He was tired. Erik couldn't remember the last time he was tired like this. One of the perks of physical enhancement was that fatigue couldn't touch you until you dropped it. Which meant some horrible things for him because Erik was definitely tired. This whole series of battles had been too much, and he could feel his reserves beginning to run dry.

Honestly, Erik was surprised he hadn't been the first to drop. Lily had already run out, though she had done so by using all her shroud up at once for one massive attack. Cat might be next, but he hadn't heard a peep out of her since she had started holding her own tunnel. Then again, this type of fight fed into her abilities perfectly. Lots of enemies that are weaker than her, that her specters could stand up to one on one.

No, Erik was the one that was out of his depth. Which sucked. He hated feeling incompetent more than anything. But Erik was great at three things, single combat, wide area control, and healing. He could manage in a fight against multiple opponents, but the best he could do was stall. Things like Freewalking and his restraint mnemonics let him keep the horde off and slow them down, but all his big damaging attacks were single target.

That's why he and Caeden had been holding a tunnel together. Caeden had little crowd control but tons of damage of all kinds. Close-up, area effect, he could do it all to some degree. Erik held them down and left Caeden to finish them off while he dealt with the stragglers that came his way. It worked perfectly.

Yet another reason that Erik left the planning to the team's brains. Caeden and Lily knew how to direct all of them to get the job done. But they weren't gods. Their plans had gaps where they didn't know enough or had simply messed up. Like now. They had no way of knowing that the Heartstone would direct the Crystal Moles to make tunnels, and all of them had forgotten about the original tunnel when new ones started popping up.

Not that Erik blamed them. Not at all. Caeden had saved Erik's life several times, which was saying something because Erik's life was threatened constantly. Normally he worked that out himself, but a couple of times, it had come around to other people to help him out, and ever since they met, that person had been Caeden. Now, it was looking like they may have stepped into a bit of a mess.

Honestly, Caeden was the only person here that could get out. Erik's danger sense was honed to a fine edge, perfectly tuned. He knew when he was close to death. More than that, he'd started to get a sense for when other people were under the shadow of the grim reaper. The second that the Heartstone sent out that pulse, Erik felt his life expectancy plummet. The chances of him getting out of this were not great.

The same was true for Cat and Lily. No doubt, they were better off than him. Cat's army was an amazing wall against hordes of enemies, and Lily's intangible Cloud formshift would let her escape most monsters. Nevertheless, both of them were in the same boat as him. They either all got out together or not at all.

The same was not true for Caeden. Erik could feel it in his soul. Resonating through his aura. His Physical Enhancement formshift and mnemonics granted him the speed and power to run away. If it really came down to it, Caeden could have just left. None of the monsters would have been able to pin him down if he wanted to run, and he could have beaten his way through whatever blocked his path. Erik didn't have the endurance to manage it, Cat would be overwhelmed alone, and Lily would be caught out by the Ash Reapers. None of them could have truly run away. They were stuck together.

Erik liked his friends. He liked to think that if push came to shove, he would put his life on the line for them. He wanted to believe that he would stand in front of certain death for them. But he wasn't sure. So much of his life was spent barely surviving every day from the absurdity of misfortune that had dictated his existence. It had come to the point where he could feel danger on a fundamental level. If it ever came time to stand in front of his team and protect them, he would know if he would die.

In the quiet moments, in the dark of his most fearful thought, he wondered if he could do it. He wondered if he'd just run away. He knew his friends all thought he was reckless, cavalier with his life. That was categorically untrue. His attitude came from constantly being perfectly aware of how much danger he was in. he could mess around and goof off because he was always, always conscious of how close he was to death.

None of them understood just how powerful his defensive sense was. They understood on some level that he could sense attacks coming his way. That was only the beginning. He could feel everything around him, understand how likely it was to harm him, and even glimpse the best way out of danger. His aura was refined to a preternatural level that bordered on future sight.

Every time a light almost fell on his head, or he almost choked on a meal, or he tripped over nothing, it wasn't carelessness. It was because he knew he was taking the path of less danger. His whole existence was a calculated risk to avoid death. Letting that light almost hit him meant he didn't get stabbed in the foot from glass that he would have stepped on had he dodged. Choking meant he didn't get food poisoning, though he was never sure how that one worked. Tripping meant someone wouldn't challenge him to a dangerous duel two weeks later.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

So the idea of stepping up to save his friends when death was on the table, or just sticking around when running would be safer, was anathema to his whole life. He met Caeden, went through the things he did, because the voice in the back of his head kept telling him that next to Caeden was the safest place he could ever be.

That thought had proven true. Caeden was the truest friend Erik had ever known. Just in all the work he had gone through on Lily's behalf, Erik could see his dedication and care. Right now, Caeden was fighting to keep the rest of them alive, whether he knew it or not. He could run, and Erik had no doubt the thought had never even crossed his mind. It was just the kind of man he was.

