"What? Absolutely not." Lily instantly shot him down. "That's practically suicide! YOu're not nearly that strong.

Caeden laughed softly. "Oh, I'm not? I think you're forgetting something."

"What? What could I be forgetting that would let you fight five of the top-ranked shrouded in the Academy in a row while injured and with less than maximum shroud?" Disbelief dripped from Lily's every word.

"I'm always holding back."

"...You can't be serious." There was fear and concern in her eyes.

"Well, considering you don't seem to think we're capable of handling ourselves, I think I need to show what exactly I can really do if push comes to shove." Caeden laughed, though there was no mirth in his voice.

"Look, I'm sorry. You don't have to do this. You don't want to do this. I know you don't." Lily's tone drifted toward pleading.

Caeden shook his head. "Lily, when I was being a mopey dick, you and Erik gave me a wake-up call. You need one right now. I'll do my best to limit the damage, but this is happening, so just accept it." He put all the steel in his voice he could muster, even if his stomach felt queasy.

"I'm pretty sure I could stop you." Lily looked at him sideways.

"But?"

"But…You at least know when to get out of harm's way, I think. Recent performance notwithstanding. Plus, when you fail, maybe you'll listen to me more." Lily shrugged.

Caeden smirked. "Yeah, I figured that would be your response. This is going to suck, so appreciate my efforts at least, ok?"

Lily made a shooing motion. "Go on, get out there. Apparently, you haven't been beat up enough today, despite losing a fourth of your torso."

"Ha ha. I'll make you eat those words," He shot back, but there was no heat in his voice. On the way down the stairs, into the tunnel, Caeden's thoughts turned dark. The conversation he just had with Lily alluded to one thing. Caeden's shrouds were incredibly deadly.

That was obvious to a degree; all shrouds had a capacity to harm. The difference was, Caeden's were almost explicitly dangerous. People like Erik had to work with their shrouds to create a functioning weapon, whereas Caeden had killed a man when he was nine. Without meaning to. The truth of the matter was, he had to work diligently and constantly to limit the damage he dealt, or else his attacks could take lives frighteningly easily.

Caeden had killed exactly four people in his life. The one who murdered his parents and three in the strange structure that attacked the War God. He remembered all of them vividly, as they were burned into his mind. Each had been unshrouded, dying so readily, so swiftly to his attacks that he hardly had time to contemplate his actions in the moment. Each time, he had been unprepared for how easily he could take a life.

At the Academy, he had worked diligently to bring his shrouds under ever tighter control so that he would never accidentally cause more harm than he intended. He aimed his attacks carefully in every fight and weighed the risks of every strike. Not doing so could cause another person, another life, to be lost at his hands, against his will.

Caeden was not afraid to kill. He had made peace with death long ago. He was absolutely terrified of killing without intending to. In knowing he had ended something permanently and irreversibly on accident, the lack of control in that moment chilled him to the core of his soul. So every strike would be measured, every attack carefully planned for its impact, always hedging on the side of caution.

To win now, he could not afford that luxury.

Caeden had never once fought an opponent without taking considerations for the damage he dealt. Even against Victor and his stupid smile. He had wanted to teach the man a lesson, not kill him. In truth, he could have created a Rose Cannon much greater than the one he fired. His Sharp and still been at four-fifths it's maximum at the time. He could have literally quadrupled the output of the attack. He held back purely because he couldn't tell how much damage it would do.

To win against all five of Solar Radiance, he was going to have to cross that line. He had to be willing to chance a killing blow just to make sure he wasn't worn down and stomped out. This wasn't the Twilight Guard, who only fought well in a group setting. Each of the Solar Radiance were genuinely powerful and skilled people that he couldn't just run over on pure force.

Stepping into the arena, Caeden centered his mind. Slowly and carefully, he relaxed the portion of himself that constantly held rigid, exact control over his shrouds. He steeled himself. He could end a life today.

But Lily was more important than his squeamishness and morals. She needed to see how strong he was. Otherwise, she would never trust him to survive the situation they all found themselves in. He refused to let his best friend see him as a burden that needed to be coddled and protected. It would poison their relationship, slowly, over time. Eventually, she wouldn't trust him at all.

She didn't see that, but he did.

So he loosened the endless tension in his mind, letting go of the pressure. The loss did not go unnoticed.

From his waist, pinned to the sash of his robe, a voice whispered. "Sufficient killing intent detected. Unlocking 100-199."

For a moment, Caeden was stunned. Then he started laughing. "That's all it took? Really?" His shrouds powered forged Infinity. It seemed to have endless reserves, so he pumped it full at every opportunity. It was practically an afterthought at this point. Whenever one of his shrouds was full, the amount regenerated flowed into his shrouded weapon.

The higher the number, the more energy it cost to create the transformation. For the single digits, the difference was negligible. Double digits, he could feel that 089 cost three times as much as 010. Despite having stuffed enough energy into Forged Infinity to swap between the two a thousand times, he couldn't create a triple-digit transformation. By process of elimination, he knew which buttons to press. Every time he tried, they were immovable, refusing to activate.

He had known this from the beginning of school, already discovered this limitation in those weeks on the War God. He couldn't figure out what was wrong. The strange sentience in the weapon refused to answer, outright ignoring his requests for information. Now he knew.

