John pushed open the door to an empty bedroom on Micklefield Hall's second floor and stepped inside. His boots crunched on debris scattered across the hardwood. The door then swung shut behind him on its own, sealing with a dull click.

  The room was a mess, though not the worst he'd seen today. Wallpaper hung in tattered strips from the walls, revealing patches of cracked brick beneath. Deep gouges scored the wainscoting, and what looked like dried blood spattered the far corner in a constellation of rusty brown. Broken furniture lay scattered about: the remains of a writing desk reduced to kindling, a toppled armoire missing its doors, a shattered mirror that had probably been quite beautiful once.

  Yet for all the destruction, the tall windows remained intact, their glass somehow untouched by whatever violence had ravaged the rest of the space. Light filtered through them in diffuse beams, dying everything in shades of crimson from the burning sky beyond. The juxtaposition struck him as oddly fitting. Even in ruin, even defiled and broken, the bones of this place were still beautiful.

  Such a shame, John thought, surveying the wreckage with tired eyes. This whole building was gorgeous.

  Before the apocalypse, Micklefield Hall had been a showpiece. High ceilings with ornate cornicing, sweeping staircases, rooms designed for grandeur. The sort of place that spoke to centuries of history, of lives lived in comfort and security.

  Now it was just another casualty of the new world. Torn wallpaper and broken furniture and blood sprayed all over.

  He waited for the familiar surge of anger at the injustice of it all, at the System and its monsters for despoiling something so objectively lovely. But the rage didn't come. His emotional tank sat somewhere close to empty, wrung out by the sheer relentless grind of the past twelve hours.

  Twelve hours, he thought, almost laughing at the absurdity of it. Has it really only been twelve hours since I last used Rest?

  It felt surreal to realise it was so recently that he’d lay down in that other bedroom, the one back in the farmhouse they'd claimed as a temporary base before the Watford push began in earnest. He'd activated Rest, spent thirty minutes in that void, and emerged refreshed enough to lead the assault on the town's remaining portals.

  He'd speedrun portal worlds like they were video game levels, obliterating cores and slaughtering monsters by the hundreds. He'd fought through waves of enemies. He'd evacuated survivors, ferried them to safety, watched their eyes fill with desperate hope whenever he showed up to save them.

  What did it say about him that interacting with so many strangers sat heaviest on his soul? Over and over and over again. Comforting the traumatised, organizing the shell-shocked, playing leader to people who looked at him like he had all the answers when he barely knew what the fuck he was doing himself.

  His body felt relatively fine. Vitality at Level 9 meant he had stamina for days, and Cellular Regeneration kept him topped up through any minor aches or pains. Physically, he could probably keep going for another twelve hours if he felt like it.

  Mentally, though? Mentally he felt like he'd been put through a blender.

  John reached into his Inventory and pulled out the small camping bed he'd claimed from one of their looted sporting goods stores. The frame unfolded with a metallic clatter that echoed through the empty room. He set it up in the one relatively clear corner, away from the worst of the debris, and sat down heavily.

  The bed creaked under his weight but held. Good enough.

  He thought about the funeral they'd just finished. The caskets burning on the lawn, flames consuming Curtis and Claire, father and daughter finally laid to rest after all the bullshit surrounding their deaths. Marian's body had gone up in flames too, later, once he'd worked up the courage to summon it from his Inventory and add it to the pyre.

  Three Human Corpses, gone. No longer weighing down his Inventory like anchors dragging at his soul.

  There was a deep catharsis to it. A cleansing. The guilt was still there—he'd killed Marian, after all, even if it had been an accident in the heat of combat. That chip of ice Doug had mentioned was still lodged somewhere in his chest, cold and uncomfortable and impossible to ignore.

  But at least it wasn't getting worse. At least he could breathe a little easier now, knowing he didn't have three corpses literally stored in his soul anymore.

  The others had been understanding when he'd asked for some alone time afterward. Doug's weathered face had softened with sympathy, Lily had squeezed his shoulder, and even Jade had given him a nod that conveyed more understanding than words could manage. They'd seen him through the whole ordeal, witnessed his conversation with Claire's ghost, watched him make the decision to finally let them all go.

