Gallery Street was as expected: a riot came through. Or a war. Or panic. It was a street of broken glass and flickering lights. Shattered windows opened up to destroyed interiors, rummaged and picked through like a carcass. To think that every establishment was someone's livelihood. In a single night they had been destroyed. All of them. It’d take a long time before Ordo reclaimed its beauty.

Althea frequented Gallery Street often, most of the times with a schoolmate (Alexander’s suggestion). Those days were fun, talking about mundane things while she perused the galleries of pastries, books, the latest fashion trends, whatever was offered. She was a regular. She recognized every storefront; today, a storm had passed through.

Like that one, Systemica, an electronics store boasting about both its internet and its Slayer culture. She never went there herself, but Vernon did one time out of curiosity. He liked the products but not necessarily its clientele, who he said was “a cesspool of internet addicts" who often argued about who would beat who in a fight. Firebrand versus Master. Kosmos versus Gadabout. They'd even brag about their otherlives, saying that they'd be the best Slayers. Only if this life was kinder to them.

Yeah, only if this life was kinder to them. Althea recognized the owner: a round guy (fat), late twenties maybe, balding bad, legless. The last part was new. His bottom-half was turned into a black, icky sludge, liquefied from some sort of horrible magick. Other people were inside, many of them being refugees who thought that hiding here was a good idea. It wasn't.

Vernon noticed Althea’s staring, saw the owner, and he cleared his throat. He quickened his pace, not wanting to lose sight of Jury. Althea matched, browsing Gallery Street like how she used to.

Althea stepped over a dead woman, hopped over a puddle of blood, and scrunched her nose. It smelled like cadervine and shit. It made sense, unfortunately: corpses excremented bodily waste upon death. Then gas built up at some point, the skin spotted up like patchwork, multiplying all that by the tens, maybe hundreds, it was just as good as bathing at a sewer treatment. Plus the flies and maggots.

Fun.

The air felt heavier, weighing on her chest. Her nerves tingled. She wanted to end this mission as soon as possible.

“Jury,” hazed Vernon, voice like a mouse, “were all your expeditions like this? Mark said he had seen some pretty nasty stuff over on the other side.”

Jury turned her head to the side, her eyes cutting and focused. “Surprisingly, no. Usually, the atrocities were long since committed, and we roamed the aftermath. Sometimes years after the fact, decades or even centuries. I would say it’s somewhere between uncommon and common that we’d come across something we wish we hadn’t.”

“Gotcha…” Vernon didn’t sound too motivated by that answer.

“But this?” Jury stared forward. “This is the worse than everything I’ve seen. If there are any survivors, they’re not here.”

“So there’s nothing but the enemy,” concluded Althea. “If there is any. I haven’t seen or heard anything, but y’know, that could mean they’re riding on the roofs ready to pick us off.”

“Or occupied with other things. Like planning to take down Pillar Dawns and all that.” Vernon adjusted his S68 rifle; like Alexander, he stole one of them. They both liked to go shooting—courtesy of Mark.

“It’s a good reason to stay focused,” Jury reminded. “Always keep an eye and ear on your surroundings. Take out your Pleun device too. We’ll measure the mana concentration from here.”

Obeying, Althea dug into one of her side pouches and equipped a gray machine that was about the size of a large smartphone. It boasted a panel of twelve buttons and a large display screen. She was taught the basics before coming out. She pressed the appropriate buttons and a small green dot flashed on the left, an LED, signaling its success. Numbers ticked, fluctuating as she moved.

Magical concentration was measured in jins, named after a Japanese scientist. On Earth (in this particular magicless world), the average jin levels reached no higher than twenty; inside portal sites, more like one hundred. Going to different worlds however, the levels depended on what world you were going to and what had happened there. By the merit of the Slayer System, Slayers had a higher magical resistance than regular humans, naturally increasing as one progressed through the ranks; thus, it was one of the variables when calculating an expedition rank.

For a good reason: magical concentration was toxic, downright fatal, in high levels. A normal person would feel nauseous at five hundred jins. Beyond that, the effects were similar to radiation. Though unlike radiation, magick sickness would end as soon as you left the area, and there were plenty of treatments for it.

