Something made a cracking noise. Tristan’s head swiveled to look at the entrance of the mine, “What was that?”

Conni groaned, getting back into a ready stance, “I don’t think its over.”

Tristan gritted his teeth, this was the first time he would have to face danger without a safety net. With the crazy miner Carl, he had Luke right beside him. When the water elementals were released, he had Siren. Today he even had Olfred of all people. He would not let that trend continue, it was time that he pulled his own weight. Or at least more than Olfred.

A skeletal black hand gripped the edge of the tunnel, the stone around its fingers did not crack. That was a good sign, it meant that he elemental was less than tier five. He wanted to say lower than Luke, but he had no idea what the hell Luke was.

The skeleton exited the mine, then another, and another. In total four stepped out. Tristans eyes widened, he was expecting one, they could dog pile one. The only fighters left were Olfred and his team, Conni, and if you stretched the definition of fighter, Tristan. Chase was still sleeping along with most everyone else. Sun Set was awake, but her hands were covered in what looked like early stage necrosis.

So it was six on four, though the elementals still had the kern advantage. Tristan gripped his sword breaker, all he had to do was stab the heart, that was its weak spot. The only weak spot. It was not as if having ones heart be vulnerable to knives was a real weakness, it was normal.

Conni stepped into a fencers stance, “Olfred, you take the two on the right, Tristan and I will take the two on the left. Help us as soon as you finish yours off.”

If Conni was sure that they could take the elementals, then they were most likely tier three. There was a brief pause as the elementals inspected their surroundings, while the miners inspected them. Then Conni dashed forward like a snake. The attempt on the elemental’s heart was predicated on the fact that it saw with eyes. These elementals were blind only seen the world through the movement of dark essence. Conni’s shadow betrayed him, causing him to miss his surprise attack.

Tristan copied Conni, darting at the elemental. He was not as graceful, but the elementals bones were not able to shunt his blade aside like Conni’s artifact. The sword breaker cleanly cut the forearm off at a seventy degree angle. At first Tristan was elated, he had injured an elemental on purpose. Then it stabbed him in the arm with its freshly sharpened bones.

Tristan shouted in pain. It actually hurt a lot less than he thought it would. He supposed that was the shock or adrenaline kicking in. Whatever it was, he did not want it to happen again. With the arm extended Tristan had a direct path to the rib cage. He slashed down the ribs on its left side.

The edge of his knife was only an inch from the heart when the elemental’s free hand caught his wrist. It squeezed, grinding his bones together. Tristan was suddenly glad that shadow essence had a much less dramatic effect on strength than earth essence. He would have a missing hand, instead of a broken hand.

The elemental used the bone wedged into his arm and the grip on his wrist to throw Tristan. He was not small, but he also was not very heavy. That allowed him to get some good airtime, before crashing and rolling along the ground. It was only a distance of ten feet, but it hurt like it was much farther.

The distance allowed Tristan to see how far away help was. Conni was occupied, but he was slowly winning. He was to far away, he was wearing down the bones before cutting them off. Tristan turned his attention to Olfred. His team was getting destroyed. The shovels and pick axes were not designed to handle the rigidity of the elemental’s bones. Without a way to target the heart, the elemental could basically do whatever it wanted with the group. Tristan was occupied and could not slice off the legs for them.

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So he was on his own. Tristan looked at himself and realized how hurt he was. This was the most injured he had ever been, even the injuries from the grand elder were less dangerous. Fortunately he had grown, he had gotten used to his muscles hurting bones being bruised and that had trained his focus. He looked at his hands and tightened the working one on his knife. Laboriously he regained his feet and got ready to charge right back at his elemental.

That was until he saw something awful. The essence reservoir in his dagger had turned clear like glass. It would not cut through anything without essence. How did it run out, he had used it more testing it on tree branches when coming back from the alchemist than he had today. There was only one real possibility.

What if the black fog sapped essence as opposed to putting people to sleep. When someone was low on essence they got tired, sleeping was the best way to restock on essence after all. Normally that would not effect tools, but an essence reservoir was literally designed to have essence siphoned from it.

Tristan took a deep breath, Hadrid said that he could refill it. He had never used his essence for anything. There were no metal artifacts around to practice on. He tried wishing his metal essence into his knife, and got nothing. The dark elemental was coming, he had to come up with an alternative.

Essence was in the blood, right. Well he was covered in his own blood right now. In desperation, Tristan shoved the hilt of his knife into the hole in his arm. This time it hurt, his broken wrist hurt, holding the knife, his arm hurt, his bones hurt. Bones? There was a feeling of something being drained from him. His bones felt like something was constricting them, like a sponge being squeezed. Tristan had no idea what bones had to do with blood, but he did not care.

The elemental was here. Unlike a person who would taunt their weakened enemy, the elemental simply stabbed the kneeling Tristan. Tristan however was not going to have any of this. He swiped his blade through the femurs, which were currently at eye level. Gravity took hold of the elemental, sending it to the ground.

Tristan did not waste the opportunity, he lunged forward tackling the still falling elemental. He felt something in his legs give, but it was now or never. Luke had told him it was stupid to grapple a significantly stronger foe. Well Luke should have gotten him something longer than a knife then. The elemental grabbed Tristan by the face, squeezing hard enough to cut Tristans cheeks on his own teeth.

He felt something in his jaw crack but the elemental had grabbed the wrong thing. It should hav grabbed his wrist. Tristan shoved the knife through its rib cage. The reservoir was barely glowing, and the dark essence in the heart seemed to eat away at the reserves. Tristan did not care, he just wanted to live. The blade punched through the heart and into the dirt. The elemental dissolved into an inky smoke, leaving Tristan face down in the dirt. Dirt had never felt so comfortable.

Someone yelled in pain. Tristan tried to push the voice away, he was to tired right now. However he recognized the voice, it was Conni. He could count the people who cared about him without entering the double digits. Conni was one of them. Tristan rolled over to see a one armed elemental, wielding its other arm like a club.

It was an odd sight, but the extra range it gave the elemental was devastating for Conni. The elemental was already stronger and more resilient than him, now that it had a force multiplier, Conni would die as soon as he got hit.

Tristan struggled to his feet, after he beat his elemental, the pain hit him. It was way worse than his meeting with Sai. He hurt in places that did not make sense, why did his shins hurt, it felt like he broke a bone, but he was not sure how. The next issue was the knife, it was all but out of essence. Well more blood should fix that.

Tristan reversed the knife and shoved the faintly silver marble into his mouth. It was way better than his arms, and all the cuts inside filled his mouth with blood The tightness returned, and with it came oppressive tiredness. He just wanted to sleep. The edges of his vision darkened and he wondered if this was how Chase felt before he collapsed.

If there were observers, they would have witnessed an odd sight. A sixteen year old limping across a battle field, covered in dust and blood, while sucking on the hilt of a knife like a lollipop. His threat was so low that the elemental did not even notice him. The dark essence reeked of death after all.

Tristan pulled the knife out of his mouth. About halfway there, the tightness on his bones had reached a climax. His body had no more metal essence to give, but it was enough to stab a single elemental. He shoved his blade through the back of the ignorant skeleton. In a daze, he watched it collapse.

Well, he had done enough. Tristan decided it was probably Ok to follow it to the ground. He deserved a nap.