The zombies moaned and shuffled toward the open iron gate, and Mateo met them without hesitation, his spear piercing through the air again and again, striking the monsters in the chest or the head. Both were killing blows, unlike what they had learned in movies growing up. Colt placed himself by the gate and held the undead back while Mateo flanked him, striking from the side.

  Ray didn't reach past the hulking Vanguard with his shorter weapons. Instead, he walked up to the fence and leaned over it to stab the zombies, almost getting hit.

  Penny, who'd stayed a few steps behind Colt, opened her mouth, chanting and clapping to the beat of Hey Mickey.

  (Clap clap)

  "Crack goes the sky, zap-zap, you fry!"

  "Clouds roll in and thunder cries!"

  "Storm's my game, and you're gonna die!"

  (Clap clap)

  At the last clap, lightning cracked from above, blasting a clump of zombies to the ground, killing them all in an instant.

  "Damn, that was kind of cool," Hannah said.

  "I'm sure it will come in handy," Luke agreed.

  "They look like they have a good handle on things," Hannah said, turning to Luke. "Can I test something on you?"

  "Test something on me?" Luke asked. "Now?"

  She nodded. "I want to know if my spells work on people. I'm not going to hurt you or anything."

  Luke remembered how Hannah cooked their brains inside their skulls with that white light of hers. Or before that, when she grabbed one with shadows and crunched its bones to nothing.

  "Are you sure you can without hurting me?"

  "I'm sure," she said.

  "Alright then," Luke answered, keeping his gaze on her. "Just keep it brief, in case something happens to the others. Be careful."

  The rest of the group killed zombies by the score, thinning out the horde as darkness oozed out by Hannah's feet, coalescing into a shadow that reached across the ground to Luke's feet, snaked its way up his legs, across his chest, and then out along his arms. Only then did it clamp down. Luke's arms were forced to his sides, and she squeezed the air out of his lungs.

  "Can't breathe," he rasped.

  Hannah's eyes glittered, and her lips split into a devious little smile. She drew in a shuddering breath, like she was enjoying herself, and let him go.

  "It works," she said, her voice a whisper.

  Luke crossed his arms over his chest. "Why did you need to test that?"

  "You never know," she said, before turning to head over to the others, who were now killing the last surviving zombies.

  The rest of the group had walked in through the gate and around a mound of fallen undead. Luke jogged after, taking all the corpses into his inventory. Having sold the Groll Champion monster core and used up all his funds to contain the gate, his credits were almost at zero. Looting the corpses, he noticed, still allowed him to look inside them and loot whatever they contained.

  All he found were rags, some kitchen utensils, and a doll. Luke frowned and inspected the corpse in his inventory, then wished he hadn't.

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  "I think these are the villagers!" Luke shouted, so his voice would carry over Penny singing another song, this one set to Hollaback Girl.

  "I bring the boom when I stomp the floor!"

  "Lightning strikes when I count to four!"

  "One-two-three, feel the storm roar!"

  She stomped down at roar, and lightning cracked again, destroying the last zombie.

  "We have done them a great service, my friends," Mateo said, wiping gunk off the tip of his spear. "Now they may rest in peace."

  "Should we maybe bury them?" Colt asked.

  "No way," Ray said. "They are NPCs, aren't they? Not real. I'm not wasting my time digging graves for undead monsters."

  "Ray has a point," Hannah said.

  "We don't know that," Penny argued, her voice a little hoarse. "This place is huge. Maybe it's on Earth somewhere. These could be real people."

  "Do you want to dig?" Ray asked. "I'm sure there's a shovel here somewhere for you. Maybe not with tassels and sparkles, but I'm sure you'll make do."

  "Don't tease her," Colt said, his voice rumbling.

  "Or what?" Ray asked.

  Colt took a step toward him.

  "Now, now, my friends, let us not fight. We have a mission, perhaps from God himself," Mateo said, pointing at the towering wooden gate leading into the church.

  It was a tall stone building painted white a long time ago, covered in signs of aging, the paint chipped, and the very stone itself crumbling in places. The gate, though, looked new, the wood treated and oiled, inlaid with metal in swirling patterns.

  "Let's go then," Ray said as he walked up the stairs leading to the church, taking the steps two at a time.

  "Let me just test something," Luke said.

  Activating The Healer's Moment, the world around him froze. Even the gentle breeze through the leaves fell away, and all sounds of the forest around the church ceased. The rest of the party didn't move either. Luke attempted to take a step and found that he couldn’t. The time-stop affected him as well.

  His interface worked, though, and he saw the skill effect as an icon near his health bar, counting down.

  Ten seconds. If he'd frozen time and could move, that would have been an exceptional skill. But now, nothing. Unless... It was called The Healer's Moment, after all. Sure enough, when Luke focused, mana rose from the palms of his hand, shaped like ribbons waving in a non-existent breeze. It could move, and he willed it toward Hannah, who stood closest to him.

  The thread stopped a few inches from her shoulder. Luke grimaced and pushed, focusing all his willpower, forcing the thread to stretch. It grew, reaching farther. At first, he thought he imagined it, but no. He'd done it. Not much at all, just a third of an inch, but it was not nothing. Luke had just proved to himself that it was possible. That was all he needed.

  Mateo stopped and turned as The Healer's Moment ended. "Of course, my friend, test your skill."

  Luke blinked and withdrew his mana. "Never mind. I'll try it later."

  As he ascended the stairs, he considered his new skill. What had first seemed like a useless addition was perhaps his strongest tool yet, when used with the rest of his skill set. Ten seconds was a lot when healing and, as he improved his craft, that brief respite would only grow in value.

  The stairs were broad, but not enough for all of them to walk shoulder to shoulder. So Colt took the lead with Mateo at his side. Penny behind those two, then Hannah and Luke at the back. Even as they walked, zombies emerged from open graves all throughout the graveyard, more of them coming back to life by the moment.

  Rather than fight an endless number of them, the group made their way to Ray, who waited for them by the church doors. When they approached, he shouldered the door open, grunting at the resistance. It groaned in protest and stopped, forcing him to turn and put both palms against the wood, pushing with his entire body to get it open.

  Luke was last to enter, and he stopped just inside, marveling as the door slammed shut with enough force to make them all jump. Pulling on it was useless.

  "It’s stuck," Luke said.

  Colt walked up. "Let me try."

  He grabbed the rusted iron ring on the inside of the door and pulled, to no avail.

  "I guess we’re stuck in here," Ray said, swallowing hard as they all turned to take in their new surroundings.

  At first glance, it looked like any other church, with wooden benches on either side, a straight path through the middle to the front. A lot of religious imagery covered the walls, but there was something not quite right about it.

  "Why aren’t there any crosses?" Penny asked, holding on to a small silver cross that hung around her neck.

  "Why is it so big?" Colt asked.

  Looking around, Colt's question seemed more important. The inside stretched far past where the church should have ended. It extended beyond the main chamber as well. Corridors farther into the room stretched out both to the left and right. Judging by the size and shape of the church from the outside, the inside was much larger than the outside.

  "I’ve got a bad feeling about this," Hannah said, grabbing a red psalm book from a small cart next to the back row of benches.

  The front was red cloth with gold lettering in a language Luke couldn’t read. Hannah leafed through it. A tight script covered each thin page. It looked handwritten.

  "What does it say?" Luke asked, glancing over her shoulder.

  "Nothing," she said. "Nothing I can read, anyway."

  She chucked the book back onto the little cart, and it swayed, creaking.

  "Join me, friends," Mateo said, gesturing for the group to follow. "Let us test ourselves against this cursed place!"