Siege

Siege plays by completely different rules from the labyrinth. Enemies ignore your hero and march straight for the altar, while you spend the souls you reap from kills on cards that build up your front line. Win or lose, you earn gold, essence, rune fragments and minion fragments for how long you held, and victories pay the currencies that grow your Sanctum relics. Those relics also work in the labyrinth, so Siege is another growth path for the main game.

Unlocking and entering

Unlock: complete your first reincarnation, finish the guided steps that follow it (empowering a Relic and investing in the Dark Covenant), then play one more labyrinth run. Once that’s done, a Siege gate is revealed in the village and marked Village Defense.
Entry: walk up to that gate in the village to open the Obsidian Sanctum window. It has two tabs: Entry Info and Relic Shop.
Entry Info: shows today’s challenge, the recommended relic families and the Sigils and Embers you can expect. Pick a tier with Choose the Abyss, then tap Enter Sanctum.
Today’s challenge changes every day. Win with relics from the recommended families equipped and you earn extra Sigils.

The goal: guard the altar

The only way to lose Siege is for the altar to be destroyed. If your hero falls, that’s not a defeat — you rise again in front of the altar shortly after, and your legion keeps fighting in the meantime.
The altar draws in corpses that pile up near it and turns them into a barrier. The altar also strikes back at enemies that hit it.
In Siege, ordinary monsters’ melee elemental effects (slow, stun, bleed, vulnerability) don’t affect your minions.

Each enemy type calls for a different answer.

Enemy	What it does	How to handle it
Regular enemies	Swarm toward the altar in packs.	Hold them with front-line minions and towers.
Breaker	Ignores your minions and heads for the altar.	Stop them with a Bone Fence and switch Target to Breakers.
Cremator	Burns the corpses your barrier feeds on.	Kill them first. Switch Target to Cremators.
Champion	A strong enemy that appears in some waves.	Thicken your front line before it arrives.
Boss	Appears after the final wave.	Defeat it to win.

How a run flows

Opening. When the battle starts, you’re offered a first card you can afford with your starting souls. Raise your first line.
Wave. Enemies pour in. Every kill adds souls, and chained kills yield more. During a wave you can put out fires with Soul Burst.
Ebb (between waves). Up to three cards are offered and you buy one with souls. If nothing fits, Hoard the Souls to save for later, or pay souls to Reroll the offer.
Free re-raise. When the ebb ends, any minions you bought with cards that have fallen rise again for free. You always face the next wave with the full line you paid for.
Finale. After the last wave a boss appears. Kill it and you win; if the altar falls first, you lose.

Souls and cards

In Siege, minions rise only from cards — you don’t summon on corpses the way you do in the labyrinth. Cards are offered one from each of three slots.

Slot	Role	Example cards
Front Line	Raise or strengthen minions.	Summon cards, Elite Evolution
Altar	Decide how the altar will hold.	Seal the Altar, Altar Thorns, Siphon Altar, Bone Fence, the 4 towers
Gambit	Decide what to bet on right now.	Rally the Fallen, Soul Tithe, Plague Decree, Soul Conduit, Starving Altar

Cards you can’t afford right now aren’t offered. If there’s nothing you can buy, the card window doesn’t open and your souls keep piling up.
When the altar is badly broken, Seal the Altar is always offered.
Cards like Soul Conduit that boost later soul income pay off most when bought early. Starving Altar trades altar durability for extra free picks this ebb.

Summon cards and Elite Evolution

This run’s summon candidates are filled first by the minions in your deck, then by your other unlocked minions.
Picking the same summon card again raises its tier (Raise New → higher tiers → Final Rise). Higher tiers make it stronger, and some tiers add more units.
Minions you’ve awakened (evolved) first stand in their normal form. When two of the same minion are on the field, an Elite Evolution card appears that sacrifices both to awaken one elite.
Your minions keep their levels in Siege. Everything you invest in the labyrinth makes your Siege line stronger too.

Towers

In the Altar slot you can build the Pyre Tower, Rime Tower, Void Tower and Gore Tower with souls. Picking the same element again raises the tower’s tier and changes how it attacks.
A tower’s strength follows your highest-level unlocked minion of the same element. Towers of the element you’ve raised most are offered more often.
Enemies don’t attack towers. Once built, a tower fights until the run ends.

