The two groups kept well apart as they entered the school building through different doors, yet the air was still thick with tension. It turned out the big white building was actually some kind of events venue thing called the Bushey Arena that also doubled as part of the school, with a huge modern-looking reception room; it was a wide, open space with galleried upper floors looking down on the ground floor, a large reception counter on the right, and overturned round tables and coloured chairs strewn throughout. It all looked hauntingly barren with no people around. Glass littered the floor from where Daniel had crashed through.

Daniel was still stumbling on shaky legs, forced to lean on Marius and Farah. They had to take the lead, since they were the ones who knew where the portal was, and it was slow going.

John wouldn't quite go so far as to say he regretted his actions, per se, but he did now wish he hadn't hurt Daniel quite so bad in his display of dominance. Whatever ability the robed mage had in play that transferred the momentum of the Ultimate Shot had probably saved his life—John couldn't see any way the man could defend against the Spell's myriad effects like his comrades had, but who knew with a magic-y type—but had still left him injured enough that John found himself wondering if it was supposed to function that way.

If I aimed for the legs, though, it probably would've been even worse, John thought, watching the man stumble along. He couldn't bring himself to feel guilty, since the twat had almost certainly been about to attack first and ask questions never, but it was inconvenient now.

Mana Sense was pumping out with every heart beat, drawing him a mental map of where any monsters were in a radius of about a kilometre from him. Three columns were approaching them at speed, one from the north, one from the south, and one from the west, all three large enough that he was sure they'd span the entirety of his range.

If there really was some kind of fiendish intelligence behind all this, then it was quite clear to him that it was pushing to keep John's group and Daniel's trio trapped together. They could have stayed and fought their way through, but why take that risk when it was easily avoided? They already knew from Doug that the monsters in this place wouldn't break ranks and chase you unless you tried to escape town, so the solution was obvious.

Go into the portal. They were always planning to do so anyway. So, two birds, one stone. Efficiency at its finest.

Aside from the small issue of being trapped in there with three potential hostiles, on top of whatever monsters awaited. Being on guard for that wasn't going to be fun.

As Daniel and his two comrades led them into a corridor attached to the reception room, which apparently led into the actual school, John eyed their backs, wondering how suspicious he was going to have to be. They'd seen a bit of what he could do, but would they still fancy their chances? He hoped not. While the current circumstances weren't exactly ideal, it was a hell of a lot better than having to fight to the death.

No words were exchanged between the groups. They didn't even talk among themselves. John didn't glance back because he didn't want to look concerned, but he was fairly confident the team would be back in their diamond formation, following just behind him. Polly and Zazu were still on his shoulders, and the crow and dove came flying in only after Daniel's trio were in the corridor fully. They landed on the reception desks, and watched with beady black eyes as the humans proceeded out of the large room.

Outside of the arena space, the school was more what he'd expect, with long corridors lined with classrooms twisting through a number of buildings. Daniel led them without comment on any of the blood stains and smashed windows and broken doors. Looking through the windows to the outside, he saw scenes of carnage, with grassy fields having been torn up and trampled, furniture knocked over, anything that wasn't bolted down utterly ruined.

John briefly found himself imagining what had happened here, when the apocalypse had first hit. He couldn't help it. What day had the apocalypse hit on? He was pretty sure it hadn't been the weekend, and, unless things had changed massively in the handful of years since his school days, he didn't think it had been a half term.

He forced his thoughts away from that direction. It wasn't hard to find a new topic of contemplation, given he was walking through one of his most despised places in the world. It was, admittedly, miles away from the school he'd attended, and it seemed to have been better kept than that place, but it brought back memories anyway.

They passed an entrance to a classroom that looked nothing at all like the red door to K-7, where his form group had been located, but the memory of Luke Farnell slamming the door right in his face still replayed in his mind. They walked along a corridor that was far too wide to resemble the one where a group of boys had poured juice on him, but he still saw the phantom scene play it before him anyway. They saw a set of broken doors whose only trait in common with the toilets back at Eastbrook aside from the little signs, but he still couldn't shake the remembered feeling of cold water enclosing his head and his lungs burning as he gasped for air.

It was no surprise that his mood progressively darkened as they moved through the place, but he was used to this kind of feeling, and so it was easy to rush himself through it. First came the rage, which morphed into indignation and regret, followed by a lonely helplessness, which eventually morphed into a sadness that left his heart feeling like lead.

And it all got squished into a ball and shoved deep down into a place where he'd never have to examine it, like it always did.

Behind him, the others were whispering.

"But are we really sure about this?" Jade asked. "Going into the portal like them seems like a recipe for disaster."

"I don't reckon they're going to attack again," Doug said, a grin audible in his oddly jovial voice. "Call it a former thug's intuition."

