The Mastiffs barreled down the corridor, plowing through debris and guards alike. The prisoners clung to the beasts' backs, gripping the fur until their knuckles turned white, with faces of stunned disbelief. Against all logic, from the Zealots' and the prisoners' perspective, they were actually escaping.

Jake and Lena held the rear as a new wave of guards came to the chase.

"They really don't know when to quit, do they?" Lena said. "You'd think seeing their friends get killed would lower their morale."

She paused.

"It's weird that dying for the cause is the only part of the job description they actually enjoy. Just make sure they die before we do."

Jake nodded.

He slammed his hand onto the floor, summoning another pack of War Hounds. The corridor was instantly choked with five-hundred-pound beasts of muscle and mana.

They crashed with the front line of guards, sending armored Zealots smashing into the walls.

Lena ducked under a clumsily aimed sword swing before driving her blade through a gap in the Zealot's armor.

She kicked his falling body into another man, stopping those further behind. When a mage in the back row raised his staff, Lena flicked a throwing knife that buried itself in his eye before he could finish the incantation.

"I swear they are starting to get on my nerves!"

"Get used to it!" Lena said, wiping a spray of blood from her cheek. She checked the hallway, her eyes narrowing.

Jake glanced over his shoulder. The corridor on their back was empty, save for the trails of blood and scattered bodies left by the Mastiffs' charge. The prisoners were gone.

"Good. Then we're done here," Jake said, turning back to look at the Zealots still stubbornly chasing them. "Get moving. I'm going to drop the ceiling on these idiots and seal the exit."

Lena hesitated. "Don't get buried with them, Jake."

He nodded. Lena paused for a second, searching his face, then sprinted down the hall.

The tunnel abruptly opened into the cold air and the shriek of wind. Lena got out first, and Jake followed soon after the building started crumbling, which made Lena wonder what the hell Jake must have done to bring a building to collapse.

<He must've probably punched the walls.>

Above them, massive winged shapes descended through the smoke-choked air. The Vorathid Sky-Hunters were already evacuating the prisoners; the War Mastiffs had left them in the courtyard, allowing the insect-like monsters to pluck them up easily.

One by one, the hostages were grabbed by the creatures, and while some screamed, others went limp, simply too exhausted or terrified to offer any resistance.

"They're clear!" Lena said.

The Sky-Hunters began their steep ascent.

Jake watched them go. He knew they were terrified, likely convinced they had been traded from one nightmare to another, but there was nothing to be done about it; the Sky-Hunters were already halfway to the city's edge, and Reidar left no room for second-guessing.

"That's it, then," Jake said, his voice rough. "They're out."

Lena wiped the drying blood from her blade onto her pant leg. "Yeah. Now we make sure Reidar finishes the job."

She turned back toward the sound of battle echoing from deeper within the city. "Let him know."

—***—

Reidar saw the prisoners grasped within the talons of his Vorathid Sky-Hunters.

<I can go all out.>

But then, someone arrived.

—[High Executor Lira Feid—Level 330]—

"Reidar Miller!" she said.

"Lira Feid," Reidar said. The woman reached the battlefield just to give his people enough time to bring out the specimens. Most likely, she wanted to escape as soon as she could. However, she didn't know that all her precious specimens were getting killed one by one.

Lira slammed her staff into the ground.

The blood pooled around her feet and shot upward, taking on the same strength as iron. She formed a dozen spears that jutted out of the ground and aimed at his chest.

Reidar ordered his Twin Boulderback Behemoths to protect him from Lira. They did, and the blood spears pierced them with the force of ballista bolts. The Behemoths cracked, shattered, and got reduced to rubble in seconds.

Reidar didn't wait. He launched himself onto the back of a summoned raven as it carried him away from the dying summons. Lira sprinted after him and closed the distance.

Reidar snapped his fingers, and a group of Efreetis surrounded her. The air shimmered with heat as they raised their hands in unison, unleashing a storm of fireballs. Hundreds of blazing projectiles streaked toward her from every angle, converging on her position.

Lira reacted. She thrust her staff skyward, and the blood coating the ground surged upward, forming a crimson dome around her. The fireballs slammed into the shield, sending shockwaves rippling through her blood dome. Steam hissed where fire met blood, producing a weird smell that quickly invaded the area.

She was having trouble. The woman poured more mana into the barrier. To the point her arms started trembling as she fought to maintain the barrier against the onslaught of hundreds of Level 335 creatures attacking at the same time.

Cracks spider-webbed across the dome's surface, which were quickly mended when new blood got poured into the cracks.

But then, Lira's eyes snapped open, and the blood dome exploded outward.

The barrier shattered into thousands of razor-sharp fragments that shot like shrapnel from a bomb.

The blood shards tore through the Efreeti's fiery forms, piercing their cores and disrupting the mana that held them together.

Almost at the same time, they flickered and crumbled into ash and dissipating energy.

Within seconds, the entire group of Efreetis was annihilated.

"Shit…"

Lira was strong. Then, her eyes flicked toward the city. The building that housed the specimens was gone. It had collapsed into rubble and ash. Her breath caught.

"No..."

Everything she had worked for. All her efforts. Reduced to nothing.

She even stayed behind to give her people enough time to get the specimens, but it looked like they failed.

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