The words still burned in front of her eyes.
[EARTHFALL WARNING ISSUED]
[Earth Collapse Imminent in 16:00 hours]
She forced herself to close the notification.
"There's no point staying here, I need to get home and hunt those beasts for energy."
Another icon pulsed at the edge of her vision — the one she'd tapped earlier in shock.
[Reward #50 Pending → LORD TICKET — Territory Core Unlock]
Safe zone. Shelter. Something to build.
She metaphorically pushed the Lord Ticket into her space.
Her other unopened rewards blinked insistently. She exhaled and opened them in order, fast, before she lost her nerve.
[Reward #55 Pending → Space Pocket Expansion +2m² (total: 6m²)]
[Reward #60 Pending → Motorcycle Armored Pants (System-Tempered Plates)]
[Reward #65 Pending → Space Pocket Expansion +2m² (total: 8m²)]
[Reward #70 Pending → D-Rank Compound Bow + D-Rank Arrow Bundle (30 pcs)]
[Reward #75 Pending → Motorcycle Jacket with System-Tempered Armor Plates]
For a moment she just stared, stunned.
"Armor… bow… space…"
It was like the system had looked straight at her battered body and said: Fine. You can have a chance.
She swapped out her ripped pants for the armored pair, hissing as the fabric tightened around her bandaged thigh. The System-tempered plates flexed with her movements, light but solid.
She eased the jacket on carefully, her shoulder still protested with a dull pull. Double layers of protection, heavy enough to feel real, light enough not to drag.
The bow she held with something close to reverence. Black limbs, reinforced with faint glowing lines. Smooth draw. The arrows balanced with ruthless precision.
D-Rank.
Her first real step out of trash-tier survival. It'll strain her shoulder but perfect for emergencies when needed.
She packed everything into the space pocket, as she tilted the bike she swung her leg over the bike seat with a hiss. Her body half-held together with tape and stubbornness, but still moving.
She kicked the engine to life.
The bike coughed, growled, then settled into a rough, familiar rumble. She turned toward the gap between the trees that led from the ranger station to town.
In the distance she watched the sun begin to set.
"Night's setting in. The Beasts are going to either be hard to find or rowdy. I'm guessing rowdy." she murmured.
And then she rolled on the throttle.
The forest spat her out onto the rural fringe.
Houses appeared first — scattered, then closer together. Fences half-broken. A ute abandoned sideways in a ditch. A mailbox caved in like something had sat on it.
And human bodies.
She didn't slow down.
A pair of corrupted dogs lunged from a side paddock. Talia lifted her spear left-handed and took the first in the throat as she shot past.
The second clipped her back wheel; she swerved, and stabbed.
[Kill Count: 80]
Another shape darted in from the right—a fox. She barely turned her head. The spear switched hands and stabbed sideways. Ash scattered in her wake.
"God, I love the pocket space fighting style." Talia commented to herself.
The road widened. The distant roaring sound grew. Not engines. Not thunder.
Beasts.
As she crested the last rise before town, the landscape opened. And she saw it.
Six to eight lanes of highway, choked with cars and trucks and between them surged a mass of beasts.
Thousands and more.
A living tide crawling over metal. A pure mix of forest creatures, all together. Predator, Herbivore it didn't matter, all she'd learnt about ecology was thrown out the window.
Talia's breath hitched once. Then she leaned forward.
"Alright," she told the bike. "We need to get through, so, let's try something stupid."
She shifted her grip on the spear, tucking it under her left arm like a jousting lance. The thigh and shoulder protested. She ignored it.
Although right handed, it couldn't handle the strain of this action so Left it is. At least no delicate fighting maneuvers are needed here.
The first beasts at the fringe turned at the sound of her engine.
Too late.
She hit the wave at full speed.
The spear punched through a dog's skull. The body whipped dissipated. A goat reared; her front tyre slammed into it, sending it tumbling under a van.
She weaved between cars, standing on the pegs, forcing most of her weight onto the good leg. The healing wrap kept it from giving out and let the bike buck beneath her.
Snarls, screams, claws scraping metal — all of it blurred.
Another dog leapt. She ducked, felt fur brush her helmet, then heard the crunch as it hit the side mirror and went spinning away. A fox lunged low; she let the bike hop a verge, the back wheel catching its neck.
[Kill Count: 85]
She came up on a cluster jammed between two jack-knifed semis. No way through.
She twisted the throttle, swung left—spotted a fallen billboard half-collapsed over an embankment.
A ramp.
"Why not, it can't be worse than base jumping, right?" she muttered.
She aimed for it, heart hammering.
The bike shot up the slanted metal, launched off the top. For a heartbeat she was weightless. Then she crashed down on the far side of a barricade.
The front wheel hit first, her right shoulder screamed and her thigh almost buckled, but the armor and wrap soaked just enough of the impact. She rode out the fishtail on gritted teeth, boot skidding, and finally came to a stuttering stop.
Everything hurt.
But, she was inside the makeshift blockade.
'Maybe worse than base jumping, unless I can perfect the landing' Talia mused.
She counted eight… maybe twelve people who held the line here. With 3 teens setting up some battery powered flood lights it seemed.
Smart.
