Max had been expecting to feel odd once he got back to Earth, or maybe have some sort of discombobulation. Instead, he’d just experienced a wave of relief that had been replaced with determination.

After borrowing a cell phone, Max had signed into his email and confirmed that all of his family was alive. Apparently they’d tried to call, tried to text, and then moved to email. He had dozens of emails from his mom alone.

They’re alive. He felt like some weight had been lifted from his shoulder. Especially as he saw the destroyed city around him, he was grateful for the news. But he knew that he had to leave this world again soon and a lot could happen between now and when he got back. The best he could do was get as strong as he could before returning.

So after reading all the frantic emails from his family, he’d sent a series of simple replies and put the phone away. He’d been tempted to check current events, but there were currently more pressing matters.

No use adding even more stress on top of what he was already working with.

His new Path he’d received was still settling, his body, mind, and spirit absorbing it. He mostly ignored the part of his mind that was tied up working on that. Instead, his senses probed the Mana Vault he’d gotten from Morrigan. If he concentrated, he could actually feel it sucking in the ambient mana. The artifact was most likely his ticket to growing in power as a Blade Sorcerer. For now he was content to let it just keep doing what it was doing.

Max looked up and began paying attention to his surroundings again.

The local militia group his friend Blake was in moved down the street at a cautious clip. The destroyed city around them was theoretically clear of monsters between this point and their destination, but nobody was taking chances.

After Max's display of some of his power earlier, he had been placed in one of the vehicles that carried more powerful combatants. Luckily, this group also included Blake. Max rode in the back of a pickup truck at the front of the convoy with his friend and two others.

Everyone was on edge and Max was pleased, but not entirely surprised, that the survivors were taking the group's safety seriously. After all, if they were oblivious people, they might already be dead by now. Moreover, they certainly wouldn't have joined a militia after a monster apocalypse to try saving their fellow man.

In fact, as the group continued down the road, Max reflected that everyone in this convoy was likely a very brave or civic-minded person.

One of the two other people in the back of the pickup truck with Max and Blake was the young woman who had spoken to Max before, Heather. Her crossbow sat on the floor beside her. The last person was an unfamiliar blonde man who seemed nervous. He kept fidgeting. Being nervous was understandable, they were going to fight monsters, after all. But this man looked even more twitchy than others he could see in the rest of the convoy. Max found this somewhat odd since the man had volunteered to being in this militia in the first place, and was also in the truck that only super-powered fighters occupied. This should mean he had advantages that vanilla humans didn’t.

He briefly opened his third eye, examining the man.

Tyler Addison

Challenger

Voracious Spirit Path

Suddenly, the man made a face and looked up, meeting Max’s gaze. "What? You want to take a picture?" he asked.

"Excuse me?"

"Well, you're staring at me. I don't know why you're so calm. We're going to go fight monsters and the others might not know, but we know what the real deal is," the man said.

"What are you talking about?" Max asked. To one side, Blake watched silently.

The man chuckled, the sound betraying his nervousness. "There are a few who graduated from the Quartets. But not many, and I haven't met any in the U.S. yet. Odds are, you're just like me, somebody who died in a Quartet dungeon. That means we know how easy it is to die, even with more power. And I need to kill the fucking monsters to get my power back. Maybe you do too. Otherwise why would you be here?" He chuckled.

Max could tell he didn’t like this guy. “What’s your name?”

“Tyler.”

Max sighed. After all the problems he’d had in the Quartet, he really wasn’t trying to pick a fight with more Challengers. He did find it interesting that the man hadn’t commented on Max’s outfit, which was directly from his Quartet, not something most people on Earth would wear. Of course, it’d seen better days now. He probably looked like a hobo. Max said, “I think we’ll be fine. In fact, I’ll take point. Don’t worry.”

The man studied Max with an expression betraying a mix of emotions. “I still need to kill monsters, though.”

“Well, maybe you can do it when it’s a little safer, then? As I understand it, there are trapped people we’re going to save. Maybe this isn’t the best time to push it.”

“Are you actually a Quartet graduate? Why are you so confident?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Max shook his head ruefully. “If I’m wrong, I’m dead, right?”

“I guess,” said Tyler. “Whatever.”

Blake got his attention and mouthed, “Are you okay?” Max nodded in return and gave a thumb up.

