For a brief moment, there was only Rob, running forward with nothing except a sword in his hand. The allied coalition – and even the Blight – were left stunned at the sight of a single Human charging towards certain death.

Then the moment passed. Behind him, Rob heard the sounds of thirty-five Combat Class users springing into action. Stonewarden Grant shouted orders, his troops taking formation. The melee fighters in Riardin's Ranger chased after Rob, while the ranged fighters prepared their spells and arrows.

Ahead of him, the Blight skittered closer, racing to meet Rob's challenge head-on. It wasn't quite a spider, but it had the legs to match, possessing eight spindly limbs covered by glistening black carapace. Its torso looked more like an undulating, oval-shaped blob, complete with numerous branchlike arms dotting its upper half. There was no head or face Rob could see; just hard carapace and sharp edges from top to bottom. He immediately started to regret that he'd put a meager 5 extra points into Dexterity – despite the Blight's bizarre anatomy and it being the size of a small house, the creature was as fucking fast as he'd expected it to be.

So fast, in fact, that it dodged the projectiles sent its way with contemptuous ease, reaching Rob well before his backup arrived.

Oh. It was the only thought he had time to process before a mass of skittering black descended upon him. Rob cast Rampage, flinging himself sideways as half a dozen appendages skewered the space where he'd been. The branchlike arms alternated between flailing wildly and stabbing with expert precision, each individual limb moving as quickly as a lance strike from Seneschal Sylpeiros. Rob dashed back, forced to spam two more Rampages as the Blight pursued him. Ten seconds into the fight, and he was already down to 200 out of 350 MP, with his Skill spam offering him merely the barest of reprieves.

Recognizing that he needed an extra boost of speed, Rob activated Step of the Wind. The Skill increased his Dexterity by 14, allowing him to put some distance between himself and oh shit never mind. Blight was still faster. Screw it, Rob thought, as the beast drew closer. I just need one good touch. Purge Corruption energy gathered in his fingertips, ready to be used.

Immediately, the Blight halted its approach and veered to the side. Its torso split open to reveal a gaping maw lined with red-rimmed teeth. Sense Corruption went ballistic as massive volumes of Corruption began to form inside the Blight's body. A chill crept up Rob's spine; he'd seen this attack before, back when the Blight of Broadwater spewed forth a miasmic cloud that wiped out hundreds of Deserters in an instant. Even if he burned all his remaining resources, he might not escape it in time.

Rob's hair tingled as a lightning spear the size of a tree trunk soared over his shoulder, jamming itself straight into the Blight's gullet. The creature screeched with surprise, its mouth closing and torso re-forming as it retreated to avoid the hailstorm of projectiles that followed. From the cavern entrance, Malika, Elder Alessia, and the few Dwarven mages bombarded it with spells. Orn'tol's hands were a blur, firing multiple arrows per second. Seneschal Sylpeiros' lightning spears rained down like precision sniper shots. And Rob got in on the action by summoning his Broken Shortsword, tossing it, summoning it again, then tossing it again.

Hey, every bit counted.

The Blight dodged most of the assault, but several projectiles found their mark, leaving scratches and dents in its bark-like carapace. In retaliation, the Blight charged the allied coalition, taking the brunt of an entire volley of projectiles without a care. Crooked mouths sprouted on its branch-limbs, whispering hungrily about feasts and revelry. The coalition's front line formed up, ready to defend the back line at the cost of their lives.

To everyone's surprise, Stonewarden Grant stepped out of formation. He approached the Blight, hammer grasped in both hands. Skill activation auras shined around him one after another. When the Blight was just about to engulf him, he leapt forward, hammer swinging in a multicolored blur.

CRACK.

A sound of shattering porcelain echoed across the cavern. Flecks of blackened carapace fell to the floor as the Blight lifted a few inches off the ground, reeling like a boxer who'd been struck by a knockout punch. Keira's greatsword flew through the air a second later, spearing directly into the exact same spot that the Stonewarden had bludgeoned. The Blight started to topple, catching itself with its branch-limbs and scurrying away before anyone could make another follow-up attack.

Rob hurried over to the allied coalition, hoping to regroup with them during the brief lull in action. His eyes widened as the Blight suddenly burrowed underground, its legs and limbs shearing through rock with ease. It sank deeper and deeper, with no signs of stopping, nearly disappearing from the edge of his Sense Corruption range. Just as Rob began wondering if it was attempting to escape, Corruption flared within the creature, and it shot upwards like a rocket.

