Rey shot the demons into the wall with Repulsion, sending them flying. He hurled his spear at the captain, but the demons had rolled into one another, and so he ended up killing one of his lackeys. Rey thought he was the one who had sniffed out his blood.

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+8]

  He yanked the spear out of the demon's skull with Attraction. He almost lamented killing this demon, as it could've provided valuable experience for the others, but beggars couldn't be choosers in this scenario, as more demons appeared in the doorway. One look at him and they knew who had done their captain like that.

  They growled, snarled, and made other throaty noises as they came for him. Then Noidet proved that he was maybe a quarter trustworthy. He yanked his sword out and disemboweled two of them as he swung his sword in an arc. Rey knew that the Sniffer was really saving his own hide, but still, he was surprised to see that. So, he did a 'Get over here' to him, but the stupid demon slammed into the wall beside Rey instead of coming into Rey's outstretched hand. It totally wasn't Rey's fault.

  "What the hell are you doing?" snapped Noidet.

  "Are you forgetting who you are talking to?" Rey asked. "Also, do you like bumping into walls? Also, we don't have time. Also, the demons are coming."

  Noidet stared at him a moment as if he were an idiot. A look that was quite common among species of all kinds. Rey wondered if it was because of something he said.

  He helped the demon up to his feet as they made their way around the wall and jumped up the hole in the ceiling to the second floor, where his friends awaited.

  "So, let me guess, the ruse didn't work?" Kassi asked.

  Rey shook his head. "Unfortunately, not."

  "So, you tried to commit suicide for no reason." Her face said she wasn't over that little display, and knowing her, she wouldn't be over it for some time.

  Rey smiled. "It was still worth a try, and besides, I knew I wasn't in any real danger. Unlike now, when we're all in lots of danger. The demons are coming."

  "Thanks. We couldn't tell that with all the snarling and shouting," Filomena stated.

  "Oh, hey ba…" He almost called her babe, and Kassi hated that. She was already angry at him, so he couldn't afford to get her more furious. "Thor, you're awake. Has someone filled you in on the fights of our lives we're about to be in…"

  The first demon poked his head out of the hole and promptly lost it, because Aearbon swiped his claws and shot it off into the opposite wall as if it were a golf ball, where it proved that it wasn't a golf ball but more like a melon. The demon's head burst open, washing the wall with its dark blood and brains.

  "Now," Rey finished.

  Filomena tried to get up, but Ajay came to support her.

  "You should stay down for now," he said. "There are lots of demons outside; they might try to shoot at us from the windows."

  "That is an excellent point, Firelord Ajay," Rey said. "But I need you and Kassi to concentrate on this wall." He pointed to the wall that faced the front of the building. "Kill as many demons as you can. Thin the herd. Aearbon, and Noise Pollution will focus on the hole and I'll watch the back of the house with Filomena. That should cover it all."

  "I don't have an infinite number of arrows," Kassi stated.

  "So, don't miss."

  "Any other questions?" No one said anything. "Well, let get to it. Oh, and Aearbon, if you see a demon with scalps on his belt, please throw him my way."

  The Tigerman nodded without question. Sometimes, all that respect conditioning did help a lot, since they had no time to waste, as the first of the demons poked their heads out of the hole, hoping for different results than the first one.

  Ajay formed a small fiery tornado in his hand and hurled it out the window. It immediately expanded to about ten times its size and wreaked havoc through the enemy ranks. Demons screeched and howled through the ever-present night as they were burnt alive. But the angry hotman was not done. He threw fireball after fireball that erupted like mini-nukes. The temperature of the place went from a nice, hot summer day to the inside of an oven.

  Rey almost told him to stop when the first of the demons crawled up the back of the building, just as he had expected.

  Rey waved to the surprised demon. "Hello. I would ask you to come in, but the place isn't clean enough, you see. Maybe next time."

  He stabbed him in the neck with his spear.

