While Gladiolus-wreathed Queen's call to retreat and her subsequent change of direction was abrupt, it wasn't like most of the others needed any impetus to follow her lead.

However, Lucian had a gut feeling that retreating right now would be a horrible idea. Instead of running back the way he came, the raven-haired man stood his ground and swept his eyes over the hallway's entire width, mind churning furiously and trying to come up with a viable way of holding back, and maybe even tackling, the swarm of Shadowborn Skullkers.

While neither had said a thing to the other, it was clear Transient Cardinal was of a like mind; the white-haired waif having remained still, as well, while her neck twisted from side to side.

While Boris had started backing up at the honey blonde's call, seeing the other two standing still got him to stop in kind; a concerned furrow forming between his bushy mahogany brows as he looked from Lucian to Transient Cardinal.

Lucian's eyes alighted on one of the solid hardwood tables after a brief moment, before his gaze rapidly darted between aforenamed piece of furniture and the manifold others strewn across the hallway.

Now that’s an idea…

Just as Gladiolus-wreathed Queen was about to dash past, Lucian's free hand darted out and latched on to her shoulder; halting the honey blonde in her tracks even as a fiery lance of agony shot up his left arm.

“Retreat isn’t going to solve anything! Help me move the chairs and tables instead, we can create a makeshift barrier from scratch!” He spat out from between gritted teeth, hurriedly sharing his spur of the moment idea while raising his volume so that the others would hear him.

Not waiting to see if they would agree to his plan of action, he let go of Gladiolus-wreathed Queen's shoulder and his end table and immediately ran for one of the nearby chairs; the sound of wooden base thumping against marble floor finally seeming to spur the rest into action, at least based on what he managed to catch from his peripherals.

Stopping at his target chair—one that was highbacked and looked uncomfortable besides—he gripped the top portion of its backrest and lifted it up while grimacing, trying his best to ignore the pain radiating from his left hand.

“Let me help with that.” Before he could even take a single step, a flash of white, alongside a soft yet firm voice, heralded Transient Cardinal's arrival as she instantly took hold of the highbacked chair's legs and significantly alleviated the weight.

“Thanks.” He flashed a pain-laced smile down at the petite waif before looking around. “Now… any ideas where we should put this down?”

In the meantime, Boris was already well on his way to lugging one of the hardwood tables over to the disintegrating grills – the grotesque combination of writhing spines and rolling eyeballs acting as perfect nightmare fuel to any who merely caught a glimpse.

Cherub and Diamonddust shuffled several steps behind him, the two men tag teaming to carry over a slightly smaller table; a process that looked far more laborious even though two of them were carrying it.

Unlike the three men, Gladiolus-wreathed Queen was darting between the tables and a section of the hallway off to the side and somewhat behind; transporting the creepily decorated vases standing on the former to the latter position.

While Lucian was confused by the honey blonde's actions, he preferred to believe that she had a reason for doing as she did. On the other hand, seeing Boris's progress gave him an idea.

“Let’s place the chair next to wherever Boris puts down the table?” He suggested, receiving a quick affirmative from his white-haired partner.

BAM!

As if the bald, bearded giant had overheard the suggestion, he dropped the table just as the last word left the raven-haired man's mouth, about two or so metres away from the grills – causing a resounding crash to reverberate through the hallway and rattle the windows.

“Looks like we have a spot~.” Transient Cardinal cheerfully opined, her upbeat tone of voice rather incongruous with the grim situation at hand.

“Looks like it.” Lucian agreed bemusedly, even as he started jogging over, making sure not to outpace the young woman by too much; given her comparatively shorter stride.

----------------------------------------

Fortunately for the six-person party, they had fully completed their defensive line of assorted furniture when the metal grills still had about a quarter of its rusted length left to go.

Comprising tables turned onto their sides; legs sticking out and pointing at the grills, and numerous chairs of similar sizes; some standing upright, while others were flipped upside down and braced against their standardly positioned brethren, aforementioned defensive line fully stretched from one side of the hallway to the other.

Though some gaps were still present—something unavoidable, unfortunately—the rush job, as a whole, was a pretty damn good one, if Lucian did say so himself. In all honesty, it would likely have turned out far more slipshod if Boris hadn't pointed out the grill's slow rate of disintegration after setting down his table.

It became clear that Gladiolus-wreathed Queen's initial panic had been a bit of an overreaction, considering the swarm of Shadowborn Skullkers had yet to even attempt breaching the obstruction – even though most of the grills had rusted away.

“Is it just me,” speak of the Devil and she doth appear. “Or are the creatures kind of stupid.”

“Like, what do you mean by that?” Diamonddust immediately snapped, his cutting tone drawing Lucian's eyes his way while frowning disapprovingly.

The honey blonde shot a glare at the golden blond, but answered, nonetheless. “There's no need to be rude. But back to my point. I don't understand why the Shadowborn Skullkers aren't just piling atop one another to bypass the grills entirely.”

“Best not look a gift horse in the mouth.” Boris gruffly commented, Diamonddust’s mouth snapping shut with an audible click before he could retort. “Just be thankful we were given sufficient time to set up a proper barricade.”

