John was still blinking in confusion when light abruptly returned to the world. He found himself beneath the burning sky once again, standing at the entrance to the bus depot, his back to the large open bay doors. Across the street, a few monsters lazed around in the supermarket's car park, but a quick check with Soul Vision showed they were blues—nothing to worry about.

He quickly turned to the bus depot, and found three things: first, his comrades were there with him, looking equally discombobulated by this abrupt series of events as John felt. Chester had collapsed to the ground, sprawled on his back with his eyes clenched shut, breathing deeply. Everyone else was on their feet, looking around as if astonished that they were really back at the start.

Polly and Zazu flapped over to land on each of John's shoulders, but they were subdued, letting out none of their usual crude catchphrases. It took him a moment of looking around to find the crow and dove; they were perched on the edges of one of the broken windows that lined the zigzagged ceiling in intervals.

Second: beyond them was the real bus depot, stretching back far enough for only half a dozen or so buses to fit in, with little pits in the ground for working on the engines and whatnot, though only a few buses were actually present.

Third, and most important, the portals were gone. The tall bay doors to the depot were wide open, and there was no hint of blue, green, or yellow light blocking the way.

They'd done it. John couldn't do anything about the little chuckle that bubbled its way out of his belly. His shoulders shook with mirth, though the exact details of what he found so funny were difficult to pin down. Maybe it was just relief.

"That was pretty insane," John muttered. "Kinda fun, though."

+400 Aura

"Can't deny that," Doug said, looking up at the doors with a curious tilt of his head. "Even if I did feel like a bit of a sidekick at the end there."

John could only shrug. "That last monster was way too tough. I was forced to throw everything I had at it, and it still nearly wasn't enough." He paused, turning his attention to the burning sky. "Next time, I'll be stronger. Strong enough to take down that oversized crustacean with one shot."

+400 Aura

"You think you'll fight it again?" Lily asked.

"It certainly seemed to think so," John said.

There was a pause before Jade spoke, "What do you mean?"

Another second of silence passed as John looked around at the others, met with curious and confused expressions. "None of you heard it at the end there?"

Five shakes of the head.

"Huh. Guess it spoke only to me, then. It said I won this round, then told me we'll meet again."

"How did you 'win this round'?" Alissa asked, squinting back into the depot as if trying to see into the past and divine the secrets of the battle. "It looked to me like the crab just… stopped trying."

"I have a couple of theories about that. First, and I think most likely, was that it realised the loss of the last eye was inevitable in the circumstances after seeing the powers I had available versus whatever restrictions it was under, so it decided not to waste any more of its time. It was clearly intelligent, and had some leeway in how it could perform its duty. And the way it was playing with us, not taking it seriously… I think it was bored, maybe? Like, if it's been here since the apocalypse started, that's two whole days of being trapped in the portal with nothing to do. Assuming no one else made it down there before us, which I don't think they did."

Doug nodded slowly. He gave a slight smile. "And your other theories?"

"Well, one is that we inadvertently met some win condition it was obligated to concede to. There were lots of weird rules inside the portals." John paused, then sighed. "And, I guess it's possible the monster actually feared for its life at the end there and made a run for it. Though I kinda doubt that, considering it gave me a thumbs up, and generally seemed like it was having a good time up until I destroyed the first eye."

"Those eyes," Jade said, grimacing. She reached up to pull off her medieval knight's helmet, letting her mildly greasy dark hair free. "One blue, one green, one yellow. They were the things spawning the monsters, right?"

"Seems likely."

"And I guess destroying them collapsed the portal worlds, putting us back out here?"

"Also seems likely."

"So why does it feel like the whole thing was set up to give us a fair chance to do so? If whatever intelligence was guiding this whole thing really wanted to stop us, it could have sent thousands of monsters right at us. It evidently could have made way more yellows, and look how much trouble just one caused, with the rock golem."

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Lily nodded in agreement, eyes narrowed at the now-mundane bus depot. "But instead, we faced a fairly reasonable challenge, up until the final fight. We all noticed it while we were in there, but now, looking back… It really does feel like we were given a series of trials."

"Even the final monster treated it like a game," Doug said, "with rules it had to abide by."

Above, the crow let out a caw. Something in it sounded angry, raw.

Silence settled between them, thick and heavy. Unease curdled in John's gut, mixing with the righteous fury that was starting to pump through his veins, filling every part of him with an inner fire.

The stats and spells and skills had already made it all feel like a somewhat gamified situation, and everything else found in his menus just cemented that impression. The extra Menus available in his inventory—Outfits, Crafting, Alchemy—were all stuff he'd expect to see in a video game.

