The newly hatched monsters reached the group before anyone could continue the discussion.
Ais intercepted the first with sealed Gonryōmaru, while Tsubaki engaged the second.
Lyra caught the third around one ankle with Arachne's silk, but the creature twisted away precisely where earlier opponents had failed.
The strand running from its back to the wall pulsed.
The creature grabbed the thread.
Lyra dismissed it immediately.
"Yeah. It's definitely watching us as this happens."
Tsubaki ducked beneath a claw and drove Tobiume through her opponent's abdomen without releasing it.
A mouth opened beside the wound, forcing her to rip the blade free before the drain could properly begin.
She kicked the creature backward.
"Asfi, if you have a brilliant idea, I'd love to hear it!"
"I need another ten seconds."
"You always need ten seconds!"
"Then keep buying them."
Tsubaki laughed and went straight back into the fight.
Rayleigh barely watched her.
His attention was on the central body.
Every time one of the hatchlings changed its approach, a pulse travelled from the source through the strand attached to its back.
The monster fighting Ais adopted a tighter guard, and another pulse followed the instant she changed direction.
Its stance adjusted again.
That settled it.
The source was not issuing broad commands and letting its monsters interpret them.
It was watching the fights as they happened and correcting each creature almost continuously.
Rayleigh crossed Benihime through the strand controlling Ais's opponent.
The monster stumbled as its guard fell apart.
Ais broke its magic stone before it could recover.
The central body convulsed in response, and all three major roots contracted hard enough to shake the cavern.
Six more sacs split open.
Ardi immediately released Nejibana.
A low wall of water struck the new monsters before they could spread out, pushing all six toward one side of the chamber.
She let the water collapse as soon as it had done its job, denying the growth enough time to begin draining it.
Lyra understood what she wanted.
Arachne's silk spread between two stone columns and tightened around the grouped monsters, though she avoided attaching the threads directly to their bodies.
This time she used the web as a movable barrier rather than a net.
Tsubaki raised Tobiume.
"Move it."
Lyra released the central strands.
A fireball struck the floor beneath the trapped group.
The explosion hurled three monsters into the wall and scattered the others across the chamber without allowing any of them to absorb the attack directly.
Ardi caught one with Nejibana and shattered its core. Ais killed another, while Tsubaki crushed a third against the floor with Tobiume.
Before the survivors could recover, Rayleigh cut two of their controlling strands.
Their movements immediately lost cohesion.
Asfi finished the remaining pair with explosives.
The entire fight had taken less than half a minute, yet several unopened sacs were already changing.
One developing monster's legs shortened and thickened.
Another grew additional armor around its chest.
The cocoon containing the Arachne imitation began withdrawing the webbed tissue around its arms and replacing it with blade-like protrusions.
Asfi rose to her feet.
"I've got it."
Everyone looked toward her.
She pointed to the three major roots.
"They serve different functions. The left one is carrying most of the information pulses. The right one is drawing raw energy from the Dungeon. The center one is moving magic-stone material into the brood sacs."
Once she identified the differences, Rayleigh could see them in the rhythm of each root.
"If we take out the signal root, the monsters lose coordination, but the central body can still produce more."
"Exactly. If we destroy the energy root first, it still has thousands of magic stones stored inside itself. We'd have to fight until those reserves ran dry."
Ardi looked toward the central root.
"And stopping the material flow?"
"It would slow down new development, but anything already far enough along could still hatch."
Tsubaki rested Tobiume against her shoulder.
"So all three."
"Close enough together that it can't compensate."
Asfi gestured toward a smaller branch near the signal root.
"Watch what happens when one route fails."
Rayleigh cut through it with Benihime.
The central body spasmed, and several nearby sacs stopped moving.
Two seconds later, the growth around the severed branch swelled toward a neighboring strand and fused with it.
The sacs began moving again.
Lyra grimaced.
"Of course it can do that."
Rayleigh looked across the cavern.
The three major roots were spaced too far apart for one person to destroy them in quick succession, and the system had clearly survived by building enough redundancy to route around local damage.
Fortunately, they had six people.
The chamber shook again.
More sacs began opening, but the central body no longer waited for the monsters inside to finish developing.
Black veins tore free from the walls and plunged directly into the half-formed creatures, hauling them upright while armor and limbs were still taking shape.
It had understood what the group intended and was no longer concerned with producing perfect counters.