“Hear! Hear!” Cherub chimed. “The big guy’s got a good point, I say.”

Before the conversation could continue, Transient Cardinal abruptly interjected; a panicked note to her usually melodic lilt. “Now’s not the time, people! Look! The metal grills are almost gone!”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Lucian's head snapped in the grill's direction the moment he registered what his white-haired partner had said. Like she claimed, Less than an eighth of the metal remained; and somehow, it looked like it was rusting away at an even faster rate than before.

Seeing this, the raven-haired man turned away, intending to grab his discarded end table. Midway through, he paused, throwing a last comment over his shoulder. “Looks like it's time to get ready, people. Hopefully the defensive line stands strong.”

Much like Lucian, four of the others scrambled for their own improvised weapons; each of them—except Boris, the ridiculously musclebound giant—having put them aside to transport the furniture with more ease and at a quicker pace.

In what seemed like no time at all, the six of them stood, side by side, right behind the approximately metre tall defensive line; from left to right

– Lucian, Transient Cardinal, Boris, Gladiolus-wreathed Queen, Cherub, and then Diamonddust, in that exact order.

Being this close to the floor to ceiling window—and consequently, the brewing storm right outside—severely tested his self-control. Lucian would only have to turn his neck slightly to see what lay outside, but he forced his head to remain pointed forward; watching as brownish-red flake after brownish-red flake peeled away before inexplicably vanishing into non-existence.

Though he didn't mean to, he also saw Transient Cardinal, stood about an arm's length away, preparing for the oncoming swarm in her own way; every single one of her knuckles having turned bone white around her table legs.

Part of him wanted to offer her a word of reassurance, but judging from the concentrated look on her delicate visage, he felt it might not be so welcome at the moment. Focusing back on the swarm ahead, he contented himself with watching the grills flake away.

Time crawled by, and soon enough, the set of metal grills were reduced down to the barest of nubs sticking up from the black and white marble tiles.

Lucian prepared himself mentally, reminding himself to squish the Shadowborn Skullkers' eyes even as his right hand flexed around his end table; knowing the swarm would be encroaching any time now.

“Good luck everyone. And remember, aim for the eyes!” Julia loudly encouraged, as if she had heard the raven-haired man's thoughts right at that exact moment.

As if the honey blonde's voice had been a trigger, all hell broke loose immediately thereafter.

In a nauseating symphony of harsh, sandpapery friction and clacking bones, the swarm flooded over the last remnants of brownish-red flakes and drowned the marble tiles in an advancing, ebony tide.

Lucian heard a clear, distinctly retching sound off to his right, but didn’t have the wherewithal to check out who had made the sound; eyes fixated on the vomit-inducing wave.

Firelight from the nearby sconces caused the human eyeballs, occasionally peeking out from the slithering carpet, to glimmer like orange marbles, standing out in stark contrast with the shifting, pitch black swarm.

His heartbeat sped up, an organic war drum furiously beating a blood pumping rhythm in his chest, adrenalin racing through his veins and replacing any disgust with anticipation as the Shadowborn Skullkers encroached ever closer. A metre, then less. Not more than a ruler’s length away, and then suddenly, as if it was a magic trick, all the white marble tiles were covered up with a sea of black, darker, even, than the vortex of storm clouds just outside the windows.

“Stand firm and see you on the other side!”

The last thing Lucian properly registered before the rush of blood in his ears drowned out all noise was Gladiolus-wreathed Queen’s rallying cry; all of his other senses laser-focused on the slithering swarm to the exclusion of everything else.

The foremost Shadowborn Skullker wound up the overturned table's underside and surmounted its lip in a rasping flash. Just as it poked its skull into full view, Lucian met it with an overhead smash, squishing its far too human eyeballs into a mess of bloody pulp and causing it to fall limp and drape itself over the table's edge lifelessly.

In the meantime, another Shadowborn Skullker right behind, having taken advantage of the raven-haired man's preoccupation with its brethren, surmounted the table in a similar manner before lunging at Lucian; jaws agape and teeth bared.

Spotting the ebony flash out of the corner of his eye, Lucian jerked his end table up and swept it to the side, knocking the first corpse back into the writhing mass of bones while bouncing the lunging creature back from whence it came.

Cursing under his breath at the close call, he swept his eyes across the entire table’s length and rapidly knocked away all the Shadowborn Skullker’s slithering up its underside; a series of reverberations going up his arm even as he incidentally caught sight of how Transient Cardinal was faring at the same time.

Unlike himself, who only had a single end table in hand, her ability to dual wield gave her a larger room for error. Furthermore, with her two by two barricade of chairs, it was clear the Shadowborn Skullkers were having a harder time of things when trying to get at her porcelain flesh. Even with the blood rushing in his ears, he could still hear the fast, tempest-like beat she was beating out as wood cracked against wood and bone.

Another ebony flash from the corner of his eyes caused Lucian to fully focus on the area straight ahead even as his right hand instinctively came up and violently served another lunging serpentine monstrosity; causing it to experience an abrupt course reversal and arc back into the tide of Shadowborn Skullkers, skull leading the way as bloody tears flew from its sockets.

