She tried shaking it harder, stepping backwards to give herself some extra space. A lone section of flesh hit the ground in a wet, meaty plop. Elara’s heart soared - and then fell just as fast. It just hadn’t been connected to the rest of it very well, an already-tattered piece that had remained when the corpse ripped itself apart.

Just in case, she shook it again. It didn’t work.

She decided to give up on that; her head was still swimming, and the violent shaking wasn’t helping at all. Elara moved on to something else.`

“Erm...release,” she said, a command dripping with uncertainty. “Activate.” Nothing. “Deactivate.” It was worth a try.

She tried willing it to work. That was essentially all that she had to do to get her shadow-enchanted armor to activate, so there was a chance - except that the armor was probably some complicated masterpiece that a nullsmith had designed, and her new sword was, well…

Definitely not designed. Just an accident. It wouldn’t make sense if it worked the way she wanted it to. The crystals weren’t even technically on her side. Which was a little horrifying to think about. She probably shouldn’t let the blade make contact with her skin - or anyone else she cared about - until a nullsmith got a chance to look at it and adjust it, if that was even possible. The crystals as they were might do nothing to a still-living body, to be fair, but it might also do something that she would regret.

Eventually, it turned out that there was only one thing that would reliably work. Elara prepared herself, tensed her muscles, pushed back a brief bout of returning nausea, and then performed what must have been one of the weakest shadow-state shifts that her armor had made so far. The sword phased out of reality with her, and she immediately yanked it upwards, the now-ridiculously lightweight blade passing directly through the flesh that had recently encased it in the bare instant before the gem at her chest sputtered and failed.

She looked down at the gem, checking on the dull gray of its surface and noting a tiny drop of inky blackness beginning to reappear as it tried to renew itself. Not much; not enough for anything fancy.

Maybe enough to do that again, though. And though she didn’t want her crystal-metal blade thing to become a crystal-metal-meat blade thing, messing up the timing and combining with a corpse wouldn’t cause any injury to Elara herself. And that was what really mattered.

She was still bothered by how useless her left arm felt. And that her vision was still swimming. And that, for all of their efforts, for all of the crystals that they had shattered and forced to be reformed, the Core was still nowhere near small enough for victory to be in reach. She was bothered by a lot of things.

Something needed to change.

Lesser Core Skill: [Life - Vitality XVI] Increased.

[Life - Vitality XVII] Acquired.

The flickering of the thought-light passed by without any real feeling of excitement; maybe a brief moment where I noticed that I started to heal just a little faster, but that was it. There wasn’t any room for much else.

The icy chill of the Lesser Core’s aura had pushed further in; it had moved past the boundaries of my scale-flesh, pressing into places that were far more intimate. It was in my blood, a cold that tried to beat down the warmth of what little life essence remained within. It was in my head, trying to lull me to sleep with its all-pervading weakness - the opposite of a comfort, but just as effective in coaxing me into slumber. Occasional splashes of life essence-infused blood forced me awake again, jolting me into alertness like the scent-taste of a Core on a bad-thing’s tongue.

More languidly than I’d have liked, I let my eyes roam across the battlefield that was the cavern. It hadn’t changed much; the Guardian still lived, formed of many, many moving corpses that twisted and melted together. Its form had changed over the course of the fight; as my Coreless destroyed crystal after crystal, targeting the purple-black beacons, the Guardian had sucked itself inwards. Its once-many limbs were, while still many, significantly less many - whether that was from lost and destroyed corpses or the Guardian willfully pulling more of its mass inwards, I didn’t know. Both, probably. The crystals those corpses connected to had moved inwards as well, finding a new home somewhere within the bulbous mass of bodies. Bits of purple-black light occasionally spilled through newly-opened wounds, making it clear that - though hidden - the Lesser Core’s creations were still there.

Disgustingly so, like a festering scent-taste that just refused to go away.

Regardless of its change in form, the Guardian had become a little smaller, bits of its body lost as my Coreless managed to separate them from the greater whole. The Lesser Core, still resting on its pedestal at the back of the cavern, was a little smaller too.

I desperately wanted to rouse myself in full with what little mana I had left, to slither my way to its resting place, open my jaws, and devour it whole. But it was still too soon - and I wasn’t sure that I had the energy for it anyway, even if I tried.

A high-pitched shriek, the sustained sound of claws and teeth on ore-flesh, made my eyes focus elsewhere. I caught what happened next just in time, watching as The Grateful One pressed herself against the thickest section of the corpse-formed bad-thing, where corpse-thing after corpse-thing collected to form something resembling a center mass, wisps of purple and black light sometimes seeping through the shifting mass. She heaved backwards - and somehow forced the corpse-things that formed the Guardian to move backwards with her, stretching unnaturally far. Something pulsed from deep within the Guardian’s mass, intense beams of purple-black that overpowered the light from the previously exposed crystals slipping through the newly formed gaps.

