Caeden had watched the battle between his friends and the new Ethermen closely. Or rather, Father had been watching the fight through the Entrance Blade and sharing that information with him. As soon as he saw the attack coming Lily’s way, he knew he’d need to step in. This was the exact situation he’d been sitting around waiting for. He just hoped the fleet of etherships didn’t take the opportunity to attack their holdout position in the arena.

Erik was holding his Binding barrier, but it wouldn’t hold to a concentrated attack effort by a dozen or more Etherships. Considering most of the rescued civilians were there, a successful attack would be devastating. But Lily was about to take her own devastating injury, so Caeden didn’t really have an option. Though he was pretty sure she still would have gotten the attack off anyway. He just made sure she did it without a hole in her sternum.

The attack itself was more than a little terrifying. For all that he was close to where he thought people like Damon Vestigious were when it came to combat prowess, Caeden wasn’t sure he could have survived being hit by that beam of light. It hurt just to look at the damn thing, and the space it had passed through was still warped and bent from its passage.

But Caeden was more focused on dealing with the Ethermen currently threatening his friends than the ship his girlfriend had likely just obliterated. After all, it wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon if the gravitational barrier Lily had erected to contain her attack was anything to go by. Nothing was getting out of that until it ran out of power.

“That was pretty cool, hun.” He smiled at Lily. “Tired?”

“Ugh,” She flopped onto the ground where Caeden scooped her up a moment later. “That sucked. Remind me to never do an attack like that anytime soon.”

“Psh,” Caeden blew out a breath. “You’ll be fine after a minute in the Forge. I’m going to be closing the Blades though, so you’ll just have to sit tight for a bit.”

“Fine, fine.” Lily sighed as he passed her off to a Bladeborne that had followed him out. “Don’t have all the fun without me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He nodded, sending the Bladeborne back through the Entrance Blade. He’d rather not close off the Blade Forge considering how useful it was, but he couldn’t use the shroud while his Incarnation was keeping the Entrance Blades working. And he’d need both shrouds for this fight. Physical Enhancement was powerful, but it lacked versatility and range.

Of course, the fight had not ended simply because he’d been busy with Lily. Rather, Caeden knew that his friends wouldn’t have a problem holding off the Ethermen for a few minutes. Though the last ditch defenses that Cat and Lily had raised were the ones holding out the least well. The undead were on the defensive after their opening attacks, while Sky and Snowball were having trouble holding their own against smaller and more agile opponents.

That didn’t mean they were in any danger. Both of Lily’s bound monsters were durable in a way that a shrouded could only be jealous of. It was the true benefit of powerful monsters, they were robust to the extreme. Caeden, with Physical Enhancement running to its fullest extent and only reinforcing his durability, couldn’t match the sheer unkillable mass and defensive prowess of Sky, let alone Snowball. The mountainous bear was a living wall covered in ice that was harder than the strongest infused iron.

So when Caeden turned to assess the battlefield, he found it was much the same as he’d left it a moment ago. Fifteen Ethermen, six of which had sustained significant damage. Four were growing increasingly erratic as they seemingly ran out of power, and the rest were basically unharmed, though one was recovering from the arm that Caeden had torn off of it.

It didn’t take Caeden long to figure out what the primary issue was. The one giving Dave the most trouble and preventing this battle from being over already was the one shooting out white lightning that healed every Etherman it struck. That alone made it his first target.

Taking a deep breath, Caeden dismissed his Incarnation. The Forged Throne vanished back at the arena, and Caeden felt his access to the entire Blade Forge return. It was liberating. Using the Forged Throne limited Caeden to pulling Entrance Blades from the Forge, nothing else. In fact, he wouldn’t even be able to feel the Blade Forge while his Incarnation was active if not for Father. That little cheat had helped him immensely when it came to organizing events between the time dilated pocket dimension and the Starry Sea.

Now, Caeden could once again manipulate and command the Forge to its full extent. Of course, without his Incarnation, anything not made in the Forge could no longer enter or exit it, but that was a small price to pay to do the things he now could.

