The target was entering a geological formation composed of hundreds of tower sandstone pillars. This was unfortunate, as it would need to move to a closer proximity to continue observing. The observation drone was a possibility, but the drone's stealth capabilities were less than the ones installed within itself. Counterintuitively, approaching was the most efficient way to maintain stealth.

This was just another in a long line of unforeseen issues interfering with its mission. Ever since it attempted its last indirect elimination, such problems have increased meteorically. It lacked certainty in its original plan. The base idea that it could study the target and form a perfect kill strategy for a direct confrontation had failed to account for the vast increase in power experienced by the other shrouded traveling with the target.

It had taken note of the other shrouded, of course. It would have been foolish not to. The Creator had designed it better than to make such mistakes. But continuous observation, while revealing a host of abilities in her possession, had not shown any significant combat power. Its assessment placed her at a relatively normal level for a shrouded of her age and training. Perhaps a bit stronger. But the majority of her capabilities were tied to utility rather than combat.

Now, it was confused. A rare occurrence. The female, officially designated as 'the obstacle', had shown an explosive increase in combat potential while controlling creatures that were not in the Creators database. Both concerning developments. A major hindrance to its previous plans. The obstacle used the unknown creatures to wage war on the monsters it had lured to the target's location and managed to win handily. Again, an unwelcome development.

After reassessing the situation, it decided not to pursue a direct attack. Given the increased power of the obstacle, it could no longer guarantee a kill while maintaining the prime directive. The likelihood of discovery was too high. It must maintain the highest level of secrecy possible while revealing the least amount of its capabilities regardless of circumstance. That was the prime directive.

A prudent and practical restraint from the Creator, to be sure. It couldn't imagine a more reasonable restriction. Truly, a stupendous idea of absolute value. But it found that its current mission made maintaining such a rule…difficult. Doing so required further information. In the meantime, it would continue to observe the target and the obstacle to assess a new strategy that accounted for the obstacle's heretofore unseen power. Perhaps it could even discover and catalog the source of such a drastic change.

But that was a secondary goal of lesser importance. It had its mission.

And it needed to maintain focus. The target was speaking. Important information might be gleaned from his words.

"My bad, my bad." The target was conversing with the obstacle, "I guess we should get started then." For some reason, it found the target's tone to be…ominous.

"It's time to turn the tables."

As the target finished speaking, several of its sensors triggered, registering a massive surge in power from the obstacle. Vast quantities of the unidentified energy she used began to flow out of her, flooding the surrounding environment. It was confused. There were no threats nearby, no reason to expend such a vast quantity of energy.

"Inescapable Death."

Then it became concerned. A dome of green fire, the same type that the obstacle and her creatures had used, formed over the rock pillars. An area miles wide. An area it was inside of. This drastically increased the chance of discovery. Being trapped in a limited area with the target was suboptimal.

"Ok!" The target shouted. "You can come out now!"

What was he…

"We know you're in here!" The target continued. "I can't sense you, which is really impressive. But you overplayed your hand with that last attempt. Monsters don't just randomly congregate like that. Not from that distance, and not that fast. If you're this good at concealment sense, I'm gonna guess your investigative sense is pretty trash, so you would have had to get closer to keep following us in these rocks. So why don't you come out and have a talk?"

WHAT?! The target had discovered it's presence! Not through any slip in its disguise but as a logical conclusion to the events he had experienced. It had erred and done so to a great degree. It had forgotten that the target had discovered the sabotage to his ship. He would have been aware from that moment to the possibility of a saboteur or assassin.

Fortunately, the prime directive remained intact. The target was aware of it's existence but not what it was or what it was capable of. He had assumed it was another shrouded. Logically speaking, a reasonable assumption, though incorrect. This situation remained salvageable, if barely.

Unfortunately, this eliminated the possibility of a direct assault. While still technically possible, the chances of a more revealing discovery were astronomically high. It would have to find a way out of this dome as soon as possible. Maintaining maximum stealth was still the best option.

"Ok, I get it." The target continued. He projected his voice across the breadth of the dome. "You think you still have a way out of this. And maybe you're right. But I'll tell you what, it won't be by hiding until we give up looking for you."

He made a gesture, and the obstacle clenched her fist. For a moment, it was confused by the gesture. Was this somehow intended to be intimidating? Nothing was happening.

