The explosion dissipates as quickly as it comes, leaving behind a mass of scrambling, howling monsters.

We ride in on them, the pets picking off the few creatures that break rank. I get up on Luna’s back and ride the puppy like a surfboard on the final stretch. The sledgehammer is ready in my hands.

I don’t need to give further orders, everyone knows their roles. Derek casts one of his skills on me just as Luna swerves and I leap off of her into the horde.

Derek Thompson - level 15 Flesh Wall has cast Iron Skin on you.

Effects: Negates 10% of all incoming physical damage.

Duration: 2 minutes.

It’s a single target skill that he can cast on either himself or someone else, and we use it to make my entrance easier. I soar through the air, launched further than I expected. We definitely need to practice these things in the future. I come down close to the wave boss and hit the nearest monster with the sledgehammer, unleashing a ground pound.

The shockwave ripples through the tightly packed crowd, staggering the already confused monsters. A good portion of them bowl over, but not as many get stunned as I hoped. The one I hit directly crumples and dies, and combined with ground pound’s area of effect damage, my frenzy rockets past 50% in an instant.

I roll through the dirt, but I recover and get to work. The skunk retreats, so I start with its underlings. I swing left and right, killing some, wounding others. They’re all at least the size of polar bears by now, but my strength is high enough to send them flying. The horde breaks up around me as my frenzy reaches 80%.

Derek wades into the melee from behind, trying to reach me. The man is some kind of tank class, and he wields a stop sign he pulled out of the ground. It still has a large chunk of concrete attached at the end, and even though he swings it slowly, it achieves the same devastating effect as my sledgehammer.

I spare a second to look around for the others and see how they’re doing. After him and Luna launched me off, little Willy split from the puppy. She returns to Jessica, and he, along with Emily and Clarissa, take positions up in the trees. The three of them are on harassment duty, but I asked them to also keep an eye on me and Derek in case we need help.

Jessica is using her pets and the shotgun to circle the monsters, picking off any that try to run away. Carter helps her with that, as his class is this weird trapper type. He can create areas of fire wherever he steps foot, and so long as he keeps tap dancing atop said fire, he doesn’t take damage. But the neat thing is that the system remembers his steps, so they can act as fire traps for monsters even if he isn’t nearby.

That only leaves Karen, who dips in and out of the chaos to inflict her debuffs on the monsters.

Since everyone is doing their jobs, I return my focus to mine. I’m the group’s damage dealer, so together with Derek, we go for the boss. Then, after we take it and its minions out, we’ll return to the safe zone to aid there.

Easy peasy.

I hit a deer thing between the antlers as it charges at me. The monster falls before me, and I stomp its head to finish it off. Something else comes barreling towards me, and I body slam it away. It rolls, tripping some of the other monsters. Karen blazes through, still riding Princess. The two headed pitbull grabs a bobcat looking creature with both mouths, tearing it to pieces. They disappear just as fast, but not before Karen hits the crowd with a fear debuff.

The monsters rear back, and I use the distraction to kill a couple more. My frenzy reaches 100%, the rage so loud that it drowns out the world around me.

Kill them, it screams. Kill them all!

It takes everything in me to keep my head in the game. We have a plan, I can’t afford to go berserk. Another monster, a highly evolved wasp, jumps me from behind. It sinks its oversized jaws into my right shoulder, but I spin and throw it off before it can pierce me with its oversized stinger. It lands deftly and comes at me again. I swing the sledgehammer in an upwards arch, catching it in the torso.

With all the buffs raising my attributes, the blow is harder than I expected. It flips the monster, sending it tumbling head over ass. The wound in its chest is nasty, a ragged hole that sucks in air. It dies before it hits the ground.

“Let’s go!” Derek yells to make himself heard.

I didn’t even notice him reach and pass me.

He leads the charge, stomping ahead through the horde. His body is already full of wounds, but the health bar above his head is only down by a quarter. I keep next to him, bobbing in and out of his shadow to kill. He has a mass aggro skill that he uses to great effect, so the monsters barely even notice me.

While the others whittle the horde from the outside, we decimate it from the inside. By the time we reach the skunk, we halve the number of minions. My mana is topped back up, the already insane regeneration rate on it boosted by my frenzy and Karen’s buffs.

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“Jack!” Derek calls out as he swipes at a horse.

It’s twice the size of a normal one, with a mane of twirling, worm-like hairs. Derek’s blow brings it down all the same.

“On it!”

I dash past him, stomping one of the horse’s legs to break it. The skunk is only some twenty feet or so away, trying to run off again. I trigger a full length dash and chase after it, getting nicked by teeth and claws from every direction.

“You’re not going anywhere!”

