“Something’s not right,” Nick said as his patrol team pressed forward. The patrol route was the same as the day before, but as his feet hit the ground, the snow felt . . . hard. It didn’t sink in and make that crunching sound as his feet compacted it beneath him. It was off, somehow not nearly as deep as it was before. The difference was so noticeable that he wondered if he would be able to walk just fine without the winter-terrain boots Reggies had given him.

  “What do you mean?” Oliver asked as he stopped with Nick, looking around, the rest of the group halting too, not even moving a muscle as they waited to find out what was going on.

  “Is it the wind? There should be more wind, right?” Lou asked, reminding Nick of yet another detail that didn’t add up. It was then that the connection clicked, and he realized what was happening.

  “Step back, very carefully. Make sure to use the footsteps from before as you walk back,” Nick told the others as he began to walk backward himself, his head whipping around like he was looking for a lost kid at a mall, unable to find the minute detail he was missing in the blankets of white snow.

  “What is it?” Tabitha asked.

  “Shh, all quiet too,” Nick ordered in a hushed whisper before they began to make too much noise. It took a good thirty steps backward before Nick could feel the crunch of snow beneath his feet again and hear the wind once more howling in his ears. He looked over at the others, listening and watching as their feet went from barely sinking into the snow, to properly crushing it beneath their heels.

  Once they were all free, he summoned a giant ice spike, using the weather to his advantage as he conjured the pillar of frozen water, and slammed it down right on the spot they’d been before. The ground instantly gave way, revealing a large pit as dozens of rope traps sprang simultaneously. Had anyone been in the middle, they would have fallen quite far, only breaking a leg if they were lucky, while anyone around the pit would have been flung into the air and held by the magical rope traps set in a circle roughly thirty feet in diameter.

  Beneath the magical rope traps, Nick saw a series of large ice chambers inhabited by a monstrous unknown beast, which was now looking up at Nick’s party in surprise.

  “Send the message through the comms immediately, Tabitha! Warn the others!” Nick shouted as he equipped his standard of greatness, slamming it into the ground. It only took him a moment before he had activated his buff and switched over to his favorite spear, the Weight of Dedication, and a shield. “Adele, take point behind us. You’re on heal duty, but assist the flanks when you can. This is going to get dicey.”

  “What in the wooly mammoth monstrosity is that?” Seo-ah asked the obvious question as the fully armored, four-tusked, heavy-trunked elephant-like beast stomped its front legs and created a dozen earth pillars underneath it, causing it to rise out of the ground like it’d been summoned from a frozen hell to kill them. Then, one of the armored squirrel knights riding atop its head threw a javelin at Nick, forcing him to dodge before the beast had even finished rising.

  The ground shook beneath Nick's boots as the mammoth let out a thunderous trumpet. He could feel the vibrations in his chest and wondered if the creature was challenging them. Thirty feet away, snow erupted from the ground as nearly a hundred monsters burst forth from hidden tunnels. White and black hedgehogs with sharp, glowing quills scurried around while bulky, bulldog-sized creatures resembling woolly armadillos rolled into protective balls. squirrel-like sciuri chattered and leapt for the safety of the surrounding trees. A cacophony of screeches and grunts filled the air as the creatures poured out of the ground like ants from a disturbed nest.

  The first assault hit like an avalanche, the enemy’s ranged attacks whistling overhead and clanging off shields. Nick and Seo-ah reacted as one, deflecting a barrage of quills with their shields as they maneuvered behind a thick tree for cover. Seo-ah used the tree trunk as an anchor point for a larger wall that she quickly began creating with ice magic while Nick pulled out a green speed elixir, chugging it to get the benefits of Potion Master.

  “Nick, I’ve sent out the warning, but comms are down for one party already,” Tabitha reported, her shield raised above her and Adele’s heads, getting continuously peppered with quills.

  “One party?” Nick’s eyes opened wide as he heard Tabitha speaking over the sound of a dozen projectiles cracking and piercing the ice that Seo-ah was reinforcing. His mind raced as he tried, in spite of the chaos around him, to think of who was also out on patrol.

  “Yeah, it’s Stacy’s party,” Tabitha clarified as she worked the communicator while Adele and Elizabeth created an ice wall of their own to protect her, Lou and Oliver joining the three of them behind their shield while Noelle rushed in next to Nick and Seo-ah. “She’s the only one not responding.”

