Beasts screamed and collapsed under the psychic assault.

It worked. Spirits lifted. Students shouted, gaining confidence.

“First wave—fall back!” Brandon barked. “Psychics, pull out! You’re not close-combat types. You stay in range and support!”

Just as the front line charged forward—nearly forty close-combat students rushing in like a silent wall.

Axel turned to Annabelle. “Protect yourself. No matter what.”

Then he let go of her hand—and ran.

The clash hit like a bomb.

Bang!

The line met the beasts in a bloody crash of claws, steel, and screams.

“We’ll survive!” Axel roared, slamming into a boar the size of a truck. He dodged, then spun behind it and jammed his blade into its spine.

The outcome will depend on whether my predictions were right.

“I can’t hold on!”

“I’ve got it—fall back!”

The front line had become a slaughterhouse. The snow turned red, coated in slush and entrails. Every meter gained was bought in flesh.

Behind them, the psychic users kept hammering the horde, burning through every pill and force crystal they brought. The side effects didn’t matter anymore.

Original force. Physical endurance. It was all draining—fast.

Brandon moved between fighters like a ghost, stepping in every time someone went down.

The beasts were dying—but not fast enough. More than twenty had fallen in just a few minutes. But they were still coming, more savage than ever.

And the students? Too many were injured. Too many were struggling to stay upright.

They were approaching the breaking point. And once they hit it, people would start dying.

His voice rang out like a crack of thunder. “Marcus! I need you to push harder! Now!”

At the front, Marcus led a strike squad of three Level 3 Awakeners, weaving through the chaos of the beast horde.

They were stronger than the mutant beasts—technically—but strength didn’t mean shit when you were drowning in numbers.

Their kill count was embarrassingly low.

If only the senior Level 4s hadn’t all left for internships or gone off to join the military... This battle wouldn’t feel like a desperate street fight.

“You gonna drop or what? Let me take over!”

“Shut up and stop the bleeding, jackass!”

On the left flank, two bruisers were already slashed open to the bone. Behind them, a girl from the healing division was shaking, her hands trembling as she reached out again. Her lips were pale.

She’d cast four healing skills already. Her head pounded. Dizziness wouldn’t stop. She was burning out.

All around them, the mutant beasts kept coming. Roars from every direction, blood mist in the air. The students fought tooth and nail, holding the defensive line.

“Brandon!”

He whipped his head toward the cry, and what he saw made his vision blur red.

One of his own—someone he'd known for years—was tossed into the air by a tusked boar, then ripped apart midair by a swarm of snow wolves.

No!

Brandon clenched his teeth hard enough to taste iron. He wanted to charge in. Wanted to tear the monsters limb from limb.

But he couldn’t. Two students in front of him were barely holding their spot. If he left now, the entire line would buckle. And behind that spot—less than a hundred meters back—was the psycasters division. If the beasts broke through there, it would be a massacre.

He hadn’t expected it to spiral this fast. They were barely ten minutes in—and the tide had already turned.

Then—

Boom.

A black blur dropped into the breach. Beasts snarled, lunged—only to be slammed back.

“Axel?!”

“Leave this part to me,” Axel said calmly.

And then his Force surged.

Students behind him gasped as their wounds began to close, pain dulling instantly. Blood stopped gushing. Muscles reknit.

“Oh my god…”

“...I feel like I can fight again!”

Axel didn’t stop. He flowed through the crowd like water, patching holes in the line, healing whoever was still breathing, dragging back those who couldn’t stand.

Brandon exhaled, some of the tension in his chest finally loosening. But how long could he keep this up? There were too many of us...

Axel felt it too. His Force was draining fast.

But his expression stayed calm. Because clutched in his off-hand were seven or eight dark green life crystals, glowing faintly like embers in the snow.

Beasts have life crystals too. He’d harvested more than a dozen from the last wave.

Most had already been burned through in combat—converted into raw energy for healing. But some of it had been redirected inward—expanding his own Force capacity.

For the first time in a long while, Axel felt it: His original veins were stretching.

.......

Three minutes passed. Then five.

The psycasters in the rear were slowing down. Their spell intervals stretched longer and longer. Force pills weren’t enough anymore.

Originally, Brandon had been bracing for collapse. But now something was different.

The front line was still standing.

The students were bruised, battered, bleeding—but holding.

“Axel! I need a patch-up, right flank!”

“On it!”

“I’m good for another push—check on me in twenty!”

One by one, requests came in, and Axel answered every one. He moved like clockwork, healing wounds, restoring stamina, keeping the line glued together with sheer will.

Those who dropped back were replaced. Those still standing fought like devils.

Brandon scanned the line.

There were just over thirty left fighting.

But the enemy wasn’t pushing through anymore.

Why? Because behind them stood a goddamn medic machine with the tenacity of a tank.

“Is he…” Brandon muttered, shaking his head. “Is this guy a fucking perpetual motion engine?”

Axel had lost count of how many times he’d cast his healing and recharge skills. Dozens? Hundreds? It didn’t matter anymore. His Force had been drained and replenished so many times, he’d stopped noticing the burn.

But one thing was clear—his power wasn’t staying the same.

His original veins were expanding, surging with each use, each crystal consumed.

He’d swallowed dozens of life crystals—the kind left behind by second-tier mutant beasts. If this had been any other time, he’d never have done it. Those crystals alone were enough to fund months of cultivation. They were priceless.

But now? If he stopped—even for a moment—people would die.

And even with all his efforts, four of classmates still didn’t make it.

Axel didn’t hesitate. He quietly absorbed the life crystals from their bodies, pressing the Force back into the line.

The beasts slowed. Finally.

Brutal as they were, even mutant beasts recognized pain. Recognized fear.

The defense line had been pushed back nearly a hundred meters. A trail of blood stretched across the battlefield like a scar in the snow.

The air was thick with the coppery stench of blood. Snowflakes drifted down like ash. Marcus, shaking, dropped his shattered bamboo sword—the third one today—and grabbed a new one from a fallen comrade.

They’d killed more than sixty beasts.

But their bodies were giving out.

Axel was the only one who hadn’t wavered. He stood in the thick of it all like a jagged rock in the middle of a raging ocean.

But even Axel could feel something was off. His entire body felt numb, like he was just a shell—something charging and discharging too fast.

And worse, something critical was happening.

Their skills were weakening. And as a result, more and more beasts were falling critically wounded but not dying. The number of life crystals he was able to harvest dropped dramatically.

If he couldn’t maintain healing output… the entire line would fall apart.

Then, like a beacon in the haze, Axel spotted her.

A small figure flitting through the carnage with terrifying grace.

Annabelle.

She was darting through the wounded beasts, her hand glowing with crimson light as she finished off the ones left breathing.

Life crystals began to appear in her wake.

Smart, Axel thought, eyes lighting up.