The ever-shifting monstrosity stampeded down the tunnel, larger than even the bus. Its gaping mouth alone was big enough to swallow a car, and its clawed right arm looked like it could tear through a tank. Its monstrous head split open like a blooming flower, and the monster gurgled and a sound came—deep in its throat, a wet, sloshing urp!

A tide of acid sprayed from its mouth.

Ssss!

The acid burned through steel like tissue. The metal smoldered and hissed, dripping to the floor in shades of bright, glowing green. The roof vanished. The back side of the bus melted away. A splash of acidic bile hit the bus’s right tire.

It popped. The tires screeched. The bus swerved as Sen spent even more of his Flow to keep the sputtering engine alive.

“Move!”

The Flow drained away. The bus flashed with power once, twice, and then that power flickered and the Mortal Commandment failed, unable to push the engine further. Sen leaned forward from the driver’s seat as momentum kept the bus going. Up, up, it went. The engine struggled, burping and gasping, as the speed slowly fell.

Forty miles an hour. The creature was gaining ground.

The gunshots stopped. Em staggered back, screaming; one of her hands were burnt by acid. She held onto the bus’s stanchions, her face smeared with blood and sweat. And yet, despite the gaping wound on her hand, she didn’t bleed.

Blood Manipulation, Sen realized. It stopped her from bleeding out.

Em staggered to the passenger seat. She sat, panting, as her injured hands fumbled with the gun. The magazine slipped out. Em reloaded the last one into it, and as Sen struggled to keep the bus on track with one popped tire, he saw Em form a knife from her blood—a thin, cutting blade, which she used to slice at the bindings they used to keep their larger supplies strapped behind her seat.

And the one she sliced—

For the fuel.

The seatbelts they’d cut and turned into ropes snapped. The gasoline tanks they looted fell down, out through the opening in the bus’s backside, and straight towards the monster behind them, crawling uphill. Em raised her pistol. Fired once. Twice.

The first shot missed.

The second burst through the side of the container, and gasoline sprayed. A lucky hit. Em turned her frantic eyes towards him.

“Throw the lighter!”

Sen’s eyes widened. He jammed a hand into his pocket, closed his fist around the lighter, and—bang! The gasoline-lathered monstrosity swung its arm. A snaking tentacle, nearly a hundred meters long, smashed into the back of the bus and then suddenly metal was crumpling, and there was shattered glass flying, and Sen’s world whirled and spun and tumbled and—

His hands whirled across the wheel and the bus sputtered, correcting itself, before shooting forward once more.

Thirty miles an hour.

Sen dragged the lighter out of his pocket. Click! Sparks flew. Click! A wisp of flame came to life. Sen clutched the lighter tight and channeled his Flow again. “This flame will not die.”

It blazed. Sen flicked his hand, throwing it back, and it zipped down the tunnel with a surge of psionic force.

It struck the Tier 3 Commander and fire bloomed.

The Child of Kulv’arash screeched. The sound seemed to dig into his flesh and scratch at his bones. Flames surged up its arms and torso, blooming into its mouth as if its entire body were made of dry wood. Its agonized roar bounced off the walls and pierced into his ears as it rampaged, slamming its arms all over the tunnel. Boom! The ceiling shook. Boom, boom! Swathes of the smaller Nightmare spawn died, crushed under its rage. Sen felt hope rise in his chest as he pushed the bus forward and then—

Bang!

A tentacle came. It smashed right into the side of the bus.

Metal tore. The bus tipped over and crashed with a deafening screech. Sen jerked—the seatbelt jerked back. It held him in place as the bus rolled across the ground.

Sen hit his head and everything turned dark.

One second. Five.

Sen opened his eyes, and there was darkness and ringing. Ringing in his ears. Fire crackled as the bus’s engine burned. The vehicle lay sideways, with Sen suspended over the ground. Under the glow of the lashing, orange flames, Sen reached for the seatbelt. Click. It came free—he fell.

Thud.

He toppled to the ground and staggered up, pushing out of the hole melted through the bus.

Sen walked out into hell itself.

There was a demon in the distance, burning and rushing towards them in rage. He looked at what followed it: abominations birthed themselves out of the walls with wet, squelching pops and tearing flesh. They gathered, and closing in from down the tunnel, the gigantic, Tier 3 monstrosity crawled forward with an eardrum-shredding scream. It was still far, but it was coming closer. Sen scanned the tunnel for Em. He found her.

