Kael moved.
One moment he was staring at the chaos erupting from the Portal Hall, the next he was shoving past Adam and sprinting toward the Administration building.
"Kael!" Adam yelled after him.
"Where is he going?" Wren asked, his voice tight.
But there was no time to answer. The world dissolved into claws and teeth.
Beasts poured from the shattered hall in a mindless, panicked flood. Raven stepped forward, his spear coming up. "Form up!"
They fell into a loose defensive circle. Adam's new sword met the first creature. He swung, and the blade bit deep. Where the amber veins in the metal glowed, the creature's flesh sizzled and blackened around the wound. It fell.
[EXP: 38]
Another took its place.
"They just keep coming!" Wren shouted, ducking under a swipe. His daggers flashed out, slicing a tendon.
"Hold the line!" Lira grunted. A scaled creature lunged at her, and she met it with her reinforced gauntlet, punching straight into its open mouth. There was a wet crunch.
Raven's spear jabbed at eyes and throats. "Instructors are pinned!" he called out. Adam saw it. A massive crystalline lizard was trading blows with a team of teachers, blocking their advance. Swarms of smaller flyers harried another group.
"It's a distraction," Adam said, parrying a clawed strike. "They're keeping the strong people busy."
Wren peered through the chaos. "We can't hold here. They'll wear us down."
A cry cut through the din to their left. A second year student was backed against a wall by two hunched, furry beasts. His practice sword was chipped and useless.
"Left flank!" Raven ordered.
They broke from their circle. Adam took the lead. One beast turned and leapt at him. He stepped into its leap and thrust his sword forward. The point took it in the chest. The impact jarred his arm. The beast shuddered, the heat from the blade making its fur smoke, and went limp.
[EXP: 40]
Raven was already beside the student, his spear driving the other beast back. "Can you run?"
The student nodded, wide eyed.
"Get away from here. Now."
The student scrambled away as Raven finished the beast.
The brief rescue cost them. The press of creatures tightened around them. They were now separated from Lira and Wren by a knot of snarling bodies.
"Regroup!" Adam shouted, cutting down a smaller creature.
[EXP: 17]
He saw Wren move. The scout darted, not at the beasts, but around them, slipping through gaps. A sudden, soft silver light emanated from Wren, washing over Adam and Raven. Adam felt a immediate burst of energy. His next step was quicker, his grip on the sword firmer.
[Buff Applied: Haste Aura. Strength +10%. Agility +10%. Duration: Limited.]
Wren slid to a stop beside them, staggering for a moment before catching his balance. "Go!"
Together, the three of them fought back toward Lira. The silver aura made a tangible difference. Adam moved with a speed that caught a lunging predator off guard; he sidestepped and brought his sword down across its back, the enhanced strength behind the blow cleaving deeper than before.
[EXP: 36]
Raven, too, moved with sharper precision, his spearpoint finding gaps in swiping claws with less effort. They carved a bloody path back to where Lira stood, a solid anchor amidst the swirl. She had transformed; her forearms were now thickly corded with muscle and covered in dark, matted fur, ending in brutal claws. She ripped into a beast's side, and it fled yelping.
"New plan!" Raven said as they reformed, breathing hard. "We advance on the hall. We are beneath the notice of the larger threats. We use that."
As if summoned by the decision, three other students fought their way over to them, gravitating toward their semblance of order.
Cain arrived first, his expression grim. His chakram whirred in his hand, the air around it shimmering with compressed wind. With a sharp flick of his wrist, he sent it slicing out in a wide, humming arc. It sheared through the leg of a creature about to pounce on Wren, then curved back to his waiting hand. "Looks like you've got a direction," he said, his voice flat.
Behind him came Chris, his hands glowing with a solid, white-gold light. He clenched his fist, and the light solidified into a broad, shimmering short sword of pure mana. He looked nervous but determined.
Then Caspian bulled his way through, not with finesse but with pure power. He held a massive greatsword, a slab of dark metal that should have been impossible to swing. He wielded it like it was made of parchment, a single sweeping blow crushing the skull of a boar-like beast and sending its body tumbling.
"Stick with us if you're coming!" Raven told them, already integrating the newcomers into their formation. "Cain, you're on harrying duty. Keep the flanks clear. Chris, shields and support. Caspian, you're with Lira on the frontline crush. We move as one unit."
