Though there were several roads that could have taken them directly from the outskirts of London into Watford, they decided to cut through the fields instead, circling around to the east of the town, bypassing the more residential southern areas so they could aim straight for the town centre, where Doug already knew the locations of some portals. They were confident enough that John's Mana Sense would alert them to anything waiting in ambush, and Doug wasn't entirely sure what the 'rules' of the ongoing situation in Watford were. For the time being, they were basically treating the place like it was one giant, outdoor portal world, and thus working under the assumption that it would have gimmicks like the bus depot.

Their bird companions circled overhead as the group jogged across the fields. Being so out in the open felt a little strange. Exposed, almost. He'd gotten quite used to moving on winding routes through alleyways and back gardens and parks, apparently.

It didn't help that there were dried bloodstains out here, too. Most of them too small to be human.

The fuckers really did go after everything alive, John thought with a scowl. He eyed the bushes and trees lining the fields. Well, I guess they didn't count plant life? Then again, I can't imagine what a tree would be able to do with a system, so it's probably not a surprise whoever's running this shit didn't include them.

John dismissed those useless thoughts for now with a shake of his head. Had to focus. He was in the lead and setting a casual pace, having been silently declared their vanguard, seeing as he was by far the most powerful and versatile. Doug was only a step behind him, though, keeping close to John's right shoulder. Jade was a little further behind, with Lily and Chester bringing up the rear. Their general strategy promised to pretty much follow the same playbook as they had back in the depot; the others would team up and take advantage of John causing chaos.

Much as it still rankled a little that the others automatically assumed he wanted no part in their teamwork, he had to admit it was the best way to operate, considering their group's composition. Furthermore, he didn't know how his system would take the idea of him properly working in a team, coordinating and whatnot. He assumed it wouldn't tolerate anything less than him being the unquestioned leader, and he was sure he'd fuck that up if he took an active hand in it.

Better to let them do their thing while he operated semi-independently. They'd functionally be acting as his support, mopping up his leftovers. That was… fine? Nothing about their systems suggested to him that they'd be punished for that, which he was somewhat envious of.

He sighed to himself, running on. It wasn't that he wanted to properly integrate himself into the team and become a subordinate, or anything. But having his options limited was always going to be frustrating.

Watford proper came into Mana Sense's range only a few minutes after they left London behind. He knew this because, between one heartbeat and the next, several-thousand monsters appeared at the periphery of his range.

Every heartbeat, Mana Sense let out a pulse of arcane energy in an omnidirectional wave, like a supernatural sonar, and, through some magical fuckery, it alerted a sixth sense within his subconscious with a metaphysical ping whenever that wave encountered something with "mana", letting him know the distance and direction of the phenomenon.

Usually, this manifested as a constellation of signatures in every direction, with a variety of distances. Back in London, he'd become quite used to being surrounded whenever he activated the Spell. If anything, not being surrounded bothered him more, at this point. Made him suspicious.

But this… It wasn't as if he'd never encountered large groups of monsters before. Hell, he'd been chased by great hordes several times.

In those cases, though, there'd still been monsters elsewhere. That was the difference. Even when an enormous mass of monsters practically formed a single great blob in their single-minded pursuit, that constellation was still present, representing the hundreds of other monsters that were dotted around, not yet part of the chasing horde.

Here, there was just a jumble of signatures packed together into one column that was sweeping over the distant houses like a wave. It was hard to gauge with any kind of accuracy, but he guessed the horde was easily ten metres deep, and it stretched wide enough that he was sure he didn't have all of it in his range. The column wasn't necessarily moving fast, either. Certainly not a jog by any means, but also nothing that couldn't be escaped by a human with a decent pair of legs.

He slowed his pace a little, but didn't stop. "Got a wave moving through town in my range. Moving west to east." He frowned. "Almost perfectly, I think. Reckon one of the monsters has a compass?"

+400 Aura

He wasn't actually trying to make a joke there, but whatever. He'd take it.

"Now that you mention it, those huge packs might actually have only been travelling in the cardinal directions," Doug mused. "Hadn't thought about it before, but… Yes. I think it fits. Aside from when we slipped the net and got out of there, I can't think of any time they would have deviated too far. And if they did, it would have been north-east, north-west, south-east, and south-west."

John narrowed his eyes, squinting at the town. All he could see from here were rows of modest houses and their back gardens. "Do you think it's more likely that it moves in a pattern, is randomised, or deliberately tries to force confrontations between the people in there?"

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As he said that, the tail end of another column entered his range. This one was moving north to south, and briefly intersected with the west-east column, the two somehow threading through each other without ever slowing down. He narrated this to the others.

"It felt random when we were in there," Doug finally replied. He gave a derisive snort. "And after we'd just gotten out, I would have said the monsters had a set pattern designed to keep shaking things up, but there was no particular targeting to it; you could just get unlucky. Now, my gut tells me it's on purpose, forcing confrontations."

John nodded. He obviously had no first-hand experience in the madness going on in Watford, but that would be his guess, too, from what he'd heard and seen so far.

