I Can See Evolution Paths

Chapter 66: Close To The Gate

The civilian group moved differently now.

The father who knew the streets was at the front, directing the flow through sections he recognized. The nurse moved along the edges, managing the injured while they walked instead of stopping.

The merchant carried two children on his back and used his free hand to point out the shortcuts Kong had found.

Children old enough to hold someone’s hand were holding someone’s hand.

Arthur watched them. "We’re getting faster," he said.

Steven’s voice arrived across the city before anyone could answer.

"Final Phase."

...

The ground moved differently now.

The earlier collapses had been structural: stone giving way, load-bearing sections failing. This was different. This was a huge number of things occupying the same ground and moving in the same direction, and Arthur recognized it before he even heard the sound.

The city’s main gates stood at the northern end. They were opening.

Beyond them, through the smoke and the gap between the massive panels, the movement was continuous and uncountable. Beasts of dozens of species, none attacking each other, all of them running. Not from anything visible. Just running, the way beasts run when every instinct agrees at once that the current spot is wrong.

A true stampede.

The civilians stopped moving forward and scattered sideways and backward, panicking at a new threat on top of everything else.

Arthur’s team didn’t stop.

Athena had already spotted the evacuation gate before the civilians finished processing what they were seeing. Not the main gate, now packed with thousands of beasts with no interest in sharing it. The eastern exit, narrower, reachable through a route the collapse had actually improved by clearing a section of wall that used to block the direct path.

Sun relayed Kong’s rooftop intel as they moved. "Kong sees three beast packs between us and the gate. Two are following the main stampede. The third is cutting south."

Melo moved ahead of the group. The third pack ran into something in its path that redirected it, suddenly convinced it was headed the wrong way. The misdirection held long enough for them to cross.

Vedas led the front.

A Stone Beast had broken off from the main flow and stood in their path. Vedas hit it with the spear at an angle that pushed it sideways instead of trying to shove it back, the right call for something that size.

It moved, and the spear held.

Kong kicked a loose chunk of stone.

It bounced once, and the pursuing beast changed direction.

Athy circled overhead, calling adjustments without stopping, her view above the smoke catching the stampede’s shifting edges nobody on the ground could track.

Mithra caught a child who’d panicked and bolted toward the wrong side of the group, right before the stampede’s edge reached where the child had run. She caught him, redirected without breaking stride, and the formation absorbed both of them.

Arthur cut paths, not through beasts but through the city’s constantly rearranging structure, finding the lines between what was falling and what was holding. Where no path existed yet, he made one.

The Captain stayed beside them. Not leading but present, doing the work in front of him, and doing it well.

The timer read 12:31 when they crossed the market square. At 9:47, they were through the debris from the morning’s early collapses. A flash of golden light to the north: Leon’s team were rushing over quickly.

Amanda’s team appeared and disappeared on the eastern street, handling something Arthur couldn’t fully see. She stayed outside the gate until the last civilian crossed. Only then did she leave.

Silver’s group worked the passage near the gate itself, coordinating civilians through the narrow section like they’d been doing this far longer than their age suggested. He lifted a collapsed beam by himself long enough for two civilians to crawl underneath.

Then he followed.

Everyone was working hard. Nobody was having an easy time.

Another burst of white light flashed near the evacuation gate.

Arthur looked over.

Amanda’s team had reached it first.

The civilians they’d rescued hurried through the glowing portal while Amanda held the rear until the last person crossed. Only then did she step through herself.

A second flash.

Silver’s team emerged from another street, exhausted but still moving. Several injured civilians were supported between students as they crossed into the gate.

Then, golden light.

Leon.

He cut open the final path for his civilians, then stopped just outside the gate. For a moment, his eyes met Arthur’s across the ruined city.

Leon raised his spear in acknowledgment. Arthur smiled and raised a hand back. Then Leon disappeared through the gate.

Sun watched them go quietly. "...They’re securing their score."

Athena looked at the timer. "And probably their Student Council position."

Arthur nodded. "They earned it."

The timer read 4:00 when they got close, and Arthur paused. Everyone blinked in surprise as he started counting quickly.

Twenty-five.

Twenty-six.

Twenty-seven.

Twenty-eight.

His smile faded, and he counted again.

Twenty-eight.

Arthur looked behind the group, then toward the burning city. "...We’re missing three. It should be thirty-one civilians."

The civilians left on this side of the gate made the effort of people avoiding something on purpose.

Mithra was already beside him. "You’re right," she said.

Arthur looked at the group. At the averted eyes. At people focused hard on anything except each other’s faces.

He knelt.

"What happened?" he said.

Silence. The kind that settles around information nobody wants to be the one to carry.

Nobody answered.

