With the Wendigo down, I realized that the flood of robed figures had spread out and started hitting our people. I wasn't the only one attacked but I WAS the only one busy burning a horrible murder abomination badly enough to allow our pet bear to kill it. Or at least seriously fuck it up. It wasn't quite dead yet, though it was certainly on its way. Regardless, I was more than confident in our odds if we could focus up, given the suppression I could see the black robed figures under as they laid siege to our own.

The two I was fighting had some kind of vague golden glow around them, and they seemed frustrated as they engaged me. Summoning weapons to try to kill me, one a pair of daggers made of red light and the other an axe of sickly blue energy. My cane spun before me, deflecting and redirecting attacks with all the skill my Lesser Balam Mastery gave me. I was relieved that I'd managed to upgrade it, because I wasn't sure I would have been able to keep up with both of them if I hadn't. Between that and the Vitality boost from the heal burst that hadn't been used up on the wounds I was more keeping them off balance.

Which meant that they were actually WAY stronger than I was most likely, since I wasn't even using my DS Mastery to do it. The suppression was keeping them low enough in terms of stats to let me bridge the gap. I was torn though. My skill advantage and poison fire meant I could wear them down, but the longer I waited the closer they got to wearing out the protections, and I didn't really have the time.

Erring on the side of caution, I used Flurry of Blows to create an opening before triggering a shadow blade attack, using my poison fire infused cane as a focus for it. I'd figured this trick out when I helped Cark juice up his staff and had given it a try during training. It was a relief because using the attacks through an already enhanced weapon would let me avoid wasting charges having to use the DS Mastery skills every time.

The burning, poisonous shadows scythed up from the ground, an explosion of dark, razor sharp blades that tore through the feet of the distracted robe guys as they avoided my Flurry of Blows. They both screamed as their legs were perforated, unable to fully escape my cane as it slammed into their unsteady forms, knocking them both into a writhing forest of noxious energy. I heard a sizzle and a muffled scream as they were torn apart, and my eye twitched as I felt my stomach churn.

This was so much worse than the Wendigo, but it was me or them, and me included my girlfriend and closest friends. I ignored the smell of burning meat, tainted with a faint almost minty scent from the poison, and turned to where Callie was engaging her opponent, some kind of rabbit shifter that was bouncing around her like a childrens toy. As I stepped toward them though, another form stepped between us, and I growled in frustration. There were way too many of these assholes, even with a bunch of us to counter them.

The new form in my way was bulky and tall, incredibly wide through the shoulder with muscles straining the chest and arms of the robe so tight it looked like the thing might split. Dark eyes glared down at me from behind a beaten bronze mask as he glanced down at the bodies of his fellow invaders. "You're going to pay for that." His voice was quiet, almost a murmur, but I could hear it easily with my Perception.

I glanced behind him, seeing yet another opponent appear to surround Callie. I activated Leaf on the Wind and hurled myself forward. I refused to be slowed down any more. I readied a healing burst if I needed to recover from something, but with my F-rank armor I should be more than up to the task of taking the hits. Then again, that first guy had managed to hurt me somehow through the armor. Maybe his ability had an armor piercing effect or something.

Regardless, I couldn't surrender my momentum when my people needed me. I sailed through the air at the enemy, readying myself to do as much damage as I could. Ironically, my impatience and recklessness probably saved my life. The big man stomped down even as I jumped, and from his foot came a series of crashing waves. Not of water, but actually waves of the material of the floor beneath us, as if the ground itself was somehow liquid and solid all at once.

I was pretty sure if I'd been standing on that I'd have fallen right into it, and I somehow doubted I'd have been able to easily survive the experience. My foot got clipped by a mirrored wave even as I jumped over them, and I noted the long scratch on the surface of my boot. It was like the wave was liquid and solid at the same time, and the crest of it was like a razors edge of glass. I shuddered to imagine how strong this power would be without the suppression of the defenses.

It didn't matter though. I was in the air, and I didn't need to come down. I swung my cane at the big man's head, triggering Flurry of Blows to increase the speed of the strike, and used one of the triple strength density shifted blows from Benny, compounded with Mercy Kill. The cane slammed down on the mans head and I felt my stomach heave as the hooded skull caved in under the blow.

Ignoring the panic and horror of that action, and locking away the part of me that screamed that he should have been tougher than that and that I hadn't meant to just murder him like that, I focused on Callie, who was surrounded and still in danger. I could fall apart later. Callie was currently up against three different opponents. The rabbit shifter was being held off by a razor sharp spiderweb of shadow wires Callie had strung up around her, several clones already out and creating a zone of slicing death.

