As soon as Lance entered the street outside that building, he felt it: it was everywhere; it was in every direction, it wasn't hiding itself anymore but instead appeared before everyone's eyes in its entirety, ready for anyone who dared approach it to have a taste of what it had been capable of doing during the last few weeks. He almost stumbled backwards right into Sophie as she grabbed his arm with a concerned look on her face, holding him back from running away in fear.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I can feel it," he said. "The System, and maybe the person who got us out of that hellscape.”

"I think I feel it too," Sophie replied. "Not as much as you though, clearly."

Jacob looked at them like they were crazy—but Grace just nodded at him without saying anything. Had she felt it too?. There were no traces of blood on the ground around them now either—or at least none that they could see from here. The four of them continued forward slowly, scanning the surroundings for any signs of movement or potential danger, and then they made it across the street and stopped there, looking around for something that would indicate where this mysterious power came from and how to get to safety again.

"Are there monsters nearby?" Grace asked. Always the cautious one.

"Yeah," Lance said, expanding his [Presence Detection] outwards. "There's a group of five creatures in front of us in the middle of the street with some sort of shield in place. "

He tried using his [Assess] skill and was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to work through his Special Ability.

What was less pleasant, though, was what his ability told him.

"They're level eight or nine and don't seem to be doing much other than standing in a line together. What's interesting is that my Assess skill says they are all human-shaped like us, but my Presence Detection tells me that they've been transformed somehow into the monsters we've seen before."

"That doesn't make any sense," Grace said as she took another step forward—not towards the monsters in the road—but away from them instead: she'd spotted something behind them that drew her attention. "Theory: your Presence Detection can detect internal modifications, too? Maybe you're detecting humans who have been fucked up too?"

Lance nodded. "Yeah, I'm guessing you're right about that too."

Jacob just frowned at them, looking like he wanted to ask for clarification on how they were so sure of themselves, but didn't want to interrupt what looked like an important discussion going on between his companions. Sophie stepped closer to him, probably because of his silence. She leaned against his chest with a look of relief on her face while Grace continued walking toward the five people Lance had described earlier and Sophie started describing what they could see from this angle, pointing to different things and making comments along the way.

They carefully avoided the monsters that Lance had detected. [Presence Detection] was awfully useful, allowing them to navigate while encountering minimal resistance.

"We need to get out of this city," Jacob said. "Surely the System can't have turned the whole world into monsters."