A firefighter with a blood-streaked helmet, two paramedics with makeshift spears, a grandmother wielding a garden rake, a teenager holding a cricket bat so tight their knuckles were white.
And one ex-soldier.
She knew it instantly.
He stood in the center, boots planted, military vest stained, a long metal pole in his hands that had once been a street sign. The way he moved screamed training — efficient, lethal, economical.
They all stared at her.
Talia coughed, wiped a smear of blood off her lip with the back of her hand. Bit her cheek on the landing.
"Forest's worse," she said hoarsely. "Believe me."
The ex-soldier blinked once. "You jumped a billboard," he replied flatly.
"Time pressure." She pointed the spear at the snarling chaos beyond the barricade. "Where are your main exits? Beasts will just keep pooling here unless someone cuts them off upstream."
He jerked his chin toward the tangle of roads ahead.
"Four major entries into town," he said. "If they're still open, that's where they're coming from."
He listed them off.
"East Highway Interchange — biggest swell, multi-lane feed. South Petrol Corridor — servo strip, lots of open space, probably crawling. North Industrial Bypass — boars, roos, goats from the farmland side. West Underpass Tunnel — tight choke, worst place to get trapped."
Talia memorized the directions instantly — mental map sliding into place over ranger patrol paths.
"Got it."
A dog hurled itself at the barricade. She moved on reflex. The spear shot forward, pinning it to a bonnet. It dissolved, leaving only blood streaks behind.
The ex-soldier sized her up again.
"You alone?"
"In this Town, Yes." She met his gaze. "My family's holding their own further in. But if those exits aren't thinned, you'll be buried under numbers and with night coming, It will only get worse."
He grunted. "Agreed. We hold this. You cut the flow?"
"That's the idea."
"Then let's clear you a window."
For the next fifteen minutes, Talia fought with them.
The difference between her and the others was stark.
They swung wide, emotional, panicked — effective but wasteful. The ex-soldier was better, but still looked uncomfortable, like he was scrubbing the rust off.
Talia… She kept her right arm's movements tight and economical, letting the left side take the heavier work. No wide swings, no overcommits—only short, precise thrusts and quick recoveries.
Her injured thigh burned with every pivot, so she flowed around it, shifting more weight onto her good leg and letting her battlefield intuition—whatever the system had done to her in that burrow battle—wrapped around her like an invisible net.
She felt attacks before they happened. The tiny shift in air. The tension in a beast's shoulder. The pattern of a pack's charge. She intercepted before they even committed.
One dog lunged left—she was already there, spear stabbing through its skull.
A goat lowered its head—for a human on the barricade. Talia's bow was in her hand without thinking. One arrow. One shot. It fell before it even finished the movement. But her shoulder won't do that again.
[Kill Count: 100]
Her interface pinged, faint gold. A milestone. She didn't open it. Not now.
Sweat dripped down her spine. Her thigh burned like fire. Her shoulder was irritated by her idiotic bow action. But her movements grew only cleaner.
She was entering smooth combat.
Eventually the wave thinned. The immediate pressure against the barricade eased to a manageable trickle.
The firefighter slumped back against a bonnet, panting. The grandmother leaned on her rake, shaking. The teenager stared at Talia like she'd just sprouted wings.
The ex-soldier wiped blood off his arm and nodded once.
"Name?" he asked.
"Talia Rowe."
"Grant," he said. "Ex-army. You're wasted here."
"Tell me something I don't know."
She used the slight lull to flick open a couple of pending rewards.
A small pulse of light:
[Reward #80 Pending → Space Pocket Expansion +2m² (total: 10m²)]
Good. She could never have enough space.
Another:
[Reward #85 Pending → D-Rank Winter Sleeping Set]
Less urgent. Good for later. If there was a later.
She shoved them into her space, resisting the urge to open more. The bow was enough for now. Armor was enough.
Movement at the edge of her awareness dragged her attention outward. More beasts. Always more. But not yet a full wave.
She turned back to Grant.
"Hold this line as long as you can," she said. "I'm going to start at the East Highway Interchange and try to cut the flow."
"You're injured," he pointed out, eyes flicking to her stiff right arm and the obvious favouring of her right leg.
"Yup." She grinned without humour. "Still faster than waiting to die."
A beat of silence. Then his jaw tightened and he stuck his hand out.
"Then go," he said. "Try not to get killed. We don't have enough of you."
She shook his hand quickly, then swung back onto the bike. The engine coughed, then roared to life.
As she turned toward the eastern ramp, a familiar pressure brushed the back of her mind—another vision hovering just out of reach.
She let it in for half a second.
Grandpa and Grandma in the garden, fortifying the gate with furniture.
Mum passing out tools.
Brielle drilling the kids, tiny hatchets clacking against plank shields.
Theo directed neighbours and followers, turning the street into a funnel.
Cael arrives at the house with bags of weapons slung over both shoulders, and a team in tow.
Talia opened her eyes. Pleased that they were all growing and motivated.
The highway interchange loomed ahead — She rolled her shoulders, felt the ache settle, let the pain become background noise.
She tightened her grip on the handlebars, angled the spear along the bike's frame, and aimed straight for the East Highway Interchange.
"Round two," she muttered. "Let's thin the tide."
And then she rode into the heart of the town's first monster gate and her only way home.