For example, Caeden used his aura to run a cursory inspection of the healing Etherman. Its artificial shroud was enough to repel his casual scan from digging any deeper and affecting its body, but that wasn’t what he wanted to do. Rather, Caeden just needed an understanding of the energy profile the Etherman was using, something its aura couldn’t hide, since the aura was a part of said signature.

Through Caeden, Father received that information and immediately went to work. Because of the time dilation, it was only a second later that he was done. Caeden snapped his fingers and a spear over a dozen feet long appeared in his grip. It was made of bone, though no one but himself would ever be able to tell, considering it was a black so deep it seemed to actively consume the light around it.

With a flick of his shroud-infused wrist, Caeden launched the spear at blistering speeds across the battlefield, where it slammed into the shields spinning around the healer. It proceeded to tear through the shields with ease, the black aura of the spear nullifying the white energy that made them so durable.

And that was why Caeden placed his combat prowess in the upper echelons of shrouded, despite having a far lower IP than most at that level. Blade Forge, plus Father, the time dilation, and the untold time he’d spent when he first entered making more weapons than he could count, gave Caeden the knowledge and experience to make blades to perfectly counter whatever he was facing.

Of course, it wasn’t an instant win, as proven by the fact that the healer didn’t die, or even take damage. The spear was still deflected by the shields even as it destroyed them. Caeden could make the perfect weapon, but he still had to use them. If his opponent could dodge or otherwise avoid his attacks, his blades meant nothing. After all, a weapon was only powerful within the arc of its swing.

Though Caeden wasn’t particularly worried about the current situation. A wave of his hand brought another dozen spears into existence, all of them stabbed butt-first into the dirt in a bristling defensive wall around him. He grabbed two, chucking them after the first with even more speed. The healer, being incredibly slow compared to the other Ethermen, wasn’t able to dodge.

Instead, it chose to sacrifice even more shields to deflect his attacks. Considering it took five or more shields to stop one spear, and Caeden could make literally as many spears as he wanted, he wasn’t too concerned. What was more concerning was the five Ethermen currently charging him.

But that wasn’t so much an issue either. Stomping his foot, Caeden focused his aura underground, under the layer of broken and blasted buildings that covered the island. The debris in a fifty foot radius around him shook. As the Ethermen collectively passed that subtle, almost imperceptible line, Caeden raised a hand into the air, using the gesture to focus his intent.

Following his hand’s motion, nearly a hundred spears he’d made underground thrust up through the rock and debris, turning the previously open path to him into a hedge of sharp points soaked in infused energy that ate at the Ethermen’s power. In fact, with so many in such close proximity, Caeden felt the spear’s Ki soaking into the ambient Ki and changing it slightly. The very air in that fifty foot radius started actively eating at the energy powering the Ethermen.

Caeden had noticed Dave’s undead aura doing something similar, sapping at the energy barrier each Etherman had with the necrotic force of decay. But the Ki in his spears was designed to perfectly counter the Etherman’s Ki, so the effect was dramatically more effective. Their weapons and barriers all started to flicker and waiver near instantly.

The Ethermen might be more machine than man, but they weren’t idiots. The barricade of spears was a bad spot for them, so they took the most obvious out. All five launched into the air, their weapons shifting to guns, bows, and lances to attack Caeden from above. The first one to do so was met with a spear through the chest as soon as it did.

With the supply of spears simply sitting around him, Caeden was free to start chucking them with impunity, hurling them in the general direction of the Ethermen above him without really aiming. They were close enough and completely exposed in the air that he didn’t have to focus on hitting his targets, instead he threw as many as he could, as hard as he could, as fast as he could.

The Ethermen completely abandoned their defenses to focus purely on avoiding his attacks. It was almost comical how wide a margin they were giving his spears as they ducked through the air while retreating. At such close range, it was hard for them to fully avoid his projectiles and several got clipped before they could make enough room. The one Caeden managed to impale wasn’t dead yet, but it was losing energy at an astonishing rate.

Rather than pursue them, Caeden clenched a fist and focused his will into a few dozen spears behind him, all while still throwing around as many as he could at the retreating five, now four. Wrenching his fist forward, Caeden sent the entire group arcing through the air in the general direction of the healer. Once more, he wasn’t aiming much, and moving that many spears at once limited how much force he could put into each one.

