Age of the Deluge

Sheila, trembling but determined, finally swung her baseball bat.

CRACK.

She connected solid, crushing an Arrow Serpent mid-air. As the creature died, she realized Liam was right—these Level 3 monsters weren't invincible. She could do this. Her fear morphed into adrenaline, and she stepped forward, swinging proactively at the next incoming missile.

Dozens of serpents threw themselves at the window, but the team held the line, turning the corridor into a meat grinder. But every victory came with a cost: the bodies kept falling.

Splash. Splash. Splash.

The water outside was practically boiling now, a soup of blood and gore. The attraction was getting too strong. Suddenly, the surface broke with a violent splash, and something different surged out—a creature covered in matted green fur.

An Aqua Simian. Faster, stronger, and a tier higher than the snakes.

Liam checked his status. He was up to 26 Ether. But seeing the ape-monster, he knew the tide was turning against them.

"Roof!" Liam barked, stepping back. "We need to lure them to the roof! We can't let the corpses keep falling into the water."

It was a simple mechanic: blood attracts sharks. Or in this case, monster carcasses attract bigger, nastier monsters. If they stayed in the corridor, the endless buffet of dead snakes would summon something they couldn't handle.

"Got it!" Drake didn't hesitate. He trusted Liam's gut more than his own. He was the first to break formation, sprinting toward the stairwell at the end of the hall.

Sheila was next, with Harris right on her heels, clutching his shortspear.

Harris might have acted like a coward most of the time, but the guy was surprisingly gutsy when it came to fighting Arrow Serpents. He'd already taken down four of them. His spear thrusts were fast, precise, and ruthless—honestly, he was giving Drake a run for his money.

The group retreated down the hallway toward the stairwell. Finally, the pack of Arrow Serpents swarmed into the corridor, slithering low and fast against the floor. But the Aqua Simian that had popped up was even faster. It leaped with terrifying agility, vaulting over the snakes and charging straight for the humans.

Gwen deliberately lagged behind at the rear. She was hungry for kills—more kills meant more Ether, and she needed that to level up.

The Aqua Simian didn't have a fancy fighting style. It was all primal rage—sharp teeth, massive strength, and pure speed. It closed the gap in a blink.

Gwen didn't flinch. Her sharp, cat-like eyes glinted calmly. In her right hand, she gripped her combat spike; her left hand readied her "Verdant Bind." She snagged the monster's attack with the vines, then drove her spike home. In seconds, the pouncing beast was dead, and she pocketed an Ether.

"Don't get tunnel vision! Get to the roof!" Liam yelled from the stairwell entrance.

Gwen glanced at the corridor window. More Aqua Simians and Arrow Serpents were pouring in. The splash of corpses hitting the water earlier must have rung the dinner bell for every Ether Beast in the area.

"I know!" Gwen snapped back, spinning around to bolt for the stairs.

The monsters surged up the stairwell, but outside was worse. Several Aqua Simians were scaling the building's exterior. They climbed walls as easily as they ran on ground—maybe faster. One actually beat Drake to the top.

Drake burst onto the roof only to get jumped immediately. A green-furred Aqua Simian swiped at him, its claws nearly disemboweling him.

"You filthy beast!" Drake roared. He swung his steel pipe with a sickening crunch, smashing the ape's skull wide open.

Sheila and Harris burst out right behind him.

Another Aqua Simian lunged at Sheila. She wasn't fast enough to dodge, panic written all over her face. She was only a Tier 3 Ether Wielder and not exactly a warrior; a Level 4 monster was way out of her league.

Harris didn't say a word. He just thrust his spear, impaling the beast through the chest, then followed up with a kick that sent the carcass tumbling away.

"Th-thank you," Sheila stammered, still shaken. She looked at Harris with genuine gratitude.

Harris froze for a second, then cracked a shy, awkward smile. He clearly wasn't used to being thanked, especially by her.

Liam and Gwen made it to the roof last. Behind them, the stairwell was clogged with monsters. To make matters worse, more Aqua Simians were cresting the edge of the roof in front of them.

They were surrounded.

"Defensive circle! Sheila, with me!" Liam ordered calmly. He immediately put his back to Drake's. Sheila obediently scrambled to his side.

She was the weakest link. By keeping her close, Liam could cover her if things went south.

Liam wasn't afraid. He had his "Spider Climb" ability, and to him, this wasn't a horde of monsters; it was a buffet of Ether waiting to be collected.

Gwen, Drake, and Harris tightened the formation, locking into a circle with Liam and Sheila. Outward facing, backs protected. All they had to do was kill whatever was in front of them.

Gwen let out a battle cry. Her left hand wove "Verdant Bind" spells while her right hand turned into a blur of stabbing motions with her combat spike. Snake or Ape, it didn't matter—she handled them all.

Drake and Harris were holding their own, too. Sheila was the only one struggling. The speed of the Aqua Simians terrified her, but with Liam right there intercepting any fatal attacks, she stayed alive.

In no time at all, Liam had slaughtered five Aqua Simians and four Arrow Serpents. He was the fastest killer of the bunch. His Ether count hit 35—only 15 more until his breakthrough.

Gwen was second in the rankings, bagging six Ether to bring her total to 14. Drake and Harris had each grabbed five, boosting Drake's total to 24.

A low, guttural growl ripped through the air. Suddenly, a massive nightmare clawed its way over the edge of the roof. With a casual backhand swipe of its giant palm, the beast launched a nearby Aqua Simian into the sky. The monkey-monster flew horizontally before plummeting into the water below with a splash.

The newcomer was a grotesquery—a mashup of crocodile, lizard, and human. It had the armored body of a gator and the head of a lizard, but it stood upright on two legs, towering over them at an astonishing three meters.

The most disturbing part? Its skin. It was translucent, like gelatin. Through the semi-clear hide, you could trace the dark map of its blood vessels, the pumping of its heart, and the stark white of its bones. A long, slender tail whipped behind it, the vertebrae clearly visible through the jelly-like flesh.