  Nick, still wide eyed in horror at the thought of an unresponsive patrol, gulped down his anxiety as he turned to Seo-ah.

  “My brothers in that party, Nick. My brother is in that party. I assigned him to the group myself so he could make some progress with Stacy . . .” Seo-ah mumbled anxiously from beside him.

  “Alright, Tabitha, send every patrol you can to the—”

  “We’re the closest one, Nick. They’re three miles north of us,” she told him. “I’ve already notified the others, but . . . we’re the only ones who will reach them in the next half hour.”

  As the group discussed what was going on, the enemy formations had already begun to form up, ready to descend on Nick’s group at any moment. As much as he wanted to fight them, he also just wanted to run, but he had no idea if they would be able to reach Stacy’s team before the herbivores in front of them caught up. To make matters even worse, the enemies in front of them were right in the direction they needed to head.

  I need to chance it . . . Nick thought, turning to Seo-ah and then looking at the rest of the party before finally checking the digital map on his wrist that Allen had made for him. “We’re going to run straight north, team. Do you think you can do it?” he asked the party. He wanted to pull off something mad, which meant he needed to make sure everyone was on board before he risked their lives.

  “Use the cloak; I got the skills,” Lou assured him.

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  “Same,” Noelle, Elizabeth, and Tabitha answered, nodding their approval.

  Oliver tightened his grip on his mace. “Let’s do this! Just like New Smithstead!”

  “I have faith in you,” Adele told him.

  “Stop wasting time and just activate it!” Seo-ah insisted in a panic, gripping his wrist. “Now!”

  Nick didn’t waste another second as he summoned his cloak of madness. “Alright, everyone, we’re pushing through the enemy. Take out the casters and the hedgehogs on the way through. Maim the mammoth if you can! I’ll push left. Lou, your group takes right. Once you hit your targets, be on the other side right away!”

  “Got it!” Lou confirmed, immediately dashing out and around the ice wall, shield raised as he ran straight at the nearest enemy caster while Seo-ah, acting as Nick’s support, smashed into one of the quill shooting hedgehog bastards that was shooting at them.

  This gave Nick the chance to charge one of the casters near him as well. The moment he got near it though, the sciurus leapt at his face, ice needles forming between its paws. Nick ducked, feeling the chill as they passed overhead. His spear stabbed out in a quick, precise strike as he caught the creature mid-air.

  "How many of these things are there?" Oliver shouted from nearby, his mace creating a whistling arc as he bashed a launched icicle.

  "Too damn many," Nick growled, parrying another quill attack. "Keep pushing! We can't let them overwhelm us!"

  A loud trumpet blasted across the battlefield. Nick whirled, catching sight of the massive woolly mammoth charging towards Lou, its steps shaking the ground.

  "Lou! Watch out!" Nick yelled as the mammoth used its trunk to swing a massive tree at Lou like a club. Lou ducked, the small branches peppering his face as the tree whooshed over his head.

  “Hey, pincushions! Over here!” Tabitha yelled, using a taunt skill to draw the attention of the two dozen hedgehogs, letting Noelle and Oliver flank them.

  “We need to keep moving!” Nick yelled, pressing forward as his eye caught something moving in the trees: more sciuri. He caught sight of them just in time, raising his shield to block a volley of ice needles, the barbs clanging off the steel.

  "Seo-ah! Adele! The trees!" he shouted, ducking a frozen projectile.

  Seo-ah spun, building up energy as she performed her Hwatu Spear Burst technique, launching six aura spears right at the trees beside them rather than into the branches. In a second, the thick, mansized trunks exploded. The large trees began to collapse, the sciuri mages doing their best to flee as they tried to jump ship, only for Adele’s holy fire to incinerate them as they leapt out of the foliage into sight.

  Glancing back at Lou, who was still fighting off the war mammoth; Elizabeth, who was behind him, finishing off another mage group; and then over at Tabitha and the others, Nick knew the moment was perfect. Boost their Charge skill to the max with Cloak of Madness and Pep Talk, Nick yelled, “Alright team! Charge straight north! Right now! GO! GO! GO!”

