The bone dragon lurched sideways, its reconstructed form already deteriorating under Echo Squad's sustained assault.

  Layla charged forward while the others provided covering fire, her greatsword gleaming under the unnatural crimson light of the Rift.

  "Going for the wing!" she shouted.

  Marc created an opening with a perfectly timed lightning bolt that struck the dragon's shoulder joint. "Now, Layla!"

  Layla needed no further encouragement. She leaped, bringing her blade down in a vicious overhead arc that connected with the dragon's partially reformed wing.

  The bone structure shattered under the impact, fragments flying in all directions as the creature lost its balance.

  "Got you," Layla growled, following through with her momentum to roll clear of the creature's thrashing tail.

  The bone dragon crashed to the ground, its massive skeletal frame making an almost musical sound as it struck the pavement.

  Bones scraped against asphalt, sending up sparks and dust. The impact shook the street, sending the remaining Raider teams staggering.

  Magi maintained his footing without apparent effort, watching the fallen creature with detached interest. Not dead yet. Its energy signature was shifting, concentrating.

  "It's down!" Jax called out, already moving to flank the fallen monster. "Let's finish this thing!"

  Eli prepared another wind spell, her silver hair whipping around her face. "Something's wrong. The energy pattern is changing."

  Magi agreed with her assessment. The crimson glow throughout the dragon's body was coalescing in its ribcage, pulsing with increasing intensity.

  Small bone fragments stopped reattaching to the main structure and began floating toward its mouth instead.

  "Retreat," Magi said, his voice calm but carrying clearly across the battlefield. "Twenty meters minimum."

  Marc looked at him sharply. "What are you seeing?"

  "Energy buildup. Concentrated. Directional." Magi pointed to the dragon's jaws where a swirling vortex of crimson and black energy was forming. "Breath weapon."

  Keller's voice carried from where the Golden Lions had regrouped. "Fall back! That's necrotic energy!"

  The remaining Raiders scrambled for cover, dragging wounded comrades away from the dragon's line of sight.

  Echo Squad began to retreat as well, but Magi noticed their position.

  They were directly in the creature's path with no substantial cover nearby. The breath weapon was nearly formed, swirling between the dragon's jaws like living darkness.

  Layla glanced back at the creature, then at the open street behind them. "We can't outrun that."

  "Scatter," Marc ordered. "Different directions, make it choose a target."

  Magi did a quick calculation. The breath weapon's cone of effect, their positions, the distance to safety.

  The numbers didn't work. Someone would be caught in the blast radius regardless of which direction they ran.

  Healing necrotic damage is expensive. Prevention is cheaper.

  He stepped forward, positioning himself between the dragon and his team.

  "Magi!" Eli shouted. "What are you—"

  "Basic Wall."

  The ground in front of Magi cracked open. Earth rose at his command, forming a barrier between Echo Squad and the dragon. But instead of the crude, simple wall the name suggested, Magi continued working the material.

  The earth compressed under tremendous pressure, particles realigning at his direction. Dust became sand became something harder, denser.

  The wall gleamed with an almost metallic sheen as Magi finished, standing barely a meter tall but extending five meters across.

  It looked like polished obsidian, catching the crimson light from the dragon and reflecting it in strange patterns.

  "Get down," Magi said, dropping to one knee behind his creation.

  The dragon released its breath weapon with a sound like tearing reality. Necrotic energy exploded outward in a cone of destruction, eating through the very air as it rushed toward Echo Squad.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Where it touched the ground, asphalt bubbled and decayed. Where it brushed against abandoned vehicles, metal corroded instantly.

  The breath struck Magi's wall dead center.

  For a heartbeat, nothing happened. The energy seemed to pause, as if confused by the obstruction. Then physics reasserted itself.

  The compressed earth didn't disintegrate as expected. Instead, the perfectly smooth surface acted as a mirror, reflecting the energy at an angle.

  Back toward its source.

  The redirected breath weapon caught the bone dragon full in its exposed chest cavity.

  Necrotic energy designed to consume living matter, reacted differently with the already-dead material of the construct.

  The bones didn't decay, they melted, flowing like wax under intense heat. The crimson glow brightened to blinding as the creature's own energy reacted with the redirected attack.

  The bone dragon thrashed, a soundless scream emanating from dozens of skulls throughout its body.

  Its form began to collapse inward, the very bones that composed it liquefying and running like candle wax down to the pavement below.

  Within seconds, all that remained was a steaming puddle of bone matter, rapidly cooling into bizarre, twisted sculptures across the street.

  Magi stood, brushing dust from his jeans. "Hmm."

  The wall he'd created began to sink back into the ground, its purpose fulfilled. Echo Squad stared at the remains of the dragon, then at Magi, then back at the dragon.

  Layla broke the silence. "That. Was. AWESOME!" She bounded over to him, ignoring the still-steaming bone puddle. "You reflected its death breath right back at it! I didn't know you could do that with Basic Wall!"