"Speaking of," Lily murmured.

John glanced back at the American woman, and found her staring intently at the town to their west. He followed the approximate angle of her gaze and activated Eagle Eye. What he saw there filled him with envy.

Because the sight of a man in a flowing dark cloak rising into the air with the beating of giant black leathery wings sprouting from his shoulders would have registered as badass as fuck even before the end of the world. And that wasn't even mentioning the curved black katana with an angry black-and-red aura emanating from the edge he was holding over his head. When the flying figure slashed the blade down, it was like he sliced open a moving gash in reality that crashed to the ground.

It was almost unthinkable that whatever faced that attack could survive it, but there was a great flash of light from ground level, and then a coruscating white beam speared upwards with impossible speed. It looked more like a thin column of light had teleported in rather than a ranged attack.

And yet, the winged man got his black katana in the way to block it, slicing the beam of light clean in half, sending two smaller beams veering off behind him at opposite angles. They heard the reality-warping screech of clashing powers even from nearly a kilometre away.

The beam lasted only a few seconds, and then the cloaked figure furled his wings to his sides and dived with his katana held above his head, readying a colossal slash. His form disappeared behind the houses, but a great explosion of grey dust tore upwards from where his attack had presumably landed. White flashes and great rents of black-and-red aura clashed for a time with booms that echoed over the fields like blows traded between gods.

Then, as quickly as it had come, all fell silent. John bowed his head, knowing another human being was very likely dead, now. He hadn't felt any monsters in the area where that fight had been taking place; the two columns in his range were still far from the area.

"He could have flown away," Lily said.

John looked at her. Everyone had come to a stop to watch the battle, and he started up a light jog again, barely faster than walking. They soon followed, but the conversation continued.

She looked back, eyes red and watery. "You saw that fucker's wings. None of the bug monsters in the horde that chased after Doug's group could fly. He could have gotten out of Watford any time he wanted, but he's still there, killing people."

"It's like Doug said, isn't it?" Jade growled, her voice thick and raw. "People in there genuinely think all this is some survival of the fittest death game. Hell, why wouldn't they? The monsters are clearly acting in a way to make them think they're trapped in the town, and they have to fight to the death."

Behind her, Chester swallowed. "But it's like Lily said, that guy could have flown away. Surely he must have thought to try."

"Who knows what's going through the man's head," Doug said. "I told you earlier: violence rewires people's brains. The people in there… they don't think the way they did last week. Maybe they're in desperate survival mode. Maybe they're broken. Maybe they're filled with rage and can't catch a breather to shake themselves out of it. It doesn't matter. Something that might seem obvious to us will never occur to them."

There was a tense moment when the man with black wings rose into the air once more, but he only flew back towards the town centre, bypassing the two columns of monsters. John watched him go with narrowed eyes. That man was going to be one to look out for, he reckoned.

They continued their run through the fields without any further notable incidents for a while. The north-south horde of monsters soon passed out of his range, continuing their inexorable march. Meanwhile, the west-east monsters eventually reached the very edge of town, and the group got their second look at the monstrous hordes of Watford—aside from Doug, of course, who had seen a lot more of these bastards.

The horde flowed over the houses on the outskirts of town like a black wave, practically blending together into one amorphous mass. Only through Eagle Eye could John distinguish between individual monsters, and even then there was so much movement they tended to blend together. The best descriptor he could come up for what he saw was summed up in one word:

Bugs.

Ants, centipedes, millipedes, silverfish, crickets, spiders, beetles, cockroaches, fleas, and more, all covered in oily black chitin that caught reflections from the fiery sky to make them look hellish.

John was no extreme entomophobe, but the sight was viscerally disturbing regardless. The smallest of them was larger than a chihuahua—which didn't sound like much, but an ant bigger than a grown man's foot was a fucking horrifying thing to behold. More horrifying was the size of the biggest ones, such as the familiar centipedes that were probably over twice as long as John was tall.

Soul Vision suggested they were mostly blues, and thus little threat to him individually. Hell, he could probably hold his own against them as a mass, if he played it right. But the thought of being smothered by that tide of insects sent a shiver down his spine.

He resolved to focus on keeping his distance and using ranged attacks, if he ever found himself having to fight one of these hordes. Ultimate Bullet would be his primary weapon.

There was another moment of tension as the horde boiled up to the very edge of the back gardens, and John wondered if the monsters were going to batter down the chain-link fences and pursue them over the fields. But as quick the monsters had come, they about faced with regimental precision, and started charging back the other way. In seconds, they were gone from view, leaving behind no trace of their passing. Without his Mana Sense, he might have thought they'd vanished completely.

John drew in a deep breath, letting his stuttering heartbeat paint a picture of the monsters' retreat. They seemed to be retracing their exact path, moving east-west now.

The group had once again come to a stop to stare in part-horror, part-fascination at the monsters, and John looked around at them. Doug was expressionless, Jade was grim, Chester looked ready to faint, and Lily had her eyes closed, breathing deeply.

"We'll give it a few minutes for the monsters to make some distance into the town," he said. "Then I think we should go in."

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