It was hard to reconcile the John of this moment with the John of a week ago. With his legs and arms pumping in a steady rhythm, his lungs heaving in great gulps of air, and his heart roaring a thunderous beat, he didn't know if he even recognised himself, let alone whether someone who knew him before would know him by sight.

The lithe muscles he now sported handled the strain he was putting them through with ease, even though he was fairly sure he'd never run this fast before. What felt like a reasonably fast run now was surely quicker than his previous top sprint twice over. Moving this fast for even ten seconds would have burned his throat from the inside out with lactic acid. And he'd been running like this for a good ten minutes, at this point.

Level 5 Vitality, Strength, Agility, and Mind. Never for a moment had he thought the expenditure on those statistics would be wasteful. 8,000 Aura, all told, was a lot, but he was willing to pay that price to give himself the physical prowess to survive the risky endeavour he'd proposed.

And what prowess it had granted him. With Level 5 Vitality, he felt like he could sprint a marathon without breaking a sweat, hold his breath for hours, or swim across a goddamn ocean. Life itself surged through his veins, granting him boundless energy.

This Strength, too, made him feel unstoppable. He hadn't had the chance to test the impressive muscles that now defined his frame, but he was sure he'd give any of the gym junkies from back in sixth form a run for their money. It certainly granted him enough pure power to far outstrip his previous top speed.

Jumping from Level 3 to Level 5 Agility had been the starkest difference. At first, he'd only intended to go up to Level 4, but seeing the jump in Vitality and Strength had pushed him to take it further, and he was glad he had. His reflexes felt like they were on a hair trigger, now, ready to dart out of the way of a bullet from a rifle, and the flexibility in his joints only complimented his already outrageous Strength, giving him the confidence to really push himself, unworried over the possibility of hyperextended joints or tendons.

Out of all of them, Level 5 Mind was the most subtle operator, and took a while to show its full merits. The immediate increase in his thought speed had been impossible to miss, but a little underwhelming in comparison to the other upgrades. It was only when he thought back and perused through oddly clear memories that he realised how the ability had boosted him. He could recall every bit of conversation since he'd completed the upgrade—not word for word, exactly, but the content of what was discussed would never leave his mind.

Now, as he charged along the streets of Harrow with Doug at his side, the dazzling white form of Chester thrown over the old man's shoulder, John was wondering if he should've been pumping all his Aura into stats from the beginning. Never had he imagined that he might consider some of the Spells and Skills he'd unlocked to be a waste, but here he was.

The problem was, there were so many Spells he'd barely used. Skills he'd hardly touched. Add those wasted points together, and that was potentially another Level in one of his stats. If he'd been focusing on Levels from the beginning, he could've been Level 7 in pretty much everything by now.

Frustration boiled within him. He tried to tell himself that experimenting with the system and determining what worked and didn't through trial and error was important, and it was literally in the name of the game that there would be errors. Trying out Skills and Spells was not a mistake, and he was going to continue to test them. There was no point beating himself up over expenditures of 500 or 1000 Aura or even more, when he planned to accumulate far more than that.

Focus on the present, he told himself, grimacing at his surroundings. There's a job to do.

He and Doug were running through the streets with no consideration given to stealth, having scouted out a spot to meet the others later. They sprinted down the very middle of the road, letting their heavy footfalls echo out. Chester clung to Doug's back like a baby monkey, eyes screwed shut and face buried against the back of the man's neck, while his form glowed with radiant light.

At another time, John might have felt some disdain at the sight of the muscular younger man's fear. Now, he couldn't blame him. John himself wasn't exactly lacking in terror at the moment.

Looking back, John once again saw they'd already accumulated quite the pursuit. A new horde had caught their scent rather quickly, and the mass had only grown as time had gone on—not to imply a long time had passed. Their current mission could only be measured in minutes since its start.

Chester's Spell was just that attention-grabbing.

There were hundreds of monsters already chasing them. They'd quickly picked up the insect horde again, as intended, and more joined thereafter. There was a dizzying variety of madness on display. Giant animals with abominable mutations. Eldritch monstrosities with grasping tendrils and too many eyes. Chaotic creatures that seemed to be made out of inorganic materials like brick and metal. No two monsters were exactly alike, but they were united in one purpose: bringing all life on Earth to an end, and the only life within a considerable distance, apparently, was fleeing ahead of them.

Seeing such a large force of monsters out in the open and after them like this was terrifying. For the most part, John's daring escapes had slashed through gardens and stolen down alley ways. Witnessing a horde flood over a wide open road like this was a first, and he hoped it would be the last.

He knew it wouldn't. If this gambit worked, he had no doubt it would become one of their primary techniques.

Horrifying as the pack of monsters seemed to be, it wasn't anywhere near enough. They needed more. As many monsters as they could get. Mana Sense blasted out with every heartbeat, pinging thousands of signatures just in his range—the Spell was up to Level 3 now after a 2000 Aura expenditure, and he reckoned it covered at least a kilometre with every pulse.

Using the Spell as a guide, John and Doug were playing a careful game, attempting to move through a route that would draw more monsters into pursuit without finding themselves cut off ahead. Precision timing meant the pursuing pack was growing at every moment. Not every monster was equal in speed, so they had to run a winding journey through the suburban neighbourhood, keeping ahead of the quicker monsters while making sure to generally keep the pack together as best they could.

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"Feels good to stretch the legs, doesn't it?" Doug called out to him as they turned onto a wider road. They'd kept talk to a minimum aside from John's directions, but apparently the old man couldn't help himself any more.

