Firelight painted the rooftops in pulsing orange, like the whole town was breathing--- inhale with the smoke, exhale with the explosions. Selena's boots hit tile, then slate, then splintered wood as she crossed the city in long, hungry bounds. Every time she landed, the shingles shuddered under the force and sent little avalanches of ash skittering down gutters. Below, goblins swarmed like a living stain. Up ahead, something whistled through the sky---then the world lurched as a boulder slammed into a block of houses. The impact bloomed into dust and flame. A second later came the sound: the delayed crack of stone meeting stone, followed by screaming.
Selena didn't slow. Her long katana sang from its sheath---steel catching firelight---and the first goblin to look up barely had time to widen its eyes before it split cleanly from collarbone to hip. A second lunged, teeth gnashing, and she carved its head off so neatly it seemed surprised to be dead. Green bodies fell in her wake like cut grass, exactly as she'd thought--- easy. Too easy. And still, the destruction didn't lessen. She moved through the heart of the city like a blade driven forward by someone else's hand.
Every street she crossed revealed more: overturned carts, smashed stalls, broken doors hanging off hinges. A man crawled with a ruined leg leaving a black-red streak behind him. A girl---no older than ten---lay facedown in the road, one small hand still wrapped around a loaf of bread she never got to eat. A trail. Men. Women. Children. The sight tried to claw inside her chest. Tried to make her feel. Selena swallowed it like poison. No. Not now.
The heat from the fires rolled over her skin. The stench of blood and smoke and burnt meat pressed into her throat. For a heartbeat, it was the Orcus Labyrinth again---dark corridors, screaming echoes, the taste of fear and iron, the sick certainty that mercy was a luxury you couldn't afford. So she did what had kept her alive back then. She let go.
Hatred poured in like a flood breaking through a dam. Adrenaline followed, sharp and bright, turning everything into targets and angles and timing. Her vision narrowed until the whole burning city became a single problem to solve with steel. She slaughtered. A goblin pack rushed from an alley---she stepped into them, not away, and her blade became a silver arc. One fell in two pieces. Another lost an arm and screamed until Selena ended it. The rest broke and ran, only to be cut down from behind without hesitation. She didn't chase their bodies as they fell; she chased the next movement, the next threat.
Other adventurers saw her. They saw the way she cut without flinching, the way her posture never opened, the way her eyes didn't track faces-- -only kill-lines. They fought, too, but they made a wide circle around her as if she were another monster in the streets.
Someone shouted, "Don't get near her---!"
Someone else whispered, "That's... that's the one from the gate reports---!"
Selena didn't care. The words hit her and slid off like rain off armor. She pressed deeper. The further she went, the quieter the streets became---not because the danger had passed, but because fewer people were left alive to scream.
Buildings here were darker, their windows blown out, their doors smashed in. The fires were smaller but meaner, eating from the inside out. The boulders still came---she caught a glimpse this time of one arcing overhead, blotting stars, and her instincts screamed siege. Something big. Something strong. Something throwing rocks with the casual cruelty of a child snapping twigs. Selena landed on a balcony railing and dropped into the street. A block ahead, a house sat at a crooked angle like it had been punched. Its front door hung half-open, splintered. The air around it smelled wrong---fresh blood. Then she heard it.
A child's scream, thin and raw, ripping through the crackle of flame. Selena's body moved before thought. She crossed the distance in three strides and kicked the door. Wood exploded inward. The room beyond was dim, lit only by the flicker of fire through broken shutters. Furniture lay overturned. A bowl of soup had spilled and congealed on the floor, already dusted with ash. In the center of it all--- A mother. On her knees, slumped forward as if praying. A dark hole in her back. Blood still dripping, warm and steady, running in slow lines down her side and pooling beneath her. Her arms were locked around a small child like a shield, even in death---rigid with a final refusal to let go.
The child shook her. "Mom---! Mom! Wake up! MOOOM!"
Her fists were tiny, desperate, thudding against a body that would never answer. Selena felt the pang pierce through the hatred like a needle. For a second, the world sharpened around that sound. The scream didn't belong to the burning city---it belonged to something older and deeper. It belonged to helplessness. To loss. To the part of Selena she'd tried to bury under steel and rage. The child's face was streaked with soot and tears. She couldn't have been more than six. Her hair was tangled, her cheeks raw from crying. She clung tighter, as if squeezing harder could shove life back into her mother's chest. Movement rustled near the doorway to a back room.
