Being the hoarder I was, I’d packed over a dozen pre-lit torches in my inventory. I retrieved one, and suddenly, we were no longer subjected to the pitch-black horror show this was quickly devolving into.

  But before I could even take a step, Yashas reached out and snatched the torch from my hand.

  “I suggest you don’t,” he said quietly. “Any light source will give away our position.”

  “Uh, how are we supposed to navigate otherwise?” I asked.

  “Have you forgotten?” Yashas replied. “My ability allows me to sense all nearby creatures. Though our foes aren’t technically alive, they still appear to my senses. I can tell you the location of every shambler in the vicinity.”

  Shambler, huh? Pretty good name for a zombie.

  “So you’d have us follow you in total blindness?” Aerion asked skeptically.

  “I understand how difficult it must be to trust someone you’ve only just met,” Yashas said. “But I hope, as fellow Champions, we can bridge that gap and rely on each other. You may not know this, but the enemy grows stronger and sharper when night falls. Escaping the station will be the first of many perils.”

  “We know,” Aerion replied. “We encountered them last night.”

  “Then you understand how dangerous they truly are,” he said. “I’ve scouted a safe house nearby—somewhere we can spend the night in safety and comfort. But you must trust me to guide you there.”

  Biting her lip, Aerion nodded.

  “Welp,” I said, tossing the torch back into my inventory. “Lead the way.”

  Despite my words, however, I didn’t feel nearly as optimistic as our fearless leader.

  The next hour was definitely up there as one of the most harrowing of my life. Yashas guided Aerion by the arm while she held my hand as I brought up the rear.

  Minute after agonizing minute, we followed Yashas through pitch-black tunnels, around corners, and up escalators.

  At least he could see. While his night vision goggles were useless without light, I suspected the thermal and IR imaging still worked, and the zombies probably showed up on IR, if not thermal.

  Even still, it was his other ability I put more stock in, and to his credit, he didn’t seem to be lying about that—his awareness was absurdly good. We didn’t even once come close to an ambush, despite hearing zombie noises all around us.

  Which, of course, made me wonder how he’d gotten himself surrounded when we first met. The only explanation that made sense was that it had been deliberate—that he’d sensed us and was fighting his way toward our position. If that was true, we were already deep in his debt.

  Through clever use of sound decoys and precise awareness of the undead around us, Yashas guided us up two more floors without a single encounter. But on the next level, he stopped abruptly.

  “There is a tangle of shamblers ahead,” he said. “We are just one level below the surface now, but they block all exits. I fear we have to go through them.”

  “How many?” Aerion whispered.

  “Hundreds,” Yashas said grimly. “Their senses are keener at night. No matter how careful we are, they will detect us. Were I alone, it might be different, but with three of us…”

  “We understand,” Aerion said. “What do you suggest?”

  “I believe it may be time for Greg’s torch,” he said. “If remaining hidden no longer suits us, we shall have to fight our way through. But I warn you—there are as many shamblers here as there are below, and even more near the surface. Quite the challenge ahead.”

  “We’re ready,” Aerion said firmly.

  “Good. But before we proceed, I would like to know a little more about your powers,” Yashas said. “I have confided my abilities. I believe it is only fair, and may help us make better decisions in the midst of battle.”

  “Very well,” Aerion said. I could picture her nodding in the dark. “I can enter a Berserker state, similar to Dominion’s Champion. His fury burns hot, while mine runs cold. I lose some reasoning capacity but gain significant strength and combat prowess. The problem is that it’s hard to disengage from once I start. The state consumes all my Essence until I collapse from exhaustion.”

  “I see,” Yashas said thoughtfully. I could almost hear the confusion in his tone. Aerion’s power did seem to have little to do with a god of Order. Not that my own powers were any closer to embodying my patron god’s supposed trait. The guy was about as far from orderly as you could get.

  “And you, Greg?” Yashas asked. “I’ve heard rumors that you can access an otherworldly storage space?”

  “That’s right,” I said, wondering just how much Yashas could glean from his information ability if he was willing to pay. “It’s where I put the torch. I also have another Blessing that lets me gain strength from the weapons and armor I equip.”

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  “How fascinating,” Yashas said. “And all this without even being a Champion. I admit, I somewhat envy your power. Mine restricts me to a very specific role, and Champions seem to be unable to acquire other Blessings in Trials and Dungeons. Your abilities feel far more… versatile.”

  I couldn’t help but smirk. The general really knew his stuff, analyzing my skill set and intuiting its strength like that. And his instincts came from real, battle-hardened experience, not from games.

  “Pretty accurate,” I said. “Right now, I’ve got one armor set that boosts my durability, and another that enhances my speed.”

  “I see,” Yashas said. “Then I suggest you equip the one that makes you stronger. Escaping this mob will be impossible otherwise. And, though it likely does not need to be said, it will be safer if we stay together rather than try to split up.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. “I’m already in that armor anyway.”

  “Very well,” he said. “Then, Greg? Please retrieve your torch.”

  Of course, I’d left out several key aspects of my ability, like the fact that I could Initialize weapons and armor from scratch. Or that I could stick intact souls in there.

  Yashas didn’t need to know everything—not yet. Too much information and I was sure he’d suspect something was up.