  [You killed a Demon (Exiled) – E+7]

  The demon's body fell. He must've fallen on other demons as they shrieked as they fell. Filomena managed to stand. The girl was still not in fighting condition, but given her powers, she didn't need to fight much. She could easily shoot bolt after bolt and make their lives so much easier, and that was precisely what she did.

  She looked out, and contrary to Rey's surprise, he only found anger reflected in her face. She extended her arm out, lightning raced down her arm and shot out of her hand like a thunderbolt that seared the demons and land alike. Of course, the corresponding thunder was so loud that Rey's eardrums nearly burst.

  He almost activated a Gravity's Domain around the house, but the whole thing was practically a ruin; he didn't think it could handle the increased gravity, and they would be buried under the rubble along with the demons. So, he refrained from that and instead shot a Repulsion wave at all the demons that were crawling on the walls. Filomena took care of the rest.

  With that, he had a moment to spare, so he looked at the others, and they were making good progress. Aearbon and Noidet were making sure that no demons could poke their head in through the hole. Any that did promptly lost their heads. At the same time, Kassi and Ajay made sure to thin the herd with shining arrows and firestorms.

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  If they kept this up, they would be done with them by nightfall or morning or afternoon or whatever fucking time it was. Though he knew, he was deluding himself. They didn't have infinite Mana, and when that time came, that was when they would die.

  He needed to think of something before Mana fatigue set in, and they were truly useless, but he didn't see any way out of this. There were demons in all directions. They would have to fight their way out of here. He could create a Gravity's Domain in a straight line and drop the demons while they run over their downed forms.

  He kept that plan on the back burner until it started to look like they were about to be overwhelmed. As of now, he let them all have the time of their life killing demons and gaining as much experience as they could before they made their eventual escape.

  They lasted another half hour at max speed before they made their first mistake. Well, it wasn't really a mistake. There were just too many demons. There was a veritable mound on his side, and that must've been the same for Kassi and Ajay. Kassi's arrows had exhausted ten minutes ago. She was fending off demons with her dagger, which was the worst. So, he had tried to give her his spear, but she wouldn't have it, saying that would leave him without a weapon.

  Anyways, the first of the demons crawled up over the mound and jumped through the window and right on top of her. It was about to jab its rusty blade in her chest, but she kicked him in the manhood, and it did nothing. Most demons were machoistic and enjoyed pain, so he just laughed.

  Rey was about to hurl his spear at him when Kassi grabbed the demon's neck and twisted it hard to the right, killing the demon. She kicked the demon off and stood dusting herself off.

  Rey gave her a blank stare. "Now, will you take my spear, and I mean this one, and actually I mean both of them, but the second one can wait until we get out of this mess."

  She shook her head, smiling. "You can never be serious, can you?"

  "I'm always serious." He tossed her steel spear to her, which she caught deftly and went back to work.

  Rey turned, and a demon was sneaking into the room from the top of the window. Filomena fried the not-so-furry critter. Rey ran to the window and noticed they were crawling down from the roof. They must've climbed up the side of the house and were coming down from the top. In essence, they were surrounded from all sides.

  A bunch of weapons shot up from the hole that Aearbon was watching, which he and the Sniffer had to move back to avoid being seared. Then three demons jumped up simultaneously. Rey wanted to help them, but he had no time. He had to watch his side as the demons were running up the mound at full speed.

  "This is unlike them," he pondered out loud.

  "How so?" Filomena asked.

  "They should've broken ranks and fled by now. We're shown that we can hold them for a long time, but they keep coming, no matter how many of them we kill. It means that their boss has ordered them not to come back without our heads or he would take theirs off. Otherwise, they would've fucked off a long time ago.

  "How can you be so sure?" The Sicilian asked.

  "If you were a selfish, self-serving being of malice, would you like to keep throwing yourself on the meat grinder?"

  "Point taken. Then how do we get out of this?"