A scaly shape, knee-high, its snout wet and its eyes greedy. A kobold. It crept toward the mother's exposed side, nose twitching. It didn't see Selena until her shadow fell over it. Selena's katana flashed once. The kobold's head separated so cleanly it didn't fall immediately---just tilted, as if confused. Then it dropped and rolled across the floorboards. The body collapsed after it, twitching. The child shrieked anew at the sudden blood spray. Selena froze mid-step. Hatred wanted to pull her forward---wanted to keep killing, to keep moving, to keep drowning the world in silence until nothing could scream again. But the sound that came from the child wasn't an enemy's death rattle. It was fear. Selena's grip tightened on the katana hilt until her knuckles whitened. She could feel her pulse in her fingers. She could feel the old habits trying to win---'don't stop, don't feel, don't look too long--- The child shook her mother again, harder, almost violent in her desperation.
"Please---please---please---!"
Selena's breath caught. Myu. The name wasn't a thought so much as a jolt---an image of small arms, small voice, small body depending on her. A memory of warmth that didn't exist in the labyrinth. A reminder that Selena wasn't alone anymore. Her hatred stuttered. Not gone. Never gone. But it hesitated, uncertain, like a beast checking its leash. Selena slowly lowered her blade until the tip hovered just above the floorboards. She forced her shoulders down. Forced the tension out of her stance. Made herself smaller---not weak, just... less like a storm given human shape.
The child didn't look at Selena yet. She was still talking to her mother in broken, pleading sounds. Selena took one step closer, careful, as if approaching a frightened animal.
"Hey," Selena said, and her own voice surprised her---low, rough around the edges, like it hadn't been used for kindness in a long time. She tried again, softer. "Hey. I'm here."
The child's head snapped toward her. Wide eyes. Terror. Selena saw what the adventurers saw when they looked at her, soot darkened hair framing a face lit by fire, eyes too cold, blade dripping green blood. A stranger who kicked down doors in the middle of a massacre. The child scrambled backward instinctively, but she couldn't let go of her mother. Her small fingers clenched tighter around cloth already soaked through.
"No---no---don't---!" Selena lifted her empty hand, palm open, fingers spread---not holding anything, not reaching yet.
"I'm not going to hurt you," she said, and every word felt like it had to drag itself out of her throat. "I'm here to get you out." The child's lips trembled.
"My mom-- -my mom—" Selena's gaze dropped to the woman's back, to the wound that had bled too much, too long. Selena had seen death in every shape the labyrinth could invent. She knew the difference between dying and gone. She hated that she knew.
Selena knelt---slowly, so the child could track the movement---and set her katana flat on the floor, a deliberate surrender of threat. "I'm sorry," Selena said. The words weren't enough. They never were. "She... she can't get up." The child stared at her like she'd spoken a foreign language.
"No," the child whispered, voice cracking. "No, she's just---she's just sleeping. She has to---she has to---"
Selena swallowed. The pang in her chest twisted, sharper now that she wasn't smothering it. Outside, another explosion thundered. The house shivered. Dust drifted from the ceiling like snow. Time was a knife at their backs. Selena leaned forward---still not touching---and spoke as gently as she could manage.
"What's your name?"
The child blinked through tears. "L... Liri."
"Liri." Selena repeated it, anchoring it. Making it real. "Listen to me. There are monsters outside. More will come in here. I can keep you safe, but you have to come with me now."
Liri's chin quivered. Her eyes darted back to her mother's face, searching for breath, for movement, for any sign she could hold onto.
"I can't leave her," Liri whispered, devastated. "She'll be scared if she wakes up and I'm—" Selena closed her eyes for half a heartbeat. Just like that. That same childish logic that hurt more than screams. That same desperate belief that love could undo death if you just held on tight enough.
Selena opened her eyes again, and for the first time since entering the city, the hatred inside her didn't feel like a weapon. It felt like a weight.
"I'll carry her," Selena said--- because it was the only answer that didn't feel like tearing the child in half. "Okay? I'll carry her. You don't have to let go yet." Liri stared at her, startled by the offer, suspicious of hope.
Another crash outside---closer this time. Something hit the side of the house. The wall groaned. Selena's head snapped toward the sound. Her senses flared outward. Footsteps. Multiple. Scratching claws on wood. High-pitched goblin chatter. They'd smelled blood. Selena's hand hovered near her katana but didn't reach for it yet. Not while the child watched. Not while fear could undo her.
"It's coming," Selena said, her voice turning to iron. "Liri, look at me." The child's eyes flickered up. Selena made herself meet that gaze fully—no hiding, no pretending. Just truth. "I promise you," Selena said, each word like a vow carved into stone, "they will not touch you."