Battle buttons

Button	What it does
Soul Burst	During waves and the finale, spend souls to damage every enemy nearby. It’s weaker against bosses and has a cooldown.
Target	Cycles what your minions go after first: Auto, Breaker, Cremator.
Rally	Tap to gather your minions at your hero; drag onto an enemy to send every minion after it.

Tiers: the Abyss

Siege difficulty is split into Abyss tiers, shown on the battle screen as Abyss T plus the tier number.
A new tier opens only after you clear the tier right below it. Tiers you’ve already cleared can be replayed at any time.
The tier selection screen shows your best wave record for each tier and the reward for clearing it the first time.

Rewards

Reward	When	What you get
Spoils	Every run, win or lose	Gold, essence, rune fragments and fragments of your top-performing minions (up to 3 species), scaled to the waves you held.
First Clear	Clearing a tier for the first time	A large number of Sigils, gems and one guaranteed gear item. Higher tiers give higher gear grades, but never above what your labyrinth progress allows.
Sigils and Embers	Sigils on victory, Embers every run	Sigils are paid only for victories; Embers scale with the souls you reaped that run. Both are spent on Sanctum relics.

Your first few runs each day (UTC) pay full Spoils; after that they shrink. Reduced runs show a Waning Spoils badge on the results screen.
Your first victory of the day adds a bonus to Spoils and Embers.
Fragments are split in order of combat contribution (damage dealt). Put the minion you want to grow on the front line to collect its fragments.

The Sanctum Relic Vault

The Sanctum Relic Vault, opened from the Relic Shop tab, is where you buy and grow permanent relics with what you earn in Siege.

Families: Sanctum relics belong to three families — Legion, Corpse and Dominion. Some are visible from the start; the rest are revealed one by one as you clear Abyss tiers for the first time.
Unlock and upgrade: unlock and level relics with Sigils (some steps also need Embers). At certain levels, the Ascension and Zenith steps change a relic’s effect significantly.
Slots: there are 3 slots. Only 2 are usable at first; the third opens when you first clear a certain Abyss tier. Tap an equipped slot to remove a relic.
They work in the labyrinth too: the stats of your equipped Sanctum relics apply in labyrinth battles as well as in Siege.
Resonance: when two equipped relics pair up, an extra bonus turns on depending on the combination of their families. With three slots, every pair can form its own resonance.
Resonance Level: each time the total level of your Sanctum relics reaches a milestone, a permanent bonus opens in order, starting with Resonance I.
Bonds (Siege only): your equipped families also give Siege perks. Legion makes cards cheaper, Corpse gives more starting souls and soul income, and Dominion enlarges the altar barrier.

Don’t confuse this with Relics & the Dark Covenant. Relics are grown with Death Sigils from reincarnation; Sanctum relics are grown with Sigils and Embers from Siege.

Tips

Kill Cremators first. Burned corpses don’t feed your altar barrier. Before a Cremator-heavy wave, switch Target to Cremators.
Bone Fence for Breaker waves. Breakers walk past your minions straight to the altar.
Front line first. Build your line and grab soul-income cards in the first ebbs, and you’ll have more room to choose later.
Build towers in your strongest element. Towers follow your highest-level minion of that element, so match them to your best-leveled minions.
Match the recommended families. Equip the recommended relics from Entry Info and win to earn extra Sigils.
Grow your minions in the labyrinth. Your Siege line’s power ultimately comes from minion levels. See Growing Your Minions.

Common mistakes

Can’t find the Siege entrance. Siege opens only after your first reincarnation, the Relic and Dark Covenant guidance, and one more labyrinth run. Once it opens, the village gate is marked.
Only hoarding souls. Souls don’t carry over after the run. Buy the cards you need each ebb.
Chasing enemies instead of guarding the altar. Enemies only want the altar. Protect the line and barrier in front of it first.
Thinking a loss pays nothing. Even when you lose, you get Spoils and Embers for the waves you held. Sigils and First Clear rewards, however, require a victory.
Not equipping Sanctum relics. A relic you bought only works in Siege and the labyrinth once it’s in a slot.