***

The apartments were not just one building as Max had expected. Instead, it looked like there were at least three buildings, maybe more, all four stories high. It was an apartment complex. Around it, there were cops with flashing lights, but they didn’t have sirens on and there were only three cars. As they got closer, he noticed that some of the cops were not even wearing full uniforms.

"Blake," Max asked, "why are some officers not in full uniform?"

Blake replied, "Some officers have been killed over the last week. The police department has been accepting volunteers on a case-by-case basis. I guess they have more equipment than they have bodies. But even so, there just aren't enough of them to go around. And there are vigilante groups like us, but I think usually the police try to be at the areas where serious stuff is going down at least to supervise or something. They’re trying."

Heather chimed in. "Yeah, Max might not know this. At first when everything happened, when the monsters appeared, cops went in guns blazing. The problem is, not all monsters can be killed with guns, or at least not killed fast enough. It's like…a grizzly bear. Sure, guns might kill the thing, but if it gets close enough to chop him up, that's one more officer down." Blake soberly nodded in agreement.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The militia pulled up to the curb and Max got his first glimpse of the monsters, some of which were looking through a window. He recognized them. Kobolds, he thought. He could only see their heads, but it was enough. They were vaguely reptilian, but with a crest of fur running from their dog-like noses up their snout, over their heads, and down their backs. Their ears were furry and floppy.

Max used his third eye, bolstered by The Hidden Twilight Eye around his neck. Over the heads of the monsters, he saw the same thing for each:

Gssrell Kobold, Uplands Tribe

To one side, two police officers were staring at the kobolds. The monsters stared right back through the glass. Max got the impression they were lookouts. He’d bet they had some way to alert the other kobolds if they were being attacked.

Meanwhile, the rest of the kobolds could do whatever they wanted.

Further into the apartment complex, Max could hear screams. At first, he couldn’t understand why the officers were not using their firearms to kill the scouts, but then he remembered that shooting into apartments during potential hostage situations was probably not a great idea. In fact, this entire situation was pretty much a nightmare for the emergency personnel. They had no good options. Running in to save people right now could just end up with all the cops dead and the apartment dwellers without any help at all.

Emergency workers in the city had to be hanging onto civilization with their fingernails.

"Boy, are we glad to see you," said one of the police officers. He was wearing an equipment belt and cargo pants. Instead of a real police uniform, he had on a dark shirt. Max noticed that in addition to the Glock on his hip, he also had what looked like a short sword tucked through his equipment belt.

"So who's in charge?" asked one of the militia members, an older man.

“Oh my god, I can hear people screaming from here!” said Heather. “We gotta help them!”

Blake pointed at Max. “He should be in charge. He’s a Returner.”

Tyler scoffed, "A returner. Right."

Meanwhile, the cop in the dark shirt openly showed surprise and respect. “Are you a returner?”

"Something like that," said Max. "But I'm not in charge. In fact, the longer we wait here, the more people are going to get hurt. So I'm just going in."

"But wait, don't we need a plan or something?" asked a militia member, a younger guy with glasses. Max ignored him and ran toward the nearest building. Lavinia, he thought. His ectoplasm armor sprang up, making his form glow.

He was heading directly to the top floor, but changed his mind before reaching the building. Instead, he headed directly for the kobolds in the window. Some of the people behind him cursed and started yelling. Max mentally moved more of his armor to cover his face and head before diving through the front of the window.

There were a total of three. One hadn’t been in the window.

The kobolds were so surprised by the sudden attack, they didn't even have time to respond. Max was immediately behind them. His sword practically flew out of its scabbard. He cut left, cut right, stabbed, kicked, and savagely knocked one of the creatures aside with his forearm. In two seconds, all three were dead. He mentally asked Lavinia to do a quick check of the apartment with her spirits, ensuring there were no other monsters or living people. In only a few seconds, the sad answer came back. No more monsters, but no surviving humans, either.

Max tisked. "I fucking hate monsters.”

After a second of hesitation, Max climbed out of the window and bounded back to the militia group. The cops and even some of the militia flinched back from him as he approached. The last vehicles of the militia had finally fully stopped and those fighters began to disembark.

Tyler’s eyes were huge.