A moment passed—tiny, fragile. Then Liri nodded, trembling. Selena moved. Fast, but controlled. She slid her arms carefully under the mother's body. The woman was heavier than she should've been—dead weight, literally—and Selena's jaw clenched as she lifted. Blood smeared across Selena's sleeve, warm against her skin. Liri squeaked and clung tighter, wrapping her arms around her mother's neck, face pressed into familiar hair as if it could still protect her.
Selena steadied both bodies, then flicked her gaze toward the shattered doorway. Shadows shifted. A goblin leaned in, eyes glinting. Selena's face went blank—instinct sliding into place. Her right hand snapped to her hip and drew Abraxos in one smooth motion, the weapon almost too clean against the soot and blood, but the intent behind it wasn't. The goblin grinned, sure it had found easy prey. Selena didn't give it the chance.
Bang.
The shot hit dead-center. The goblin's head popped in a wet burst, its body folding like its strings had been cut. Liri screamed again---high and broken.
"Close your eyes," Selena said immediately, voice firm but controlled. "Now."
Liri obeyed on instinct, burying her face harder into her mother's shoulder. Selena adjusted her grip just enough to keep them steady--- cradling the mother's body tight against her left side, Liri still clinging like a lifeline---then exhaled through her nose.
'I've got... forty-two rounds left in the pouch.' A tired thought, sharp with irritation that had nowhere to go. 'I made plenty of ammo. Still---transmuting the boxes is so damn boring…'
She moved for the front door, each step measured. No big swings. No unnecessary motions. Not with two bodies on her arm and a child's fragile world cracking in real time. A new sound scratched at the doorway---claws on wood. Fast feet. A chorus of thin, hungry chittering. Raptors. The small kind that hunted in packs. They spilled into the frame one after another, lean and low, snapping at the smell of blood. Selena raised Abraxos.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Three bodies dropped before they fully crossed the threshold. A fourth lunged, too close for another clean shot without jostling Liri--- Selena's boot snapped out. She kicked it hard, sending it tumbling back through the doorway and out into the street.
"EEP---!" Liri flinched, clutching tighter.
"Sorry," Selena muttered, not slowing. "We're almost out." She swept the muzzle once---left, right---senses flaring for anything else nearby. Nothing immediate. No more footfalls. No more breathy goblin laughter. Just fire, distant screams, and the faint, wary presence of adventurers trailing behind her---following the path she'd carved through the block, too smart to get close, too desperate to ignore the opening she'd made.
Selena holstered Abraxos without looking. Then she stepped out into the night with the dead weight in her arm and a living child pressed against it, and kept moving---toward safety, before the city could take anything else from her. She swept the muzzle once---left, right---life sense flaring out in a cold pulse through the smoke and heat. Lives. Faint, scattered---hiding in cellars, curled beneath collapsed beams, clustered in pockets where the fire hadn't reached yet. Farther out, deeper in the city, the wrong kind of life: dense knots of hostile signatures moving like swarms. But right here---near the door, near the street---nothing monstrous lingered. No hungry hearts. No predatory intent. Just... empty space and ash.
Selena let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She holstered Abraxos without looking. The moment she stepped into the street, the night air hit her like a slap---smoke in her lungs, heat on her skin---and her body finally betrayed how hard it had been pushing. A huff escaped her, sharp and tired. Not fear. Not weakness. Just the sound of someone carrying too much.
Behind her, shapes moved in the firelight. Adventurers. A handful of them, faces streaked with soot, eyes wide---not at the bodies, not at the blood, but at her. They kept their distance like she might turn and cut them down next. They'd watched her earlier: the way she'd gone through goblins like a storm, the way the street had filled with green corpses and silence. They followed the path anyway. Because it was the only safe road left. Selena didn't look back. She didn't need to. Their heartbeats were steady---terrified, but human. No deceit sharp enough to matter right now. No killing intent. She shifted the mother's weight a fraction higher against her left arm---careful this time, slow---and felt Liri cling tighter, shaking.
"It's okay," Selena said, voice low. "No monsters nearby." Liri made a small sound---half sob, half breath---still hiding her face. Selena's jaw tightened. She stared down the street toward the cleaner air, toward the edge of the chaos, and started walking again---boots crunching glass, life sense mapping the next safe pocket like a guiding thread---while the adventurers behind her trailed in her wake, silent as ghosts.
Selena stopped in the middle of the street and waited. Not long. The adventurers she'd sensed earlier finally caught up, boots scraping over rubble, shoulders hunched from fatigue and shock. Their leader pushed to the front---haggard, face smeared with soot, one sleeve torn and dark with dried blood. He looked like he'd been running for hours on pure willpower. For a moment, he just stared at Selena---at the bodies in her arm, at the calm in her posture, at the gun on her hip like it belonged there more than air. Then he forced out a breath and gave a rough, exhausted laugh.
