Another firefighter, a woman with a cracked yellow helmet and soot-streaked face, stepped up behind him.
"What's the plan?" she asked, tone steady despite the fear in her light blue eyes.
"We can't kill enough one by one," Talia said. "So we kill them by the hundreds. I'll light this when the next wave hits. Keep your people off the edges. If the fire jumps toward the buildings, you fight it — not the road."
"Lots of fuel," the woman murmured, scanning the lanes. "It'll burn hot."
"Good," Talia said. "Maybe they'll feel it."
A civilian nearby swallowed. "People are saying… the system's moving us to another world after this."
A ripple moved through the survivors — exhausted faces lifting with brittle hope.
Talia turned toward him.
"My cousin said he got a message at fifty kills," he rushed on. "Something about 'Binding Hour' and 'family groups'. Said this isn't the end. More like a… test."
Quiet murmurs followed. "Binding Hour?" "Family groups?" "A new world?"
Talia nodded. "Yeah, I got the same message at fifty. I took it as: kill enough beasts to buy you and your chosen family's way out."
That earned several sharp breaths. Someone gripped their crowbar tighter. Another whispered a quick prayer.
She added, quieter but firm, "So every kill counts, more than you think. For both you and your family."
A ripple of resolve moved through the line.
A woman straightened her broom-handle spear.
A teen with a skateboard shield let out a shaky laugh. "So gear really is tied to kills?"
"It is," Talia confirmed. "At certain kill milestones you'll get random armor, weapon, item and Territory Lord packages."
His eyes lit up. "Territory—what's that? Is it like in games, you know, where you build a city?"
Talia chuckled. "I honestly don't know. It isn't explained much, but I suspect you're right. I have been getting a lot of building and infrastructure packages with recent kills. No more personal items though."
Seeing him want to keep asking more questions, Talia spoke, "Alright that's enough about that, if you want to find out more"—she pointed at the beasts—"defeat them."
Hope sparked — sharp and hungry.
A man with a split lip murmured, "So we can earn our ticket too…"
"Fighting matters," Talia said, raising her voice for the line. "Train, Make kills, your gear will follow."
The shift was immediate—people braced better, lifted their weapons higher, and leaned into the fight with new fire in their eyes.
Around her, fear shifted into grim resolve. The barricade steadied.
And for one brief moment, the humans looked like they might outlast the night.
The female firefighter looked down at her jacket — faint shimmer now threading the fabric. System-tempered. Earned.
"Yeah," she said quietly.
Talia glanced at her, "Then stay alive long enough to use it in the next world."
She jerked her chin toward the hose line. "When I light it, you'll stay here. Don't let the fire—or the beasts—eat you all."
The next wave announced itself long before it appeared — deeper growls, heavier steps, a rolling pressure across the asphalt. The horizon shimmered with motion like heat-haze.
Talia climbed back onto her bike, petrol fumes clung to her clothes; her thigh a constant ache under the armor. She had to move if she stopped now, she doubted she would find the motivation to continue.
She rolled the throttle, "let's go," she told the machine. "Another exciting dance."
She rode out along the edge of the lanes, just ahead of where she'd laid the main fuel lines. Beasts turned their heads, tracking her, but she stayed at the fringe, keeping just out of lunge range.
When the wave hit the start of her web, she cut across the front rank and reached into her jacket.
The flare felt heavy and small in her fingers. She struck it against the metal of the bike frame, sparks flickered, then caught. Harsh red light flared, painting the road in bloody tones.
Talia hurled the flare backward, straight into the richest pool of petrol she'd created. It vanished with a hiss.
Fire leapt up a second later, hungry and fast, racing along the liquid lines she'd laid. It darted sideways into a trickle leaking from under a ute, then jumped again to a thicker trail near the median.
In moments, the whole southern entry became a burning lattice. The wave had no time to stop.
The beasts at the front hit the first burning line and tried to veer — but bodies slammed into them from behind. They stumbled, went down, were trampled, driving the next ranks forward and sideways into the fire.
Flames rose in jagged walls and the roar of beasts and blaze merged into one.
Talia gunned the bike up onto a side street and killed the engine beside a toppled billboard, putting a building between herself and the worst of the heat. She sat there astride the bike and watched the world burn.
Her kill count climbed.
[Kill Count: 480]
[Kill Count: 500]
[Kill Count: 522]
Another set of notifications slotted into place.
[Reward #500: B-Rank Territory Gift Pack Logged]
She closed her eyes against the glow.
"Two blockades blunted," she murmured. "Two to go."
Her hands finally began to shake in earnest.
Adrenaline dump.
She reached into her space, pulled out an E-Rank ration bar and one of the metal water bottles, and sat there while the fire corridor did its work.
She chewed mechanically, not tasting much, washing it down with lukewarm water. When the bottle was half-empty, she set it aside and peeled back her armored pants to check her thigh.
