Matteo answered almost immediately.

  Not a long message. Quick instructions.

  A ping in Sora's interface.

  Sora opened the chat.

  Matteo: Sora. You're close to another temple. South-east of your position. Keep the river on your left and follow the road until it breaks. You'll see a stone ridge. Entrance is under it.

  Sora didn't ask how he knew.

  Matteo always knew.

  He was busy organizing the operations. Not because he didn't want to fight, but because someone had to manage players, information and resources.

  Sora: How many left after this?

  The reply came fast.

  Matteo: If you clear it, that makes 13 temples.

  Sora: Alright. We're going.

  Another message flashed immediately, like Matteo had been waiting for him to commit.

  Matteo: Don't do anything stupid. Clear it clean. Pull back if you need to.

  Sora's jaw tightened.

  Sora: Got it.

  The chat went quiet.

  Rain kept tapping the leaves overhead, constant and patient. The jungle didn't care about plans.

  Sora looked at the group.

  Cecilia was wiping mud off the edge of her shield with her thumb, pretending it was casual even though she was still breathing too hard.

  Thomas stood a little to her left, rolling his shoulders like he was ready to jump in.

  Jun stood half a step behind them, gaze already turned outward, tracking blind angles between trunks.

  Abigail met Sora's eyes first, like she'd been waiting for him to make the call.

  Irak leaned on his blade for a second, then straightened when he saw Sora's expression shift.

  "Temple?" Cecilia asked, like she already knew the answer.

  Sora nodded once. "Matteo has another location. Southeast. We clear it and we're done with thirteen."

  Irak's brows lifted. "Thirteen temples... that's actually something."

  "Who knows how many we still need to clear." Cecila said quietly.

  Sora nodded.

  Then he adjusted his grip on his sword and felt the familiar weight settle into his palm.

  "We move," he said. "Watch each other. If anything happens, remember. Survival is our priority."

  Abigail nodded immediately.

  Thomas did too.

  Cecilia tapped her shield once. "I got the front."

  Sora started walking.

  The group fell in behind him without being asked.

  The jungle blurred past them while they followed the road until the lights thinned, then vanished, and they had to rely on their instinct again.

  And when the stone ridge finally rose ahead. Dark, jagged, half-swallowed by vines, the temple entrance finally showed.

  They didn't hesitate.

  They pushed inside.

  The temple fought like the others. Frogs trying to ambush. Jungle kobolds with different weapons attacking from hidden corners. Close rooms and traps.

  Nothing out of the ordinary.

  Which meant it was still dangerous.

  They cleared it room by room.

  Cecilia took the front and ate hits that would've broke someone else. Thomas forced open formations when the enemies tried to bundle together. Jun vanished into blind spots and ended fights fast. Abigail called blind spots, dashed in, attacked and then fell back. Irak stayed close to Sora at the front.

  They reached the core chamber.

  The core sat in the middle of the room.

  Sora stepped forward with the others behind him.

  One clean strike.

  The core shattered.

  For half a breath, nothing happened.

  Then the system spoke.

  A window slammed across everyone's vision.

  World Stage: 24:00:00

  Protect the village.

  A beat later-

  23:59:59

  The timer started counting down like a guillotine.

  Cecilia's face went still.

  Irak's breath caught.

  Outside the temple, the jungle screamed.

  Not with sound.

  With movement.

  When they burst out into the rain, the world had changed.

  The road they'd come on was no longer quiet.

  Monsters were pouring out of the green like the jungle had been holding its breath for weeks and finally decided it was time.

  Too many.

  Some turned toward them, sensing fresh targets.

  Most didn't even care.

  Most sprinted past them in a single direction.

  The village.

  Sora's interface pinged again.

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  Matteo: Hurry. We need you. The village is getting hit by hordes.

  Sora didn't hesitate.

  "We go back," he said, voice cutting through the rain. "We need protect the village."

  They ran.

  The village came into view.

  And it already looked like a battlefield.

  Lantern light shook in wind and rain, swinging from rope lines strung between trunks and posts. The light did not reach far before it died in the mist.

  A rough oval of cleared ground surrounded by walls that were not really walls, just layers of effort. Palisades made from stripped logs, sharpened at the top. Sections reinforced with woven vines and lashed branches. Gaps patched with overturned carts, broken doors, whatever the system and the players had been able to drag into place. In some spots, the barricades were doubled. In other parts it didn't exist at all.

  Huts clustered tight inside.

  Everything looked temporary.

  And right now, everything looked like it was about to be torn apart.

