“Ah!” Val simply screamed because she had no other way to communicate the enemy’s movements in time.

That was enough for Arius to throw up a broad plate of aura behind him, shielding their bubble as the creature crashed headlong against the barrier. Cracks littered his Forcefield, the damaged aura evaporating away.

The mouthparts of the arthropod were a razor-like vice that snapped onto the chinks in Arius’s shattered shield. It continued to suck and chew, ultimately consuming the red energy that still barred its way to them.

Arius animated the aura and hurled the crustacean back out to the murky water, out of view.

By his huffing breath, the act of blocking that singular attack had winded him. “That took a quarter of my aura reserve,” he muttered.

Seeing as how Arius could generate massive amounts of new aura continuously, Val did not worry. She recalled every explosive attack that he had leveled against Tavras in the past—eighty years ago in fact. His abilities should have only gained potency since then.

“Val,” he said, “our objective is to hold our ground as long as possible. We don’t want to lose our source of air prematurely.”

She nodded and swallowed back her fear, watching carefully for when that sea monster would return in its rampage.

“Also,” Arius said with a shaky note in his voice, “I don’t know if you realized this, but I rely heavily on staying in fights for a long time and my inability to die.”

“Oh?” Val supposed that he would have to be stupid not to use a talent like that to his advantage.

“Just, I can’t afford to do that right now. If I die, there’s no guarantee that I will come back in this environment. You’re reliant on my heat production right now, so you will die for certain when I fade out.”

Now that the stakes were communicated to Val like that, she realized how she had been overestimating Arius. Unable to employ his usual fighting style, they needed to play on the defensive. Safeguarding Arius’s life was as much a priority as Val’s own life, for he was the tether that maintained her vitality.

Zooming back into view, the crustacean seemed enraged at Arius’s capacity to parry its charge.

This time, Arius had time to morph his aura into a pike that he set up in the crustacean’s path. Its own velocity should pierce through the exoskeleton and skewer the demon.

At the last second, the crustacean altered its path and zipped narrowly out of the way. From there, it flung itself back towards Val and Arius.

“Fuck,” Arius breathed as he established another shield in front of their bubble.

The crustacean’s head rammed against his forcefield yet again at full force. This time, its body drifted backwards from the impact, only phased for a moment. It shot itself off to the side at a new angle before leveling a follow-up charge against them.

Arius repurposed the remnants of his aura and added more to strengthen the new shield that appeared in front of the sea monster. Once more, the collision made some of his aura waste away and left sizable cracks in the shield.

The thunderous bang of the crustacean’s head against the Forcefield made Val physically jump and bounce at the bottom of the bubble.

“Val,” he snapped, “I could use some help!”

Her heart lurched at the command, stunned by the fact that Arius actually thought that she could do something. “Um, okay!”

“I’ll keep the shield up. You use your aura to make a spear and turn this fucker into a kebab!”

“Gotcha!” Having recently learned how to manually control her Aura Manifestation and Manipulation, Val focused on molding it into a long pole. From there, she filed it into a point where the crustacean could skewer itself.

Though she had tried to create the pike as late as possible, Val still gave the crustacean too much time in advance. Even easier than Arius’s attempt, the sea monster evaded and struck the shield again.

The resulting movement of the water made the bubble shudder and threaten to pop each time.

“You have two more chances,” Arius snapped. Between his aura reserves and how much of his energy was able to carry over from one shield to the next, apparently he could only take five hits in total.

Her ichor had never pounded faster in her veins. Val let her eyes flutter closed for a second, and when she reopened them, she focused entirely on bringing the spear into existence that would fell the beast that charged straight for her. Her eyes could be felt blazing as she glared into that dark, monocular blot.

The pole manifested just as she had willed, aligned perfectly with its eye.

The crustacean diverted its course yet again and glanced off the side. At least this time, she heard the scrape of her spear against its exoskeleton. That slowed it down enough so that its body struck Arius’s shield softer and did less damage.

“That was better, Val,” he praised. “Finish it this time—!”

“No,” she cried, unable to handle the pressure. Val could simply not form her aura into a point fast enough to slay the sea monster. “Let’s switch!”

As the actual god amongst them, he would excel at clobbering the crustacean out of existence. Plus, the spear should take less energy. If Arius missed, he should be able to add his remaining energy into the shield that she had already formed.

“Can you defend?” he snapped, no time for a lengthy assessment of her new skills.

“Yes!” She readied the thickest Forcefield that she could muster at the locale of the crustacean’s next charge. Just as Arius had been doing, she placed her shield a breadth away from the bubble so as not to burst their source of air into a dozen little bubbles.

Like this, Val braced herself.

Arius’s attack rang true, the spear manifesting at the exact position of the crustacean mid-charge.

The clang against its exoskeleton sang over Leviathan’s snores. The crustacean stopped precisely where it had struck the point of the spear. Its shell remained unpunctured.

“What is this physics?” Arius hollered out. He had his hair and eyes aglow, all red by his power leakage when he exerted himself at top performance.

A powerful god back on their planet, the Ravager turned out to be many times weaker than the one creature that they had run into in Leviathan’s Cradle.

“Arius,” she whined, “help with the shield?”

As the crustacean regained its speed, Arius retreated with his aura and merged it to join Val’s shield. The glowing pink fusion of their two auras formed a vibrant shield, yet slivers of their aura still melded away at the crustacean’s headbutt. More was shredded away by its gnashing mandibles.

With an expulsion of that energy, Arius threw the crustacean into the open water again. That decision earned them another few minutes to speak in peace.

“Well, new plan,” he announced. “We need to last as long as possible, let my Aura Amplification take effect.”

Val nodded along.

The longer that Arius stayed in a fight, the stronger that he would get. More and more aura would pour out of him until he could have a near endless supply of energy in which to level against their opponent.

For now, they just needed to focus on maximizing their time spent in this one bubble. In doing so, they must fend off the crustacean as it returned for its next round of attack.