Quinn exclaimed in fear. Mnemina's face went white. Even the normally implaccable Anjelica paused for a moment in horrified revelation.

Bertrand pulled up a dome of metal to block the entrance to the stairway while taking shaky steps back.

Driven by their blood raged madness, the creatures began to climb up the railings while yet others threw their bodies over the dome tumbling over it like ragdolls.

"Exit route!" Sera yelled to Anjelica and Hound in their practiced language.

Immediately she saw the change in her mentor's disposition as they took up defensive stances.

"Go!" Anjelica yelled.

The party rushed up the stairs behind her with Bertrand raising walls of metal to block the path of the nightmares behind them only for them to quickly route past them.

Turning towards the left hallway on the second floor, Sera saw Amelia kick in a door far down the hall before running inside with a laugh.

Mnemina and Bertrand had made their way to the top of the stairs and all of them knew it was time to move.

"I will clear the bitch out," Quinn said as he rushed ahead of them. The telltale click of his gun reloading sounded out like an agreeing cheer as he left.

Sera, Anjelica, Hound, Mnemina, and Bertrand then rushed across the veranda and into the hallway as a unit.

"It was nice to meet you!" Gabriel called out. "I will see you again soon."

The creatures then ran straight past the burning flames and charged towards them.

Once they were some distance down the hallway, Hound realized that they had a funnel to their advantage and turned to face the onslaught.

"Hound!" Anjelica yelled in surprise as she turned on her heels towards her lover.

These were not people, these were demons. These were things that Hound understood. Their undulating limbs, their amorphous forms, even their perversions of anatomy were of no consequence. He had lived to kill them for as long as he had his second life.

A flurry of maddened swings emerged from Hound.

Lamprey-like tentacles that emerged from the beast's backs would latch onto him only to be severed in an instant. Such was his fury that he held the line by himself.

These first demons were the fastest as their canine forms sent them careening towards the party. To Hound they were his natural enemy and he dispatched all six of them with tearing of limb and splitting of flesh until the hallway was a crimson gore-ridden battlefield.

His chest heaved but he knew there was more to come. Raising his sightline down the hallway, he scanned for his next enemy.

At that moment, however, he only saw people. Victimized people. Terribly sick people that had been taken advantage of who were frozen in fear by the grotesque display of violence.

He faltered.

"Help us!" one of them called.

"Surrender so that we might be free!" Another called.

"I will be granted death if we succeed! Please!" A pox-ridden woman cried

The crowd advanced while Hound stumbled over his words, the syllables catching in his throat like a dam. .

Sera's world seemed to be pulling apart at the seams.

Anjelica ran forward in fear and confusion to try to pull Hound away from a fight which was itself strange enough. Then there was Hound, the stalwart wall whom she had come to count upon, who was standing there frozen.

Hound will snap out of it and fight them, Sera though with surety. He always has before.

Then, as if in slow motion, she saw one of the sickly raise a blade. It was naught more than a glorified steak knife but she raised it and brought it down onto Hound.

He did not move. He did not even flinch. The blade pierced into his chest and he turned in fear and pain. Hound took a step back and was immediately overrun by other civilians holding similarly crude implements.

Sera looked to the elders but Bertrand was limping badly and Mnemina was doing all she could to help him continue down the hallway.

She looked back at the fight and saw Anjelica trying to pull Hound out from beneath the maddened crowd.

One of the poor wretches raised a club to strike down on the back of Anjelica's head.

Everything was moving so slowly. Sera's head was pounding.

I am not going to run again.

A spray of crimson bloomed behind the head of Anjelica's aggressor as their head whipped back. The hole burned with a violet hue before the figure fell backwards.

There was no sound except for the thrumming beat of her heart and so, not hearing the gunshot, it was with some surprise that Sera saw her own arm holding her smoking pistol aloft.

No time to think, no time to breathe, no time to even react to what she had done.

Her body ran forward, drawing her blade which ignited with violet flame.

Her mother's sword, a bolt of cobalt blue amidst the violet flames, could cut through most metals if she was focused enough with her flames. Despite the fuzzy feeling in her head and the floating sensation of her limbs, there was still a grim satisfaction as she watched her weapon slide clean through the guarding axe of one of the poxed and straight into their neck.

Their weapons were ineffectual in defending them and Sera was a whirlwind of death.

She heard the people's cries, saw their terrified faces, but these were the enemy who were going to kill Hound. They were going to kill Anjelica.

Murderer. A voice called out from her subconscious as if reverberating on metal threads.

It was that word that filled her then. Murderer. That voice repeated in her mind over and over again in the newfound darkness she found herself until she felt a hand grab her shoulder.

Her blade immediately raised but Sera stopped herself. Something told her she was safe. The fog of battle faded just enough to see Anjelica's concerned green eye looking at her.

"Sera, we have to keep moving. I heard Gabriel yell something about sending more."

"Oh," Sera said weakly before dropping to one knee.

She had not meant to fall down but now that she was, her brain began to register the pain. Throbbing tendrils of agony pervaded her and she could see deep cuts on her stomach and shaking legs. Looking over at the wall, the reality of the past few moments hit her. The stillness of the bodies, the state of their bodies after the carnage she had inflicted, made her stomach turn.

"Come on, fledge. We are not going to die here," Anjelica said as chipper as she could muster.

Sera's arm fell as she nearly fell forward onto the floor had Anjelica not been there to catch her.

Taking one of Sera's arms over her neck, Anjelica dragged the now badly limping girl to her feet to continue down the hallway. With as much care as she could, she slid Sera's sword into it's sheath.

