The battle was not going well. The immense crab was supposed to have been a test for the group. A first Hunt that wasn’t an enormous threat, but would draw attention to their weaknesses. It was certainly doing that.

  Valanor was struggling in his role as Vanguard, something Ethan had never seen before. The cancrorum wasn’t simply attacking blindly like so many monsters, but was instead continually trying to catch the knight in its immense claws. This led to Valanor relying on Toby, his Obsidian Elemental, which was wrestling with the larger claw, but needing the constant protection of Selina’s light shield.

  Cara seemed to be doing alright from where she was perched on a pillar of earth created by Savilar, but her arrows weren’t particularly effective against the creature. Its hard shell was nearly impenetrable, leaving only a few key areas of exposed flesh, like its face and numerous eyestalks. These were now peppered with arrows, but that clearly wasn’t slowing the beast..

  For Ethan’s part, he was currently showing great appreciation for the quality of his terrorvermis armor, as the arrow he’d been struck by hadn’t sunk too deeply into his flesh. He’d gotten in the way of one of Cara’s attacks, trying to use a tactic Savilar had recommended. Being unable to communicate easily had turned that into a mistake, as his throbbing shoulder proved.

  Worst of all, however, was Savilar taking an unexpected strike, and being plunged into the depths of the lake. Not only was there no sign of the Rift Hunter, but this had apparently gotten the attention of a horde of smaller monsters which made the water their home. Lolligos were rising up by the dozen, looking like purple squids with far too many tentacles, and the surface of the waters was erupting with them.

  Ethan hastily retreated back onto land, calling out as he did so. “Incoming! Lolligos!” Channeling Flare, he threw down his traps at the water’s edge, then moved up the hill toward the Archer. “We need to draw them here!” he said, and she nodded, charging an attack.

  Ethan summoned Revan, and sent him as close to Valanor’s left side as he could, as that was where the monsters were approaching. As the squids reached land they began running in a somewhat comical way on their numerous tentacles, and Revan let out a continuous blast of fire to push them away from the battle with the massive crab.

  For the most part it worked, and the horde was forced to either dive back into the water, or race up the hill toward the Archer platform. Most chose the latter, though several more were destroyed as pillars of flame erupted from Ethan’s traps.

  “Weaken them as much as you can,” he said to Cara, then ran to the other side of the hill. She didn’t answer, unleashing the charged arrow which arced into the air, multiplying itself over and over until over a hundred copies were raining down. She repeated the maneuver, and by the time any got close, they were already almost half dead. Her jaguar Familiar Talia pounced on these with raw fury.

  Ethan was aware that he didn’t look particularly heroic as he ran as quickly as he could away from the battle, but he needed to get out of sight. He risked a single glance at Valanor, seeing no change in that part of the battle before he reached the other side of the hill. The moment he felt the odd internal sense that he was unwatched, he became a Trick of the Light. He could have risked jumping into the group of monsters while visible, but lolligos had clawed tentacles that could strike like whips.

  Immediately he turned back, Cara coming back into view in moments, and he leaped on the closest squid creature. Assassinate! The power of Ruin flowed through his blades as he went to work, feeling a rush of vitality as the monster was devoured by dark energy. [Fleeting Shadow] wrapped him in its dark embrace immediately after the creature died and Ethan leapt away to dodge the flood of tentacles reaching for him, then turned to his next target.

  Cara obviously caught glimpses of the destruction Ethan was bringing, but it was too slow for her to hold position. The pillar of earth was now surrounded, and proving no impediment to the lolligos as they climbed toward her. There was another platform nearby, and she leapt away, summoning a different Familiar to cover her retreat.

  The quillursi was half again as tall as the Archer, heavily muscled, and a terrible target for the squids. While its swinging claws and powerful jaws were deadly, the larger problem was that it was entirely covered in sharp quills like a porcupine, and the lolligo’s primary method of attack was to latch onto their prey and squeeze. The futility of the situation didn’t stop them, but led to the large bear quickly becoming a shifting mass of dead squids, covered to the point of being unrecognizable.

  As Ethan moved from target to target, Ruin taking one after another, he was forced to acknowledge they were at something of an impasse. Valanor was still holding his own thanks to an increasingly strained Selina, but they weren’t able to do any real damage to the cancrorum. While Ethan and Cara were devastating the ranks of the unexpected squids, there seemed to be no end to them, and their squishy bodies now littered the hillside.

