The clock on the smart TV read 6:33PM. Almost all the channels were dead, now, with only a few obscure ones playing their preprogrammed reruns. The majority of the still live ones were running the emergency broadcast advisory. It still didn't feel like any of the provided information applied to this situation. The advice to shelter at home still baffled him. That seemed like it had done precisely no one any good.

He flicked through to the other functions, and found none of the apps could connect to the internet. No chance of finding any extra info there. The disappointment was only a mild one this time. He hadn't expected it to work out, really, only trying it due to the low chance the internet blackout had been limited to the last area he'd tried. But no. Everything was down. The radio function was still working, but once again he only found prerecorded stuff playing through its programmed routine. No relevant news. If someone was organising survivors, there was no sign of them yet.

The large kitchen had plenty of supplies. First, he cooked up a microwave curry meal for dinner, since he hadn't eaten since breakfast—his lunch rudely interrupted by the end of the world. Twelve pounds wasted seemed inconsequential after everything that had happened since, but he was still mad about it.

After that, he spent some time putting together a backpack of food he felt was likely to last, as well as filling up a couple of bottles of water. Their cupboards were stocked with some medicine and other first aid bits, too, and he snatched them. His robbery was complete with some spare clothes he raided from the wardrobe upstairs, as well as a nice wristwatch that sat in pride of place on the master bedroom's bedside table. He only felt like a little bit of a scumbag as he made his way back to the front door at 6:56PM, checking outside.

It couldn't be called dark outside by any stretch of the imagination, but the world was definitely gloomier than it had been an hour ago. The shroud that had fallen over the sky seemed to have deepened compared to when it had first appeared, and it looked like that might continue. In retrospect, it had started at around the time the sun would have set, if the sky hadn't caught fire. He wondered if that meant the abyssal circle would go away at the equivalent of sunrise, or if it was there for good now, steadily draining away all the light in the world. Only time would tell.

At least while inside, he didn't feel the weight of its presence.

The question of what to do with his Aura remained. He was back to 1900 after the little stunt he'd pulled outside, promising death to an existence far greater than his own. That had probably been the first threat John had ever made in his life. The realisation was a little embarrassing.

He decided not to spend any more time dithering over the choice.

Duellist unlocked!

-500 Aura

Marksman unlocked!

-500 Aura

The energy mimicking his brain shifted, seeming to get heavier. Some of it broke away and seeped directly into his actual grey matter. It deposited knowledge.

John summoned his Mana Blade, and all of a sudden he knew how to stand properly. Duellist helped his body flowed into a fighting stance like he'd been training in it for months, taking a two-hand grip and holding the sword out in front of him, the tip pointing forwards at a 45-degree angle.

Moving with deadly grace, he pivoted into a combo of three slashes that were done in the time it previously would have taken him to complete one. Next came a downwards cut, which he was able to neatly transition into an upwards slice that rent the air so fast it made a whistling sound. It still felt a little awkward, admittedly, but it was a marked improvement.

Marksman's effect was less flashy, but no less effective. Summoning his Soul Arrow, he found he could now gauge the distance to a target, as well as the trajectory and power needed to hit it in the span of a second. So too was the strength and smoothness of his draw improved.

Level 1 Skills didn't grant him perfection, as seen with the fact he still wasn't quite hitting the target he picked out with Soul Arrow dead on—he figured the former occupants of this place wouldn't complain about him destroying their dart board. By the looks of the house, they would've been able to afford to replace it with the loose change down the back of the sofa anyway.

But he felt far more equipped for battle, and had no regrets over his decision to spend his Aura this way. Confidence brimming, he donned his backpack and headed for the front door. He'd decided to ditch the golf bag, but he had a few heftier clubs looped through the handles of his bag just in case. They clacked together as he walked.

On the way there, something caught his notice. In the corner of the living room stood some kind of tall, domed cage with a dark blue cloth draped over it. Going still, he strained his hearing, barely breathing

I'm not imagining it, he thought. Something's breathing in there.

Moving slowly, he tip-toed over to the cage and pinched the bottom of the cloth. He slowly lifted it up and crouched down to peek inside.

It was an elaborate little construct, with a bunch of poles, bars, platforms and other things for the cage's occupants to perch on. Said occupants were, to John's quiet joy, still alive, and staring right at him.

