Elijah leaped high into the air, kicking off of Cloud Step and slamming into one of the mosquito-riding trolls. His talons flashed out, infecting the troll with both Ethereal Sepsis and Spreading Plague, but that was only a secondary goal. Rather, his intention was to kill the mosquito.

After all, trolls might be capable of regenerating from just about any damage, but their mounts certainly were not. Elijah severed the thing’s wings, pretending it was a wasp, then used it as another springboard. He hit a second mosquito harder than the last, and after infecting its rider, bit the insect’s head clean off.

Fortunately, his tastebuds were very different as a scourgedrake, so he wasn’t nearly as disgusted by the resulting taste of blood, ichor, and something extremely bitter. As the creature plummeted from the sky, Elijah used his second charge of Cloud Step to stay in the air, springing toward the next mosquito.

This one was part of a swarm of more than a dozen.

Elijah hit the center of their wedge formation like a spiny, reptilian missile, but this time, he didn’t infect the troll. Rather, he lashed out with his scorpion-like tail, impaling the insect and spreading his afflictions. The infections leaped from one creature to another, but Elijah wasn’t finished.

Instead of moving on, he shifted into his human form and cast Nature’s Claim. As he did so, the trolls filled the air with javelins, though Elijah was far too quick to let any hit him. Even without Shape of the Master improving his reaction speeds, he had many other buffs that picked up the slack. The projectiles seemed to move in slow motion, and Elijah dodged them with practiced ease.

Meanwhile, mushrooms burst from the backs of trolls and insects alike, sending a cloud of spores misting into the air. The infected creatures plummeted, hitting the charging troll footsoldiers.

Even as Elijah leaped from one buzzing mount to another, he used his dual casting abilities to continuously infect the trolls and insects with Nature’s Claim while channeling Eternal Plague. Thousands of swarming gnats already filled the air, and Elijah’s spell added more with every passing second.

He barely even needed to concentrate on it. Instead, most of his thoughts remained on fighting hand-to-hand. His scythe arced out, severing wings and limbs alike as his swarming gnats added to the chaos by inflicting dozens of instances of their afflictions. The weaker trolls – and the other creatures that came with such an army – succumbed within a few minutes, but the stronger among them managed to remain upright.

But Elijah wasn’t worried about their persistence. Rather, he concentrated on the task at hand, which centered on ridding the cavern of the trolls’ airborne presence. Aside from the Sorcerers and Rangers, he was the only one who could deal with them, and he took his responsibility seriously.

There were hundreds of the things, and by the time he managed to dismount or kill the last of them, he was forced to use the last charge of Cloud Step before descending among the ground-bound forces.

He did so in the Shape of the Master, hitting with a roll that he turned into an attack that very nearly cut a troll apart at the waist. Elijah danced among thousands of trolls, entirely unscathed. If in his human form, his adversaries looked like they moved in slow motion, then with the benefit of Shape of the Master, they were like statues.

All except a few, at least.

Those were the dangerous ones, as evidenced by their higher-quality armor and glistening, blood-red weapons. They moved with the grace of heightened dexterity, and if Elijah wasn’t careful, he could easily find himself on the wrong end of their attacks.

He leaped, twisting in place to avoid an arc of blood-red ethera. It hit a nearby stalagmite, sheering through it with ease. Elijah was already moving, his scythe slicing through every enemy within range. However, he didn’t miss the author of that attack – a comparatively slimmer troll armed with a pair of shortswords.

It bore down on Elijah, practically glistening with ethera. With every step, it moved a little quicker than before, and it was no mystery why. In the distance, Elijah saw nearly a hundred red-robed blood priests, each one with their hands thrust toward the cavern’s ceiling. Ethera swirled around them, flowing into the nearby trolls.

But not to all of them.

Rather, it only affected the strongest among their army, filling them with inflated attributes and enhanced reflexes. If Elijah hadn’t taken Heart of the Tempest, he might have been overmatched.

As it was, he was a little faster than the enhanced trolls. Not enough to ensure his safety, but more than enough to give him an advantage. Having experienced similar battles a half dozen other times, Elijah darted forward, blocking the shortsword-wielding troll’s flurry of attacks.

