Chaos Zero Nightmare: Sereniel & Peko Balance Adjustment

Smilegate's development team has published a developer note detailing balance adjustments for two returning Combatants, Fighter Sereniel and her Partner Peko, ahead of the September 30, 2026 update. The note, posted September 22 and already drawing over 12,000 views, walks through why the pair is getting buffed and exactly what's changing. As with any developer note, the studio flags that details may shift before the update actually goes live.

Why Sereniel and Peko are getting adjusted

Sereniel is an offensive Instinct Fighter built around cycling her signature card, Homing Laser, from the Graveyard back into hand, then cashing in her stacked Afterglow effect to finish off enemies who are already low on Endurance. At launch, her firepower and her reactive Homing Laser playstyle made her a fan favorite.

Since then, Smilegate says a review of the current combat environment found that the base Damage Amount on several of Sereniel's cards, along with some of her Potential and Ego Manifestation effects, weren't holding up well against newer content. The goal of this pass is to raise her overall damage output on her core Attack Cards and to widen the scope and duration of several of her buff effects, so she performs more consistently across different content types.

Peko, her assigned Partner, is getting a similar look. To bring her in line with more recently released Partners, her Passive effect is being strengthened so she can better support Sereniel in battle.

The adjustments break down into three areas: Sereniel's Fighter Cards and Exclusive Effect, Sereniel's Potential and Ego Manifestation, and Peko's Passive.

Sereniel's Exclusive Effect: Afterglow

The Damage Amount Increase portion of Sereniel's Afterglow effect is being strengthened, and its condition is being loosened. Previously, the bonus only applied to enemies in a Destroyed state; going forward it also applies to enemies who simply have no Endurance Gauge left, even if they haven't been formally Destroyed.

• Before: +1 Endurance Damage on Attack Cards; +50% Damage Amount against Destroyed enemies; consumes 1 Afterglow when activated.
• After: +1 Endurance Damage on Attack Cards; +100% Damage Amount against enemies that are either Destroyed or have no Endurance remaining; consumes 1 Afterglow when activated.

Sereniel's Fighter Cards and Ego Skills

Her core Attack Cards, including Homing Laser and Cobalt Light, are getting an across-the-board Damage Amount increase, along with buffs to her Ego Skill Death Halo and several Ego Manifestation effects.

Homing Laser and its Epiphanies:

• Base Homing Laser: 100% → 120% Damage (unchanged: 2 Afterglow, moves from Graveyard to hand on Ravage).
• Epiphany 1: 150% → 180% Damage (unchanged: moves to hand on Ravage, adds 1 Hit on Destroy).
• Epiphany 2: 150% → 180% Damage (unchanged: 3 Afterglow, moves to hand on Ravage).
• Epiphany 3: 150% → 225% Damage (unchanged: 2 Afterglow, creates 2 Homing Laser L in the discard pile).
• Epiphany 4: 100% → 120% Damage (unchanged: 1 Afterglow, moves to hand on Ravage or at turn start).
• Epiphany 5: 150% → 180% Damage (unchanged: 2 Afterglow, moves all Homing Laser L from Graveyard to hand).

Plasma Missile (Epiphany 2): damage stays at 180%, but the "+60% Damage Amount per Endurance reduction on target (max 10)" bonus is now based on base Damage Amount rather than the modified total — a clarity fix more than a straight buff.

Cobalt Light and its Epiphanies:

• Base Cobalt Light: 120% → 140% Damage (unchanged: hits 4 random enemies, 1 Endurance Damage per hit).
• Epiphany 1: 180% → 210% Damage (unchanged: reduces Cost by 1 on a Destroying Attack with this card).
• Epiphany 2 (Retain): 120% → 140% Damage (unchanged: Retain adds 1 Attack until activated, up to 5 times).
• Epiphany 3: 120% → 140% Damage (unchanged: creates 1 Homing Laser L per target hit).
• Epiphany 4: 120% → 140% Damage (unchanged: adds 1 Attack per Homing Laser in hand).
• Epiphany 5 (Weakness Attack): 120% → 140% Damage x4 (unchanged: activates again on Destroy).