"That makes too much sense. You are a strangely bloodthirsty little thing. Caeden shook his head." Surprisingly, the consciousness took offense to that and responded. It didn't so much use words as push concepts directly into his mind, but Caeden got the gist. It was a weapon; of course it desired battle. Which was a surprisingly well-reasoned response.

"Either way, I think you'll get your fill of blood with this one." The response to that was chilling.

Nonsense. There was no end to its hunger. It was Infinite.

Once more, Caeden was reminded why he interacted with the thing as little as possible. Nothing about its existence was even remotely human. Sometimes, late at night, Caeden wondered if his weapon was cursed, soaked in the blood of his victims moments before its birth. Then he berated himself for being melodramatic. As Erik was fond of saying, there was no such thing as curses.

During his musings and surprise conversation, his first opponent stepped onto the field. Caeden winced. He should have expected this to some degree, he supposed.

"We meet again. I'm going to enjoy tearing you apart, you monster." Glaring at him from across the arena was Juliette Ursine. Once more, she was decked out in full plate mail with heavy clawed gauntlets. The buffed emerald color shone in the light of the Pillar. She was impressive and intimidating. Or, at least, she should be. Caeden sighed.

"Or do you think our fight will follow the same pattern as the last one?" She smirked condescendingly upon seeing his lack of enthusiasm.

Caeden shook his head. "No, I don't think it will." This was the last person he wanted to face, as her intentions and reasons for hating him were actually quite noble. She was a good person who fell in with a bad crowd. He didn't want to hurt her.

But that wasn't an option.

She was intelligent, fast, and powerful. If he let her, she would wear him down or even defeat him outright. So he had no choice. With a flick, he had Forged Infinity in hand, transforming it to 004, the spear. It was a bit nostalgic of their last fight, but the advantage of its range remained unchanged, so he still used it. There would be no running from this fight.

The announcement was called.

"In our first match between the Forged and Solar Radiance, once again we have Caeden, the Golden God! Placed sixth in the Academy, and a dual-shrouded with both Sharp and Physical Enhancement. His opponent is Juliette Ursine, placed thirteenth. Her shroud is Bear. Neither have any splinters."

AAAAAND BEGIN!"

Caeden pushed on Forged Infinity, taking it to 046, the javelin. Then he went further. It was time to test what the new levels could do. Prodding at the consciousness, Caeden got a grumbled response. The thing was loath to offer him advice on how to finish a fight faster. It desired endless combat.

Caeden clicked several buttons inlaid into the javelin under his grip. Unlike the single and double-digit transformations, this required a combination of buttons to move to triple-digit. The dial set into the haft spun, landing on 463. The result was not what he expected. Instead of transforming, lines of Sharp began to coalesce, rotating around the tip of the javelin to form a swirling tornado of crimson blades.

Juliette was not idle in the meantime. She transformed into her massive, hulking bear form the instant the fight was called. She was even bigger than last time, fifteen feet tall with paws the size of a sink. Her claws could double as short swords and equally as sharp. She was a true powerhouse. With the master-grade armor covering every inch of her bulk, she was the definition of a juggernaut.

Roaring with the force of a storm, Juliette rose up on her hind paws and loomed tall across the arena. Perhaps she truly expected Caeden to run. He wouldn't.

"Well, let's see what this does," Caeden smirked. Internally, he was silently repeating please don't kill her please don't kill her over and over again. Taking on his golden body, Caedcen cocked back his arm, ready to throw the javelin across the arena.

"Strength form." His bulk expanded, all power flooding to enhance his already herculean power.

"Break." Golden smoke flew from his lips as Caeden's muscles responded. Shroud flowed into them, enhancing their power beyond his own body's ability to handle.

He threw.

In the last moment, Juliette seemed to realize he was winding up a serious attack. She started to move. Where, he didn't know. The second he completed his throw, the javelin was already there. It was so fast, it appeared to his eyes as if teleported across the arena. He hadn't even blinked. It was in his hand one second, hitting Juliette the next. It connected with her armor on the lower right side, near the beginning of her bear form's pelvis.

Then the lower region of her right side was gone. Armor, fur, muscle, bone. All obliterated in an instant. Literally faster than he could perceive. Her leg, what remained of it, flew off to the side in a mass of mutilated flesh and scrap metal that was once master-grade infused armor. As it flew, it seemed the world caught up with what had just happened. An immense roaring sound, as if the air itself were incensed, ripped through the arena. Underneath the overwhelming sound, Caeden could hear faint notes of metal shattering and flesh ripping.

Forged Infinity slammed into the far wall of the arena and caused the entire structure to rumble and shake for a brief moment. Considering the fact that they were designed to withstand the teachers' blows, the fact that Caeden elicited a reaction was terrifying.

Juliette's severed foot, blown by the explosive retort of his hit, flew across the arena before slapping the ground, sounding both wet and metallic. Caeden's own body screamed at him. The damage he had dealt to himself with break had been tremendous. It was one of his sure-kill mnemonics, designed to achieve the maximum possible damage in a single hit. He had major tearing in every single muscle group on his body, and his right arm was rendered useless.

Juliette slumped to the ground, great gouts of blood pumping from the wreckage of her body.

That was far, far too much. Caeden stared on in horror.