NOVEL NEXT Chapter 68: Fortress
It was harder now. He couldn't just vanish through the gaps in enemy lines. He had to intercept threats meant for Fatty. Cover angles Jiang couldn't reach. Slow down.
He hated slowing down.
But he did it.
Across the room, chaos reigned.
Jennifer Aquafrost shrieked as a drone clipped her with a mana disruptor, her icy aura sputtering as she kicked it away.
Zhao Rui fought like a demon, his fire spells wild and explosive. "I KNEW YOU IT! THIS SCHOOL IS FILLED WITH PSYCHOPATHS!" he screamed as he got swarmed.
Ji Chen was halfway buried under a pile of drones, still calmly casting wind bursts like a mage solving a math problem under gunfire.
In the thick of it all, the Mu Triplets and the Lin Triplets were actually joining forces and doing extremely well for themselves.
Lin Fei spun like a cyclone, staff smashing drones left and right. Lin Xiu vaulted off a wall, impaling a drone mid-flip. Lin Bao let out a war cry and shoulder-slammed a cluster like a runaway bull.
Meanwhile, Mu Qingyu sang as she electrocuted two drones mid-air. Mu Qingxue and Mu Qingling fought back-to-back, lightning weaving between them in perfect sync, frying drones before they could even reach.
"Switch!" shouted Mu Qingxue.
"Switch!" echoed Mu Qingling.
They danced through the swarm like storm spirits—flawless and fast.
It was absurd. Beautiful. Terrifying.
But even as they carved a path through the chaos, they were sweating. Bleeding. Slipping.
All of them were.
Except Damien Bloodbane.
In the midst of flying debris and collapsing drones, his expression didn't change.
He wasn't breathing hard.
He wasn't touched.
He was thinking.
He calculated the movement patterns of the drones. Their reset cycles. Their targeting logic.
Then he nudged Fatty sideways. "Duck."
Fatty ducked.
Three stun batons passed overhead. Jiang Xiao Yu caught the drone from behind and kicked its core.
"...Thanks," she murmured.
Damien Bloodbane didn't reply. He just kept watching. Kept adjusting. Kept guiding them.
And still, more drones came.
More buzzing. More crashing.
More screaming.
And above it all, Professor Kong Hu's voice came again, smug and relentless:
"Fifty-eight minutes to go."
Fatty's jaw dropped. "WHAT?! It's only been TWO MINUTES?!"
Damien Bloodbane cracked his neck. His eyes glowed faintly in the red emergency lights.
"Good," he said softly.
"Plenty of time to stretch."
Red light pulsed from the walls, blinking in time with the relentless hum of drones and screams. Rubber bullets ricocheted off the floor. Mana disruptors sliced the air with sizzling arcs.
Fatty ducked behind a collapsed drone carcass, panting. His shirt was torn, and his left sleeve was scorched. "This… is not... stretching," he wheezed. "This is cardio's evil twin!"
Damien didn't respond.
He was already moving again.
Five drones rushed him at once.
He side-stepped two, twisted between another pair, and swatted the last one aside with the flat of his hand like he was brushing away a fly.
It sparked, crashed, and didn't get back up.
Jiang Xiao Yu followed close behind. She had stopped trying to keep pace with Damien and instead flowed just behind his wake like a shadow behind a sword. She moved where he left openings, struck only when the path was cleared.
Fatty scrambled after them both, swearing with every step and smashing drones with whatever was in arm's reach. At one point, he picked up an entire torso of a fallen bot and used it as a makeshift shield.
"BOSS!" Fatty shouted, ducking behind him as another wave surged. "WHAT'S THE PLAN?!"
Damien Bloodbane didn't even look at him. "Survive."
"That's not a plan!"
But still, he moved.
45 minutes left.
On the far side of the chamber, the Mu and Lin triplets were a storm of coordinated violence.
Lin Fei barked orders in rapid bursts. "Qingxue, right flank! Bao, shield the rear! Xiu, rotate, rotate!"
Mu Qingling was bleeding from her lip. Mu Qingyu's shoulder armor was cracked. Sparks danced around them, not from control—but from mana strain. They were holding, but just barely.
"Switching stances," Mu Qingxue said through gritted teeth, flinging a drone with a lightning-infused kick.
"Six o'clock incoming!" Lin Xiu shouted, and the triplets spun in unison, forming a living wall of destruction.
Even so, it was clear.
They were wearing down.
Every second chipped away at them.
40 minutes left.
Jennifer Aquafrost had abandoned any sense of grace. Her frost magic blasted wide arcs, raw and unfocused. She was limping, hair stuck to her face, breathing ragged.
"This is beneath me," she gasped, stabbing a drone in the eye with an ice dagger. "Beneath me!"
Zhao Rui, half-burned and half-laughing, shouted back, "Then I'd love to see what being above you looks like!" He blasted three drones with a wild fire nova, then collapsed to one knee.
Ji Chen was a statue of calm in the center of a whirlwind. His wind aura rippled in constant motion, deflecting projectiles and pushing drones back in waves. But even he showed cracks now—his shirt torn, his arms trembling as mana fatigue set in.
Back near the center, Damien Bloodbane tilted his head, watching everyone.
"Fatty."
"Yeah, boss?!"
"Start dragging the broken drones into a pile by the wall."
Fatty blinked. "What for?"
"Cover."
Jiang Xiao Yu understood immediately. She moved first, dragging chassis and limbs to a corner, building a crude barricade.
Fatty followed, grumbling, but obeying.
Damien Bloodbane stood atop the growing pile, intercepting every drone that tried to interfere.
His eyes never left the battlefield.
30 minutes left.
More screams.
Mu Qingyu staggered, took a baton to the side, and collapsed. Mu Qingxue hauled her back with a snarl of electricity.
Jennifer Aquafrost was out of mana, stabbing drones with broken ice fragments, tears of rage in her eyes.
Ji Chen was kneeling now, his wind magic thinning to a breeze.
Zhao Rui had stopped talking entirely. His flames flickered low.
Only Damien Bloodbane's trio still moved with intent.
25 minutes left.
The barricade was now a small fortress.
"Come here." His calm voice travelled across the entire chamber.