The last two Twilight Guards stood no chance of taking down Lily. After sweeping the entire faction, she had only used half of her shroud. Caeden supposed it wasn't all that surprising, considering she was ranked second in the whole school. The problem was, their next match would involve first place. The leader of the Ether Soldiers and the other dual-shrouded in the Academy was ranked first in the entire school.

After Lily came back up to the ready room, they fell back into an argument they'd been having for a while. "Why would you be the one to face him? He's definitely stronger than you."

Caeden rubbed his hands over his face, sighing in frustration. "Because, as I've said a dozen times, your matchup against him is terrible. In a year or so when your Ki is better that won't matter, but right now, it does. Comparatively, my matchup with him is excellent. I have the exact domains and combat style that will be able to deal with him effectively. Plus, that fight is happening pretty soon. How drained are you? I'm full up. I literally haven't fought yet. You just swept an entire faction."

Lily frowned, kicking her feet. She still wasn't looking at him. "...This is exactly what I was talking about. I can handle this. We never needed to start the Forged in the first place. All it did was paint a target on your back. I never wanted this."

"What are you talking about? We started the Forged to help all the students left behind by the Academy's system. It was your idea! Now you're mad that we helped people? I don't understand." Caeden felt like hitting something. He never got angry, but he was extremely frustrated with Lily right now. What she said was so far out of character that it left him confused and aggravated.

"That wasn't the only reason we made the Forged, and you know it! I was fine with it back then when we started, but now that the Academy is emphasizing the factions itself…I forced you all into a dangerous position. I…I just think it would be better if I handled everything. It's only fair." Lily went from angry to sad to guilty, her tone shifting as she spoke. She still wouldn't look at Caeden.

"What the fuck are you talking about? We decided to make the Forged together with all four of us. You didn't force anyone to do anything. We chose to do this, knowing it would put a light on us. That was literally part of the plan." Caeden shook his head, all aggression bleeding from him. His voice softened. "What changed? Why are you acting like this?"

"...Now is not the time to be arguing like this. I'll fight Victor. I can take him." Lily completely shut down the conversation.

Internally, Caeden resolved to ignore Lily completely. Her judgment was obviously compromised, and she wasn't approaching the subject rationally. When Victor showed up, Caeden would be the one to fight him. It was a much better plan.

` Lily was also correct about now not being the time. Currently, both the Ether Soldiers and the Solar radiance were fighting. These two were definitely the strongest factions by a fair margin, with the Ether Soldiers arguably being stronger. Neither had lost their matches against the Metal Knights of Twilight Guard, with Victor sweeping the Twilight Guard in much the same manner Lily had. Both had had several people lose to the Metal Knights before winning, and the Solar Radiance had only lost two against the Nutrimens triplets before Ander came in and swept them as well.

The fighting was fierce, with a good showing from both sides. When Victor stepped up for the Ether Soldiers, his opponent bowed out, and Ander came in to face him. Currently, Ander was fourth in the rankings. His matchup wasn't nearly as bad as Lily's against the number one ranked, but it could be better. The Meteoris scion took the fight seriously, wearing a complete armor set and wielding his family's signature weapon, a razorwind. It was a strange design, with three curved blades coming out of a circle of metal, the grip set into the middle of the circle. Caeden knew how it worked, but watching it in action was interesting.

Their fight was a spectacular light show back and forth. Both were immensely powerful, and Ander showed dramatic improvement over where he had been during the battle royale ranking day. In the end, Victor won out. His raw power was vast, and he used several creative mnemonics that Ander couldn't respond to. The Ether Soldier didn't come out of the fight unscathed, but he was much better off than Ander at the end.

After that, it was mostly a wind-down. Victor fought one more opponent from Solar Radiance to a near draw before bowing out. He likely wanted to conserve his strength for the battle against them. After all, the Forged had three members in the top ten, a feat no other group could boast. Victor would have to face one or more of them before all was said and done.

Erik finally managed to wake up from his healing coma halfway through Victor and Ander's fight. He wasn't fully healed, but most of the way there. His shroud had reset all his broken bones and fixed the massive slash he received from Blackston. The first thing he did was apologize.

"Sorry, Cae, Lil." he looked at the floor, remorse written across his entire figure. "I got ahead of myself and lost it at the end."

"No shit. Erik, you've got to get that under control. I know it's involuntary, but come on, man! You could've died!" Caeden didn't let him off lightly, not at all. Erik had scared him in that fight. He was much closer to death than any of them really wanted to acknowledge.

"I know, I know. I just…Lily got me going with her whole 'I'll do it myself' crap, and I wanted to prove I could take care of myself." Erik shuffled his feet.

Lily flinched.

Caeden wanted to dig into her response, but right now, he needed to sort Erik out. "That's no excuse. You can't go flying off the handle whenever it suits you. So listen up." Erik straightened, looking at him with the most severe expression he'd ever seen. "You're going to figure out what armor I can make you that won't interfere with your fighting style too heavily, and we're going to design you a proper weapon. Then we're going to find a way to work out how to stop you from going berserk whenever you take a big hit. This whole no armor no weapons crap needs to stop, and you need to get a hold of yourself."

"I'm wearing the shirt you made," Erik whined, ever so slightly.