To Blake and to the police he said, "You guys should all follow up behind me. I might not get all of them, but I should get most. Either way just be careful. But what I really need you guys to do is find the survivors and get them the hell out of here. Or at least the ones that want to go or need medical attention." He didn't wait for them to reply. Max turned. Using a combination of ectoplasmic rope and the repulsion effect under his feet that he borrowed from Slick, he easily bound up to the fourth floor of the apartment complex.

Then, using Lavinia as his Intel manager, he went down the hallway, going into the apartments he needed to. It was pretty easy to tell which ones had been ransacked by monsters since the doors were broken in. But he wasn't taking any chances. Whenever he came to an apartment that still had monsters inside, Max grimly entered and destroyed them all. It was bloody work that was made exponentially faster with the help of his spirits.

Some of the kobolds tried waiting behind corners or inside of closets for him, but his spirits weren’t fooled, and neither was Max.

When he was done with the first building, Max bound over to the second and actually caught some of the kobolds skulking around in the bushes outside. Like all of their kin, they carried crude weapons made of badly forged iron. Their tools were basically just a step above what goblins usually carried. Even so, Max knew from experience that in numbers kobolds could still be very dangerous. Although they were slightly shorter than the average human woman, they were still all around the same strength as a man.

Max’s first star mana body strength would have been sufficient on its own, but his Summoner abilities took all of the guesswork out of hunting down the kobolds.

He sunk into something like a trance, finding and killing the monsters. They’d done a lot of damage. He didn’t focus on the dead bodies, and he ignored when survivors took pictures or videos of him. In fact, he tuned out pretty much everything but the job at hand: killing monsters.

Like his previous life, the greatest comedy in the universe was the fact he’d been called “Hero” when his calling had always been destruction. The healers were at least as valuable as anything he did, but they’d never get recognition for it. The universe was truly unfair.

After he’d cleared the entire apartment complex and his thoughts turned to something other than just single-minded killing again, Max realized that even as a single star mana body Blade Sorcerer, he had to be much stronger than most of the locals. That was a disturbing realization. Some of the monsters he’d seen before being whisked to the Quartet had definitely been beyond his ability to deal with back then.

He headed back to the militia caravan and the cop cars, still flashing blue lights. Max was covered in blood, and as the people in the caravan rushed past to help the wounded civilians, most recoiled from him.

When he finally made it back to Blake, his friend gave him a concerned look, searching his eyes. Everyone else gave them a respectful amount of space. Blake finally said, “Good job. You’re okay, right?”

“Yeah. Kobolds are basically smaller than humans and have no real training or skill. Just some cunning. Not much of a problem.”

“I see.” Blake called out to the cops. “You got this, officers?” They nodded in return.

Now that the mission was done, Max’s energy started to fade and he felt hollow. The fight really hadn’t been much of a challenge. He focused on a gourney leaving the apartment complex, surrounded by medics. The wounded woman had been bitten badly. Makeshift bandages were already soaked through with blood.

His actions had definitely saved people. But Max’s experiences as the Hero of Albion gave him a different perspective. Max had helped some people in this apartment complex, but the crisis was world-wide. And he was only going to be on earth for less than two days.

How could he best use his time?

“Hey Blake.”

“Yeah?”

“We haven’t had tons of time to talk yet, but some of the other students I was teaching also have powers, right?”

“Yes.”

“I need to talk to them. And you. Like, everyone all at once.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” said Blake. “We’ve actually kind of all been crashing together, for protection. Also, that way we can go out and do what we need to quicker, I guess.” He scratched his head, hiding embarrassment.

Max nodded. “Can you do me a favor and bring me to everyone?”

“Now?”

“Yeah. Maybe let everyone know I’m coming.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. Everyone in this apartment complex is good to go now. The Gate that the monsters came from is gone. I heard some of the residents took video of you. They’re calling you a hero.”

“Please don’t say that,” Max muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He sighed. “Anyway, can we go? Time is kind of important.”

“Oh yeah, sure thing. And…” Blake hesitated. “Dude, I’ll be honest. I want to hear what you have to say. I’m pretty chill and even I have a lot of questions.”

“Yeah. I can figure.”

“Alright, let me clear borrowing a car. Be right back.”

Max sat on the curb, ignoring all the stares. He wasn’t sure what his homecoming on Earth would be like, but he hadn’t expected to feel so…depressed. All this misery, all over earth, all over the universe. Why?

He was lost in his thoughts until he got into a jeep with Blake. His friend seemed to sense his mood and let him sit in silence for a while.