That night, Nate couldn't sleep.

  He lay on a cot in one of the tents, staring at the canvas ceiling, and thought about the monsters he'd killed.

  Scavenger hounds. Level 7 to 11. He'd never seen them before—not in his tower, not on any of the five floors he'd climbed. His tower had stalkers, crawlers, frost stalkers, frost giants. Different creatures entirely.

  Which meant the hounds had come from somewhere else.

  Six towers in the city. He'd cleared one. The other five had hit their deadline.

  Frank had explained it to him weeks ago: thirty days from integration, if a tower isn't cleared, it opens. The monsters inside come out. All of them. All at once.

  Five towers. Five different sets of monsters. All of them now loose in the city, hunting whatever they could find.

  The scavenger hounds were weak—Level 7 to 11, barely a threat to him. But they'd nearly overrun the camp. If he hadn't arrived when he did, Tyler and Mira would be dead. Frank would be dead. Everyone would be dead.

  And the hounds were just what had found this camp. What else was out there? What had the other towers been holding?

  He thought about the stalkers from his own tower. Level 8 to 14, with broodmothers that could reach Level 15 or higher. If those were loose in the city, attacking survivor camps...

  He thought about the frost giants. Level 18, 19. Creatures that had nearly killed him even at Level 15.

  He thought about the Guardian's words. Most worlds do not survive.

  Nate closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe.

  He couldn't fix everything tonight. He was exhausted—not physically, the level-ups had taken care of that, but somewhere deeper. The fight with the Guardian, the rush through the collapsing tower, the slaughter of the hounds. It had taken something out of him that sleep might not restore.

  But he had to try. Tomorrow, there would be more to do. More monsters to kill. More people to save.

  Tonight, he needed to rest.

  Sleep came eventually, fitful and shallow.

  He dreamed of the void between stars. Of millions of worlds, connected by threads of power. Of the Guardian's voice, echoing in his skull: Survive, Nate Rowe. Grow. Become worthy of what awaits.

  He woke before dawn, gasping, his hand already reaching for a threat that wasn't there.

  The camp was quiet. He could hear distant sounds—murmured conversations, the crackle of a fire, someone crying softly in a nearby tent—but nothing dangerous. No chittering. No screaming.

  He lay there for a while, letting his heartbeat slow, letting the dream fade.

  Then he got up and went to find food.

  The camp was in rough shape.

  The barricades were being rebuilt, but slowly. Too few hands, too little material. The hound attack had killed seven people—the final count had come in overnight—and wounded a dozen more. Supplies were running low. Morale was lower.

  People looked at Nate as he walked through the camp. Some with gratitude. Some with fear. Most with a mix of both.

  He understood. He'd killed seventy monsters in five minutes, alone, without breaking a sweat. That kind of power was terrifying, even when it was on your side.

  Especially when it was on your side.

  He found Mira at one of the cook fires, stirring something in a pot. She looked up when he approached, and he saw the same wariness in her eyes that he'd seen in everyone else.

  "Morning," she said.

  "Morning."

  An awkward silence. Nate wasn't sure what to say. He'd never been good at this—the social part, the human part.

  "Tyler's leg is still working," Mira said finally. "He woke up three times last night just to walk around and make sure." A small smile crossed her face. "He's been limping for so long, I think he forgot what normal felt like."

  "Good."

  "That potion. The one you gave him." Mira hesitated. "Do you have more?"

  Nate thought about the spatial ring. Four healing potions left. He'd used one on Tyler. He should probably save the rest for emergencies—for himself, for situations where healing could mean the difference between life and death.

  But the camp had wounded. People who might not survive without help.

  "A few," he said. "How many wounded do you have?"

  "Twelve. Most of them are minor—cuts, bruises, things that will heal on their own. But three are serious. One woman has a bite that's going septic. One man has broken ribs that punctured something inside. And there's a kid—maybe ten years old—who took a claw across the stomach."

  Three serious. Four potions.

  "Show me," Nate said.

  He used three potions.

  The woman with the septic bite. The man with the internal bleeding. The kid with the stomach wound. He watched the healing work on each of them—the warmth, the knitting flesh, the gradual return of color to pale cheeks—and tried not to think about how few potions he had left.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  One remaining. And who knew when he'd find more.

  The survivors watched him work with something like reverence. A few of them actually knelt, like he was some kind of saint dispensing miracles.

  He hated it.

  "I'm not a healer," he told Mira afterward. "I'm just a guy with some potions."

  "You're more than that." She looked at him steadily. "You cleared the tower. You saved the camp. You just healed three people who were going to die." She paused. "To them, you're a hero."

  "I'm not a hero."

  "Then what are you?"

  Nate didn't have an answer.

  The second attack came that afternoon.

  A scout spotted them first—a mass of creatures moving through the streets toward the camp. Different from the hounds. These were bigger, slower, with armored shells and heavy claws. They looked like beetles crossed with tanks.

  [Ironshell Crawler — Level 10]

  [Ironshell Crawler — Level 9]

  [Ironshell Crawler — Level 12]

  Higher level than the hounds, but still far below him. And there were fewer of them—maybe thirty, compared to the seventy hounds from yesterday.

  The camp went into a panic. People grabbing weapons, running for cover, shouting warnings. The defenders took up positions at the barricades, their faces pale with fear.

  Nate walked past them.