Once, he’d heard that a man trained with a quarterstaff was worth five men with swords, and back then, he’d doubted the truth of that statement. However, now that Elijah had become a veteran of staff-fighting, he could attest to the veracity of the claim. He used a scythe, but mostly the same way he would have wielded a staff. So, he had no issues fending off the troll’s blows. Then, he saw an opening and hacked through its knee.

Even as it tipped over, Elijah buried his blade in its neck.

He knew it wasn’t enough to finish the creature off. Nothing short of hacking it to pieces would accomplish that feat. But it did put it temporarily out of the battle so Elijah could move on to his secondary objective – killing the blood priests.

He didn’t know if they were Tacticians or Sorcerers – or some other archetype – but what was obvious was that if they weren’t killed, the rest of his army wouldn’t stand a chance. Elijah’s primary goal was to even the odds, and in service of that objective, he dashed through the battle.

Trolls attempted to impale him with long spears. They tried to slice him in half with huge axes and greastswords. They even threw more javelins at him. But Shape of the Master was nothing if not perfectly suited to dodging attacks. Not only did it come with a significant increase in his dexterity attribute, as well as a buff that nearly doubled the speed of his reactions, but it was also capable of moving nearly bonelessly. That sinuous nature allowed him to contort his body in a wide variety of positions, which in turn gave him the ability to avoid a wider range of attacks.

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By the time he reached his targets, he’d already built a hundred charges of Heart of Fire. He opened his mouth, and some intrepid blood priest recognized the incoming danger. It raised a red shield just in time to intercept Elijah’s Incinerate.

Fire, dense and hot, erupted from his mouth, bathing the shield in flame. Heat billowed in every direction, so intense that nearby trolls instantly collapsed, their skin peeling away like dry strips of parchment. The shield only delayed the flames for a split second before it shattered into a million pieces that quickly dissipated into atmospheric ethera.

And then, the blood priests died.

The first few were turned to ash in less than a second. The next rank lasted a few moments more. The third and fourth, slightly longer. On and on it went until the final line of blood priests managed to hold on for an entire five seconds. That short time likely felt like much, much longer, though. By their screams, which rose above even the roar of Incinerate, it was an incredibly painful way to die.

By the time the fires petered out, there was nothing left but a few charred bones and piles of ash. The latter swirled with the wind of convection, scattering across the cavern.

Elijah could only watch for a split second before he was forced into another roll. A troll’s blade scarcely missed him, but the time for Shape of the Master was done. Now that the true threats were gone, Elijah could switch tactics to something more effective.

Once again, he initiated a shift into the scourgedrake. The transformation completed just as he came to his feet. He sprinted forward, his fangs and claws lashing out and infecting as many trolls as possible with Spreading Blight as well as Ethereal Sepsis. At the same time, he summoned his Lurking Swarm, and a host of invisible spiders leaped upon other targets, infecting the trolls with their own afflictions.

The combination added to the ongoing effects of Eternal Plague, which should have been enough to fell armies. However, trolls, even without the benefit of their blood priests, were made of sterner stuff than that. Elijah had long since learned that his afflictions weren’t enough to finish the creatures off.

But they did slow the trolls down, which was the point.

In the distance, the sound of battle cries filled the air as Sadie led the rest of the army into the fight. Vaguely, Elijah saw the varied tactics. The guild adventurers were the most chaotic, attacking in groups of five or six, while Ironshore’s soldiers were the most disciplined. The latter fought in strict formations that took advantage of their high-quality equipment and hid their comparatively lower levels.

Meanwhile, those from Argos and Svetogorsk fell somewhere in between. All were effective, though that was likely as much because Elijah had softened the trolls’ defenses, occupying their immense regeneration with his varied afflictions, as because the army was that powerful.

There were standouts, though. The elves fought with precision and discipline, though they tended to eschew active abilities. A result of spending years training without gaining levels back on their home world. Ivin was the star of that show – not surprising, given his high level. Elijah put him at close to level two-hundred, so on the same stage as elites like Sadie.

