The city looked like something that had finished dying hours ago but refused to lie down.
Buildings smoked from broken windows.
Others lay in broken pieces across the streets.
Fires burned in every direction—soft, smoldering embers in some places, raging orange tongues in others.
Beasts still roamed, but they were thinner now—scraps of the endless waves from earlier, drifting through alleyways and ruined roads.
Talia's bike hummed beneath her, vibration travelling through bruised ribs and into sore hands as she guided it toward the East Blockade one last time.
One hour left. Sixty minutes of world.
Then… unknown.
The East Blockade saw her before she even stopped. Cheers went up—ragged, hoarse, desperate.
"Talia!"
"She made it back!"
"War Goddess!"
She didn't have the energy to smile, but she lifted a hand as she slowed, acknowledging them.
They looked better than she'd expected this late. Her traps from earlier still worked—stacked cars, funnel lanes, horn chains. The night teams were tired, but their stances were steady, rhythm ingrained through hours of repetition. A few more people had system armor: glowing gauntlets, reinforced jackets, a couple of cheap helmets sitting crooked on tangled hair.
A girl with a bent metal pole grinned at her. "Will you lead the cities—or whatever's over there?! You're basically our boss already!"
Someone else snorted, "Let her rest, she'll die otherwise!"
Another voice yelled, "We'll build whatever she says!"
Talia just waved again.
Not because she didn't care, but if she started talking, she wasn't sure she'd stay upright.
She walked a short perimeter, tightening a rope between two sedans, spearing three beasts that tried to sneak through a gap, tossing a couple of last Molotovs she'd cobbled together on her way here into densest patches.
"Nice throw."
"She doesn't miss, haven't you noticed?"
"Stop staring and reload!"
The barricade would hold for another forty-five minutes, easily.
East was safe.
For now.
[Kill Count: 8953]
Talia lingered a moment longer than she meant to.
The defenders had relaxed, just a fraction, in a way she hadn't seen anywhere else tonight. Small signs of humanity were creeping back in—someone passed around a dented thermos of lukewarm tea, another was taping glowsticks along the barricade like fairy lights, and a couple of teenagers were arguing over whose crossbow bolt had hit a fox first.
"You? No way. Your aim's like… drunk pigeon level."
"Oh yeah? Say that again when you're beast chow!"
Talia snorted softly despite herself.
One girl—a tiny thing with a shield made from a pot lid—crept close and tugged on Talia's sleeve.
"Um… when we go to the next world… do we get to stay with our mums?"
Talia's breath hitched. She lowered herself a little to meet the girl's eyes.
"If you choose them in the Binding, yes. That's the whole point. No one gets left behind if you don't want them to be."
The girl's eyes grew wet, but she nodded fiercely, clutching her pot-lid shield like it was sacred.
Talia swung back onto the bike, fingers trembling slightly as she closed her grip around the handlebar.
South was next.
The ride back felt longer than it was coming.
Flames licked at the edges of the road where old fuel webs had burned themselves down to stains. Smoke clung to everything. The sky above glowed a sick bruise-purple from fire and ash.
When she reached the second barricade, Rob spotted her almost immediately.
He gave a sharp nod, hose slung over one shoulder, shield strapped to his arm.
"Talia," he rasped. "We're good."
"Has the big guy moved?" she asked, voice rough.
He jerked his chin toward the distant shape—still looming beyond the broken first line, half-shrouded in smoke.
"He hasn't twitched," Rob said. "He just… watches. Don't know if he can't move, or if just him being there gets the others frothing. I'm just glad he stays where he is."
"So am I," she muttered.
She walked the line in silence, the grit of ash and shattered glass crunching under her boots.
The beasts attacking now were thinner—still vicious, still determined, but not the endless flood they'd been hours earlier. The second line was holding well: cars wedged tight, almost no climbable angles; hoses ready on raised platforms; fighters positioned exactly where she'd told them to stand during Industrial's redesign.
She didn't stay long.
Just long enough to cover the weakest gaps, cut down a few dense pockets, and make sure the newbies weren't getting overwhelmed.
"Rotate your front pair faster," she told one little squad. "Don't let him burn out alone."
"Yes, ma'am—!"
"Sorry, Talia—yes, War Goddess!"
In ten minutes she'd killed another dozen clusters, thinning the pressure.
[Kill Count: 9520]
She squeezed Rob's shoulder as she passed him again.