"IT'S GOING FOR THE BACK LINE!" Rob shouted. The coalition barely moved in time to avoid the Blight erupting from underneath them, limbs flailing and mouths gnashing. Its torso was already split open, ready to expel a cloud of Corruption the moment it surfaced. Rolling waves of miasma shot forth – only to be deflected by Vul'to's protective bubble shield, funneled backwards into the entrance passageway. The Blight's myriad mouths screeched in frustration-

And then it stopped.

Completely. Orn'tol's Temporal Freeze arrow had tagged the beast, placing it in an immobile stasis for a few short seconds.

The allied coalition didn't waste their moment of opportunity. When the Blight unfroze, it was greeted with a smothering deluge of Skills and spells. Mouths hissing, it attempted to barrel through the onslaught, skittering forward and striking at the coalition's repositioned front line. The Dwarven soldiers stood their ground, shoulder-to-shoulder as they deflected the Blight's flurry of limbs with their own expertly-timed strikes. They wouldn't be able to hold out for long, but they didn't need to. The cavalry – Rob included – had almost arrived.

Upon realizing this, the Blight pushed off the ground with an Olympic-worthy leap, jumping straight to the empty center of the cavern, well away from any Leaders or Purge Corruption wielders. Its torso split open once more, revealing a huge, bulbous eye. Rob prepared to dodge, expecting a laser eye beam or something equally ridiculous, but nothing happened. Instead, the Blight simply stared, regarding them with open interest.

"It's frightened," a Dwarven soldier crowed. Rob almost corrected her, then decided otherwise, understanding how important – and fragile – morale would be in this battle. Just to be on the safe side, though, he contacted Riardin's Rangers, wanting to make sure they didn't overextend.

Group Message Started By Party Member: Rob

Rob: Stay on guard.

Rob: We're losing.

Despite the beating it'd taken, cracks and dents dotting its carapace, the Blight didn't even look winded. Rob doubted that its HP had been reduced by more than 15% or so. On the flip side, while the allied coalition had yet to take serious injury, they'd lost out in other ways. Skills, MP, the element of surprise – all sacrificed just to give the Blight the equivalent of a black eye. They were running out of resources, fast. The rest of the battle was shaping up to be a race against time: could they kill the Blight, chip away its carapace bit by bit, finally ending it with Purge Corruption, before it inevitably broke their defenses?

Rob would never get an answer. He flinched in disgust as the Blight collapsed inwards upon itself, melting to the consistency of jello. It resembled the gelatinous mass it'd become when its shell and body merged together at the start of the battle, and as the coalition watched, they saw a similar process happening in reverse. The Blight – ignoring the spells that continued to rain down on it – split apart, like a cell undergoing mitosis. Those two blobs split apart again, resulting in four separate entities that proceeded to re-form into smaller versions of the Blight.

Smaller being a relative term. 'Bus-sized' was still pretty fucking big. They were definitely weaker, though, Sense Corruption informing Rob that each instance of the Blight was roughly one-fourth of its original overwhelming presence. For all intents and purposes, it had exchanged quality for quantity.

"Why?" Keira asked, voicing the question on everyone's minds. To their shock, the Blight responded, its ear-piercing voices echoing in unison.

COOPERATION. LIKE YOU.

The Blights spread out, skittering to four different corners of the cavern. While they might have been weaker, they weren't much slower at all, and the coalition quickly learned that landing their ranged attacks on the creatures' smaller frames was borderline impossible, at least at a distance.

"Cease your fire," the Stonewarden ordered, as his soldiers formed new defensive lines. "Conserve your MP. If we can hold strong for several minutes, most of our Skills will go off cooldown-"

The Blights let out a synchronized screech, two disappearing underground while two rushed forward. Seneschal Sylpeiros ran to meet one of the above-ground Blights, and Stonewarden Grant engaged the other, leaving Riardin's Rangers and the Dwarves to deal with the two ambushing from beneath.

