The Bone Crawler Boss did not announce itself the way the previous Territory Bosses had.

There was no dramatic emergence, no ground shaking, no sound that signalled something significant was coming. One moment the ravine was full of the noise of the ongoing fight, and the next moment everything went quiet, because every remaining Bone Crawler in the ravine had stopped moving simultaneously.

Roman noticed it immediately.

"Hold," he said.

The three Soul Servants stopped at once.

The silence stretched for about four seconds.

Then the far wall of the ravine cracked.

It didn’t crumbled... Didn’t collapsed.

Cracked, a single deep fracture running from the floor of the ravine all the way up to the ridge above, and from that crack, something pulled itself out of the rock face like the wall had been holding it in storage.

[Monster Name: Bone Crawler Sovereign. Ruler of the Ravine of Bones.]

[Rank: Ordinary.]

[Level: 62.]

[Traits: Crushing Weight, Shell Reformation, Swarm Pulse, Sovereign Hardening, Bone Absorption.]

Roman read the last two traits and felt the familiar tightening in his chest that showed up every time he encountered something new that he did not fully understand yet.

Sovereign Hardening meant the Boss’s shell became progressively more resistant to damage as the fight continued, each successful hit against it triggering a reinforcement response in its plating.

Bone Absorption was the one that concerned him more. The Boss could consume the remains on the ravine floor, the bones that covered every surface, and convert them directly into restored Life.

Roman looked at the ravine floor.

There were bones everywhere.

"We have to be fast," he said to no one in particular, but all three Soul Servants shifted their weight forward slightly in response, and Roman took that as acknowledgement.

The Bone Crawler Sovereign was enormous, its raised crest nearly reaching Roman’s shoulder height despite its body being flat and wide, and it moved with a deliberate slowness that somehow felt more threatening than speed. Its pale colouring made it look like it had been carved from the same material as the ravine walls, and the two large pincer ends of its body were each the size of a standard Bone Crawler on their own.

It happened to activate Swarm Pulse first.

The shockwave hit the entire ravine floor at once, and this time Roman was directly in range. He activated [Iron Guard] instinctively and felt the impact drive against his defensive stance like a wall of compressed air, his boots sliding back two steps across the bone-covered ground despite the guard absorbing most of it.

Roman watched the BSP screen as his Life dropped slightly.

[Life: 94%.]

The Goblin King had taken the pulse without flinching again, but even he had stepped back one stride, and the Blade Ant Queen had been knocked sideways a full body length before she corrected herself.

The Alpha had jumped the moment the pulse activated, clearing most of the impact range entirely, and he landed on the Sovereign’s back before it had finished the ability.

The Boss reacted to the Alpha’s weight by slamming itself flat against the ravine floor, and the impact was significant enough that the Alpha had to roll clear to avoid being pinned.

"Spread out," Roman said. "Don’t let it use the floor."

What he meant by that became clear a moment later when the Sovereign lowered its head and the [Bone Absorption] trait activated for the first time. The bones within a two metre radius of its body began to dissolve into it, drawn in by something underneath the shell, and Roman watched the Boss’s Life bar tick upward on the BSP.

[Bone Crawler Sovereign Life: 97%.]

They had brought it down three percent in the opening exchange and it had just recovered most of that.

Roman instantly made a move.

[Blade Rush activated.]

He closed the distance on the Sovereign’s left side where the Pincer was extended outward after the Swarm Pulse recovery, driving Queenfang into the joint between the pincer and the main body before the Sovereign could retract it. The slash triggered, the laceration opening deep in the softer connection tissue, and the Sovereign’s response was immediate.

It swung the pincer back.

Roman had already moved, but not far enough. The flat of the pincer caught him across the ribs and sent him into the ravine wall with a force that knocked the air out of him completely.

He hit the ground on one knee and stayed there for exactly one second.

[Life: 79%.]

Fifteen percent in one hit! It was the first time he was having a Life reduction challenge in a hunt!

He stood back up.

The Goblin King had used the distraction to drive his bone sword into the Sovereign’s back crest at full force, and the crack that produced was audible from across the ravine. The shell split along one edge, exposing a section of the softer surface underneath.

But [Sovereign Hardening] was already responding.

The cracked section was visibly thickening, the shell reconstructing itself faster than Roman expected, and within twenty seconds the exposed section had reduced by half.

"Hit the same spot," Roman said to the King. "Keep pressure on it. Don’t let it close."

The King drove his sword into the same crack again before the Hardening could complete.

The Blade Ant Queen understood the strategy without being told. She moved to the right side of the Sovereign and began working on a second point with her mandible blades, creating a second front that the Hardening trait had to split its response between.

Two points of ongoing damage. The [Sovereign Hardening] trait could not fully repair both simultaneously.

The Sovereign activated [Swarm Pulse] a second time.

Roman did not activate [Iron Guard] this time. He jumped left instead, clearing the main impact radius, and used the half second the pulse gave him while all three Soul Servants were recovering their footing to charge the exposed crack on the Boss’s back.

[Execution Edge activated.]

The Bone Crawler Sovereign’s Life was sitting at sixty-one percent from the accumulated damage of the ongoing pressure campaign. The [Execution Edge] has just 30% assured efficiency, but the raw damage of a committed Queenfang strike into an already compromised shell section was still significant.

The crack split wider.

[Bone Crawler Sovereign Life: 52%.]

The Boss reacted to the escalating damage by dragging itself toward the centre of the ravine floor where the bone coverage was thickest, and Bone Absorption activated again. Roman sprinted to cut off its path and drove Queenfang into the ground directly in front of it.

[Tremor Strike activated.]

This time, Roman was making sure to use every Skill freely. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

The shockwave ran along the ravine floor ahead of the Sovereign and destabilised the bone coverage in its path, cracking and scattering the material before the Boss could reach it and reducing what was available for absorption.

The Sovereign absorbed less than half of what it had managed the first time, and then...

[Bone Crawler Sovereign Life: 55%.]

"Oh shit... it’s recovering..."

For the first time since venturing into the valley, Roman was having the most tense battle possible.

The Bone Crawler Sovereign, the Ruler of the Ravine of Bones... Was still fighting!