Wren, leaning on his knees, took a deep, shuddering breath. "One more push," he muttered, more to himself than anyone. He straightened, his face screwing up in concentration. The silver aura around him, which had faded to a faint shimmer, suddenly blazed brighter. It pulsed outwards in a visible wave, touching all seven of them.
Adam felt the boost solidify, muscles thrumming with borrowed power, his mind clearing to a sharp, tactical focus.
[Buff Strengthened: Haste Aura. Strength +10%. Agility +10%. Active.]
"Path?" Raven asked, his eyes already scanning ahead.
Wren's gaze, now sharp and quick, darted across the battlefield. He pointed, his arm steady. "There! See where the rubble from the broken wall creates a shallow channel? The flow is thinner. Follow that line. Move now, before it clots up again!"
They moved as a unit, a single organism with a deadly purpose. Adam led, his sword no longer just a weapon but a tool of terrain denial. He didn't waste energy on killing strikes against every foe. He broke the leading leg of a charging beast with a brutal sideways smash of his blade's flat, sending it tumbling into the path of another. He used the searing heat radiating from the metal like a wall, forcing creatures to flinch back from the painful aura.
Lira and Caspian became an unstoppable tandem on the left. Lira's bestial gauntlets grabbed and pinned, and Caspian's colossal sword fell like a landslide, ending anything she held. Cain's chakram became a lethal, humming guardian. It would shoot out with a gust-propelled zip, slicing at the eyes of a creature harrying their right flank or severing the tendon of one trying to circle behind, always returning to his hand with a practiced snap.
Chris was a revelation of adaptable support. When a pack of swift, rodent-like beasts tried to swarm under their guard, he didn't attack. He slammed his hands together, and a wide, concave shield of solid golden light erupted from his palms, blocking the tide and funneling them into Adam's reach. A moment later, the shield dissolved and reformed into a long, thin spear of light, which he thrust into the side of a larger foe menacing Raven.
Raven and Wren held the rear, a delicate balance of defense and awareness. Raven's spear was a constant, flickering threat, while Wren, pale and sweating from maintaining the encompassing buff, watched their backs, calling out weak points and shifts in the beastly current. "Two more sliding in from the right, Cain! Lira, big one coming at your ten o'clock!"
The crystal lizard's head, the size of a cart, swung toward the movement of their coordinated fight. Its gem-like eyes, each a multifaceted orb, passed over them. It saw the small, silver glow, the flashes of mana and fire, the collapsed beasts. It assessed the threat level against the instructors still hammering at its flanks. After a heartbeat, it turned away, disinterested. They were beneath its concern.
The entrance to the Portal Hall loomed. The noise from within was no longer just sound; it was a physical pressure, a deep, grating hum that vibrated in their teeth and bones. Beasts clawed over each other in a frenzied pyramid to get out, a living, screeching wall of desperation.
"Last stretch!" Lira yelled, her voice hoarse. "No fancy moves! Straight through!"
"Wren, hold it steady!" Raven ordered.
Adam met Raven's eyes and saw the same grim resolve. He adjusted his grip on the Terra-Flame sword. The amber veins pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
He charged.
He dropped all pretense of technique. He became a battering ram clad in searing metal. He lowered his shoulder, pointed the blazing tip of his sword forward, and ran. He did not swing. He simply collided with the living wall.
Creatures slammed into the superheated metal. The results were instantaneous and gruesome. Hide split like overcooked meat. Fur ignited into foul-smelling torches. Smaller beasts were bowled over; larger ones recoiled with shrieks of pain, creating momentary gaps. Adam pushed, legs driving, fueled by Wren's hastened strength and his own desperate will. He was aware of the others at his back, a wedge driving into the nightmare.
[EXP: 18]
[EXP:40]
[EXP:65]
The EXP notifications flickered, meaningless numbers in a world of heat, pressure, and screaming. The stench of burnt hair and seared flesh was a solid thing in his throat. His world narrowed to the next foot of ground, the next creature to hit his blade, the glowing maw of the hallway entrance just ahead.
Then, with a final shove against a heavy, thrashing body, the pressure vanished.
He stumbled from the blinding, chaotic sunlight into shadowy, roaring darkness. The others piled in after him, a tangle of gasping, bleeding bodies.
The contrast was staggering. The cacophony of the courtyard was instantly muffled, replaced by a closer, more intimate hell. The air in the Portal Hall was hot, thick, and tasted of ozone and blood. Directly ahead, in the center of the vast vaulted chamber, the source of the nightmare raged.
The main portal was a ragged, violent tear in reality.