While the coalition was prepared, so were the Blights; this time, they didn't stick around to take attacks head-on. They picked their moments carefully, harassing the coalition's defensive lines with hit-and-run maneuvers. It was as if they possessed a birds-eye view of the battlefield, always surfacing away from Riardin's Rangers heavy hitters, keeping the injuries they sustained to a minimum. Rob and Zamira thought they'd managed to corner one, but it just sank underground again, reappearing a second later to skewer an unsuspecting Dwarf from behind.

Out of the corner of his eye, Rob watched the twin duels between Blights and Leaders play out at the other end of the cavern. Seneschal Sylpeiros was pushing his Blight back, chasing after it with blinding speed and closing off its escape routes with targeted lightning spears, many of which found their mark. Conversely, Stonewarden Grant was struggling; his fighting style almost entirely centered around being in melee range, putting him in danger of the Blight's Corruptive aura. Each hammer blow dealt noticeable cracks to the Blight's carapace, but Corruption was building up within him as he fought, like grains of sand gradually filling an hourglass.

Then, right as the Seneschal Sylpeiros seemed to be gaining a decisive upper-hand against his Blight, Stonewarden Grant's Blight broke off and beelined straight towards the Elf. Without Danger Sense, he would've been a dead man, and even then he just narrowly avoided being pincered by the two abominations attacking in tandem. Stonewarden Grant tried to catch up, but he was slower than the Seneschal and the Blights, lagging behind them as they darted away.

They're distracted, Rob noticed. And I'm not getting shit done over here. With a heavy heart, he took off running, leaving Riardin's Rangers and the Dwarven soldiers to fend for themselves. The Blights were too wary of Purge Corruption, never letting him get close – sneaking up on one was probably his only chance of getting into touch range. Thankfully, the Seneschal was proving to be an excellent diversion, slippery bastard that he was.

Rob was halfway to the Seneschal when the two above-ground Blights abruptly turned around and rushed straight for him. He skidded to a halt, horrified and shocked in equal measure. There hadn't been any warning; one moment they were focused on the Seneschal, the next, on him.

His panic doubled when he heard skittering coming from behind. Rob glanced back to see the other two Blights also heading straight for him. The coalition was in a state of disarray, everyone running to help Rob, knowing full well that they wouldn't get there in time.

I'm their objective, Rob realized, feeling lightheaded as four monstrosities bore down upon him. Whenever I'm not surrounded by allies who can protect me, I instantly become public enemy number one.

The Blights pounced, and Rob cast a succession of Rampages, propelling himself straight upwards. Once, twice, then to the side, then to the side again, finishing with the Bracelet of Teleportation for good measure. It cost him all of his remaining MP and an Enchanted Item's cooldown, but he was safe, soaring through the air before landing near Riardin's Rangers. As soon as it became clear that Rob was no longer on the menu, the Blights returned to their positions, one for each Leader and two immediately burrowing underground.

"Their coordination is too efficient," Rob muttered, hands shaking as he tried to ignore how closely he'd come to death. "The instant they noticed I was out of bounds, all four of them came for me."

"Don't you ever fucking do that again," Keira flatly stated. "But yes. It's likely that they can mentally communicate with one another. Psychic links often exist between some monsters of the same type, and these Blights were born from themselves."

"A hivemind." He grit his teeth and looked down at the ground. "Don't have time to be upset about that – they're coming back."

Rob could do nothing as he watched the Blights slowly whittle away at the allied coalition's defenses. Thanks to Sense Corruption and Danger Sense, he and Keira knew roughly where the Blights would appear, but it didn't matter when the abominations were so much faster and actively avoiding them. If Rob ever got close to one, it would burrow away, not wanting anything to do with Purge Corruption. At one point he chugged an MP Potion and cast Enmity on a Blight, hoping to draw its attention, but it resisted the effect after only a split second of hesitation.

And while Riardin's Rangers and the Dwarven soldiers were holding up well, unlike the Blight, they were mortal, with mortal bodies and mortal limits. Stamina dropped, nerves began to fray, and the inevitable mistakes reared their ugly heads.

It all started when a Dwarven soldier missed his parry. One inch. Just one inch to the left, and his axe would have deflected the Blight's sharp-edged limb. Instead, the strike went through his heart, ending his life in the blink of an eye. He was the first domino to fall, causing the Dwarf next to him to go berserk and attack the Blight in a fury. When that soldier vanished under a shower of impaling limbs, two more Dwarves began to panic, stepping slightly out of formation and leaving themselves wide open.