  "I have a plan cooking in my head. We just—"

  Aearbon's roar silenced all others. Even the demons outside seemed to pause at that. Rey turned to find out that the giant tiger was taking on two demons at a time, and one of them had managed to slash him across the chest. Then Aearbon got really mad and ripped open both the demons while the Sniffer took care of the third.

  Things were indeed getting overwhelming for them all if even Aearbon was getting slashed. As they were fighting off those three demons, two more jumped up, and Rey almost shot them into the wall, but he needed to conserve his Mana.

  "I'll be back," Rey called to Filomena.

  Rey fell in beside Noidet, and they took care of the demons. More tried to jump up, but Rey drove them into the ground with Repulsion. Then he activated a Gravity Orb with twenty percent gravity, and the demons started spinning in place. It would give Aearbon and Noidet a moment's rest.

  He also did the same for the windows on the two sides of the house. The demons and their corpses basically became rag dolls, spinning in empty air. His friends breathed a sigh of relief as they sat down to rest their tired bodies.

  "We can't keep this up," Kassi stated, in between deep breaths.

  "Don't I know that?" Rey replied. "I think it's time we made an exodus from this place."

  "Rey, you need to see this." Filomena's eyes were wide, and she was staring at the pile of bones in the corner of the room that had been displaced because of his Gravity Orbs pull. Funnily enough, Noidet was trying his best to keep his feet, but when he noticed what Filomena was looking at, all the joviality washed out of him.

  Rey had been wrong about the number of skeletons. There weren't four skeletons as he had first thought; there were five. The fifth one had been buried under the others, and it was not human. It was clearly of someone very large. Its rib cage alone was the size of Rey's torso. The other bones were equally as large, but even that hadn't drawn Filomena's attention. It was the skull. Rey hadn't seen many feline skulls, but he could be sure that the skull belonged to someone with a set of two large fangs followed by the other smaller fangs.

  Rey didn't know how he knew, but he knew that this skull belonged to a Tigerman.

  He inadvertently looked to Aearbon, as did the others, as they followed his gaze, but Aearbon simply stared at the skull.

  "That is the skull of a Baaghror," he stated, confirming Rey's suspicion. "What is it doing here?"

  Rey moved forward and touched the skull, and immediately his eyes shot up into his head. His body trembled violently. He heard Kassi calling out his name, but he was far away, and yet not so far away.

  He stood in the middle of this very room, watching a massacre. The demons had overcome them, and they were pouring into the room from all sides. His friends fought with everything they had, but they weren't using their magical skills; it was more like they couldn't. They were all in Mana Fatigue, even Rey himself.

  He knew his head must be splitting with the mother of all migraines, but it wasn't. There was a dull ache in the back of his mind as he cut down demon after demon, but no matter how many he killed, more took their place.

  Ajay was the first to die, as a demon swiped his sword and cut off his leg. Another demon finished Ajay off by smashing his head into the ground. Filomena screamed a blood-curdling scream and ran for him, but the two demons cut her down before she even managed to take two steps.

  Next was Kassi. She was overwhelmed, and three demons left an innumerable number of slashes on her body. She could hardly defend herself, since she didn't know how to use a spear.

  "No!" Rey cried and ran for her, but she was gone by the time he reached her.

  He cradled her in his arms and wept. Aearbon fought like a man possessed to save Rey and yelled at him to fight, but Rey was done fighting. He hugged Kassi tight as the demons ripped Aearbon to shreds. Finally, they turned their sights on him.

  Rey didn't get up. Didn't even stir. There was no point in fighting anymore. He knew he couldn't escape his death.

  The demons fell on him.

  Rey gasped and looked around. Kassi's concerned face was in his vision. He hugged her immediately and didn't let go for a long time. The others asked if he was okay, but he didn't answer them. He just hugged Kassi as his heart slowly stopped beating like a drum.

  "I'm here," Kassi said in his ear. "Everything is fine."

  She kept repeating the words. A whole minute later, Rey finally let go of her and took in his friends.

  "I'm guessing you didn't see anything good," Filomena commented.

  Rey shook his head. "We're all going to die here."