With barely half a second to spare, I rushed forward, searching for an opening and leaving Aerion and Yashas to distract the horde behind me.

  With a normal horde, that would’ve been easy. With one led by a commander… it was easier said than done, as the zombies all shifted at once to move my way, resembling a single organism more than a mob.

  My target was, of course, the commander, but even with my absurd speed in Grace build, getting to him was nowhere near as simple as that. Several large-framed zombies lumbered into my path, blocking me. My flying swords slashed their necks open, but they still collided with me mid-charge.

  They were dead before I even hit the ground, but it didn’t matter. The commander had already succeeded in halting my momentum.

  I pushed every ounce of speed my suit could give into my muscles, which was not insignificant. I blurred around the base of Tokyo Tower faster than the zombies could track, and I managed to close to within ten feet of the commander before he adapted.

  I had to give it to him—the bastard was sharp. In those few seconds, he realized that guessing my position was pointless and instead packed himself behind a solid mass of shamblers, who formed a living wall around him. Not just that, he'd seen me fire my Siege Bolt earlier and had accurately estimated its blast radius with just that one explosion, positioning himself just close enough to Richard and Arianna that I couldn't safely explode it without either threatening them or compromising the structural integrity of the tower's leg. Arianna would likely be fine even if the tower collapsed on her, but with how squishy Richard was, I didn't dare risk trapping him under that.

  And he wasn't the only squishy one right now. My Grace suit, for all its speed, couldn’t tank hits the way Vigor could. If even one of those big guys clipped me, I’d be red paste.

  So I had no choice but to dart, weave, slice, and fling shards at anything in my way, which, to be fair, did down zombies at a respectable pace.

  Respectable, however, wasn’t nearly good enough when the enemy had effectively infinite reinforcements. For every zombie I killed, two filled the gap, and the commander’s meat shield only thickened.

  If Aerion and Yashas were here, maybe they could’ve helped, but they were nowhere close to the commander, and dragging them along would’ve slowed me down too much. I’d hoped to kill the guy in a single strike, after all.

  No, Aerion and Yashas were barely holding off the mob swarm that relentlessly attacked them, and when I heard a scream ring out through the night, my blood almost ran cold.

  I turned, expecting the worst... but it seemed one of my swords had dived in just in time, preventing Yashas from being sliced through. For a moment, I thought the scream had come from Aerion... but of course, she'd never do that. Not while under Reave.

  Which meant she could very well die without me knowing. I genuinely could not think of anything more terrifying.

  I redoubled my efforts, kiting the zombies, a primal fear forcing me to move faster than I ever had in my life. That kept me safe from their attacks, but the writing was on the wall. Without my help, Aerion and Yashas were on the ropes, fighting for their lives. Sooner or later, I’d be forced to retreat to help them.

  Which, of course, was exactly the commander’s plan.

  But I wasn’t worried. Well, no. My friends were fighting for their lives, I was surrounded by a literal zombie horde from the worst horror movie, alone and cut off, and one bite away from being turned undead.

  I was most definitely worried. But I wasn't without a plan, at the very least.

  The undead commander might have walls of meat on the ground, but the air? That was another story.

  Timing and accuracy would be everything. I had one chance. If it didn’t work… well, Richard and Arianna’s lives were on the line. It had to.

  I forced my every movement to its limit. I fired shards, only to recall them the second they impacted, firing again in a near-endless barrage. I used every trick I knew to hack my way through the meat wall to one of Tokyo Tower's four legs.

  Its skeletal metal frame was like a smaller version of the Eiffel Tower, and I hacked my way through the horde to one, making it look like I was circling for a better angle.

  It wasn't much of a deception, considering it was all I could do to get out of their encirclement. My desperation was only half faked.

  Then, at the last second, I crouched and launched myself upward, funneling as much raw power into my legs as they could take. Thanks to my insane Grace and current lack of Vigor, the strain pushed my muscles to the absolute limit as I bounded thirty feet into the air.

  Pain flared, but I ignored it, activating [Spacefold] to supercharge my jump and concentrating on sticking my landing.

  I rocketed to the metal supports, my mind entirely fixated on grabbing hold of one of the spars.

  Which was why I completely failed to notice the incoming projectile.

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  I caught the flash of light in my peripheral vision, realizing with horror that the javelin wasn't aimed for me, but rather at the point of impact. And I'd just used [Spacefold]...

  And in the distance stood the commander, sneering at me. I could almost see the glee in his eyes as he awaited the destruction of my plan.

  He would've gotten his wish, too, had it not been for a crimson blur that dove in from nowhere, intercepting the javelin, knocking it just enough off course to cause it to fall harmlessly out of my path.

  Galia?

  The phoenix flared her wings and squawked right as I collided with the tower's base.

  With the distraction, I nearly slipped off, but I managed to grab ahold of the thing at the last minute, scrambling onto the strut while holding onto another for dear life.

  “Galia, you're getting a whole fucking pile of Soul Crystals!” I shouted, and if I wasn't mistaken, the bird puffed her chest out just a bit.

  Right before being forced to dodge another javelin.

  “Get clear!” I ordered, shooing the bird with my hands.

  The phoenix made an indignant sound before flying away into the night.

  As bad as I felt, I didn't have the time to think of her right now.

