Chapter 66: Filburn Progenitor, Dangerous Ambush

The asteroid belt cracked open behind it as it emerged, a shape big enough to make all three of the earlier bosses look like afterthoughts, chitin plating layered thick enough to swallow light, a dozen limbs and easily twice that many eyes all fixing on Logan’s position at once.

```

[ Filburn Progenitor ]

Level: 40 | Tier-4 | Mythic

-- Stats --

HP: 380,000 / 380,000

MP: 340,000 / 340,000

Attack: 3,800

Speed: 3,000

Constitution: 3,800

Arcane: 3,400

```

"This is going to be troublesome. Everyone, be careful." Logan warned.

It didn’t wait for them to organize. A dozen limbs lashed outward in a single coordinated sweep, and four of Solveig’s clones went down in the same instant, crimson light snuffing out before any of them managed a single counter.

"Four gone already!" Solveig’s voice cracked with something close to alarm, the remaining four pulling back into a tighter formation.

Logan’s own pulse spiked. Twelve seconds gone already, and the Progenitor hadn’t even slowed down.

Grim Lock!

Billy answered by diving straight in, Form Switch already triggering mid-approach.

Voidfall Cannon!

The beam caught the Progenitor across its foremost eyes, and for the first time in the entire fight, something actually screamed instead of just absorbing the hit in silence.

It didn’t stay blind for long. A limb the size of the Leviathan’s own hull came around in a strike that connected before Billy fully cleared the follow-through, the impact spinning his whole ship-form nearly a full rotation before he managed to stabilize.

```

[ Duskwoven Void Harbinger HP: 61% ]

```

"That one hurt." Billy’s voice came out tighter than usual. "Okay. Not holding back either, then."

Unbound Drift!

He tore straight through the Progenitor’s guard, ignoring three separate limbs that tried to intercept him, momentum alone shredding through anything that got in his way.

Thirty seconds gone. Half the window already spent, and the Progenitor’s HP had barely dropped past a third.

Solveig didn’t wait for an opening this time.

Bloodfall Destruction!

His remaining four clones combined the strike into a single column of crimson light heavy enough to buckle one of the Progenitor’s forward legs, but the creature answered before the light even fully faded, a wide sweep of its own catching two more clones in the backswing.

"Two left, my lord!" His own HP had started dropping too, the Progenitor clearly done ignoring him after that hit.

A limb caught him square in the chest a heartbeat later, hard enough that it should have ended things outright.

Undying Wrath!

His HP cratered and stopped a hair’s breadth from zero. Ten seconds bought at the cost of a hit that would have killed anyone else on the spot, and the damage boost that came with sitting that close to death turned his very next swing into something closer to a detonation.

Forty-five seconds. Fifteen left, and the Progenitor’s HP still sat stubbornly above twenty percent.

’Not enough time left to play it safe.’

Logan closed the last of the distance himself, ignoring a limb that opened a shallow line across his ribs on the way in, refusing to let the pain slow him down even a fraction.

Grim Devouring Slash!

The ethereal edge tore through two more limbs at once, halving whatever they’d been capable of a moment earlier, and the Progenitor’s guard finally opened up just enough.

```

[ Filburn Progenitor HP: 9% ]

```

Grim Harvest!

The resonance caught with seconds to spare, the invisible blade finding its grip at the exact center of something that had almost outlasted the clock entirely.

Overgrim Slash!

The dark arc tore free of Grimlord’s Blade and closed the last of the Progenitor’s HP in the same instant the timer would have run out, its whole massive frame finally going still.

```

[ 29:58 ]

[ Filburn Progenitor defeated. ]

[ Challenge complete. +20,000 Tower Points. ]

[ Challenge complete. Defense successful. +0.1 Tier Point Multiplier. ]

[ Bonus task complete. +0.4 Tier Point Multiplier. ]

```

Logan dropped to one knee the second the panel cleared. MP and HP both scraped down further than they’d been at any other point in the last thirty minutes.

Billy reformed back into Voidwheel a short distance away, hull scored with fresh damage that hadn’t been there ten minutes earlier.

"Well." He managed a grin despite it. "That was fun."

"Yes. It was fun." The twelve Motes spoke simultaneously.

Solveig’s remaining two clones folded back into him, the crimson light guttering low before settling. He was breathing hard himself, armor cracked along one shoulder where that last hit had landed.

"A barely worthy challenge, my lord." He said it anyway, voice still rough from how close it had actually been.

Logan managed a tired grin despite everything, his own hands still shaking slightly from how close that last ten seconds had really come.

"We got enough Tower Points now. It’s time to get ten Mythic Spacecraft and rumble over this match."

Right then, nobody felt it coming.

Even if they felt it, it was too late.

BEEEEEEEMM!!

A light flashed across the dark space.

The only one who noticed was Synthia, because she was installing a system in the space and had expanded a forcefield to test its target scanner range.

She noticed it. Her brain registered the threat, and instantly, without hesitation, she threw herself alongside her tools in front of the attack, before it could touch the mothership.

Logan noticed next. His pupils dilated extremely, and he vanished from his spot.

In the next moment, he was next to Synthia, his arm blurring into multitudes of slashes as he broke apart the attack.

"Synthia!"

Synthia’s HP hung at 3%, and it was reducing!

Billy and Solveig arrived there alongside the two Mythic spacecraft hovering above the mothership.

All looking in the same direction with ferocity.

"That motherfucker’s dead!" Billy shouted and transformed before directly unleashing a Voidfall Cannon at the player’s mothership who just attacked.

The attack reached the enemy ship, but a faint green-bluish barrier sprang up, completely blocking the attack.

That Mothership had clear modifications and a sizeable army. A stealth tech had helped this player get close and unleash an attack.

It was likely that this player was observing Logan’s battle for a while and was waiting for an opportunity.

"Protect the ship." Logan barked the order, his eyes not moving from Synthia. ’It was a good thing I got that type of Legendary relic, and not a combat booster type.’

A statue of a lifelike Phoenix appeared above Logan’s palm, standing on its two legs with its wings flared up.

[ Phoenix Force Statue ]

> Rank: Legendary

> Effect:

—> Every 5 hours, you can extract a Phoenix Feather from it and fully recover anyone from the brink of death. If dead for more than 1 minute, it will not work.

"Thank you, Synthia. If not for you, our mothership’s core would have been destroyed, ending our journey here."

Synthia let out a smile. "It is my job to protect this ship."

"But not with your body. I don’t want you dead."

After healing Synthia, Logan stood up and finally looked at the enemy.

[Player Tur’Ni Sian’s Mothership]