Hekate flipped her shrouded weapon around, bringing it up in a sweep that launched another wave of corrosive power toward her opponent while also twisting her out of the way of a vine twice as thick as her torso that came crashing down where she’d stood moments ago.

“This is just annoying.” She huffed, watching her pitch black wave edged in green fire carve through a tropical forest’s worth of greenery, melting it all into rotten slag. But still even more plant matter rose up to meet it until every ounce of power was expended. All before it reached her target.

“Really, this should be the perfect matchup for me.” Even as she complained, Dark Debt flickered in her hand, throwing out a score more waves to follow the first. But forests rose up to meet most, and the ones that were left to move freely were dodged with superhuman speed and agility.

“It’s a matter of raw power, unfortunately.” Dave joined the conversion as his myriad weapons acted like the most elaborate and powerful mower the Starry Sea had ever seen. He had kept the continually growing greenery from overwhelming their position. For the most part. Some slipped through, thus the vine that nearly cracked Hekate’s skull open.

“This Etherman has obviously held this shroud for a significant amount of time. Assumedly, the base person used as the biological component was a shrouded of some age. They’d had enough time to attain a level of raw power that you haven’t yet. Normally, we would have more leverage through your shroud, but your Embodiment is a thing of raw power. Besides,”

He gestured toward where the forest was growing over the rotten remains of plants that had been on the receiving end of Hekate’s assault. They were growing back, faster and lusher than the surrounding greenery. “Death has always been a great fuel for life.”

“And I can’t drop my Embodiment without knocking myself out from the cost. This sucks.” Hekate swung her scythe in a circle, the wave produced pushing back the continually encroaching forest. “Plus, he’s way faster and stronger than he should be. It’s not fair.”

Dave simply grunted in response. He didn’t need to respond, because they both already knew why. It was the reason why the Academy’s lessons included physical fitness, even though every shrouded could use infusion to enhance their body. A shroud’s effects on the body were multiplicative, not additive. The higher their base physical capabilities were, the stronger the resulting physical enhancement.

And now there was an Etherman, a person artificially enhanced through ethertech, with a shroud. The resulting boost was ungodly powerful. Hekate suspected that the only reason the Etherman hadn’t tried to simply rush her and crush her skull like it was made of wet paper was because of the nature of her attacks. Necromancy didn’t much care how healthy you were, it twisted life and death regardless. The Etherman’s power and highly enhanced body would fare no better than his plants if she could just hit him.

As the greenery crept closer and closer, Hekate was starting to wonder if she was going to have to do something drastic. Dave was right. The raw power was the only thing notable about this Etherman’s shroud work. He wasn’t using the plants in any creative way, simply having them act as battering rams. But with her hands tied by her Embodiment, that raw power was enough.

Then, the lights flickered.

Just for a moment, but they suddenly shut off before surging back to their former brightness. And a smile rolled across the flames that had replaced Hekate’s flesh. “Oh, finally. That took way longer than it should have. Dave, hunt him down.”

As soon as she said it, Hekate mentally gripped her connection to the Necromancy domain opened by her Aspect Embodiment and pushed. A formerly constrained and carefully managed connection opened wider than it was probably ever intended to go, and power surged through in a tidal flood filled with the smell of rotting flesh and the screams of tortured souls.

As it slammed into her and soaked every inch of her modified flesh, the aura around Hekate surged in sympathy, growing in both size and potency. Suddenly, Hekate didn’t have to lift a finger as her aura was enough to rot the plants that got within ten feet of her.

The dark shadows around her impossibly darkened further, while the sickly green flames grew brighter in contrast. In response, the assault of the plants intensified. But not nearly enough to match the increase that Hekate had experienced. Obviously, the shrouded Etherman had been holding back somewhat, but not enough to compensate.

Now that Hekate could weather the Etherman’s attention unassisted, Dave slipped out of existence and disappeared. Hekate tracked his progress by the explosions of rapidly culled forest that appeared seemingly at random. Even when compared to everything she’d seen, the speed involved was galling.

But Hekate trusted Dave. He was a Spirit of War, one of the strongest kind of undead that existed. More than that, he wasn’t unaffected by Hekate’s Embodiment. Something they’d discovered while in the Forge. Because of their Familiar bond, Hekate’s increase in power was actually even more intense on Dave’s end.

A moment later, her belief was held out as a significantly changed form of Dave slammed into the circle of desiccated plant matter surrounding Hekate, a mass of metal and flesh clutched in his hand. He tossed it on the ground, where Hekate’s aura started eating at it. Though the progress was surprisingly slow.

“It wasn’t as hard as I thought.” Dave huffed. His pale skin had transformed to mimic Hekate’s, the flesh replaced by surging flame. However, his flames were so intense that the bone underneath wasn’t visible. In a similar fashion, his black armor had taken on an extra depth of darkness, and his weapons were wreathed in abyss and emerald fire.

As an undead, a direct connection to the necromancy domain did more for Dave than it ever could for a flesh and blood living being like Hekate. His power was incomparable to hers. But he also didn’t gain the benefits that Embodiment granted her. Namely, the ability to sustain that kind of power for as long as she maintained the Embodiment. He could only grasp and hold that enhanced Aspect-like state for brief periods before suffering side effects.

“These seem…Older. A lot older, in fact.” Dave gestured toward the remains of the Etherman. “This one wasn’t nearly as smart or responsive as the ones we’ve been fighting to get here. I think the founder has been making shrouded Ethermen for a long time. In fact, I almost wonder if he made them first. Because the ethertech in this one is…Rough. Almost sloppy, when compared to the stuff we’ve seen. Like he wasn’t sure what he was doing at the time. I’m partially guessing, since I don’t have the greatest insight into ethertech generally, but most of its movements seemed jerky and haphazard. Raw speed and power like few things I’ve seen at that physical size, but unrefined to an almost comical degree.”