-400 Aura

John hadn't intended to respond, but he had no choice. The older man had now presented himself as unbothered, treating this as a casual jaunt through the town, while John, by contrast, looked to be taking it all seriously, implying that he felt the monsters were a danger to him—and he was taking it seriously, because the monsters were a fucking danger to him, but the Aura system sometimes chose the worst times to be completely unreasonable. A loss of 400 Aura wasn't that terrible in and of itself, but John was more worried about damaging his overall image, which would only make the losses cascade as people treated him differently.

"It gets the blood pumping," John said. John had to raise his voice a little to be heard over the shrieks and screams and roars of the monstrous horde. The stampeding army's footfalls sounded like an avalanche. "Let me know when you're getting tired. I want to gather together as many monsters as possible, but we need to make sure you have plenty of energy left to actually lure them to the portal."

+400 Aura

They turned onto another street, forced to avoid another pack of monsters coming ahead of them, giant rabbit things with razor sharp teeth. The monsters joined the chasing horde.

Doug bellowed with laughter. "The nerve of you kids these days! I may not be as young as I once was, but I can still keep up a light jog like this all night. You don't have to worry about me, lad."

-400 Aura

In a moment of social insight, John realised it would be tactless to point out that the old man's ability to 'run with the best of them' wasn't anything to do with his age or strength. It'd be hypocritical, too.

Still, he had to retort with something for the sake of his Aura, and he decided the best way forward was to keep up the boasting. "A jog? I thought we were out for a stroll."

+400 Aura

They were both clearly running fast enough to feel the strain, if not quite sprinting.

"Pah, I called it a jog just to spare your feelings, kid. This kind of pace is no more effort to me than standing still," Doug said, though there was a rough edge to his grin.

-400 Aura

John had to pick the right moment to speak, lest he find himself out of breath in the middle of a sentence and end up looking like an idiot. "It takes that much out of you?" He sent the older man his best smirk, pulling out his shades to cover his eyes. "Something like this is practically recharging my energy."

+400 Aura

Doug guffawed, but his reply was cut off by a few dozen more monsters ahead. They had to turn again at an alley and double back on themselves through an adjacent street, but the horde of monsters soon picked up their trail once more and the pursuit continued.

They were both clearly running at a speed just below a sprint now, forced to keep ahead of the faster monsters and the fliers and the others that seemed to keep emerging from dark corners and side streets and alleys. Only John's Mana Sense kept them ahead.

After a few more minutes of no chatter between them, John hoped Doug had finally gotten his desire for banter out of his system. He had to stifle a groan when the older man, half-breathless, called out: "So, do you think we could gather up all the monsters in London like this? That might actually give me a decent work-out, if we did it a few times in a day."

The urge to tell the man to shut up was almost all-consuming—if the system decided they now had to actually carry out that course of action… he didn't know what he'd do, but a lot of anger-fueled possibilities ran through his mind. John burned with the desire to snap something truly harsh, but resisted it, instead settling for a simple enough, "Just leave it all to me. It's the duty of the young to care for the old and infirm."

Doug roared with laughter.

"What the hell is wrong with you two?" Chester whispered, almost too quiet to hear.

That just made Doug's grin turn more feral, almost unhinged. He opened his mouth to reply, but a boom of thunder tore through the night, loud enough that John felt the vibrations as the sound blasted through the air. His ears rang for a moment, and it was only after the second boom that he truly registered what he was hearing.

That had been a roar.

The massive mana signature that entered the northern edge of his range confirmed it for him. A quick glance with Soul Vision in that direction confirmed his fear: a red had joined the party. The time for banter was over.

"We have to go," John said, then realised how that might sound, and added, "The others won't be able to deal with something like that."

Doug gave him a wry look. "Yes. The others."

For the first time, the two of them broke into a full sprint, taking the most direct route possible towards the portals. John had made sure to keep track of where they were in relation to their goal at all times, greatly assisted by his heightened Mind stat, and so he was able to lead them without too much issue, at least in terms of pure navigation.

But that wasn't to say it was easy going. Like the red's roar carried some kind of enhancing effect, it seemed the monsters already chasing them had been kicked up into a frenzy, and dozens more were pouring into Mana Sense's range at every moment. They were faster, more frantic. Glancing back, he could see them injuring themselves in their haste, breaking legs, chipping talons, battering right through walls and fences rather than vaulting them. The entire street was filled with an oncoming flood of monsters, and more kept adding to the wave.

Caution had to fall to the wayside. They no longer had the luxury of picking an optimal route to the meeting point by the portal. The monsters were too fast. Every time he turned, it felt like they were getting closer, the shining malice in their eyes more visible, and he was already running fast enough that he was sure Limit Break was going to kick in at any moment.

Chester whimpered. Doug's breathing sounded like an angry bear. John's heartbeat pounded in his ears.

They ran and ran and ran. The high street came into view. It brought no triumph. The monsters that had been lounging in that area were waiting, kicked up into a frenzy by the red's roar just as the pursuing horde had been. Somewhere in the supermarket's car park, Jade, Lily, and Alissa would be awaiting the signal to approach the portal. John threw a Fireball up into the sky as prearranged, but he hoped they'd already taken the initiative long before that point.

If not, he hoped they appreciated it, because it had the unfortunate effect of drawing the attention of most of the monsters on the high street, and once they were captured by the radiant white light of Chester's Spell, it was as if nothing else in the world existed.

John dismissed Mana Sense. It was redundant, now, with all his enemies out in the open. There was about 200 metres to the portal, and much of that space was occupied by monsters. They couldn't slow down with the horde in pursuit. They couldn't turn and take another route with the red in pursuit and whatever enhancing ability it had.

In other words, it was time to do or die. Nothing held back.

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