Mithra studied their faces for a moment, then said quietly, "They feel guilty."

Arthur looked at her. "About what?"

"They think if they tell us, it’ll put a bigger burden on us. Am I right?"

A few flinched, looking down, gripping their clothes.

Mithra squeezed the woman’s shoulder gently. "It’s okay. Nothing you’ve done is a burden to us. The moment we decided to help you, we decided to take on every problem that came with it. So please, tell us what’s wrong."

Arthur nodded, smiling. "Trust us, I can’t help if you don’t tell me."

"I agree. We won’t abandon you or give up over new trouble," Sun said, Kong nodding beside him.

"Trust us, we can help," Athena said with a faint smile.

"...I-Is it really okay? It might put you all in danger—"

"Doesn’t matter," Arthur grinned.

"You should all believe him. He’ll just find a way to make it work," the Captain said, sighing.

Only then did the woman start crying. "She pushed me. She said she’d come right after, but she pushed me, and I couldn’t turn back because there were people behind me, and then the path closed." She stopped there. The rest wasn’t something she was going to say out loud.

A man beside her, quietly, looking at his hands: "My wife put me ahead of her at the last crossing. Said the structure wouldn’t hold both of us. Said she knew a different way." He looked up once, then back down. "She didn’t know a different way."

A child, smaller than the others, staring at the ground like he was working through something he didn’t have words for yet: "Mom threw me."

Three words.

They landed in the silence and stayed there, and nothing shrank them.

Arthur looked at the gate. Then paused as a third-year team escorted nearly twenty civilians through it before vanishing into the light.

Then another.

A second-year team stumbled through, one student carrying an injured old man over both shoulders while the others held back the last few beasts. The moment the civilians crossed, the whole team vanished.

A fifth flash followed almost immediately.

Another first-year team Arthur vaguely recognized from earlier rounds rushed through, laughing in relief.

One by one, the remaining teams were finishing up.

3:58.

Arthur stood up. "One more trip," he said.

Sun smiled first. "Figured," he said.

The rescued father shook his head immediately. "You don’t have enough time!"

Arthur glanced at the timer. "...Three minutes is plenty."

Silence.

Several civilians turned toward each other slowly.

"..."

"...Is that enough time?"

"For normal people?" Sun sighed. "No."

Arthur tilted his head. "...Really?"

"Yes!"

"Haha, then we just have to not be normal people." He turned to Athena. "What do you think?"

Athena flipped her notebook to the page she needed. "I have three likely spots where the remaining civilians would have stopped. One near the hospital route, one near the eastern market, one at the last crossing we used."

"Huh? Why those places—"

"Oh, was it Athy?" Arthur asked, glancing back to see Athy sweeping through the areas.

"Yes." Athena nodded at Arthur. "We have forty seconds to find and rescue them if we want to make it."

3:52.

Nobody pointed it out. Everyone noticed anyway.

"We’ll hit complications," Mithra said, already checking her direction. "But I’ll gather whoever I can reach."

Vedas twirled his spear once. "...Good."

Melo’s tails rose.

Kong jumped from the ground to Sun’s shoulder, settling into a ready stance.

Nobody questioned Arthur.

Arthur looked back at the burning city. The smoke over the eastern district had thickened. The timer wasn’t getting longer.

He looked at his team. "Ready?" he said.

Everyone smiled like they weren’t being reckless at all.

"Let’s go," Sun said.

Before Arthur could move, four teams burst out from different streets, sprinting toward the evacuation gate with everything they had left.

One third-year glanced at Arthur. "What are you doing?!" he shouted.

Another noticed the direction Arthur’s team was facing. "...Wait. You’re going back?"

They’d already sent their civilians rushing into the gate, and the sight of Arthur’s team turning back toward the burning city stopped them cold.

A second-year stared in disbelief. "...You’ll lose your score!"

Arthur smiled. "We’ll earn another chance."

The student opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

His teammates grabbed him. "Forget it!"

They disappeared through the gate.

Arthur looked at the burning city. Smoke. Fire. Thousands of beasts.

He smiled. "...Looks busy."

"You think?" Sun said, exasperated.

"Anyway, let’s go bring them home," Mithra said softly.

Everyone nodded and sprinted back into the city.

Behind them, the civilians watched. The father who’d guided them from the orphanage. The nurse. The merchant. The children who’d carried what they could. Every person who’d been rescued and become a rescuer, watching the team that found them sprint back into the fire to find the people who’d been left behind to let them through.

The timer kept falling.

3:41.

Behind them, the evacuation gate glowed like the promise of safety. Ahead, the burning city waited. The distance between the two had never looked so wide.

Arthur smiled. "Come on."

Without another word, seven figures ran toward the fire. Everyone else watched them disappear.