It simply needed bodies between them and the roots.
Rayleigh resealed Ruri'iro Kujaku.
"We split up."
Asfi understood immediately.
"Two per root."
"Right. Nobody attacks the central body until all three connections are down. As long as those roots remain intact, it'll keep replacing whatever damage we do."
Tsubaki looked toward the energy root on the right.
"Which one's mine?"
"The one that looks hardest to break."
Her grin returned immediately.
"Perfect."
Rayleigh pointed.
"You and Asfi take the energy root. Explosives already work on the growth, and Tobiume can destroy the surrounding stone without giving the root a direct spiritual attack to absorb."
Asfi had already begun selecting charges.
"I'll find the actual junction. There's no point blowing apart the exposed section if it can simply route around it."
Rayleigh turned toward the central root.
"Ardi, Lyra, take the material channel. Once you open it, Nejibana can flush out the magic-stone fragments. Arachne keeps the brood off you."
Lyra glanced toward the rows of opening sacs.
"You make that sound much easier than it looks."
"That's because I'm giving it to you instead of doing it myself."
She stared at him.
Rayleigh wisely turned away.
"Ais, you're with me on the signal root."
She nodded, Gonryōmaru already in hand.
The pairing made sense.
The signal root was the part actively interpreting combat and directing the monsters.
If the source produced another specialized defender, Ais had already shown she could change faster than its copied techniques could keep up.
Rayleigh would concentrate on the root.
Ais would make sure nothing reached him.
The central body pulsed.
Every strand in the cavern tightened.
Then the remaining sacs opened almost together.
More than twenty Enhanced Species dropped into the chamber.
Some were unfinished.
Others were obviously designed for specific opponents.
One had metal rods running down its spine.
Another carried a Tobiume-like heat behind its ribs. Two had long bladed arms suited to cutting Arachne's silk.
The largest was broad and heavily built, with channels across its body already filling with water.
Ardi stared at it.
"It made that one for me."
Rayleigh drew Benihime.
"Then make it regret the effort."
The six of them broke apart.
...
Tsubaki reached the energy root first.
It disappeared into a section of wall almost buried beneath fresh pale stone, the Dungeon repeatedly trying to seal itself around the invading tissue.
Asfi landed beside her on Talaria and immediately began examining the boundary.
"Don't hit it yet. I need to know which part is actually Dungeon stone and where the parasite begins."
Three monsters charged them.
Tsubaki stepped between them and Asfi without releasing Tobiume.
The first came in behind a copied sword guard.
She smashed straight through it.
The second tried to circle around her, so Tsubaki caught it by one arm, lifted the creature off its feet, and threw it into the third.
Both struck the wall.
"Take your time."
Asfi glanced over while pressing a thin metal spike against the root.
"I intended to."
Tsubaki laughed and turned back to the monsters.
...
Ardi and Lyra found the central route already crowded.
The material root divided into dozens of smaller tubes feeding directly into the brood sacs, each carrying magic-stone fragments through thick black fluid toward the developing creatures.
Lyra released Arachne before the first blade-armed monster reached them.
"Weave the net, Arachne!"
Her silk spread low across the floor.
The monster recognized the trap and slashed downward.
Lyra had counted on that.
The thread snapped against its blade-shaped limb, leaving Arachne's toxin behind.
Its next step faltered by a fraction.
That was enough.
Ardi drove Nejibana through its chest and shattered the magic stone.
Lyra smiled.
"Still counts."
Ardi was already facing the next creature.
"It worked."
"Exactly."
They continued toward the root.
...
Rayleigh and Ais had the farthest to go.
The signal root ran high along the left wall before plunging into a black column grown around one of the Dungeon's natural pillars.
Every monster in the cavern reacted as they approached it.
Rayleigh did not need any more confirmation.
"They really don't want us near this one."
Ais drew Gonryōmaru.
"Because they can't fight properly without it."
"That's my guess."
A creature dropped between them.
Another followed.
Then five more.
Each settled into a different stance stolen from someone they had encountered earlier.
Ais studied them briefly.
Rayleigh could almost see her matching each posture to its original owner.
"You cut the root."
He looked at her.
"I'll keep them here."
The first monster charged.
Ais met it with Gonryōmaru still sealed, redirecting its weapon as she stepped past.