"Can't see them attacking John, yeah," Lily added.

"But what if John's not around, for a bit?" Chester said.

John turned his head a fraction, glancing back while keeping one eye on the trio. "I'll be watching them, don't worry."

"How? If they go into the portal first, they'll be able to set up an ambush. If we go into the portal first, they could stay outside and fuck with things."

"I'll figure something out," John said, delving into his Aura menus. He had over 30,000 points to spend, and some ideas on how to use it. The others kept whispering among themselves while he was distracted.

Level 2 Spells:

Illusory Clone: 1000 Aura

Astral Projection: 1000 Aura

Phantom Hand: 1000 Aura

Upgrade Rest Level 2 -> Level 3: 2000 Aura

Upgrade Force Pull Level 2 -> Level 3: 2000 Aura

Level 3 Spells:

Ice Breath: 2000 Aura

Air Bubble: 2000 Aura

Animate Blood: 2000 Aura

Upgrade Mana Sense Level 3 -> Level 4: 4000 Aura

Upgrade Soul Vision Level 3 -> Level 4: 4000 Aura

Level 4 Spells:

Pyroclastic Lance: 4000 Aura

Tempest Sphere: 4000 Aura

Earth Wave: 4000 Aura

Gravity Snare: 4000 Aura

Levitate Object: 4000 Aura

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Orbital Well: 4000 Aura

Mass Manipulation: 4000 Aura

Upgrade Fireball Level 4 -> Level 5: 8000 Aura

Upgrade Heat Vision Level 4 -> Level 5: 8000 Aura

Upgrade Wind Shear Level 4 -> Level 5: 8000 Aura

Upgrade Force Push Level 4 -> Level 5: 8000 Aura

Upgrade Shadow Stream Level 4 -> Level 5: 8000 Aura

Upgrade Summon Undead Level 4 -> Level 5: 8000 Aura

Upgrade Aurora Blade Level 4 -> Level 5: 8000 Aura

Level 5 Spells:

Plasma Beam: 8000 Aura

Tornado: 8000 Aura

Meteor Strike: 8000 Aura

Dragon Breath: 8000 Aura

Winter Wolf: 8000 Aura

Flame Falcon: 8000 Aura

Grove Guardian: 8000 Aura

Iron Lion: 8000 Aura

Ghost Spider: 8000 Aura

Upgrade Hydro Stream Level 5 -> Level 6: 16000 Aura

Upgrade Adamant Defence Level 5 -> Level 6: 16000 Aura

Level 6 Spells:

Pyromancy: 16000 Aura

Hydromancy: 16000 Aura

Geomancy: 16000 Aura

Aeromancy: 16000 Aura

Biomancy: 16000 Aura

Dragon Wings: 16000 Aura

Demon Claws: 16000 Aura

Shinigami Eyes: 16000 Aura

Basilisk Scales: 16000 Aura

Phantom Form: 16000 Aura

Upgrade Ultimate Shot Level 6 -> Level 7: 32000 Aura

What I need, he thought, is a way to keep an eye on them remotely. Assuming that's even possible. Mana Sense told me nothing about the outside world while we were in the bus depot portal, and it might be the same with other stuff. Is it worth testing? If I try a summoning Spell or something and make some grand threat only for it to fizzle out the moment I step into the portal and lose the connection, I'll look like a total idiot.

John suppressed a sigh yet again. It felt like he'd held back more sighs in the last few days than he had in the last several years. Having to think like this—weighing the pros and cons of things based on goddamn coolness factor—was bloody exhausting.

But it had to be done.

Well, I've already got my ranged, melee, and defensive combo Spells started. Guess now's as good a time as any to start working on the minion. Question is what Spell I shoul;d use as the base.

His instinctual inclination was to go for Illusory Clone and Astral Projection and build on them. That would give him a Level 3 combo, and the most obvious guess at what the combined Spell would do immediately appeared to be what he wanted: essentially a remote viewing ability with a clone in place for intimidation. Only 7000 Aura for the lot, too. It was tempting, but he considered other options before jumping into it.

The next obvious play was to unlock one of the preexisting summons: Winter Wolf, Flame Falcon, Grove Guardian, Iron Lion, and Ghost Spider were quite blatantly going to be companion creatures, and their names were all pretty self-explanatory.

He couldn't imagine they'd require training to obey his commands, but how smart would they be? How would they react? There was always the chance they'd go straight to lethal if threatened, on top of the issues of potentially getting the link severed by the portal that he was already worried about; he potentially wouldn't know of a problem right away. And that was on top of them costing 8000 Aura each.

I can always revisit them later.

