Aunt Linda was gazing at his back after trying to get more information out of him. She knew he was very reluctant to bring her along, but her Fireballs were strong enough to provide good cover from the back.

“Jake, don’t do anything reckless,” she told him.

“We are going to fight off an entire horde with a small group of people instead of waiting for them inside walls. I’m not sure the notion of reckless is even enough for this.”

“So, how does it work? Aren’t we supposed just to pop the sacks of the bastards? Why fight them off?” Marcus asked. Everyone else gave the guy a pained expression since Jacob had already explained this thing around ten different times.

“The evolution is almost complete. They are not fragile monsters. It will make killing some of them easier, but they are just getting the last nutrients before they pop out and start killing again. So we will just accelerate the process. You can think of it as a sneak attack.”

“Uhm,” was Marcus’s unconvinced response while the guy caressed the ax at his side.

“They are already too strong, Marcus,” Lucius told him, “we can’t really do anything but kill them. They are sitting ducks in the sacs, but they are all still above the 4th level of the Cockroach realm.”

“Well, I’m at the 6th!”

Lucius looked over at his companion and grimaced. He had found himself grouped with the guy, and in any other context, he would have left the post immediately. In the apocalypse, however, you didn’t get to choose whom to fight with.

“The 4th level is the lowest. Those under the Mantis realm are called Infants. They are of different sizes and are not even remotely as dangerous as their grown versions. We should find one of them at the 9th level of the Cockroach realm. And that’s going to be a tough fight. Helena, Juliet, Frederick, and I are the only ones who can injure such a monster. They do not have ranged attacks at this level, so we can try and kite it. I’ll give you orders based on the situation, don’t worry.”

Jacob looked over his Suicide Squad and sighed.

The chance that someone is going to die is high.

He had told them so, but they had probably not internalized the meaning of his words. They were unaware of the carnage those nightmares were capable of and which stomach-wrenching sights they would be exposed to in a few hours.

They boarded a few SUVs, the only three they had in St. Peter. Given the narrow streets and mountain roads, it was quite an impractical choice, but people liked to show off even in front of a small crowd.

“So, we’ll get to two kilometers from Fort Mountain and then start circling. We’ll rest every six hours of fighting for two hours. During the fights, we will rotate our attacks to save up as much Qi and Mana as possible.”

Jacob searched one of the backpacks he had prepared and said: “We have enough Alchemic Tagliatelle to go for two days straight. We will consume food at every stop. We have practiced everything, even if not for long. Remember, the Charybdes will strike as soon as they smell a weakness. It’s like they can choose the worst possible moment for you and capitalize on it.”

No one spoke, but everyone nodded.

“Don't give up. It won't be any worse than this. We will defeat the Charybdes."

…

The engine of the car was slowly humming while they cruised toward Fort Mountain.

Jacob was riding with Marina, Joseph, and Geneva. He left Juliet, Marcus, Lucius, and his Aunt Linda in the second car, and the rest – Frederick, Helena – had taken two scooters. They were strong enough to look out for themselves and act as scouts.

Jacob, this time, could not do the scouting. While everyone started advancing by leaps and bounds in their cultivation, he was struggling to keep up. His abysmal talent was finally showing itself. Even with his terrific swordsmanship, he was still lagging far behind in terms of energy and stamina. He could hit hard, but he could not do it for long.

After this sh*tshow is over, I need to work on my talent and my body.

It had been barely a week, and all his problems were finally showing up. Unfortunately, the more he waited, the more he would lag behind everyone else.

“Jacob, my husband… If I don’t make it. Please, help him,” he suddenly heard Geneva say from the front seats. He felt Joseph squirm a bit on his side, clearly struggling with what had just been saying.

He looked over to her and nodded. There wasn’t much to say. He would not say that they would all make it, that it would be a piece of cake or anything like that. When he referred to this as a suicide mission, he wasn’t being ironic nor joking.

Marina put her hand on top of Geneva’s while driving and squeezed it, the most comfort shown.

While everyone was thinking about their loved ones, Jacob’s mind was running at 300 km/h to cover all possible scenarios. Although sadly, a couple of them involved someone dying, it did not matter how many times he tried to refactor their odds.

But he was a Great Strategist, and he would bring all the weight behind that title in his mission. He just wished he could have had more time to prepare. Sadly, his options had been nonexistent. Fighting the monsters head-on to avoid a massacre in St. Peter had been a desperate move, no matter how he looked at it.

Well, desperate or not, that’s what they were working with.

“We’ll make it,” Jacob resolved to say to everyone else in the car even if he themselves wasn’t sure it was true. And this was not a white lie but a possibly bloodied one.