  At the village edges, makeshift barricades formed choke points. Narrow lanes cleared into the jungle where bushes had been cut back and burned so monsters could not approach unseen. Those lanes were the only roads in or out, each one lit with lanterns and marked with crude signs, each one leading into darkness dense enough to hide an army.

  Players fought to keep those lanes from becoming entrances.

  Not scattered, not panicked, organized. Shield users braced behind log walls with their boots dug into mud. Spear and sword users rotated in tight patterns, stepping forward to strike, stepping back before poison could cling to skin.

  The rain turned everything into noise.

  Metal on chitin. Wet impacts. Shouts clipped short because breathing too hard meant stamina loss. The constant noise of water on leaves overhead, like the jungle itself was trying to drown out human voices.

  And the barricades showed the cost.

  Splintered logs. Vine lashings snapped and re tied. Sections bowed inward where something heavy had hit them repeatedly.

  Inside the perimeter, the village had become a machine.

  In the center, a wider clearing acted as a staging ground. Lanterns spread out scarcely, fire pits fighting the rain, crates stacked into supply piles. Players limped in and out of it like blood through a heart. Injured were dragged behind hut corners where they could rest without getting trampled. People handed out antidotes like rations.

  You could tell who had been here a while and who had not.

  The veterans moved with great care. No wasted swings. No yelling unless it was a call that saved lives. The lesser experienced ones looked like they were trying to remember how to breathe while they fought.

  And beyond all of it the jungle pressed close.

  It did not feel like monsters were attacking a village.

  It felt like the jungle was trying to reclaim the clearing it had been forced to tolerate.

  Shapes moved everywhere.

  Monsters pouring out of the tree line in uneven waves. Some small and fast, darting between legs. Others taller, hunched and armored in bark or chitin, pushing forward like they didn't feel pain.

  The four major guilds had each taken a direction.

  East.

  West.

  South.

  North.

  They weren't banners, not really. Not right now. But each guild worked well together.

  Guild leaders were present. Some were fighting, some holding position and saving energy for what would come later.

  Astons swings in the east were visible even from here. Wide arcs that forced space, each impact knocking monsters back like he was trying to buy time itself.

  On the west side, the dagger guild leader didn't look like she was there until something died. Bodies dropping in clean, sudden cuts, flanks collapsing without warning.

  South was a grind. Shields locked. Spears stabbing in rhythm. The kind of line that held not because it was flashy, but because it refused to break.

  The sword guild leader fought with discipline.

  North.

  North looked worse.

  Not collapsed. Not yet.

  But thinner.

  Like one hard push would fold it.

  Sora saw the gap immediately. Saw the strain in how defenders kept stepping back half a pace at a time, giving ground without meaning to.

  And he noticed something else.

  A presence missing in the pattern.

  Everyone was there except Wilder.

  His guild tag was on the people holding the north, but the pressure in that line didn't have a centerpiece. No anchor. No spearhead.

  Just players trying not to become the next bodies in the mud.

  Sora's grip tightened on his sword.

  "We take north," he said, already moving.

  The others didn't ask why.

  They just followed.

  They moved the moment he said it.

  At the northern barricade, Wilder's members looked half-dead. Their armor was wet and dented. Poison icons blinked under their HP bars.

  Sora grabbed the nearest fighter by the shoulder. "Where's Wilder?"

  The man didn't meet his eyes. "Not worth it," he said. "He doesn't need to come out for this."

  Sora stared. "You're barely holding."

  The man's expression tightened like he was repeating scripture. "We're holding."

  Sora wanted to argue.

  He didn't get far.

  Because another wave hit the line and debate became a luxury.

  They fought.

  And the longer the timer ran, the more brutal it became.

  The jungle didn't send one kind of enemy.

  It sent everything it had.

  Frogs with poison tongues.

  Jungle kobolds with knives and bows made from bone.

  Ranged dart squirrels that paralyzed on contact.

  Snakes slithering under barricades, trying to take ankles.

  It wasn't a battle.

  It was a grind designed to make you run out of everything.

  HP.

  Stamina.

  Focus.

  And lastly, hope.

  19:45:21

  Four hours gone.

  Sora's arms felt like they belonged to someone else.

  Cecilia's shield arm shook every time she blocked. Thomas's breathing had turned ugly. Irak's steps were slower. Jun was still moving but his posture had lost the clean looseness. He was holding himself together with discipline.

  Then the stamina wall hit.

  Thomas backed off first, teeth clenched.

  Cecilia didn't argue. She just nodded and followed him behind a hut, both of them moving like they hated needing a break.

