Alex and Claire raced from their room, practically flying down the steps in their haste to get out of the apartment. With the amount of shaking the old building had just gone through, it was probably more likely to kill them than any monster was.

It seemed that everyone else had similar ideas. Survivors raced out of the lobby all around them, sprinting into the street. He and Claire joined the river of people escaping the building.

People scrambled for their weapons and screams rang through the air all around them. Whether they were from terror or combat, Alex couldn’t tell.

“Form a line! Stop running off like idiots and stand your ground!” Ben’s voice echoed through the night. He stood in the center of the street, his axe raised high into the air like a flag. “If we panic, we’re going to just get cut down one by one!”

“They’re past the damn barricades!” A long-haired man screamed as he struggled to pull his shirt on and hopped from foot to foot, staring at the ground as if something was about to jump up from beneath him — which, in his favor, seemed to be entirely possible.

“I think we’ve figured that bit out!” Ben yelled back. He slammed his axe into the ground with enough force to crack the street beneath him. “Now get your shit together, Isaiah! And put your damn pants on the right way. You’re going to trip over yourself again.”

Alex and Claire pushed through the crowd, which proved to be surprisingly easy to do. There weren’t anywhere near as many survivors as Alex had expected to find. The street was populated, but given the number of people in the town, it seemed as if less than half of them were present.

The sounds of combat rang though the air all around them as Towntown was plunged into a fight. Despite Ben’s best efforts, people weren’t working well together. Alex hadn’t even managed to spot a single monster since he’d stepped out, but people were running screaming instead of gathering to fight at choke points.

Irritation washed over Ben’s features as another survivor turned and sprinted down the street, running away from the others.

“Damn it,” Ben snarled. “Stop running, you idiots! Our best chance is when we fight together! Stand—”

The ground beneath Ben exploded. A boney hand jutted up from the earth and wrapped around his leg. Ben screamed as a loud crunch echoed out through the street, carving through the noise like a knife.

Glowing silver light spilled out from beneath him. Another hand slammed down into the ground. Dirt and stone sloughed away as a blue-skinned monster pulled itself free of the dirt, the bones glistening within its translucent form.

The bone on its back was largely fused together in a giant plate. Large bone spikes ran down its spine and jutted from the ends of its joints. Rows of sharp, yellowed teeth ran in several straight rows, nestled within its draconic skull. The monster had a stark lack of any organs. It was just bone suspended in slimy blue flesh. The debris beneath the monster was ground to dust as it completely emerged crouched on its hind legs like a monkey.

Dire Boneraptor (Novice 5)

The Boneraptor hoisted Ben into the air by his broken leg. The warrior let out a pained scream and swung his axe at the creature’s arm. His large weapon dug through the translucent flesh, sending pale blue fluid splattering to the ground and across his face.

A scream tore free of the Boneraptor’s mouth. It reared back and whipped Ben forward like it was discarding an unwanted doll. His limbs flailed as he sailed through the air, his scream coming to an abrupt stop as he slammed into the wall of a building.

Stone shattered and rained down together with him, and he laid still. Panic tore through the ranks of the survivors around them instantly. Even though some of the people on the street were easily strong enough to fight the large monster if they’d worked together, nobody wanted to be the first one forward.

Ben twitched. He wasn’t dead — and the Boneraptor was more than aware. It lumbered toward him, each step shaking the ground beneath it slightly.

“Work together on one?” Claire asked, cracking her neck and raising her sword before her. “After that, I’m going for the top of the leaderboard. I’m winning this thing.”

“You’re certainly going to try,” Alex said, summoning Glint and Spark with a thought. The air cracked around him as his monsters stepped out into the street. Several survivors backed away from him, their eyes wide in fear. Alex ignored them.

Claire smirked. Then she burst into motion. Her arm changed as she ran, black veins carving beneath her skin and working up to her hand.

“Kill the Boneraptor.” Alex thrust his hand forward, sending Glint and Spark rushing forward in her wake.

The Boneraptor reached for Ben. His arm twitched and he groaned, trying to grab for his axe, but his injuries were too significant. An instant before the towering monster could grab Ben, it spotted Claire approaching out of the corner of an eye.

It abandoned its previous prey and spun toward her. With a roar, the Boneraptor swung a large hand for Claire in an attempt to squash her in a single strike. She twisted her body and met the monster’s strike with a blow of her own.

Their blows connected.

Bone shattered.

Blue flesh splattered across the ground. The Boneraptor screamed in pain and yanked its arm back. Fragments of bone floated in its translucent hand. Claire’s strike had nearly torn its hand clean free of its wrist.

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Glint reached the Boneraptor an instant later, while the skeletal monster was still on the backfoot. The Shardwalker leapt into the air. His claws flashed, carving huge furrows down the huge creature’s chest.

Blue ichor spilled out, pouring past Glint and onto the street. The Boneraptor let out a scream of pain and fury — and Spark arrived before it, the Echo Wraith’s fist driving up in a vicious uppercut.

The monster’s mouth forcibly snapped shut. Teeth shattered against each other and cracks carved through its jaw. Spark floated up, leaving a shadow of himself on the ground, and the Boneraptor lunged for him, aiming to bite the floating monster with what remained of its teeth.

Spark swapped places with his shadow.

The Boneraptor bit down on nothing but darkness. Glint leapt up onto its back, his claws shearing through the thick bone plate with loud screeching strikes. While it was preoccupied, Claire slashed at the monster with her sword, carving clean through its leg.

A pained roar tore through the street. Claire darted back as the huge creature pitched to the side and crashed to the ground where she’d been standing, its claws just barely missing as they carved through the air beside her.

