For the sake of expediency, John went for the phantom nearest to him first. It hadn't been 'activated' yet, but he could already see how this was going to go if they let it play out in its natural course: as they battled the activated monsters, they would inevitably send out sprays of blood and detritus, and the rest would become active, one by one. He figured it was easier to just cut to the chase.

And so he slashed his Mana Blade through the neck of the woman in the polka-dot dress. It passed straight through, and her head began the slow motion process of rolling from her shoulders—John was still in Accelerate, and the monster's corpse wasn't.

John felt a brief moment of alarm at attacking something that looked so much like a human being, but that shock passed when he noticed little insect legs wriggling around from each side of the severed neck stump.

Another slash with his Mana Blade put an end to whatever nonsense was going on there, and he took an extra few heartbeats slicing the false human body into little chunks, sneering in disgust as he discovered these humans were actually just a bunch of insect monsters in a trench coat, metaphorically speaking. Giant ants, spiders, beetles, and more, ranging from the size of a baseball to bigger than a dinner plate, all wearing the human skin like a suit, and it deflated and flopped to the floor once they were all dead.

+400 Aura

It was perhaps the most disgusting thing John had seen so far, and he used that visceral reaction as fuel for his fury as he moved on to his next target: a young man wearing a yellow shirt and brown trousers that were flared at the bottom, looking like he'd extol the virtues of some far out rock music if he had a voice. John knew the truth, though, and he stabbed the man in the face before proceedings to dice the fake body up until all the creepy crawlies that had been wriggling around inside it were dead.

+400 Aura

John couldn't help feeling somewhat cheated that the system was only counting all these bugs as one kill and giving him so little Aura for it, but he supposed it was actually pretty fair. These things were posing pretty much no challenge to him like this, after all.

Things proceeded much along this manner as he sped around the bus, under the unmatched power of Accelerate. None of the monsters were even close to fast enough to contest him, and he had five more of them sliced and diced by the time twenty heart beats were up.

+2000 Aura

The world shifted back into regular speed, and he took a moment to inspect how things were going in the rest of the bus. It was good to see that the others had reacted quickly, too. Lily had her crossbow shouldered, and was firing bursts into the bugs only once the others had 'activated' one of the phantoms. Alissa, Doug, and Jade were on duty to perform said activating, while Chester glowed a heavenly white, standing right at the front of the bus and drawing the bug monsters' aggression.

There didn't seem to be any problems there, so John darted towards the back of the bus, where the stairs to the upper deck lay—that didn't seem right to him, since he was fairly sure the steps up to the top were usually right behind the driver, but figured that was just a quirk of the portal. Of course it wasn't going to let any trespassers bypass the bottom floor and go straight up without fighting.

On the way, he decided to take this opportunity to build up some Aura. Blue-souled monsters posed little threat, and his comrades doubled as back-up in case he fucked up and witnesses for any cool kills he pulled off. So he figured he might as well.

Thus:

"Stop bugging me," he snarled as he chopped a bunch of insects to pieces.

+800 Aura

"Maybe I should become an exterminator," he casually mused as he indulged himself in some spinning attacks that he never would've been able to pull off without his Ninja Skill.

+800 Aura

"Insects are meant to be stomped on. Stay still and accept the inevitable," he sneered before somersaulting over a chair and slicing a phantom apart with a two-handed cross slash. He thought the landing was a little wobbly even with Ninja and his stats, but the system seemed to approve anyway.

+1200 Aura

And so it went. John threw out whatever insult came to mind, then indulged himself in whatever flashy kill technique came to mind. He spun, flipped, leaped. He stabbed, slashed, and stomped.

+2000 Aura

There weren't actually that many enemies to deal with on the bus' bottom floor, and before he knew it they'd cleared the place out. He didn't want to stop, though, and darted straight up the stairs once he realised there were no more enemies to kill.

Something strange was happening to him, and it took him a while to identify it. His heart was racing, and there was an odd feeling in his stomach, but neither of them were unpleasant sensations, somehow. The answer only came to him when he realised his face hurt from grinning.

This is actually kind of fun.

And wasn't that a fucked up thought to be having? This was the literal apocalypse. Potentially billions of people had died already, at the hands of monsters like these.

That was the point, he supposed. Was it wrong to enjoy oneself while slaughtering the very creatures that had themselves partaken in the slaughter of all living things on Earth? Was it really despicable to feel vicious satisfaction not just in the righteous vengeance of the act, but in the act itself? Doing flips and spins and executing combat moves that usually were reserved for video games and carefully choreographed Hollywood movie scenes gave him a rush of joy that couldn't be denied, and he refused to feel bad about it. When else was he going to be able to indulge his childish side like this?

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

John didn't even bother to use Accelerate as he reached the upper deck. He took his time—relatively speaking—with dismantling the phantom passengers and their hidden bugs. There were even fewer up here than there had been on the bottom floor, just over a dozen in all. Even if there'd been more, he was confident they wouldn't have been a threat anyway. If things got hairy, he could've just pulled out Fireball or any of his other Spells that could hit multiple targets.