Ego Skill and Ego Manifestation:

• Pale Shooting Star (Ego Manifestation): 200% → 250% Damage (unchanged: procs 5 Homing Laser in the Draw Pile and Graveyard).
• Death Halo (Ego Skill): 400% → 500% Damage to all enemies (unchanged: moves all Homing Laser L from the Exhaust Pile to hand).
• Death Circle (Ego Manifestation): 450% → 650% Damage to all enemies, and now also moves all Homing Laser L from the Exhaust Pile to hand with Haste applied — a new effect on top of the damage increase.

Sereniel's Potential and Ego Manifestation stages

• Potential, Stage 7: previously required 30% Critical Hit Chance for +10% Damage on Homing Laser (with an extra +5% at 60% Crit Chance). Now the threshold drops to 20% Crit Chance for +10%, with the extra +5% kicking in at 40% Crit Chance — and the bonus now applies to all Instinct Attribute Damage, not just Homing Laser.
• Ego Manifestation Stage 1: Pale Shooting Star's bonus damage rises from +50% to +100%; still sets the number of activatable Homing Laser cards to 5.
• Ego Manifestation Stage 2: still creates 2 Homing Laser L at the start of battle and still draws a card if Homing Laser is among the opening hand, but the created lasers now come with an extra Hit Count and Haste applied.
• Ego Manifestation Stage 3: Death Halo's bonus damage rises from +50% to +150%; still applies Haste to any Homing Laser L moved by Death Halo.
• Ego Manifestation Stage 4: Firepower Amp per Homing Laser moved to hand on Ravage now grants +25% Damage per turn (up from +10%), but the stack cap drops from 5 to 2.
• Ego Manifestation Stage 6: this stage changes shape entirely. It previously only triggered when an ally attacked Sereniel, dealing 80% Damage times the target's max Endurance back at them — that effect is kept, but two new effects are added on top: +20% Weakness Damage Amount at the start of battle, and applying 1 Instinct Weakness to the enemy with the highest HP at the start of each turn.

Peko's Passive: Universal Kit

Peko's support kit is being reworked to front-load its value rather than requiring it to stack over several turns.

• Before: whenever the assigned Fighter's card moves from Graveyard to hand, gain 1 stack of Repair Complete!, each stack granting +10–20% Damage Amount on the Fighter's Attack Cards (max 3 stacks), plus a flat +15–30% Damage Amount against Destroyed targets.
• After: the same trigger now grants a single, much stronger stack — +40–80% Damage Amount per stack, capped at just 1 stack — plus a stronger +20–40% Damage Amount bonus against Destroyed targets.

Smilegate notes that even though the max stack count drops from 3 to 1, the bonus from a single stack now exceeds what 3 stacks used to provide. The intent is to cut down on the setup complexity of stacking Peko's effect across multiple turns, letting her deliver optimal support as early as possible in a fight.

What else is coming September 30: Sortie changes

The same update also touches Sortie, the game's roguelike mode. Starting with this update, Smilegate plans to introduce new elements to Sortie each season going forward — and as a starting point, content from previous seasons is being folded into the mode. Every Chaos and its Unidentified Area from Season 1's Laboratory 0 through Season 4's Kaleidoscope Hatchery will be added, giving players more environments to run Sortie in.

One reward-format change is also included: rewards that previously granted a Divine Epiphany will instead apply one directly, so players won't run into situations where a Divine Epiphany reward is wasted because every card already has an Epiphany applied. New Divine Epiphanies, gear, Destinies, and cards are being added alongside this change, along with other smaller improvements aimed at giving Protos more build variety.

Get ready for the September 30 update

With Sereniel and Peko both getting reworked and Sortie picking up a season's worth of new content, the September 30 update is worth prepping for ahead of time. GameMarket.gg offers Chaos Zero Nightmare accounts if you want to jump into the rework with a head start, Chaos Zero Nightmare hourly services to push through the expanded Sortie content, and Chaos Zero Nightmare boosting to keep pace once the new balance patch lands. Every order is protected by Buyer Protection.

GameMarket.gg is a trusted digital marketplace for everything gaming-related. We serve the gaming community by providing secure access that enhances every gaming journey.