“You… you can talk.” Harvey stuttered.

  “Yes. So could my brethren, if you hadn’t murdered them before they completed their birth.” The elemental spat.

  They’re alive. He panicked. Wait, so what? So was everything else I killed.

  “Your kind attacked me first. They were watching me from the tunnel, and tried to trap me when I went inside.” Harvey defended himself.

  “And? The young one was mindless, simply afraid to find you wandering around our home.” The deep bass of his voice thrummed off the crystals nearby, its iron eyes somehow able to express emotion.

  “How do you know? Are you all part of some hive mind?” Harvey asked.

  “I do not know of what you speak, but I can sense his fear from a piece of him that covers your arm. Is that why you hunt us, destroyer? Your jealousy of our bodies brings you to wear our corpses as armor?” The elemental asked.

  What could he say? It sounded terrible, but he honestly couldn’t deny the point.

  “I…” he stammered, supremely uncomfortable for the first time in days. “I guess I would say it started as self-defense, but I kept going because your bodies are useful to the survival of my people.”

  “Hopefully, your desecration of our iron has done enough to protect your people, or they shall share your fate.” He condemned.

  “I’m sorry.” Harvey winced.

  “I do not care.” The elemental trailed, his arm making a grasping motion that tore a chunk of rock the size of a nightstand out of the wall and hurled it at him.

  Harvey expected an attack and used his Booster skill to leap to the side. His hand found the slipsack tied around his waist, and both hammer and shield appeared in his hands. A shotgun blast of stones ricocheted off his back, the lesser elementals joining their elder brother in an attempt at revenge.

  He was caught in the middle, not sure whether he should focus on the strongest foe first or blast through the ones guarding his escape. He could try to run back to town for reinforcements, but he doubted there were many people who could really help him in this fight. The only explanation for his enemies' sudden sentience was an evolution to F Grade, meaning he’d be leading a tyrant back to a town where the average level was only around level 13. Add on the fact that most swords and arrows were useless against them, and he’d only be creating collateral damage.

  You made your bed. Now it's time to sleep in it. He swore, dodging another massive stone. His armor was holding up well enough against the barrage, so he chose to deal with the F Grade first. He honestly didn’t know if he could kill it, but he might as well try while he was still close to full strength.

  He strafed around, placing the man between himself and his backup. When it was clear he was fast enough to dodge the stones, the elemental changed tactics. Harvey stumbled when the ground underneath his feet went soft, his left leg pushing against clay when he expected solid stone. The sudden change sent him sprawling to the floor, and his front sank over an inch before the stone went solid.

  He tried to push himself up, but it was like he was an essence crystal that the mountain wasn’t willing to let go. Straining his neck to find the elemental, he saw its arm hanging tired at its sides, the glow in its eyes noticeably dimmer. The torso lowered to the ground, each stone from the column supporting it finding an essence crystal to feed on.

  “Does that take a lot out of you?” Harvey gasped, straining to extricate himself from the rock.

  It didn’t respond, instead closing its eyes while the three G grades rushed over. His suit sounded like a car in a hailstorm, and not a single inch of his new armor was spared. Luckily, the inscribed portions were either sandwiched between him and the ground or a small target, so his weave wasn’t assaulted with the strange sensations of his skill.

  He moved into a pushup position and strained his muscles to the limit. It felt like trying to bench press a car, his armor shuddering violently as he struggled to rend himself free. His strength alone wasn’t enough, but a surge of essence sent to his Booster skill shooting out of his chest sent him popping free. He glanced down to see if any of the inky lines of his inscription had been broken, but was surprised to find them strangely resilient.

  Scrambling forward on his hands and knees, he reached his fallen weapons just as a fist pummeled him back into the ground. The impact expelled any air left in his lungs, and his head rang like a bell.

  Fangbreaker, you idiot!

  A glimmering shield of essence materialized on his back, stretching from his head to his hamstrings. It was exorbitant, but he didn’t know where the next hit would be coming from.

  An explosion of force told him he’d finished the shield just in time. Instead of scrambling up, he somersaulted ahead, pushing off to flip to his feet. He knew the elementals were somewhere behind him, so he took a spinning swing just in case one was nice enough to get in close.

  A cacophony of rocks grinding together rang out as his armor struck true, sending what was once an infused fist rocketing into the distance. It shattered a crystal when it met the wall, a firework of blue light flashing like lightning.