Then, the lump of meat and metal and ether twitch. Hekate nearly jumped through the ceiling. “IT’S STILL ALIVE!! WHAT THE HECK DAVE?!”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” Dave chuckled at her response. “It’s also stupidly durable and borderline unkillable. The founder somehow managed to get the shroud to accept the ethertech modifications as a natural part of the body, so it’ll repair them along with the flesh. It was a massive pain to get into that state, and It’s hard to break it down any further. Ethermen can normally live through mortal wounds, and a shroud thrown in the mix just amps that up to another level entirely.”

Scowling at him, Hekate focused her will down, concentrating her aura into a tighter and denser weight on top of the Etherman. At the same time, she swung Dark Debt’s blade through the lump, bisecting it. Or she tried to. The blade bit in and cut partway, but then was repelled. A shrouded’s tenacity was no joke. That’s why the Revolution had used mass bombardment and high-yield explosives as their main form of attack. Doing anything less than exploding them into a thousand tiny pieces was unlikely to kill a powerful shrouded.

“Well, that’s just annoying.” Hekate huffed, kicking the lump.

“And that’s not the worst part.” Dave sighed. “There are more out there.”

{}

Lily thrust five times in rapid succession. Icicles slammed into the side of the lava wave that surged toward her. An explosion of steam announced the creation of yet another low hill around her position. Lily frowned. The hills were growing taller with every wave. Soon enough, she would create a wall on all sides, boxing herself in.

That was an unacceptable outcome. But Lily was at a loss for how to resolve the situation. They needed more time…

The lights flickered.

Lily smiled. Cold and ice surged around her as her connection surged wide, chilling force embracing her body on a whole new level compared to before. Glancing up at the ceiling, she judged that the nearly forty feet of clearance was barely enough.

“Snowball, dear. Break through for me.” A mark against her skin, barely visible against the pale white she’d become in her Aspect Embodiment, shined with power. In a wave of mist and fur, a massive bear appeared behind her. Its head brushed the ceiling even as it stood on all fours.

Icicles clung in a mane around its face, and teeth a deep navy blue were revealed as its lips peeled back. A rumble rolled through its chest, the bass note so deep that the ground shook. Light formed between those teeth before they opened, only to surge out alongside a roar that rattled the metal walls. The icy blue light brought with it a cold so deep and total that the ground disintegrated, the atomic bonds holding it together frozen until they broke.

Lily raised an eyebrow once the beam ended. The devastation left in its wake stopped halfway across the room. Past that point, the earth remained, though the lava had cooled. Standing at that demarcation was the frozen statue of what used to be an Etherman. Still standing at the lip of his small volcano. Ice frosted the metal across his body, the exposed flesh riddled with frostbite and rendered a sickly black and blue.

Then Lily’s eyes opened wide as the frost rapidly disappeared, and the frostbitten flesh was restored to health. The ground around him started to heat and melt as lava started to flow once more. Snowball’s blast hadn’t killed him.

“Snowball,” Lily reached up to pat the top of one of his forepaws that framed her. She ran her finger through silky white fur. “Crush him into the ground until he stops trying to get up. We don’t have time for games anymore.”

With a brief dopey smile at her to acknowledge her touch, Snowball stepped over her, his furry underside not ever brushing her head as he passed. As he did, his good humor vanished, replaced with icy calm and raw, primal fury. The air cracked and froze as thick blocks of ice formed around his paws, extending his already massive claws into razor-sharp blades as long as Lily’s body that were so blue they almost seemed black. Those clawed gauntlets radiated a cold so intense it turned the metal underneath brittle and weak.

Similar to Dave, Snowball had benefited immensely from Lily’s Ice Embodiment. Fully grown after his time in the Forge, Snowball right now was likely the strongest Glacial King Kodiak to ever exist. Or that would ever exist. He proved it by meeting a glob of lava with an almost dismissive swipe that shattered the rapidly cooled stone before it simply vanished into dust.

Stepping onto the volcano, the ground collapsed under Snowball’s weight. In response, he shrunk to a third his previous size, approaching something vaguely resembling a reasonable size for a bear. If the bear had been megadosing steroids since it was born. Despite the decreased mass, Snowball seemed no less deadly. In fact, the destructive cold around him only intensified.

All lava froze as he approached, and a paw slap sent the Etherman flying, deep rents torn into his body. Before the ethertech-infused shrouded could escape his reach, a lunging grab had a leg caught in Snowball’s jaws. He bit down and shook like he was playing with a particularly resilient toy. Metal was rent and flesh was gouged.

Still, the Etherman didn’t seem to be dying. It attempted a blow into Snowball’s face. The icy mane deflected the blow, though Lily was impressed by the force behind it. Honestly, it was just unfair for the Etherman, facing a monster of Snowball’s power, enhanced by the Ice domain through Lily. Because Snowball’s monster nature gave him one advantage that Dave didn’t have. His physicality allowed him to contain the full force of the domain flowing through him with zero ill effects. Snowball could literally do this all day.

A blast of fire careened across the room, heading for Snowball’s face. Lily swung Variable Flow, the furious gale it produced taking most of the weight from the flame. But not all of it. The remainder impacted Snowball’s mane, doing nothing.

Focusing on the origin, Lily found three more Ethermen entering the room. “Snowball, end that one. We need to move.”

Tilting his head, Snowball laid the Etherman whose leg was in his jaws on the ground. Then he shoved the claws of one of his forepaws through the Etherman’s body, and pulled. Metal groaned and squealed, flesh shuddered and ripped. And suddenly the Etherman was down a leg, and his torso was almost completely opened up. But he still wasn’t dead.

“Well, this is starting to get annoying.” Lily sighed.