"Hah... thanks," he said, voice hoarse. "We were able to save so many people because of the path you opened up for us."
Boom. Bang.
The distant impacts rolled through the streets like thunder, rattling loose glass in the broken windows. Somewhere far off, another building screamed as it collapsed. The leader's smile vanished, replaced by a bitter grimace.
"Damn... they hit us at night and most of the city just wasn't ready." Selena's gaze stayed on the skyline, where smoke churned like storm clouds.
"Take a breath," she told him---simple, flat, like an order that kept people alive. He actually did. One inhale. One exhale. Shoulders lowering a fraction. Selena shifted her stance carefully so Liri wouldn't jolt. "This is Liri," she said, then paused---eyes flicking to the woman's limp form. "And her... mom passed away. She used her body to protect the child."
Liri made a small, broken noise and clutched tighter. Selena's voice didn't change. "Can you take them to a safer area? I'm going back into the city. There are more people trapped." The leader blinked like he hadn't expected that. THEN LIRI NODDED, TREMBLING. Like he'd assumed this was the part where Selena walked away.
"...That'd be a huge help," he managed. "And---yeah. I know you can handle yourself out there." Selena finally looked down at Liri. Her eyes were red and swollen. Her mouth trembled like she was trying not to fall apart and failing anyway. She still had her face half-buried in her mother's shoulder as if she could hide from reality by squeezing hard enough.
Selena lowered her voice, the edge softening. "Liri." The child flinched, then slowly turned her head just enough to see Selena's face. "I'm going to leave you with these adventurers," Selena said. "They'll take you somewhere safe. I'm going to help other people like you... okay?"
Liri's lips quivered. A sniffle. A wet breath. "I... I can try."
"That's good," Selena said gently. "That's all we can ask." She stepped forward and carefully transferred the weight. The leader and two others moved in immediately---one taking the mother's body with grim care, the other supporting Liri without prying her loose. Liri fought it at first, a little panicked tug as if the moment her mother wasn't in her arms, she'd disappear. Selena paused, then reached out and placed her hand lightly on the child's head. A small, steady pressure. A promise without words.
Liri looked up at her---eyes wet, searching. Selena smiled. It wasn't bright. It wasn't cheerful. It was real. "Be strong," Selena said, rubbing her head once. "This will pass over."
The leader hesitated, caught between gratitude and fear. "You're really going back in?"
Selena's eyes shifted toward the deeper city, where the life sense showed clusters of frightened heartbeats and the heavier, uglier masses of monsters moving toward them. "I am." He swallowed.
"Then... I'll help around the area for you. My team—" he glanced behind him at the exhausted faces watching Selena like she was a legend and a warning at the same time "---we'll hold this section until you come back. Don't worry about this part of the city." Selena gave him a short nod.
"Good." He half-laughed again, weak and disbelieving. "Fine. Only because you're... absurdly strong, umm--- Selena."
Selena didn't correct him. Didn't ask how he knew. It didn't matter. The leader's expression tightened as another impact shook the night.
BOOM.
Closer. He snapped his head toward the sound. "Now get going. Monsters are getting closer."
Selena's gaze lifted, following the direction of the shockwave. Another boulder arced overhead in the distance, a dark shape against the smoke-lit sky, then slammed down somewhere several blocks away---stone on street, street on foundation, foundation on screams. The projectiles weren't random. They were walking inward. Selena's face went calm again---blank in the way that meant focus, not emptiness.
"Keep her safe," she said to the leader.
"I will," he promised, and this time it didn't sound like bravado. It sounded like someone clinging to purpose. Liri turned her head one last time as they began to guide her away, small hands still reaching, reluctant. Selena held her gaze. Then she turned, drew Abraxos as she moved, and broke into a run toward the next pocket of life---toward the next scream-- -before the city could swallow anyone else.
Selena vaulted back onto the rooftops, boots skidding across soot-slick tiles. From up here the city looked like a wound-- -streets split open with firelight, smoke rolling through alleys, silhouettes sprinting and dying in the glow. She steadied her breathing, then fed mana into her eyes. The world sharpened. Heat ripples became lines. Smoke became layers. And beyond the flicker of flames---near the far ridge line where the land rose like a broken spine---she saw it. An ogre. Huge. Broad-shouldered. A brute shape lit by the dull orange of burning buildings, lifting a boulder like it weighed nothing. The thing turned, planted its feet, and threw--- Selena tracked the stone in midair, following its arc as if the night itself were a sightline.
