The Ultimate Regressor System

Chapter 46: Prepare To Be Hunted

Lucas sat with his back against the inside of the gate, chest still heaving, listening to the Bora slam against the iron on the other side with a rhythm that gradually and mercifully, began to slow.

Mor’s people had scattered across the courtyard in loose, exhausted clusters, some collapsed flat on the grass, others clinging to each other in the particular, silent relief of people who hadn’t fully believed they’d survive the last several minutes.

A woman knelt beside a crying child, murmuring something soft and repetitive, and near the gate itself, an older man simply sat with his face in his hands, shoulders shaking.

[Ding!]

[Faction member count updated: 121.]

Eleanor read the notification with a tired, satisfied exhale, watching the number settle. "That’s — that’s good. That’s actually good, really good given everything."

"Nineteen new members and a Relic in one trip," Lucas said, managing a weak laugh despite the exhaustion dragging at every muscle in his body. "Not bad for a day that almost got us both killed."

’Twice for me’ The thought settled in his mind causing him to shudder.

"You did good Lucas" Eleanor looked at Lucas with a soft smile.

Lucas smiled back at her. "Praise from the Goddess? I’m honored."

"Guys!"

Mark’s voice carried across the courtyard before either of them saw him properly, jogging over with an expression caught somewhere between relief and open confusion. "Okay, first of all — you’re both alive, thank god, second of all, who are all these people, and third of all—" He stopped short at the gate, staring past the iron bars at the source of the ongoing, rattling impact still shaking the barrier every few seconds. "Holy shit. Is that a Bora out there? They’re so many. Why are they so many?"

"Long story," Lucas said in a tired voice.

"I’ve got time. We’ve clearly got a very loud, very persistent audience keeping us here anyway."

Eleanor filled him in with as much information as exhaustion allowed — the cross over, the beasts crossing over from the Edge, the fact that not all of them received abilities before the first Edgewalk, Mor’s group and their survival since the sky first cracked, the cathedral, the Relic, the horde that had chased them the entire way back.

Mark’s face paled progressively through the whole account, and by the time she finished, he was staring at the gate with something closer to dread than his usual easy humor allowed.

"So beasts can just — walk into our world now. Permanently. Not just a one-off breach." He rubbed a hand over his face. "That’s not a problem we solve. That’s a problem we have to live with apparently."

"Which is exactly why we got this," Eleanor said, holding up the Relic, its crimson glow pulsing steady and warm in her palm.

"Please tell me that thing does what it’s supposed to." Mark sighed.

Lucas scoffed. "It better. I didn’t get chased half way across the city for a dud."

"Only one way to find out."

She moved to the courtyard’s center, survivors instinctively clearing space around her, and closed both hands around the orb.

The Relic’s glow intensified, crimson light spilling outward in a slow, expanding wave, and Lucas felt it pass through him like warm water.

It wasn’t painful, it wasn’teven uncomfortable, just a strange, settling pressure that faded as quickly as it arrived.

[Ding!]

[Guard Relic activated. Faction Zone protection established.]

Beyond the gate, the Bora’s relentless assault suddenly, visibly faltered, its next charge crashing not against iron but against something unseen a foot short of the barrier, an invisible wall rippling faintly crimson at the point of impact before going completely invisible.

It shrieked, confused, and tried again, with the same result, before finally backing off entirely, pacing around the barrier’s edge with obvious frustration that it couldn’t muster the strength to breach it.

A ragged cheer rose from the exhausted survivors gathered in the courtyard.

"It works," Eleanor breathed, staring at her own hands like she still couldn’t quite believe it. "It actually works."

"Best news I’ve heard all day," Mark said, some color returning to his face.

"Okay. New members, protective barrier, everybody go rest. I’ll handle integration and orientation and whatever else needs doing tonight. You two look like you got dragged behind a truck."

"Feels about right," Lucas admitted.

***

Sleep came harder than Lucas expected, despite the exhaustion sitting heavy in every limb.

He lay in the dark of his room behind the door he had come to lock every night, staring at the same ceiling that had become almost comfortingly familiar over the past several days, and found his mind circling back, again and again, to the crimson notification that was still burned into his memory.

’Marked. It said marked. What does that actually mean, practically? Does it come for me specifically now? Does [Regression] even still work at this point?’

He turned the questions over without finding any answers, exhaustion and dread tangling together until neither one fully won out over the other. Somewhere outside, faint and distant, he could still hear the occasional frustrated shriek of the Bora pacing beyond the Relic’s new barrier, unable to reach anything inside it.

’Well, glad that’s over ...’ he thought. ’At least that part’s handled. At least nobody has to die because of what followed us home.’

He was on the edge of sleep, thoughts finally slowing into something quieter, when the system chimed.

The burning interface appearing in his field of view as if it belonged there.

[Ding!]

Lucas’s eyes snapped open, every nerve in his body going rigid before he’d even processed why.

The notification bloomed in front of him in the dark, the same stark, bleeding crimson as before, and he could feel his stomach dropped straight through the mattress beneath him.

His eyes widened as he saw the text. "No no no no no"

He read the text with shaky eyes...

[You have been marked by the Grim Reaper.]

[Prepare to be hunted.]

"Oh shit."