The vast expanse of Heathrow Airport sprawled across the landscape. John's Dragon Wings beat steadily as he maintained his position above the resistance column, Eagle Eye allowing him to pick out details even at this distance through the crimson haze of the burning sky.

  The complex was absolutely massive. Larger than his mental image of it had prepared him for, truth be told. Multiple runways stretched out like dark scars across the terrain, wide enough to accommodate the hulking metal corpses of dozens of planes. Some sat intact but dormant on the tarmac, others were twisted wrecks, torn apart by forces John could only guess at. One was still burning, a distant orange glow against the red backdrop, flames licking up from its shattered fuselage.

  The terminals themselves formed great clusters of buildings, glass and concrete monuments to pre-apocalypse civilisation that now stood dark and ominous. Terminal 5 was the closest, sitting at the western end of the complex like a sentinel. He could make out the distinctive curved roof even from here, though parts of it looked collapsed. Beyond it, deeper into the airport's sprawling territory, he could see the shapes of Terminals 2, 3, and 4, each surrounded by their own constellation of satellite buildings and car parks.

  There were reservoirs nearby, dark bodies of water that reflected the burning sky like pools of blood. The M25 curved around the northern edge of the airport grounds, its grey a stark contrast to the fields that surrounded much of the complex. Those fields were dotted with trees.

  Hotels and office buildings ringed the airport, many of them visibly damaged. Crumbling facades, shattered windows, entire sections collapsed inward.

  The sheer scale of opportunity for portal worlds to exist here made his head spin. This wasn't like Micklefield Hall, with their handful of buildings. Heathrow was practically a small city unto itself. Hundreds of structures, thousands of rooms, countless doorways that could lead to twisted pocket dimensions.

  It was perfect, in a horrifying sort of way. Exactly what they needed to establish a proper base. And exactly the kind of challenge the System would love to throw at them.

  "Christ," Doug's voice rumbled through John's thoughts via the Walkie-Thinkie. "It's even bigger than I thought."

  "You've been here before?" Lily's voice joined in, sounding slightly breathless. The Fire Falcon Idol was slower than the Dragon Wings enchantments, and John could see her lagging perhaps a hundred metres behind, the fiery bird beneath her leaving trails of embers in its wake.

  "Nah. Only flew once, from Manchester, and told my self never a-fucking-gain," Doug grumbled. "Never thought I'd be planning to fortify the bloody place against an apocalypse, I’ll tell you that much."

  John activated his own Walkie-Thinkie with a thought. "Terminal 5 is closest. That's our first option."

  There was a pause before Lily responded, and when she did, her mental voice carried a note of concern. "I don't know, John. Look at the fields in front of it. All those trees? That's a lot of potential cover for monsters to sneak up on us. Sight lines would be terrible."

  John frowned, directing Eagle Eye's enhanced perception toward Terminal 5's approach. She was right. The terminal sat at the edge of a greenbelt, trees clustered in irregular patterns that would make it more difficult to get a bead on threats from certain angles. He'd been so focused on proximity that he'd missed the tactical disadvantage.

  "Good catch," he admitted. "What about the satellite terminals? 5B and 5C?"

  Lily projected a thoughtful hum. "They're more centrally located, harder to approach without crossing open tarmac. Plus they're smaller, which means less ground to cover initially."

  "Aye, but they're also right between the main terminals," Jade interjected. "Could get pinched if monsters come at us from multiple directions."

  Chester's voice joined the mental conversation, high and strained. "What about Terminal 4? It's... um..." He trailed off, clearly second-guessing himself.

  "Terminal 4's practically embedded in an urban area," Jade finished for him, not unkindly. "Right next to… Staines, isn’t it? Or is it Ashford? Whatever, points is: too many buildings nearby. Gives monsters cover to approach."

  "Right, yeah. That's what I was thinking," Chester mumbled.

  Doug's spoke next. "Have any of you lot actually been inside these terminals? Because I haven't."

  "I've been through Terminal 5 a few times," Lily offered. "It's absolutely enormous. Multiple levels, loads of shops and restaurants, huge open spaces. Keeping track of everything would be a nightmare."

  John grimaced. She had a point. Mana Sense gave him a two-kilometre range, which sounded impressive until you tried to apply it to monitoring every corner of a building designed to process thousands of passengers. The terminals would have multiple floors, hidden corridors, service areas, underground connections.

  "There's also the human element to consider," Doug continued. "No saying this place is empty of survivors. Could be people holed up in any of these buildings, and not all of them might be friendly. Hard to watch for monster attacks and potential human ambushes simultaneously."

  The mental channel went quiet for a moment as everyone digested that uncomfortable possibility. John hadn't really considered it, too focused on the monster threat, but of course Doug was right. The apocalypse brought out the worst in people just as often as it brought out the best. They'd learned that lesson with Watford.

