Grey Skill 19

We were on the sixth platform, and the monsters were surging constantly from the void, manifesting two or three at a time.

I counted in my head as I cut them down, moving constantly so as to try and protect her from every direction. Her arrows picked off some just as they formed, but any who closed in on us, she left to me.

My blade carved through a slashing arm, severing it at the elbow, then reversed direction and bit deep into the monster’s boney hip. With my free hand, I pulled Ellie away from the scything claws of a four-armed horror that was skittering up from behind. With a forward kick, I sent it flying off into the void, where it vanished, reabsorbed by the darkness that birthed it.

Vaulting over Ellie, I came down blade first, bisecting a headless creature from shoulder to hip. Two closed in on me at once, one lunging at my legs while the other leapt into the air, pushing off a skeletal, whip-like tail. Focusing aether into my fist, I sidestepped the low attack as I caught the flying creature on the tip of the aether blade. It’s body slid onto the blade effortlessly, and gnashing jaws closed around my throat as claws raked across the black scales of my armor.

A surge of aether from my core answered, reinforcing the armor. At the same time, I yanked my blade sideways, tearing a line through one monster’s chest as I released the aetheric blast. The second attacker vanished in a violet cone.