Miguel was another that stood head and shoulders above the rest. Mounted on Trevor’s back, he used his ability to move in three dimensions to good effect, often darting in and out like proper cavalry. Of course, in this case, the cavalry was capable of shooting moonbeams from his antlers, and when he lashed out with those natural weapons, they came with burning fire from one of Miguel’s abilities.

Kurik held his own as well, tossing traps – or more accurately, bombs, even if he didn’t acknowledge that label – into the mass of trolls. He didn’t waste any of his nature-based seed traps, instead opting for his upgraded boomsticks to wreak havoc among the enemy. They were more easily replicable, and, considering they were fire-based, almost as effective as his more powerful traps.

Elijah saw a few other recognizable faces – most notably Carmen, in her nearly indestructible armor and massive hammer – but only in short glimpses. He was too busy doing his job of keeping the trolls’ regeneration locked up with his various afflictions. That allowed the rest of the army to finish them off.

Oscar and his pack took an entire side of the battlefield to themselves, with Escobar’s flashy fire spells responsible for doing massive damage to the troll army.

It wasn’t a terribly complicated plan, and Elijah worried that it would result in bad habits. After all, if he wasn’t going into the Primal Realm, they needed to be capable of dealing with the trolls’ regeneration themselves. This way put most of the onus on him, and he felt that would result in stunted growth.

But at least they still got plenty of experience out of it.

By comparison, Elijah’s progress was barely more than a trickle, partly because of the disparity in levels, but also due to the fact that he rarely killed any of the trolls off. That kept him from getting the full benefit. He also felt that he was fast approaching the point of diminishing returns.

There was only so much that killing trolls could push him forward, especially outside of their Primal Realm.

It didn’t matter. It couldn’t. The decisions had been made, and Elijah was just part of the larger engine that was the army. A cog in the machine. No more, and no less. So, he did his job, hoping that the others were right to ignore his objections.

On and on the battle went. Even with Elijah’s afflictions, trolls didn’t go down easily. And there were tens of thousands of them in that chamber. But the moment Elijah had killed the blood priests, victory became all but assured.

He had enough experience fighting similar battles to know that much.

And finally, it was done. The smell of rotting meat, blood, iron, charred troll, and a host of other disgusting odors filled the air. Groans of pain, too. There were never enough Healers around. And the ones that were there ran out of ethera very quickly. Few could match someone like Ron, who could keep going for days if necessary.

After looking around for a few moments, Elijah found a clump of injured soldiers and started healing. He’d tossed out a few instances of Wild Resurgence during the fight, but he’d neglected that part of his class in favor of accomplishing his goals. Not by choice. Rather, Sadie had pointed out that everyone in the army had a job, and it was on them to let those people do what they were meant to do.

But now that the battle was over, Elijah abandoned that idea. People needed healing, and he could heal. That was all he needed to know.

Over the next few hours, he continuously worked until, at last, there was no one left to help. That was when Sadie approached him. Her white-and-gold armor was covered in blood and other viscera. Some of it had even gotten into her hair. She also looked incredibly tired – no surprise, considering their pace. They’d been at it for a few weeks, and they’d never really stopped moving.

It was necessary, largely because if they halted even for a day or two, they would be surrounded by trolls. Deep in enemy territory, they couldn’t stop moving until they reached the Primal Realm.

After ensuring that she was okay, Elijah said, “Guess I’ll get moving. Those caverns aren’t going to scout themselves. I’m pretty sure there’s a spawn point nearby. I’ll try to take care of it.”

She looked like she wanted to object. Clearly, she wished they had more time together. Or that he could rest a little. But that just wasn’t in the cards, and she knew it. So, she nodded, saying, “Don’t overextend.”

Elijah gave her a tired grin. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Then, without another word, he shifted back into his scourgedrake form and took off at a dead sprint. Soon enough, he’d traveled miles down a connecting tunnel, following the scent of blood in the air until, at last, he found another temple-like spawn point. It was, of course, guarded by almost a thousand trolls.

He had no intention of going back to get the others. Instead, he attacked, ready to finish things off so that the rest of the army could have a day of peace.