Infinite Classes in the Apocalypse

Chapter 171: Perfectly Timed Arrival

They didn’t walk back.

The moment the familiar forest air confirmed they were in the right world, Damon was already moving toward the estate at a pace that left no room for conversation.

Yuki matched it without complaint.

Their mood was good, better than it had been in weeks, the particular lightness of people who had spent a long time in the wrong place and had finally found the right one. Yuki’s four tails moved with their usual lazy independence. Damon’s shoulders carried less than they had since the first core absorption.

It lasted until it didn’t.

Damon felt it first.

A pressure in the air that had nothing to do with weather or elevation, the particular density of mana being expended at scale, the kind that only came from large numbers of fighters pushing their abilities past comfortable limits simultaneously.

He stopped.

Yuki stopped beside him a half second later, her ears already flat.

"That’s—"

"The estate," he said.

They were already running.

The distance was considerable, enough so that even running at full speed, it would take time they didn’t have. Damon assessed the gap in a single second before grabbing Yuki around the waist without announcement.

She had enough time to register what was happening before he stepped into the shadows.

They covered fifty meters in an instant. Then another fifty. Then another, shadow step chained in rapid succession, the forest blurring past them in fragmented glimpses of dark green and amber light, each jump landing and immediately becoming the starting point for the next.

Yuki said nothing throughout. Her hand found his forearm, feeling the countless cuts across his skin, and held it without comment.

They arrived in less than a minute.

The clearing outside the estate’s lower path had become a battlefield.

Serpentine bodies lay across the stone in various states of destruction, their scales catching the light in dull grey patches. Kitsune clan members were down too, at least a dozen, scattered between the fallen Naga fighters, their fox ears still and their tails flat in the particular way of things that had stopped moving permanently.

The Naga casualties were greater, though it didn’t exactly feel that way.

Three Naga fighters remained standing, large, grey-skinned, human in shape where they weren’t scaled, their arms wound with living snakes that watched the clearing with reptile eyes.

Their leader stood at their front, a massive curved blade in his right hand that looked less like a weapon and more like something that had been pulled from the mouth of something enormous.

His skin shifted between smooth grey flesh and dark scales depending on the angle, human enough to read, inhuman enough to be wrong.

He had a grin on his face that suggested he was enjoying himself.

In front of him, Ayame stood all alone.

Raiden was on the ground behind her, alive, judging from the movement of his chest, but not well enough to even stand.

His silver-white hair was matted dark, and his four tails had gone completely flat. Whatever had put him down had done it thoroughly.

Ayame was the only thing still upright on her side of the battle.

She was bleeding from her left side.

The silk of her dress darkened from the hip downward, the wound deep enough that she was holding herself differently, her weight distributed to compensate for what her left side could no longer support properly.

Her nine tails moved with none of their usual rhythm, dragging slightly, the sign of someone whose mana reserves had been pushed past empty and were running on the particular stubbornness of someone who had decided not to fall regardless of what their body was telling them.

The Naga leader’s grin hadn’t moved.

"It’s over! Kekeke!" he laughed, the sound carrying the particular quality of someone who had already filed the outcome and was simply enjoying the gap between decision and execution.

The three fighters beside him laughed along. It was less genuine and more reflexive, the kind of laughter people did to match their leader’s energy.

Ayame said nothing.

She stood her ground with the particular stillness of someone who had made peace with whatever came next and wasn’t going to give the thing in front of her the satisfaction of seeing anything else.

The laughter slowly faded.

The Naga leader’s grin settled into something more serious.

It was a slow shift from entertainment to business, the expression of someone who had allowed himself a moment of victory and was now ready to conclude the transaction.

He raised his blade.

The snakes on his arms tightened.

But in that moment, a lone figure appeared right in front of Ayame.

Despite only seeing his back, despite only seeing his messy short black hair and black armour, Ayame recognised the person before her in an instant.

Something broke in her expression.

"D... Damon..." she whispered.

Her determination shattered, replaced by a mix of emotions, ranging from relief that he was there to fear for his life.

Naga leader frowned.

He studied Damon for a short moment, seeing that he had no trademarks of the Kitsune Clan and spoke up.

"What are you supposed to be?"

Damon didn’t reply.

The figure before him was a divine beast, a being beyond mortality.

If that was him before the endless rifts, before he found the way to absorb the rift cores, he would have been swept away like nothing but a fly.

But he wasn’t.

He reached for the mana overflowing inside his body.

The estate lit up purple with a blinding light as, for the first time since he absorbed the first rift core, he stopped trying to control his mana and simply allowed it to roam free, putting all of it into a single attack.

Behind Damon, Ayame froze.

Her eyes widened.

The mana pouring out of him felt familiar.

She recognised it.

And yet...

It felt nothing like the Damon she remembered.

The presence flooding the battlefield was vast, violent, and impossibly unstable.

Like standing beside a storm that had somehow learned to wear human skin.

For a brief moment, she wasn’t looking at the helpless boy whom she had met a few months ago.

She was looking at someone ready to break the rules of mortality.