  The stalemate was obviously occurring to all of them, as even Selina made an impressive, if desperate play. She summoned Tibby, who duplicated her ability to fire a beam of light into the shield protecting Toby. This freed the Rune Mage to begin casting a few of her other spells, and in the next few minutes the cancrorum was struck by a bolt of lightning, some kind of frost orb, and the ground beneath its massive front legs became slippery, causing it to shift precariously at it continued the attack.

  Unfortunately this was clearly taxing her already drained mana reserves, and soon she was forced to dismiss Tibby and return to maintaining the shield. Ethan saw all of this in flashes between taking down the lolligos. Their numbers finally seemed to be diminishing, but this was truly a battle of attrition at this point, and he didn’t like their odds. While they were relatively capable of handling the squids–provided they weren’t overwhelmed–if the cancrorum managed to grab Valanor, the situation would quickly turn dire.

  Thankfully the battle shifted again a few moments later, as a dim glow began to suffuse the previously dark lake. The light slowly spread, and as it did, the lolligos began to retreat. At last the water erupted upward as Savilar burst to the surface, golden light radiating from him despite the countless layers of lolligos wrapped around his body.

  He was far worse off even than Cara’s quillursi, looking like a hundred squids squished into a ball–presumably in an attempt to drown the Rift Hunter. The living orb crashed into the shallow water near the shore, only for beams of light to start carving through the monsters from the inside. It was slow going, and Ethan risked giving up stealth for a time to throw a few infused knives, each explosion knocking a few of the creatures away.

  Finally Savilar emerged, drenched in water and monster blood, and looking more furious than Ethan had ever seen him. His sun-orb Familiar appeared a moment later, and began blasting the creatures apart with more beams of searing light. Sav’s maces went to work as well, and in minutes the lolligos were all but decimated.

  He took a moment to take stock of the battle, then called out. “Ethan, Cara!” Both Hunters rushed to his side. “Reposition to the other side of the crab, that’s where it’s most dangerous. Archer, do everything you can to weaken that damned claw. Hit the joints, poison it, whatever you can do. I’ll focus on the legs, and we’ll go through them one at a time. When the shell cracks, I move on and Ethan takes them down. Understood?”

  “Understood!” Ethan called, while Cara simply ran toward another platform of earth on the opposite side of the monster. The two men quickly followed, and Ethan eyed the already exposed flesh on the leg he’d tried to attack earlier. He thought about how useless he’d be, waiting for Savilar to crack the shell on a different leg, when this obvious target was right here.

  The Rift Hunter outpaced him with his Dusk rank speed, and immediately went to work. Ethan slowed slightly, unable to look away from the tempting target. “Ethan!” Valanor roared. “Take out that damned leg!”

  Well, that decides that, he thought, and sprung into action. Last Resort was now up to four runes, and he wasted no time leaping up and drawing the blade. Obliterate! He commanded, the power of Ruin rushing through him and into the katana, the red and black mixing together in a single deadly attack.

  The blade bit deeply into a leg and thick as a tree trunk…and stopped halfway.

  “No, no, no!” he grunted, while prying the sharp blade free. Obliterate had failed, the damned crab was too tough. Worse, without the replenishing vitality it ripped from his target, the move would be unusable for several minutes. Thankfully the leg was heavily injured, but none of Ethan’s abilities or weapons were suited for hacking through the remaining tendons and sinew.

  “Ethan, where are you!?” Savilar called out from the other side.

  “I need him to take out that leg!” Valanor snarled back. “I need it off balance, Selina’s shield must be ready to fail!”

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  Ethan hacked wildly at the injured limb, his frustration growing. “Make up your damned minds! Where the hell do you want me?”

  “Here!” Valanor and Savilar shouted at the same time.

  Ethan could hear the sounds of arrows striking the larger claw like hail on the roof of a car, and knew they needed him on the other side. Finally he compromised and stabbed three daggers charged with [Volatile Infusion] as deeply into the wound as he could, then quickly used a rift to reach the other side. The sound of an explosion followed him, and the crab wailed and stumbled, the leg still attached but clearly useless.

  He quickly took in this side of the battle, staying away from Savilar who was hammering away with his maces, golden light exploding with each strike. The shell on the monster’s foremost leg was already cracked, exposing the more tender flesh beneath. Unfortunately, Ethan had been confronted by the realities of trying to destroy the massive legs in a single hit, and had to change his plan.

  Channeling flare once more, he began slicing away as quickly as he could with both short swords, each hit leaving another stack of [Internal Combustion]. The pinkish flesh began to glow with embers as the affliction infused the creature with more and more burning pain–while also increasing its vulnerability to fire damage.