Vul'to acted as any Guardian would have, rushing forward to protect those in need. As if they'd been waiting for that very moment, both Blights immediately turned their full attention on him, ignoring the rest of the coalition in order to assail Vul'to with a series of quick, vicious strikes. He blocked and deflected almost every attack – except for one, a glancing blow that raked across his helmet and sliced his right eye, popping it like a grape. Most of Vul'to's anti-Corruption Amulets popped as well, the vast majority crumbling to pieces as he collapsed to the ground. The moment he was down, the Blights descended like vultures on a carcass, ripping off his armor even as projectiles and weapons battered them.

It was, in a certain sense, the opening Rob had been waiting for. He tried not to let his rage blind him as he advanced, ambushing the Blights as they focused on Vul'to. Purge Corruption energy built within, and as if he'd set off an alarm bell, one of the Blights turned away from its target and blitzed Rob with a dizzying flurry of attacks. He was forced back, unable to take a single step forward, lest he walk straight into a living blender. Touching the Blight long enough to use Purge Corruption would be a lot more difficult if it chopped off his hands first.

After performing the grim mental calculus of how much HP he'd need to sacrifice in order to succeed, Rob concluded that his odds of survival were far from guaranteed, let alone success. Either the Purge Corruption damage combined with Lifesteal and Lifesurge would sustain him through the onslaught, or he'd instantly take a dozen stabs to vital areas and just fucking die. Dumping his unspent stat into Vitality would raise his chances, but not to a point where victory was assured.

And even if he was personally willing to take that risk, on a wider scale, Rob couldn't afford to gamble his life just to kill one-fourth of a Blight. No one else in Elatra could restore Corrupted Loci. If he went down, everyone suffered.

While all of this transpired, Meyneth bellowed a cry of fury and sank into her shadow, emerging out from Vul'to's an instant later. Claws glowing with Armor Rend, she slashed at the second Blight and began pulling Vul'to to safety, uncaring of the sharp-edged limbs repeatedly stabbing at her legs and stomach. With the coalition covering her retreat, she barely managed to escape, her ruined legs giving out a second later as a Dwarf hurriedly fed her HP Potions.

Zamira managed to sever one of the Blight's arms in the process, and it retaliated by poking at a nearby Dwarf who was creeping up from behind, grazing her anti-Corruption Amulet and snapping it in two. The Dwarf wheezed, legs trembling, clutching her throat as ambient Corruption filled her lungs. Rob produced a new Amulet from his Spatial Storage and tossed it to her, but the moment of weakness led to her being dragged underground as the Blights retreated, her muffled screams abruptly cutting out.

The Blights did pay for their aggression. They'd taken a good number of hits in the exchange. But it was well worth the price, because with Vul'to and Meyneth wounded and the Dwarven ranks dwindling, it became apparent that the coalition's front line was starting to fall apart. The Blights proved this by bursting from the ground mere feet away from Malika, their bulbous eyes peering directly at her, eager for easy prey.

Blood draining from her face, Malika pumped the abominations full of lightning – to no avail. Orn'tol grabbed her and retreated with Flight of the Coward, his heroics earning him a horrendous gash on the back. Without Rob's shared defensive buffs, he would've been bisected outright. The coalition closed in on the Blights, quickly scoring a few injuries, Rob's hand inches away from touching carapace before they burrowed to safety.

Their injuries were nothing compared to Orn'tol's, who was motionless on the ground and bleeding out fast. A tearful Malika fed him HP Potions, stabilizing his condition, but he remained unconscious.

From underground, the Blights began to ascend once more.

Some of us are going to die, Rob thought, with startling clarity. Even if the coalition pulled through – which was looking less likely with each passing second – not everyone in Riardin's Rangers was going to make it. The fact of the matter was that none of the four Blight instances were anywhere close to dying. Wounded, yes, but more than capable of fighting effectively. By the time the coalition managed to put one of them down, half of their soldiers would be six feet under. Some of them literally.

Victory was possible. They could still win. But no matter what, it would come at a cost.

The realization shook Rob to his core. In a trancelike state, he hovered his mental finger above Waymark, a sliver away from activating it. He wanted to. He wanted to so, so badly. It was the only way he could ensure that his friends survived.