I hit another monster with my boot and use it as a springboard to pounce. The sledgehammer comes down, ground pound locked and loaded, but I miss the boss by inches. I hit the ground next to it, and the shockwave staggers the human-sized skunk.

Not to waste the opening, I abandon the sledgehammer as I spring back to my feet. I pull out the crowbar and take a jab at the boss with the chisel end. It raises its remaining paw to block the attack, and the crowbar doesn’t even pierce its thick skin and fur.

Fuck, I think right as it takes a swipe at me.

The momentum of my own attack carries me forward, right into its claws. The upward swing rakes over my abdomen and chest, tearing skin and shattering bone. It explodes out of my shoulder, nearly taking off an arm.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

I jump back, half of my health gone. The pain digs into me like filaments of lightning, cutting through my breath. I fall to one knee, my mind swimming with rage and agony. It’s only level 5, how the hell is this thing so strong?

We’re not prepared to face it. The last encounter was a lucky break.

I rise unsteadily to my feet and want to give the order to retreat, but I can’t push the words out. My ribcage is more of a concept than a reality. A few arrows plink off the skunk's back, each one draining a hair of health from the bar.

“Watch out!” Derek warns.

He rushes in front of me just as the skunk spins in place. It whips him with its long, bushy tail, and he flies away like a shot out of a cannon. He clips me and I go tumbling through the dirt, another chunk of health gone.

Derek shoots through a tree in his way and the trunk explodes into splinters. I skid to a stop next to Karen, who jumps on top of me with Princess to guard me.

The tree Derek flew through crashes down. Emily lands next to it and takes off running, her high ground taken out from under her.

“Jack?” Karen asks.

She leans down to grab me. I try to get up, to reach for her, but my body is spent. The system healing kicks in, ribs grinding against each other as they return into place. But even with my high constitution and all of the buffs, it'll take a while for me to heal.

“Re…reat…” I spit out a garbled word.

“What?”

“...treat…”

“Retreat!” She yells when she figures it out. “Retreat, retreat!”

She leans further and gets a hold of my shirt's collar. But when she pulls to lift me up, the tattered thing rips right off me.

The skunk spins again and the air around it starts to glow a sickly green.

“Run!” I bellow. “Leave me! Go!”

Karen doesn't listen. She snaps for me again just as the skunk unleashes an attack. Globs of lime colored liquid squirt out of its hind and fly everywhere.

One of them hits Karen right in the face. She screams as the liquid eats into her skin, melting it off. I roll away from under Princess as she goes wild, and I narrowly avoid getting splashed with the acid falling off of Karen.

A few drops do land on my legs, instantly eating through fabric and skin like water dissolving paper.

Karen keeps screaming as Princess bolts. I look around for the others, and they're all over the place. Willy is still up in his tree, burning through ammo like no tomorrow. Jessica joined up with Emily, the two of them surrounded by pets as they fight.

Carter runs around, his hands glowing, slapping sizzling handprints on the monsters. Derek is surrounded, and a couple of creatures are on him like backpacks.

I can't see Clarissa anywhere.

A little distance away, Princess bucks and throws Karen off. She hits the ground on her back, her health plummeting fast. A handful of monsters jump her.

The world freezes, the moment stretching out before me. Karen looks at me and I gasp. Half of her face is gone, eaten to the bone by the acid. It works its way down her neck and chest, burning, releasing thin wisps of caustic smoke. She only has one remaining eye that she pins on me.

The image burns itself into my mind. So many emotions flash across the remnants of her face. Rage at the monsters and deaths. Hope that somehow, just maybe, a miracle will happen and she'll live. Horror as the monsters rip into her and pain ripples through her broken body.

And above all, outshining them, is fear. The realization that no miracle is coming and she's about to die.

She raises a hand and points it at me. I reach out as well, as if I could bridge the distance and whisk her away. Keep her safe.

But I can't.

One of the monsters tears into her throat, spraying red hot blood everywhere. Karen shudders as death throes grip her mangled body, but her one eye stays trained on me. I can see the moment when light and conscience leave her.

The Matriarch has fallen.

Her Final Embrace fills you with power.

The notification vanishes into the folder before I can read the rest of it. Someone screams, but I can’t tell who it is. My own head spins, ears ringing with the whirlwind of rage.

Kill them, it roars in my ear.

The monsters tear into Karen’s lifeless body, ripping her piece from piece. I watch, frozen in horror, and all I can think is who will tell James that his mother is dead?

Let me out, the rage pleads. Let me out, and we can kill them all.

I close my eyes for a heartbeat as the world falls apart around me. I take a long, deep breath that makes my ruined chest shudder, and I let myself fall into the whirlwind.

Let’s do it, I answer. Let’s kill them all.