The dragon came down like the wrath of the World Tree itself.
Its claws struck where Jax had been standing a heartbeat earlier, ripping through the floor and sending splintered roots exploding across the chamber.
He twisted sideways in midair, using Wind Walk to push off nothing and redirect himself above its shoulder.
Behind him, Zee's barriers collapsed one after another under a barrage of leaf blades.
Nyxian pulled Pixelle fully into her cleavage and dove behind a root column.
Bunny didn't dodge.
She met the next strike head-on.
Titanfall rose.
The dragon's claw slammed into the hammer.
The impact echoed through the entire arena.
Bunny's knees bent.
The floor under her cracked.
But she held.
That one moment bought them breathing room.
"Status!" Jax shouted.
"Fine!" Bunny barked, though her arms were vibrating from the force.
"Mana stable," Zee answered, though she was already sweating from the strain.
Llandra was still moving, never staying in one place long enough for the dragon to pin her down.
"I can hit the seams, but only when it opens!"
Nyxian lashed one whip across the dragon's wing-joint and snapped the other at its neck, trying to distract and redirect it.
"It hates me," she announced.
"Good," Jax said.
"Keep it emotional."
Pixelle peeked out just enough to see the battlefield.
The Guardian of the Seed filled the chamber like a natural disaster. It was bigger than any single boss she had ever heard of. Stronger too. Every movement was catastrophic. Every breath released spores, sap, or shrapnel-like leaves. It had already disabled Jax's greatest advantage—the shadow army—and it was forcing the Vixens to fight like a small strike team against a living fortress.
And yet…
No one was panicking.
They were worried.
Focused.
Strained.
But not scared.
Not in the way normal people would be.
Because this, she realized, was what made them Vixens.
They adapted.
Jax landed beside Zee, crouched low behind the remains of a shattered root column, and watched the dragon carefully while the others bought him time.
Its bark armor was layered.
Its anti-summon field pulsed from the glowing sap channels in the floor.
Its wing-branches controlled the arena.
Its breath weapons were defensive—not just offensive. It used spores to deny space, sap to control movement, and leaves to shred anything that tried to get close.
It wasn't just strong.
It was built to counter a raid party.
Which meant it had a pattern.
Jax's eyes tracked the battlefield.
The dragon exhaled spores.
Followed with leaf storm.
Then claw rush.
Then tail.
Every time it committed to offense, it shifted its weight toward the central platform.
Toward the pedestal.
Toward the Seed.
Its territory.
Its anchor.
He smiled.
"Got you."
Zee noticed.
That smile always meant he had something.
"What do you need?"
"Time," he said. "And one stupid idea."
Nyxian snapped a whip around the dragon's antlered crown and yanked hard, buying another half-second as Bunny came in low and hammered one of its forelegs.
Lhandra took the opening and drove five arrows into the same shoulder seam she'd been targeting since the start.
This time something happened.
One bark plate cracked.
The dragon roared in genuine pain.
"There!" Llandra shouted.
Jax stood.
"Formation Delta!"
The response was instant.
The Vixens shifted without hesitation.
Bunny abandoned direct contest and began moving in aggressive feints, forcing the dragon to turn.
Nyxian widened her attack angle, striking from the flanks rather than the front.
Llandra repositioned for clean shoulder and neck shots.
Zee fell back and began layering barriers not around the group, but around the pedestal at the center.
Pixelle blinked.
"What are we doing?"
Jax pointed at the dragon's feet as he sprinted forward.
"We're not killing it yet."
The dragon lunged to intercept him.
Exactly what he wanted.
He air-walked over its first bite, kicked off one of Zee's forming barriers, and vaulted across its head. As he passed, Peacemaker came down in a precise slash—not to cut deep, but to peel another bark plate free.
The armor fell away.
Sap pulsed underneath.
The dragon whipped around furiously and followed him.
Bunny hit it from the opposite side.
Not with a killing strike.
With a taunt.
"HEY, BARK FACE!"
Titanfall came crashing down against the floor, sending a shockwave through the roots.
The dragon turned again.
