The third dive went faster.

The team had a rhythm now.

Lily seeded the approach. Ainen wrapped them in camouflage tuned to the new depth’s signature, which his origin flame had collected during the descent. Almond cut the path with Grim Severam. The Discord Bloom rifles handled the monsters that drifted too close. The Spirit Lords and Dreadling Monarchs held the flanks. Vorth’s team scanned, copied, and replaced. Almond stored the original. The Master Key took them home.

It was almost mechanical.

They had targeted the Thalmyr depth, which was the most dangerous of the four remaining because the Thalmyr monsters had a precision-resonance that made them harder to fool with Ainen’s camouflage. The team had been worried about it going in.

In practice, the precision-resonance only required Ainen to layer two flame signatures instead of one. The camouflage held.

They reached the Thalmyr blueprint chamber in under fifteen minutes. The copy and replacement took twenty. The escape took less than a second.

Three blueprints down on this run.

One to go on this run.

Almond examined the originals in the vault while Vorth’s team began the development pass on the Thalmyr design. The Suryax design was already in early production. The Virexion design was being studied for energy compatibility with the Oblivion harnessing system the alliance was building toward.

Lily came to stand beside him.

"One more depth," she said.

"Celestara."

She tilted her head. "Then we are done."

"Then we are done."

He glanced at the time on Big D’s projection. The army on the mainland was still on its ten-hour break. The leaderboard above the Mountain still showed Suryax-Regalon in last place.

That suited him perfectly.

"Rest for an hour," he said. "Then we go."

---

The third wave on the mainland began before they returned.

It came earlier than the event timer had predicted. The break ended at the nine-hour mark instead of the tenth, and the Doom Army poured over the inland horizon while the alliance fleets were still in their rotation cycles.

The sensor count was over six hundred thousand this time. The composition had changed again. The standard infantry was the same. The front-line monsters were the same. But the Tier-95 rear units from wave two had been pushed forward into the front of the formation, and behind them, a new class registered on Aryan’s slate at Tier 98.

There were more than thirty of them.

Rudra exhaled slowly. "He is escalating fast."

"He wants the mountain," Big D said. "And he is starting to think he might not get it."

Around the Mountain, the four alliances rushed to complete their rotations and meet the wave. Thalmyr-Ronethis was the first ready, as always. Virexion-Kezryx was second. Celestara-Dravokh struggled. Suryax-Regalon was last to settle, and the Doom Army hit the southeastern arc before the line had fully tightened.

For a moment, the southeastern arc bent inward.

Ainen released the third layer of his flames and held it on. Silvester and Hiroshi moved further forward than they had been letting themselves move. The Asura Executives committed harder than they wanted to.

The bend stopped.

The arc pushed back out.

But the cost showed on the leaderboard within the first hour. Suryax-Regalon was still in fourth place, and the gap to Celestara-Dravokh in third was widening, not closing.

Rudra studied the numbers and accepted what they told him.

"We hold," he said. "Whatever we lose on the counter, we make up after."

His command staff did not ask what he meant by that. They had not been told the full plan, but they had been with Rudra long enough to know that when he said something like that, he meant it.

The third wave dragged on.

The Tier-98 monsters were the worst part. They moved faster than the Tier-95 line and absorbed more punishment before going down. Ainen ended up burning two of them himself on the right flank, both at full release, both in less than thirty seconds. He pulled the flames back down to two layers immediately after each kill. But the kills had been seen. By Thalmyr, by Virexion, by Celestara. By every observer on the field.

He could not avoid that.

He glanced toward the lead Dreadship at one point during the engagement, and Rudra met his eyes through the projection feed. Rudra nodded once.

It was acceptable. The display had been brief. It had been necessary. And it still did not show what Ainen could actually do.

The third wave broke at the five-hour mark.

The Doom Army withdrew. The leaderboard updated.

[Star Mayhem Mountain Defense]

[Rank 1: Thalmyr Ascendancy | Ronethis Apex Sovereignty: 392,180]

[Rank 2: Virexion Dominion | Kezryx Void Imperium: 358,640]

[Rank 3: Celestara Sanctum | Dravokh Tyrant Conclave: 244,910]

[Rank 4: Suryax Kingdom | Ananta Regalon: 198,720]

The gap to third place had grown.

Rudra looked at the numbers for a long moment.

"How long is the next break?"

Big D checked the event read. "Ten hours again. He is settling into a rhythm."

"Good."

Rudra turned away from the projection. The wounded were already being pulled back. The buff platforms were already running. The fleet was settling into its second long rest cycle, and the Doom Army would not arrive again for ten hours.

That was enough time.

Almond and the team would be diving on Celestara’s depth within the hour. The full development of the first three blueprints was already underway in the sealed lab. The fourth would be online within a day after the fifth was secured.

And the leaderboard, which now showed Suryax-Regalon falling further behind, did not show any of it. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

That was exactly the point.

The Mountain pulsed quietly above them. The dead monsters dissolved into the inland atmosphere. The army settled into rest.

The clock to the fourth wave began.

However, the other three forces were beginning to suspect something.

Jaskrit narrowed his eyes as he inturrepted the meeting to efficiently deal with the next wave. "Suryax Regalon alliance has four people who are exceedingly strong. All four have X-rank potential, having powerful decks. But I have yet to sense the three of them."

The meeting shifted.

"I didn’t notice, milord. That’s indeed suspecious. Why are those three staying out of this event?" The Kezryx Commander frowned.

"They may be doing something else, but what is more important than this event right now?"

Jaskrit stood up. "That’s what they thought everyone would think. And that’s why they are doing something else."

"Are they perhaps investigating this mainland for something?"

"Take care of the fourth wave. I am going to do a wide area search myself."

Jaskrit vanished after speaking.