  It was a G grade, and Harvey wasted no time getting to work. He’d fought these beings every day, and had learned where a well-placed flamestrike could do the most damage. The iron protecting their cores had gotten stronger as they leveled, but so had his magical fire’s ability to devour the energy holding it all together. A sweeping swing at the hips knocked the torso free from its legs, and a Flamestrike to its neck ravaged the core hidden underneath. When that wasn’t enough, a third overhead swing was usually enough to finish the job.

  So far, Harvey hadn’t found his battles to be the cinematic back-and-forth trading of blows he’d come to expect from all the books and movies. Instead of chess, it was like a game of rock, paper, scissors. Find what works, and end things quickly.

  The F grade opened its eyes once more as the first of its brethren died, the lifeless core falling in a heap to the ground. Harvey had already bisected the second before it stood.

  “MONSTER!” It screamed, pointing at the ceiling high above.

  The second elemental lay defenseless on the floor, both arms destroyed at the shoulder. Harvey was prepared to finish the job when a deafening crack erupted above his head. A flash of blue light illuminated the ceiling, where a stone spike at least 8 feet across was falling towards his head.

  Abandoning his swing, he dove to the side, using Booster to propel him out of harm's way. It wasn’t graceful, and he tumbled in a heap as a new star was born. Dozens of crystals cracked, releasing their mind-flaying light in every direction. Shards of stone and crystal fell like rain, and the cave rumbled like it was on the verge of collapse.

  “NO!” The F grade screamed, a lifeless core flying out of the pile he’d expected to bury Harvey under. “No more of my brothers will die at your hands!”

  He threw the core at Harvey, the dice-sized gem bouncing off his arm. It wasn’t an attack, but a promise that it would be Harvey’s last. A promise the elemental intended to keep.

  The third G-grade elemental retreated to the mouth of the tunnel, blocking Harvey’s path to the surface. He didn’t trust himself escaping while the F-grade was alive anyway. Not if it could turn the stone to slurry or collapse the tunnel in on him.

  He was hurt, and his head spun from the deafening blasts. He could drink his health potion now, but he needed to save it until the last possible moment. He couldn’t afford to waste a single drop of healing in this fight.

  Adjusting his grip on the hammer, he raised the shield to cover his chest and marched towards the enraged man. His eyes were drained from ripping the stone from the ceiling, so he restrained himself from using any of his earth-shaping powers for the moment. They would finish this fight like men, in hand-to-hand combat.

  He avoided any explosive movements in case the elemental stole his footing again and opened the duel with a Flamestrike aimed at the swirling column carrying the torso. The metal man did nothing to block his attack, simply grinning as his legs got taken out from under him. Harvey was shocked to find the body not move an inch, the body simply levitating above the ground.

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  “My legs may not be finished yet, but I don’t need them to kill you.” He growled. A brutal fist shot at the side of Harvey’s head, but a Fangbreaker sprang up to meet it. It slowed the blow, but failed to stop it. Pushed to the side, he stepped to follow through and transition the momentum into a spinning swing aimed at the man’s side. It took a level of body control vastly better than his own, but he’d learned to use small blasts from the Booster skill to keep him on his feet.

  A resonant clang filled the air as the flat head of his warhammer struck true, a gout of flame splashing out between them. The elemental reflexively lowered its arm, pinning the hammer to its dented side. Unwilling to lose his weapon, Harvey covered the rim of his shield with Fangbreaker and punched the elemental's neck. Its head shook like a drum, but it refused to relinquish its hold on the hammer.

  Harvey desperately searched for some way to access the core, but it had been completely encased in its iron body. His usual strategy of carving a path to the heart and ending the fight quickly wasn’t possible with the F-grade versions.

  Harvey punched again and again, but the elemental didn’t budge. Without the flames eating through its essence, his attacks did almost nothing. In seconds, he’d blown through his remaining essence, and when he moved to punch without the help of Fangbreaker, the man used his free hand to catch the shield.

  With a wild roar, it lunged backwards, ripping through the leather bindings to pull both shield and hammer free. Harvey hadn’t expected the move and lost his grip, nearly faceplanting before a final burst of essence erupted from his chest, stopping him from being dragged away by the elemental.