He also briefly considered whether it was worth trying to Combine anything with Summon Undead, imagining scenarios of raising an army of zombies that had their own magical powers to bring to bear in a fight. It sounded pretty badass, admittedly. Intimidation factor through the roof. The potential for Aura gains was massive.

But he had different ideas for that Spell. He didn't want to Combine it with anything until he'd tested out exactly what its limits were, and with 20,000+ souls still to play with, he wanted to be meticulous.

So, for now, he plotted a path forward with Illusory Clone and Astral Projection as the baseline. The results, in the end, were interesting.

The portal was located in a rather uneventful location. When Daniel had told them it covered the door to a random storage closet tucked in an out-of-the-way spot, he'd been underselling it, a bit. The door's hinges were visibly rusting, there was a layer of dust on everything in sight, and the lightbulb looked like it hadn't been changed since the 90s. Even before the end of the world, this had probably been a seldom-used area.

But the blue sheen blocking the doorway was undeniable. Beyond it, he could see an unassuming storage closet, filled with mops and buckets and cleaning products.

The two groups arranged themselves in a semi-circle around the portal, with a small gap between them. John found himself standing closest to the other group, acting as a buffer of sorts, and tried not to feel too sour about it.

"What's actually inside it?" John felt the need to ask. He knew from experience that you couldn't see the interior of the portal from the outside, but his one data point suggested it would be a twisted facsimile of the real world. Were they about to enter a giant storage closet?

"A school," Daniel replied, voice still strained but gaining more strength. He didn't elaborate.

John considered that. "So we won't be fighting demonic mops and buckets, then?"

Daniel's hood swished as he turned his head to John. "Bugs. Fucking big ones."

"Ah."

That should have been obvious, really. Still, he couldn't help feeling a little disappointed. If there was one gross monster type he would have much preferred not to face, it was giant insects. He wasn't an entomophobe, but he challenged any human being to not be grossed out by ants that stood taller at the shoulder than a great dane.

John stared at the portal for a moment, then looked at Daniel. "We go in at the same time, mixing together. No ambushes. No turning on each other. We don't need to be enemies."

A beat of silence passed, then Daniel nodded.

"Just to be clear," John said slowly, "we're not hiding and waiting for the monster waves to pass by, them coming back out. You can do whatever you want in there, but we're destroying this thing."

All three stared at him. "Why?" Marius asked eventually, just as slowly. They hadn't explicitly said it in their brief negotiations back outside, but John had surmised they were essentially farming resources from the portal, making no attempt to actually delve all the way inside and destroy it—they'd also inadvertently confirmed John's suspicion that monsters only dropped loot inside the portal worlds. He got the impression they hadn't even known it could be destroyed before meeting John's group, and hadn't expected their portal was on the chopping block.

If the group was going to come to blows again, it was going to be over this.

"We already told you," Doug said before John could. "Our goal is to break everyone out of the bullshit in Watford. For that, we need to destroy as many portals as possible."

"Why this one?" Daniel asked, voice strained, all but confirming they somehow hadn't anticipated this. "Do you know how much of a disadvantage that would put us at? These things are the best resources you can possibly get. Without it, the only way to get points and gear is to kill other people, which you lot seemed pretty strongly against."

"Short term pain, long term gain," Doug said.

John arched an eyebrow at Daniel in challenge. "Destroying portals gives you a bonus, too."

"Is the bonus from destroying a portal better than the steady stream of resources we can get from controlling it?" Marius' voice was laced with scepticism.

John sighed. "Look. This is the way it is."

Mentally crossing his fingers, he activated Burning Blood Clone. A red bar appeared in the top right of his vision. It began rapidly draining as a red mist burst forth from John's skin, rapidly coagulating into mirror-image of himself, except it looked like it had bathed in blood, and its eyes glowed a hellfire red. The blood around it bubbled, boiling, sending concentric ripples radiating out across its face. It took barely a second to form, and when it was finished, John had a moment of disorientation as his vision doubled. He dared not move, lest he give away that he'd literally created the Level 5 Spell a matter of minutes ago, Combining Astral Projection, Illusory Clone, Animate Blood, and Heat Vision.

He didn't think 20,000 Aura in one go would ever not be eye-watering, considering the effort it took to build up those points. But looking at this thing, he couldn't help thinking it was worth it.

Turning both heads at once, he had the clone mirror him in staring down Daniel, Marius, and Farah, one after the other. All three of them took a step back.

"This isn't me asking for permission. It's me telling you what's going to happen. Now the question is: are you going to try and fuck with us?"

+2000 Aura

A few seconds passed before the three of them slowly shook their heads.

"Good," John said, stepping towards the portal, while directing his clone to take up a guard position. "Now then, down to business."

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