Creatures from every nightmare imaginable flooded the room, their jaws open wide as manic eyes locked on a glowing figure floating in front of them. With their long teeth snapping, Loupgaru used their lengthy limbs to push past the ravenous Aigamuxa, but the narrow double doors forced the entire horde to crash into each other to move forward.

It was exactly what the Chosen wanted.

Compacted together as they elbowed forward, they couldn’t spread out or avoid damage.

The horde snarled, clamoring to feast on human flesh just before their retinas were burned from their eyeballs as Leta unleashed a tempest of destruction upon them with the force of a god-sized hammer.

With a roar that a vengeful god could only rival, she threw her lightning outwards like hot spears of cosmic justice. They covered the space in front of her like a super heated blanket, cooking the monsters alive in their own skin as their organs liquefied from the extreme heat.

Those in the center of the mass got the brunt of the attack. Ropes of lightning burrowed through flesh and bone as it left gaping holes, some as wide as dinner plates, and sending severed limbs flying in all directions. Blood was spraying into the air before the heat of the lightning evaporated it into a pink mist that covered everything.

No one had considered what a compressed lightning storm would sound like in a closed space.

The thunder was so loud that it caused the Chosen at her back to cry out as their ear drums ruptured from the noise.

It was also wrecking havoc on everything in the room.

Lightning was arching around the room, punching into the surveillance screens and cracking the concrete.

While she mostly contained the wild energy to obliterating anything within a three-meter-wide cone of destruction in front of her, stray cracks of plasma twisted at odd angles, connecting farther to the left and right than anyone preferred.

One crashed into a metal pipe running along the wall within arm’s reach of the formation, causing some on the outer edge to flinch and duck as sparks rained down over them.

“Barzal!” Leta bellowed as one hand continued to channel her lightning while she thrust back with the other, the pauldron and arm plating melting and flying off behind her. As if in reaction to her thoughts, the Blade became two thin fighting sticks that dug deep into the ground and extended upwards to become makeshift lightning rods.

~‘Separated from your being, I can absorb the energy of the lightning strikes for a time, but too much for too long can overheat my weave and destroy my structure.’~

[Prolonged use of electricity will affect the structural integrity of this facility.]

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Leta chanced a glance around and saw that her lightning was well and truly destroying the room. While Barzal was redirecting any stray shots, dark scorch marks covered the entrance. Chunks of pebble-sized concrete had chipped away from around the door as dust rained down on the creatures pushing forward past the bodies of their fallen allies. An ominous crack had formed from the door frame, running perpendicular to the floor like the maw of a devil beginning to open.

“Hayato!” Leta screamed, never taking her eyes off the battering horde. “How’s that Gate looking?!”

“It’ll take at least fifteen minutes at this depth!” He shouted back, though she did not know how he heard her command over the roar of her lightning. He held his arms aloft as if sensing the air, his eyeballs covered in shadow as he gazed upwards, seeing into infinite.

“This room will not outlast this fight! We need evac, stat!”

Hayato cursed before replying with a terse, “Understood!” as he got to work.

Tendrils of darkness of thick black and purple smoke wrapped around his fingers like coiling octopus legs as he tucked his chin in concentration.

“Chosen!” Leta called out, “We need to give our Assassin all the time we can to get that Gate up! I can tighten the reach of my lightning, but some of these creatures will make it through!”

“We’ve got your back, Leta!” Allister responded immediately as he held a crossbow in one hand and a long sword in the other, Bonnie barking in agreement at his side.

“Archers, ready!” Mic shouted his command as John, Allister, Atreus, and Bonnie readied themselves for a fight.

Leta grunted as she fought to draw her hands towards each other. The power she was channeling was like trying to redirect the flow of a fire hydrant with her bare hands.

Straining with everything she had, she condensed the energy until the stream of power was like a twisting vine of energy from her to the door. The stream of power obliterated anything in its path, while smaller arcs of lightning scorched those nearby.

In the frenzy of blood and body parts, some creatures manages slip over and around the death trap.

The eyeless, beluga whale headed monsters that looked too much like a Xenomorph for her linking were the first to make it through, their unhinged jaws hissing as dark gray saliva dripped from their serrated teeth.

“For the Queen!” John was cackling wildly as he followed Allister, Atreus, Bonnie, and a handful of Chosen out into the battlefield.

Atreus took up position on her right with John on her left, his pick axe weapon swinging as he engaged a shrieking Aigamuxa that tried to come for her.

Allister was in his element. He moved with a speed and grace that shouldn’t have been possible on his massive frame as he fired his crossbow into the horde, tiny fingers of lightning twisting around the projectiles as they found their marks.

With a growl, Bonnie sank her fangs into the scruff of a Loupgarou, pull it to the ground. With a savage yank, she twisted her head and pulled, taking most of the creature’s throat with her.

Leta heard Mic shout, “Loose!” just as a volley of arrows sailed over her right shoulder and someone tossed a handful of glass vials over her left.

Screeching, the torrent of hot energy drowned out the clicking shrieks as the chemical reactions impaled or set the nightmarish creatures ablaze.

And yet, they just kept coming.

Bodies had piled up around the small entrance, with many of them in flames from the barrage of electricity.

The room had grown hazy with smoke and the smell of charred flesh and burning rubber irritated the eyes as the battle raged on around her.

“How much longer on that Gate, Hayato!?” Allister called out as he swung his sword and sliced the Loupgaru he was fighting clean through.