Chapter 1 — System Change

“Derek, get ready! The portal will be up in five minutes.” Silvi was expending all of her mana to provide this one chance for Derek to portal over to the others and maybe just save them from being killed, or captured, by one of the “intruders” that came with the new system. “You’re only going to have a few minutes once you get there to find them and bring them back. You should be ported close to Ali, I’m using my mana sense to lock on to her.”

Derek rubbed the back of his head and sighed.

“Are you even listening to me!?” Silvi yelled at Derek. “Stop daydreaming and get ready!”

Derek jumped.

“This portal that you’re making is safe, right?” Derek asked Silvi. “I mean, I’ve survived quite a bit by myself and all, I don’t really want to be done in by a faulty portal.”

“Yes Derek, it’s perfectly safe. You just jump in, and it takes a couple seconds to get from the opening to the exit. While you’re inside, you are in something like a space tunnel, nothing can harm you while you’re traveling at least. I’ve used it hundreds of times and nothing has ever gone wrong.” Silvi explained to Derek while channeling her mana into her portal spell. “The only thing you have to worry about is not coming back before I run out of mana, which is why you only have a few minutes to get the others and get back.”

“It’s almost done. Get ready!” Silvi yelled as a blue oval crackling in what seemed to be electricity, but Derek knew that it was just another physical form of mana, started growing. The oval grew slowly but then picked up pace. Soon it was bigger than Derek was and was stabilizing.

“It’s open, go, go, go! Remember, you just have a short window to find them and get them to the portal.” Silvi could not help but worry about her friends and longtime team.

“I’m going.” Derek may be cautious and hesitant, but when he finally decided to do something, he did not take half measures. Derek leapt into the portal and prepared to face whatever was on the other side.

A portal flashed open, and a man covered head to toe in some type of dark metal armor flashed out of it. Everyone stopped fighting to look at the new arrival.

First, Derek saw Ali, she was right next to the portal. He ran over to her and picked her up. “Who are you, what are you doing.” Ali was kicking and screaming not knowing what was going on.

“Shit! Stop kicking me and shut up. It’s Derek, I came to bring you all back to Silvi. She ported me over from camp.”

An arrow bounced off of the back of Derek’s head and fell to the ground. Derek turned and looked at the archer nocking another arrow. He scanned the rest of the area and found John’s head lying a couple meters away from his body and Andrea was on her back with a dagger sticking out of her chest, blood pooling around her body.

Finally, he saw Gerard surrounded by a bunch of warriors with swords and shields.

Derek summoned his glaive from his spacial bracelet and thrust forward. The man on the right didn’t even have time to react before the blade pierced his front and ran all the way through his back.

The blade brought with it pulses of blood as Derek ripped it from the heart of the warrior. The other warrior swung his sword at Derek, but Derek reflected it with his armored bracer, then choked up on his glaive, and using it like a sword, slashed it across his attacker’s throat. The man fell to his knees holding at the new opening, but it was pointless, he was already dead and just didn’t know it.

“Gerard! The portal, run!” Derek rushed into the circle and pushed Gerard towards the hole he just made. “Hurry! There’s not much time left, I’ll be right behind you.” Gerard rushed out of the encirclement, moving as fast as his maimed leg would let him. Hobbling towards the portal, he released a sigh as he got closer and closer.

Gerard turned his head to see four men split at the waist, torsos falling from their legs.

Seeing Andrea and John lifeless on the ground, tears started forming in his eyes. They had all been together since the first week of this so-called apocalypse, but this wasn’t the first friend he had seen die.

He looked again at Derek, about to break out of the mass of people, then jumped into the portal.

“It’s Gerard!” Ali screamed. “We thought you were dead, like Andrea and…” She trailed off mid-sentence. John had been with Ali since before the start of this sick game. So Gerard knew that it was going to take a long time for Ali to be right again.

“Where’s… Derek?” Silvi muttered, voice tired from holding the portal open. “I’m almost… out… of mana.” Sweat was dripping from her brow as she was using everything she had to keep the portal from closing.

“I’m out.” Silvi mumbled and dropped to her knees.

Derek could see the portal shrinking and becoming translucent as he made his way towards it. The damage to him was light or otherwise nonexistent, but he was almost out of stamina and mana. Getting close to the portal, he jumped in.

The small light in the space tunnel that he had used to arrive vanished, leaving nothing but darkness.

“Ah, fuck me!”