The Undead's battles and daily life in Calimshan had settled into a lull. In the two months before the equinox, they had practically formed a bond with the God-Monsters across from them.
Some God-Monsters got so worked up fighting the other side that they charged up the mountain to smash the wall. If they calmed down quickly enough, they could run back before the Undead rallied their friends and emptied their health bars.
If they got too carried away, they could only wait for a companion to notice something was wrong and retrieve them—or end up as loot for the Undead.
Generally, the ones who came up to collect cores were former Elemental Sorcerers. Even after abandoning their human bloodlines, they had retained a little sense. They never let anger drive them to the summit of Mount Alarim to smash a wall and get themselves killed.
That also made them the first to realize when one of the larger God-Monsters might not make it back, and they hurried over to salvage its core. Not that they could do anything to those cores. It wasn't for lack of desire; they simply couldn't. When they swore allegiance to the God-Monsters, they had been bound never to do anything harmful to the Elemental Giants.
But carrying the cores would make their bodies increasingly elemental. Given enough time, they might even become true Elemental Giants.
So the smaller God-Monsters raced up to collect cores as fast as they could, clashing again and again with the Undead who leaped down from the wall to snatch high-grade materials.
These smaller God-Monsters had grown cautious. After the Undead tricked them several times by logging out and back in, they had little choice. They swooped in for a core and fled; if they missed it, they let it