The horde hit him like a tidal wave.
Nate met the first rank head-on, fists already swinging. A stalker's skull caved in under his knuckles. A crawler's shell shattered from an elbow strike. A hound went flying from a kick that broke its spine mid-leap.
But there were too many. For every monster he killed, three more took its place. They swarmed around him, over him, claws and teeth and chitinous limbs coming from every direction.
[Killing Intent].
He pulsed it again, scattering the weaker ones, buying himself a moment of breathing room. The stalkers and hounds fled, unable to withstand the pressure. But the crawlers held their ground, and the four massive creatures at the back of the horde didn't even slow.
A crawler lunged at his leg. He stomped down, crushing its head, but another caught his arm. He ripped it free, taking chunks of chitin with it, and drove his fist through the creature's face.
More coming. Always more.
The first Hive Brute reached him.
It came in fast, massive arms swinging, each blow capable of crushing a car. Nate dodged the first strike, ducked the second, but the third caught him across the shoulder and sent him stumbling.
Pain flared. Not broken, but close.
He retaliated with a [Pressure]-enhanced uppercut that snapped the Brute's head back. It staggered, and he pressed the advantage—two more punches to the chest, cracking armor, drawing ichor.
Then the second Brute hit him from behind.
The blow caught him between the shoulder blades and drove him to his knees. He rolled forward, barely avoiding the follow-up strike that cratered the pavement where he'd been kneeling. Both Brutes were on him now, coordinating, one attacking while the other recovered.
He couldn't fight two of them and deal with the swarm at the same time.
A glance toward the building. The civilians were inside, but the doors weren't fully barricaded yet. He could see movement through the windows—Chen shouting orders, fighters piling furniture against the entrances. They needed more time.
A crawler broke from the main swarm and charged toward the building.
Nate intercepted it, driving his knee through its skull, but the motion left him open. The Level 18 Brute's fist connected with his ribs, and he felt something crack.
[Iron Body] absorbed some of the damage. The Enforcer's Mantle took more. But the force still drove the air from his lungs and sent him skidding across the pavement.
He got up. He had to get up.
The Razorback Titan was moving now.
It was different from the Brutes—lower to the ground, built like a massive boar covered in bony spines. Each spine was three feet long and sharp as a spear. It pawed at the ground, building momentum, and then it charged.
Nate threw himself sideways. The Titan thundered past, close enough to feel the displaced air, and plowed into a cluster of its own lesser monsters. Bodies flew. The Titan didn't care—it was already turning, preparing for another charge.
The two Brutes were closing in again. The swarm was reforming around him. And the fourth creature—the Swarm Mother—was hanging back, doing something he couldn't quite see.
Too many. Too fast. He couldn't—
A scream from the building.
Nate's head snapped around. A group of crawlers had broken through the perimeter, reaching one of the side entrances. The fighters there were holding them back, but barely. He saw Marcus take a claw across the chest, saw him fall, saw the crawlers pushing forward.
No.
He ran.
The Brutes tried to cut him off. He went through them—literally through them, shoulder-checking the Level 17 hard enough to knock it off balance, sliding under the Level 18's swing and driving a fist into its knee as he passed. Neither blow was fatal, but he didn't need fatal. He needed space.
The crawlers at the building entrance saw him coming too late.
[Impact].
He threw everything into a single punch, aiming for the lead crawler. The force blew through it and into the ones behind, shattering shells and pulping flesh. Four crawlers died instantly. The fifth turned to flee, and he caught it by the tail and slammed it into the wall hard enough to crack the concrete.
"Get inside!" he shouted at the fighters. "Seal the door!"
Marcus was on the ground, bleeding, but alive. Two of the others grabbed him and dragged him through the entrance. The door slammed shut behind them.
Nate turned back to the horde.
The Brutes had recovered. The Titan was circling for another charge. And the Swarm Mother—
The Swarm Mother was vomiting.
There was no other word for it. The creature's body convulsed, and from its mouth poured a stream of smaller monsters—things like the scavenger hounds but smaller, faster, more numerous. Dozens of them. Hundreds.