At the same time, her life sense spread outward: clusters of terrified heartbeats packed into streets beneath the projected impact. Too many. Too close.
"No," she breathed. Abraxos snapped up. She reloaded on instinct---muscle memory, smooth and angry--- and fired.
Bang.
The shot punched through the boulder's face. The mana-lined trajectory made it look almost inevitable: one dot of force meeting one dot of stone. The projectile cracked. Then shattered.
A storm of rock fragments rained down---still dangerous, but no longer a single house-crushing hammer. The impact below hit like a harsh hailstorm instead of an execution. Selena didn't wait to see who lived. She exhaled, corrected her aim---long distance, bad angle, wind and smoke---then fired again.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Three rounds, placed like punctuation. The ogre's head snapped back. For a half-second it stayed upright, confused, as if its body hadn't received the message yet---then it toppled sideways off the ridge and vanished behind the broken skyline.
Selena checked her count without looking. Three left in the mag... She clicked in a fresh one with a sharp, irritated motion. 'Thirty after this.' Her eyes didn't leave the ridge. Because it wasn't just one ogre. There were more shapes moving along the edge---other throwers hefting stones, and worse: smaller monsters clinging to their backs and shoulders like parasites, pointing and shrieking, guiding the throws toward the densest pockets of life.
They weren't just attacking. They were directing a massacre. Selena's jaw tightened. She re-centered Abraxos and started working like a machine. Reload---fire---fire---fire. Reload---fire---fire. Each burst was controlled. Each shot was chosen. She wasn't spraying. She couldn't afford to. Every time she fired, she saw the ripple of life signatures below---people scattering, ducking, surviving by inches she was buying with bullets. But distance chewed through her ammo. Smoke stole clarity. The ridge was far enough that even her enhanced vision had limits, even with mana burning behind her eyes. She reloaded again, faster now, hands blurring.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
One ogre stumbled. Another dropped its boulder---stone crashing short of the city's heart. A third took a round through the throat and made a sound like a bellow swallowed by blood. But it kept coming. The throwers adjusted. The little riders squealed and pointed, changing targets, shifting angles. Selena's magazine slammed home again.
'Down to twelve.' Her breathing stayed steady, but her pulse climbed. Not panic---pressure. The kind that threatened to crack control. Then she saw it. A darker presence near the ridge, wrong in a way that made her skin prickle even from here. Not an ogre. Not a goblin. Something with a denser, heavier life signature---like a knot of violent intent wrapped around a core that didn't feel natural. It lifted one hand and--- The air warped. Force gathered, invisible but undeniable, bending smoke toward it like the world wanted to fall into its grip.
Stones at the ridge trembled, rising without hands. Not thrown--- pulled. Selena's eyes narrowed. It was out of her effective range now, tucked behind the ridge's broken angle, shielded by distance and terrain. Her bullets would lose power, lose accuracy, lose certainty. And it knew it. It held the force there, patient, like it was savoring the moment before it dropped the city on itself. Below, clashes echoed closer--- metal on claw, screams, the chaotic rhythm of dying streets. Selena's life sense flared again, tugging her attention to where the largest mass of monsters had gathered--- right under her general position.
She was standing above the hottest knot of violence in the city. Selena let her rage rise---not flooding her veins, not taking over---just enough to keep her sharp. Like a blade drawn halfway from its sheath.
"Stay under the surface," she murmured to herself, voice tight. "I need you... but you don't get to drive." She lowered Abraxos slightly and scanned the streets below, eyes still glowing faint with mana. Twelve rounds. A demon on a ridge out of range. And a city full of lives that were about to run out of time. Selena inhaled once---deep, controlled---then moved along the rooftop toward the thickest cluster of monsters, choosing her next fight before the next stone could fall. Selena's life sense pulsed outward again---threading through smoke, fire, and shattered stone---and she caught it: pockets of people, clumped together where a handful of adventurers were barely holding the line.
"...Damn," she muttered, jaw tight. "Where do I even start?" She picked the nearest cluster--- closest to being swallowed---then moved. Roof to roof became street to street in a blur. She dropped down hard, boots cracking loose brick, and sprinted through the alleys with her senses pulling her like a compass needle. Every few steps she cut something down---goblins that wandered too close, a kobold that tried to leap her from a doorway---quick, clean, never slowing long enough to get bogged down. She wasn't just running toward the survivors. She was carving a path behind her, a trail of dead that any living person could follow if they had the nerve. Then she saw it. One of the boulders---one of those stones the throwers kept raining on the city---sat half-buried in a street like a cratered tooth.
