It was surprisingly easy to get the shrouded set up outside the Academy to let them go in. Apparently, they were famous. Though Caeden wasn't sure exactly why he was surprised by that. They had literally gone through a series of matches specifically to show off the top students of the Academy to the public. Plus, there were military personnel onsite who knew even more about them.

It seemed to Caeden that the top brass on site‒a colonel‒was impressed with them when they explained what they wanted to do. Caeden and Lily had agreed that they probably could leave the situation to the military, but they didn't want to. At this point, their team was probably stronger than most foot soldiers, and they were familiar with the campus. Without aura senses, every soldier that went in there was working off a map to find their way around. Something that was immensely difficult in an active war zone.

Luckily, they managed to gain some more information, though it mostly confirmed what they could have guessed or already knew. Yes, there were heavily armed revolutionaries all over the campus. Yes, they were using ambush tactics and a liberal application of explosives. The aura suppression field wasn't the same as the one they had experienced in Black Reach. That also made sense.

The original field had been a natural effect of the material the sword was created from, the substance the researcher called Null. This field was an artificial construct formed from studying the Ki pattern of that material. The effects should have some differences. In this case, the original field made using a shroud almost impossible on every level. It could still be done, but it was incredibly difficult. This field instead locked a shrouded's shroud inside their body.

That had multiple implications. For one, infusion was unaffected. Caeden's golden body would work exactly as it normally did. However, he couldn't make or sustain any aura manifestations. That meant Sharp would be almost completely useless to him.

Of his friends, Lily was the most heavily affected. Erik had his mobility limited, but he used martial arts and infusion for most of his damage. Luckily, Lily could still formshift into clouds of deadly gas, which was more than enough for the situation at hand. With Sky and Snowball, it didn't matter all that much that she couldn't create her usual ice weapons. Asherta mostly used her draconic features in a fight, which had nothing to do with her shroud.

All of them were ready for Cat to be the most vulnerable one of them under these circumstances until she walked through the dome. A moment later, Cat stepped back out and keeled over laughing. She was clutching her sides, rolling on the ground howling with laughter. It took a couple of minutes for her to calm down enough to tell them what was going on, which she did with a massive grin.

"It stops Ki." Cat giggled. "The field interferes with changes in the Ki within the bounds. But Necromancy uses Mana. My shroud isn't affected at all. Oh, this is going to rock!"

Caeden and Lily looked at each other before shrugging. It was definitely a positive. More than that, this was a game changer. Cat was literally a one-woman army, and she was essentially immune to the field. Honestly, she might be able to handle this on her own.

Finally, they stepped through the barrier, with the Colonel wishing them success. Caeden wondered if his apparent apathy for some students entering a war zone was based on a genuine lack of care for lives lost or if he was just that confident they would be fine. Either way, he wasn't sure he trusted the man's judgment. Then again, guarding Central City, the heart of the Central Authority, must be one of the easiest jobs in the military. Caeden wouldn't be surprised if the man was the son of an influential family and had the job by that merit alone. Nepotism was endemic across the military, after all.

Entering the dome was like stepping into a nightmare Caeden half-remembered. The sensation of his aura crushing down into his body was familiar, but the sensation was ever-so-slightly different to the sword under Black Reach. He could feel that this was something else, though definitely similar. From the outside, the dome was a pitch-black sphere. But from the inside, the Pillar's light still showed, though it was dim and oddly reflected. It cast everything in a slightly sinister, uncomfortable light.

"Ok, the first plan is to secure the Forged armory. We'll need those weapons when we start rescuing members. After that, we figure out where the field generator is and shut it down. Clear?" Caeden ran through the plan, formshiting to golden body and changing Forged Infinity into its spear form.

Cat ignored him, cackling madly as dozens of summoning circles appeared across the stone path leading further into the school. Dave stood by, seemingly unphased by Cat's antics. Erik sidled up to him.

"Sorry about her; she's a little crazy." Caeden nearly choked on his own tongue. Erik calling someone crazy was…a lot to take in.

Dave, for his part, waved a hand nonchalantly. "Honestly, this is normal for necromancers. Something about commanding armies of undead minions just brings out the crazy in people. I'm used to it. Boss is way better than most of my employers so far. Remind me to tell you about Timothy the Terrible. Hint, he didn't get that name from being cruel; he just sucked at everything. I'd rather my boss be crazy than incompetent. Incompetent bosses mean the work for grunts like me is that much harder."

Erik shrugged, "Well, so long as you're good. Let Lily know if she gets too wild, and she'll reign her in."

