John opened proceedings with a salvo of Accelerated Fireballs. Slowing to keep pace with Doug, he spent the entire period of dilated time launching as many flaming orbs into the monsters' ranks as he could. He spared no consideration for accuracy or finesse, seeking simply to eliminate as many monsters as possible with the most potent area of effect Spell he had. By the time twenty heartbeats had come and gone, it felt like he'd thrown half a hundred Fireballs.

Chaos descended on the high street. Great conflagrations erupted as the densely packed monsters caught aflame under his burning barrage. The roars, screams, and screeches of monsters echoed through the false night, accompanied by the crackles and hisses of building flame. The smell of burning, rotten flesh filled the air, sharp enough to sting the eyes.

The abominations spared no thought for their own safety, spurred into mindless action by Chester's Spell. They didn't seem to care one bit about the fire, running straight through it. For many of them, that spelled the end. For those that were able to survive flames, it meant being severely weakened.

And being weakened meant being left vulnerable to the next Spell in the new rotation John had designed. Out of Accelerate, he switched one Spell slot to Heat Vision, granting him the ability to instantly score burns against anything he looked at. Even at Level 4, the Spell wasn't greatly suited to the task, but it was the fastest ability he had, and it was enough to slow the advance of the oncoming pack.

With the other Spell slot, he reached out and started chaining Soul Drains together with liberal use of Summon Undead. He snatched up the souls of weakened monsters and shoved the necromantic energy right into the burning corpses he'd just created, then directed them to stymie the monsters who'd managed to avoid the flames entirely.

It wasn't a perfect plan. Plenty of monsters were still careening towards him and Doug. But it had thinned the ranks enough to give them a fighting chance, and that was the best he could do, out in the open like this. There was simply too much space, allowing vast swathes of monsters to bypass the bonfires and undead minions alike.

Beside him, Doug was roaring with laugher, while Chester whimpered, burying his face deeper in the older man's neck. Without any need for a signal, the two of them started running towards the enemy to meet their charge. If they wanted to see any chance of surviving this, they had to make it to the portals, where hopefully they'd find a choke point within.

John focused most of his attention on the centre mass of the oncoming monster pack, glaring them down with Heat Vision as long as he was in "regular time", while cycling between Soul Drain and Summon Undead with the other slot. Accelerate finished its cooldown, allowing him to rain down another barrage of Fireballs on the enemy. In moments, he was wreaking havoc on the monsters' front lines, punching a flaming path right through the centre of their ranks. Aura notifications were pouring in by the second, but he paid them no mind.

The distance between them and the faster monsters was shrinking alarmingly fast. Dozens had broken past his harrying Spells, and more were coming. Behind him, he could hear the low rumble of the stampeding horde. The very ground itself was vibrating, cracks rending the tarmac.

Heartbeat thundering, breath heaving, blood boiling, John switched to dual Mana Blades and darted forwards, preparing himself to meet the monsters in close quarters combat.

Only for a roar to come from beside and slightly behind him, this one all too human. Doug blurred ahead, smashing into the leading monster with the force of a wrecking ball. The giant bug thing with three lizard-like heads didn't have time to react as Doug went straight through it, turning it to pulp in an instant.

"You keep up your little Spells, Johnny boy!" Doug shouted, shooting a grin over his shoulder. "I'll worry about these upstarts. Told you I had to show off how we boxed in the sixties, didn't I?"

John couldn't help noting Chester was no longer on the old man's back, and quickly turned to find the younger man scrambling to his feet, presumably having been unceremoniously dropped. His form still shone an ethereal white, and every monster in sight was charging him down.

"Stay close to me," John snapped, then returned his attention to the battle.

If nothing else, Doug proved he wasn't a mere braggart. His punches were devastating. Power and speed combined to form a devastating combatant. Jabs slammed straight through enemies. Hooks separated limbs and heads from bodies. Haymakers smeared them into paste. Doug's blows blurred, striking down any monster that dared even hint at coming too close, clearing the path ahead.

The ensuing moments were defined by chaos. There was no order to their forward advance, and no room for special plans or schemes. John's world narrowed to Fireball, Heat Vision, Soul Drain, and Summon Undead. Whether that was the most efficient use of his abilities didn't matter. He no longer had room to consider other possibilities. He couldn't even spare any attention for the constant push and pull of Aura as he and Doug vied for 'dominance' over who was contributing more to the mayhem.

Flames roared around him. Monsters charged by the dozen, dying in flames or to Doug's towering bulk. The man charged around with wanton glee etched onto his features, bellowing laughter at the top of his lungs.

