The five students were doing their best to keep the mini bosses as occupied as possible.
The number of mini boss monsters had dwindled down to five, making it easier. Anytime now, they would have cleared this bunch.
Or so they hoped.
Craaaash!
The sound of shattering glass rang out, and instinctively the five threw their gazes upward.
Pupils constricted and trembled.
A pair of figures burst out from the third floor of the school's main building, free-falling through the air.
Boooooom!
The ground trembled as both landed, their silhouettes becoming clearer.
Everyone grimaced.
The system prompt alerted: one was a humanoid mini boss, and the second figure — human — seemed to be dying, their vitality fading.
It was Vice Principal Cromwell!
The poor elder had his sternum crushed by the mutant's foot, as the creature borrowed the frightening force of its fall to land squarely on his chest, crushing it.
The elder let out dying gasps, his body sprawled in a small crater from their landing as the lights in his eyes faded.
The students' hearts palpitated as a foreboding feeling set in.
And their hunch bloomed into reality. A cacophony of shattering glass and concrete rang out as a dozen mini bosses rained down, bulldozing their way toward them.
Their hearts clenched tightly as shivers ran down their spines.
Their terror and fear did not come from the overwhelming number of foes.
But from the areas the foes came from. It was clear what had happened.
If even they struggled this hard with the mini bosses while suffering losses…
The remaining students and staff stood no chance.
Looking at the bloodied claws and maws of the myriad mini boss creatures, it became clear what had just happened.
Right now, they might be the only living humans left in this corruption zone.
"No, this doesn't make sense. The vice principal had a scout skill — he could have avoided them, no?" Jack spoke, his expression grim.
Everyone's eyes flashed, but no one replied. Their sharp minds were already piecing things together.
So what if Cromwell had a scouting gene skill?
For how long had he had it?
How experienced was he in using it?
Could he identify every marker and instinctively know the level of danger each enemy posed based on that?
There were two glaring weaknesses they — no, most of humanity — shared right now.
Lack of information.
And lack of experience.
It had barely been a day since Earth was suddenly tossed into corruption.
And humans still needed time to adapt to a lot of things — time they did not have.
In fact, they were among the lucky few who could already use their gene skills with such natural proficiency.
After all, even if their school didn't train them for exactly this, their minds had been conditioned to cope with disasters and dangers regardless.
But the rest of the mundane humans and immature students across the world, their age and younger? They were still reeling from the jarring transition of Earth.
The ground rumbled as the newly arrived mini bosses burst into a frenzied dash toward them.
Everyone clutched their weapons tighter, tugging on their gene skills. The effect of their dwindling essence already reared its ugly head, as their skills didn't carry as much brilliance and weren't as lethal any longer.
If only they had more numbers…
"Where the fuck is that prick Roderick!" The ever-silent Hubert hissed furiously through gritted teeth as he tried repelling the mini boss he was clashing with, while two more rushed at him.
They needed all the help they could get, no matter how little. And the only person possibly alive who could alleviate this pressure, even slightly, wasn't accounted for.
Elaine's eyes flashed. Her lips moved, but she fell still into an unsure frown.
She could have sworn that just before the earlier clash against the mini bosses, she saw Roderick vanish right before her eyes.
She didn't know if that was his skill, or something else.
Whatever the case, now wasn't the time to ponder the annoying bastard's whereabouts. She was too busy trying to keep her head on her neck.
An icy mist swirled around her figure. A reflective layer of ice slowly crept across the ground, patches of swaying grass freezing.
She let the slippery terrain delay the three corrupted rushing her way as she struggled to handle her earlier foe.
Each second that ticked made their situation grimmer.
Bang!
Hubert's body was sent flying as three other mini bosses bore down furiously on him.
What happened next was no suspense. His terror-filled screams and a series of sickening crunches and squelches rang out before dying down… he was dead.
The pressure grew heavier as everyone's foes increased by one.
A bolt of lightning bloomed from Uriel's palms as he slammed it down, pulverizing and injuring a mutant mini boss while damaging another.
[Congratulations! You have slain…]
His figure crackled and sparked with lightning as he blitzed through the monster's frame, ripping gruesomely through the silhouette of the ferocious beast.
The creature ruptured into a mass of blood and gore, Uriel's body coated with bloody streams as he whisked himself toward the next.
[Congratulations! You have slain…]
Fists burning with cackling currents rained down on another monster's head in maddened abandon.
By the time he was done, its head had become a bloodied, crumpled mess. The corpse twitched as it collapsed.
[Congratulations! You have slain…]
He was so strong right now that his attribute stats had long stopped increasing. It was as though he could feel his body bloated, his limits reached. Every kill he made, he felt vague currents of attributes seeping into his cells only to disperse immediately.
Why this was, the system had flashed a prompt to explain, but he ignored it.
Now wasn't the time to have his questions answered.
Uriel was about to continue his furious spree when…
[Danger! Essence is dangerously low!]
[Refrain from using gene skill any longer or user's life force will be compromised.]
The system's alarming red screen flashed — one he couldn't ignore. He halted abruptly, grabbing his head with both hands as a blinding wave of pain pulsed from his brain.
Everything went blurry for a second, his mind almost drifting into unconsciousness as he staggered before firmly catching himself.
Everything went clear. Coincidentally, he was facing the area where Seth and the Defiled clashed.
And he saw what was happening…
"No!" he gasped, that small exclamation causing his head to ring and his vision to spin.
But he gritted his teeth, forcing the pain down. Seth couldn't die.
He couldn't let that happen. As grim as their situation was, their fates would be sealed if the Defiled was added to the mix.
They couldn't possibly contend with that thing as they were now.
He had to do something — anything.
He forced what little dwindling currents of essence he had left, a blood-red crackling current sparking to life around his figure.
His mind went clear in an instant as he felt a force of energy in his body. He didn't hesitate, ripping out a chunk.
He could feel his cells dying in droves from this act, and instinctively he knew what he had just stolen from — his life essence.
But he didn't care. His eyes flashed as two blades of the Defiled creature struck down on Seth's defenseless figure, drawing flashing lights in the air.
Blood vessels ruptured across Uriel's body as his muscles stretched taut, as he readied himself.
Bzzzzt!
Reality froze in place, leaving him the only streak of light. Moving at a realm of speed he never knew he could reach, his figure tore through the distance.
Unknowingly, he had touched on the ceiling of the very limit of speed a Shackled creature could possibly possess.
Space wrapped around his figure, but he could feel he wasn't strong enough yet to tear through its unfathomable fabric.
In the end, he was still a Shackled creature, limited by distance. The abstract concept of space was still beyond him.
But this speed… it was enough.