I don’t think I’d ever been so panicked in my life.

As Johann, Fade, and I dashed frantically through the woods in the direction of the host, we tried to thin the growing monster horde as much as we could. Practically, this meant we were wildly swinging at every forming Monster Core we could, trying to shatter them before they could complete. We didn’t even bother to make sure we’d managed to truly take out the cores on our path. We just struck at anything in our path.

The three of us may have left dozens of ruined cores in our path, but it didn’t matter.

Every minute hundreds took their place, stretching as far as the eye could see through the boughs of this forest.

We had been running for over ten minutes by now, but eventually, our luck had to run out.

Behind us, the first of the monsters finished forming. As howls and screeches filled the air, all I could do was grit my teeth and pump my legs harder.

I heard the hordes of monsters begin to charge after us. I couldn’t even bother to try and take out the still forming cores ahead of me, anymore. I needed all the energy I could spare just to keep running.

Unfortunately…

It was too much for Johann.

He broke.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the other agent look over his shoulder briefly. Whatever he saw made the blood drain from his face. Even though we were both sprinting and panting, the other man still had the breath to start sobbing. He turned to me with a hysterically apologetic look on his youthful features and spoke only two words.

“I’m sorry!”

Before I could answer, Johann’s body suddenly took on a bright yellow glow.

His running speed more than tripled.

Johann took off, rapidly accelerating away from Fade and I.

I…nearly couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Johann…

Was leaving us behind.

You bastard…

“You…BASTARD…” I nearly screamed between puffs of breath. I felt a sense of hopelessness try to roll over me, before I squashed it brutally with my middle ring.

I couldn’t afford that right now.

Risking a glance over my shoulder to see what had reduced Johann to a coward, my already thundering heart stuttered in my chest at what I found.

There was an endless sea of monsters charging through the trees behind me, just barely in sight. There were so, so many of them, all slavering and snarling as they chased after us. They filled the entire horizon of the forest, from as far as I could see in either direction. Behind them were even more bloodthirsty beasts, with more forming every second. I don’t even know if they were specifically chasing me with how absolutely stark raving mad they looked.

I grit my teeth, turning back around. One thing I had noticed was that they were gaining on Fade and me.

I couldn’t outrun them forever. And I don’t think I could make it back to the host before they reached me.

I couldn’t die here. I wouldn’t allow myself to. I had too much to live for now. Sylvia and I had only just reached an understanding! I had a LIFE now! I had THINGS TO LOOK FORWARD TO!

I. WOULD. NOT. DIE. HERE.

Reaching down and scooping up a shocked Fade, I ratcheted Sylvan Vigor to max power and activated Thorn Cloak at the same time. Feeling my Skill settle over my shoulders, I leaped as high as I could into the air, one hand outstretched before me.

And triggered Thorn Grapple.

A grasping head of thorns and burrs shot from my palm at blistering speed, disappearing into the tree tops. I felt it impact something moments later, and my arm was nearly yanked out of its socket as I was rapidly pulled in that direction. The trees ran together in a blur as I rocketed upwards, only for our ascent to abruptly halt.

My hastily thrown-out skill had brought us to the very top of a tall tree, and just in front of me was a small nook in between the tree branches. I scrambled into it, clutching Fade to my chest almost desperately. As soon as we were inside the small cramped space, I hunched over and did my best to cover us both completely in my concealing skill-borne cloak.

If we couldn’t outrun the horde, I hoped to fucking God that we could hide from it.

I looked down at Fade in the dark depression I had found for us. His bright green eyes pierced through the darkness created by my cloak, glowing slightly. I saw the young wolf take a deep breath before he snuggled tighter into my chest. I nearly sobbed at the gesture, clutching him as tightly as I dared, uncaring about his horns.

Moments later, I heard the dread-inducing sound of the horde start passing far beneath us. They thundered past the tree I was hiding up in a thunderously monstrous cacophony. But that wasn’t all.

Above the tree we were in, I heard wing beats and the screeches of even more monsters. If possible, my eyes widened even more before I cursed in the depths of my mind. Of course there would be airborne monsters created by the Break as well, you fucking idiot.

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I could only pray that they both didn’t look down, and couldn’t pierce the shroud of Thorn Cloak.

The advance of the horde continued for minutes. God, it might have even been half an hour before I heard the sound of thundering feet, paws, and wings start to taper off. In that time, I never once allowed myself to untense. At any moment I was sure that some ravenously hungry monsters would climb the tree Fade and I were hiding in and fall upon us in an orgy of blood and fangs. Or a sharp-eyed flyer would swoop down from the infested skies and drag us away to have our guts ripped out.

But…

Nothing happened.

My last-minute gamble to escape the horde appeared to pay off. An almost sobbing sigh of relief escaped my lips before I could stop it. I felt a long flat tongue lick my cheek, almost in reassurance.

“I’m okay,” I breathed, smiling slightly down at Fade. The wolf had an almost worried look on his lupine features. “We’re okay.”

At least, for now. Time to actually figure out if that was true.

Cautiously, I lifted my skill-borne cloak enough for my head to peek out.

Nothing. I didn’t immediately see any flying monsters just waiting above the treetops to swoop down on us. Fully exiting the concealment of my cloak, I set Fade down on the hollow that we were hiding inside and crept to the edge. I looked down.

Well, it doesn’t look like all the monsters were gone.

Far below us, there were still a few lingering monsters milling about, almost in confusion. It was like they knew there was something they should be doing, but couldn’t quite manage it.