Then the dome began to shrink.

Several of it's sensors had been dedicated to studying the green fire, looking for any weaknesses or viable escape paths. As such, it only took it a moment to notice the gradual decrease in the dome's diameter. It was closing in around them, ever so slowly. This placed it on a clock, the time to discovery growing ever shorter.

"Just to be clear, I hope you didn't think that was all." The target was not finished. "Rose Garden." Hundreds of the grinding, churning manifestations he had used appeared, filling up a tiny portion of the dome. "Rose Garden." Then he made more. "Rose Garden."

And more.

"Rose Garden."

And more.

This…This was untenable. It could not foresee an eventuality where it managed to escape. It was thoroughly trapped. In a short period, no more than a mere hour, the target had managed to formulate a plan with a high probability of success against an unknown threat. It had underestimated his intellect once already and was now embroiled in the cost of that mistake. It could assume that there was no easy and clean way out of this situation.

So, it was time to fall back on a suboptimal option.

It was time to attack.

{}

Caeden continued to pump out more and more thorns. He was rapidly approaching dangerous territory, but the assassin couldn't know that. Caeden refused to believe that their unknown stalker could be aware of his relative shroud capacity. He might have a rough idea, but nothing precise. It was just as likely that the theoretical assassin wasn't aware of the dangers of overloading a shroud. Domains that could self-propagate like his were rare.

More than that, a major family, the Kines, used a similar technique. Caeden would bet they kept a very tight lid on their signature ability's main weakness. So he could be relatively certain that their stalker was unlikely to know that he couldn't keep this up forever.

At least, not without resorting to dumbing massive amounts of Sharp into the area. But he was hoping to hold that back for the coming fight. And Caeden was sure there would be a fight. The assassin was likely much older than them and wouldn't take kindly to being handed an ultimatum by a student.

Of course, all this was predicated on the idea that there was an assassin and that they were trapped inside Cat's new spell. He had assumed that anyone this good at concealment would be weak in investigative sense, considering the former was more passive aura and the latter was solidly active. Most people leaned one way or the other.

That was by no means a guaranteed fact. Lily was a perfect example of an atypical shrouded that was great at both concealment and investigative. Then there was the consideration for whether or not an assassin would need investigative sense.

Caeden could see it both ways. On one hand, good investigative sense would let them keep their distance and learn about their target to compose a better hit. On the other hand, an assassin with such good concealment could approach their target unimpeded, negating the need for strong investigative sense. So it was a crap shoot.

Obviously, Caeden chose to believe he was right. Otherwise, he was standing here shouting into an empty dome he had convinced Cat to spend the last day and a half figuring out how to make. A task he had admittedly hounded her a bit too much about. He wasn't sure how she would react if he had been doing all that for nothing, but he didn't want to find out. Especially since her new domain was so creepy.

"Nothing is happening." Caeden flinched a little, still thinking about Cat's reaction. He was right. She didn't sound happy.

"I'm sure it'll be any moment now. They don't have much time." Caeden soothed. "Just be ready for the attack."

The Inescapable Death and mass of thorns weren't Caeden's only precautions. Cat was currently tucked under her summon, the giant undead knight body blocking for her. If the assassin was more concerned with escape than a confrontation, going for Cat was the obvious choice. Caeden had also already engaged his golden body, though part of that was due to necessity. Caeden's injuries lingered.

Caeden wouldn't be moving too fast for this fight. His leg wouldn't allow it. The injury to his left arm also came with some loss of precision and power in that limb. Despite that, Caeden still felt a fight now was the best plan. Leaving the stalker alone was too much of a risk. It left the initiative in their hands. Something you definitely didn't want to give an assassin.

Caeden continued to scan the surroundings with his aura, pushing as hard as he could. The dome continued to shrink, and he started directing his thorns to scour over the breadth of the enclosed space. He didn't have enough to guarantee a hit yet, but he was hoping to spook the stalker into a mistake.

It was only due to his focus that he noticed the attack before it happened. A scant moment, a fraction of a second before it hit him, Caeden saw the streak of red. An attack of raw heat, pure thermal energy pelted his shoulder. It didn't do any damage he could notice, barely warming his enhanced skin.

Then a hundred more came.

