Erik was having a slightly rough time. It had been a slightly rough week, all told. He had actually lost track of the number of times he could have died after day three, which was interesting. On the bright side, his defensive sense was getting a real workout! Erik had thought he didn't have any room to improve with his favorite and most used ability, but this week had shown him new depths of death-defying shenanigans.

Now Caeden had run off to handle the final tunnel, leaving Erik with the ever-so-slightly difficult task of holding a tunnel that the both of them had been struggling with by himself. Not that Erik thought he couldn't handle it, but things would probably get pretty dicey in the next few minutes.

Once more, Erik lamented his lack of multi-target attacks. He had all kinds of group control abilities, but attacking many monsters at once was not his strong suit. Which sucked a lot. All his friends had ways to deal with many opponents at once. Especially Cat. The students at the Academy hadn't dubbed her the One Woman Army for nothing.

Erik couldn't pull a small army out of thin air, or freeze dozens of creatures with a hand wave, or shred them with dozens of rose-shaped drills. He could attach things to other things, and punch stuff. Admittedly, he could punch a lot better than his friends could. Erik could take pride that his skills far outmatched any of his friends when it came to using his shroud in tandem with his body. Just sometimes, he felt like he was the weakest link in the group.

Even as Erik had these downer thoughts running through his mind, he fought on. His body was essentially responding automatically as monsters flung themselves at him. His defensive sense was so deeply ingrained and ever-present and his reflexes so refined to every sign of danger that he hardly had to think to fight. Dozens of monsters charged him only to be restrained by white strings and dismantled by brutal fists and feet. And elbows and knees. And his head sometimes. Basically, Erik hit them with his whole body, whatever worked.

Despite his efficiency, Erik could feel the pressure mounting. There were a lot of monsters. Like, a lot a lot. The tunnel was a seething mass of monsters coming for him, packed so tight he could hardly see the ground. Hundreds of monsters had died in this tunnel alone, but Erik saw no sign that they would be stopping soon.

Luckily (a word Erik used very rarely), it seemed that no more monsters above 5,000 IP were coming through. Those had been few and far between whenever the team explored the tunnels, so it made sense that there were less of them. Things like the Rock Trolls and the Hairy Holes hadn't shown up in a while. Fingers crossed, that meant there just weren't any more down here to be found.

Despite all the monsters individually being weak enough to not even count as an obstacle, their sheer numbers made it clear to Erik that he was fighting on a clock. All it would take was one or two monsters getting in a lucky shot that did real damage, and he would be so far on the back foot he'd be liable to fall over on his ass.

The only real hope for him here was that one of his teammates managed to finish up their own troubles a jump in to save him. Erik wasn't exactly holding his breath on that. Lily had exhausted herself completely, Cat was holding a tunnel just like his all alone, and Caeden was facing what sounded like an army of Ash Reapers. They were pretty tied up.

No use complaining, Erik shrugged. So he went back to fighting, putting his mind, body, and soul into the effort with a smile on his face. If he died, monster hoard was in his top ten list of ways to go out; and if he lived, this would be a hell of a story to impress some lovely ladies with once they got out!

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Caeden stared at the mass of shadowy figures charging down the tiny length of tunnel to meet him. They would be entirely silent if not for a number of them deliberately running their ashen claws along the tunnel wall. It was an odd bit of behavior that they had never discovered the reason for, but Caeden was grateful. He would have never known they were coming if not for that odd quirk.

The first time they had encountered Ash Reapers, Caeden had been at something of a loss when it came to fighting back. The incorporeal shadow monsters were truly difficult to handle. In the intervening week, the Ash Reapers had been one of the rarest encounters they had. Caeden had made it his mission to turn those scarce fights into a learning experience.

Ever since they fell down here, Caeden had been kicking himself over his own arrogance. They had entered an unknown location with minimal equipment and even less knowledge. More than that, Caeden had never really thought about the absurd diversity of monsters. He had been aware of how different they were, but he had never taken the time to sit down and think about how he would deal with those monsters.