As with her fight against Gust, Callie was mixed into the shadow versions of herself in such a way that even I couldn't tell which was which without Seek Hidden, which I wasn't willing to use since I was already eating into my charges. Still the rabbit shifter wasn't the biggest problem. That one was being held off, along with a robed woman who seemed to be making some kind of exploding rainbow bubbles that Callie was countering with shadow blades. The biggest issue was the third and most recent figure, one whose robe had since been shredded to reveal a hide made of rusty metal that seemed to be resisting the attacks my girlfriend was dishing out.

Since Callie had handled the first two, I stuck to my stealthiest movements as I approached and circled around behind the big guy. When I was close enough I triggered a shadow blade attack, resonating the blades with my Kidney Blow ability, the armor penetration skill I got when I hit Beginner rank in DS Mastery. Alongside the enhancements I already had from Touch of Tears and Consecration of flame, Kidney Blow gave the razor sharp blades enough effectiveness to spear into the huge form from below.

I was kind of torn between relief and unhappiness when the blades didn't shred the big metal man like that had the two earlier robed figures. Relieved I didn't have to watch someone else get torn apart and know it was my fault, and unhappy he wasn't going down, but the blades scored deep furrows in the man's hide at least. The poisonous effects of my flames leeched into the wounds, but from the incredibly slow speed of the spread this guy must have insane Vitality.

Still, I got his attention at least though only generally, since he hadn't actually seen me yet, I took advantage of the temporary confusion to slam my cane into his knee with another triple strength density shifted blow augmented with Mercy Kill. I heard a loud crack and the man roared in pain, whirling surprisingly fast for someone with only one good leg and lashing out with a fist.

Between Leaf on the Wind and my Gymnastics Skill, my dodging capabilities were pretty damn effective, especially since the big thug was slowed down by the defenses still. I nearly avoided the blow, flipping back to create some room between us and hopefully lure him away from Callie. I blocked out the sounds of pitched battle behind me, as well as Randall's earthshaking roar of what sounded a bit like triumph as he presumably finished the Wendigo, and focused entirely on this battle.

The big guy was a dangerous opponent. While the shadow blades had done some real damage, they were also single use, and his rusty hide was seemingly immune to blunt force of a level lower than that insane triple stacked blow, which I didn't have the reserves to spam. Luckily, I had been expanding my repertoire quite a bit with all my absorbed attacks, and I had one for this. Sharp force was totally feasible as long as I could get in close. I fired up my overlay, focusing on ways to avoid his attacks.

Leaf on the Wind was a life saver combined with the overlay, and along with my Balam Mastery and Gymnastics I was able to avoid the huge, sweeping blows from my enemy. It was a far cry from being able to close the gap though, and it took me a minute or two to find an opening to get close enough. I got tagged a time or three along the way, heavy blows mostly absorbed by my armor though still strong enough to bruise. Eventually, the big bastard overextended, going for a wide smash that left him open for me to get close.

As he wound up, I dropped into a forward roll between his shoulder width bent kneed stance and popped up on the other side facing away, I leaned back, bending into an arch, and wrapped my arms around his stomach, straightening up and continuing the motion into a suplex, even dropping to my knees as his head and neck came near the ground to put my full weight behind the smash.

I considered augmenting that with Mercy Kill, but instead, I bore down on the enermy and triggered a density shifted spider leg attack augmented with Kidney Blow. The G-ranked gold spider legs arched over my shoulder like descending scythes and bit deep into the large man, one sinking into the throat and the other digging in under the arm because of the angle. The armor piercing weapons drove deep into the body of my enemy, and by the time they faded away, I could already see his life beginning to fade.

I exhaled in both discomfort and relief that this was over, until I heard a loud crack sound through the air. I looked around to see where it came from, but realized quickly I was thinking to literally. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the big rust skinned man twitch, and as I watched I saw the green flaming cracks begin to dim even as the wounds pumped blood onto the floor.

It wasn't enough to save him, the stab to the throat ended the fight, but the changes were enough to clue me into the fact that what I'd been most afraid of had finally happened. The gold aura surrounding the enemies was gone. Which meant that the other candidate had no reason to avoid entering anymore. I let my eyes flick up to watch in uncertain terror as a trio of shapes loomed in the doorway, one a small figure in a hooded cloak and the other two a pair of guardians obviously accompanying her. Guess I was finally getting that family reunion.