"Not you? You're the one warning me." Dave asked, looking askance at Erik.

"Ha!" Erik laughed. "You're new around here, so I'll let you in on a secret." He leaned in, doing that fake-whisper people do when they want to pretend they're being quiet but absolutely want everyone around to hear them. "Cae and Lil think they're super smart, so me and Cat let them run everything, so we get to sit back and relax. Basically, they do all the work since we pretend we don't get it." Erik grinned smugly.

"Oooh," Dave nodded slowly. "You're one of those kinds of people."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Erik feigned offense, dramatically drawing back, clutching his chest.

"The oddball that the bosses keep around because everyone needs a laugh now and then," Dave replied. His helmet completely hid his expression, but Caeden could swear he felt the smirk coming from underneath.

"Well, I guess that's- wait a second!" Erik started to agree before rapidly backpedaling. "That's not true at all! I'm on this team because of my dashing good looks and tactical brilliance! Of course, my wit is amazing, and I'm glad you noticed, but I'm more than just a funny man!"

Dave reached out with a gauntleted hand and patted Erik on the head. "Sure you are, kiddo." He turned back to Cat.

"Hold on now; I won't be belittled like this!" Erik protested, sputtering and waving his arms.

Caeden chuckled, feeling some of the tension bleed out of him. This was going to be a dangerous operation, and they would be facing deadly, motivated, and prepared opponents in unfavorable conditions. A little levity before they got stuck in what was likely to be a slog across campus was nice.

Erik continued his shenanigans while Dave was speaking quietly with Cat. She had summoned over three hundred Undead Soldiers with a couple of Death Knights and a dozen Undead Archers to work with. Caeden thought about interrupting to get them moving, but so far, Dave seemed like a genuinely competent fighter and strategist. Plus, he was older than a lot of shrouded and had fought for most of the time he had been alive. Undead? Whatever his existence qualified as. Either way, Caeden was sure they were getting up to something useful.

He was proven right moments later when Cat created another summoning circle, this one several times larger than any previous. From it emerged a mass of undead, more than the rest of her army combined. Cat had summoned over a thousand undead on top of what she already had.

"How's she sustaining that? I thought this many would be way over her max." Caeden murmured.

"Look, they aren't Undead Soldiers," Lily spoke up next to him.

Listening, Caeden paid closer attention to the new group. She was right; all the new undead were unarmed or armored, simply walking corpses covered in rags. They also shambled and stumbled as if their minds weren't right.

"You think those cost her less to hold on to?" Caeden asked.

Lily set Snowball down. She had been carrying the miniaturized Glacial King Kodiak in her arms, just like old times. Sky also moved off her shoulder. Both monsters started to grow, taking on their true forms.

"If I had to guess, I'd say yes. But why don't we just ask?" Lily smiled.

So they walked over and asked what was going on. Dave answered.

"Well, you said that the enemy was heavily relying on ambush tactics and explosives, right?" They nodded. "Well, that kind of thing is basically an undead specialty. These basic zombies are barely conscious and make terrible fighters. But if you want to trigger a trap or an ambush with minimal losses, you won't find anything better."

"Well, that's convenient." Caeden couldn't believe their luck. He had honestly been concerned. Without their aura sense, walking into an ambush or a giant cache of explosives waiting to go off was a major concern. Most shrouded had no idea how to operate without their aura. "Are you ready to go?"

"Now we are." Dave nodded his helmeted head. "That's all I had to add. We'll have to adapt as we go."

"Great, let's get moving. We have to cross a fourth of the campus to get to the armory." Caeden gestured onward, and the massive of undead started shambling out.

{}

Hekate giggled. She couldn't help it. They had no idea how many revolutionaries would be on campus. How many ambushes they had set up, and how many traps were laid. The answer was a lot. On all accounts. Not even twenty feet down the walkway and Hekate's mass of basic zombies and skeletons were taking shots to the head from long-range ethertech weapons. The revolutionaries were watching the entrance, which was no surprise.

But it didn't matter. Despite being so weak, the attacks did nothing much to her undead. The revolutionaries used weapons that fired small metal projectiles at high speeds. Something that would be immensely deadly to an unprotected human with their vulnerable organs.

Undead were another story. They didn't need limbs or organs or even heads to keep going. Though losing their heads completely made them essentially useless, as they could no longer follow her directions. But that didn't matter. Her massive horde soaked up everything the Revolution threw at it. Even when explosions started going off. She would lose a dozen undead, and it barely made a dent in the overall mass.