  Good people, John thought, lying back on the camping bed and staring up at the damaged ceiling. How the hell did I end up with actual friends?

  The question would have seemed absurd a week ago. John Words didn't have friends. He had online gaming buddies he'd never met in person, family members bound to him by blood and obligation, and a litany of former classmates who'd ranged from tolerant to actively hostile. The idea that he'd form genuine friendships, let alone in the span of days during a literal apocalypse, would have been laughable.

  Yet here he was. Part of a team. Trusted by people who had every reason to walk away but chose to stay instead.

  It was nice. Terrifying in its implications for his future emotional vulnerability, but nice.

  John closed his eyes and activated Rest.

  The world dropped away, replaced by the familiar void. Darkness absolute, stretching in every direction without end or beginning. The approximation of his body that existed in this space stood on nothing, surrounded by nothing, perceiving nothing except the faint awareness of his physical form back in the real world.

  He could sense it there, lying on the camping bed, chest rising and falling in the accelerated rhythm Rest imposed. Every few subjective minutes that passed here translated to mere seconds in reality. Time dilation working in his favour, giving him the mental space he desperately needed.

  The System couldn't reach him here. That was the beautiful thing about Rest, the reason he treasured it above many of the more destructive abilities in his arsenal. In this void, the Aura system had no power. He could scream if he wanted, cry if he needed to, act out every embarrassing impulse and undignified emotion without fear of point deductions or judgment.

  He'd done plenty of that the first couple of times. Raged against the unfairness of it all, sobbed for the people he'd lost, cursed the System and its cruel machinations. The void had been his confessional, his therapist's office, the one place he could be completely honest about how utterly overwhelmed he felt.

  Today, though, he found himself oddly calm. The blankness of the space matched the blankness in his mind. He stood there, or floated, or whatever the equivalent was in this non-place, and just existed for a while, thinking about nothing in particular.

  A part of him wished he could sleep for real. Not this weird half-state where his consciousness continued uninterrupted, but genuine sleep, where his brain would shut down and carry him off to whatever dreams his subconscious wanted to conjure. He missed that severance. The clean break between waking and sleeping where you could leave behind the day's burdens for a few precious hours.

  But the thought of sleeping brought with it the spectre of nightmares. Waking up screaming, thrashing in his bed, maybe even attacking someone in his sleep if the dreams got bad enough. The Aura cost was less of a consideration considering the mad total he’d accumulated, but the embarrassment alone would deal a hit to his dignity that he knew he’d struggle to get over, never mind the potential danger to anyone nearby.

  Better to stay conscious, even in this void. Better to maintain control, even if it meant he never truly got to rest.

  How fucked up is that? he thought, and felt a grim chuckle bubble up from somewhere in his psyche.

  Despite the dark humour, he recognized the necessity. Rest kept him functional, kept him in the fight, gave him the stamina to keep pushing when any normal human would have collapsed from exhaustion. And if the trade-off was he never got to truly switch off, well... that was just another item on the long list of sacrifices required to survive this new world.

  His thoughts drifted, aimless, touching on the events of the day—and indeed the past weak—without dwelling too long on any one thing. The fights. The portals. The survivors he'd saved, their faces already blurring together into an indistinct mass. He’d never been good at remembering faces.

  He realised, with some surprise, that he hadn't broken down yet. All that violence, all that death, all those close calls. He'd weathered it without losing his shit completely. Sure, he'd felt the stress, felt the weight of it pressing down on his shoulders, but he'd held together.

  Mental resilience, he thought. Huh. Who knew I had that?

  It was almost funny. He'd always thought of himself as weak, a coward. Someone who'd fold at the first sign of real hardship. That had been the narrative in his head for as long as he could remember: John Woods, perpetual loser, too pathetic to stand up for himself, too anxious to take risks. A man not worth much of anything.

  But the apocalypse had rather thoroughly disproven that assessment. He'd faced monsters and psychopaths and moral dilemmas that would have destroyed a lesser person, and he was still standing.

  Maybe I've been selling myself short all these years, he mused. Maybe I was always stronger than I thought. Just never had a reason to find out until the world ended.