But none of that mattered, because Caeden was just trying to get a bunch of them near the healer. The fight had continued on around him, and with Caeden fully occupying the five freshest Ethermen, the other machine-men were hard-pressed to deal with Caeden’s friends. Especially Dave, who had fully cut one in half with a massive claymore made of some kind of red crystal that melted anything it hit.

All that meant the healer was busier than ever keeping the rest up and running. In fact, a second Etherman had ungone a similar conversion, acting as a second stationary healing station. The rest of the operational Ethermen had moved closer and closer to the two sources of healing to avoid being taken out handedly.

That left them as a nice clumped up target for Caeden to rain down on with his spears. The attack was neither subtle nor quick, so it was easily dodged, but now the Ethermen were fighting in a minefield of spears that were antithetical to their power. Just to make it worse, Caeden did the same thing twice more, moving nearly all the spears around him over a wider area surrounding the two healers.

With no more spears around him, the five Ethermen immediately reversed direction and came at him. The closest reached him in moments, their speed notably impressive. However, Caeden could match them blow for blow with Physical Enhancement. He met the sword and knife of the Etherman with a set of punching gauntlets that manifested around his hands, courtesy of Father.

His open palm caught the sword thrust, gripping the blade as its white edge rapidly lost its white luster. At the same time, Caeden ignored the dagger coming for his ribs and punched out with his other gauntlet. The wickedly serrated half-foot daggers extending from the knuckles slammed into the head of the Etherman as it drove the dagger into his ribs. Or at least, it tried. A suddenly summoned spear caused the small blade to bounce off the haft.

Caeden flexed his hand, shattering the inert sword in his grip as he ripped the gauntlet down, carving a path through the Etherman from its head down into its chest before pulling back to grab the spear and thrust it at the next Etherman coming his way. It dodged, but exactly where Caeden had expected. Another spear manifested, braced against the ground just so to impale the dodging Etherman in the side and leaving it vulnerable to a punch from Caeden’s other hand, the one still gripping broken sword fragments.

And so five was down to three, and Caeden had only fought them for a scant few moments. This highlighted a major weakness of the false auras the revolution used versus the real deal. Any shrouded would have felt Caeden manifesting that spear and dodged easily. The Ethermen’s fake auras had no such senses, so they couldn’t react in time.

Caeden flipped his grip on the spear and threw it at the farthest Etherman from him, the one he’d ripped the arm off when he’d first stopped it from impaling Lily and the one he’d already impaled once. The other two approached slower than their now dead compatriots, one using a pistol and spear while the other revealed a crossbow and whip. They had adjusted to fight at midrange, rather than up close.

Caeden was once again surprised by the variety and adaptation of these Ethermen. They seemed to have a practically infinite variety of weapons they could use and they changed tactics with the absolute minimum of input. There was no rushing into the folly of their fellows on sheer momentum. They took into account everything they experienced and adapted accordingly.

“You know, if I was anyone else, fighting all of you might be the single most frustrating experience of my life.” Caeden chuckled, a sword appearing in one hand as another spear formed in the other. Both looked noticeably different from the simple, utilitarian designs of his previous weapons.

“Unfortunately for you, I’m pretty much your worst nightmare, since I can adapt just as well as you, while also being stronger, faster, and smarter. Plus, you can’t seem to change the energy you’re using, while I can get any effects I want with minimal effort. Case in point-”

Caeden pointed the spear at the whip-wielder. Its tip peeled apart along lines that appeared decorative until that very moment. A muffled whumpf sounded out as a stake as long as Caeden’s open hand shot out. At his current size, that meant the stake was as long as a normal-sized man’s femur. He almost laughed when the Etherman fired its crossbow, deflecting the stake. But not enough, as it impaled the Etherman’s shoulder, rather than center mass. The stake immediately started eating at the machine-man’s energy.

“You know, this is exactly the kind of stress relief I needed after watching my friends risk their lives while I sat on my ass. That being said, I think I’m enjoying this more than I really should.” He hefted both his weapons as the Ethermen squared up. “So, let’s end this already.”