Looking ahead, Sera saw that Hound had risen but was looking decidedly corpselike. Whether it was the dead stare in his eyes as he shambled forward or his broken body healing more slowly than normal that gave that impression she could not tell.

Doors to several rooms passed before a howl emerged behind them. Many more of the demons were charging down the hallway fresh and unhurt.

Mnemina made a sound of protest.

Bertrand walked forward, his bones crunching against the ground as he did so. His face was covered in sweat and he moaned in pain as he balled his fists in outstretched arms. Bringing them crashing together, the very nails and fastenings of the buildings ripped from their homes to be liquified and reformed into a metallic wall which sealed off the hallway.

Immediately the sound of clawing could be heard on its other side but for the moment they were safe.

Bertrand turned and smiled at the rest of the group.

For a moment there was hope.

Then there came a deafening splinter as the wall in one of the adjacent rooms came apart. Blasting his way through was the mountainous figure of The Bull who gored Bertrand upon his now singular horn. Lifting him into the air, he never stopped running as he crashed through the wall on the other side.

All of them understood what that meant, as The Bull had simultaneously removed their wallmaker and created a tunnel straight here. The nightmares would not be far behind.

Hound looked into Sera's eyes. There was fear and pain but also something Sera only recognized as resignation and curiously, an apology.

"I will do what I can but you need to secure the Everburn Anjelica ."

Hound turned his back on what was left of their group and raised his fists.

With grim determination, Anjelica ushered Sera back down the hall towards the huge window at the end of the hallway through which the storm raged.

"But Anjelica, we have to help him," Sera said worriedly.

The first of the nightmares appeared and Hound began to fight. Sera struggled a bit but found Anjelica's grip too strong or too authoritative to break.

"Do not look at him. Look anywhere else," Anjelica said.

Her feet churned and fought back for a moment, holding them in place for a moment.

Sera's eyes darted about and found interest in a cracked door. Inside, Quinn was slumped over with a needle in his neck, the smiling devil Amelia shushing him as he fell into an illborn slumber.

"Why are we moving backwards when we should be helping them? Quinn is going to end up like them!" Sera pleaded.

"I AM GOING TO HELP THEM!" Anjelica yelled. "But securing the Everburn is the most important thing in the world. We were wrong to do this offensive. I was wrong for listening to you and believing hope could see us through."

"You brought me here to help. Me, not this thing inside of me Anjelica!"

Pain and despair flashed across Anjelica's face and that was when true terror set into Sera's heart. Those expressions were not things that she associated with Anjelica.

"Mnemina, I order you to force Seraphina out of the window if she will not do it herself,"Anjelica replied coldly.

"Did you just fucking pull rank on her?!" Sera said with anger.

"Angel?" Hound called out.

Anjelica's first shot landed true onto the forehead of one of the caged ones as she rushed to Hound's side.

Mnemina's soft grip pulled Sera back and she found herself numb to it all. She allowed herself to be led with stumbling, dreamlike steps..

"Mina, we have to help them or they are going to die," Sera mumbled

She vaguely registered the sound of the latch opening the window. Wind rushed in as well as the rain.

"On the count of three, we are going to jump Sera. If you do not jump, I will pull you and we will both go crashing into the rocks. One." Mnemina said softly.

The bodies of the hellish animals had begun to twitch and curl back together as they healed. Hound screamed bloody, horrified murder as he fought back the zombified humans.

"We have to warn them that they are healing," Sera mumbled.

"Two," Mnemina said.

The animalistic forms sprung to life once more and attacked Anjelica and Hound, latching onto them where their jaws could catch. Soon they began to lose their footing and fall to the relentless tide. Their forms became eclipsed by the piles of gnawing jaws.

"They are dying Mnemina," Sera croaked through tears.

"Three."

Mnemina began to pull Sera but thoughts had left her. Her survival instinct took over but for a moment as she bent her knees and propelled herself out of the window as Mnemina had told her.

Then there was the fall. It felt like it took ages to fall from that high up. Sera looked and saw the stormy sky alight with lightning, the cold obelisk of the laboratory, and the light streaming out from the window they had leapt from.

Am I alone again? Sera wondered.

Forever and all at once, twenty breaths or two, Sera could not tell but that eventuality was broken by the impact with the water.

The river's current was strong and dragged her to its bottom quickly. She tumbled and scraped over rocks and sticks as her body was bruised and cut. All air had left her as her back collided with the river and she tumbled through the dark without air. She scrambled, her arms lashing out to try to claw onto something, anything, to right herself with but all the stones she grabbed came loose.

A rather strange way to die, she thought to herself. After all this, just to drown alone?

She was broken in more than just her body and so the notion of allowing herself peace became a very real consideration. Just as she was about to give in, a new sensation hit her.

Pain, but not like the others. This was the grip of some immensely strong creature which had taken hold of her. Its fangs sank deep around her collarbone and dragged her against the current. Eventually it pulled her onto the bank of the river, then even a few feet further onto the beach.

Sera sputtered for air and rolled onto her back. Her eyes darted around as they filled with not just light but substance once more.

Commanding yellow eyes gazed down at her.

From a distance, she heard a voice that sounded like Laena's shout, "Sera!"

She tried to get a better look at the body of her savior but all she caught was what she could swear was the rear end of a dog larger than any she had seen. Black as night were the pads of his paws and silver and shining was its fur. Its form disappeared into the reeds having been spooked by the yelling.

Zuso, drawn by the sound of her gasping or some stroke of fate, appeared pushing his way through the cattails

Gingerly scooping her up, the large man then began to tromp through the marshes towards the yelling voices in the distance.