  Irak lasted longer than Sora expected, but then he took a poison graze and the debuff climbed too fast. He retreated, biting down on pain, eyes furious at his own body.

  Jun held out until Sora could see it in the micro-delay of his footwork.

  Then Jun peeled back without a word.

  Sora thought about Jun again.

  How does he keep up with everything?

  And suddenly-

  It was just Sora and Abigail at the front.

  They weren't alone.

  There were other fighters on that line.

  But it felt like they were, because the rhythm between them was so tight the world outside it started to blur.

  Abigail covered his blind side without asking.

  Sora pivoted into her gaps without thinking.

  They killed together.

  Not flashy.

  Just clean.

  Just staying alive while the jungle tried to wear them down.

  A frog lunged with a poison claw.

  Sora ducked, blade cutting up.

  Abigail finished it quickly.

  A kobold threw a knife.

  Abigail tilted, letting it pass her cheek by a hair.

  Sora's cut took the thrower's hand.

  They switched positions mid-motion, shoulders brushing in rain and blood.

  "It's weird," Abigail said suddenly.

  "What?" Sora asked, dodging another poisoned swipe.

  "We're still fighting," she said, and her voice wasn't panicked. It was curious, like her brain was trying to stay functional by solving a problem. "And I'm not as exhausted as I should be."

  Sora's sword caught a dart and knocked it aside. "I've been thinking the same."

  He didn't have time to craft the thought.

  So it came out half honest.

  "Maybe it's the gem," he said, almost joking. "Maybe because we found it together, it-"

  A deadly spear swung in.

  They blocked at the same time, crossed motion almost perfectly.

  Their eyes met for a fraction.

  Then snapped back to the enemy.

  Abigail's voice lowered, threaded between strikes.

  "Sora..."

  He glanced at her.

  She swallowed, then kept moving, like admitting emotion in the middle of a fight was the dumbest possible timing and she was doing it anyway.

  "I'm sorry for that evening," she said. "I just... I didn't want to regret anything."

  Sora's mouth twitched, but she didn't see it.

  Because she was already cutting down a frog that got too close.

  "I'm glad it was you," Sora said quietly. "That I found the gem with."

  Abigail's eyes widened for a heartbeat.

  Sora didn't stop.

  Because if he stopped, he'd lose the courage.

  "I care about you," he said, voice low, brutal in its simplicity. "And in a messed up way... I think I'm glad I'm here. Meeting you. Surviving with you. Fighting this nightmare with you."

  Abigail's smile was small, fragile, real.

  "Then let's get out of here alive," she said.

  Sora nodded once. "Sounds good."

  They fought again.

  Not perfectly.

  But together.

  Three more hours.

  Then their bodies made the decision for them.

  They pulled back.

  In the village center, Matteo stood like an anchor.

  He was directing people, reassigning lanes, moving gear, handing out potions, throwing orders like ropes to keep everything from drowning.

  When he saw Sora, his eyes didn't soften.

  They sharpened.

  He swapped out with another caller in one motion and stepped into Sora's space.

  "I'm glad you're alive," Matteo said.

  Then he did something Sora didn't expect.

  He equipped his spear.

  And started walking toward the front.

  "Matteo-" Sora started.

  Matteo didn't look back. "Did you already forget? I can fight."

  Another figure appeared beside him like a shadow given weight.

  Broad shoulders.

  Focused eyes.

  Max.

  He looked different from the last time Sora had seen him.

  Not louder.

  Not tougher.

  Just... sharper, like grief had been hammered into a point.

  Max gave Sora a single nod.

  Then followed Matteo without hesitation.

  Before Matteo disappeared into the chaos, he threw one final line over his shoulder.

  "Go to Harvald. He's near the portal."

  Sora's eyes widened.

  Then he moved.

  The portal area had become a triage station.

  A forge station.

  A lifeline.

  Sora heard the rhythm before he saw it.

  Hammer on metal.

  The sound that meant Harvald was still standing.

  Cecilia, Thomas, Jun, and Irak were already there, swapping gear.

  But it wasn't the same gear.

  Each piece had a faint aura now. Subtle, but real.

  Repaired.

  Reinforced.

  Optimized.

  Cecilia saw Sora and grinned like the world wasn't ending. "Time to switch," she said. "You go take a break."

  Thomas fist-bumped Sora and immediately started moving back toward the front like pain was an inconvenience.

  Jun didn't fist-bump.

  He just nodded once and went, silent as always.

  Irak rolled his shoulders and followed.

  When Sora stepped closer to Harvald, he saw her.

  And for one second, he already knew something had changed.

  Nikita.