Gunshots from the rifle cracked through the air, and the crowd ducked on instinct, cowering. Blue barriers shimmered into existence in front of two of the tanks, standing on either side of Kirk. The bullets dinged off the protective barriers and fell useless to the ground, but the cop with the rifle didn't stop firing, not until a red line appeared at his throat and blood gushed out as someone hidden tore through his jugular, flesh yawning open.

  "Stop!" Kirk's voice rang through the air, but Luke ran, defying the command. The gunfire had silenced, and Luke shouldered his way past people, jumped over a few who still hunched down near the ground, and reached Kirk.

  He grabbed the taller man's shoulder. "I'm a healer!"

  Kirk looked down at him and blinked, then nodded, understanding.

  Sweat poured down Kirk's face as he reached up and forward with both hands, then made a parting gesture.

  "Let the healer through!" he bellowed.

  With that, Luke was past the line of Integrated, throwing himself through the line of Riot Police, who, on Kirk's command, backed away. The Operations Chief was still down on the ground, clutching his shoulder, but he was not the primary patient here. Having your throat slit was not a condition you lived with for long, and time was wasting as the dying man spasmed on the ground, choking on his own blood.

  A cry and a crash sounded to Luke's right, but he ignored it as he came to a stop, getting down to his knees onto the grass to put a hand on the dying man's throat. This was not the time for preserving mana. Instead, he flooded the wounded area, spending his most precious resource like he had all but an ocean to draw from.

  The wound healed in an instant, but that wasn't enough, and Luke quested inward with Threads of Mana, forcing himself to breathe and focus as he examined his patient's lungs. They were full of blood, like he'd suspected, and he cut into the wall of the lung with Needle of Life, draining the blood, stitching as he went, while holding his patient down to keep him still.

  Panting, Luke withdrew. His patient drew in a gasping breath, then turned, got up to his hands and feet, and emptied his stomach in the grass.

  "You OK?" Luke asked, but all he got in reply was coughing. This prompted him to do another check, but found nothing else wrong with the man, so he left him and stood to look around.

  Rather than the cops and Integrated facing each other, they all rushed east, but Luke couldn't see the reason for it. Then a pink shimmer appeared near the edge of the park. A gateway. Another gateway had opened. This time, he was pretty sure it wasn't a Tutorial Dungeon.

  Ray appeared by his side and looking toward the gateway. "I'm going to go check it out," he said.

  Luke, still panting, grabbed Ray's arm. "Don't kill any cops."

  Ray pulled himself free and ran off without a word, not even looking back.

  "You saved him," the Operations Chief said, sitting up and nodding to his subordinate, while clutching the arrow lodged in his shoulder.

  "The situation was spiraling," Luke grunted, nodding to the wound. "Want me to patch you up?"

  "Please," the Operations Chief said. "I'm Drummond."

  Luke stepped over to take a closer look. "I'm Luke."

  This was when Luke found another use for Needle of Life. Activating the skill, he brought it out using Weaver's Grasp, cutting away Drummond's shirt. Useful indeed.

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  The arrow was embedded deep into the muscle, and Luke considered for a moment, then nodded. "We should probably push it through to the other side."

  In the distance, people were shouting. The crowd of onlookers fled through the park and away from the gateway, while Integrated and cops made their way toward it.

  Drummond paled, then nodded. "Do it."

  Grabbing the haft, Luke felt a sense of unrealness wash over him. What the hell was he doing? Treating someone with an arrow wound when he hadn't even finished medical school. This was all so new to him. The blood was nauseating to look at, and the wood and metal embedded in Drummond's shoulder made him shudder. Just thinking about it was enough to make his vision spin a little as warmth flushed into his face.

  "Breathe, boy," Drummond said.

  "Sorry," Luke said, drawing in a deep breath, and then shook his head to steady himself. "Don't call me 'boy'."

  Holding the shaft in one hand and pressing on the tail end of it, Luke pushed with all his might and winced at the wet, sloshing sound of the arrow punching through and out on the other side of Drummond's shoulder. He reached around and pulled it out. Blood made it slick and stained his hands. Ignoring the grossness of it, he went in with Threads of Mana to stop the bleeding as the grizzled Operations Chief gritted his teeth against the pain.

  "Not the softest touch, your healing," Drummond said once Luke was done, then ran a thumb across the closed wound.

  "Don't be a baby," Luke said, downing a mana potion.

  He stood and surveyed the park between himself and the gateway. A battle raged with Integrated and cops working together against what looked like rattling skeletons and shambling zombies in the distance. The undead had come to Lazarus Park.

  "These sorts of things are going to keep happening," Luke said. "The orb can't become a political weapon."

  Drummond let out a tired chuckle as he surveyed the field of battle. "Don't you think I know that? Weak men govern from a place of fear. It won't last."

  A walkie-talkie at Drummond's hip crackled, and shouts erupted from it. "The bullets! They are useless!"

  "I'm going," Luke said, hurrying to catch up with the other Integrated. Behind him, he heard Drummond call for his men to retreat.

  The cops would be no help in this battle. As Luke ran, he equipped the stupid white starter robes he received when picking the Lifeweaver class and grabbed the quarterstaff out of his inventory. It signaled his abilities to everyone, and judging by the number of monsters massing outside the gate, healing would soon be a much-needed task. Integrated and undead clashed before he made it to the front, with melee classes cutting through bone or through the rotting flesh of zombies. Some tanks used taunt-like abilities, drawing the enemies to them, while others cut them to pieces.

  Their foes knew little in the way of coordination, but that was unfortunately the case for the Integrated as well, and they fought with no cohesion or tactics. Kirk's voice boomed over the battle again and again, calling out tactics, but most didn't hear him or didn't listen. A skeleton threw itself past the first line of attackers and hacked left and right with a scimitar covered in spots of rust. An archer fell back, clutched his arm, and cried out, stumbling.

  Luke swung the wooden staff in a side-swipe and slammed it into the skull. The skull shot through the air, but that did not stop the skeleton, who slashed at the terrified archer and opened up another long gash across his chest. Readying himself for another swipe, Luke was instead forced back when shadows slithered across the ground and up along the bones, holding the skeleton for a moment before twisting it apart. Bones cracked and fell in a heap as the monster died without making a sound.

  "You should be careful, healer," Hannah said, stepping up to the injured archer. She hunched down and pursed her lips. "Do you think this one will die?"

  "What? No!" Luke shouted as he hurried forward. Going down to one knee, he tended to the wounds as the archer wailed with each stitch, crying more from the healing than the wounds themselves.

  "Healer!" someone shouted, and Luke stood, looking around to see one of the tanks, a short, broad-shouldered teenager wearing chain mail over what looked like a football uniform, carrying a wooden buckler. He was down on the ground, struggling to keep the shield between himself and the monsters. Zombies swarmed around him as other Integrated fought with desperation to get back to their fallen friend.

  Fire bloomed in the middle of the enemy horde, destroying clumps of undead, but more just kept coming as Luke rushed to aid the fallen tank. On his way there, a man in his fifties with balding gray hair and liver spots all over his face stumbled past, holding a severed hand. His own severed hand. In the distance, a small group of fighters struggled to hold their own against a large number of foes.

  That was when the undead mages emerged from the shimmering pink gateway. Things were about to go from bad to worse.