Then the corpse-things snapped, cracked, and shattered as whatever pull there was became too much. The Grateful One fell backwards in a clatter of ore-flesh, the other Coreless - except for Will, who was too busy bearing the brunt of the Guardian’s attention - letting out shouts and doing what they could to drag her out of the pile of the corpse-things that she had claimed. Or bits of them, anyway. A third, maybe. The rest had been pulled back into the pile of corpse-things that was the corpse-formed Guardian’s central mass, sucked back inwards and pasted over the wound that the Coreless had left in her wake.

Needle joined in the rescue as well, giving me a closer view of The Grateful One as she was pulled free. Her body flickered, and I recognized the power of the shadow-gem that nested within her ore-flesh. The pile of corpses sloughed off her ore-flesh fang, leaving behind a crystal-covered abomination - and likely the reason that my Coreless had been able to pull away a section of the Guardian’s form. Even now, I could see the way my Coreless carefully kept its tip from touching the flesh of the nearby corpses, as if worried that any contact would reattach fang and flesh.

What was even easier to see, however, was the way that she quickly rushed forward again. Threw herself at the same spot that she had already attacked, rapidly tearing free another section of corpse-flesh with a purple-black flash of light. Freed her fang of what was left, and then did it again.

The-female-who-was-not-Needle quickly rushed in to join her, shining fangs slashing through the corpse-things scattered at The Grateful One’s feet. The Unrepentant One wasn’t far behind. Even Will rushed in, breaking away from the stone-spike that he had kept at his back for much of the fight and throwing himself between The Grateful One and an incoming attack. Needle, unfortunately, had run out of needles for her needle-spitter. She attempted to gather a few of the nearest - and safest to reach - of them while the others were busy, radiating [worry] all the while.

I watched as well, just as worried - but equally hopeful for what might happen next. The Grateful One, despite the still ever-so-slightly off look that she had, was moving with purpose; I hoped that meant that she had a plan.

With one final heave, The Grateful One tore away the last layer of corpse-things that she needed. The purple-black light was brighter than ever, radiant enough to stab at my [Amusher’s Vision]-enhanced. Crystal upon crystal was gathered at the Guardian’s center, pulled away from its former limbs and kept safe from my Coreless within the center of its body, each working to hold the corpse-formed bad-thing together. They surrounded an even larger version of themselves, a giant crystal that had likely served as the bad-thing’s heart - or at least the closest to something like that it could have.

The-female-who-was-not-Needle was quick to rush in, glowing fangs running against its surface, leaving gouges to trace their path. Unlike the others, the giant crystal at the Guardian’s heart was sturdy, less prone to shattering entirely upon being wounded; instead, wisps of purple and black started to move towards it from the Core, slipping past my Coreless and filling in the bites that their fangs left behind.

I looked towards the Core on its pedestal, hoping to see a change. It was there. Barely. Just like my mana. Barely there.

Except one was dropping far faster than the other; mine. My blood felt weak and lifeless, like a frozen slurry dribbling down my length, falling down the channels of my body in heavy plips and plops. I had been distracted from it in the excitement of possible victory, so used to battling against the effects of the Lesser Core’s aura that each regenerated drop of mana almost instantly shifted into life essence and moved to where it needed to be. The habit was beginning to feel ingrained, nearly automatic. And yet, seeing the Lesser Core’s mana slowly drain, the amount still far from enough even with my Coreless’ fangs biting into the greatest of its Guardian’s crystals, I worried that it wouldn’t be enough.

I was running out of time; I could feel it in the way blackness was starting to creep in at the edges of my vision, persistent in its spread. The way that my tail felt numb, the feeling of my fangs pressed against it having long since disappeared. The way that a drop of life essence brushed up against my scale-flesh - and barely did enough.

As quickly as my sluggish body would allow, I pulled at the reservoir of light captured within my scale-flesh. Started to craft an illusion to warn the Coreless that I was running out of time. That something needed to be done.

I wasn’t sure if I got my point across by the time I began to lose focus and the darkness drifted in further. [Illusion Spark] let me communicate with the Great Core’s Coreless, but it didn’t let me communicate easily. And something like ‘hurry and finish this before I die’ was hard to get across with an illusion, though I certainly tried. Many times, and in many ways, flashing illusion after illusion in front of Needle’s open eyes. Just as I fell into the embrace of sleep, my mind and body falling into torpor, I felt another drop of mana form - and then shift itself into life essence and brush against my flesh, the now-habitual action occurring automatically. A spark of warmth in a world of ice, melting away its frozen edges.

I managed a final hiss of prayer to the Great Core as I fell asleep.

Hopefully, when I woke up, I would still be myself. It would be up to the Coreless now.