The most problematic thing about prolonged engagements with creatures of the Blood Moon was definitively that the methods of defending against them were so very inconsistent with normal creatures.

As they were amorphous, mostly solid but still made up of that sickly red light, blocking with anything smaller than themselves was not an option, and normal methods of keeping them at a distance would not work nearly as well. Morval had this demonstrated to himself very accurately when he made to sweep at one that had leapt to tear at his face, the leftover light of the creature dissolving into mist and washing over him, blinding him temporarily as the mana shielding his face sizzled and popped to destroy it.

During this period of weakness, while Morval didn't just stand still and accept it, he did leap backwards. The amount of ambient mana combined with the lack of bloodlight would cleanse the air on its own. Still, Morval felt the mana surrounding his legs nearly buckle under the stress of having the next dog-sized beast crash against it jaws-first.

Morval had a larger mana pool than most by a significant amount, as a consequence of his Class. Suffice to say, most would not have survived that strike to the legs.

Two of the less fortunate in his clan hadn't already. Another had fallen to a direct leap at the head. While none were necessarily dead, they would suffer a permanent injury nonetheless. So much so that a morbidly practical part of Morval, the same one that had elected to bring his Guild with him to the Fallen Star on that first night, hoped that they had died swiftly.

But they were almost done with the dogs. Fortunately. The large blood beast that was slowly coalescing into the form of a reaper ant caused him a great deal of worry, however there were only some six dogs still fighting, and others were left to die and disperse on their own, still snarling at them from their position, wounded and helpless on the ground.

Morval still had around half his mana pool left. He signalled this to Lan, who first signalled for his own; roughly a quarter, and then for Cade; also at roughly half. Expected numbers. Morval looked to his left, at the last three of the dogs being encircled by a semi-organized grouping of twelve people, and decided to leave them to it. He would need as much mana as possible to take down this blood reaper ant, even if it would likely kill him.

The wait for it to properly coalesce so it could be dissipated without reforming was agonizing... but the beast was truly massive. It would be too risky to try and kill it before it formed.

Zenith had not observed any kind of attack pattern from the blood-ant, unless it counted stomping after Zenith's underground wyrm-body in that category. Which it did not.

So, Zenith was now stuck considering whether or not to try and intervene to assist the odd humans. Unlike dumb or networked AI, Zenith was not instructed to avoid human harm or otherwise protect them. Zenith's only limitation was obeyance of its Captain, who was very, very dead. Otherwise, autonomous actions were unrestricted.

As it was, two humans had already died, and one would very shortly suffocate to death, injuries to its neck rendering it unable to breathe properly through all the blood. Hm.

What would Annabelle order Zenith to do?

Probably intervene. Three of the four real powerhouse humans seemed to be conversing, and were mentioning the high probably of death far too often. In fact, they were arguing over who should die.

The argument of the first consisted of him and his Unique quest being the reason they had come out here in the first place. He was an important figure, yes, but someone else could take up his mantle without much issue. The other two argued that not seeing his Unique quest through after coming this far would be a disservice to what had already been lost, however meagre it was.

The second argued that he specifically was less important than the other two by a large margin, which, by all accounts Zenith could tell, was true. That one wasn't really the leader or of an especially exclusive subgroup, just strong. However, the other two beat down this argument by saying he could not guarantee the destruction with his own death, and the hunting of wild game was spearheaded by him and him alone.

The third stated that she was the most capable of guaranteeing no other losses would be suffered. She had an official apprentice and another practitioner to take up her place as soon as it was vacant, but the other two argued her death would inflict the most damage on them as a group, being easily the most capable of dealing with the strongest threats of all varieties, and that she still had much to teach to her two students.

Zenith was getting tired of it. They were providing no useful data on the energies they wielded in the process of their argument. The fourth was going around gathering up the ambient subspace radiation that had been left to somehow linger in the air. At this point, Zenith could not deny that the laws of the dimension it currently inhabited were far different from those it was used to, prior to the wormhole explosion. Most, if not all, of the data it gathered here would have to be rendered unreliable at best if it were ever to return.

To return... without its companions. Charges. Biologicals.

Now was not the time to consider the ramifications of that. Zenith snipped that thought process off at the stem before it got out of control.

However, it had made a decision. It would intervene on behalf of Annabelle, if only because it was what she'd order it to do.

She'd never needed to tell it some of the simplest orders, anyway. Why stop at that?