They couldn't sprint. There were simply too many monsters ahead of them for that. But they were making steady progress, and the bus depot was drawing closer and closer by the moment. John started to believe they were actually going to do it. Despite the countless monsters in front of and increasingly surrounding them, he felt like they were really going to punch through the horde and make their way to their objective.

Then he caught sight of a golden projection out of the corner of his eye. It rose up like an executioner's blade, then slammed down a moment later. A heartbeat after that, he saw the familiar form of a ghostly red hand gripping a crystalline spider monster and holding it in place so that a hail of bolts could perforate it. In the next instant, there was a pop of displaced air, followed by dozens more, accompanied by neon red flashes.

John grimaced. It was hard to tell as a wall of flame and monsters was starting to surround his group, but unless he'd been severely disoriented somehow, that was the direction of the supermarket's car park. The very same car park where the girls would have been waiting for the signal to approach the portal.

They won't make it. They're about the same distance from the portal as us, maybe a bit further away, but they don't have the firepower, and if visibility is this bad for us, it has to be bad for the monsters too, meaning plenty of the monsters aren't under Chester's attention-grabbing Spell. Which means the girls are about to get swarmed too, if they aren't already.

John spat out a curse, burning with frustration. They were so close to the portals, he could see the ethereal glow of them, yellow, green, blue. The objective was within reach. Less than fifty metres…

But he still called out to Doug and pivoted their direction, cutting a path diagonally through the swarm. Doug took the change in stride, whooping with joy as he slammed himself into the horde, evidently uncaring what direction they took.

John's spell casting became more frantic. He'd been focusing on showing up a path straight to the portal, building a wall of flames and undead minions, and diverting that path was no easy matter. It felt like he had to launch twice as many Fireballs just to keep the greater mass of monsters off them, leaving him less time for Soul Drain and Summon Undead, and he was painfully aware that the delay would more than likely grant the insect horde that had been pursuing them the time they needed to finally catch up.

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But he did it anyway. Saving People had been some bullshit he'd impulsively cooked up in the heat of the moment, but he found that the thought of leaving any humans behind to these abominations was unconscionable. Too many had died to these fuckers already. If he had the ability to prevent more, there was practically no choice but to take action.

Chester cowered behind him as they did their best to cut a path to the others. Judging by how the golden machete projection started slashing down in their direction, he figured the girls had seen his intent and were moving to meet him. Good. That would make things faster.

Even so, their progress slowed to a glacial pace. Despite Accelerate giving him twenty heartbeats of impossible speed, there were simply too many monsters, all around them, closing in from every angle. If he'd just been able to focus on cutting a path forward, it might have been fine, but the bastards were coming from every direction, filling in the path behind them. Judging by the sheer noise coming from the north, he reckoned the insect monster ranks had added themselves to the fuckers that had been lounging on the high street.

It was only inevitable that monsters would start breaking through their defences. If anything, John was surprised it took so long for an injury to occur. The first was innocuous enough, a smaller rabbit monster managing to duck beneath their notice long enough to bite his ankle. Its needle-like teeth barely got an instant to taste his flesh before he kicked out by reflex, hoofing it into the flames.

After that, the floodgates opened. It seemed like barely a second passed without a new cut opening up, or another bruise blossoming from an impact. A monster made up of tangled red thorns scraped a line of skin off his wrist before he burned it away. Something crystalline with too long limbs managed to reach over the flames and smash him in the ribs with a wrecking ball of a hand before it melted. His leg was pin-cushioned with yellow spikes by a porcupine monster with four snarling heads.

There was no one killer blow, but they just kept accumulating. Eventually, he was forced to dart back into his Aura menu, only daring to do so when he was under the effects of Accelerate. He'd held off as long as he could, but when it came to a point that he was feeling woozy from blood loss or concussion or whatever the fuck else was wrong with him, he knew he had to act.

Increased Arcane Level 3 -> Level 4!

-800 Aura

Blessed relief flooded him, racing through his body and targeting all the injuries he'd picked up in the course of their mad rush. Soothing, comforting, tranquil, it injected distilled nirvana into his veins, and the sensation of calm it bestowed upon him was one of the greatest feelings he'd ever experienced.

That ecstasy was a short-lived sensation. It lasted barely a second before he was thrown back into the present by a new injury; he hadn't seen what, but something had nicked his hand. And that wasn't the only issue facing him and his team.

The problem was, he wasn't the only one taking damage. Far from it. Worse, the others weren't able to heal themselves when things got too bad.

Both Doug and Chester were covered in little cuts and bruises, just as John had been a moment before. He didn't see what had hurt them or when, too focused on his own part of the fight. But the evidence was plain: they were getting hurt.

