Talia rode out of the West Underpass with her whole body shaking.
The collapsed tunnel still echoed behind her like a dying thing. As exciting as it had been in the moment, in hindsight it was just… creepy. Her ears rang with the grinding of metal and the roar of the collapse. Her palms tingled and numbed in alternating waves.
Her pulse thrashed. Dropping thousands of beasts in a concrete coffin had spiked her adrenaline hard — a good thing, considering her plans for the next nine hours.
Cold night air slapped her face as she shot out onto the open road.
Her thigh throbbed sharply again. The doctor's resin-salve had stiffened into a thin shell beneath the bandages, but the whole thigh burned, not an infection burn, but overuse. Same with her shoulder — at least the fresh strapping held it mostly in place, so the small jolts didn't light it up like earlier.
Resting a hand just above the bandage, She muttered through her teeth, "Just till 8am. Then you can rest a bit, I hope."
The road answered her with silence. The city around her was half-dead—spot fires flickering in uneven haloes, smoke drifting through empty lanes, the distant rumble of something exploding in the suburbs.
She accelerated.
The highway stretched open ahead of her. Easy riding in normal times. Tonight, it was a gauntlet.
Beasts swarmed between abandoned cars—dogs with shattered paws dragging themselves, foxes sniffing at shredded seats, goats tearing at rubber, boars circling SUVs.
Halfway down the ramp, she braked hard.
A family stood on top of a minivan—two parents, three kids—huddled so tight they looked like a single trembling shape. The roof sagged under their weight. Six beasts prowled below, weaving in slow circles, waiting for someone to slip.
Talia spun the bike without slowing and aimed straight at them.
Her first sweep took four heads—quick jabs, minimal arc. She pivoted the bike and stabbed the fifth through the skull as it lunged. The sixth—a goat—leapt at her. She caught it in a mid-air thrust, simple and quick, before the body and mind starts to tire. That's her current battle strategy.
The father's mouth fell open. He tried to speak—thanks, pleading or apology—but Talia raised a hand sharply.
"Head two blocks along Northwest Road. The West Underpass team is holding kids. It's safe — go."
The mother gasped, nodded several times, and they clambered down the rear side of the van, darting into the shadows without another word.
Looking down at her E-grade spear, she saw the small cracks along the shaft catching flashes of passing streetlights. It would hold. She told herself it would. At least until sunrise. Storing it again she continued moving.
Five minutes later, she spotted movement—someone crawling across the lane, dragging himself with both hands. His left leg was gone from the knee down, leaving a glossy smear of red and black.
He rasped something that sounded like her name. Maybe it was. Maybe it was someone else's name that almost matched.
She slid off the bike, shoved a compression pad into the stump, wrapped it as tight as she could, then dragged the man to her bike. Her injured leg screamed protest at every backward step, but she gritted her teeth and didn't let go. She arranged him on the bike as best she could.
"Hold on," she said.
He couldn't.
So she tied him to her with tow rope scavenged from a nearby ute. His head lolled forward as she gunned the engine. She kept her bad leg as straight as she could on the peg, relying on the throttle hand and body lean more than brute force.
By the time she reached the East Blockade, he was unconscious.
She screeched to a stop and shouted, "Medic!"
Hands rushed forward instantly. A woman with a torn paramedic vest grabbed the man under the arms, followed by two other men who stepped forward with a stretcher.
"We've got him! Is the Underpass really collapsed?"
"Yeah, we dropped it on the beasts," Talia said.
They nodded and vanished behind the barricade.
Talia turned and noted the changes a few hours had brought to the blockade.
Night had changed the East Blockade completely.
Earlier the defenders had been frantic—scared, stumbling, reacting to everything.
Now they were seasoned.
Dirty, tired, blood-smeared—but steady.
People worked in rhythm. The lines were tighter. Reinforcements made of welded scrap metal and broken roof racks lined the shields. Several fighters now wore a D-rank gauntlet or shoulder plate, earned recently by the cleanliness of it.
Her own traps still stood—elevated car platforms, two-layer funnels, the broken sedan wedge she'd erected hours before.
Someone spotted her and let out a gasp-laugh.
"Talia!"
More heads turned.
"She's looping!"
"Thank god—she's back!"
"Move left, clear the gap!"
"I told you she'd return!"
Talia lifted her spear in a brief salute.
"Short stop," she said. "Looping rest of the night."
They scattered into their positions faster, ready to watch her display of hunting.
The next half hour turned into a massacre on repeat.
Talia walked into the shadows between cars, using the ruined chassis as stepping stones. She used height whenever she could to take out lone beasts with the bow. She fired in short bursts, leaving long gaps to let her shoulder settle after each shot.
Beasts scrambled beneath her, confused, snapping at shadows, too slow to track her repositioning.