"Congratulations, you're wearing the absolute least amount of armor possible while still technically wearing armor, try again." Caeden didn't back down an inch.

Erik looked around the room, tapped his feet, and whistled odd tunes. Doing anything to stall until finally, "...Fine, fine! I'll wear armor!"

"And pick a weapon."

"And pick a weapon! Damn, put me in a corner, why don't 'cha?" Erik pouted, crossing his arms.

Caeden smiled. "I'm less concerned with how you feel about it and more concerned with you not getting yourself killed over something as stupid as not wearing armor and refusing to use a weapon."

"I really wanna disagree, but that fight…did not go well," Erik smirked. "Make me something good, Cae. It's gonna have to be really light and unrestricting. I'm thinking robes, kinda like these." Erik tugged at his school uniform. "And more the weapon…Maybe some hand wraps? Can you do something with that?"

"Erik, I'm a master smith. I can make anything work." Caeden spoke confidently. If there was one thing he was confident in, it was his smithing skills.

"Good, cuz I'm gonna need some good stuff. I get beat up a lot." Erik rubbed his chest where the obsidian blade and scored deep into his body.

"Yeah, I know." Caeden laughed. "That's not new information."

Turning back to the arena, Caeden saw that this round was nearing its end. The last member of Solar Radiance was losing. The Ether Soldiers were on their last member as well, so it had been a close match overall. Caeden had no illusions; if Victor had decided to stay in the fight for longer, it wouldn't have been nearly as even.

Then it was their turn. Fortunately, they had a strong opening.

"For our first match between the Forged and the Ether Soldiers, we have Jared, the Cloud of Death! He's ranked twenty-fifth, and his shroud is Powder with no splinters! From the Ether Soldiers, we have Susanna Blitz the Speedster! Her rank is twenty-first with the Lizard shroud and Basilisk splinter!"

“AAAAAAND BEGIN!”

There were three options for who the Ether Soldiers would choose as their opener. All of them were creature shrouds with an infusion focus. Only one of them would pose any threat to Jared. His shroud and combat style were a perfect counter to most melee attackers. So Caeden and Lily sent him out first.

Plus, he had another advantage. Outside of their own seat, the division commanders of the Forged weren't well known. Their achievements tended to get overshadowed by Caeden and co. So there was little reason to believe that anyone from the Core seat who wasn't a part of the Forged knew anything about Jared. Considering his primary attack was essentially a trap, that was a massive advantage.

The hope was, Jared would take out the first opponent before anyone from Ether Soldiers could figure out what happened. That way, they had a good chance of Jared taking out a second and putting them ahead immediately. Considering who they sent out, the plan was off to a good start.

To start the fight, Susanna performed a partial formshift, her legs becoming human-sized versions of a basilisk's legs. Basilisks were incredibly fast for their small size, so fast they could run on water. That speed transferred wholesale and was increased further by Susanna's human frame and physical enhancement. As an infusion shrouded, her command of both formshift and physical enhancement was advanced. Caeden assumed her speed was further increased by infusions on the armor she was wearing.

Susanna had on greaves, gauntlets, and a helmet. Each of which most likely added to her already massive speed. As if to prove it, the Lizard shrouded turned into a blur of color, moving around the arena nearly faster than the eye could see. She wasn't attacking Jared, instead curling around him at insane velocities. Caeden had to admit, her physical enhancement skills must be amazing. She was making turns that would put hundreds of pounds worth of kinetic energy on her and doing so regularly. He wondered how long she could sustain that level of infusion.

Jared hardly reacted to her speed. He just stood stock still, looking about nervously. Sometimes Caeden wondered if his frightened demeanor was an act. It made him look like a vulnerable and easy target. In some ways, Jared's whole look was a trap for the unsuspecting. Of course, Susanna took the bait.

After a few seconds of rushing around doing whatever it was she was doing, Susanna turned on a dime and rushed toward Jared. Just like in all her previous fights, she would knock him over a top speed and continually bounce around him while landing high-speed hits and dashing away before he could retaliate.

Just before she reached the anxious-looking boy, she might have noticed a slight sparkling in the air around him, barely perceptible. Then her dashing body was shredded by pea-sized pieces of powdered glass. A twenty-foot sphere around Jared was filled with the stuff, absolutely loaded with deadly particulates. There was no escape once she entered.

Susanna's legs gave out from under her as several hundred flecks of glass blitzed through her formshifted leg muscles, rending them to wet meat, unable to support her. The rest of her body was similarly devastated. Her physical enhancement prevented the damage from killing her, but she was in a similar situation to Erik, just without broken bones. Every bit of flesh on her body had been scored by the glass. The cloud wouldn't have been nearly so devastating had she not hit it at several hundred miles per hour.

The medical staff moved to collect her immediately, as she was in critical condition and bleeding from hundreds of tiny holes all over her body. Jared watched on, his timid expression intensifying upon seeing how much damage he had done. Usually, his glass cloud was more of a deterrent, as most opponents didn't enter it at high speeds.

When the arena was cleared once more, Jared's next opponent entered.

"Well, shit." Caeden cursed.

"The worst possible scenario." Lily nodded.

"Damn, you really fucked her up, porky. I would never have guessed you had an instant kill move like that. I might have to watch out this time." Victor smiled brightly from across the arena.

Jared gulped.