  The thought brought with it a strange warmth. A fragile sensation that took him a moment to identify: self-esteem. Actual, genuine self-esteem, not the fake-it-till-you-make-it confidence his cool persona required. Just an honest acknowledgment that hey, maybe he wasn't as useless as he'd always believed.

  It felt nice. Really nice. He let himself bask in it for a subjective moment, savouring the unfamiliar sensation.

  Of course, recognising his resilience didn't mean he could afford to get complacent. The future stretched ahead like a minefield, each day promising new horrors to survive, new challenges to overcome. And the biggest challenge of all loomed large in his mind whenever he let himself think about it: getting to Dagenham.

  His family was there. Mum, Dad, Grandma, Sophia. They had to be alive. There was no other acceptable outcome. He couldn't and wouldn't entertain the possibility that they might be dead, because if they were gone, if the only people who'd ever unconditionally cared for him had been slaughtered by monsters or psychos or the System's cruel games, then what was even the fucking point?

  So they were alive. End of discussion. At some point, he'd strike out for Dagenham with his team and find them.

  That was the long-term plan, anyway. The goal that kept him moving forward when everything else felt overwhelming.

  But there was a problem. Or rather, multiple problems, all tangled together in a Gordian knot of conflicting obligations.

  This resistance group he'd helped create needed him, for now. He was the strongest by far. He possessed the most powerful and numerous abilities and therefore the best chance of keeping them all alive. Walking away to pursue his personal mission felt wrong, selfish, like abandoning people who were counting on him. And dragging them all over to the other side of London felt… ill-advised.

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  At the same time, he couldn't stay with them forever. He had to get to Dagenham. Had to find his family. That was non-negotiable.

  For now, he'd do what he could. Craft gear, clear portals, build up the resistance until it was strong enough to stand on its own. And maybe, if he was lucky, that would be enough to quiet the voice in his head that whispered he was abandoning them.

  Which brings me back to the immediate problem, John thought. Aura farming.

  His cool persona was exhausting on the best of days. The constant need to monitor his behaviour, ensure he was projecting the right image, and avoid anything the System might deem "lame" was like walking a tightrope while juggling chainsaws. The anxiety of it all sat in his chest like a lead weight, making every social interaction a mental battle.

  But it was necessary. He needed Aura, needed it in truly staggering quantities if he wanted to unlock the higher-tier Spells and Skills that would let him create better Enchanted gear and purchase those same abilities for his own use.

  And he'd never accumulate enough by just killing monsters. The real gains came from style, from showmanship with an audience to witness his badassery.

  So he'd have to step up his game. Be cooler, be flashier, be more dramatic. It would suck, would probably spike his anxiety to uncomfortable levels, but it had to be done.

  I'm stronger than I thought, he reminded himself, clinging to that newfound self-esteem like a lifeline. I can do this. It's just acting. I've been doing it for days now. I can keep doing it.

  The pep talk helped, marginally. Enough that he didn't feel quite so overwhelmed by the prospect.

  His thoughts circled back, inevitably, to Claire.

  The conversation with her ghost haunted him. The way she'd looked at him, spectral and glowing and so utterly tired. The way she'd begged him not to bring her back. Let her move on to whatever came next so she could reunite with her parents in whatever afterlife awaited.

  He'd honoured that request. Sent her to the flames along with Curtis and Marian, let them all go to ash and wind and whatever lay beyond. It had felt like the right thing to do, the merciful thing.

  But the chip of ice Doug had mentioned was still there. Still present in his chest, a constant reminder of what killing did to a person.

  Doug had said it would never go away completely. That you didn't heal from killing another person, you just grew around it, incorporated it into who you were until it became a part of your foundation rather than a foreign object lodged in your soul.

  John was starting to understand what he meant. The guilt over Marian's death hadn't vanished. The horror of Claire's choice hadn't faded. But they felt more... manageable now. Like he'd found a way to exist alongside them rather than being crushed beneath their weight.

  He thought about the future, trying to envision a path where the violence would end. Where he wouldn't be forced to kill, where he could step off this blood-soaked road and find something resembling peace.

  It was hard to imagine. The world was full of monsters, full of psychopaths like the ones who'd tortured Sam or the ninja who'd tried—and briefly succeeded—to murder Jade. There would always be threats, enemies, reasons to fight.