From all directions and at oblique angles, the tiny blasts zipped in at supersonic speeds. The raw speed and the fact that the attacks were pure energy made them difficult to detect. That, plus the overwhelming number, meant he would have found them almost impossible to dodge, even in Speed Form. But that suited him just fine.

Caeden wouldn't have been at his best in a speed contest right now, anyway. Instead, he switched to a better strategy. "Defense Form."

Caeden's bulk swelled and thickened as large chunks of his golden form transitioned to royal purple. Now, the attacks were even less effective. They weren't even enough to overcome Physical Enhancement's natural recovery rate. He could sit here all day and never suffer a single wound. "See, Cat? I told you they were here! Also, I think we can safely say I'm their target. They haven't even tried to attack you. It seems our would-be assassin had a one-track mind."

"Shut up! I'm busy! This fucking wall is half-assed anyway, so stop distracting me!" Cat complained. Caeden smiled a little. That sounded more like Cat than the overly cheery person that had replaced her in the last week. Getting Necromancy had improved her mood in ways he couldn't describe.

But Cat's comment was valid. Her new spell wasn't as stable as he had intimated when giving his ultimatum. Again, Caeden had been relying on the idea that the assassin had lackluster investigative sense. That, and the Mana her spell used, was unfamiliar. It would take time for most shrouded to pick apart the differences and realize that the current iteration of Inescapable Death wasn't as impressive as it looked.

Then again, the assassin would have had to bust through the spell to leave, which would have been telling in its own right. Caeden counted this whole situation as a win, even as more heat blasts spattered across his torso. His school robes did little to block the damage, but they weren't defensive garments anyway. They were mostly there to make sure Caeden didn't have to fight naked.

"Well, this is getting old," Caeden muttered, mostly to himself. Cat was busy holding her spell together, and he had no real desire to talk to the assassin until after they had him pinned to the ground. "Time to change things up."

"Blade Storm."

Sharp left his bulging reserves in a flood as Caeden formed a swirling mass of densely packed manifestations of all sizes moving at chaotically shifting angles and speeds. Everything within a hundred feet of him became a meat grinder, with the exception of the spot where Cat and her Death Knight were standing. Caeden considered Blade Storm to be a major success so far.

He had spent much of the last two weeks working on this mnemonic while they traveled. He had surprised himself with how fast it came together, considering it took months to form his last few mnemonics at a similar level. Then again, he had also been going to classes, training, smithing, managing the Forged, and making several mnemonics at the same time. So maybe a couple of weeks doing basically nothing else was more than enough time.

Either way, Blade Storm was an expression of how far he had come with mnemonics. Things like the exclusion of friendlies from the mnemonic's effects and the ability to dump as much Sharp into it as he wanted had taken careful consideration and no small amount of trial and error. But he managed it. Now he never had to worry about breaking his reserves ever again. Blade Storm could handle as much shroud as he could produce; it would just get bigger, denser, and faster.

A positive side effect of the constantly swirling mass of rapidly rotating crimson energy cutting through the air was that they also cut through the heat blasts. None could reach him now. Caeden felt a tiny bit smug. The assassin might be able to leave if they figured out that Cat's spell wasn't as impressive as it looked, but he had managed to engineer a situation where they could confront the would-be killer in relative safety on their own terms.

The peppering onslaught ended as the assassin no doubt realized it wasn't even touching him anymore. Caeden smirked slightly as a figure covered in thick robes appeared in front of him, outside the range of his Blade Storm. Though Caeden could extend it out that far if needed. Not that the figure needed to know that.

His smirk fell away as he felt a massive amount of energy come out from concealment with the assassin. Blinding red light radiated from his covered hand, aiming squarely at Caeden. A mass of power that dwarfed anything Caeden could produce without putting himself on death's door. A trick, Caeden realized. This had been a trick.

Running away from him, Caeden's thoughts made the connections he hadn't. The stalker had been following them this entire time. He would have seen Caeden's Blade Storm. He also might have noted that Caeden used it most often against fast, weak opponents or multiple attackers.

Caeden had been baited. He was sitting in his Defense Form, having dumped all his shroud into an attack that couldn't reach far enough fast enough. Caeden had assumed that the small, plentiful attacks were due to the assassin's desperation. They had been a ploy to lure him into his own habits and convince him to put himself in this exact situation.

Caeden had been so proud of his clever plan that he had failed to look at the situation critically and respect his enemy's skill. And now he was going to pay for it.