LEVEL 0 IMMORTAL

Fear for the fate of her mother had fully settled inside Elara Vane's heart; she kept dodging the spawns, vanishing into light and shadows just to make sure she checked enough houses. If there was anyone who could survive a place like this, it had to be her mother.

She moved through the chaos like a ghost, her light armor silent, and her grey eyes scanning every doorway, every window, every alley. The spawns did not see her. They could not. She was light, and light did not cast a shadow.

"Elara!" one of her squad called. "We need to fall back towards the center of the square. We cannot hold back any longer, and Theron has requested that you protect the rest of the squad… they are too much!"

She ignored him. Her mother's apartment was close… it had to be. Two blocks. One block. Then she saw the building, and she finally saw her street, and she smiled.

"Elara!"

She stopped at the edge of her street, a total of four blocks were gone, the entire street had collapsed, the buildings on either side had fallen inward, and in their place was a deep pit disgorging spawns.

It was as if a sick god was watching her and knew what she came for and made sure that she would not find it.

"No," she whispered.

A hand grabbed her shoulder. One of her squad, a boy with a round face and kind eyes. "We need to go. Now."

She looked at him, then back at the pit. She looked at the spawns crawling out of it, their red eyes burning, their claws scraping the stone.

She turned and ran.

®

The square was the only place in the lower districts that was not a maze of narrow streets and dead ends. In the center, a fountain stood dry, its basin cracked, its statue of the Storm Ascendant missing an arm and a head; something had bitten it off.

The candidates poured into it from every direction, their weapons drawn, their faces pale, their armor covered in ash and blood.

They formed a perimeter, shields facing outward, ranged specialists positioned behind them, healers moving through the ranks to tend to the wounded.

"How many?" someone asked.

"Too many."

"How many did we lose?"

No one answered, as they were too busy defending themselves from the sea of bodies raining down upon them.

The escalation of this conflict had been subtle, it was kind of a blink and you miss it situation.

Before coming into this place, the general consensus was that there were a lot of these creatures, and that their number was unknown, but even if these creatures were plentiful, they should not number up to a hundred thousand.

At most, it was believed that there were twenty to fifty thousand of them, and although this number would strain these candidates, most of them were Fury Forge and the highest Stage amongst them was at the Mist Phantom level… It was doable.

At the beginning, they had torn through thousands, and yet the numbers were not dropping, but they thought that the source of this must be inside the pit; something was there, perhaps the nest, and burning it down would cut off these creatures from whatever they were coming from.

It was a great idea, and some of the most powerful Siphons here had pushed for the pit, following the lead of someone like Tarian, a prince of Stormfall. Half of them that headed to the pit were dead, and the rest were returning to the central square.

Theron Vex was one of them, he had left his square behind, confident that his beasts around him was all he needed to reach the pit, but now he returned to his square, the Rune Wolf was limping, a gash on its flank seeping black blood, and the Sky Hunter's wing was torn, its flight ragged, only the Deep Crawler had not emerged from the earth.

It was still down there, in the dark, doing something Theron could not explain, and he had tried calling for his beast but had not gotten a response.

The only reason he was not more panicked was due to the fact that he could tell that the Deep Crawler was still alive, and he was too focused on surviving to panic.

"They're endless," Theron said. "We need to end it at the souve."

"The pit," Sera Valdris suddenly called out as she arrived alone, her white armor stained with ash, her sword still singing. "But there are too many; I can cut through hundreds, but there are thousands here."

Elara Vane finally arrived with her squad, moving next to Theron and looking at the injuries his beasts had acquired. Her grey eyes were hollow, and she remained silent while standing with the guild and was finally readying herself to begin killing.

Most did not notice when Kaelen Ashford returned as he moved through the darkness with ease, but his hammer and armor were covered in ash, and he was bleeding.

Pushing his way through the shield wall, he walked to the fountain, sat on its edge, and closed his eyes.

"The stone is screaming, we need to run far away," he said. No one heard him.

Finally, Tarian Arathor arrived, his squad behind him, his Warg at his side. He was not wounded nor did he appear tired, but he had been pushed back from the pit, and that meant that even this son of lightning understood that he could not push through and could only slowly butcher these creatures.

"Form up," he said. "We hold here."

As they were retreating to the central area, they had been killing the creatures behind and around them, and this gave them a few breathing spaces to reorganize their formation.

One of the candidates, a young Siphon at the peak of Fury Forge who had just lost three of his brothers and was still absorbing the shock of what had happened, looked around him in a daze, and all he could see was a sea of red eyes that was pouring down upon them.

"By the blood of the fallen gods, this cannot be natural. No, something is wrong."

He looked around, thinking of finding ways to run, but they were surrounded, and they did not have long to rest.

The spawns rained down upon them, pouring out of what was left of the streets that led to the square, their red eyes burning in the darkness.

There were more now, many more, their bodies pressed together, as there was no space for them to move, and their claws scraped the stone, bringing out sparks from the ash, and what was worse about their charges was that they moved in silence, making it hard to judge how fast they were moving or how close they were.

"Here they come!" someone shouted.

Hundreds of the candidates were dead, but they had a formula that worked before, and the ranged specialists released their power into the crowd; there was no need for targeting when the entire place was filled with bodies.

A girl with fire in her veins raised her hands, and a wall of flame erupted across the mouth of the eastern street. The spawns ran through it, their skin blistering, their eyes boiling, but they did not stop, nor did they scream.

In the distance, Elias, in his armor, was moving towards the pit, and he was about to encounter his first opposition.