  It looked at the tools it had stolen, gently tossing aside the shield crafted from its brother before grabbing each end of the warhammer and headbutting the handle. Harvey’s heart sank as the crack of shattered wood filled the air, his warhammer now noticeably shorter. Casting the halves towards opposite sides of the cavern, he glared at Harvey.

  “These are interesting concepts.” The elemental seethed. “We will have to see how we can incorporate them into our bodies when we move to destroy your home as you have ours!”

  Harvey gulped, the inside of his helmet slick with sweat. He was unarmed. Defenseless. He tried to run, but froze when the elemental pointed at the ground in front of him. His mind screamed at him to do something. Anything. But his body knew what his pride didn’t. He was a spent force, and there was no escaping this unless he could convince the elemental to let him go. The armor felt heavier with every breath, the air too thick to swallow as he began to beg for his life.

  “I’m sorry.” He sobbed. “Please. Please don’t kill me!”

  The stain resting above his heart burned, and he felt his willpower slowly burn to nothing. He couldn’t run. He couldn’t hide. The only way this cave didn’t become his grave was through a raging elemental in a grade of its own. Elena had told him not to come here. It was just like the first time he’d fought one above level 10, he’d swaggered into the darkness with a shiny new toy only to find himself outmatched. A health potion wasn’t enough to save him this time.

  “Don’t kill you? After all the lives you ended before they ever had a chance to begin! You’re a monster, and monsters deserve to die!” The elemental raged.

  “No! No, no, no, no, please. I’m not a monster. My name is Harvey…” he begged, dropping to his knees.

  “Harvey, my mind is less than a day old. Everything before that moment was a haze of emotion as my brethren and I struggled to complete our bodies. Do you want to know what we felt?” It asked. Harvey didn’t answer, knowing it was nothing good. His stain burned brighter as it consumed the last shred of hope left inside him, and he worried it would burst from its cocoon into the scar he knew rested on his soul all along. His vanity told him he’d rise above it. Wipe the stain clean and ascend to an imprinted legacy. But deep down, he knew…

  In the end, he would die a coward.

  “Fear. Despair. Confusion. Hate.” The metal man condemned. “All because of you, the monster we all knew was hunting us even before we had the minds to understand what that meant. Killing us for fun so he could make costumes from our corpses.”

  There was that word again. Monster. That’s what he felt like when Elena said he reminded her of Gary. Hearing her say that devastated him, and it took some time to realize that wasn’t what he was at all. He didn’t fight for himself. He fought for his friends, his family, and his freedom to choose for himself again after making a choice that left him alone in the forest with a single point in Willpower.

  He felt just like that, but unlike before, Julian wasn’t coming to save him. The world was closing in, suffocating him like a noose around his neck. He could feel the System’s might gathering just under his skin, waiting to immortalize the scar that would taint his soul just before he died.

  “You’re wrong.” Harvey gritted his teeth, struggling to wipe the tears from his eyes with his plated hands.

  “I’m wrong about you killing us? You admitted it yourself!” The elemental raved.

  “No, you’re wrong about why. It wasn’t for fun. It’s because we live in a world where only the strong survive, and the only way to get stronger is to kill. I’m sorry about your family, but I’m sorry for my family too. They have an Undead army coming straight for them, and the only one standing between them and a gruesome death is me.” Harvey bellowed.

  “That is no excuse!” It raved.

  “It’s not. It’s just a fact of life. It’s kill or be killed, and killing you gave me the strength and resources I need to kill the Undead. Now, instead of arguing about who’s right or wrong, let’s get back to finding out who dies and who lives to fight another day.” Harvey declared.

  Just like before, when the Moonshade Stalker crushed his aura, his decision to charge headfirst in the face of certain death instantly quited his stain. The crippling panic welling up inside him disappeared, and he felt like himself once more.

  He raised his fists in a boxer’s stance while walking up to the elemental. He had his wand, but could feel he only had a trickle of essence left in his body and needed to let the crystals surrounding them recharge him until he could take a decisive shot.

  Despite the rage in the metal man’s eyes, it was clear their exchange had left him almost drained of essence as well. With no magic at their disposal, they were left to fistfight like two drunk, angry men. Harvey had never thrown a real punch in his life, so he kept his body tight and held on while the elemental wore itself out. Caving in a chunk of the ceiling had eaten a lot, but an F-grade being had a lot more to waste than a level 20 G-grade.