"You've got this," she said.
He exhaled a tired laugh. "Yes, boss."
On the way out, she refilled her mental map and grabbed what little she could into her space pocket—fuel from a half-drained car, a few intact bottles from a toppled pharmacy shelf, one last crate of canned goods someone had abandoned near a fence.
Several families now stood behind makeshift blockades—crudely nailed wood, tipped wardrobes, fridges on their sides. They had poles, shovels, frying pans, and kitchen knives.
Talia pulled over.
"War Goddess? Talia?!" a woman called, eyes wide. "You survived—"
The group converged on her almost instantly.
A woman with ash-covered hair grabbed her wrist. "Take us with you! Please—my sister's dead, my husband—"
A teenage boy clutched her sleeve. "I'll follow you! I'll work! I'll fight! I don't have anyone left to bind to!"
An old man caught the other side of her jacket. "You saved everyone today. You're the only one we trust."
Talia exhaled slowly, every part of her body aching.
"You can ask," she said, "but my family will help decide, and I still don't know how many the Binding will even let me take."
Faces tightened. A few opened their mouths to argue.
She continued before they could.
"I'm not refusing you," she said, quieter. "I just don't want to steal you from people who still need you. Bind to whoever you still have. Or bind to each other. Don't throw away your last chance on a guess about me. I'm not a guarantee."
Silence fell. Then the dam shifted.
One elder nodded slowly. "I'll go to my son by the coast. If he's alive, we'll bind together."
The woman with ash in her hair burst into tears. "I forgot—Dad and Mum… they only have me…"
"Then go to them," Talia said. "They'll be waiting."
Some wept. Some nodded. Some just stared with hollow eyes and clung to each other instead of her.
She made sure they were secured behind locked doors, reinforced walls, or neighbor networks with at least one capable fighter, then pushed off again and rode through the streets.
Her Hunter's Vision flared.
She slipped into a small, tight loop:
Kill. Turn. Kill. Move. Strike.
She tracked stragglers that could threaten those families—taking out anything too close to their blocks, stabbing silently through side alleys, dropping one, two, three beasts in quick succession and vanishing again.
Her mind barely tracked specifics anymore. Only threats and the absence of threats — the rest she left to Hunter's Vision and muscle memory.
[Kill Count: 9631]
Enough. Industrial was last.
She opened the throttle and cut through the broken city, speeding past shattered shops and smoking factory lots, past piles of ash and twisted steel.
Until—
The world flashed white.
Not lightning. Not fire.
Nothing Earth had taught her to understand.
It was a full white-out—color erased, edges gone. For one shattering second, she truly thought the system had detonated the sun.
Her bike skidded sideways.
She jammed her good foot down, the shock still sending echo-pain through her injured thigh as more warmth trickled down her leg.
Then the sound hit. Not a normal boom.
A low-frequency detonation that rattled her spine, vibrated through the asphalt, made her ribs feel like they flexed in the marrow.
Her ears rang violently.
The ground shuddered beneath her wheels—first a faint tremor, then a rolling, stomach-dropping vibration that made entire shopfronts quiver.
Windows along the street fractured with crisp, delicate cracks, spiderwebbing outward before bursting inward with delayed pops. Dust poured from awnings in soft cascades. A metal sign above a bakery slammed against its chain in a frantic clatter, like it was trying to tear itself free.
People spilled out of nearby buildings—fighters, families, anyone still conscious enough to move.
Some staggered onto porches gripping pipes and spears, blinking against the ringing in their ears.
Others pointed at the horizon, faces pale, mouths open without sound.
"What was that—?"
"Is it coming here?"
"Everyone get down—!"
A group of teens sprinted into the street with makeshift shields raised, eyes wide, darting around like the explosion might send monsters barreling toward them next. Beasts froze where they stood—flattening to the ground instinctively, as if trying to hide from a predator too big to comprehend.
Talia felt the aftershock ripple up her spine again, rattling her ribs. The city itself seemed to hold its breath.
Then the wind hit—hot, metallic, tainted with something chemical and wrong—sweeping ash sideways and dragging a low moan through the ruined streets.
Talia tasted metal.
Then foresight slammed into her like a truck.
A burning horizon.
A wave of static light.
Then—
Ocean. Fire.
Far on the horizon, a rising, boiling cloud in the shape of a mushroom.