Before she could deal the finishing blow to the Boneraptor, Glint and Spark were upon it. Glint’s claws sliced straight into the monster’s face and Spark drove a blow into its skull with such force that its skull cracked.

Blue fluid dribbled from the creature’s mouth and it fell still. Energy trickled into Alex. The Boneraptor was dead. Awed stares burned into Alex and Claire from all the survivors on the street. Alex barely even took note of them.

That’s one kill for me. Sorry, Claire. Unless that counts for both of us? I’m not sure, but I’m not taking the chance with the future monsters. I’m going to win this thing.

Claire hurried over to Ben’s side and knelt beside him. “Hey. You okay?”

Ben let out a groan. He waved her away and grabbed his axe, driving it into the ground and slowly hoisting himself into the air. He swayed for a moment but managed to keep himself standing.

“I’m alive. Thanks for the save,” Ben said through gritted teeth. “Don’t worry about me. Everyone else is out fighting for their lives. They need help.”

Curiously enough, the Boneraptor hadn’t dropped a flame. Alex didn’t know why, but this wasn’t the time to worry about it. Perhaps the System was somehow saving all the event rewards for later.

He cast his gaze around the street. Not a single one of the survivors around them had made a move to help Ben. It wasn’t like they were just random members of the town — he recognized some of them from the groups that had been chatting jovially with Ben just a few hours before. His eyes narrowed.

“Ben was right,” Alex said. “You’re all cowards.”

Isaiah — the man with long, black hair — grabbed the shortsword that hung at his side. He was Novice 4, which wasn’t a particularly impressive rank as far as Alex was concerned. “That’s easy for you to say! You’ve got monsters to fight for you! The rest of us have to risk our necks!”

Ben coughed blood into his fist, then gritted his teeth. “This isn’t the time—”

“I can break you with or without my monsters. I don’t need them to beat someone like you,” Alex said, cutting Ben off and striding up to Isaiah. “I’m not going to take shit from someone too scared to back their leader up. Ben was making the right calls. It’s easier if you fight together. Really, it’s the perfect situation for a coward.”

Isaiah’s gaze flicked to the side. The entire crowd was watching them and he knew it. His jaw tightened, stance shifted. One of his hands moved to the hilt of his sword and tightened around it.

“So now you’re willing to pull your weapon out?” Alex arched an eyebrow. “Against an unarmed human instead of a monster? You really are a—”

Isaiah’s sword slid free of its sheath with a metallic ring. Fire raced down its surface and rose off it in hungry tongues as he lunged and drove the weapon forward, wasting absolutely no time in going for a killing blow.

Alex twisted out of the way. The sword flashed by him, missing by inches and leaving Isaiah wide open. The swordsman realized his mistake and tried to correct it, pulling his sword back into a defensive position.

He wasn’t nearly fast enough.

Twisting his body, Alex drove all the force he could muster into a punch. He didn’t use any magic.

He didn’t need to.

His fist connected with Isaiah’s face. The man’s nose crunched and his head snapped to the side. Before Isaiah could recover, Alex struck him a second time with his other fist. Isaiah’s already-broken nose crunched again and blood splattered across Alex’s knuckles.

The swordsman stumbled back, tripped over his own feet, and crashed to the ground. He clutched at his face and let out a garbled scream of pain.

“Enough!” Isaiah begged, his voice nasally. He scooted away from Alex and held his free hand up before him. “Stop! I’m done! I don’t want to die!”

Alex stared down at him, blood dripping from a fist, and made no move forward. His features twisted in disgust and he shook his head.

“I don’t even have to kill you. You’ll end up doing it to yourself.”

“You’re insane,” Isaiah stammered. His crablike escape came to a halt as he bumped against the legs of one of the other survivors in the crowd, who glanced up at Alex and took a nervous step back.

“And you’re a coward. It’s not just you, either.” Alex thrust his finger at the rest of the survivors on the street. Dozens of people that had been fully capable of stepping in — and not one that had. “You’re all pathetic. Every single person here.”

Stares bored into him, but not a single person challenged his words. Several of them broke gaze, looking down at the floor in shame.

“Alex, this isn’t the time,” Ben said. “You and Claire could be really useful. There are people that need—”

“I’m not one of your men, Ben,” Alex said, voice flat. “I’m not working together with these idiots, but I am going to kill monsters. As for you — I’d probably look into finding better company to watch your back.”

With that, he strode off toward where the sound of the fighting was the loudest. Claire and his summoned monsters hurried after him.

“Wasn’t that a bit much?” Claire asked once they’d put some distance between themselves and the stunned street of survivors.

“Nah.” Alex shook his head and wiped his hand off on his clothes. “That asshole had it coming. And they need someone to be pissed off at if they want to survive. Getting mad always gets me going, and if they’re focused on being mad at me instead of thinking about how their leader just got smoked, they might actually listen to him. Ben did have the right idea.”

Claire glanced at Alex out of the corners of her eyes. “You’re making yourself the bad guy so they get their shit together? You’re nicer than you come off as.”

“I just need someone to keep the monsters waiting for me until I get around to killing them,” Alex replied, picking up his pace. “And, as I said, that asshole had it coming.”

“Sure,” Claire said, a small grin playing across her features. “Whatever you say. You ready to lose this thing? Or are you going to steal the rest of my kills with Glint?”

Alex coughed into a fist. “I won’t touch them if you don’t need the help. I’m going to do everything I can to win this thing, but good luck. Don’t get yourself killed.”

“I won’t,” Claire said. She saluted him with her sword. “Good luck to you as well. Let’s kill some big bleedin’ bastards.”

Alex returned her grin. “Let’s.”