  Fists and headbutts pounded him from every direction, leaving his brand-new plate armor dented and bloody. A particularly nasty punch to the side of his head curled the armor inward, slicing a wide gash open under his chin. Warm blood flowed down, staining them both red. His arms took the worst of the beating, blocking haymaker after haymaker as he felt his body greedily drink up the essence around them. Every time an iron fist met the inscribed breastplate, a shockwave radiated through his link and into his weave. Those inky veins had felt so ethereal just minutes ago, but they’d become all too real now.

  The elementals needed to touch the crystals to feed, allowing Harvey to gain the upper hand eventually. He let out a gurgling scream, blood leaking down his throat as he covered a gauntleted fist with a fangbreaker before sending a ruthless uppercut at the elemental’s chin. His head snapped back, and Harvey wasted no time retrieving the wand from his slipsack, sticking the end inside its mouth, and releasing a barrage of bolts.

  He didn’t know the anatomy of a sapient elemental, and had no idea if attacking from the inside would be any stronger than blasting the outside. He didn’t care. He blasted until the cave went dark, his body not having the essence to power the inscriptions covering his hands.

  In a last act of defiance, he jammed his wand down the elemental's throat and toppled on top of it, hoping his body weight would be enough to finish the job. He heard the wand snap, and a blast of power surged through the elemental's body.

  A mental nudge confirmed he’d actually done it. He’d killed an F grade being for the first time. He crashed to the ground again as the body disappeared in his slipsack. Crawling to his feet, he looked around nervously for the third G grade who had been guarding the door. He could barely see 3 feet in front of his face with only the steely glow of the cavern to guide him. When nothing came, he removed the helmet that was still stabbing into his skin and traded it for the last health potion in his Slipsack. The bruised and bleeding wounds all over his body were mainly replaced with healthy flesh, only the worst of them still showing signs of problems deeper under the skin.

  He could worry about that later.

  For now, he crept around the edge of the cave, eventually finding the toppled and bloody minecart that marked the tracks out of the tunnel. The third elemental was nowhere to be seen, and Harvey thanked his lucky stars that it was too dumb to realize he was in no shape to fight it. He assumed it was hiding, terrified of whoever had been strong enough to kill its evolved brother.

  That worked fine for him.

  It had been less than half an hour when a battered and dented Harvey emerged from the tunnel, and he wasted no time barreling into the general store. Most of Veils End was busy eating around the bonfire or back in their homes, so he didn’t have to wait before standing at the mirror.

  He bought one each of an Endurance and Essence potion and tipped them down his throat. He was in no condition to fight, but couldn’t afford to be completely dry. His weave shuddered like pipes about to burst, and mind-melting pain ravaged his entire body. The normally refreshing feeling of pure, lightning-flavored essence replenishing his exhausted body instead felt like being struck by a bolt of actual lightning.

  He worried he’d done lasting damage to himself, but pushed to finish his mission. Moving to the Earth tab, he searched for an explosive. Surprisingly, he found one. John’s shop sold sticks of dynamite for 7,000 merit a piece, and Harvey unhesitatingly bought two. It was all he could afford at the moment, and if they weren’t enough, he’d convince the town to help him buy more.

  Staggering back to the tunnel, he grabbed a pickaxe and walked around 50 feet in. Even after drinking the essence potion, his weave wouldn’t let him charge his gauntlets, so he was working in the dark. Swinging the pickaxe at the wall, he created two holes, one on each side, where he stuck the sticks of dynamite. He kept a book of matches they’d found in the forge in his slipsack, and he used one to light both fuses before running like hell. Waiting outside the tunnel, a loud boom was followed by the sound he was looking for.

  The tunnel collapsed.

  A few veilstriders rushed over at the commotion, but he just waved them off. He hated to lose access to the mine, but couldn’t afford to leave a back door into Veils End open when he knew there was an angry army inside.

  Unable to keep his eyes open a second longer, he stumbled inside, peeled off the mess of dented metal plastered to his skin, and collapsed into his sleeping bag. Staring at the pile of dented metal beside him, the elemental’s accusation of wearing their corpses echoed in his mind.

  I really should have gone to bed. He thought, just as the sweet release of sleep washed over him.