  But maybe, somewhere down the line, there'd be a branch in the path. A choice. A moment where he could lay down his weapons and say "enough" and actually mean it.

  That fragile, hopeful thought brought a warmth to the cold void around him. It was naive, probably. Childish, even. But fuck it, he needed hope right now. Needed to believe that this wouldn't be his life forever. Eventually things could get better, and the killing could stop.

  So he'd hold onto that. Use it as fuel to keep going, keep fighting, so he could survive until that hypothetical future became real.

  The void began to lighten, signalling the end of Rest's duration. John felt the pull of his physical body calling him back, drawing his consciousness out of the nothing and into reality.

  He let himself be pulled, emerging from the darkness. John opened his eyes.

  The bedroom hadn't changed. Same torn wallpaper, same debris, same crimson light filtering through intact windows. He sat up, stretching his arms over his head, and felt the familiar rush of alertness that came with Rest's conclusion. Physically refreshed, mentally still a bit wrung out, but functional.

  Time to get back to work.

  He pulled up his System menu with a thought, eyes immediately going to his current Aura total: 640,550. The number made him pause, despite himself. That was... a lot.

  More than enough to unlock a Level 9 Spell, if he wanted. Hell, enough to unlock a Level 9 Spell and still have plenty left over for other purchases.

  The temptation was fierce. The three Level 9 Spells he’d already unlocked had proved more than worthy of the expenditure. Supernova, Gravity Bomb, and Reaper’s Gale had each probably slain more monsters in their short careers than the lower-tier Spells he’d had from the start.

  He pulled up the Spell menu, scrolling to Level 8 first.

  Level 8 Spells:

  Solar Flare: 64,000 Aura

  Table Flip: 64,000 Aura

  Void: 64,000 Aura

  Aegis: 64,000 Aura

  Tactile Telekinesis: 64,000 Aura

  Momentum: 64,000 Aura

  Resonance: 64,000 Aura

  Annihilation: 64,000 Aura

  Even at Level 8, Tsunami, Vacuum, and the upgraded Draconic Inferno had been worth every Aura point. The wall of water spell was devastatingly effective for crowd control, Vacuum was incredibly difficult for enemies to deal with, and his dragon-fire breath could melt through just about anything.

  But these other Level 8s looked promising too. Solar Flare sounded apocalyptic. Aegis implied some kind of ultimate defence. Annihilation seemed self-explanatory and tantalising.

  Later, he told himself.

  Level 9 Spells:

  Dark Side of the Moon: 128,000 Aura

  Planetary Devastation: 128,000 Aura

  Null Field: 128,000 Aura

  Elemental Supremacy: 128,000 Aura

  The World: 128,000 Aura

  Reality Anchor: 128,000 Aura

  Karmic Retribution: 128,000 Aura

  These were apocalypse-tier abilities, the kind of thing that could reshape battlefields or level cities.

  John chewed his lip, then caught himself and forced his expression neutral. Couldn't risk the Aura deduction for nervous tics, even in private. He activated Biomancy, manually regulating his stress hormones to keep his thinking clear.

  The question wasn't really whether these Spells were powerful. Obviously they were. The question was whether they were the right purchase right now, given his situation.

  Skills too, he thought, tabbing over to that menu. Let's see what Level 8 and 9 Skills look like too.

  Skills had gone a bit neglected in comparison to Spells, in recent times, and he figured he should see to changing that. Though they weren’t usually as flashy, the fact remained that some of his most useful abilities—Accelerate and Flash Step, for example—were Skills, and the passive, Class-like ones were especially useful.

  What the fuck would I have done without Duellist, Grappler, Marksmen, Striker, and Ninja in those early days?