At first glance it looked like shattered rock. But the life sense said otherwise. There were lives inside it. Not human. Packed tight. Waiting. The surface of the stone shifted---cracking along seams that weren't natural. Something wet and dark pressed from within, like the boulder had a heartbeat.
"A husk…" Selena breathed, eyes narrowing. It wasn't a projectile. It was a delivery system. Selena snapped her hands up and formed signs without thinking---mana spiraling down her arms, cold blooming in her lungs. She took a deep breath until the air hurt. Then exhaled. Frost exploded outward in a white rush. The boulder's cracks iced over instantly, locking whatever was inside in place before it could burst free. The next heartbeat, Selena stepped forward and drove her palm down--- The entire thing shattered. Stone and ice ruptured together, exploding into glittering fragments. Inside were warped shapes---half-formed bodies wedged into the hollow, claws and teeth and wrong flesh fused tight from the cramped growth. They didn't even get to scream. They broke apart like brittle meat frozen too fast.
Selena didn't linger. The life sense tugged again---stronger now, more concentrated. She sprinted uphill toward what used to be a calmer district... and found it turning into a graveyard. The homes here were larger, cleaner stonework, iron fences, trimmed gardens now trampled into mud. Private security---guards in matching armor---fought shoulder-to-shoulder with a few remaining adventurers. They were doing their best. But it was a losing battle. Bodies lay everywhere. Guards with shattered helms. Adventurers with blades still in hand, staring up at nothing. Blood streaked across white marble steps like paint. The survivors had been pushed into a narrow street between two estates, backs to locked gates, faces hollow with exhaustion. And the horde kept coming. Goblins in numbers that didn't make sense. Raptors snapping at ankles. Kobolds darting in and out of the pack like scavengers. They surged forward like a tide---hungry, stupid, relentless.
Selena landed on the street in front of them. For a split second, the survivors froze---confused, disbelieving, almost afraid. Selena didn't look back. She didn't need their fear on her shoulders. She formed the hand signs again. Cold gathered. Her rage stayed where she kept it---under the surface, tight like a clenched fist. She didn't let it drive. She just let it sharpen her. A sweep of her arm--- Ice spread across the street in a snapping wave, coating cobblestone, climbing legs, seizing joints. The front line of monsters hit it and slammed to a stop, skidding and piling into each other. Selena stepped through their stumble like she'd rehearsed it a thousand times.
"Move," she said over her shoulder, voice low but absolute. "Get them inside. Now." Then she exhaled again---harder this time. The frozen mass locked. And with a sharp motion of her hand, the ice turned cruel. Crack---CRACK--- The horde slowed, bodies trapped, joints bound. The pressure of their own numbers crushed them into the frozen choke point. Selena advanced into the chaos with calm, deliberate steps---making space, buying seconds, turning a slaughter into a chance.
The guards behind her stared like they'd just watched winter take human shape. And somewhere beyond the smoke, another boulder whistled through the sky---proof the ridge was still active. Selena's eyes flicked upward once. Then back to the tide.
"Not here," she whispered. "Not while I'm standing." Selena's ice held long enough to break the tide's momentum. The front ranks were locked in place--- frozen legs, snapped balance, monsters piling into each other in a choking mess. She didn't finish them. She let go. The survivors behind her--- adventurers and guards alike--- stared for one stunned heartbeat, then the training and panic kicked in.
"NOW!" one of the guards barked, voice cracking. Steel flashed. Spells sparked. Men with shaking hands drove spears into trapped throats. Adventurers cut down anything still moving.
A fire mage sent a wall of flame across the frozen pile, and the stink of burning flesh rolled over the street. Selena stepped aside, watching the group finally move as a unit.
"Finish it," she told them, sharp and simple. "Make it safe. Then move." They did. Within a minute, the street was a mess of bodies and shattered ice--- and for the first time all night, that particular pocket of the district had silence. Not peace. Just breathing room.
Selena walked past the dead and stopped in front of the ones who looked like they'd been calling the shots---security captains, a few higher-ranked adventurers, and a knot of welldressed people who'd been hiding behind iron gates and paid blades.
"You," Selena said, pointing at the man in the nicest armor---polished breastplate, a fancy cloak halfburnt at the hem. "Who's in charge here?"
The man swallowed. "I--- I am. Captain of the estate guard."
"Good," Selena said, already turning her head to scan the streets. "Take everyone to the Adventurers' Guild. The city forces that aren't overrun should be rallying there. They'll mount a defense, set triage, organize escorts. You're safer with a mass of fighters than you are in a neighborhood that's already bleeding out."
