Shadow-things —black-fleshed creatures that looked like overgrown tumours with legs— stared at him from in between the trees. And there were dozens... no hundreds of them. Each the size of a rabid dog, with razor teeth, overcrowding their misshapen maws.
Dozens of tags flickered into Han's golden gaze.
[Sentry Lv.1]
Level 1 or not, there were simply too many of them.
Han's gaze swept across all that he could see, his mind already calculating his chances of survival.
However, every path, every move he calculated led to a single outcome.
Death.
The 'sentries' were like a monster tide of shadows creeping at the edge of the tree line. And that was just what he could see; who knew how many hid in the shadows of their peers, how many awaited elsewhere.
He had to get out of there.
'Fuck.'
He fished into his mind for the plan that would yield his greatest chances of survival. The odds were not great, but they were something.
He called back Queen's Gaze and instantly unleashed his two remaining summons. The weight of their consciousness pushed down on his mind, slurring his thoughts for an instant.
And an instant was all that it took for things to descend into chaos.
An ear-piercing cry, like dying hyenas, tore through the air.
And the wave of sentries poured forth, a torrent of terror set loose from that shadow dam.
"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!"
Han ordered one of his bees to slow their approach.
But as he got on the back of the other one, he felt a tether break free from his mind.
[Lv.5 Drone has been slain.]
He was several feet in the air when the notification registered in his mind.
'Four seconds... no three. My summon survived three bloody seconds,' he thought. Even Beelaques's puppets hadn't managed to exert such damage.
He looked over his shoulder, curious about how the creatures attacked, what method they had used to pierce the near-invincible carapace of his summon.
He had to recoup his losses somehow, and information on them was the only means now.
However, what met him was pure horror incarnate.
His fallen bee, drowned in the black of those creatures, rose into the air, eyes gleaming the colour of moonlight.
'No fucking way.'
It was flying after him, dozens of sentries clinging to it like rotting wounds as it chased after him.
'They can bring things back from the dead?'
His chances of survival plummeted even further into non-existence.
'How? Do they have skills? This doesn't make sense. Where the fuck did those trees even come from?'
All useless questions, not one of them would help in this situation.
"Queen's Gaze!" he shouted.
As time slowed, he scanned the area in front of him. He was in a suburbia, rank and file of abandoned houses spread as far as the eye could see. There was nothing to hide behind, nothing to lose the flying fucks in between.
He squinted his eyes, looking even further. Something in the distance glowed bright red; a house... no, a mansion, higher up in this hill of a rotten city.
Was that the Central Nolan had spoken of?
He didn't know. Didn't care.
If there were other trait users there, other humans, then they would help him. Or at the very least, take care of the creatures behind him.
And so, time returned to its normal flow, and he instructed his bee to speed towards it.
However, life was never so simple.
The sentry-bee seemed to move faster than his own, and in all but a few seconds, the gut-wrenching cries of those sentries breathed down his neck.
'I could've really used a fireball right now,' Han thought, summoning his echo-dagger from his inventory. He hurled the thing at the sentry-bee, aware that it would not be able to pierce its skin.
However, it served its purpose well enough, disrupting its line of sight for just a moment.
Han instructed his bee to make a sharp dive, nearly vertical, towards the ground.
The sentry bee followed a few instants later, soaring down towards him like a demon-bomb sent from hell.
He increased the bee's speed, and in kind, the sentry bee increased its speed as well.
He could smell the sentries right behind him, their honeyed rot burning the back of his nose.
Right as he was about to plummet into the ground, he lunged off, wings flapping wildly in an attempt to lose the momentum.
He instantly recalled his remaining bee.
And he landed, not so gracefully, on top of the roof of one of the surrounding houses, the sentry bee crashed into the ground. Smoke, ash, and dust exploding up in its wake.
Han didn't turn to see if it had died; he knew that was unlikely.
Instead, he summoned his bee out once again, jumping on it before it had even fully materialised and continuing his rush towards the crimson mansion.
'That ought to have bought me sometime,' he thought. His mouth tasted of bile, and golden blood dripped from his nose onto the bee's back.
The world around him was wobbly, fuzzy. It seemed resummoning his bee like that had cost him quite a bit of health.
'50 hp left,' he thought, reading off his system screen. He ran the calculations in his mind.
Summoning a bee likely cost something like 15 or 20 hp, but that was not counting the cost of losing his one bee.
It didn't matter. He knew he could do something like this only once more.
And with any luck, he wouldn't have to.
He was a minute away from the crimson mansion when he heard a muffled buzzing behind him.
"You've got to be kidding me."
The sentry-bee was back, this time carrying even more sentries than before. The entire front of its body was a squashed mess of black and red, and it seemed parts of its body had been glued back together by additional sentries.
Han bit his lip. He didn't want it to have to come to this, but it seemed his only way.
He instructed his bee to pull up. This time, he flew up instead of down.
The sentry-bee was gaining on him. At this point, the houses on the ground were but little dots, and he could barely make out the mansion.
But still he rose.
He rose until his breathing became ragged from the thinning oxygen, rose until his bee's wings could barely keep them afloat.
And just as the sentries were upon them...
"Scent of the Sun!"
Golden light shot out of his mouth, and smells of all kinds attacked his nose.
Both his bee and the sentry bee paused midflight.
There was a silent instant right before they plummeted where one of the sentries lunged at him, sinking one of its teeth into the backside of his bee.
Several others latched onto it, and they formed a makeshift bridge towards him. All the while, a black rot was spreading upon his bee; he could feel his connection to it waning.
Han gathered himself, taking what felt like his final breath.
'I hope this works.'
Han lunged off, offering himself to the embrace of rushing air as he plummeted to the ground.