  Unfortunately, this was a terrible match up for Ethan. The creature had high innate resistance to fire, and as tempting as it was to use [Volcanic Bolt], doing so in the water was needlessly dangerous. Ethan’s Float spell may still be in effect, but Savilar’s was long gone, and he was currently attacking from waste deep water, his sun Familiar carving away at the crab’s armor nearby.

  The combination of irritation and desperation almost convinced Ethan to try to continually rift back and forth between the battle and the other side of the hill, in order to make use of [Knife in the Dark]. The distance made the mana cost unsustainable however, and so he did the only thing he could: he just kept hacking away.

  The only good news was that the cancrorum had so much vitality, and was being attacked by so many Hunters that Last Resort’s runes were filling up far more quickly than usual. When three were charged, and Obliterate was usable again, Ethan duplicated the move from before, a wave of black and red energy carving deeply into the monster’s thick leg.

  Once more, it only made it about halfway. Ethan quickly repeated the process that had worked before, digging three more explosive daggers in. “Explosion incoming!” he called, jumping away and seeing Savilar duck under water. A burst of flame and chunks of monster erupted outward, leaving a burnt and broken–but still attached–leg behind.

  When Savilar resurfaced, he moved on to the next leg, shaking his head in disappointment and frustration. Ethan doubted any of them expected the fight to be such a miserable slog. Still, they were Hunters, and they kept working. Ethan moved on to the second leg, hating that the creature had six more to rely on, but knowing they didn’t have a better plan at this stage.

  With more than enough stacks of [Internal Combustion] raging through the crab, he switched to [Hydra’s Reflection] for help in the slow process of hacking through the thick, ropey sinew of the leg. It still took several minutes, but eventually he was able to repeat the trick of combining Last Resort with a failed Obliterate, followed by more explosive daggers.

  Again he and Savilar fell back as the explosion rang out, echoing across the lake. It was slow, tedious, miserable, work, but the job was getting done. Five legs to go, he thought. Presumably once the creature fell, it would be much easier to finally put it down. They could cripple the claws and attack the currently out of reach face with abandon, but he put those thoughts aside to focus on the next leg in line.

  Then the battle changed again, as Selina’s shield–and the woman herself–finally collapsed. Ethan barely noticed the light dying off to his left, but the sound of the enormous claw crashing into an unprotected Toby, shattering him like glass, was impossible to miss. Valanor screamed in pain and loss as it happened, his warhammer disappearing as his Obsidian Affinity was temporarily lost with his Familiar.

  “Shit!” Savilar said, struggling to move to the shore to assist the knight. He wasn’t close to quick enough, as the smaller right claw finally succeeded in catching Valanor. It raised him in a crushing grip, high into the air. Ethan’s mind raced, trying to think of how to help, before swapping to layering on even more charges of [Internal Combustion], sensing the next few minutes would be full of desperate plays.

  The cancrorum had its own surprises though, and as it bellowed something like a victory cry, the shell on its back began to crack open–right where Ethan has seen the unknown weak spots. The creature was clearly injured, three of its legs brutalized, and countless arrows stuck in its horrific face, and between the joints of its claws. Yet it hadn’t enraged until this moment–until it clearly had the advantage. Now it brought out its trump card.

  Cara dove off the raised platform as it exploded out from under her. Dense blasts of water and earth fired from what looked like small cannons on the crab’s back. Ethan had to give up his attack and rift to the unconscious Selina when she was likewise attacked a moment later. Only the strength brought by his late Dawn rank body was enough to allow him to grab the large woman by the belt, before leaping blindly.

  The blasts of water kept coming, and he hastily threw the Rune Mage over his shoulder before sprinting to the other side of the hill. He left a spectral Deevee to watch over her, hoping she would be alright as he hurried back to the battle. It was absolute chaos.

  Cara was sprinting and firing arrows at the same time, the cannons largely focused on her, and leaving the hillside covered in holes from every miss. Despite essentially firing mud, the cannons left the landscape looking like it was ravaged by claymore mines. Valanor was practically forgotten in the beast’s claw, as it simultaneously tried to target the illusive archer, while swinging its larger, free arm at Savilar.

  The Rift Hunter wasn’t achieving much, given his weapons couldn’t reach the tall crab, but at least he held its attention with the occasional blast of holy energy and sunbeam. Ethan raced forward, throwing a few more daggers at the crab to keep the stacks of [Internal Combustion] from falling off, and was grateful to see the whole monster was now glowing with a burning inner light. Next he ducked into a particularly deep hole left from one of the cannon blasts. Those new attacks were incredibly deadly, but also gave Ethan his first real chance.