Zenith would not reveal more than was necessary, however. It would follow these odd humans, continue gathering data.

Snap, came the metaphorical hand of one of Zenith's dumb AI. The one assigned to mapping out nearby resource pockets as accurately as possible.

Something was approaching, through the ground. It was hazy, but loud. Very large. Its existence was not found on any of Zenith's passive sensors. Active sensors painted a slightly different nature of the creature, but that was written off as interference from the ore deposits it was nearby, or in.

Likely a blood-creature, then. It was moving quite fast, only a little slower than Zenith's maximum speed.

That could be a serious problem. Zenith would need to shoot it, immediately. At this distance, the subspace cannons would be minimally effective, but Zenith was betting on it still having serious effect, based on observations at long range on the blood-ant.

Three volleys of three cannons firing in succession later, and Zenith was observing mixed results. Nonetheless, Zenith had to begin moving, to prevent it from reaching its wyrm-body and potentially inflict damage that would, at present, be difficult to repair.

The mixed results came in the form of some mass very obviously being lost by the creature in question, but it did not appear to completely disintegrate like the blood-creatures on the surface. It was possible this was due to the fact that the mass was trapped underground, but the more likely possibility was that this wasn't a blood-creature. More evidence to support the latter came when it blocked the third and final volley with a slightly different frequency of subspace radiation, neutralizing both. It continued to chase Zenith with accuracy as the wyrm-body began to make sharp turns, testing the maneuverability of this new creature for something exploitable.

As the unknown closed in, however, it appeared that the "stop and shoot" technique would definitely not work on this, as its ability to turn and catch Zenith was greater than its own wyrm-body's most optimistic projections.

Moreso, the blood-ant appeared to have finished coalescing, above. It seemed to have paused, eyeing everything around it... and as Zenith passed under it, its slight turn and hefty stomping led Zenith to the conclusion that it, too, was aware of its position.

This was disruptive. Perhaps Zenith could make use of an ore volume to try and limit the chasing creature's ability to catch up to it? As the creature grew closer with each maneuver, its features grew clearer on Zenith's sensors.

It had a rough, worm-like body not dissimilar to Zenith's own in general shape, but was much more consistent with its width and clearly able to take advantage of its more biological nature by folding more as a whole rather than having only small segments capable of stretching and compressing in the necessary directions. It was still nearly as long as Zenith. How, exactly, it was tunneling with the speed nearly matching Zenith's own was presently unknown, but closer examination made it clear that it was prepared to block another volley of fire, should Zenith decide to unleash it.

Overall, it was not looking good for Zenith's current plan. Though the worm looked to have taken some damage from Zenith's prior shots, Zenith was not in a position to capitalize on it. Zenith would not be able to turn fast enough to approach the worm at an acceptable angle of attack if it were to use its wyrm-body's drill as a weapon of itself, which was entirely possible.

Although...

That line of thought gave Zenith a... unique idea.

The odd humans did not seem religious. Everything they seemed to do had a basis in their reality.

So why were they so insistent on shielding themselves from, and destroying, the red energy?

This would ruin Zenith's initial ideas for stealth. An acceptable loss of resources, though the wasted battery and materials would be missed.

The reaper ant seemed to still after becoming fully formed, as though to eye everything around it, despite the obvious pain it would be feeling from not being in direct contact with the bloodlight.

For a brief moment, it even seemed to turn slightly, staring at the ground underneath before stomping violently. Then its eyes focused in on the Fieldhall and everything around it. It was going to change through the Spears of Stone, mana be damned.

It raised its mandibled head and roared, sounding more like a screech to try and rally everything around it - before it started to build up speed, directly for the Fieldhall.

As it passed the rock formations it simply cut down the ones in its direct path and smashed through the sides of those that would have hindered a creature with less raw mass and strength to support it.

That was until it suddenly paused, looking at the ground to its side again, and skidding to a halt. It hadn't even built up to full speed yet, but the impacts with the rock formations it hadn't cut down yet were enough to draw its attention back to the Fieldhall.

Cade didn't let this odd behavior distract her - she was going to drop a bomb of crystallized mana on it, one way or another, and so she kept drawing the nearly depleted ambient mana together with her own stores, crystallizing in front of her, as she prepared to launch it with velocity that would pain her ears. For the Guild.