But they couldn't stop.

Doug wasn't laughing anymore. John was keeping up a constant stream of Fireballs from his right hand, and he was feeling enough strain that he started to wonder if Limit Break was going to kick in to offset the punishment he was putting his throwing arm through. They could no longer see anything around them beyond a solid wall of monsters climbing over each other to get to them, with flames engulfing the rest of the world, climbing high and spewing great columns of smoke towards the burning sky. The noise of it all was incredible, overpowering any of their feeble attempts to communicate. Chester's mouth was wide open, possibly screaming, but John couldn't hear any of it.

At some point, John vaguely registered the girls joining their circle. Lily and Jade were covered in gore, armour painted black by monstrous entrails. The visor of Lily's motorcycle helmet had been torn off, and her right eye was crusted shut by blood. Part of Jade's breastplate was dented, and she walked with a limp. The face guard on her helmet was down, so he couldn't see her expression, but even with the armour her shoulders were visibly heaving. Alissa's bodysuit was pristine as if it had just come out of the wash, but her hair was plastered to her head like she'd just taken a shower in black ichor, and her eyes burned with unbridled rage.

They didn't spend even a second greeting each other. John barely had time to glance at them, and only even registered that much detail because he'd happened to be under the time dilation of Accelerate when they'd reached each other. Without a word, they pivoted once more, heading in the direction his mental map of the area told him the bus depot was.

Carnage. The world became fire and death. Limit Break kicked in at some point, and he felt a constellation of aches and pains tearing through his body as he frantically threw Fireballs, turning everything before him into an endless inferno and providing him materials for Summon Undead.

At some point, the monsters closed in enough that Fireball and Heat Vision were no longer viable, forcing him to switch to other Spells. Mana Blade finally came out, slashing through chitin and fur and crystal and stone and plant and every-fucking-thing else one could think of. He barely registered the forms of the monsters, simply slashing at anything that stepped in his path, letting Duellist instinct guide him. His body burned all over. A bone-deep ache suffused him. In what felt like no time, exhaustion was dragging him down. Even Second Wind renewing his energy levels a little didn't seem to help, and upgrading his Talent to Level 4 only granted a short reprieve.

Someone was roaring with rage and pain, and he soon realised it was him.

He started throwing Aura into Spell upgrades. Force Push reached Level 4, allowing him to shove back great swathes of monsters with far greater strength, buying them time to breathe and make some advance. Wind Shear at Level 4 started slicing straight through monsters that were presumably blues and scoring deep gashes into probably-greens. Level 4 in Shadow Stream let the darkness billow out in far greater quantities, and he had significantly more control of it, letting him throw up a roiling wall of darkness to buy them some precious time.

Soul Drain and Summon Undead remained his most potent combination, though, and he leaned on them more and more, calling up an endless tide of bodies to batter a way through the horde.

The madness was such that finally reaching and entering the portal didn't initially register. John wasn't sure the others would have noticed at all. It was only a shout from him that got them to turn and face the pursuing monsters one they were a few dozen paces inside.

But they obeyed, and from there, with the great bay door of the bus depot looming over them, they finally had their choke point. The tide of the battle changed instantly.

Suddenly, the monsters had no way to go around John's fire. Their only option was to go through it, and they were more than happy to do so as long as Chester's radiant Spell was active.

The others didn't even really have to do anything. The intensity of the flames created from John's steady stream of Level 4 Fireballs was enough to deal with the majority of the blues that came pouring through the portal. And those that did survive had their souls yanked away a second later. He didn't even need to deploy Summon Undead, for the most part.

It went on for a long time, still. There had been hundreds of blues out there. More than enough to deal them some serious damage in an open area, where the bastards had the ability to flank them. Here, forced to funnel through a gap only wide enough for two double-decker buses to pass through side-by-side? It was a slaughter. And damn did it feel good.

John found himself grinning as his Aura ticked up and up. There was a mad moment where he considered trying out a few quips, but he decided not to push his luck right now.

Eventually, the number of monsters coming through the portal started to dwindle to a trickle. John let up on his flames, allowing the others to get some XP in with their various abilities. No one said a word. Even after a full minute passed without any more monsters coming through, silence lingered between them. A massive pile of burning corpses had built up by the door, but it was visibly dwindling as the monsters rapidly rotted away, as they usually did.

They were all breathing heavily. Just… staring ahead. John blinked a few times. There was an odd surreality to this moment. Dream-like. He looked at the others, and though their expressions varied, he was sure they were all just as disbelieving as he was.

Then he finally had the bright idea to turn and see what the insides of this portal looked like, and his disbelief only deepened.

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