Despite what he’d said, Erik was not going to just sit around and wait. Cat was busy healing whatever soul damage that Lily and Asheta had taken, so he was left with nothing to do. Feeling a bit bad about it, Erik decided it was best to deal with the Ethermen before they could get back up.

His newly freed senses lessened the constant pressure to survive that he used to feel, but he still wasn’t anywhere near as good-hearted as Caeden or Lily. Despite that, he still felt a bit scummy as he went around, taking heads off bodies and destroying hearts.

It was more precaution than anything. The Ethermen’s shrouds didn’t react, almost as if they’d been depleted. Whatever the founder had done rendered his own troops down to the level of regular Ethermen for however long this lasted. And that was more than enough time for Erik to make sure they’d never recover. He was certain that there was no chance of them recovering when their shrouds dissipated. They’d died, truly died.

“Oh, shit.” Cat’s head came up, staring into the air.

“What?” Erik was at her side in a moment, straining his senses for a threat.

“Those shrouds from the Ethermen, they’re all flowing into the suppression field generator. How did I not…But we hadn’t fought shrouded Ethermen before. The only time shrouded were dying near me in the suppression field was at the very end. Damn, so it is collecting souls.”

“I told you as much.”

Erik jumped, somehow not having noticed Cat’s grandpa standing over his shoulder until he was right behind him. “Gahh! What the heck, dude? How’d you do that?”

“My formshift allows me to exist in the soul plane. It avoids aura senses.” Damon smiled wryly. His attention shifted to his granddaughter. “I noticed the souls being taken back on Baserock. And what he’s doing now…”

Cat rose from her crouch over Lily and Asherta. “What does it look like to you?”

“I can’t say. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and seen many shrouds that touch on the soul plane in different ways. But this isn’t that. Ethertech is a new thing, one I apparently haven’t paid enough attention to, if it can do things like this. A machine, touching and bending a soul… The implications are alarming, as we’re seeing now.”

“Can he actually build a shroud for himself?” Cat asked. Erik wanted that answer too. The founder was a scary guy without a shroud.

“I don’t see why not.” Damon shook his head, looking at the suppression field generator. “Shrouds are part of the soul. If he can manipulate souls, then he could theoretically gain a shroud for himself. Of course, that’s easier said than done. Souls are not dough to be molded into shape. But that machine seems to be doing so. With the first hurdle passed, he’d need to have a depth of knowledge around shrouds great enough to shape one for himself, and enough understanding of his own soul to not rip it apart upon insertion of the foreign material.”

“There’s a reason that people are born with shrouds.” Damon turned his attention from the machine to his granddaughter. “I’ve observed the process many times in my study of souls. Unborn souls are much like the physical vessels holding them. Unrefined, riding the line between a living thing and part of their mother’s body. That state of change and mutability allows shrouds to adhere without causing damage. Once a person is born, their souls become more rigid.”

“So, he could fuck it up and kill himself? Sounds great to me!” Erik clapped his hands. “Let’s go with that. Pretty sure he’s rushing it right now. Fingers crossed he does something hasty and stupid and all our problems resolve themselves.”

Cat turned to glare at him. “Erik, I know you got rid of your bad luck, but please stop tempting fate.”

“Hey, I’m free and clear now! Whatever I say can’t hurt you.” Erik wiggled his fingers emphatically. “Look at the asshat, he’s desperate.”

Everyone turned to look through the energy shield and the rapidly cooling Mithril scattered across its surface toward the founder. He did look desperate, and not in a good-decision-making mood.

“...We can’t be that lucky,” Cat’s expression rapidly shifted between hope and disbelief. “...Right?”

“Well, no reason to leave it to chance, I guess.” Erik shrugged. He strolled up to the energy barrier, drawing back a fist wrapped in chains. “Here goes.”

The chains grew thicker and thicker, ever more tension building between the competing forces. As with everything else he’d done over the last few minutes, Erik found this easier and faster. His limit was higher. So he decided to go well past it.

He’d easily surpassed the point where he’d lose his arm with the blow, that was a given. It also wasn’t a problem. His Healing was so quick now that he could have the arm back as soon as it was gone, so fast that anyone watching might not even notice the absence.

“By the way, Cat. How’re our friends doing?” he asked casually. Then he let his fist fly.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOM

The energy barrier rippled under the force, shuddering hard enough that chunks of Mithril resting against it warped and bent. But it didn’t break, or even flicker. Just as he’d thought, Erik’s arm was back so fast that he didn’t even have time to withdraw it, his knuckles resting against the shield. Internally, Erik’s tsked in disappointment. The energy barriers were really good at dealing with physical force. Despite his improvements, his greatest impact was in his brute force.

“Uh, they’re fine. They’ll be up in moments. I repaired the superficial damage that knocked them out easily.” Cat seemed to have decided to ignore his attempt, which Erik found a little embarrassing. True, it didn’t produce any results, but at least the sound had been cool! Her not saying anything made him feel pathetic.

“Well, that’s good. We’ll just let them finish cutting a way in and I’ll smash the dude's face into a fine paste.” Erik slammed his fist into his open palm with a smack.

“Oh, well that’s concerning.” Damon’s words made Erik’s hands twitch reflexively. He didn’t like that tone. It sounded like a bad news tone.

“What’s concerning?”

“The movement of the soul material within the machine has accelerated. And there seems to be a core emerging that is consuming pieces of soul at an alarming rate. I believe he may have succeeded in making a shroud.”

“Great, Fucking Great!” Erik dragged a hand across his face. “Uuuugh. Cat, is there any way we can get them up sooner?”

“I thought you said we could just let him kill himself by messing something up!” She snarked, already kneeling back down.