Em leaned against the side of the bus, blood leaking down from a cut on her temple. She was on her knees, panting.

Unlike him, she hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt during the crash. Sen helped her up as he pulled them into the bus. He backed up, away, up until he and Em were cornered inside the broken bus. Sen stared at the horde approaching him and Em.

They were going to die at this rate. "Puta madre," Sen cursed. He took a step back.

A wet, oily splash greeted his leg. Sen looked down at the ground.

Gasoline. It glinted golden under the glow of the fire and it crept out from the bus and across the ground. Next to them, Sen saw the containers of fuel that they’d filled up. They were crushed—tipped over and broken, leaking flammable gasoline everywhere. And slowly, slowly, that gas crept closer towards the fire blazing on the bus.

It didn’t take a genius to know what was going to happen next.

Sen faced the horde of monsters as they sprinted towards him. And behind them, the tier 3 monster opened its terrible mouth and roared, urging its army forward. Em raised the gun and Sen gave her a look.

“How many bullets do you have left?"

"Too little," she muttered, eyes dark. "But I have at least two. For both of us, unless you have a plan."

He nodded softly. "I do. But save those two, just in case. I would... rather take a bullet than be eaten alive."

Em gulped and bobbed her head. She turned pale as the blood flowed from her wounded arm, and it coalesced into a knife once more. It was the most her skill could do, the way it was now. Em raised it in front of her as Sen checked his Flow. It was close to depleted; if he used any more, his body would begin withering again.

Still, Sen put a hand on Em's back.

He closed his eyes and uttered five words. “Em is immune to fire.”

She stared at him, eyes wide. "What are you..."

"Trust me," Sen replied, teeth gritted. Ten seconds of fire immunity. His heart burned at the cast. His flesh withered again, as a throbbing headache tore into his skull. Pain flooded every atom in his body, and still, Sen spoke again.

“Em is immune to fire.”

Twenty seconds.

Agony blazed through him. The heat built. Stronger, until embered lines glowed on his skin. It looked as if he had magma in his veins, surging through every corner of him. In the midst of the pain, Sen’s mind moved to his Ability’s first ever extra effect. Tier 1, it said. Up to three commandments may be applied to one target at once, or vice versa. This effect may be used only once every day.

Em knocked his hand away, her face pale.

"Stop," she told him, her glare smoldering. "Don't you dare do this again. You promised me you wouldn't."

"And I won't. Trust me."

Sen forced the Flow out of him as he uttered his final Mortal Commandment.

“Em is immune to fire.”

His Ability's first tier feature activated and applied three instances of fire immunity to Em at once. All for the price of a single cast. Fifty seconds of immunity. And no sooner did it fall over her that Sen saw the smoke billowing out from his scorched flesh. He bit his cheek to force back a scream. This final cast was all he had left.

Fifty seconds. Five layers of fire immunity. That was how much time he could buy. That was how long they had to survive. Sen barely kept himself upright as his entire body smoldered, burning away, leaving what remained of his organs halfway towards charcoal. He stepped back, closer to the bus, right in the center of the massive pool of spreading gasoline. He opened his interface as they backed up, selecting an Augment. It activated. Essence flooded into him, changing his skin. Strengthening it.

Sen looked up at the horde, drawing closer. The flaming Commander slowed them by blocking the way, but it wouldn't keep them away for long. The gas on the ground spread. Closer, closer to the fire. Sen raised a middle finger towards the monster that had chased them this far.

The horde reached them. The monstrosity swung its arm. He watched the gasoline reach the fire—

And flames swallowed the world.

Inferno. The sparks flew. Flames—eternally hungry; they ate everything they touched.

Tongues of fire devoured the tunnel. They lapped at the shadows and swallowed the dark, snapping and crackling and coloring the ground a malevolent orange. The fire was violent and unsatisfied, no matter where it went, and when it touched flesh and charcoaled bone, it brought agony unlike anything else on Earth.

It was a hungry, unfeeling monster.

And it was what it took to kill a legion of its own kind.

Sen and Em limped through the inferno as the Nightmare spawn died.

Absorbing Essence [28/109] – Flesh Crawler [Tier 0] x34

Absorbing Essence [9/37] – Speartongue Pod [Tier 0] x11

Absorbing Essence [59/102] – Skin Eater [Tier 1] x10

Absorbing Essence [103/186] – [Elite] Lesser Spawn of Kulv’arash [Tier 1]—

The notifications came in swarms that rivaled the legion of monsters burning around him. The air choked itself with essence—thick and viscous, saturating the tunnel and flowing into all that were there to absorb it. More of it filled the air as flames devoured the tunnel.