  This had been a terrible battle for him. He’d been shot by his own team mate. Had his most powerful abilities fail him, and been relegated to hacking away mindlessly. His flashy, complicated abilities just didn’t work well against an opponent so naturally armored, and above his rank. The cannons changed that. Unlike the enormous claws the beast had relied on so far–which mainly tried to grip and catch–these new attacks were high, direct damage.

  Ethan grinned. Until recently it had been nearly impossible to drain his Mystic mana, his conjured weapons barely taking any, and stealth not being used frequently in combat. But now he had [Ghosts Among the Reeds], and they were about to change that.

  Three copies of Ethan suddenly appeared on top of the crab, each just standing blankly in front of the cannons. They were annihilated by the first blasts…and in turn, they exploded, reflecting that damage right back. Three more Ethans appeared, and a moment later there were three more blasts of powerful retributive damage, hammering into cannons.

  Ethan was only halfway through his mana pool when the first cannon collapsed, laying limp against the shell. There were a half dozen of the weapons, but Ethan had nothing to lose, and continued to summon his Ghosts. It took nine more sacrifices before the cannons all lay in ruins, but that was a price Ethan was more than willing to pay. Finally he used a rift to land right on top of the cancrorum’s shell, and made proper use of his abilities.

  He Obliterated every limp cannon, carving deeper and deeper into the monster as it roared and shook beneath him. As flashes of black Ruinous energy exploded in every direction, Ethan soon found himself burrowed several feet into the crab’s shell, the flesh glowing with embers around him. Finally he swapped back to Flare, just long enough to renew the burning affliction, then used another rift to appear by a waiting Deevee on the hill.

  “Sav, Cara, everything you’ve got! We need it to drop Valanor!” The cancrorum was a wreck. It swayed on its crippled legs, and had given up attacking with its larger, heavier claw, but it still clung to the knight. The other Hunters did as asked, Savilar and his sun Familiar blasting twin burning rays at the claw’s joint with pinpoint accuracy. Enhanced by Ethan’s fiery debuff, they were melting through the claw as arrow after arrow sunk deeply into the exposed sinew beneath.

  Finally the knight was dropped to the ground, and the Rift Hunter grabbed him, before immediately retreating up the hill as the crab staggered slowly forward. Ethan didn’t give it a chance to try anything more.

  “Heaven’s judgment and earth’s burning tears, be joined forever in a symphony of destruction!” The orange lightning bolt tore through the fog to crash into the Dusk rank monster, directly into the massive wound on its back. Its damage was not only multiplied by the many stacks of [Internal Combustion], but it in turn multiplied those stacks again. Perfect, as Ethan wasn’t planning to hold anything back.

  “Heaven’s judgment and earth’s burning tears, be joined forever in a symphony of destruction!” he chanted again, bringing another terrible bolt of fiery wrath. This time the crab collapsed to the wet ground, its whole body glowing like metal fresh from the forge. Another bolt crashed down a moment later, and an entire section of the monster exploded off, taking two legs with it.

  Finally, Ethan was spent. He’d used up every drop of Mystic and Flare mana he had. His shoulder ached from the arrow wound, and his body was covered in dozens of smaller cuts and slashes from the endless squids. He wanted to collapse, but he wasn’t done. He looked down at Last Resort’s hilt. Nine runes glowed back at him, more power than he’d ever seen it accumulate.

  In a flash he was standing before the cancrorum’s disturbing, alien face. Only a few of its many eyes looked back at him, and it lacked the strength to lift its colossal body. Ethan wasted no more time, both hands gripping the hilt of his sword as he channeled the last of his dwindling mana into a final move.

  “Assassinate,” he whispered in a cold voice, and the sword exploded from its sheath. He sliced at an angle, a wave of red and black destruction passing through the dying monster like an enormous cleaver. The many eyestocks went limp, as the two halves fell away from each other.

  Ethan stumbled back, only the surge of vitality from his ability keeping him on his feet. He turned to see Savilar walking up with a groaning Selina leaning on him heavily. Cara was there as well, and Valanor–despite losing a Familiar–was nearly unharmed, though rage and shame were clear in his eyes.

  The team was tired, injured, filthy, and uniformly disappointed by their performance, though still grateful the titanic monster was finally dead. Savilar looked from their prey, to his team.

  “So, what did we all do wrong?”