The captain opened his mouth--- probably to ask who she was, or why he should listen---but a fat merchant shoved forward before the words could leave.
"Are you insane?!" he shouted, pointing at Selena like she was the problem. "We should be getting OUT of the city, not IN! You're going to march us into the heart of it like cattle!" One of the guards tried to intercept him.
"Sir—"
"I don't care!" the merchant snapped, face red with panic and rage. "Me and my private force are getting the hell out of here!" Selena turned slowly. Her eyes weren't glowing now. They didn't have to. She stepped forward and chopped the side of his neck with a clean, practiced motion. The merchant dropped like a sack, hitting the cobbles with a dull thud. Silence slammed down harder than the explosions. Selena looked at the other finely dressed people---the ones who'd let him scream for them, who'd hidden behind him like a shield.
"Okay," she said flatly. "Anyone else?" A few swallowed. A woman's mouth opened, then shut. Another man glanced at the unconscious merchant, then quickly looked away. Selena tilted her head. "You're going deeper into the city for protection, right?" They nodded. One after another. Fast. Almost desperate. "Good." Selena finally glanced back at the captain. "Name."
The man coughed, still stunned. "David."
"David," Selena repeated, committing it to memory. "Lead your group down the block behind me. That route is mostly clear---for now---because I came through it." David nodded once, hard. Selena's gaze sharpened. "And listen: if you see pale monsters with bluish glowing skin---don't get heroic." She pointed toward the ground like she was laying down a law. "Chop off a limb to slow them and run. Don't fight to win. They're nearly immortal unless you can destroy the body completely."
David's face went a shade paler. A nearby adventurer---one with a battered helm and a rank badge--- looked like he'd just swallowed a stone. Another boom rolled across the district. Closer this time. A shockwave of dust trembled off nearby roofs. Selena's eyes flicked toward the sound, then back to the group.
"Are we going to stand here and talk," she asked, voice cold and impatient, "or are you going to move?" That snapped them out of it. Guards began herding civilians. Adventurers took point positions. Someone lifted the unconscious merchant with a grunt, muttering that it was better this way. Selena turned away, already moving.
"Thanks—" David called after her, voice strained. "Um... Selena." She didn't stop. A battered adventurer stepped forward beside David, squinting after her as if trying to match rumor to reality. "That's her," he whispered, half in awe, half in fear. "Gold-rank. The one they've been talking about." Selena kept walking into the smoke, Abraxos loose at her side, life sense spreading ahead of her like a net. There were still more heartbeats to reach. And the night wasn't done throwing stones.
"---Okay," he called after her, forcing steadiness into his voice. "I'll... I'll remember it." Selena didn't turn around. She lifted two fingers in a quick, careless acknowledgement and kept walking.
'David.' The name tried to stick. It didn't. She felt it slide, like water off glass, and a quiet irritation flickered in her chest---not at him, but at herself.' Of course I'm going to forget.' It wasn't new. Even in her past life, Selena didn't remember most people. Not unless they were favorites---faces she saw every day, voices she loved, people she held close enough to matter. Everyone else blurred into that guy, that girl, the teacher, the cashier. Names came and went like background noise. And now? Now it was worse. A bad memory that carried over into this life like an old scar. The kind that showed up at the worst time, when a name should matter---when it could mean the difference between someone and a person they promised. She swallowed, jaw tightening.
'If it wasn't for the anime and the books... I wouldn't remember half the people I've met.' Not really. Not the minor ones. The side characters. The ones the story barely lingered on before moving to the next scene. She only knew them because the world had handed her a script, and even then---how many names did she have to re-learn just to keep up? It made her feel... wrong, sometimes. Like a piece of her was missing in places it shouldn't be.
Selena's life sense pulsed again---urgent, tugging her forward. A tight cluster of heartbeats two streets over. Fear, pain, people cornered. Behind them, a thick knot of monsters pressing in. No time to dwell. 'Hopefully I don't meet David again before this is over,' she thought, not because she disliked him---because meeting him again would mean something had gone wrong. It would mean the path she cleared wasn't safe anymore. It would mean her warning hadn't been enough.
She exhaled, steadying the rage under her skin like a blade kept in its sheath. Then she stepped deeper into the smoke, Abraxos loose at her side, following the pull of living hearts---because names could slip, memories could fail, but she could still save whoever was left.
The next pocket Selena sprinted toward... went silent right before she arrived. An older couple---she could feel them through the walls, two steady heartbeats pressed close together---had barricaded themselves inside their home. Furniture stacked against the door. Nails hammered in at bad angles. A desperate, stubborn little fortress made by hands that shook too much to be steady.