  With no reason to dawdle, I pulled the burning torch from my inventory. The moment it appeared, the flickering light drew the zombies’ attention, even through the maze of corridors separating us from the main horde.

  “Brace yourselves! Here they come,” Yashas said, raising his rifle. The torchlight gave him all the visibility he needed, and the instant the first undead rounded the corner, he opened fire.

  My flying swords shot forth, their deadly blades glistening under the torchlight. I hesitated to summon them at first, but decided to go for it—Yashas would probably just assume they were part of Aerion’s abilities, and with this many of them, we really needed every advantage we could get.

  The blades spun through the air, embedding themselves into zombie skulls before bursting them open like melons, then pulling free to seek new targets. Yashas was clearly startled at first, but recovered quickly, adjusting his aim to cover any enemies the swords didn’t hit, maximizing our damage output.

  “Go!” he shouted, tossing a grenade. It went off with a thunderous boom, ringing our ears. We didn’t need to be told twice. I charged ahead, bashing a path through the undead, while Aerion followed, slicing anything that got too close. This way, Aerion and Yashas could use my massive Vigor to their advantage.

  It actually worked shockingly well, despite being a far cry from our usual strategy when I was in my Grace build. But Yashas really knew how to support a team and adapted instantly to our tactics without needing to exchange a single word.

  We fell into a rhythm, with me charging forward and using my shield to knock down a bunch of zombies. Aerion followed on my heels, decapitating them while they were vulnerable, and Yashas took out any we missed.

  Despite the insane danger we were in, I couldn’t help feeling… actually good. Much better than the previous hour we’d spent blind and sneaking around.

  It felt like our powers were truly working in harmony. Aerion’s raw strength, even outside of Reave, meshed perfectly with my shield bashes and Yashas’ precision strikes.

  It made me wonder if what we really needed was a third person on our little team, but then I realized we’d soon have that in Galia.

  Still, as good as we were, we couldn’t keep this up forever. By the time we reached the stairway, we were completely surrounded, as zombies seemed to climb out of every hole imaginable.

  There was no way out. Nowhere to hide or take cover. And even with the small arsenal of magazines and grenades Yashas carried, he was going to run out of bullets sooner or later.

  “Reaving!” Aerion shouted.

  “Understood,” Yashas and I replied in unison.

  The second [Reave] manifested, the battlefield turned into a slaughterhouse.

  Where just moments prior, we’d been slowly but surely losing ground against the rabid, night-augmented hordes, now entire lines of zombies went down at once.

  A single swing of her blade cleaved through three or four bodies, heads rolling like pebbles on the tile floor.

  “Unbelievable,” I heard Yashas mutter.

  “Oh, just wait,” I said, grinning. “If she stays in that state for five minutes, she actually becomes invincible.”

  Yashas turned toward me, and even though his eyes were hidden behind those night-vision goggles, I could feel the shock radiating off him.

  “Yeah, she’s something else,” I said. “Now come on, before she leaves us in the dust.”

  “Indeed,” Yashas replied, firing controlled bursts into anything that got too close. I’d lost track of how many magazines he’d gone through, but he had to have shot at least five hundred rounds by now, but even then, his rig was still peppered with full mags and grenades.

  The man had come into this place ready for war, and honestly? I couldn’t help being more than a little impressed. The guy would be a total badass even if he hailed from modern day Earth.

  To think he came from some ancient civilization? That just made it all the more incredible.

  Which, naturally, meant I had to show off a bit.

  Charging forward, I dove into a nearby cluster of zombies, swinging my tower shield with everything I had. My strikes weren’t nearly as strong as Aerion’s with her ludicrous Dominion under [Reave], but my sheer momentum made up for it. My durability and tower shield let me plow through enemies like a goddamned wrecking ball.

  It made me wonder if I could somehow hit my thirty miles per hour pace in my Grace build before switching to Vigor mid-charge. My shield bashes would be absolutely devastating.

  I ducked under a wild swing, then slammed my shield into a zombie’s face, the impact launching it backward into the mob. My strikes didn’t usually kill the fuckers—undead were annoyingly durable—but they did create a chain reaction. Each bash knocked back a dozen or more, sending even more tumbling into a pile of tangled limbs.

  That was all the opening we needed. Aerion’s Mythril blade danced through the air, ending the downed zombies.

  This time, Yashas didn’t just pick off the stragglers, though. He was busy flinging grenades, splattering the walls and columns of the station with undead gore.

  With our little squad firing on all cylinders, we finally broke through to the final staircase, climbing to the surface.

  The night air hit me like a wall, and I breathed it in hungrily. It was so good to see again, past whatever my torch could illuminate.

  It was only after I’d stored the torch that I saw the endless sea of zombies that awaited us.

  Yashas had been right—the surface was worse. Much, much worse.

  Where the subway station had hundreds of zombies, there were thousands roaming the massive street. And every single one turned toward us.

  “Come!” Yashas yelled. “We’re not far now!”

  “Well,” I muttered, cracking my neck, “we’ve made it this far. What’s a few more zombies?”

  We’d dealt with zombies. There were only so many that could throw themselves at us at once, after all. I was ready for anything.

  Or so I thought, until a half-dozen tanks and several two-legged armored mechs rounded the corner and trained their many guns on us.

  “Oh, fuck me,” I breathed, as my world lit up in an explosion of fire and thunder.