The situation did not look good.
With each pulse of the portal, more cockroaches poured out.
It was a little like dirty water backflowing out of a drainage hole except that the water had legs and antennae and feelers and these eyes and a sheen on their exoskeleton that made Jennifer recoil violently and emotionally.
On the outside she was still just standing there, slightly behind Frank.
Adrian, who had joined them, had a hand around her shoulder. She wasn't sure if it was to comfort her or stop her from spinning around and running away, because that was exactly what every nerve in Jennifer's body was screaming to do.
Yes, even though she was the author of this webnovel and this entire situation was somewhat her fault. It was either running away or screaming her head off.
But somehow, maybe because the building porch was behind two layers of translucent barriers, and the men around her were just standing there watching like they were spectating a golf event, she managed to stay on her feet and only screamed very internally.
By now the hordes of evil cockroaches were crawling over one another so densely that the road itself was barely visible beneath the living, writhing black tide.
Whoever was fighting had to do so from the tops of vehicles. There was simply no ground left.
The mages were fully concentrating on keeping the battlefield barrier intact — a translucent, strained sphere that looked less like a defensive shield and more like a balloon being slowly overfilled with something terrible.
It didn't help that Angus, Damien, and Quintin kept crashing into either the barrier or each other.
"Duke, you might want to remind your magicians to pay more careful attention to drainage!" Frank shouted from outside the barrier, "It would be a mess if any of that got underground."
"My men are perfectly capable of such considerations." The duke snapped back coldly. "Do not mistake my five-circle mages for your bovine thugs."
Damien was still butt naked and covered with roach goo.
He howled from the top of a toppled van.
He was not the only werewolf in the mess.
The moment he howled, every other wolf in the area paused and joined in the howl.
Even those who were currently supposed to be fighting.
Quintin's purple fire was everywhere. It was enough to be its own mess — firewalls on one side, loose flames spread out across the other. Every now and then, one of the flames would reignite and shoot upwards like a purple geyser of flames.
"What the hell, Quintin!" Damien only just narrowly avoided the flame suddenly thrown up in his direction.
"It'll only burn if you offend me," Quintin declared.
"But you're incredibly petty," Damien told him.
Then he yelped. "Fuck— ow! Put it out! Heal! Now!"
"Idiot! You're costing more heal than you can life steal!" Angus scolded.
The duke had tried to organize the boys.
He was now, however, the only effective area damage dealer on the field because the other mages had to focus entirely on maintaining the barrier.
Jennifer wasn't sure how many Awakener Responder Teams would be required to clean up this mess.
"It might be safer inside the building," Adrian observed. "It doesn't look like any of the responder teams are able to come yet."
"Alright." Frank was in agreement. "Come along, my dear."
Jennifer was about to let Frank lead her back toward the building when there was a loud creaking sound.
From where she stood, Jennifer saw a streetlight uprooted from the concrete like a weed being pulled from soil from the far end of the road.
Then the streetlight swung sideways like a baseball bat through the swarm.
The impact was catastrophic.
It was like a tidal wave had struck — a literal wave of roach bodies was pushed forward in a crushing surge.
The rest scrambled over each other to reach higher ground, antennae and spiked legs clawing for air.
"What the—" Bastien stepped forward and squinted toward the end of the road.
There was only the streetlight swinging again.
This time it struck with such force that a small tsunami of shiny, shell-armored, sharp-legged, antennae-waving creatures were hurled backward against the tide of roaches spilling out of the portal.
It was horrible.
The light pole swung again.
"Get out of there!" Bastien yelled to the other guys.
But everyone was already scrambling out of the barrier.
Just in time.
The newest back wave of insects slammed forward so violently that the creatures covered the vehicles entirely.
Some cars were flipped upside down, their spiked legs jerking helplessly in the air.
Dead or alive, the bodies swarmed against the tide of the new arrivals, pressing dangerously against the weakening edge of the barrier.
Then the origin of the roach tsunami came into sight.
A single man.
He wore civilian clothes — a shirt and jeans — but the buttons of the shirt had given way under the strain of the muscles beneath it.
As he walked forward, he swung the lamp post like it was nothing more than a bat.
Each swing drove the swarm back toward the portal.
He began piling up abandoned motorbikes, building a crude but effective dam to stop the roaches from flowing outward again.
At one point he stabbed the lamp post deep into the tarmac.
Then, with visible effort, he pried out a few more and fashioned them into a spiked fence.
"Tighten the perimeters, please," the man requested calmly when he was within earshot.
The moment the magicians did so, the barriers immediately looked firmer.
"Wow," someone breathed from behind Jennifer.
Jennifer watched as the man single-handedly dragged a dented limousine toward himself and then used it like a rolled-up newspaper to smash and sweep the roaches back toward the portal.
The portal itself was swelling.
Pulsating.
The writhing, failing mass of roaches was being forced backward against the living stream still pouring outward.
"It's gonna blow," Adrian breathed beside her.
"Oh my god," Frank said from her other side.
Then the man threw the limo into the portal, followed by the Rolls-Royce. He also threw in the other cars, plugging the opening like stuffing a wound.
Around the makeshift dam, he bent the surrounding streetlights with his bare hands, shaping them like pipe cleaners to secure the vehicle barrier at the mouth of the portal.
A stray roach fell out.
It landed on the pavement.
And was immediately stomped flat.
"Whoa…" More than one ML was staring with starstruck eyes.
"Who's that guy?" Damien asked.
"That's Ronan," Adrian breathed. "Ronan the Dragon."
Wait.
Stop.
Who?
Jennifer was absolutely certain she had never written this guy.
So why was it that when Ronan the Dragon finally approached them, he smiled and said, "Hi Jenny."
Ronan looked down at his own large hands.
Then he frowned slightly, as if remembering something very important.
"Oh," he said. "The cake."
He paused. His large hands closing into calloused fists.
Then, very quietly:
"Hang on. I forgot the cake."
And without another word, he turned around and ran unceremoniously down the shattered street.