Right now, Althea measured levels from three thousand to four.

Althea sputtered. “Hey, are these the right numbers? The surveyors visited Gallery before, right? I saw it on the documents; none of the numbers went over one thousand. I’m reading triple that. Quadruple even.”

“Huh?” Vernon quickly calibrated his Pleun and audibly grasped. “Jesus, she’s right. The previous numbers are way, way off. Did you know about this, Jury?”

Jury was silent for a moment. “I had suspected it. Ever since we entered Gallery, the air has gotten heavier, hasn’t it?”

Althea put a hand to her chest, feeling her heart. Jury was correct. The air had been oppressive ever since they entered, but she crossed that off due to the raid that had taken place here. According to the official documents, the scouts conducted their search at around two in the morning, and it was almost nine currently. If something altered the magical concentration in this area, then it would’ve taken place between then. But when? Maybe during Vesper’s collapse?

Vernon gulped, then clasped his mouth, probably swallowed a fly or something. He asked, mumbling, “You think Pereyra’s around here? I mean, a high magical concentration is a high magical concentration, right? That guy’s magic, we’re standing in it, connect the dots, right?”

Jury shot a hard glare at him. Focus. Don’t let your emotions get the better of you. Keep your eyes on your surroundings, that was what the glare meant. On the off-chance that Vernon was right, then they needed to be on guard, always. Jury motioned for the two to follow as she opened a blue screen, typing something. She was likely contacting Sage and Archknell, informing them of the anomaly.

Althea had nothing else to do other than watch her surroundings and gather data. She swept with the Pleun, briefly ducking into buildings and pressing it against bodies, seeing if there was a major change with the numbers. Still absurdly high as before, measuring the highest levels in Dawns. Strangely enough, Althea was glad that there was no survivors. It was a cruel thing to think about, but it meant that no one was living here, not in this shitshow.

For a good while, Althea and Vernon investigated Gallery Street, exchanging wordless looks and signals, jumping at any odd noise. Sometimes Jury would ask them to stay put for unknown reasons, and maybe that’d be when the tension broke. All it’d take was one well-placed shot and they would be deader than these people. But that never happened. Gallery Street was a ghost town. Eerie, unsettling, but ultimately uneventful. Like that was any better.

Althea occupied herself by writing down the information on a notepad but the feeling never went away. The tension and the oppressive atmosphere.

As they turned a corner, they stopped. They saw something they’d wish they didn’t, right in the intersection a block away.

A military convoy had been established there. What remained of it. Trucks and humvees were tipped over, many of them scorched black from recent fires. Barricades were either destroyed or fallen, pushed aside. There was no immediate bodies, only items: green helmets, rifles, vests. Because someone had collected the bodies themselves. Right at the center of the intersection was a mountain of corpses. Dead. Gone. Burnt. And a child at its crotch crawled, put in a permanent stasis, reaching out, rigor mortis. Eyeless.

It was taller than a two-story building, held together by a rudimentary understanding of architecture. Whoever did this, they had thrown bodies haphazardly like toys or little worthless puppets. The structure was tall, yes, but it resembled less than a mountain and more of a mound or a plateau. You could stand on it after trekking through a tangle of arms and legs, stepping over heads and caved in chests, would that be a sight to behold.

Jury stared at it, darkened. She had a distant, far-off look in her eyes. Her body was here, in Ordo, but her mind was elsewhere, somewhere perhaps just as unpleasant and traumatizing as the sight before her. So that was how it had looked, Althea thought. Watching someone be taken elsewhere. This wasn't the first time Althea had witnessed this.

Althea turned to the horror. “I think… I think that’s the anomaly behind the concentration levels, yeah. Mystery solved?”

Jury quietly answered, “So it is.”

“Jury,” Vernon called to her. “You alright?”

She paused for a moment, then two, and finally she softly shook her head. “...I was an Otherguard. A Captain in the African Alliance.”

Althea and Vernon exchanged an uneasy look.

Vernon asked her, “Before Ordo?”