The bandage was spotted through with new blood, but not soaked, and faint glowing lines were still visible, the healing wrap still doing its job. Her shoulder ached like crazy; she'd pushed it too hard again. Hopefully someone could strap and brace it properly later, it might stop feeling like it was held together with just stubbornness and luck.
Really she was waiting for the new world. Her family would be around and she could rest a bit.
The world tilted slightly. A familiar pressure brushed the inside of her skull.
"Now?" she muttered. "Fine. Show me."
She didn't fight the vision.
The storeroom had boxes, shelves, sacks of rice and flour, a chest freezer humming softly from a back-up generator and a back door with a broken panel which two corrupted wolves broke in through.
Brielle froze mid-step, arms full of canned food. For a fraction of a second, she did nothing.
Then both wolves turned, one toward her.
The other…lunged for the boy, Jace.
Grandma stepped in front of him, shoving the boy behind her. She swung her garden spade in a vicious arc. Bone cracked. A second strike dropped the beast at her feet.
The spade connected with wolf 2's jaw.
The other wolf leapt at Brielle. She moved — axe low, desperate, landing a deep cut. Claws raked her arm. She yelled, yanked the blade free.
The wolf staggered —
and a shield smashed into its face.
Theo stood behind it, Lira tucked behind his legs, a metallic bracer on one arm. He blocked, Brielle finished the kill, shaking so hard she nearly fell.
"We're all going to get armor now," Grandma panted, lifting her spade. "So keep fighting."
The vision tugged sideways. Home.
The Rowe house was busier now Solar Lights were strung all around the building and fences and faces she recognised and some she didn't.
Tag-alongs. Neighbours. Cael and Theo's teammates. People moved through the yard carrying timber, crates, sacks of food.
Mum stood at the old stove, hair tied back, stirring a huge pot of something that smelled rich and savoury. Steam fogged the air. Kids darted in and out, lured by the scent.
"Out of the kitchen," she scolded, but her voice was warm. "You get food faster if you let me cook it."
On the back step, Grandpa sat on an upturned crate, polishing an axe it looked almost like a cousin to Talia's spear — not identical, but in the same family of tempered, otherworldly metal.
He was wearing a leather vest that matched hers almost perfectly, plates reinforced under the surface.
He ran a thumb over the edge of the axe, nodded once in satisfaction, then set it across his knees.
"Not bad for an old man," he muttered.
The extra helpers moved beyond the gate, setting up rough roadblocks with cars, fallen branches and a mangled trailer. They worked in teams — some watched with weapons ready while others stacked and wedged.
System gear glinted on several of them. Bracers. Shin guards. A helmet here and there. Earned.
The house was becoming a little fortress.
The vision moved again. Dav this time.
He stood in the middle of a road, wearing a helmet with a light attached; it didn't fit his strict image.
A bus full of survivors behind him, scrambling down, limping, helping each other.
In front of him, four beasts paced.
Dav's armor was different now — darker, layered, plates sitting beneath fabric, edges lined with faint lines. Two swords hung in his hands, both System-sharp, their lines too clean for anything made in a normal forge.
He was tired.
She could feel it even through the vision.
Muscles screaming, mind stretched thin. But his stance didn't waver.
The first beast charged.
He stepped in, blade rising, cutting. One down.
The second went low.
He jumped, twisting mid-air, bringing the other sword down hard enough to split its spine.
The third hit his side. His armor flexed, absorbing the worst of it. He slid, boots scraping the asphalt, then rammed an elbow into its skull.
The fourth hesitated.
Dav snarled at it — a short, sharp sound — and moved first.
By the time the last bus passenger's foot hit the road, all four beasts were ash.
Dav leaned a hand against a streetlamp, head bowed, sucking in air.
Then he pushed off and turned to haul the last stragglers toward a shattered stairwell leading to an underground carpark.
Talia's mind returned. To the bike, the fire dying into scattered blaze patches and the smoke painting the sky grey.
Her hands were cramped around the handlebars. Her ration bar wrapper rustled in her lap. She exhaled slowly.
Brielle's first solo kill, Grandma on wolf duty, Grandpa in matching armour, Dav armed to the teeth, Theo fighting steadier and the house fortified. They were adapting, becoming something that could survive the next world.
Talia capped her water bottle, stuffed the wrapper away, and straightened. She wasn't just enduring anymore.
She was learning.
Talia started the bike, the engine caught on the second try. When she moved, her thigh protested and her shoulder pulled in a dull, dragging line — but the pain was familiar now, something she could work around instead of drowning in.
Exhaust rumbling beneath her, sky darkening above, she turned the handlebars toward the industrial district.
Two blockades down.
Two to go.
And somewhere behind the smoke and blood, the promise of a new home crept closer with every kill.