It had been a little while since he'd thought about who or what exactly was behind all this. In a way, part of him felt he should be appreciative that the architect of the apocalypse wanted to give them something of a fighting chance. Imposing rules on the monsters and the portals meant they couldn't be completely overwhelmed. With the power they'd shown, it was clear the monsters could have turned their slaughter of humanity from, say, 99% to 100%, if they really wanted to. Objectively, they should've been at least somewhat thankful that the goal here clearly wasn't the wholesale annihilation of humanity and all other life on Earth.

John felt far from thankful. The idea that all this was a game for some unknown entity's amusement inspired in him the kind of rage that turned the vision red and boiled the blood. It rushed through his body like pyroclastic flow, scorching the insides of his throat and the space behind his eyes, making him feel like he could catch fire at any moment. All of a sudden, he wanted nothing more than to charge across the street and butcher all those monsters lounging around in the car park in the most brutal manner he had available to him, then resurrect them from the dead and make them fight each other for his amusement. See how the fuckers liked it when the tables were turned.

But he held himself back, taking deep breaths, trying to force his expression out of the deep scowl he knew it had settled into. Letting his emotions get the better of him would help no one. He had to direct that rage productively. What good would it do if he went berserk and charged down every monster he came across and indulged in vengeance on them?

Eventually, blind rage would lead to mistakes, and a monster would inevitably get the better of him at a moment when he hadn't the Aura to purchase a level up. He had a lot in the bank after that 25000 windfall for beating the portal, and what he'd gained from raising an army of zombies, but Levels were only going to cost more and more, from here on. Already, upgrading to Level 7 was costing 6400 a pop.

Reminding himself of the zombies sent his mind down a different track. It seemed that casting Summon Undead without a monster assigned as a target defaulted to raising human undead, which were pretty weak, individually. However, he'd raised so many that they'd caused a problem all their own.

There were implications to that. Dark ones. The amount of souls he'd gained from bursting the eyes with a Spell that had the Soul Drain aspect to it was quite alarming, and he couldn't help wondering about it:

What, exactly, were those souls? Blues had given him one or two at a time. Greens as many as a dozen. Any higher than that, he hadn't had a chance to test the Spell on, but he felt it was fair to assume yellows, oranges, and reds would grant him vastly more.

But the fact that the Spell that utilised souls as its power defaulted to raising human undead when presented with no other target…

John swallowed.

There was an obvious reason for that staring him in the face.

It was very likely that the number sitting at the corner of the vision was telling him he currently had access to over 20,000 deceased human souls.

A shiver ran down John's spine. Unease started to build, but it seemed his body had been turned into an alchemical device that transmuted any negative feelings to rage, at this point.

Those white lights feeding the giant eyes were souls, weren't they? He thought as his blood started to burn once more. The eyes were taking those souls and using their power to create monsters, weren't they? All of the monsters we've been fighting so far have been powered by the souls of the creatures of Earth, haven't they?

John took deep breaths. In through his nose, out through his mouth. He held the inhale for four seconds, then exhaled slowly. Repeated.

The others were talking among themselves, but the sound of burning flames drowned them out. His vision felt hazy. There was something heavy settling over him, and he realised abruptly that he still hadn't slept since the goddamn mansion when he'd first met Lily, Jade, and Chester.

Exhaustion hit him like a train. He had the sudden urge to lie down and sleep and forget about all the horror that had engulfed the world. If there had been a bed within his field of vision at that moment, he wasn't sure he would've been able to resist it.

The calming breaths he had been taking tapered off as he let out a long, tired sigh. His shoulders slumped. He felt the parrots reposition themselves. One leaned close and rubbed its face against his, and he absently reached up to run a finger over its feathered skull. A glance revealed it was the red one. Was that Polly or Zazu? He couldn't remember.

He managed to tune back into the conversation just in time to hear Jade ask, "So what do we do next?"

"We fucking kill every last one of them," John said with a small frown. He looked up at the burning sky, then turned his attention towards Central London. The black hole wasn't currently lingering there, but it would be back in a few hours. "We hunt down all the portals, and destroy them just like we did to this one. Then we pick off all the monsters still lingering around outside."

+600 Aura

"That's a given," Doug said. "But what do you reckon we should do in the shorter term, kid?"

"Well, I want to find out if anyone I care about is still alive. That would be nice." John swallowed, blinked a few times. "So. I'm probably going to get onto the M25 and make my way around to Dagenham, where my parents and sister live. See what's happening there."

"We all have people we want to check on," Alissa said.

"Sure. I'm just telling you what I'm doing, if you want to stick around." He shrugged. Then he picked out a house at random and started walking towards it. "In the really short term, I'm going to find a bed and use Rest to knock myself out for a little while. I think I've earned it."

+400 Aura

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