Then Nyxian struck, wrapping one whip around its exposed shoulder seam and dragging herself onto its side before kicking off and slashing open another gap with the second lash.
The dragon reared.
Llandra's arrows hammered the exposed sections.
Not enough to kill.
Enough to enrage.
Enough to herd it.
Pixelle's eyes widened.
"You're… moving it."
Jax landed near the central platform and grinned.
"Now you're seeing it."
The dragon hated losing ground. Every time it was pressured, it stepped back toward the Seed pedestal. Every time the Vixens opened one side, it corrected by re-centering itself over the platform.
It was defending the Seed.
Which meant if Jax could make it commit hard enough…
He could anchor it exactly where he wanted.
"Zee!" he shouted.
She slammed Sanctaris down.
The barriers around the pedestal crystallized into solid panes of compressed force.
The dragon stepped backward onto them.
They held.
For a moment.
Then the dragon realized too late that its rear claws were trapped between layered force walls and tangled roots from Flower's earlier failed casting—roots that still remained as dead matter in the floor.
Jax saw the opening.
"Pixelle!"
She jumped.
"What?!"
"Can you move dead plant matter?"
She looked at the roots around the platform.
Then at him.
Then at the dragon.
Her face changed.
"Oh."
For the first time since joining the group, Pixelle did not look like a queen pretending to be brave.
She looked like a Vixen.
Her wand rose.
Her wings flared.
And every dead root wrapped around the central platform twisted at once, tightening like chains around the dragon's hind legs.
It roared and surged upward.
Bunny charged.
Titanfall hit the dragon's front knee from the side with enough force to buckle it.
Nyxian lashed both whips into the exposed bark seams and pulled, widening them.
Llandra's duplicates appeared and began firing in full synchronized volleys, every arrow driving deeper into the exposed channels.
Zee stacked three reinforcing barriers around Bunny so she could stay in the pocket and keep the dragon pinned.
Jax inhaled slowly.
This was it.
No shadows.
No Dante.
Just timing.
He sprinted straight up the dragon's chest.
Leaf blades tore at him.
Spores exploded around him.
He ignored all of it.
One step.
Two.
Three.
Wind Walk under his feet.
Peacemaker in both hands.
The dragon's head reared back to tear him apart.
And that was exactly the angle he wanted.
He leapt.
Midair, he twisted the giant double-bladed sword into a descending arc.
Not at the neck.
At the seam where crown, shoulder, and spine converged.
The deepest exposed channel on its body.
Peacemaker came down like judgment.
The blade bit.
Split bark.
Cut through sap.
Drove deep enough that the entire dragon convulsed.
"NOW!" Jax roared.
Everything hit at once.
Bunny drove upward.
Nyxian's whips tore sideways.
Llandra's full barrage hit the wound.
Zee dropped her outer barriers and converted everything into a single amplified strike matrix around the dragon's body.
And Pixelle—
tiny, furious, glowing—
forced every root in the platform to constrict.
The Guardian of the Seed screamed.
Then the chamber exploded with green-gold light.
The dragon broke apart from the inside.
Bark armor flew in all directions.
Sap vaporized.
The anti-summon field collapsed in a shockwave that made the entire chamber go dim for one breathless second.
Then it was over.
Silence.
Jax landed hard, one knee down, Peacemaker buried in the floor.
The others stared at the smoking remains of the dragon.
Then Nyxian laughed first.
A wild, breathless laugh.
"We did it."
Bunny dropped to the floor, panting.
Llandra slowly lowered Starpiercer.
Zee closed her eyes in relief.
Pixelle hovered in stunned disbelief.
"We actually…" She swallowed. "We actually killed it."
Jax stood.
His system chimed.
Guardian of the Seed defeated.
Would you like to summon the Ancient Tree Dragon?
He looked at the remains.
Then at the others.
Then smiled.
"Yes."
Shadow gathered.
A new dragon rose—vast, ancient, plated in black bark and shadow-vines instead of living wood. Its eyes burned emerald through the darkness of its form.
Would you like to name your summon?