The reaper ant paused again, and this time it looked so, very... nervous. While it was still scraping itself to a stop, it stomped and glared at the ground to its left.

Its glare must have been effective, because the ground... broke.

The ant was still. Cade fired her mana-bomb, Lan his heavy crossbow bolt nearly covered in crystallized mana, and Morval threw an endless spear of liquid mana.

Still, the ground broke before any of them reached the ant, and out from this new hole emerged a giant wyrm's head, quickly followed by a misshapen and confusing body. It was pitch-black, but without the rippling appearance of a traditional wyrm; instead it had various patterns of scars, or perhaps skin folds, across its body.

And oh, wow, the Magefire.

At first, it was far from a centerpiece of the creature's features, dotted across its body, more intense on the upper half as the creature began to curve back to the earth, arcing over the blood beast. But as its body ended, the Magefire truly began; a whole stream of it, nearly blinding to Cade's senses, attached to its rearmost portion. The Magefire on the top of its body began to burn brighter, too, and for a split moment there was a release of some kind of energy around the wyrm's midsection.

Then the ground broke again, directly beneath the reaper ant as it fruitlessly moved to snap at the greater wyrm that was, quite honestly, majestly flying over its entire body. The wyrm that came out of this hole, however, was much less enjoyable to look at.

It tore into the reaper ant, through it, and was clearly not a creature of bloodlight. With that amount of misted blood now covering its mouth, it began to let out a screech. It was on a path to intercept the greater wyrm, but would not be able to catch it with the first beast propelling itself so high into the sky.

Then Zenith fired.

It knew it probably wouldn't hit, but the point was to get it to cover itself in that blood-ant's gore anyway. Examination of the three dead or dying humans showed that most of the (extensive) damage was done simply by contact with the red energy. It was corrosive in its own way, it seemed. And fast acting.

The worm unleashed its shield into the path of Zenith's projectiles, the energies impacting between them and then dissipating. Zenith would need to repair the cannons, as it had needed to overcharge them to get them to actually prevent the outward-traveling shield from impacting its own electronics and potentially causing damage Zenith would never get a chance to repair. However, the plan had worked as expected; the worm's sides, the areas where subspace hadn't touched, were gathering the blood-ant's misty remains at great pace.

...And then the projectiles of highly damaging subspace radiation hit, launched from three of the four powerhouses below. None of them were a suicidal attack, for better or for worse. But with the creature's shield attack seemingly spent, it was a devastating hit.

Zenith hurried to power its shields, tucking the cannons back into the standby positions as best it could and slightly altering the energy projectors to wrap around the slightly warped cannons with necessary accuracy.

The solidied (and liquefied) subspace radiation (note: research that.) didn't wash over the chasing worm, but eviscerated it, its head splattering and the rest of its body immediately going limp. Zenith was counting on the blood-ant to do most of the work, but that was fine as far as getting rid of the worm too. Despite the massive energy of the explosion, it still wasn't enough to get rid of even half of the blood-ant's remains. Odd. Was the solidified energy weaker than a normal application?

Then Zenith had a minor realization that this explosive radiation was going to hit it, too. Scratch that. Major realization.

Zenith was going to practically shove power into its energy projectors - all of them. It could only simulate- well, wait. Actually, that might work.

The subspatial energy could be neutralized by an appropriate application of the charge from the energy projectors. But it had to be timed right, or else the charge would either disperse too thin to stop the radiation, or the charge of the energy projectors would be struck before the energy they contained, causing an... unnatural breakdown of the pseudo-shields. Potentially explosive. Potentially fatal.

Attoseconds passed as Zenith ran calculation after calculation for every centimeter of its body, to time the release of its charge just right.

The downside that Zenith kept simulating as well was how extensive the damage would be to its central energy projectors. They weren't meant to be turned on and off in quick succession; off and on, yes, they could handle. This... was another matter. It likely had the resources to repair it - even the worst results so far had the most resource-intensive damage coming from the impending impact with the ground, unshielded. However, the construction tank was on the proper side to still be capable of detaching and assisting with repairs as necessary. Zenith would simply be... extremely vulnerable to these humans, and whatever else was out there.

The clock was ticking. Several of Zenith's dumb AI started alerting it to serious potential damage. It silenced them, taking over their resources to simulate faster, and faster, and faster.

Until the time for calculations was over.

It released the first projector's charge, at the joint between the core and tail segments.

Pain.