Chase’s eyes went wide, and his instincts took over. He ducked as a claw slashed over his head, passing him by and crashing into Marcus’s shield. The Tank was thrown off his feet, cutting a wide trench through the dirt like a tilled garden.

“Mia! The case!”

Understanding dawned in her eyes and she tossed the weapon case. He unlatched it, pulled out the MP7 and attached a reloaded magazine, taking two shots at the monster. It dropped to the ground with two holes through its skull.

He spun around, taking stock of the situation. The tree nearest him burned like a giant’s torch. A multi-legged beast clung to the adventurer’s statue, its spider-like abdomen covering almost the entire thing. Beyond the park, he spotted monsters trawling through the streets, destroying everything before them. A thirty-metre-high office building teetered as two of its concrete supports blew out under the force of a scaled monster’s mighty tail.

A Dungeon Break. It took only a handful of seconds to know that this one put the Eight Town Break to shame. Compared to this, the monsters that destroyed his old home were like ants that could be crushed underfoot.

Now the positions had swapped.

He darted forward to where a huddle of reporters, Haulers, and civilians had gathered amongst the grey dust and smoke. Marla stood guard around them, a felled monster’s claw held tight in her shaking hands. She caught sight of Chase and burst into tears, falling to her knees.

“They just…appeared,” she sobbed. “There was no time…Lamonsoff…” She gestured into the group, where Robin and Jenny were crouched next to a supine, unmoving form. Chase helped Marla to her feet, pointed her in Mia’s direction, then tore into the crowd of panicked bystanders.

And there he was.

Jenny shuffled back as Chase broke through, placing bloodied hands on her thighs and dropping her chin to her chest. There was a dark red gash across Lamonsoff’s stomach, and a number of deeply stained rags or shirts lying next to him. Evidently, they’d tried to pack the wound.

There was just too much blood.

Chase held a hand to his throat as the air seemed to turn thick. He couldn’t catch his breath, and he began to cough.

This isn’t right. It can’t be right. Our first City Raid.

He stumbled away from Lamonsoff’s still body, scrunching his eyes shut and focusing on catching a breath. Slowly but surely, his lungs and diaphragm obeyed him once again.

“In… the Gate,” he choked out. A few of the onlookers gave him idle glances, their eyes nearly glazed over.

“GET IN THE FUCKING GATE!” he yelled, running behind the group and physically pushing people toward the swirling blue sanctuary. It was still early in the day, meaning they had a bit over twelve hours until it would disappear. “THE DUNGEON IS CLEAR, GET INSIDE NOW!”

Mia and Marcus caught on to his plan, forming a two-man shield wall and moving the crowd like sheep in a pen. Jenny weaved through, slamming into Chase’s chest.

“Are you coming with us?” she asked.

Chase looked around at the carnage. The crumbling office building would soon fall, potentially starting a domino effect reducing thousands of tons of concrete to rubble. If they were lucky, some of the monsters would be trapped under the giant slabs, but it wouldn’t kill them. They’d only lay in wait for some unfortunate rescuer to find later on.

“I can’t,” he decided. “Those monsters are going to rampage through the entire City unless someone kills them. I can’t sit and wait for the Ultras when I could be helping.”

Jenny looked like she was ready to put him in a headlock and drag him into the cleared Dungeon herself, but she relented. Instead she nodded, turning away and calling for the crowd to follow her into the Gate.

He really hoped that wasn’t goodbye.

Across the street, Hunters who happened to be nearby were starting to fight against a torrent of monsters. Chase gathered his Hunters, shouting over the cries of the injured and afraid.

“You guys don’t have to fight, but I am!” he yelled. “You in?”

Jamie and Mia inclined their heads, staring at him gravely. They were absolutely committed.

“I don’t know…” David started. He was physically the weakest out of the group, though his newest set of armour had raised his Burst Strength to around the level of a B-Rank.

“That’s alright!” Chase rushed. “At least one of us needs to look after the civilians just in case we missed a monster in there. Marcus? You happy to join David?”

The six-foot-something Tank glanced at Mia, who nodded back at him. Whatever their relationship was, Chase could see how tough it was for Marcus to watch his counterpart run off into guaranteed danger.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Still, he agreed.

“Good. Go in there now so they calm down a bit. Mia and Jamie, we’ve gotta go.” He pointed at the struggling Hunters, and their group split apart to go to their separate duties. Jamie ran on his left, and Mia lugged her shield on her back as she scanned the broken City.

They passed Lamonsoff’s inert body.

Chase stared straight ahead.

*******

Seo-ah was gazing out the window nearest her cubicle when the first skyscraper fell. A giant cloud of debris and dust caught the corner of her vision, then the thunderclap of mangled steel, sheets of glass and solid concrete smashing into each other filled the air like a grenade going off in her ear. She fell from her chair and crawled beneath her desk, wary of debris even from this distance. Two City wasn’t far enough away for her to take the chance.

Around her, other GRA employees were doing much the same. A few of the brave (or stupid) ones were rushing to the window, pressing their noses up against it for a better look at the destruction. She didn’t need to assess the damage even further to know that it was catastrophic.

