"Alright. Lets move out" Cecilia said, infront her stood 72 people with nervous faces.
Behind her, stood Alex, Aaron, Dave and Rachel.
"Alright let's go." Aaron said, sword in hand.
CREAK
Alex opened the gymnasium door and everyone walked out, only to find another horde of zombies staring them dead in the eye.
"Damn! Why do these things keep gathering here?" Dave said in frustration.
"It doesn't matter. Just aim for their legs." Aaron said while turning to look at Rachael who was staring at him.
Everyone nodded and activated their abilities.
Bang! Bang! bang!
It didn't take long before the zombies were incapacitated and everyone looked towards Cecilia.
"We're starting with Aunt Maria's Café, it probably has the most food supplies. We don't have enough time for anything else before it gets dark." She said and started moving towards their destination.
---
In the campus library
Huff, huff, huff
The sound of heavy breathing was all that could be hard through out the room. Six students were sprawled on the floor, too tired to stand.
"Eric, what happened? Everyone died because of the same thing. They all suddenly collapsed and started spitting out blood while in the middle of casting spells. Of over 40 of us only us 6 are left." A student asked a certain brown haired student.
"That's what happens when you run out of MANA and try to use abilities despite that. That moment they stopped due to the pain was all those ant monsters needed to catch up to us.
The only reason the same didn't happen to us is that top many ants kept staying behind to devour the ones that ran out of MANA first. I was down to my last ten MANA points, two more ability salivations and I would be down." Eric explained.
"So that's what happened, what're we gonna do now? Those things are definitely gonna find us soon." Another student asked.
"We need to keep moving, well stay here and rest for a bit longer then..."
STEP, STEP, STEP
Before Eric could finish his words. The ound of food steps rang out like a thunderclap in the quiet library.
"Damn it! Did they find us alredy" a student said while turning to the direction the sound was coming from.
Four zombies were slowly walking towards them.
"Its these things, they're slow just restrain them." Eric said.
STEP, STEP, STEP
As they were about to attack, more and more foot steps rang out.
"There's too many of them here, run!" Eric said and sprinted towards the door, the others following not far behind.
---
Aaron's group
"Keep moving, the king range fighters will handle the zombies. Tanks, just make sure none of them get passed you." Said Cecilia
As they were moving towards the Café, they had been constantly assaulted by zombies, almost of they could tell where they were.
"Try to make sure your MANA doesn't reach zero. Once the long rangers get low on MANA, the close range filters will take over." Aaron said.
'Having zero MANA never ends well' He thought.
"Anyone else hear that?" Dave, who was in the core asked.
"Hear what?" Alex asked.
RUMBLE
The sound started low but gradually grew louder. Almost as if hundreds of horses were charging at them.
"Something's coming" Aaron said with a solemn look.
Far off into the distance faint shadows could be seen growing larger by the second.
"Are those.... ants?" Alex asked while squinting his eyes.
"RUN!!" Cecilia suddenly ordered and no one argued.
They immediately broke into a sprint.
"Don't break formation, we can't outrun them, some of us are not even level 1 yet." Aaron said
"Damn." Cecil cursed
"Halt! Tanks brace for impact!" She ordered.
All the defense abilities were cast at once.
Bang!, bang!, bang!
The sound of the ants crashing into the Sheila's was like bullets being fired. Wave after wave pushed on the shield, testing their integrity.
"Their getting over the shield wall!" Someone screamed.
"Long rangers shot down those getting over!" Cecil ordered.
Swish, Swish, Swish
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Attacks hit the ants and killed them on impact, some still missing.
"They have low defense, don't panic or you'll miss. Conserve as much MANA as possible. Make each MANA point count!." Cecilia shouted.
"There's too many of them! They're still getting through!" Dave shouted.
"Close range fighters, join in! Supporters boost their defense! Long rangers, rest for a bit!" Cecilia ordered.
'She's good, but this won't last, there's too many of these things. Wait... please be right' Arron thought.
"Hold on for a bit longer, I have an idea!" Aaron shouted.
"Throw me up!" He said to Cecilia.