Frankly, it was inexcusable. Caeden had spent his entire life hearing stories about fighting and killing monsters. He should have thought about it, even if it was just a childish daydream about being a monster slayer. Caeden almost felt like those stories had hindered him a little, forming a connection in his mind between monsters and make-believe. Even though he knew those stories were based on real events, the fact that they were just stories made them feel slightly unreal.

This nightmare journey through monster-infested caverns had thoroughly cured that notion. Caeden had formed a healthy respect for monsters that had led to his feverish attempts at forming a proper counter to the Ash Reapers. In his mind, they were an embodiment of his failures, one he couldn't allow.

That effort had borne fruit.

Caeden reverted Forged Infinity to its hilt form, the dial rolling back to 000. Previously, his shrouded weapon was the only reason he was able to fight the Ash Reapers at all. Now, it would just get in the way. The consciousness in the hilt protested. It had been immensely enjoying the endless battle they had waged. Caeden had been constantly bombarded with half-formed impressions of intense joy as Caeden used Forged Infinity to slice and splatter and batter and break hundreds of monsters.

After the hilt was securely attached to his sash, Caeden also released Physical Enhancement. First, his strength form vanished, the thick bands of purple bleeding away until gold was once again his primary color. A second later, and that vanished as well. Caeden returned to his normal dark chocolate skin tone and his original human height.

The Ash Reapers were moments away, but Caeden didn't let that bother him. This next part required focus.

Lines of Sharp, darting and fluttering crimson lines of shiny string fluttered along the skin of his hands and arms. It darted about, erratically as Caeden used his will to force his shroud to do something that did not come naturally to it.

The frontrunner of the shadow monsters was a yard away, claws already stretching out to score into his vulnerable flesh. The immense heat that had begun to grow back after Lily's massive expenditure of shroud caused sweat to break out all over Caeden's uninfused body. Caeden ignored it all.

The red lines of power drew tighter and tighter to Caeden's hands, especially circling ever more closely around his fingers. The Ash Reaper's claws were less than a foot away.

Suddenly, as if surpassing a barrier that held them back, the crimson energy poured into Caeden's hands, transforming them as the formshift took over.

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The Ash Reaper was a creature of primitive, primal intelligence. It was cunning in a way that few other creatures and monsters roamed these deep caverns. From the moment it formed out of the infinite nothingness into a corporeal form, its whole existence had been bent to one purpose. Destruction. The Ash Reaper wanted everything that could claim to be living to cease being so.

Every fiber of its limited intelligence was bent to that purpose. It had joined with others of its kind, one of the only things that the ravenous hatred in its incorporeal mind recognized as kin. They had hunted together through these halls, killing the meager excuses for life that managed to survive the inhospitable depths.

For a time, the only thing the Ash Reaper thought it would ever suffer to exist was its fellow Reapers. Even other monsters it would as soon destroy as leave alone. Until a single instant caused that all to change. The glowing veins of power that scrawled across the walls that the monster called home suddenly surged with new light. The Reaper felt an echo within its burning, raging mind. Another consciousness brushed its own in a way it had never known.

Understanding came with it. This other was the reason that the Reaper existed, the reason it had managed to kill so much life. A foreign sensation, one of gratitude, spawned in the monster's mind. The only reason the Reaper had been able to kill, to sate the burning hunger for death that occupied its mind, was because of this other.

The Reaper also learned something else. This was a cry for help. A desperate plea for assistance. The other was so close to wreaking untold havoc, a level of death and violence that the Reaper could only dream of dealing. But it was being hindered. Beings, creatures of hated life and breath, had come to stop it.

The Reaper could see only one answer. With all its brethren, it charged off toward the source of the call. It could help this being that held its gratitude while also killing. Truly, the Reaper could not imagine a better deal!

The Reaper and its brethren had many tunnels to pass through. They had unknowingly moved a great distance from the other in their search for life. The pulse had brought with it an inherent knowledge of the tunnels and caverns that led them unerringly to their destination. The group even shifted down another path as they felt the one they had aimed for collapsed.

It was around two-thirds of the way there when the second pulse came. Suddenly the other reached out, projecting specific instructions on what it wanted the Reaper to do. It was marshaling an army of monsters to kill the living attacking it. They had made progress toward its death, and the other was afraid.