It was that selfless drive that made Erik do something as stupid as try to hold this tunnel alone. No matter how much he let survival dictate his life, Erik couldn't just stand by and watch Caeden push so hard without putting himself on the line, even if to a much lesser degree.

Ultimately, Erik lying about being able to hold the tunnel didn't change much about what was going to happen. He and Lily were most likely going to die. In his expert opinion, they had about a one in four shot at living through this. Cat was closer to one in three. Caeden was going to live. The number of times Erik had felt a real threat to his life numbered in the single digits. The brawny ethersmith was just too durable.

Which all led back to now, this moment as he rode the edge. It was oddly comforting and familiar to be back down in the dirt, inches from death. The last six months had been interesting; as Erik's understanding and control grew, his odds got better. The constant looming threat of death eased back a bit. There were even a rare few moments where Erik might have said he felt safe.

Now, every wobbling mass of Black Pudding, every near miss with the coils of a Python, and every flickering and poison-soaked tongue of a Dragonling Newt was another moment he stole from death. It was a familiar dance, and Erik knew the steps like he had been doing it his whole life.

Because he had.

Then he ran out of borrowed moments. Erik misstepped a dodge, reached for Stitch to pull and correct the gap formed from his tired mistake and realized he didn't have enough. The last bit of Stitch he had was left barely maintaining his infusion. In a small moment of indecision about whether to give up even that tiny bit, a Rockfang Wolf leapt forward. Erik knew it was coming. He knew before the Wolf even started to move.

There was nothing he could do. His shroud was tapped, barely keeping him upright. He was covered in nicks and scrapes, little hits that he didn't have the spare shroud to recover. Damage that showed how many times he had avoided this exact situation by a sliver. Not this time.

His thoughts slipped into that strange place of abstract disinterest they went to whenever Erik knew he was going to die. It had happened a dozen times throughout his life. The only reason he was alive to remember was because someone else had saved him. Now, as his mind lost all connection to his body and he stopped caring about the stony teeth heading right for his overextended left shin, Erik was wondering if this was the time no one made it.

Monster hoard, list item number 8. Pretty high on the list, all things considered. Honestly, no way was I ever going to get number one. Convincing that many girls to spend the night with me all at once is just unrealistic. Still would have been a damn good way to go.

His thoughts abstracted as the teeth closed down, swishing through soft flesh before cracking into bone. There was no resistance to those jaws. Erik was completely out of shroud. He was no different than the average human. Once it had a grip, Erik watched, as if time had slowed down to let him truly experience it, as the Wolf ripped its head side to side, savaging his partially severed leg until it disconnected in those fangs entirely. Erik was officially down one leg.

Lips warping into a grin, he started to laugh.

“Hahahahhahahahahahaahahahahahaha.”

Thick gouts of blood shot from the severed stump to splash on the face of his savager. The Wolf paid his bloody discharge no mind, focused entirely on treating his leg as an impromptu chew toy.

Erik thought that was hilarious. "HAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHA!"

His laughter spiraled out of control; he could barely breathe. His sides and face ached from the force of his laughter. Not to be left out, other monsters joined in on the fun. A Newt stabbed at his guts with its spiny tail, thrusting in deep. A Beetle scissored into his shoulder, taking a chunk of flesh with it.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA-" Erik's laughter grew more hysterical, more unhinged, until suddenly it stopped. Erik wasn't sure why. He just suddenly didn't feel like laughing anymore. He still found all this rather funny. After everything he'd survived, this was how he died. Under a mountain formed from the corpse of one of the largest monsters Erik had ever heard of, fighting to make sure that the monster stayed dead.

That was badass! Of all the ways to go, that had to be a good one. No, he stopped laughing because something inside him twitched and skittered in a way that was both familiar and unfamiliar in equal measure. Not uncomfortable, but different and interesting. Honestly, he wished he had longer to figure out what it was. Too bad the monsters were likely unwilling to humor his curiosity. Oh well. Erik let the sensation flow through him, closing his eyes and waiting for the end. I wonder what it's like?

Then his body exploded.

Thick, massive bands of white as wide as his torso flooded out from every angle, slamming every monster nearby into the walls as Erik's body began to hover, suspended in a ball of surging and pulsing Stitch. Two things of grave and terrible importance happened at once.

First, Erik lost the one thing he valued most in his entire life. His aura vanished, and he was blind to the dangers of the world for the first time he could remember. Blind, overwhelming terror grabbed hold and shoved his thoughts into mindless panic. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. Imminent death had been less terrifying.

In the same moment, Erik heard the single most beautiful voice he had ever heard whisper in his ear.

"Oh dear me. Master, what have you gotten yourself into?"