The moment the chapter of our collective stupidity turned its page, we lunged forward as one.

No hesitation.

No fear.

Just four idiots sprinting straight into a horde of screaming, mutating, overgrown monkey abominations.

A beautiful sight, really.

I met the first beast head-on.

It's massive claw, bigger than my entire torso, came crashing down with enough force to crater the earth. My glass blade, thin and deceptively delicate in appearance, rose to meet it.

For a second, just one tiny, lying second, the clash looked equal.

Power pressing against power.

Claw against glass.

Roar against my smiling face.

And then I pushed.

The illusion shattered.

SHRRRKK.

My blade sliced clean through the claw.

Neat.

Precise.

Like the beast had offered its arm to a guillotine and politely leaned in.

A spray of green blood erupted in an arc behind me, warm droplets hitting my cheek. I ignored it and stepped in, letting momentum flow like a second heartbeat.

One smooth arc.

A clean slice.

The head of the beast spun into the air.

The body collapsed in the opposite direction.

I didn't even stop to look.

Another monkey huge, muscular, ugly enough to offend every god, was hurled straight at me. I heard Kent's distant shout.

"MY BAD!"

I ducked.

The airborne monster flew over me, wind screaming past my head.

A white flash flickered above.

Kent reappeared mid-air, his scythe already descending. He carved the creature in half before it hit the ground, landing with that deranged little grin he always had when he got to murder something.

What a show-off.

To my left, Nora was a cyclone of contradictions.

Ice cracked.

Fire roared.

Her rapier spun in elegant circles as she danced between monsters, slicing tendons, stabbing skulls, freezing limbs before shattering them with a flick.

Every time her blade twirled, a new corpse fell.

Every time she breathed, flames or frost exploded around her.

And she did it all while yelling at Kent for being stupid.

On my right, Annalise was—Actually, I don't know where the hell she was.

She slipped in and out of reality like she was deciding which dimension offended her the least. One moment she was there, the next she was a shimmer of strings and illusions. Monsters struck at fake versions of her, only for the real Annalise to appear behind them, slicing necks or severing spines with surgical precision.

Her blue strings moved like predators.Silent.Cold.Merciless.

I parried, sliced, and moved.

A beast leapt for my throat. I stepped sideways and opened its chest with a twist of my blade. Another tried to grab me from behind; a flick of Sacha's icecut through both its wrists. A third screeched and charged; I simply pushed mana into my legs and kicked it in the abdomen, making it explode in a flash of gore.

The battlefield growled, screamed, and cracked.

Green blood rained.

Bodies fell.

I felt the flow of the fight slide into place, the rhythm, the timing, the precise cadence of slaughter where every step connected, every breath synchronized with the next motion.

Kent's explosions of spatial energy.

Nora's elemental shockwaves.

Annalise's impossible illusions.

My own clean, efficient strikes.

A monster tried to crush me with its bulk.

I met it with a thrust, skewering its heart.

Another swung wildly.

I ducked and carved open its ribs.

Kent teleported beside me for a millisecond, muttered "Hi," then teleported away just as a monkey exploded behind him.

Nora froze a beast's legs, ignited its chest, and stabbed its eye in one motion.

Annalise sliced through so many necks I suspected she wasn't even trying anymore, just getting rid of stress.

And then...

Silence.

A dozen seconds.

That was all it took.

Twelve heartbeats.

Eleven, maybe, if I was being dramatic.

And I still hadn't used mana for a single second. A good way to train reflexes, I guess.

The horde had been massive enough to flatten the entire clearing if we hadn't been there. But now?

Now there was nothing left but gallons of green blood flowing in ugly streams, chunks of meat scattered like confetti, severed limbs twitching from leftover mana, and a battlefield so destroyed it looked like it had been hit by a small war.

And in the center of it all...

Four humans.

Breathing heavily.

Covered in blood, ichor, mud, and questionable fluids.

Standing around like absolute lunatics.

I wiped my cheek, flicked monkey gore off my blade, and took in the scene.

We were insane.

Every single one of us.

And gods help the world, because we were only getting started.

Nora broke the sacred silence filling the field, breaking the ice around her.

Pun intended.

She stared down at herself, at the green streaks, the drying blood, the tiny chunks of monkey meat stuck to her boots, and sighed the sigh of someone whose eyes had just witnessed a crime.

"Being covered in blood is disgusting," she said. "Absolutely revolting. I never want to experience this ever again."

I blinked.

That was my cue.

My time to shine.

My ego sat up like a dog who'd just heard a treat bag.

I cleared my throat, stepped forward, and smiled the kind of smile that would have made gods roll their eyes.

"Well," I said, letting my voice drip with modesty I most definitely did not possess, "since I am a great and benevolent person, I suppose I can help with this… minor inconvenience."

Nora narrowed her eyes.

But I continued. Obviously.

"You peasants should be grateful," I declared. "For I, Sebastian Nekros, holder of infinite charisma and overwhelming power, will now cleanse you with my gracious abilities."

Kent muttered, "Here we go."

Nora muttered, "I hate him."

Annalise muttered, "I should have bashed him on the head earlier. What a wasted opportunity."

I ignored all three.

I lifted my hands, palms open, and let mana rush through me. Pure, bright, white energy gathered around my fingers, warm and soft and humming with life. It burst outward in a gentle wave, washing through the clearing like a breeze.

Life mana.

Holy, brilliant, annoyingly wholesome.

The light wrapped around us, warm and clean. Every little cut sealed itself. Every bruise faded. Every scratch disappeared. The dried blood evaporated. The green sludge melted away. The gore vanished. Even the dirt under our fingernails flickered into dust.

By the time the light faded?

We looked brand new.

Fresh.

Pristine.

Like we hadn't just committed a massacre on hundreds of screaming forest abominations.

I lowered my hands and nodded proudly.

"You're welcome," I said.

No one responded.

I continued anyway.

"This is normally the part where you bow in awe and worship me," I said, "but since I'm a humble being—"

Nora choked.

Kent coughed violently.

"—I will allow you to simply get on your knees and thank me. No need to bow. I'm generous like that."

Silence.

Then three simultaneous reactions:

Nora: "I'm going to stab him."

Kent: "I'm going to stab him first."

Annalise, deadpan: "I'm going to stab all three of you."

I just grinned.

Ah.

What a beautiful team.

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