The Reaper and its brethren were directed along the path they were already aiming for. The other offered them no instructions, only conveying its own anger and hatred for the living. It was minutes later when they approached the final turn that would take them to the hated living so that the Reaper could rend their flesh.

Turning that corner, the Reaper was immediately gratified to see one of the living standing in front of it at the end of the tunnel. It was an odd living, big and gold, covered in swaths of purple. Odder still, even as the Reaper watched, the living changed, the purple receding, followed by the gold. The living shrank, losing a third of its height and changing color to one much closer to the Reaper's own.

None of this truly mattered. The sight of a living that had not been rent apart and left as a quivering pile of meat drove the hate to new heights within the Reaper's mind. Any thought that vaguely resembled curiosity was blast away under the weight of its hate.

It charged forward, backed by dozens of its kin, claws extended. The Reaper paid no heed to the flickers of red light crawling along the living. It was unimportant; only death mattered. It was a yard away. A foot. An inch. Its claws stretched out, eager to maim, to destroy a flay and gore and eviscerate.

The last thing the Ash Reaper ever saw was a blur of red.

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Caeden watched as strands of Sharp flowed into his hands. However, he didn't have time to dwell on his success, as the Ash Reaper at the head of the pack was inches from impaling him on grey claws. Even as it reached for him, Caeden's hand was already swinging, burying newly formed crimson claws into what passed for the monster's face and ripping them through its immaterial body.

Caeden had taken the time to thoroughly study the form Forged Infinity took to affect the incorporeal Ash Reapers. It produced a secondary edge over the blade that was nearly invisible and capable of cutting anything, regardless of how physical it was.

Forged Infinity was uniquely formed, but it was ultimately a shrouded weapon. A shrouded weapon was an armament that had gone through a special process to contain and resonate with a specific shroud. The end result was a weapon that was perfectly adapted to that shroud, with special functions and abilities based on the shroud it was tied to. There was one fact that governed such weapons. No matter what kind of special abilities it held, it could only do something that its bound shroud could do.

So Caeden had worked his ass off in whatever downtime he could find, trying to figure out how Sharp could produce that invisible energy. If Forged Infinity could do it, Caeden could too. It took him days and days of experimenting and constantly referencing his shrouded weapon for an example, but he managed it.

Caeden's claws were covered in a thin layer of invisible force that rendered the Ash Reapers as solid as the walls around him. They couldn't hide anymore.

Not even contemplating holding back, Caeden pushed Sharp hard, formshifting his entire arms as well. Sharp was an aura shroud, infusion was difficult to maintain. Caeden managed it only because he had excellent control over Sharp. His arms changed, thinning and forming sharp ridges all along their length. Sharp's formshift turned every surface of Caeden's body into an edge. And every edge was formed sharp enough to cut the immaterial. The invisible energy was a manifestation of that fact. Sharp could refine an edge to cut anything, and Caeden was ready to explore what that truly meant.

Caeden rushed into the Ash Reaper hoard, unconcerned. The formshift was spreading down his torso, slowly encompassing his entire body as Caeden laid into the monsters with fingers formed into articulated claw-knives, that palm of his hand yet another edge. Every grey claw that reached for him ended up cut apart on the edge of Caeden's formshift.

Every step Caeden took, every strike of his hand, another Ash Reaper died. Even so, the numbers they had packed together was more than he could handle with just his body. Thorns that had been held back started flooding into the tunnel and carving a path through the Reapers. Caeden's ability to add an incorporeal edge to the rose constructs didn't mitigate their fragility, and many were destroyed as Reapers cut them down.

The hoard continued to charge, and Caeden was still injured from all the damage he'd taken in the mole-created tunnel. Without Physical Enhancement's formshift reinforcing his stamina, he would eventually exhaust himself, and his wounds burned as he moved. The Ash Reapers couldn't beat him, but they could wear him down. The pressure hadn't dropped in the slightest, despite all Caeden's efforts. He had no idea how any of the others were doing, but he would guess they weren't much better.

From behind, Caeden heard loud, maniacal laughter. His blood ran cold.