Even without Accelerate, he was done with all the monsters up top by the time the others ascended to join him.

+2000 Aura

He'd started noticing diminishing returns in his Aura gains pretty swiftly, but he didn't think it was a good idea to get even more flashy with it than he already had been, so he made fairly quick work of things. Feeling a bit disappointed in himself, he made a mental note to see about upgrading his Skills in the future. He'd been neglecting that side of his build, a bit.

Doug was first up, taking in the carnage John had wrought on the upper deck with a glance then grinning at him. "Not bad, kid."

+400 Aura

John had ended up using Accelerate, in the end, but not to kill any of the monsters. Twenty heartbeats of dilated time had been enough for him to try out a few cool poses: he'd tried leaning against the wall by the entrance to the stairs with his arms crossed, sitting crossed legged on the floor at the far end of the bus, and even just standing with his back to the staircase with his arms at his sides, but in the end had decided for a more casual approach.

And so Doug found him sitting with his feet up on the seats, arms resting behind his head, sunglasses over his eyes, surrounded by blood spatters and myriad bits of rapidly rotting insect monster.

John raised an eyebrow. "What took you so long?"

+400 Aura

Doug barked a laugh, shaking his head as he emerged properly onto the upper deck of the bus. The others soon followed, picking their way to seats around John's position. They were still in varying states of haggard after the mad dash they'd gone through to get to the portal, but it didn't seem like anyone had taken any new injuries since their level ups had healed them. The only changes were a few extra stains John didn't think had been there before.

"The doors downstairs won't open for anything," Jade said, frowning up at the roof of the garage, where ceiling windows gave them an unobstructed view of the burning sky. There was still a dark shroud, showing it was still night.

John was still riding the high of battle. Confidence was flowing through him. And so, he said: "Maybe I'll be able to do something about that."

+400 Aura

Because I'm stronger than the rest of you, was left implied. It wasn't even an empty boast. John was unquestionably the strongest combatant here, and that was just about the most surreal realisation he'd ever experienced. He'd never been the toughest guy in a room even when he was alone in one.

"Worth checking, aye," Jade conceded. "But I don't think it'll work. It's not a matter of strength. The doors felt like they had some kind of forcefield over them, like what Doug came up against when he tried to jump up to the top deck of one of the other buses."

"Couldn't shoot through it, at least," Lily said. She frowned, then aimed her crossbow at the empty air, facing away from the rest of them. John squinted in that direction, and even activated Mana Sense and Soul Vision, but saw nothing. It was only when she loosed a trio of bolts and they all tinged off of an invisible wall that he understood what she was doing. "Looks like what Doug hit works both ways, too."

That spurred everyone into action, moving to explore the forcefield around the bus. There was indeed an invisible wall, and they discovered that it essentially matched the dimensions of what a double-decker bus would look like if it wasn't open-top, roof included. Even downstairs, they could open the windows, but not move anything beyond the threshold.

John hesitated to try out any of his Spells or Skills, worried that he'd lose Aura if he failed, which looked all too likely, judging by the fact no one else's abilities seemed to have any effect on the forcefield. Still, he gave it a go with Mana Blade, running the tip of the blade against the forcefield acting casual, like he wasn't bothered whether he succeeded or failed. It made a scraping sound and kicked up some sparks, but had no effect.

He fired an Ice Bullet and Soul Arrow to similar success, or lack thereof, and his Rock Shield couldn't smash through. Trying any of his more destructive Spells didn't seem like a good idea, so he didn't bother.

The others gave their own abilities a go, but it soon became clear they weren't forcing their way out at their level of power. At least he got a look at Alissa's Love Bomb and Caustic Kiss abilities, and found he understood her distaste for them.

After thorough exploration, they found there were only two gaps in the forcefield. Standing at the front and back of the bus, each was about the size of the front doors they'd entered through, leading to a corridor of invisible space that led, as far as they could tell, straight to the other buses.

From that, John reckoned he had an idea of how this was all going to work. "I think I've figured this place out," he said, frowning at the bus behind theirs. From here, he could see its route and destination on the LED screen on the bus' front: X5 to Knightsgrave via Charing Crossbones. "The only way out is to go through the buses. If we tried to walk along the outside of them, it would just keep us going forever."

There was a moment of silence as everyone digested that. "What're the odds the buses will all set out while we're on them?"

"If these buses are going to move, it's going to be because the drivers get activated before anyone can kill them," John said.

"Let's make sure that doesn't happen," Alissa said. "I don't want to be dealing with any shit like that Underworld story of yours."

"We don't either," Chester said, paling.

"It wouldn't be so bad," John said. "These monsters are only blues. Nothing to worry about. In fact, it'd be pretty good XP."

+400 Aura

Chester glared at him, but John at least understood his ire this time, which he felt was good personal progress.

"I'm starting to think you might be a little loopy, son," Doug said with a chuckle. "But every poor sod who's living through this madness is going to be a little loopy, aren't they? We're all going to be mad, by the end of it."

John shrugged. "Regardless, we know the way forward."

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