It would also leave behind Elder Alessia and fuck over Elatra as a whole. Without Riardin's Rangers to shore up the Dwarves' defenses, their front lines would crumple like a tin can flattened by an SUV. The Leaders, suddenly outnumbered four to two, would be the next to fall. Then Dhalerune City, as the Blighted Lands spread and the Blight itself grew stronger. With the loss of its Stonewarden, Dwarven territory would struggle, unable to meet the Blight in direct combat without sustaining massive losses. Elven territory, having lost its Seneschal, would fare little better.

And all Rob had to do to avert that horrible future was sacrifice his friends. Continue battling the Blight, even as casualties mounted. Kill the beast, claim a victory, and bury Keira. Or Meyneth. Or Zamira. Or any other member of Riardin's Rangers. Then wake up tomorrow morning, fresh with the knowledge that he could have saved them, and start taking applications to fill his Party's recent vacancies.

"Eventually, people under your leadership will die," Elder Alessia had told him, back in Esternard City. "It is an inevitability. The sun rises in the morning, the stars twinkle in the night sky, and Combat Class users perish in battle."

The Blights emerged, killing another Dwarf and receiving only superficial injuries in exchange. Rather than fleeing, the Dwarves adjusted their defensive lines with missing a beat, preparing for the Blights' next assault. All of them were terrified, yet none of them backed down. The battle-ready members of Riardin's Rangers were the same, Keira, Zamira, and Faelynn taking their positions beside the Dwarves as if it was natural. Each and every one of them knew what was at stake; they'd made the decision to stand and fight long ago.

A cold pit of resignation formed in Rob's heart as he acknowledged that Alessia was right. Riardin's Rangers had been lucky so far, but their good fortune couldn't last forever. Elatra was growing more dangerous by the day. Even if he Waymarked them to safety this time, there was no guarantee they'd survive their next conflict with a Blight. In fact, stopping this Blight here and now would make it significantly easier for Riardin's Rangers to survive in the long-term. As it stood, they were finally, finally making progress with other nations. His inroads with Elatran Leaders, the burgeoning alliance between Fiend territory and Dwarven territory – all of that would go up in smoke if he forced his Party to bail because of his own selfish desires.

Manic laughter built in Rob's chest. There really wasn't a plausible justification for using Waymark, was there? Nothing that anyone would accept. Riardin's Rangers would resent him if he saved their lives at the expense of so much else, but only half as much as he'd resent himself. The more Rob thought about it, the more he determined that the best he could do was to stay the course and pray that the Blights died before he lost too many of his friends. Hoping for anything better would just be the naive, greedy delusions of a Berserker who couldn't face reality.

...

...

...But...why?

Why couldn't he be greedy?

Why couldn't his selfish desires ever align with reality?

Why couldn't he hope for a world where he didn't have to choose between sacrificing his friends or condemning nations?

Why couldn't he hope for a world where no one he loved had to die?

Why? As both Blights emerged, targeting Zamira in a coordinated effort, the question repeated itself within Rob's mind. Why? Why? WHY? FUCKING WHY?!

{You know why.}

Everything froze.

It was as if a god had pressed pause on the world. Riardin's Rangers, the Dwarves, the Leaders, and the Blights all stood perfectly still, locked in whatever motion they'd been performing. An eerie silence infiltrated the cavern as the sounds of combat vanished in an instant. One Dwarf was frozen mid-jump, her legs extended in a position that would have been comical if Rob wasn't so freaked out. He couldn't blink, couldn't breathe, couldn't even feel the beating of his heart, leaving him as an observer in his own unmoving body.

Immediately, Rob assumed divine interference, but he didn't feel the gods' presence. There wasn't the sensation of a foreign entity invading his mind, like when Kismet contacted him in the past. There was just...

Static.

Subtle, at first. Mere background noise. Persistent, ever-present, yet mild enough that he usually forgot it was there at all. His constant companion, one that had been around longer than any other in Elatra.

As if recognizing there was a void of silence to be filled, the static intensified, going from a faint hum to a blaring cacophony. Rob recoiled as it took up greater space in his mind; not a foreign entity like the gods, but a native resident like Diplomacy.

And then, in something resembling a voice, it spoke.

{It's time you stopped pretending,} said Leveling High.