Instantly reversing the direction of his arm, he brought the end table down in an overhead blow and cracked open another skull just as it surmounted the table ahead; pair of eyeballs immediately getting squished as it fell still.

Even as the raven-haired man dealt with two, it seemed like three more were hot on their heels; forcing him to twist his waist and sweep his arm from left to right and back again, knocking all of the Shadowborn Skullkers back into the slithering swarm before they could completely climb up.

While doing so, he assessed the number of creatures remaining along his specific portion of the defensive line even as slight traces of fatigue begun to weigh down his arms; a worrying sign if there ever was one.

Thankfully, where the swarm previously carpeted the tiles and obscured them from sight, slivers of white now managed to intermittently peek through the ebony spines; indicative of the decreased numbers.

Lucian immediately cut his survey short when he saw movement out of the corner of his eyes once again. He took a quick step back, arm retracting in concert with his movements, before smashing the lunging, airborne creature out of the air like an errant shuttlecock. With a spine-chilling series of cracks and crunches, the Shadowborn Skullker pancaked against the ground a step away from his feet; jagged, pitch black splinters erupting out from the monstrosity’s lengthy spine.

He immediately stomped down on the wildly wriggling skull, only stopping after his foot crunched through bone. While the feeling underfoot was unnerving, to put it mildly, and would likely stick in his memories for some time to come, it was necessary to save time.

In the meantime, while Lucian didn't have the opportunity to check on the others, the rampant sounds of combat, alongside intermittent cursing, reassured him that they were alright.

----------------------------------------

CRACK!

Another smash from overhead, and down another Shadowborn Skullker went.

Crack! Crack crack!

A quick backstep alongside a defensive side smash for good measure, and splat went another, its skull shattering upon impact with the tightly shut glass window to the side; a series of fine cracks spiderwebbing out from the point of impact.

…

As time passed, it felt like each Shadowborn Skullker blended into the next. Lucian only took as much time as necessary to ensure the one he was dealing with was definitely dead before moving on to the next.

Strong blow after rapid deflection, shattered skull after fractured spine; the fight, seemingly never-ending.

Crunch!

And that was why…

When the raven-haired man reduced another bare ebony skull into fragments and goop between his end table and the barricade cum table, it took him a tense, uncomprehending moment to realise the monstrous tide had finally broken.

All of a sudden, the dull ache of fatigued muscles flared up like a wailing symphony; as if reminding him of his overexertion.

At the same time, as his adrenalin rush subsided, so too, did his tunnel vision during combat.

Lucian couldn't tell if he had been injured during the skirmish. Instead of wasting time checking with his eyes, he dropped his end table and clenched his hand into a fist, triggering his Knowledge implant as he did. At the same time, he spun to the side and quickly checked on the others, needing to confirm their current states with his own eyes.

Handle – El Knight.

Health: Slightly injured.

G. A. M. E.—#1.

Players Remaining/(141/201).

Lucian sighed out in relief when he confirmed everyone else was still alive. While some had acquired minor injuries—such as Cherub, blood running down his arm in thin rivulets—and others were more gruesome—like Boris, with teeth-shaped punctures encircling his forearm—none of them looked life-threatening at a glance.

It looked like Transient Cardinal had reacted faster than he had, too; the white-haired waif already beelining for the wounded.

She hadn't wasted even a second and was already busy rooting around in her unslung aquamarine backpack; arm shoved in up to her forearm while her table legs lay discarded behind her.

Done with his survey and not wishing to remain idle, Lucian bent down slightly, retook his end table in his right hand, and vaulted over the table that had been acting as a barricade – intent on taking a proper look-see at the outside.

At the back of his mind, he knew he was being reckless. But with the way out from the supposed Dormitories being so close at hand, it made him throw caution to the wind.

After all, the way out was open and completely free of monsters. After the wave they had just endured, he doubted there would be more for the now…

At least, hopefully.

Lucian’s boots crunched the inanimate bones into even smaller ebony fragments as he walked from checkerboard marble to plain stone.

Soon enough, the unlit tunnel opened up onto a narrow walkway; one exposed to the vortex of storm clouds blocking out the Sun and sky even as ferocious winds buffeted any who stood upon it.

Connected to the end of the airborne pathway was a five-storey building, tightly packed bricks and shimmering floor to ceiling windows making up its façade. Another two identical buildings stood further away and almost out of his line of sight, similar suspended walkways connecting them to one another.

The raven-haired man's attention wasn’t focused on any of those things, however.

Widened eyes, stupefaction swirling in light brown depths, unblinkingly focused on a stone tower, parts of it crumbling away while other parts looked as good as new – the whole construct looking seamless to the naked eye while its top shot up and pierced the storm clouds above, disappearing from sight.

From what Lucian was seeing, the monolithic stone tower was smack-dab in the epicentre of the four matching buildings; a densely woven maze of eerily-coloured briars, comprising at least five concentric rings, encaging it completely.

While the maze, all on its own, was an impressive sight, his eyes couldn’t help but be glued to the solitary tower, a single question springing to mind:

Was that… his ultimate destination?