“Yeah, well call me a pessimist but I’m not about to put my life in luck’s hands just yet. We don’t have the best relationship.” Not wanting to just wait, Erik turned to Binding, using it on the energy shield itself, trying to Bind the energy flowing to a particular section to see if he could make a gap.

It didn’t work well. The Ki in the barrier was weirdly slippery and unwilling to respond to his shroud. That didn’t stop him from keeping at it.

“The barrier is highly resistant to outside influences, especially direct interference from shrouds.” Damon spoke up upon seeing what Erik was doing. “That’s why Lilliana and Asherta had so much more success. They relied on manifesting natural phenomenon and were attempting to directly overpower the shield, instead of interfering with its functions.”

“That’s for the lesson, want to help?” Erik growled.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have access to anything but my formshift, which is wholly useless in the current circumstances.” Damon sounded genuinely apologetic, which just made Erik angrier. They had one of the strongest shrouded in the Starry Sea with them! How was he the most useless person in the room?

“I will not allow you to stop me, not now, when I’m so close!” The founder’s voice sounded out from all around the room. No doubt some ethertech he’d embedded everywhere in the whole facility.

At the same time, Erik felt a surge of danger coming from behind and beneath them. As if summoned by the sensation, the floor rumbled. Then a section of it in the open space between their current location and where Erik had woken from the soul damage split, revealing a rapidly widening entrance to an underlying space no smaller than the giant workshop.

And something blurred through that gap, a massive dark shape heading right for Cat’s figure. It was more than big enough to also catch Lily and Asherta in the blow. Erik, of course, was the first to respond. He’d felt the thing coming before the floor even started to open.

But the information his defensive sense was feeding him was scary stuff. It was heavy, big, and fast. Diverting it was no easy feat. Nearly a hundred Binding chains grabbed hold, breaking moments later as the force they were trying to restrain exceeded their limits. More followed as Erik did his best to slow the thing down.

It wasn’t going to be enough, but that was fine, because it bought him enough leeway. A Break Step put him right next to the approaching attack, and a heavily enhanced fist slamming into it had the trajectory going just past his friends. Instead, it slammed into the energy barrier.

Erik had mixed feelings as he watched the blow land, causing ripples several times larger than his own to outright shatter the Mithril around the shield. Despite that, the shield remained. On one hand, he felt validated. Physical force just didn’t work on the energy barrier, so his attempt was nothing to scoff. On the other hand, OH SHIT, WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT ATTACK?!?

The answer to his question followed a moment later as the floor continued to split and the single largest Etherman Erik had ever seen flew through. It was not Caeden’s-Embodiment-big, but it could also squash him like a bug, so that was a cold comfort. The thing’s head almost reached the ceiling!

“Seriously?” Cat groaned. “We just got rid of the other Ethermen! How many does he have?”

“I’m guessing the answer is far more than we’ve seen.” Damon sounded grim. “He’s merely using them as a distraction to prevent us from stopping his current goal. And he’s succeeding.”

That was all he got the chance to say before another rapid punch was thrown their way. And it was followed close behind by a blast of swirling, interlocking bronze lines and a thin red string. The fist, Erik dealt with again. Cat took care of the bronze lines by throwing a blast of Necroflame at them, which caused the flames to contort strangely but stopped the lines.

The red string, Damon intercepted with an upraised hand. It disappeared upon contact, followed swiftly by his arm, before the flesh right before the encroaching damage became intangible. Then it stopped. Erik flicked his wrist, sending a wave of Healing upward and kickstarting Damon’s own shroud-enhanced healing factor. Mostly, Erik directed his shroud to just give Damon’s the ability to restore the missing arm, rather than deal with the bulk of the healing himself. Damon had more shroud to spare than any of them, after all. Erik wasn’t going to waste his resources helping someone who very emphatically didn’t need it.

Plus, he was going to need every ounce of shroud dealing with this thing.

“I’m not crazy, right? You all saw that.” Erik gestured toward their looming opponent.

“Yes,” A tired voice spoke up. “I saw it, and I was barely conscious.”

Lily and Asherta got to their feet, both looking worn out, but rapidly improving. Lily looked toward Erik after his comment, as if waiting for an explanation.

“Some kinda soul attack knocked you two on your butts. I handled the mop of shrouded Ethermen, then the founder pulled this out of his ass.” Erik waved at the colossal Etherman. “Oh, and the soul attack banished all of Cat’s undead. Caeden’s still gone.”

“Great.” Lily rolled her eyes. “Can you guys handle that thing?”

“Dunno, how are we supposed to handle a massive Etherman that’s dual-shrouded?” Erik rolled his eyes right back.

“With great difficulty, I imagine.” Lily looked back toward the founder in his bubble. “We’ve got our own thing to take care of.”

“Yeah, no kidding. Cat’s Gramps said whatever he’s doing is starting to pick up pace, so maybe do the same?” Erik asked, turning toward what had seemingly become his problem. It was a big problem.

“All of you should not waste your last few moments alive.” The founder’s voice sounded out again.

“Oh, he can do that, by the way.” Erik added.

“What stands before you is one of the greatest creations of my genius! Physically superior in every way, and carrying a rare set of complementary shrouds! A walking cataclysm! Beg for my forgiveness and I might command it to give you all clean deaths.” The founder continued undaunted.

“No thanks, assface!” Erik felt confident responding for the group.

“Fine, meet you end then! Just thank me for the small mercy that you will die before my work is complete, else I would flay the flesh from your bones and experiment on your corpses!”

“He’s getting mighty chatty over there.” Erik directed his words toward Lily.

“Shutting him up.” She called back. And then she started blasting.