[Swarm Spawn — Level 5]
[Swarm Spawn — Level 6]
[Swarm Spawn — Level 4]
Weak individually. But there were so many of them, and they were spreading out, flooding across the street, heading for the building.
The Mother wasn't a fighter. It was a factory. A producer of endless reinforcements.
As long as it lived, the swarm would never stop.
Nate made a decision.
He charged the Swarm Mother.
The Brutes tried to intercept. He dodged the first one entirely, ducked under the second one's swing, and kept running. The Titan changed course, angling to cut him off, but it was too slow—built for straight-line charges, not tight turns.
The swarm spawn flooded toward him. He ran through them, crushing them underfoot, not bothering with precision. They were fodder. Distractions. The Mother was what mattered.
Fifty feet. Thirty. Twenty.
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The Mother saw him coming. It tried to move, tried to retreat, but it was slow—massive and bloated, designed for production rather than combat. It screamed, a high-pitched sound that made his ears ring, and the spawn around it turned to defend their creator.
Nate didn't slow down.
He hit the wall of spawn like a wrecking ball, fists and elbows and knees clearing a path. Bodies flew in every direction. He was covered in ichor, in blood, in chunks of things he didn't want to identify.
The Mother loomed in front of him. Up close, it was even more grotesque—a swollen body supported by too many legs, a mouth that gaped wide enough to swallow a person whole, eyes that held a terrible intelligence.
[Swarm Mother — Level 18]
[Impact].
He drove his fist into its face with everything he had.
The blow connected. The Mother's head snapped back. Chitin cracked. Ichor sprayed.
But it didn't die.
The creature screamed again and lashed out with legs that ended in points like spears. One of them caught Nate in the side, punching through the Enforcer's Mantle, piercing flesh. Pain exploded through his torso.
He grabbed the leg and pulled, dragging himself closer even as the Mother tried to retreat. His other hand found its throat—the soft tissue beneath the chin, the vulnerable point.
He squeezed.
The Mother thrashed. More legs stabbed at him—one in the shoulder, one in the thigh. He felt blood running down his body, felt his strength fading. But he didn't let go.
He squeezed harder.
Something cracked. The Mother's thrashing grew weaker. Its screams became gurgles. And then, with a final wet snap, its throat collapsed entirely.
The creature fell.
[Swarm Mother] defeated.
Experience gained.
The spawn went berserk.
Without the Mother's control, they lost all coordination. Some fled in random directions. Others turned on each other, tearing at anything that moved. A few charged Nate mindlessly, and he killed them without thinking, his body moving on autopilot.
But the respite was brief.
The two Brutes were coming. The Titan was coming. And Nate was bleeding from half a dozen wounds, his strength fading with every heartbeat.
He pulled the Spatial Ring from his finger and focused on the contents. One healing potion. His last one.
He drank it.
The warmth flooded through him immediately.
It wasn't complete healing—the wounds were too severe, too numerous—but it was enough. The bleeding slowed. The pain receded. His strength returned, not fully, but enough to keep fighting.
He dropped the empty vial and turned to face the Brutes.
"Round two," he said.
They came at him together, having learned from before. The Level 17 attacked high while the Level 18 went low. Nate jumped, letting the low strike pass beneath him, and caught the high strike on his forearm. The impact rattled his bones, but he used the momentum to spin, driving an elbow into the Level 17's face.
[Pressure].
The blow landed with crushing force. The Brute's orbital bone shattered. It staggered back, one eye ruined, ichor pouring down its face.
The Level 18 recovered and swung again. Nate stepped inside the arc, too close for the blow to land properly, and drove his fist into the creature's throat. Once. Twice. Three times.
The Brute choked, gasping, its windpipe crushed. It tried to grab him, but its movements were sluggish now, desperate. He ducked under its arms and circled behind it.
His hands found the sides of its head.
He twisted.
The neck snapped with a sound like breaking timber. The Brute collapsed, and Nate rode it down, landing on his feet as the body hit the ground.
[Hive Brute] defeated.
Experience gained.
One down. Two to go.