  "Most can't," Marc said quietly, eyeing Magi with renewed curiosity.

  "The composition matters," Magi explained, as if discussing the weather. "Atomic alignment, surface smoothness, angle of incidence."

  Jax shook his head. "Man, sometimes I forget you're actually a nerd under all that—" he gestured vaguely at Magi, "—whatever you are."

  The Rift pulsed once more, drawing their attention. The secondary tears had stopped rotating and begun to shrink, pulling back toward the main Rift. The crimson energy darkened to black, then faded entirely.

  A notification chimed, audible to everyone in the vicinity.

  [Rift Clear]

  The sound that followed was familiar to any Raider, the distinctive tone of a loot box materializing. Magi turned to see it forming where the dragon had fallen, a standard reward container that should hold attribute crystals, perhaps some equipment, and credit tokens.

  Except this box was wrong.

  Instead of the usual translucent blue energy that indicated a normal loot drop, this container pulsed with darkness. Black energy deeper than any absence of light should be, swirled around its edges.

  The box itself seemed to bend the surrounding reality, distorting the air and creating a subtle pressure on the mind of anyone who looked directly at it.

  "What the hell is that?" Jax whispered.

  Eli stepped closer, her expertise with energy patterns evident in her focused expression. "I've never seen a loot box do... that."

  Marc put a hand on her shoulder, pulling her back slightly. "Don't touch it. Something's not right."

  Keller approached, the remaining Golden Lions following cautiously behind. His earlier arrogance had disappeared, replaced by professional wariness as he surveyed the scene.

  "A black box," he said, stopping well clear of the anomaly. "I've heard rumors, but never seen one."

  "Rumors of what?" Layla asked, still gripping her greatsword.

  Keller's eyes flicked to Magi, then back to the box. "That sometimes, when the system doesn't know how to classify something, it defaults to... that."

  The black box pulsed, as if responding to being discussed. The darkness swirling around it briefly intensified, reaching outward before pulling back.

  "So who gets it?" Jax asked. "We killed the dragon, but this was technically a joint operation."

  Keller hesitated, clearly weighing the potential value against the obvious danger. "Protocol says unidentified artifacts go to Guild Research."

  "Which means you'd get first pick after they declare it safe," Marc noted dryly.

  "Look," Keller began, his tone unusually reasonable, "we can argue about division of spoils later. Right now, we need to secure that thing before—"

  The box pulsed again, stronger this time. A thin tendril of black energy extended from its surface, reaching out toward the nearest person.

  Toward Magi.

  He watched it approach with mild interest, noting how it moved not like a physical thing but like a questioning thought given form. The energy probed the air around him, seeming to sample or taste his presence.

  "Don't move," Keller warned. "Guild protocol for unknown artifacts is zero contact."

  The tendril paused, hovering centimeters from Magi's chest. Then it withdrew slightly, curling back toward the box. For a moment, it seemed the danger had passed.

  Then the box shattered.

  Darkness exploded outward, not as a destructive force but as a rapidly expanding cloud of black mist.

  It engulfed Magi before anyone could react, swirling around him like an intimate embrace before spreading to encompass a ten-meter radius.

  Inside the darkness, Magi stood perfectly still. He could still see, though the world outside the black mist appeared distant and muted. He could hear his teammates shouting his name, their voices distorted as if coming through water.

  Something moved in the darkness with him. A presence, vast and alien, regarding him with intense focus.

  Words formed in Magi's mind, not spoken but inserted directly into his thoughts:

  [Irregular Pattern Detected]

  [Standard Classification Failed]

  [Initiating Direct Assessment]

  The darkness condensed, pressing against him from all sides. Not painfully, but with insistent pressure, as if trying to understand his very composition.

  [Assessment Inconclusive]

  [Undefined Variables Detected]

  [Parameter Exception Granted]

  [Designation: Anomaly]

  The pressure increased briefly, then released. The darkness began to withdraw, pulling back into a concentrated sphere that hovered before Magi's chest.

  It contracted further, compressing into a small object that fell into his automatically outstretched hand.

  As the black mist dissipated completely, Magi found himself standing in the middle of a circle of stunned Raiders.

  Echo Squad, the Golden Lions, and the Guild supervisors all stared at him in silence.

  In his palm rested a small black cube, no larger than a die, that seemed to absorb rather than reflect the surrounding light.

  A new notification chimed, visible only to Magi:

  [Unique Item Acquired: Void Seed]

  [Classification: Unknown]

  [Function: Undetermined]

  [Warning: Anomalous Energy Signature Detected]

  Marc was the first to speak. "Magi... what just happened?"

  Magi closed his fingers around the cube, feeling its subtle pulse against his skin.

  "I think," he said with his usual calm, "the paperwork for this is going to be complicated."