A young man whacked a dog beast with a hammer and yelled, "Talia—left side! Three more slipping through!"
"I see them!" she shouted back, slipping off the car roof, no more leaping or she would faceplant, not a good look for the supposed 'War Goddess'.
She landed behind the beasts and ended them in three swift jabs.
Two teens cheered.
"Oi! Told you she's, like, half night-creature!"
"No, shut up, she's just fast!"
"Night-creature," the first one insisted.
Talia rolled her eyes and moved on.
She ignited the Molotov for group clears next. Her next best strategy less body movement. She kept her throwing arcs short and tight — anything overhead tugged too hard on her strapped shoulder. Conserving as much energy as she can when she feels like falling down.
The SES group tried to hand her their supply, but she waved them off and pulled her own bottles from her space.
"Where the hell does she keep those," someone muttered behind her.
"Earnt after five kills. Haven't you reached that yet?" another hissed.
"F***, I'm on four, give me another one, I want a space." He cried.
Talia ignored the chaos behind her and flicked a lighter, tossed the burning bottle into a dense cluster—
—and the street erupted. Fuel or oil from some earlier wreck must have pooled there; fire raced through it in an instant.
Beasts shrieked as fire wrapped around them. She darted through the burning edges, spear cutting down any that tried to break free.
[Kill Count: 2100]
Then she spotted an untouched row of cars on the ridge.
Perfect.
She slunk behind them, splashing the fuel she'd siphoned earlier and stored in her space. She thickly coated the row of cars and once the puddles connected, she smashed the windows with a hammer strike.
Car horns screamed into the night.
The sound dragged every beast within two blocks toward her trap. The ground vibrated beneath the stampede—hundreds of paws, claws, hooves.
While they surged toward the noise, she climbed the nearest rooftop.
The beasts piled around the soaked cars.
She brought the bow up carefully, keeping her draw smooth to avoid yanking the strapped joint. Pulled out a flame arrow, breathed once, and fired.
The cars went up like a torch.
The beasts didn't even have time to scream properly.
[Kill Count: 2500]
Someone behind her swore loudly.
"Did you SEE THAT?"
"She just nuked them!"
"No, that's art!"
"War goddess stuff—straight war goddess!"
"She's saving our asses, shut up and keep firing—"
A vision pressed at the edge of her mind. She glanced around — no immediate danger. She let it in, skim-style.
Her dad once again got a new piece of armor an arm guard and was directing the locals around the Rowe courtyard like a general on the battlefield. Well maybe he was. Cael and Theo flanked him, either assisting or monitoring, it depended on how Mum thought, but judging from Cael's smirk it was fun.
Brielle was passing weapons out of the shed to another group of unknown personnel who must have come in recently from a shopping trip. Neighborhood kids stood on crates shooting small crossbow bolts at downed beasts, perfect training. Grandma's calm aura soothed everyone nearby, well would have, if she would have put the well worn shovel down.
Love them, they were true to themselves and growing strong. So proud of them.
The vision let her go without resistance.
When she blinked back into the present, the last few beasts were thinning out around the blockade.
She ended the stragglers quickly.
[Kill Count: 2700]
She hadn't been monitoring her count for a while — it got distracting. When she finally checked her notifications, her HUD was flickering with a new message:
[Reward #2000 Pending → S-Rank Territory Gift Pack]
She ignored it. I'll check them all before I leave the planet. No point looking at things I can't use now.
Talia climbed down from the building she'd been sniping from and walked toward the front line.
People straightened when they saw her.
A firefighter gave her an exhausted nod.
A teenager with a pickaxe lifted it like a salute.
Someone whispered behind her, "She came back… thank god… she actually came back…"
Talia raised her voice enough for the entire front wedge to hear:
"I'll be back in under an hour. I'm rotating East, South, Industrial. Guard the barricade, make kills and gear up. We have less than nine hours left and we'll have beat them."
A group of teens on break grinned at her from atop a barrier.
One of them declared, "We're surviving until morning."
Someone behind him shouted, "Tell those South idiots to stop dying!"
Another voice answered, "You stop dying!"
Talia smirked faintly.
She tapped her bike's seat.
"If anyone needs messages carried, tell your lookout. I'll pass them on the next loop."
People nodded fiercely—like being acknowledged by her was fuel.
She climbed onto the bike, grimacing as her tired body and mind screamed at her for rest.
"Not long now," she murmured.
The engine growled to life beneath her palms.
The defenders watched her leave with grim determination, shoulders set firmer now that someone had shown them what surviving the night looked like.
Talia turned south—toward the burning petrol-station corridor, toward the next battlefield, toward the brutal loop that would define the rest of her night.
She didn't slow.
She couldn't.
Time was bleeding out, and every kill was one step closer to the world waiting on the other side.