  "Stay here," he said. "I'll handle it."

  He met the crawlers in the street outside the camp.

  They saw him coming and spread out, trying to flank. Smarter than the hounds. More tactical. They'd learned to hunt as a unit, to use their numbers and their armor to overwhelm prey.

  It didn't matter.

  Nate walked into the center of their formation and started killing.

  The first crawler lunged at him, claws swinging. He caught one claw, twisted, and ripped it off. The creature screamed—a grinding, metallic sound—and he silenced it with a fist through its face. The armor crumpled like tinfoil.

  Two more came from behind. He spun, drove an elbow into one's shell hard enough to crack it, then grabbed the other by the leg and swung it into its companion. Both went down. He stomped on their heads before they could rise.

  [Killing Intent].

  He let it loose, not because he needed to, but because it was faster. The crawlers in the back of the formation froze, their primitive minds overwhelmed by the pressure. He walked through them like they were statues, crushing skulls, breaking shells, ending lives with mechanical efficiency.

  Thirty crawlers. Maybe two minutes.

  When it was done, he stood in a field of dissolving corpses and felt nothing.

  Not satisfaction. Not relief. Not even the faint thrill he used to feel after a good fight.

  Just emptiness.

  He walked back to the camp. The defenders were still at the barricades, their weapons raised, their mouths hanging open.

  "It's done," Nate said.

  No one responded. They just stared.

  He pushed past them and went to find Frank.

  "Different monsters," Frank said. He was sitting on an overturned crate, his head bandaged, his face gray with exhaustion. "The hounds yesterday, the crawlers today. Different types, different levels."

  "Different towers," Nate said.

  "That's what I'm thinking." Frank rubbed his eyes. "Six towers in the city. You cleared one. The other five opened. Each one had different creatures inside."

  "And now those creatures are spreading out. Hunting. Looking for food."

  "Looking for us."

  Nate nodded slowly. The camp had survived two attacks, but only because he'd been here. What about the other survivor settlements? Frank had mentioned runners and rumors—other groups, scattered across the city, trying to survive the same as them.

  How many of those groups had a Level 20 Enforcer to protect them?

  "How many other settlements do you know about?" Nate asked.

  "A few. There's a group holed up in a warehouse district about fifteen miles east. Another in a hospital complex to the north—bigger group, maybe five hundred people. That one's closer to twenty miles." Frank shook his head. "We've heard rumors of others, but nothing confirmed."

  Fifteen miles east. Twenty miles north.

  On foot, through monster-infested streets, that was a full day's journey. Maybe more.

  "Have you had contact with them? Since the towers opened?"

  Frank shook his head. "We sent runners yesterday morning, before the hound attack. They haven't come back."

  They haven't come back. That could mean a lot of things. It could mean the runners were delayed, or lost, or decided to stay with the other groups.

  Or it could mean they were dead.

  "I'm going to check on them," Nate said.

  Frank looked up at him. "Alone?"

  "I'm faster alone. And if there are monsters between here and there, I can handle them."

  "You can handle anything, apparently." Frank's voice was flat. Not accusatory, just tired. "What about us? What if another wave hits while you're gone?"

  Nate hesitated. It was a fair question. He'd saved the camp twice now, but he couldn't be everywhere at once. If he left and another attack came...

  "I'll be back in a day or two," he said. "If something attacks while I'm gone, get everyone into the most defensible building you have and hold out until I return."

  "And if you don't return?"

  "Then I'm dead, and you're on your own anyway."

  Frank stared at him for a long moment. Then he laughed—a short, humorless sound.

  "Fair enough." He stood up, wincing as his injuries protested. "The warehouse district is east—follow the highway until you hit the industrial sector. The hospital complex is north, past the river. Can't miss it if you get that far."

  "I'll start with the warehouse district. It's closer."

  "That's still fifteen miles through who knows what."

  "I'll manage."

  "Be careful."

  Nate almost laughed. Careful. He'd killed a tower guardian, fought frost giants, slaughtered over a hundred monsters in the last two days. Careful wasn't really part of his vocabulary anymore.

  But he just nodded. "I will."

  He found Tyler and Mira before he left.

  Tyler was practicing walking—actually walking, without the limp, without the pain. He looked up when Nate approached, and his face split into a grin.

  "Still working," he said, gesturing at his leg. "I keep expecting it to give out, but it just... doesn't."

  "Good."

  "Where are you going?" Mira asked. She'd noticed the way he was standing, maybe. The way he was looking at them.

  "To check on other survivors. There are groups east and north of here. I want to make sure they're okay."

  Tyler's grin faded. "You're leaving? Again?"

  "For a day or two. Maybe longer, depending on what I find."

  "And if you don't come back?"

  "Then something killed me, and you should probably run."

  Tyler and Mira exchanged a glance. The same look they'd shared in the tower, when Nate had told them to leave without him.

  "Come back," Mira said. "We just got you back. Don't disappear again."

  Nate looked at her. At Tyler. At the camp behind them—the wounded survivors, the makeshift barricades, the people who'd started looking at him like he was their only hope.

  He wasn't a hero. He wasn't a savior. He was just a guy who'd gotten strong because the alternative was dying.

  But these people needed him. And for reasons he didn't fully understand, that mattered.

  "I'll come back," he said.

  Then he turned and walked toward the east, leaving the camp behind.