Jury nodded. “Afghanistan. I was a Slayer then too. My brothers-in-arms gave me this nickname, Jury, because of my honor. Whenever there was a breakthrough, we were specifically called in to lend our resources. I’ve seen the aftermath. Entire villages slaughtered. Children killed. Some innocent civilians were kidnapped, taken elsewhere, and experienced worse. We fought many monsters. Things that were dumb, things were just as smart as us, some smarter. Clever ones. You were afraid of the clever monsters more than the smart ones; intelligence was a rare thing, but craftiness was a different sort. Traps. Tricks. Impossible situations.”

An Otherguard… An apocalypse was a good incentive to discourage war. Not mutually assured destruction, not even today with two-legged armies but the very nature of the Emergence: portals appeared across Earth indiscriminately. Developed nations fared better than the undeveloped, yet the event was the great equalizer. All nations mattered because if a single one collapsed from an invasion, then it'd mean the end.

Thus, from the remains of the previous United Nations gave rise to the Global Guards, a intergovernmental organization aiming to coordinate and facilitate the international defense of the good world. Through the Global Guards came the enactment of the Otherguard Guild, an international defense force that protected the vulnerable. Among them were the appropriately-named Otherguards: warriors who fought external threats outside their home countries.

The Otherguard Guild was divided into six Alliances: the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia, Oceania, and Marine (which dealt with the depths of the ocean plus Antarctica). Every Alliance was commanded by the Chief Slayer, effectively acting as No.1 for their region. Not to be confused with the Chief Otherguard, the highest-ranking Slayer within the Guild. That was Gadabout, often considered to be the second-strongest Slayer in the world.

The world had never been so united since the Emergence.

“Why did you become a Slayer then?” Althea asked next. “A domestic, I mean?”

Jury shrugged, the strength leaving her arms. “I wanted to do more, I think. And wanting to fight in a place I liked waking up in. It hasn’t been an entire day yet I’m reminded of my time there. When I mean that this is the worst I’ve seen, I genuinely mean it. It’s the worst. Nothing else compares.”