All around him, Sen heard the shrill, throat-tearing screams of his pursuers. They ran from the flames, but the ambient essence infused the inferno and the flames chased, scorching and leaping, seemingly eager to eat all that drew near.

Despite the fact that he and Em were coated in flames, Sen couldn’t help but smile grimly as he trudged forward.

Fire and water, weakness of vampires and Nightmare spawn both.

For monsters that were there to end the world, they sure had a lot of weaknesses. On any other day, Sen would have been there with them—screaming and burning. But as he walked through the flames, absorbing the essence in the air, Sen didn’t feel pain or agony from the heat.

He only felt warmth.

Augment: Demonic Resilience

Passive. The user is immune to all fire effects below the 3rd Tier, and the user’s skin gains the resilience of demonic hide, increasing shock-absorption and natural defense.

Before he’d ignited the gasoline, Sen had killed several monsters during their escape. He had killed a few himself, taking their essence for himself, but the biggest contributor was by far the bus.

The amount of essence he had gotten from running over dozens of chasing nightmare spawn was barely enough to get him over five hundred.

Just enough to buy Demonic Resilience’s immunity to fire.

Behind him, he heard the terrifying Tier 3 Commander roar. The Child of Kulv’arash backed up the tunnel and through the smoke and the flames, Sen saw it glaring at him. It stared at him with a deep, smoldering anger, barely visible beyond the wall of flames spreading through the tunnel.

It wouldn’t die from this. But it had lost the chase, and both of them knew it.

Sen popped two glimmering, pearlescent beads into his mouth.

Flow Bead consumed. Flow restored.

You are no longer Scorched [Stage 2]. Condition has regressed to normal (Flow level low).

Flow Bead consumption has reached the weekly cap (5), and further use will inflict Spiritual Dissipation [Stage 3] on the user.

Much like before, Sen felt the damage to his body fade away as the Scorched condition receded. The supernatural embers searing through him vanished, repressed. And while he was still light-headed from dehydration, he was alive. He would survive, so long as he ran with the flames.

Em, on the other hand, was running on a timer.

Twenty seconds of fire immunity remained.

Sen forced himself into a run, ignoring the buckling in his knees and the faint falter in his step. Em helped him as they jogged into the sea of flames and circled around the toppled bus. They passed to the other side and proceeded onward, into the tunnel’s uphill climb, as the fire drove away any that would attack him.

Sen threw a glance back towards the Child of Kulv’arash and saw it retreating, taking its legion of spawn away from the flames. It reached its hands towards the walls and wove. The fleshy ceilings moved. They coiled and writhed in front of it, creating a wall that sealed the flames off from the rest of the Nightmare’s nest.

And once the passage was cut off from the nest, Sen watched it wither.

The flesh on the walls turned dry. The blood and essence pulsing in the veins drained away. The monsters that remained unborn in the walls dried up into these curled, desiccated husks, forever cursed to remain inside their withered egg sacs. The Nightmare’s legion had abandoned this section of their nest. And now, only flames and shriveled flesh remained.

And yet the flames began to die as well.

The essence amplifying it was gone. And with nothing left but calcified flesh to burn, it would soon disappear. Sen ran forward with Em as it faded away, trying to gain as much distance as they could. And when it finally did…

Roars filled the tunnel. The surviving monsters that hadn’t escaped flooded up towards them, and Sen sighed.

There was still another obstacle to overcome.

Sen and Em hurried farther up, away from the crackling flames, then into an alcove in the wall. She helped him walk there, where the smoke wouldn’t choke them to death. Sen coughed out the last of the embers in his throat as he leaned a shoulder against the wall.

The sound of dozens of angry vampiric beasts approached. Em gripped her gun tight as she gave him a glance.

“…You promised not to laugh, right?”

He paused. Sen stared at her, eyes wide.

“You unlocked it?”

Em nodded, and Sen felt himself grin. Hope pooled in his chest. He stood straighter, taller, despite his exhaustion. His Flow was all gone now, but if Em had an ability…

They had a chance.

Sen grabbed her arm and squeezed, his eyes bright. “I promise not to laugh.”

Em looked him in the eyes and smiled.

“Liar,” she said.

And her Flow surged.