Lance ducked as Sophie's barrier disappeared from in front of him in a flash of blue light. A monster stood in its place: some sort of giant lizard creature that looked like a cross between a dinosaur and a crocodile. It growled at him from behind its large teeth while more of the monsters moved forward from either side and tried to flank their group on both sides.

Lance thought, trying his best not to panic as he watched Sophie raise her hands again, ready to freeze another wave of attackers away from them. Tension filled every muscle in his body—a mixture of fear and adrenaline making everything feel so real that he felt like he was fighting for survival right there and then—and he took a moment to check his surroundings one last time before he dove into the fight too.

Lance used his [Mind Attack], aiming it at the giant creature, and then--

[Mind Attack failed! Charge not consumed!]

Shit. That was bad.

Was it just too powerful for him? Or could he try again?

He didn't know the answer to that yet, but what if it had been strong earlier because the enemy was too weak, or something like that? It seemed possible since he hadn't really tested out all the limits of this ability himself: only against monsters that weren't especially dangerous ones. If they were stronger than him now, then maybe he should have done more research on how much power he actually needed to use these abilities. He'd always assumed it would be enough with just a little bit of effort on his part—like when he went into battle against most of the monsters earlier.

Damn, he needed to level up. Doing that might give him the points necessary to upgrade [Mind Attack] to a point where it might actually do something.

, Lance thought as Grace shot fire at the monster's side before Sophie used her ice wall to push it away from their group and back into another building while Jacob used his sound-based Special Ability again and managed to hit its head hard, pushing it back even further.

Fuck, he was useless right now.

But he still had a gun.

Lance drew his pistol--one of the ones he'd salvaged from the police station--and popped off a few shots at the monster. He aimed carefully and fired with precision, hitting the lizard creature in its weak spot between the shoulder blades, but—it was too fast for him to aim properly, and a couple of his shots went wide. It took all of his focus just to keep up with its movements and avoid hitting his group—all of which happened so quickly that there wasn't any time for him to try out more than one of his abilities: not without risking getting hit by an enemy or missing entirely. He just needed to keep up with all of them, and contribute enough damage so that when--

"DIE!" Jacob shouted, and the sound came out explosively. At the same time, Sophie and Grace both fired a shot of their own--[Assess] saw them as [Fireball] and [Ice Spear]--and the combined force of the three effects fused into one, the fire enhancing the ice somehow instead of breaking it, and the combination attack was sent flying towards the enemy.

The lizard creature howled like it had been stabbed through the heart while the two girls watched their attack disappear into the darkness; Lance hoped it had hurt it badly because he didn't want to have to see it again—especially since they would probably be moving on soon anyway.

A moment later, however, something new caught his eye. The lizard monster's body started to melt away from inside until its core was exposed in a flash of blue light before he heard its scream—a mixture of pain mixed with surprise—as its head vanished completely.

he thought. From the looks on his group's faces, this was new to them, too.

[Enemy defeated (cooperative)!]

[Level up!]