  Zombies were already scaling the tower, and thirty feet wasn't much of a hurdle for these things. I knew exactly how well these things could climb.

  But I wasn't planning on hanging around. The trap was set, and once more, I crouched and jumped, firing myself off the tower, praying that my muscles would hold out long enough.

  The pain this time was completely unlike before. Walking was not going to be fun after, but if this worked, that wouldn't matter. Because I wasn’t just fleeing to the ground or to another strut.

  No, I’d launched myself straight at the commander.

  His smirk evaporated and his eyes widened in dawning horror as he realized what I already knew. That from the air, he had no defense.

  What he didn't know, however, was that I still had an ace up my sleeve.

  [Spacefold] activated, shooting me closer, and then I used my other ability.

  Ability [Hot Swap] activated.

  [Mythril Light Armor Suit] has been swapped for [Mythril Heavy Armor Suit].

  It was why I'd asked Aerion and Yashas to buy me 30 precious seconds. 30 seconds where they defended me with everything they had while I did the dumbest thing imaginable and changed suits in the middle of a battle.

  If a single zombie had gotten to me then...

  But my companions had done their job, and I got to keep my all-important swap.

  Saving it for this very moment.

  And with all the momentum of a sixty-plus-mile-an-hour dive, with the full force of my Vigor build's [Reflect] ability combined with thousands of points of Vigor... I crashed into the commander headfirst.

  It was a bit like dropping a tank onto an average person.

  The commander might’ve been smart, and had a strong throwing arm, but those were both on human scales.

  It took something more than human to survive a tank falling on your skull.

  He didn’t crumple so much as explode, his body bursting into a hundred pieces from the impact.

  I was very glad I’d kept my mouth shut, because the undead gore that splattered across my armor was absolutely something I did not want to taste.

  As it was, I had to fight to keep myself from retching from the sight and the ungodly, putrid smell.

  I didn’t have chance to dwell on it, which was probably for the best. The instant the commander died, the surrounding zombies devolved into chaotic panic, becoming the mindless, leaderless shamblers they were.

  Which meant they swarmed me without any rhyme or reason. Normally, that would’ve made them less dangerous, but with how many there were, piling onto me from every direction, I was nearly buried under a pile of zombies.

  The problem was, they didn't need to kill me.

  A single bite would be enough.

  Luckily, my Vigor build covered my body from head to toe, because if it didn't I'd have succumbed long ago. Even still, one lucky hit, some zombie blood or spittle in my eyes, and I was gone.

  With no room to maneuver, I had to bash my way out one corpse at a time.

  This wasn't quite the lost cause it once was, though, as the commander's absence finally started showing its effect. Leaderless, they staggered in random directions, driven only by hunger and... whatever else drove the undead. It wasn’t long before Aerion and Yashas broke through and caught up.

  “What did you do?” Yashas asked incredulously, looking at me like he’d just seen me teleport through a wall.

  “And weren’t you just in a different suit of armor?” he said, sounding utterly baffled. “How did you---”

  I waved him off. “Long story. And we’ve got Champions to save.”

  But even with the pointed look Yashas gave me, I couldn't wipe the grin off my face. Luckily, my armor hid my expression, or he'd definitely have forced an explanation.

  From there, we pushed forward toward the others, and the going was considerably easier.

  The impact of the commander’s death was obvious now. Instead of a coordinated army of superhumans, we now fought a disorganized horde. Half the zombies chased Richard and Arianna while the other half came after us, seemingly at random.

  Their forces were divided, and we exploited the weakness with glee, carving our way through, following the horde to where it was thickest. It wasn’t long before we saw entire groups of zombies collapsing at once.

  We kept killing and killing, pushing through what felt like an endless wall of rotting corpses, until finally there were no undead left between us and the Champions we’d hoped to save.

  Richard—bloodied, bruised, and panting—turned toward us with a glazed-over expression. He opened his mouth to shout something at Arianna, then his eyes flew wide and his jaw dropped.

  “Greg? Aerion? What are you two doing here?”

  “Saving your ass, Richard,” I said. “Unless you’d rather we leave you to it? Didn’t mean to interrupt anything—”

  I didn’t get to finish. Richard ran straight into me and wrapped me in a massive bear hug, laughing like a deranged man.

  “Bloody hell man, am I glad to see you two! Thought we were goners!”

  I'd been hoping to surprise him, but even I hadn't expected a hug.

  “Good to see you too, man,” I said, awkwardly patted his back until he let go. Arianna, thankfully, kept things much more reserved, merely nodding toward us.

  “We are truly glad you are here,” she said. “Though, I pray you have a way out.”

  “We do,” Aerion replied, gesturing toward Yashas. “This is Yashas, Cunning’s Champion. We brought a vehicle fast enough to get us far from here, as well as a secure safe house. Luckily, we reached you in time.”

  “Found ourselves in a right pickle there,” Richard said nervously. “We were holding on, but my Essence was about to run dry. Once that happened, well, we’d have been done for.”

  “Indeed,” Arianna said. “We owe you a great debt.”

  “Nothing of the sort,” Yashas said, picking off a zombie with his rifle. “Now, we should evacuate the premises before another commander rallies the horde. With numbers like these, I would not be surprised if there were more in the vicinity.”

  “Well, you’ve got that right,” Richard said, gesturing down the street. “Lead the way!”