Skill Hunter -Kill Monsters, Acquire Skills, Ascend to the Highest Rank!

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One after another, the monsters charged Ike's castle. Like waves washing over the beach, they slammed into Ike and his defenses. He and the other defenders fought in waves to meet the monsters. Time and time again, the monsters rallied and rushed the walls. Time and time again, Ike and his men fought them back. Days ground by. Weeks. Months. Ike's hair grew long. If not for his self-cleaning skill, he would have grown filthy as well. There was no time for anything but battle. As the fights grew more pitched, the gaps between battles grew shorter. They had long since given up on having one team take a round. Now, all rounds were all-hands-on-deck. When the fights slowed, individuals could sneak off to absorb mana and recover, but never for long enough. Never for full mana. Just enough to stave off inevitable death, and back into the grind.

Rufus' injured man had long since healed enough to join the rotation, but the rest of them had suffered injuries along the way. Whenever Ike was on the field, he did all he could to absorb the worst of the damage. With his Body Reforging Art, he could heal far faster than anyone else, so it was best for him to get injured rather than anyone else. But even he couldn't keep everyone safe. Wisp, Mag, Scar and Rufus, all of them sustained injuries that put them out for hours, days, even weeks at a time. Still, they got back up and kept fighting. No one wanted to lose. No one was willing to give up. Giving up meant death. There was only one way through this—to all pull together and fight as one. Rufus didn't have the energy to complain, and Scar didn't have the time to kick up a fuss. There was no time for anyone to do anything but fight. In the rare seconds they had to rest, they focused all their energy on collecting more mana and healing their wounds so they could get back into battle. Their whole lives became nothing but ash, fire, monsters, and fighting.

There was no end. No future. They would overcome, or die here.

The fight slowed. Ike retreated, wiping ash and blood off his face. He hopped up the wall, landing on the coarse stone edges that stood out just a tiny bit from the rest of the wall. He made it to the battlements and paused, looking out at the forest.

Waves of monsters approached his castle. Wisp and the Old Guard had worked hard to create traps and funnels that pointed them all toward the castle's main gate, but that simply meant that overwhelming amounts of monsters all arrived at the same place. By now, each individual monster was difficult to kill. Even all their traps and debuffs did nothing about that. Looking at the endless waves, his heart ached. Could they defeat all of them? Was it even possible?

Ike shook his head. No. That's how we lose. It isn't a question—it can't be a question. "Is it possible to win?" doesn't matter. All that matters is that we're going to win. We're going to survive, and that's that.

Taking a deep breath to settle himself, he headed back into the castle's undercroft, where thicker mana awaited him. All the way down to the bottom, where the thickest mana flowed in and spiderweb covered the centipedes' crawlhole. Ike sat there, exhausted, sucking in the mana—then paused. He turned, slowly, gazing into the dark.

"What's wrong?" Shawn asked.

"Nothing's wrong. I just had an idea, that's all," Ike said.

"A good idea, or a bad one?"

"Depends on whether I pull it off or not," Ike replied. He walked to the crawlhole and gently pulled the spiderweb free.

"Uh… are you sure about this?" Shawn asked, tensing and leaning away from Ike's shoulder.

"Nope." It was just his best idea under the certain circumstances. If he never tried, he—no, they'd all stay stuck in this shitty situation. But if he took a shot, and it paid off…

Ike reached to his shoulder and set Shawn down. "You stay here. Tell Wisp I did this on my own if she comes running. And if I don't come back, tell 'em I was a dumbass who made dumbass decisions."

"I was going to do that whether you told me to or not," Shawn assured him. He sat down and crossed his arms, shaking his head at Ike. Still, he didn't stop Ike. He knew as well as anyone that they weren't in a good situation. It was time to try some crazy ideas. Ike might be rushing to his death, but it was better than sitting in the same situation forever, with no end but a slow, inevitable grind to death in sight.

Ike rushed into the darkness. Back into the tunnels he'd fled, not so long ago, and yet an eternity ago. He pulled in his aether, running in complete silence, eliminating any sign of his passing. Down, down, down, deep into the tunnels. Beyond the bottom of the pit that had held the momma. Deeper. Into the heart of the nest.

At last, Ike stopped. He was deep in the earth, as deep as he'd gone. Tunnels curved off in every direction, vanishing into darkness all around him. He exuded aether all around him, deliberately announcing his location to the centipedes. As loud as possible, he blasted his aether in all directions. And then he waited.

Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. From every tunnel echoed the sound of centipede claws, scratching on stone. Ike waited. Closer. Until pale bodies loomed out of the dark. Until the dark eyes reflected the faint light Ike had conjured. Only then did he run, sprinting through the tunnels with the centipedes at his heels. The centipedes chased after him, charging through the dark. Their feet rattled over the stone. With every passing second, the steps grew louder and more numerous. Four or five centipedes had chased him to begin with. Almost immediately, that number doubled, then tripled. Ike stopped counting, but he never reined his mana in. More and more and more centipedes chased after him, an uncountable number. All the centipedes he could summon, all the ones within scenting range of his aether, all chased after him. They crawled over one another in their eagerness to reach Ike, hissing and scratching at one another. Ike ran on, kiting them behind him in one big mess. Occasionally, centipedes darted at him from above, or from holes to the left and right. Whenever he sensed one coming, Ike surged his speed and darted out of the centipedes' reach. They couldn't keep up with his top speed. He couldn't keep top speed up forever, but as long as he succeeded the first dodge, he could keep ahead of the centipedes fine.

"Come on. Follow me! I'll burn you all to dust!" Ike cheered, laughing as he ran. He ran for the exit hole, fleeing with all his might.