted steel catches the hag's full weight, her claws scraping against polished metal. The impact drives him to one knee, but the barrier holds.

"Nice catch," Jake says through gritted teeth.

The hag snarls and rakes her claws across the stone floor. Purple energy radiates outward in concentric circles, washing over the party like a toxic tide.

Elise screams. Her hands clutch at her temples as visions flood her mind. Leon sees her eyes roll back, showing only white. Her body convulses as psychic poison tears through her consciousness.

The mental assault hits Leon too. Images of his family's death replay in vivid detail. Anna's terrified face as the vortex swallows her. His father's desperate reach falling short. The sound of their screams echoing forever.

Leon grits his teeth until his jaw aches. The venom in his bloodstream makes every muscle cramp, but he forces himself to focus on the present. On his friends fighting for their lives.

"Warrior zombie," he croaks. "Close distance. Now."

His undead guardian charges through the psychic storm, mantis blade trailing dark energy. The hag spins to meet it, claws sparking against enchanted steel.

Leon draws his Voidreaper with shaking hands. The mana gun feels impossibly heavy, but he manages to level it at the creature's center mass.

Sarah tries to cast another lightning bolt. Energy crackles around her staff's crystal, then fizzles into harmless sparks. The psychic attack has shattered her concentration.

Elise staggers over to Sarah, barely fighting through her own mental torment. Green healing light flows from her palms, washing away the psychic toxins clouding Sarah's thoughts.

"Focus on my voice," Elise says. Blood trickles from her nose where the mental assault ruptured capillaries. How she has the strength to do that is beyond him. "Feel the stone under your feet. Remember who you are."

Jake raises his mana gun and fires three quick shots. The first two miss as the hag dances between his warrior zombie's strikes. The third clips her shoulder, black ichor spraying across moss-covered stone.

The hag retaliates instantly. Her claws rake across Jake's chest, parting his leather armor like tissue paper. Four parallel wounds open from collarbone to sternum.

Leon's mage zombie interposes itself between Jake and the hag's follow-up strike. Claws meant for Jake's throat tear through spectral armor instead. Black ichor erupts from the zombie's chest, but it remains standing.

Marcus roars and charges forward. His shield slams into the hag's midsection with bone-jarring force, pinning her against the chamber wall. Stone cracks under the impact.

The Night Hag thrashes against the barrier, claws scraping furrows in enchanted steel. But Marcus's strength holds her fast, biceps bulging with effort.

"Now!" Marcus shouts. "While I have her pinned!"

Leon's warrior zombie seizes the opening. It raises the mantis blade high, channeling stored Dark Mana through the crystalline edge. Purple light races along the weapon's length until it blazes like a captured star.

The blade punches through the hag's chest, piercing her heart with surgical precision. Dark energy floods through the wound, disrupting her regeneration and severing her connection to the psychic realm.

The creature's scream dies in her throat. Her burning eyes dim to empty sockets. The supernatural mist dissipates as her control over the chamber's environment fails.

The Night Hag's body goes limp against Marcus's shield. Black blood pools beneath her corpse, eating shallow holes in the stone floor.

Leon's system interface blazes with notifications:

**[NIGHT HAG DEFEATED]**

**[EXPERIENCE GAINED: +2,847]**

**[ELITE MAGE ZOMBIE EVOLVED]**

**[NEW SKILL ACQUIRED: NIGHTMARE POISON]**

**[EFFECT: PSYCHIC DISORIENTATION ON TARGETS]**

His mage zombie's form shimmers as new power integrates into its spectral matrix. The eye sockets burn brighter, and wisps of purple energy coil around its skeletal hands.

Leon feels the connection between them strengthen. His undead servant has grown more than just powerful—it has become something unique in the hunter world.

The chamber falls silent except for labored breathing and the drip of various fluids onto stone. Tommy's corpse lies forgotten near the entrance, a reminder of the price they've paid for victory.

Sarah slumps against the wall, staff clattering to the floor. "Is it over?"

"For now," Leon says. He struggles to sit up, muscles still cramping from residual venom. "But something tells me this was just the beginning."

Jake presses a healing potion to his chest wounds. The liquid hisses as it neutralizes traces of the hag's poison. "Imaginable how ill prepared we were coming to this dungeon?, the monster outsmarted us so good".

Elise tends to Leon's wounds with steady hands despite her own injuries. "We were definitely not prepared for this immediate onslaught of nightmares. This hag didn't behave like other dungeon final boss."

"Guess we were lucky to survive." Marcus says as he checks his shield enchantment.

Leon nods, but his attention drifts to the chamber's far wall. Since when have countless lives been lost due to this nightmare of an hag. They had been ill prepared and he also full of confidence didn't expect to face an enemy so tough.