Their march across campus transformed into an afternoon stroll once Hekate got her Undead Archers to start counter-sniping. The shooting faded rapidly until it seemed the revolutionaries were too afraid to stop them.

Hekate couldn't stop smiling. She was back! Back to school, back to Gramp's pride and joy. Except it was under attack from a bunch of radical assholes that wanted to watch the world burn. And she was cleaning house! She hadn't come back as a weak pseudo-supporter. No, she was the main fighter! Her friends, powerful fighters in their own right, only had to sit back and watch as she swept the field with a massive army at her beck and call. She had a fucking magic shroud! It couldn't possibly get any better.

Of course, the universe had to spite her. Because that was when the real attacks started.

{}

Caeden flinched as the front lines of Cat's horde lit up like a bonfire. A massive conflagration started out of nowhere and engulfed dozens of undead. Worse, they seemed especially susceptible to flame, and the blaze quickly caught on, transferring to others in the horde that hadn't been caught in the initial blast.

To her credit, Cat reacted quickly. She had the burning zombies and skeletons rush forward, separating from the rest of the horde and preventing the flames from spreading. Three more fire traps were triggered by the blindly charging corpses before they collapsed, and the flames consumed them.

They had passed by several buildings at this point, every one of them with revolutionaries hiding inside or on the roof. There had been nearly a hundred so far, and they were only halfway to the armory. The traps numbered in the thousands. Every kind of attack imaginable. Triggered firearms, poisonous gas, explosives. So many explosives. That seemed to be a Revolution favorite.

Fortunately, the undead were immune to most of it, and the rest simply washed over the vast numbers without much effect. Until the fire traps. Now, every time one triggered, Cat would lose a portion of her horde to the flames. The revolutionaries seemed to catch on quickly as more and more flame traps started showing up.

Lily tried scouting them out as a cloud of carbon dioxide. Being essentially inflammable, she didn't have to worry about the traps. But they were well-disguised, and without aura sense, they were hard to find in the dim half-light under the dome.

The problems didn't stop there.

Caeden flinched as a shot pinged off his head. His golden body was more or less immune to most of the revolutionaries' attacks, but that didn't make them less annoying. Worse, both Erik and Lily could die from those hits. Both had formshifted to avoid this, but they couldn't sustain their formshift for nearly as long as him. Between the fire traps and the attacks coming from behind, the revolutionaries had successfully slowed them down and turned this into a battle of attrition. One that Caeden wasn't sure they could win.

Not having his aura was overwhelmingly frustrating. It made attacking back a frightening proposition. After all, Caeden had no way of knowing whether or not he was being baited into chasing down whoever shot him. If he were lured into the range of a big enough explosive, he wouldn't survive. They needed to get to the armory. Weapons and armor, as well as more people, would make this so much easier.

{}

It took several hours after the fire traps started to get to the armory. By that point, most of Cat's fodder undead were destroyed, and Lily and Erik were starting to stretch their shroud reserves, maintaining formshift. The shooting had only intensified, coming from every angle. Caeden knew that they were well and truly surrounded. It was hard to say what he could do about it.

The lack of aura sense and dark lighting made for the perfect condition for anyone to sneak around them just out of sight. The further they moved onto campus, the more buildings there were, which meant more sniper perches. Cat's Undead Archers were becoming less and less effective. The revolutionaries had started targeting them, and the snipers seemed to have deployed some defensive measures, as the undead could fire on a known position and receive a shot to the face for their trouble instead of the arrow resulting in a corpse.

Aside from Caeden, Erik, and Lily leaving the horde and striking out on their own as a counteroffensive, Caeden was low on options. Even Lily's pets had to step in. They had been hoping to hold Snowball and Sky back until much later, but both the bonded had to intervene when they encountered a particularly fortified building that was firing explosive projectiles by the dozen. A blast of blue-white fire from Snowball and the building's inhabitants were flash-frozen by the magical flames. But Lily had told him beforehand that neither of her bonded were adults yet, despite their accelerated growth. They couldn't use their abilities for long.

That was when they reached the armory. It was a building not far from the Core Seat. The gate they had entered was set equidistant between the Core Seat and the SUn Seat, so they hadn't had to cross most of campus. But even that had been an hour-long slog. Worse, the armory was under attack.

Caeden watched as shots rang out, filling the air with a constant drum. Explosives were constantly bombarding the building, a small, squat thing of black stone and bronze metal. Most of it was underground. The shots would stop, and the doors would open, arrows flying every which way. Some of their faction must have had the same thought they did when the fighting started and went to get armed up, only to be trapped by revolutionary forces.

The Forged were under siege.