Within minutes, a brown haze of dust cloaked the building like a tornado’s embrace. The windows rattled, the air smelled of dirt, and those with asthma were wheezing and taking in breaths from small puffers. An evacuation alarm was going off somewhere in the building, but not in their section. Still, it was time to leave.

“Hal?” she called. She’d last seen her co-worker on a mission to the coffee machine, but she never saw him come back. He certainly wasn’t at or under his desk.

“Kim Seo-ah?”

“Just Kim,” she said reflexively. It wasn’t the time for correcting names, but it was habit at this point. “Have you received orders?”

Hal chuckled from somewhere on the other side of the bank of desks, then he immediately cut himself off. “No emails, messages, or anything. What should we do?”

“Get the fuck out is what we should do. Think the elevators are working?”

“No,” chirped a voice Kim barely recognized.

The intern.

“How do you know?”

“I checked,” replied the quiet voice.

Kim could hear the tell-tale tremble of a kid at their breaking point. She felt bad for ever being annoyed at the poor guy. “Okay, that’s fine. Lights are off, too. Anyone’s computer still running?”

A chorus of no’s drifted back from the other hiding occupants. Even the formerly brave window-peepers had taken cover after the blanket of grit enveloped the building. Now that the danger might have reached them, it felt more serious.

“Right, well there won’t be lights in the stairwell. Solutions?”

“I’ve got a cigarette lighter,” came the intern’s meek voice.

“Perfect,” Kim said. Should’ve thought of that myself. “Hal, go grab a roll of paper towel from the kitchen. I’ll find something to wrap it around.”

Hal scuttled away, then Seo-ah poked up at her desk and rifled through her trinkets and paperwork. Halfway down the stack was a display folder — the kind with a plastic spine that loops around plastic pockets. With a complete lack of care for the documents inside, she ripped the plastic backing clean off, leaving her with a stick that she could poke sheets of paper towel into. Hal returned almost immediately, juggling three rolls of the stuff.

“Enough?” he asked.

“Heaps.” Then she whispered. “What’s the intern’s name?”

“It’s Gerry,” the intern answered from around the bank of desks.

“Sorry, Gerry. I’ll take that lighter now.” There was no time to be embarrassed about her slipup. The lighter slid under the desks, rolling along the carpet. She snatched it up, then began her makeshift torch.

She spoke up. “Alright, people, we’re going to make for the stairwell, walking, on my lead. Once we get in, I’m going to light this and guide us down. It won’t smell nice, and the fire alarms might go off, but just hold the rail and stay calm, okay?”

There was no chorus of approval, but she could practically hear their hearts pounding. They’d seen the skyscraper fall.

The Four City GRA office could be next.

“Go.”

She watched the procession of frightened employees flounder to their feet and follow her, their hands out in front of them guarding against rogue table-ends. The dust was oppressive now, turning the outside of the building into a dark void from which scant light entered. She traced her usual steps to exit the building, trusting in her instinct and the hundreds of times she’d walked this path in recent months. Thankfully, the door to the elevator foyer opened without needing her security card, and the fire exit door was just beyond that. She held it open while everyone filed through into the tight space.

“Lighting the torch. Hold the rail, remember.”

The lighter sparked a couple times, and for a moment it seemed to be out of fluid. Then the yellow flame flickered into existence, licking at the bottom of the paper towel. It caught, wavered slightly, then began to burn steadily. The ‘torch’ produced a lot less flame than Kim expected, but it was enough to light their way. She held it over the railing, letting the light guide the person at the front down each flight.

It was slow going, but it was progress.

When they broke out into the ground-level foyer, Kim felt like kissing the cold, well-trodden tiles. The dust wasn’t as thick down here, though it had gathered against the doors and glass walls like snow against a blizzard-stricken house. Suited businesspeople and uniformed employees were packed behind the reception desk like bees in a hive, all of them staring fearfully into what had become of the outside world.

This is more than one collapsed building. This is an entire City being levelled.

She considered how many people might have been in Two City when that first skyscraper fell. She thought about the destruction that must have been wrought in order for such a thing to happen. This was perhaps similar in scope to the Dungeon Break that Chase’s parents had protected New Melbourne from.

Shit. Chase.

At first, she’d only needed to be concerned for her own livelihood. Her parents lived in Six Town which, due to the layout of the Towns and Cities, was about as far from the mayhem as possible. But Chase worked all over New Melbourne, and his guild had been ramping up its operations recently, as if it were trying to burst onto the mainstage. If it weren’t for their miniscule team of Hunters, they’d probably have made it there even quicker.

She brought up her System and flashed deftly through the screens, finding her message log with Chase. They’d spoken the night before, but there was nothing in their history about his movements for the day.

[Where are you? Are you safe?]

*******

Less than two kilometres away, Chase knelt in the ruins of a corner-store. Shattered vending machines sparked, and the ground smelled sickly sweet as litres of spilled soda soaked into the hot earth. There was a gash just below his left armpit, and blood dripped from a cut on his forehead, invading his eye until he wiped it away.

Kim’s message pinged on his System. He felt his Relay, Enro, slip into his consciousness, ready to receive orders.

Unfortunately, there was no time to reply.

The next wave was coming.