“This way!” Jennifer called back excitedly as she mounted the ladder leading the trio out of the sewer.

Carly and Stephen ran up behind the girl as she reached the closed manhole cover and began to give it a push.

“Hey wait! Shouldn’t we be a bit more careful here. You said it yourself you haven’t been back since your old man kicked you out. You didn’t paint a great picture of how that all went down.”

The girl paused, already having lifted the heavy cover just a crack, “We always fight, then we make up. Dysfunctional, but he loves me.” Before the duo could protest she had heaved the cover off and scurried up into the blinding light above.

Immediately the sound of gunfire filtered in amongst the sounds of monsters screeching, roaring, and dying. Before Carly could grab the first rung of the ladder a blood curdling scream echoed down from above, causing both of them to look up in alarm. A moment later steaming blood and guts splattered through the opening followed by an oddly familiar looking arm.

Stephen had already prepped a barrier that prevented any of the offending material from landing on him. Carly had yet to prep her defenses, sneering in disgust at the blood and chunks that painted her face and shoulders from above.

“CHRIST! She got herself killed didn’t she?”

Stephen nodded once while eyeballing the girl's arm that was now floating away down the pipe, “Seems so.”

“Sounds like a pretty bad fight going on up there, should we attempt to join in or wait it out?”

“I could blow out the opening so we can just jump up, safer than climbing through the hole to have our heads lopped off when we poke up.”

Carly backed up while simultaneously reaching for her mana. The temperature around her dropped a dozen degrees, turning her breath to mist, crystalizing the blood that had coated her face, and freezing the slowly flowing trickle of water at her feet. She nodded to Stephen when she was ready.

Stephen raised his hands, channeling a [Gravity Spike] in each, then unleashed them toward the ceiling above him. The ground around the manhole erupted in a spray of dirt and concrete. The sound of a creature squealing in protest was heard as the hole was opened enough for both he and Carly to jump through with room to spare.

They both sailed through the opening using their own respective techniques only to find themselves in a violent maelstrom of chaos and destruction. What seemed like green hairy hog things charged around them and the hole they had opened up in the earth, headed straight for a tall concrete wall with evenly spaced shooters across the edge that were pouring voluminous fire into the oncoming horde. The pounding of their hooves nearly drowned out the report of automatic weapon fire.

Just to their left they spotted a trio of the creatures fighting over what was left of the girl that had guided them this far. Each had a mouth packed with three tentacles that ended in vicious rings of teeth that were quickly stripping what little meat and fat could be found on the girl's bones, already her midsection was gone. A fourth ran up to start working on her left leg. Stephen blanched momentarily, likely remembering the violent death of his former lover, before vaporizing everything in that direction with a well placed [Particle Wave].

“Yeap, she’s dead.” Carly commented flippantly over the din of battle.

Stephen looked where she had pointed while releasing a [Particle Wave] in a random direction, vaporizing a half dozen of the green pig things in a single attack. In his other hand he was already charging a [Mana Bomb].

“Son of a bitch. These things are endless. And rather weak.”

For her credit, Carly had already begun slinging lower ranked [Ice Spike]s, testing her magic against the fat, hairy creatures as they ran past the pair, hell bent on dying to the never ending fusillade of gun fire. She was about to ask the older man with her whether or not they should even get involved when a familiar prompt floated into the corner of her vision.

QUEST: Assist the Chandler-Gilbert Campus against a monster horde.

A horde of Tragiri have been agitated and pushed out of their den due to the presence of the Old God Manifestation in the area. Assist the Chandler-Gilbert Campus in turning back the horde.

Bonus Objective: Eliminate the Alpha Tragiri.

Rewards: 250,000 Exp, 75,000 UMC, 1 Rare item usable by your class archetype and rank.

Bonus Rewards: Rare item upgrade to Epic.

Accept (Y/N)?

She cast a glance at Stephen who’d also paused in his death dealing to read the System message. He shrugged at her, a gesture she returned with a silent eye roll.

“Fuck it, it’s XP and new gear.”

She accepted the prompt the turned in the air to eyeball the chaos that was unfolding around her, “Alright, these fucking things are endless and they have too much mobility. I’m icing the ground behind us. Let the guards take the ones that get past us.”

“Sounds like a plan, I’ll break the ground on either side of your ice.”

Carly nodded without verbally responding as she was already channeling her mana into an oversized field of [Black Ice]. She’d learned that she could put more mana into an ability to make it stronger or bigger. And right now she wanted to cover the ground across the wide intersection where they currently fought, which was much wider than the normal ten meter wide patch the spell covers when cast normally.

The empowered ability spread out in a line a hundred meters long by ten meters wide. The effect was immediate as the horde of charging pig things squealed in surprise as they slid uncontrollably into the duo’s magical barrage of ice and void energies. Behind them the sound of gunfire intensified as the defenders took advantage of the two mages' disruption in the enemy attack.

The field around the pair was quickly stained crimson as the much weaker monsters comically charged with no regard for their own safety. The creatures, despite seeming to be never ending, did little to put a dent in the duo’s massive experience needs. While Carly enjoyed the opportunity to truly cut loose, she really hoped the Alpha would show up already so she had something more challenging. She mused inwardly about their guide's avoidable death at the tentacles of such weak monsters, “Absolutely useless.”

The herd began to thin as the two mages culled their number in the immediate vicinity. The sound of the riflemen and machine gunners across the wall behind them never relented. Carly was just starting to think they’d bought some good will when sharp pain flared in her shoulder before knocking her to the ground. Stephen turned just in time to erect an [Electromagnetic Shield] around her. More bullets made zapping noises as they collided with the invisible barrier allowing Stephen time to drag Carly behind the collapsed wall of a former Circle K.

“That fucking hurt!” the teenager exclaimed out loud.

“You ok?” Stephen asked while peaking around the corner of the blasted building only to flinch back as rounds began shredding the edges of their impromptu concealment.

“Yeah, that round took a third of my health! I’m so pissed right now!” She yelled over the sound of plaster and concrete being shredded by the steady rate of fire the wall gunners were laying down.

The sound of something big coming turned their attention down a street of blasted, burnt out houses. Just over the horizon the sight of chunks of distant houses being churned into the air brought all fighting to a brief pause. Eventually someone on the wall realized there were still hundreds of the tragiri barreling towards their defensive line and redirected fire into the little green horror pigs.

“Alright, I’ll take the wall if you take the Alpha.”, Stephen directed, “Tired of people and monsters trying to kill my friends. I think it’s time these people open their gates.”

Carly stared at the young man hesitantly. Since his girlfriend, Courtney, had been killed by a tentacled abomination he’d grown rather distant. Now she saw a look of grim determination born of darkness and sorrow. She hoped that if he found his family he’d possibly turn away from the path he’d set himself on. If he didn’t find them at all, she feared for what he would become.

“Ok. Don’t kill them all, though. Your family may be in there.”

For a second he looked as if he’d been slapped in the face. The moment passed almost instantly, then the man was in motion, purplish-black energy swirling at his fingertips as he stepped around the crumbling wall they’d hid behind.

Rather than watch him go, Carly turned towards the wave of destruction headed there way while swallowing the bitter contents of a health potion she’d held in her spatial storage.

“Alright, who wants bacon for breakfast!?”