Althea, with her experience, was inclined to agree.

~~~

“Do you want to know my thoughts about this, Alex?” asked Hidden, who casually sat on a table of an empty diner, whose customers were laying on the tables and floor. None of them were human though, just lizardmen and sometimes the occasional lizardwoman.

Alexander crossed his arms, kicked one of the lizardman with his foot, confirming it was dead. “About clearing out a diner by yourself?”

“No, about Pereyra. I don’t think we’ll find him, or it. Whatever the hell it is.” Despite being slammed into the ground head-first by Pereyra, she was quite chipper. Even after hearing about the annihilation of Pillar Vesper. This girl had brain damage, though Alexander suspected she had some long before today.

“What makes you think that?” Alexander slid out a chair and sat on it backwards, eyes to the windows and doors just in case they needed to make a quick escape. Or if anything wanted to test their luck. “Was it the lack of progress on all fronts? Or you know.” He motioned to his eyes. “Him watching us?”

“Both, I think.” Hidden twirled one of her curved daggers effortlessly. Brain damage or not, she had an enviable dexterity. “Dawns, Dawns, Dawns. Our morning was rough, but I think tonight will be rougher. Searching for him outright is like kicking a vault down hoping we’ll break its locks. He can either decide to kill us then or kill us with the Pillar. Seeing how he hasn't ruined our days yet, I'm guessing it's the latter.”

“Yeah, probably. I’m trying to piece together what I know about Pereyra, which I can confidently say that I have no idea. I used the Pleun device to measure the mana levels almost everywhere. Our numbers are somehow higher than the initial scouts reported. Don’t know what’s up with that. I can't discern a pattern out of them, I can’t see the logic—if there is any—and I definitely can’t beat Pereyra the normal way. If Sage is stumped, then I am too. We need something big to bring that jackass out, but that’s almost impossible given the communication restrictions.”

“Just use the Slayer System.”

“Can you use the Slayer System to hide your hands?” asked Alexander. “Or where you’re walking to? We can plan as much as we want, but once Pereyra sees us, that's it.”

Hidden whistled. She stopped playing with her dagger, held it steady in an icepick grip, eyes measuring over the ridges and edges. “You thought a lot about this. I can’t say I did the same; my job is to slay. I usually leave the planning to Jury and Problem, but I occasionally get some good ideas.”

“Have one now?” asked Alexander.

“Let’s use the Purge Protocol when Pereyra attacks Pillar Dawns,” she beamed.

“Christ, no.”

“Then yeah, I got nothing.”

“How did an airhead like you get into Glory?” Alexander muttered.

Hidden frowned, her cheeks puffing up and pouting. Sort of like Leona. “You know, for a good-looking guy, you're kinda an asshole.”

“I get that a lot, and I’m completely serious.”

“Well, I’m completely serious when I say this: how can you, an ‘ordinary guy’, get the attention of Seraph? Why don’t you answer my question since I’m the one doing all the work.”

Alexander wasn’t amused. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, of course. If Seraph thinks you’re interesting, then I think you’re interesting as well.” She raised a finger. “But don’t get any wrong ideas. I’m not trying to steal you from your girlfriend.”

Alexander huffed, he wouldn’t do that anyway. Personally, given his first impressions of Hidden, he wasn't interested in airheads anyway. “You’re too relaxed after we lost Pillar Vesper.”

“I take things in stride,” she said with a smile. “But c’mon, answer my question.”

He sighed, dismissively shaking his head. “Yeah, I’m uh, well, I’m just as clueless as you are. Look, in terms of parents, my dad was a heavyweight boxer and my mom worked for charities. Nothing Slayer-related. I know people, that’s all. I’ve met Kosmos through Leo, I’ve met Mark through Vernon, and…” Alexander paused, thinking about High Home and deciding against mentioning it. “...I think that’s it.

“I never had much of a relationship with Seraph. We’re acquaintances; honestly, I talk to Sage more but that’s once in a blue moon. That’s it. Really.”

“Huh. Your upbringing is more normal than I thought. Other than, y’know…” Hidden gestured towards Alexander, who had his bloody [Hobgoblin Steel] leaning against a table.

Alexander rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I know. What about you?”

“Me?” She put a hand on her chest. “I’m nobody special too. I was born in Toronto.”

“Jesus.”

“I know. Academics wasn’t for me, so I decided ‘Why not?’ and became a Slayer. My Growth Potential was high anyway and fighting sounded fun. Ended up getting accepting into the Faculty of Systemic Works in the University of Toronto, transferred to Ordo University, applied to Glory, and Jury picked me to be on her team. I had a fairly average journey. Well, as average as one can get when you’re traveling across the multiverse.”

“Happy where you ended up?”

“I am. Believe me, Alex, I’m not as stupid as you might think. What we have doesn’t make me depressed or mopey. It makes me pissed. Pereyra made me taste dirt, so I hope to return the favor. I’m glad that you’re with us; I want someone insane enough to punch a literal Comet in the face.”

Alexander sputtered. He forgot he did that. It was a last-ditch effort to stop Pereyra from killing Team Luster, and to an extent everyone else as well. “It was nothing. Literally, it did nothing. I wouldn’t expect too much out of me though.”

Hidden tilted her head, a tad sympathetic to his doubting. “Because of your Growth Potential?”

Because of my Growth Potential… “Something like that.”

“Cheer up. Maybe you’ll pull a Kosmos.”

He hesitated. “Yeah. Don’t we all want that?”

“Heh. You’re a funny guy.” Hidden sighed and hopped off the table, picking up her dagger. “Enough talking though. We should probably regroup with the others. Maybe if we’re lucky, we’ll finally find the anomaly. But everything looks normal.”

Alexander nodded, standing up with her. Then something came to him, bold and enlightening. What Hidden had said… Maybe this was her one good idea of the month.

“Alex? You okay?”

“I had a thought—”

A terrible cry came, beyond them. It reverberated throughout the area, hitting the Alexander’s core like drums. He flinched, ducked underneath a table to shield himself for what came next. But nothing did. Only the noise.

He looked to Hidden, bewildered. “What the hell is that?!” he shouted.

Hidden shrugged, hiding underneath a table too. “Beats me! I—”

The dead lizardmen twitched. All of them began twitching.

Alexander blinked as if to deny what was happening. “No, you’re dead.”

They died, but they lived.