  Just as he was about to charge too, Elizabeth, who had been behind him, rushed forward, grabbing him up in a princess carry as she bolted ahead at maximum speed.

  “Thanks . . .” Nick said, knowing exactly why she picked him up: despite all his training, he was physically the weakest link. Everyone else was a pure melee combatant, while he was dumping all of the levels he’d been getting into charisma. He didn’t question it either as he felt the insane power of Charge under the effects of Pep Talk and Cloak of Madness. The already broken 159% boost that Pep Talk gave, then doubled because of Cloak Of Madness became a 318% skill boost, while on top of that further increasing their non charisma stats by an additional 5%. For someone like Elizabeth, who already was under the effect of Lovers Embrace, which doubled her stats to begin with, and probably at least had over 250 in each of the physical stats, she was using charge as if she was someone with nearly 1100 speed and strength, an amount Nick had never seen before in last life-- even from Maria. The effect was so crazy quick that Nick wondered if even Will in his vehicle could keep up with her while the skill was active.

  As they ran, activating Charge periodically to boost themselves faster than any horse could run, Nick could see a small, thin, staggered line of monsters gaining on them. As fast as Charge was, it wasn’t always up, and the moments it wasn’t, the wooly armadillos were gaining on them quickly like giant heat-seeking snowballs of doom.

  “We’re going to have to turn and fight in a moment,” Nick told the others, preparing them for the encroaching enemy. He could already tell how long they had: only ten or twenty seconds at most. “On my signal, turn around and attack everything in range. Adele, you’re on holy fire to hit the farthest back.”

  No one said anything as they waited for the signal.

  “Now!” Nick shouted.

  Elizabeth dropped Nick, the slowest in the group on the ground, and spun around as she unsheathed her blade in a single motion that let loose an aura blade, cutting the armadillo about to hit them in half. Nick rapidly equipped his spear and shield and thrust out his weapon, stabbing at the next one. The spear’s metal point struck its fur-covered shell with a thud as the creature crashed into the weapon, the weapon digging several inches into its flesh. Nick nearly lost his balance as he was driven backward by the momentum of the beast uncurling in front of him. Pulling his spear back, he stabbed a second time, catching it in the soft underbelly. The weapon tore into the monster’s flesh, unleashing a burst of red blood before the monster fell dead.

  Nick could see Oliver on his right, his mace glowing as he smashed an armadillo mid-roll, bursting like an overripe watermelon, before the mace-user leapt over another ball of fur that tried to take out his legs. The creature didn’t get away though, as Noelle successfully skewered the rolling monster passing beneath Oliver’s feet.

  To his left, Elizabeth extended the purple aura around her sword and swung it like she was harvesting wheat, bisecting two of the white balls right through the middle as they charged her.

  Beside Elizabeth, Adele was assisting Tabitha as the priestess’s conjured mace smashed through the back of the skull of a woolly armadillo that was slashing against Tabitha’s shield with four inch long claws as her own mace struck the side of a second woolly balls that ramming Tabitha’s shield trying to knock her off balance, the young woman’s taunt skill drawing the enemies in as Adele finished them off.

  Nick had only looked around for a moment to see what was going on, but even that moment was a moment too long as the sudden pain from an armadillo clipping his leg brought his focus back to the fight in front of him.

  Seo-ah’s spear came in low and swatted the wooly fur ball that had struck him, knocking it away like a professional hockey player. Nick gave her a quick nod of thanks, and then movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention.

  "Watch your back!" he warned Elizabeth just before she caught sight of three monsters speeding towards her.

  Elizabeth pivoted, her sword arcing through the creatures and slicing them cleanly in half before they reached her. Lou was beside her a moment later, his glowing hands catching two wooly armadillos Nick hadn’t seen, smashing them together.

  Turning his attention back to the enemies in front of him, Nick batted away one rolling armadillo and stabbed another. How many more? Nick wondered, growing increasingly frustrated with the delay this fight was causing. Yet another armadillo lunged at him, but he sidestepped it and drove his spear home.

  “That's the last of that group!” Oliver bellowed.

  Nick scanned the battlefield. It had only been minutes, but dead armadillos littered the snow. Behind them, Nick could see the giant Woolly Mammoth and the rest of the herbivore hoard trailing them.

  "North!" he ordered. "Before more come!"