She used its body to obstruct the second attacker, then shifted again and forced a spear-wielding creature directly into the path of another monster attempting one of Tsubaki's heavy swings.
The copied techniques collided.
Ais had discovered that weakness in the training chamber. Now she was deliberately making use of it.
Rayleigh left the fight to her and headed for the root.
The central body responded at once.
A heavy impact rolled through the cavern, followed by a pulse through the black veins.
The monsters surrounding Ais changed formation.
Another impact came, and they spread apart.
After the third, three of them abandoned Ais entirely and turned toward Rayleigh.
She released Gonryōmaru.
"Pierce them, Gonryōmaru!"
Lightning stayed close to the blade rather than bursting across the room.
Ais crossed the distance and cut the controlling strand from the first monster before it could reach Rayleigh.
The second turned toward her.
She struck its knee with the flat of the blade and severed the connection on its back with the return cut.
The third opened several mouths in preparation to drain Gonryōmaru.
Ais kicked it into another attacker before any of them reached the sword.
Rayleigh reached the signal root and drove Benihime into the black tissue.
It resisted like dense muscle wrapped around stone.
He pushed harder.
The entire network spasmed.
For one brief instant, every monster in the cavern stopped.
Then the central body began hammering against the surrounding wall, and the signal root tightened around Benihime.
Rayleigh felt it pulling at the Reiatsu coating his blade.
He cut off the flow and relied on muscle instead.
Progress slowed considerably, but the edge still moved.
Good enough.
Behind him, Ais continued holding the monsters back. Across the cavern, an explosion told him Asfi and Tsubaki had started working on their root.
A moment later, water surged from Ardi's side.
Everyone had reached their positions.
Rayleigh looked at the wound around Benihime.
The black tissue was already trying to grow around the blade.
"Asfi!"
Her voice carried from the opposite side of the cavern.
"I found the junction! We can cut ours, but the moment I detonate these charges, it'll know exactly what we're doing!"
"It already knows!"
"That doesn't make announcing it any less irritating!"
Rayleigh laughed under his breath.
"On my signal!"
Lyra shouted from the center.
"We're almost ready!"
Several new sacs began swelling along the central body.
The source was trying to keep them occupied long enough to finish another batch.
Rayleigh glanced toward Ais.
The growing number of monsters had pushed her back several steps, but none had made it past her.
Gonryōmaru shifted between sealed steel and brief flashes of Shikai lightning depending on what she faced, never repeating the same answer long enough for the source to settle on a reliable counter.
'Good.'
He forced Benihime deeper into the root.
Black fluid spilled from the cut, and the network shuddered.
"Ready!"
Ardi's voice came from the center.
Asfi answered immediately.
"Charges set!"
Rayleigh tightened both hands around Benihime.
"Then we do it together."
Before he could give the command, every magic stone inside the central mass flared at once.
The three major roots contracted violently.
Something shifted beneath Rayleigh's feet.
All around the cavern, sections of the walls began to open.
Not break apart.
Open.
Behind the black growth lay dozens of narrow passages, every one of them packed with monsters.
Lyra stared at the nearest opening.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
There were far too many to hold back while the three teams carefully finished their work.
Which was exactly why the source had called them.
It had finally realized that individual specialized fighters were no longer enough.
So instead of looking for another perfect answer, it had thrown every answer it possessed at them at once.
Rayleigh pulled Benihime free from the half-severed signal root.
"Change of plan! We still break all three, but forget waiting for a clean opening!"
Tsubaki's laughter carried across the cavern.
"Now you're talking!"
Asfi shouted something at her, but the first explosion swallowed the words.
Tobiume's fireball struck the wall beside the energy root and blasted Dungeon stone into the air.
The horde charged.
Ardi spun Nejibana and sent a compact wave down the center lane, taking the first rank off its feet before collapsing the water rather than leaving it in contact long enough for the growth to drain.
Arachne's silk filled the space behind it, anchored to walls, broken sacs, and loose stone instead of the monsters themselves.
Ais fell back toward Rayleigh.
Above them, the signal root pulsed continuously as fresh instructions travelled through the network and the advancing creatures adjusted on the move.
Rayleigh took in the cavern, the three roots spread across it, and the mass of Enhanced Species closing from every direction.
Six of them against everything the source had learned since the expedition began.
He raised Benihime.
"Break the roots!"
Then the first wave hit.