It didn't matter. The monsters outside weren't just strong---they were enjoying it. Selena rounded the corner in time to see the front door bow inward like it was breathing, wood groaning under repeated impacts. A goblin---bigger than the rest, thick-armed, grinning wide---threw its shoulder into the frame again and again, cackling every time the barricade shifted. Then the door finally gave. The barrier collapsed with it---chairs snapping, a table splintering, the whole thing spilling inward like a dam breaking.
The couple screamed. Selena moved---too late. The monsters surged into the doorway and butchered them with ugly, gleeful speed. Not even efficient. Not even quick. Like they wanted the sound to last. Something in Selena's chest tried to twist into grief. She crushed it before it could bloom. Her face went still. Her eyes went cold. Abraxos came up.
Bang. Bang.
Two heads popped in the doorway. Bodies dropped into the wreckage. Selena stepped through, blade flashing once to finish what still crawled. The house smelled like smoke and fresh blood and shattered old wood. She didn't look at the couple's faces. She couldn't afford to. Outside, she caught another set of life signatures---small, moving fast, frightened but trained. Adventurers. A group trying to cut through the side streets toward the distant flashes and explosions where other fighters were rallying. She turned that way--- ---and found them already down. Three bodies sprawled across the road, one still gripping a broken spear, another facedown as if they'd tried to crawl away. Their life had already slipped out of them, leaving only heat and ash.
Selena stopped for half a heartbeat. She closed her eyes. Not in prayer. Not in apology. Just a single moment of acknowledgment, because if she let herself feel every one of them, she would drown. Then she opened her eyes and kept moving. The night blurred into a chain of streets and screams. Selena lost track of time. The sky never lightened; it just kept churning smoke. Fires rose, died, rose again. She ran until her legs stopped registering pain as pain and started registering it as background noise. And the closer she got to the main gate, the worse the life sense became---so dense it pressed at her skull like static. Thousands. She didn't count precisely. She didn't need to. Roughly four thousand signatures clustered near the gate--- fighters, civilians, wounded, panicked survivors packed together because there was nowhere else to go. A mass of life trying to become a wall.
In front of them... another wall. Not made of people. Made of husks. Selena tasted bile at the back of her throat. They were holding the line---twisted bodies forced forward into the killing zone, absorbing blades and teeth and spellfire so the living could stay behind them. And the monsters outside were pouring in cheap and endless, like someone had decided the main gate would be the perfect place to grind the city down. Cannon fodder. On both sides. Selena slowed at the edge of the last block and sank into the shadow of a collapsed stone arch. She stared at the churn of bodies ahead and felt the rage climb toward her throat. Don't. Not like this. Not blind. She pulled it back down, tight and controlled. Then she did what the labyrinth had taught her to do when she was outnumbered and the enemy thought they owned the field. She disappeared.
Mana slipped across her skin like a second layer, muffling her presence. She pressed it into her footsteps, into her breathing, into her heat---masking the sharp edges of her life signature until it blended with the noise. Even her killing intent folded inward, locked behind the same mental door she kept her grief behind. Stealth---real stealth. Not hiding behind a wall. Hiding from [detection]. Search-type magic swept the streets near the gate in periodic pulses---wide, lazy scans meant to pick up ambushers and runners. Selena slid through them like smoke. One pulse passed over her and didn't even stutter. Another skimmed the rooftop line and kept going. She moved closer, low and fast, staying behind broken chimneys and shattered battlements until the gate finally came into view.
The main gate wasn't just damaged. It was defiled. Stone blackened. Iron twisted. The arch cracked as if something had clawed at it from the inside. And there---at the broken mouth of the city---stood a small group that didn't belong in the panic. Demons. Not the rabid tide in the streets. Not the dumb packs and hungry swarms. These were watching. Comfortable. Still. Like this was entertainment. One leaned against a shattered pillar, arms folded, head tilted as it observed the chaos with idle interest. Another stood higher on a broken section of wall, looking down like a judge. Their silhouettes were too clean in the firelight--- too deliberate. And the worst part? They weren't fighting. They were holding the gate. Not with effort, but with authority---as if everything flooding into the city was happening because they allowed it.
Selena settled into the shadow of a toppled statue just outside their immediate sightline. Her breath was silent. Her eyes were steady. Abraxos sat heavy at her hip, her remaining ammo a quiet, ticking limit. She watched the demons watch the slaughter. And for the first time all night, Selena didn't run toward the next scream. She waited---still as a blade poised above a throat---because this felt like the real source of the nightmare.