They were almost stereotypical parrots. Or parakeets. Or macaws? He wasn't a bird expert. But they looked like his mental image of a parrot, one with red and green plumage, the other green and yellow. They were perched on the highest wooden bar in their cage, huddled close together, like they were cuddling. One was trembling, he could see. The other stared at him.

"Hi there," he whispered, reaching up to unlatch the cage's door. "You've probably heard some horrible shit in the last couple of hours, haven't you?"

Neither of the parrots replied. Of course they didn't. Even if he knew jack and shit about the creatures, he knew they couldn't actually understand human language, just mimic it through some weird voice box shenanigans.

Still.

"I'm sorry about your owners," John murmured, feeling a little misty-eyed despite himself. He didn't want to be too mushy in case the Aura system got all uppity about it, but he kept talking anyway, "That must have sucked. And you had no way to get away from it, all the noise and scary things. I don't know if you'll have better chances out here, but whatever happens would probably be a kinder existence than starving in here."

The cage door swung open. Neither of the parrots moved, one trembling, one still eyeing him. John left them there and continued on his way. Hopefully, they'd work up the courage to escape and take their fate into their own hands.

Outside, the void in the distance reigned over the skyline, a great black eye watching all. He felt but a fraction of its heavy attention on him the moment he stepped through the front door, and wondered what it saw. Hopefully, it gazed upon its future doom. More likely, an ant like him wasn't worthy of any significant consideration.

On a whim, he tried to direct his Soul Vision at it, but it was far too distant to get any reading. He suspected its soul would have been black anyway.

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Dismissing it as a problem he couldn't solve yet and thus shouldn't be fretting about, John set off once more, aiming ever westward for the outskirts of the city. He barely made it a few streets before he realised something was deeply wrong.

It was immediately obvious that there were far more monsters around than before. Earlier, he'd frequently been able to go a street or two without his Mana Sense pinging a presence within his range, which he figured was a hundred metres or so from his person. Now, it felt like there were several in his range at all times.

Worse was what he saw through Soul Vision. There hadn't been a hint of a blue since the fiery sky had begun to darken, he realised. They were all greens, yellows, and oranges, plus even a couple of reds.

Avoiding confrontation forced him on a circuitous route. He hopped fences and wound his way through back gardens, keeping all his senses peeled. There were many times when he had to double back on himself because he saw no way to sneak past enemies he didn't fancy facing. None of them stayed still, either. They were constantly on the move. It was almost like they were patrolling, searching for any stragglers who'd escaped the initial purge. On the hunt.

Distantly, he realised the sounds of fighting had massively died down, now. There was still the odd rumble and boom and bang. But it was intermittent, a steady drum beat, where before it had been a dull background roar from so much chaos blending together. Only a few sirens still blared.

John didn't like the implication of that.

It eventually became difficult to evade the monsters entirely. He started catching glimpses of them despite his best efforts. A monster made of a tangled mess of tentacles with an orange soul pulled itself atop a building, and the only reason he wasn't immediately caught was because it seemed to have no eyes. Soon after that, he was forced to duck into an alleyway down the side of a large house, but not before spotting a bulky shadow creature with too many mouths. Several streets over, he caught sight of what appeared to be a much larger version of the eyeball creature he'd first fought; this eye was the size of a monster truck tire, sprouted hundreds of scorpion tails from atop its head, and walked on burned red legs that looked like they rightfully belonged to a giant. John made sure to keep his distance.

Every now and then, he briefly spied the winged angel monster as it drifted lazily through the air like a stray balloon. Once, he saw it suddenly plummet to the ground. There were flashes, and a few muffled bangs, then silence as it rose lethargically back to its regular height.

Worst of all were the things he saw when he got a good look back towards the city centre. He was familiar enough with the London skyline that he could recognise when there were too many skyscrapers poking up from the silhouetted horizon. Even if he wasn't, he would've been able to see something was wrong.

Things as tall as skyscrapers weren't supposed to move, after all.

John's anxiety ratcheted up with every near miss. This wasn't sustainable. He knew his luck was going to run out eventually, and his increasing tension was inevitably going to lead to a mistake. With the sheer density of monsters around, he was sure any commotion would call more to the scene, and then he'd be truly fucked.

A cold sweat dampened his back. His hands started to tremble. He started scouting out the buildings he passed, but didn't want to hunker down in a place where so many monsters were nearby. None of the houses felt truly secure, with their doors beaten down and most windows smashed.