Actually, wait a moment. These were some pretty tall trees, so I couldn't make them out very well. I took out my far-eye once more, extending it and looking below me.

Gods, they were hideous. The particular monsters below us looked to have been malformed. They almost looked mutated in some way, with additional vestigial limbs or even extra eyes, mouths, and ears. Or they were possibly even missing some of those.

I watched as one particular mutant Warg, with what looked to have no eyes, a single leg, and an extra tail growing out of its mouth instead of a tongue wiggle around uselessly on the forest floor. It, and all the other mutants that had been left behind, were beyond grotesque.

But they looked mostly harmless. I had no way to prove it, but I’m guessing that they were the product of being so rapidly created. That didn’t matter right now, though.

Instead, I had to think of my next move. I couldn’t stay in this tree forever. Luckily, I had a method of communication.

I retreated from the edge of the tree and rummaged around in my pack of supplies. Withdrawing both my gold communication coin and my cheat sheet, I looked it over with a frown. What kind of message could actually convey how absolutely fucked this situation was?

I guess I’d go with this one.

Flipping my coin in the specified manner, I spelled it out.

‘Imminent disaster. Request extraction.’

There was no way that I was going to try and make it back to the host like this. If I did, I was going to run straight into the back lines of the horde. There was no way I’d be able to survive that. That had been the entire point of hiding up here. And I couldn't rely on the tree tops concealing me if I tried to make it back that way. I'd probably get plucked right out of the air by a flier.

By my estimate, I might be as far out from the Army as an hour at a dead sprint. That put me at a significant distance from the relative safety of the host.

I had no way of knowing just how many monsters were infesting these woods now. Even though all I could see below me were useless mutants, I had to assume that it was a death sentence to try and travel on foot. Luckily, I had at least a little bit of experience in traveling by tree top, if I was going to be moving away from the horde. I had never forgotten my experience in the forests of Addersfield, just after gaining my class.

Damn, it was taking a long time for Nocturne headquarters to link my coin. When I had initially called for that coward Finch, it had only taken them a few minutes to act. Maybe they already knew about the break, and were swamped right now?

Restless, I decided to climb to the very top of the tree that I was hiding in, in order to get a little reconnaissance done. Under the curious and worried gaze of Fade, I scaled a nearby branch and gazed off into the horizon.

I was intending to use my far-eye, but I didn’t even need it.

What was happening was viewable from where I was. In a very, very, very bad way.

On the horizon I could see a familiar bright blue star, ascending into the sky rapidly.

My eyes widened, my mouth dropping open in shock. There was more than one of those installations?

God…

This particular Break was far off into the distance, only barely visible from my position. A rough estimate put the rising spell at maybe twenty, perhaps thirty miles away. But it was still unmistakable. I watched in shock as the star reached its zenith and burst open, filling the sky with bright blue Mana. The shockwave couldn’t reach me from this distance, but I still felt a small, slight sizzle of power roll over me.

I let out a slight, shuddering breath. What were the Loyalists thinking? This was beyond overkill. Just one of those enhanced Ward Breaks had created as many monsters as soldiers that existed in the Army of the Uprising. Presumably, all of these monsters were intended to deal with said army. But there was a problem.

These monsters weren’t going to just disappear if they succeeded. They were permanent creations, at least until they were slain. Say that the Uprising was completely wiped out by these hordes. That would leave tens of thousands of monsters infesting these lands, ravenous for their next meal of Aether. They would range out and become an absolute catastrophe for the rest of the fucking continent, much less the Kingdom of Herztal.

This almost seemed…apocalyptic. Stupidly so.

Who the fuck would sign off on this?

I jerked in surprise when my form was silhouetted against the tree top in a slight shadow. I turned around in dread, already suspecting what I would find.

Sure enough, farther out than even the one I had just seen, was another Ward Break spell. This one might be nearly fifty to sixty miles from my location, but there was no mistaking the sight.

To me, it looked like they were being staggered. If they had already set off two more of these things, it made me wonder just how many I’d already missed. After all, I had been incredibly panicked on the run from the first one. Had there been more of these launched during my mad dash, just out of sight?

I let out a shuddering breath.

And what if there were even more being set off, on the other side of the host….

Could the war even proceed anymore, with a disaster of this scale? Was that the goal of the Loyalists? Inflict so many monsters on everyone that they had no choice but to surrender?

It might even work, out of sheer necessity.

I had no idea.

I felt completely lost.

Suddenly, I was knocked out of my spiral of dread by the feeling of my silver location coin jerking. I had placed the coin in a small sown pouch on the inside of my right glove, pressed up against my skin. Right now, it was jerking wildly in place, almost as if it was trying to fly away from me.

To my understanding, that meant I was supposed to follow the direction it was jerking. Apparently, Headquarters wanted me to move, instead of having someone come to my location.

The problem was, the coin was jerking away from the direction I knew led to the host. In fact, I would say that it was leading me farther into the forest.

There was an agent somewhere in there that I was to meet up with.

Well…I guess I had little choice. I sure didn’t want to wander head-first into the horde.

Casting one last glance at the blue star on the horizon as it burst, I shimmied down the branch I was still up to collect Fade. Digging out my mask from the pack I had stored it in, I dressed myself back up in my Nocturne cloak as well.

Once Fade was held tightly to my chest, I launched Thorn Grapple at a nearby tree and started my trek across the forest canopy.

I had a meeting to get to.