  Level 8 Skills:

  Vampirism: 64,000 Aura

  Kinesis: 64,000 Aura

  Flow: 64,000 Aura

  Threads: 64,000 Aura

  Genesis: 64,000 Aura

  Sentinel: 64,000 Aura

  Paragon: 64,000 Aura

  Slayer: 64,000 Aura

  Specter: 64,000 Aura

  Philosopher: 64,000 Aura

  Level 9 Skills:

  Pure Physique: 128,000 Aura

  Temporal Lock: 128,000 Aura

  Rewind: 128,000 Aura

  Akashic Records: 128,000 Aura

  Prestige: 128,000 Aura

  Voidwalker: 128,000 Aura

  Harbinger: 128,000 Aura

  Overlord: 128,000 Aura

  Nexus: 128,000 Aura

  Catalyst: 128,000 Aura

  John leaned back on the camping bed, frowning at the menu. The eternal problem with his System was, at times, too many options, not enough information. Now that he had so much Aura to work with and no immediate threat in front of him, he found himself dithering over what to buy.

  He'd made some hasty decisions in the past. Combining Spells in the heat of battle, unlocking abilities because they suited the situation, even if they weren’t necessarily the most optimal choice on a more long-term basis. Most of those had worked out, but he'd been lucky. The Draconic Inferno combination, for instance, had turned out brilliantly. But it could have just as easily been a waste if the component Spells hadn't meshed well.

  Don't get bogged down in regret, he told himself firmly. What's done is done. Focus on moving forward. Make better choices now.

  His conclusion, after several minutes of deliberation, was straightforward and twofold: first, he needed OP Spells. Overwhelming, devastating, end-the-fight-instantly kind of power. He had plenty of utility already—Biomancy for healing and biological manipulation, Geomancy for environmental control, Clairvoyance for scouting, Teleportation for mobility. In terms of Spells, power was paramount.

  But there was also another track he wanted to take. He had plenty of Aura to work with, and a lot of lower-level Skills left unpurchased. Would it matter if he put 100k or so into stocking up on passives? Not all of them would be useful, but he had the spare cash, and it’d be worth it if even one in five of them turned out good.

  Athlete, Thief, Engineer, and Rider were, altogether 4,000 Aura. Basically nothing, though they were only Level 2.

  All five Level 3 passives, Hypnotist, Tamer, Bookworm, Polyglot, and Druid, were 10k altogether. Barely even noticed the money leaving his account, so to speak.

  Ranger, Detective, Commander, and Calculator for a cool sixteen thou, because why not? Seemed like a bargain for Level 4 Skills.

  As he was just about to confirm the 8,000 Aura purchase of Hydro Homie and feeling intensely curious as to what the hell that would be, movement outside the window caught his eye.

  John's gaze snapped toward the glass by reflex, his enhanced perception immediately focusing on the distant skyline over Central London. The burning sky rippled and distorted, reality itself seeming to bend and warp around a single point.

  Then the black hole unfurled like a grotesque flower, that perfect circle of absolute darkness spreading across the heavens with the same as every night. The purple-black haze around its edges pulsed with malevolent life, and even from this distance, John could see the first thick streams of black ichor beginning to dribble from its depths into the river below. The familiar folds in reality spiralled outwards, steadily darkening the sky.

  He'd seen it manifest plenty of times by now, but it never got less disturbing. That wound in reality, a fundamental wrongness hanging in the sky like a cancer. Every time he looked at it, his skin crawled, his instincts screaming at him to run or hide or do anything except acknowledge its existence.

  But this time, something was different.

  This time, as he stared at that impossible void, he felt like it was staring back. The idea was absurd, but John was sure he felt its attention settle on him, pressing against his mind.

  It sees me, some irrational part of his brain whispered. It knows I'm here. It's looking right at me.

  Chills raced down his spine. John's instincts moved automatically, activating Mana Sense.

  The pulse of magical energy radiated outward from his core, spreading through Micklefield Hall and the surrounding countryside in ever-expanding waves. Information flooded back to him, plotting a picture of his surroundings in real-time.

  From the north, as expected, approached a wave of incoming hostiles.

  Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. All moving in the same direction, all heading straight for Micklefield Hall with single-minded purpose. The monster wave was massive, easily the largest he'd sensed since the Watford death game began.

  Of course, John thought, his jaw clenching. Can't even get thirty fucking minutes of rest without another crisis.

  He rose from the camping bed, joints popping as he stretched. The mental exhaustion was still there, the fatigue of constant social interaction weighing on his psyche like a lead blanket. But his body was fresh, and people were counting on him.

  Time to get back to work.