The situation reached a point where he could no longer maintain his casual pretences anyway. There were simply too many monsters, and they were too active, too alert. If he kept up the faux-aloof attitude, he'd be caught. Every time a new pulse of Mana Sense went out, it was like a net was tightening around him.

Panic started to set in, and he found himself walking faster, then breaking into a jog. He just about had the wherewithal to keep it from showing on his face as fear turned his breaths into laboured gasps and his heart started a noisy rebellion. Each heartbeat sent out a new pulse of Mana Sense, and so he had a constant live update of the monsters closing in on his position.

John threw caution to the wind. With the last shred of rationality before hysteric monkey brain instinct started to take over, he recognised several truths:

He needed to escape this area.

Straight up running as fast as he could wasn't going to work with so many monsters around.

Therefore, sneaking his way out of this was the better option.

For that, he needed to increase his stealth abilities.

And, above all else, he needed to look cool while doing it.

Or, at the very least, not look lame. Failing to gain Aura wasn't the worst thing in the world, but losing it for nothing was unacceptable.

With all that in mind, the path forward was obvious:

Ninja unlocked!

-500 Aura

Information flooded his mind, but he didn't waste any time analysing it. Instead, he let new instincts take hold. His body shifted on its own, re-balancing. His stance changed as he ran, lowering his upper body to decrease his profile. Even his footsteps altered themselves, drastically quieting his movements.

When he came to a fence blocking his way, he no longer needed to scramble over it. Like he'd been doing parkour for months, he leapt up and flipped himself over it in a relatively smooth motion, landing on the other side and immediately launching into a forward roll to bleed off momentum. His background clanked around a bit, but it was still miles better than what he'd been managing before.

+200 Aura

Fuck yes.

Not everything was looking up in John-world, though. He made the mistake of checking over his shoulder, as if looking for someone who could acknowledge that awesome shit he just pulled off.

In the distance, he saw the winged monster floating over a building. Towards him. Even from what had to be half a mile away, he could see its milky white eyes.

They were looking right at him.

Fuck no!

Caution became a distant concept. John broke into a sprint immediately, letting his new ninja skills take over entirely. The world blurred as he dashed near-silently across back gardens, somersaulting over fences and hedges, taking a winding path with the express intent of losing his pursuers. He knew they were there. They weren't being quiet about it, with their eldritch screeches, monstrous roars, ravenous cries, and stampeding footsteps. Looking back would have just struck unnecessary terror into his heart, so he didn't. Mana Sense told him all he needed to know, anyway.

He became a creature of pure animal instinct. No rational thought could penetrate his mind any longer. The only thing in the world was the rapid beat of his heart, his gasping breaths, the howling wind, and the desperation to escape. It was probably only through Ninja that he wasn't getting penalised for his frantic flight. He was barely even aware of what his body was doing, at this point. Mana Sense pulsed along with his heart, constantly pinging him the locations of his pursuers.

Something shrieked too close behind him, and he spun in the air as he leapt over a fence to deliver a blindly-fired Soul Arrow in its approximate direction. There was a pained bellow, but he didn't stop to admire the shot. Reactivating Mana Sense, he kept running.

+200 Aura

Leap fence. Run. Dash down alley. Left. Right. Run. Left. Straight. Right. Run. Through garden. Across allotment. Under bridge. Over road. Run, run, run, run run run run run.

Seconds, minutes, years, and eternities passed by. His lungs were burning. Every muscle felt ready to cramp up. The raging, monstrous voices faded behind him as he cut and weaved his way through the residential suburbs of London.

Eventually, miraculously, John's Mana Sense pinged nothing in his range. Emotionally and physically exhausted, he took the reprieve for what it was. Checking around to make sure nothing outside his range had eyes on him, he darted towards the nearest house along its huge driveway. There, he made it to the closest bathroom, collapsed to the floor, and simply let himself breathe.

It took a long time for any semblance of rational thought to return. Enough to recognise he was hyperventilating.

-200 Aura

Fuck you, he thought as he gulped in a shaky breath.

How the hell am I going to deal with all this?

No answer came.

Closing his eyes, he let his head thump back against the tiled floor and let himself feel everything. There was work to be done, but he could give himself a minute.

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