The Level 17 was blind in one eye and enraged with pain. It charged him recklessly, abandoning any pretense of coordination or strategy. Just fury. Just violence.
Nate waited.
At the last moment, he sidestepped. His foot hooked the Brute's ankle. It stumbled, off-balance, and he was on its back before it could recover.
His fist found the base of its skull. The weak point. The place where chitin met flesh, where armor gave way to vulnerability.
[Impact].
The click. The focus. The multiplied force.
His fist punched through.
The Brute dropped like a puppet with cut strings. Dead before it hit the ground.
[Hive Brute] defeated.
Experience gained.
The Razorback Titan had stopped circling.
It stood at the far end of the street, watching him with small, intelligent eyes. It had seen him kill the Mother. Seen him kill both Brutes. And now it was the only one left.
For a moment, Nate thought it might flee. Cut its losses. Live to fight another day.
Then it lowered its head, aimed its spines at him, and charged.
The Titan was faster than it looked.
It covered the distance in seconds, a mountain of muscle and bone hurtling toward him like a freight train. The spines on its back rattled as it ran, promising a painful death to anything caught in its path.
Nate didn't run. Didn't dodge. He stood his ground and watched it come.
Fifty feet.
Thirty.
Twenty.
At the last possible moment, he moved.
Not away—toward. He stepped into the charge, inside the arc of the spines, so close that he could feel the heat of the creature's breath. His hands found the base of its largest spine—the one that jutted from between its shoulder blades like a sword.
He grabbed. He pulled. He twisted.
The spine came free with a wet tearing sound. The Titan screamed—a sound of pure agony—and its charge faltered. It stumbled, legs tangling, and Nate was already moving.
He drove the spine into the creature's eye.
[Pressure].
The force pushed the spine deeper, through the eye socket, into the brain. The Titan's scream cut off. Its legs buckled. And then, slowly, like a building collapsing, it fell.
The impact shook the ground.
[Razorback Titan] defeated.
Experience gained.
Silence.
Nate stood in the middle of the street, surrounded by corpses already beginning to dissolve. The lesser monsters had scattered—fled or died, it didn't matter. The four massive creatures that had led the horde were dead at his feet.
He was covered in blood. His own and theirs. The wounds from the Swarm Mother's legs throbbed despite the healing potion. His ribs ached where the Brute had hit him. His arms felt like lead.
But he was alive.
He was alive, and so were the people in the building behind him.
Level Up! Level 20 → Level 21
The warmth flooded through him—different from the potion, deeper. He felt his wounds begin to close, felt his strength begin to return, felt something fundamental shift inside him.
He checked his status.
Name: Nate Rowe
Level: 21
Grade: E
Class: Enforcer (Grade D)
Stats:
Strength: D
Speed: F
Durability: E
Perception: F
Willpower: E
Skills:
[Impact] — E
[Pressure] — E
[Killing Intent] — E
[Iron Body] — E
Level 21. His first level since clearing the tower. The experience from the Swarm Mother, the Brutes, the Titan—all of it adding up, pushing him over the threshold.
He didn't feel stronger. Not dramatically. But every level mattered. Every step forward was a step closer to being able to face the necromancer.
To being able to end this.
The door to the building opened.
Chen emerged first, machete in hand, her face pale but determined. Rivera followed, then Marcus—bandaged and limping, but alive. Behind them, the other fighters, and behind them, the civilians. Two hundred and eighty-seven people, staring at the man who had just killed four monsters the size of trucks.
"Is it over?" Chen asked.
Nate looked at the dissolving corpses. At the empty street. At the setting sun painting the sky in shades of red and orange.
"For now," he said. "We need to keep moving. Three miles to go."
"Can you make it?"
He thought about the wounds. The exhaustion. The level-up warmth still fading in his veins.
"I'll make it."
Chen studied him for a long moment. Then she nodded.
"Everyone out! Form up! We're moving!"
The column reformed—slower this time, more cautious, but still moving. Still alive. Nate took his place at the front, where he'd been all day, and started walking.
Three miles to go.
He could make it.
He had to.