She nodded, clasped her fingers and squatting slightly.
Aaron sprinted towards her and used her hands as a stepping platform to jump towards the roof of a nearby building.
Cecilia pulled her arms up, boosting his jumping power.
SWISH
His body shot off like a bullet, reaching the roof in an instant.
Bang!
His landing was violent, cracking the floor of the building he landed on.
'Luckily this building has a cemented rooftop balcony or it would have cave in.' Aaron thought while straightening his posture.
"Now...." He said.
'Ants are very hierarchical creatures, there's always a leader among them. If I can locate it and kill it they will definitely be less organized and follow their instincts when facing a stronger opponent.
The leader will have a certain feature distinguishing them from the rest. The problem is finding it' He thought while scanning the horde of ants.
Right in the middle of the ant wave, was an ant that was slightly larger than the rest. It was not moving, just staying stationary while the rest ran past it while making sure not to ram into it.
'Hahaha! Found you' Aaron internally cackled.
He stepped on the edge of the building and mustered all the strength in his legs to push himself off into the ants direction.
BANG!
The place he'd just stepped on crumbled and he shot off at high speeds, reaching the ants' location instantly.
'Don't let me down' He thought.
"IGNITION!"
He clasped his hands above his head, his forearms glowed with golden vein-like patterns, giving off high amounts of heat, and he dropped them right onto the ants' head.
BOOM!
The hit created a thunderous shockwave that sent the surrounding ants in a ten metre radius flying.
'I'm not finished with you yet!'
"Now expload!" He said.
'Spark×5!'
BOOOM!!
Another explosion that sent even more ants flying went off. Its force sending him 50 metres into the air.
'That should do it' He thought while falling back down.
Aaron landed on the chared and shattered ground, and exhaled. System notifications rang out non-stop in his ears but he ignored them.
There was nothing remaining of the leader ant, its body reduced to ashes. The rest of the ants seemed to panic without a leader.
"Keep killing them!!" Cecilias voice rang out.
The slaughter carried on for three more minutes until the ants started to scatter. With no orders to follow, they resorted to following their primal instincts.
HUFF, HUFF, HUFF
Heavy breathing was all the sound one could hear among the group.
Everyone was exhausted. None of them had been through a fight that intense before, the adrenaline was still pumping.
"We won." Someone said.
"YAAHHHHH!!!"
They let out a victorious cry to calm their nerves.
Aaron slowly walked back towards the group, the ant leader was pretty far from the group.
"How did you know they'd have a leader?" Cecilia aske when he got close.
'Novels' Aaron thought.
"I didn't, it's just something that came to my head in the moment" He actually said.
"It doesn't matter. How are you that powerful though, those last two attacks killed tens of those things." Cecilia asked.
'So he was holding back during our earlier spar' She thought.
Arron just shrugged.
"Lets find a place to recover our MANA then get moving. We wasted 30 whole minutes because of this." He said.
Everyone agreed with him and walked towards the nearest building.
The library.
"There are some zombies here. You know the drill." Dave said before they could walk into the building.
Around 5 minutes later, all the zombies were subdued and rounded up into a corner. Everyone sat down and replayed the recent events.
"The formation was effective." Cecilia said while sitting next to Aaron.
Her blouse sticking tightly to her body from the sweat, revealing a most welcome sight, but everyone was too tired to appreciate it.
Aaron ignored her appearance and just nodded.
"It's a formation that works best when dealing with large numbers. It will crumble against one overwhelmingly powerful opponent." He said.
"I see. But thanks to the formation, we got to level up quite a bit, and only a few remain at level 0 in our group. We can deal with a situation like that more effectively next time." She said in a slightly cheerful tone.
'Her first victory as a leader's got her quite giddy. Well, the others do have more faith in her now.' He thought with a smile.
"Lets rest, we still have a ways to go. We may have to face more monsters." He said and she nodded in agreement.
'That ant gave me a new ability, which is not necessarily a good thing. Too much versatility could weaken me. It's use will decide whether I learn it or not.' Aaron thought with his eyes closed.