  "What about smaller buildings?" Doug asked. "Surely there's maintenance hangars, cargo facilities, that sort of thing? Might be easier to secure something more manageable to start with."

  "There are hangars," Chester's voice came through, hesitant but growing more confident as he spoke. "And business offices, executive suites, that kind of thing. I only visited the royal suite once. It's this posh area where dignitaries and royalty would wait for their flights. Really small compared to the main terminals, but it was close to Terminal 4, if I remember right."

  John felt a spark of interest. A smaller facility would be much easier to clear and secure quickly. They could use it as a staging ground, get the resistance settled, then expand outward once everyone had rested and organised properly.

  "The royal suite's out then," Jade said, echoing John's earlier concern. "Too close to the urban area near Terminal 4."

  "Hang on," Chester protested. "It's not directly adjacent. There's still a fair bit of tarmac between it and the buildings. And it's small enough that we could actually defend it properly. The main terminals... I mean, we'd be spreading ourselves way too thin trying to hold something that size."

  "Starting small makes sense," Lily said slowly. "We secure a foothold first, then expand once we've got our bearings."

  John considered their options. Below, the resistance continued their trudge across the fields, making for the M25. They'd be at the airport grounds within the hour at their current pace.

  Terminal 5 was closest but had poor sight lines. The satellite terminals offered better positioning but could trap them between larger monster concentrations. Terminal 2 and 3 were the size of a small town and possibly more complicated. Terminal 4's urban proximity was a nightmare waiting to happen. The royal suite was small and potentially defensible, but its location near Terminal 4 was concerning.

  None of the options were perfect. But then again, nothing about this situation was perfect. They were two hundred exhausted, traumatised survivors being herded toward an airport complex that was almost certainly infested with monsters, with a massive horde at their backs ensuring they couldn't retreat. Perfect wasn't on the table.

  "We'll check out Terminal 5 first," John decided. "It's closest, and if we don't like what we find, we can always push deeper into the complex. The royal suite could work as a backup if the main terminals are completely untenable."

  There was a chorus of mental acknowledgements, and John felt that familiar mix of satisfaction and discomfort that came with making a decision people actually listened to. The fact that they accepted his authority so readily still threw him off balance.

  He kept his Mana Sense running as they flew, the pulse of magical perception spreading out from him in time with his heartbeat. The feedback was constant, a steady stream of information about magical signatures in the surrounding area.

  And he started to notice something odd.

  The monsters in their path were moving.

  Away from the resistance.

  John frowned, extending his perception further, trying to get a clearer picture. There was definitely a pattern to it. As the resistance column trudged across the fields, any monsters that happened to be in their direct line of approach were relocating, shifting to the sides, clearing a path.

  It was deliberate. Too deliberate to be coincidence.

  "Anyone else seeing this?" John asked through the Walkie-Thinkie.

  "Seeing what?" Jade responded.

  "The monsters. They're moving out of our way."

  "You're not imagining it," Lily confirmed. "I think they're actively clearing our route toward the airport."

  "Well that's not fucking ominous at all," Doug muttered.

  Chester's voice was high with barely suppressed panic. "What does that mean? Why would they do that?"

  John didn't answer immediately. He was too busy watching the pattern unfold, his enhanced perception picking up the movement of creatures through the ruins and fields. They weren't fleeing in terror. There was no sense of panic to their movements. They were like pieces on a chessboard being moved into position.

  John glanced back, using Eagle Eye to peer behind the resistance column. The massive horde of monsters that had been pursuing them since they left Micklefield Hall was still there, a dark stain on the horizon. It hadn't gotten closer, maintaining that exact same distance it had held for over an hour.

  It was a wall. A barrier. Cutting off their retreat, ensuring they had no choice but to continue forward into whatever nightmare the airport held.

  John felt a cold knot of tension settle in his chest. He'd committed them to this course of action, convinced them that Heathrow was their best option. And maybe it was. Maybe there really was no better alternative. But the certainty with which the System was guiding them toward this destination made him question everything.

  What if he'd made the wrong call? What if he was leading two hundred people into a trap?

  "John?" Lily's voice cut through his spiralling thoughts. "You still with us?"

  He forced himself to focus. Self-doubt was a luxury he couldn't afford right now. The decision had been made. They were committed. All that mattered now was seeing it through.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  "I'm here," he responded. "Just thinking."

  "About how royally fucked we might be?" Doug asked, and there was dark humour in his mental tone.

  "Something like that."

  "Well, for what it's worth, I think you made the right call. We need a proper base, and Heathrow's as good as we're going to get. The System wants to throw challenges at us? Fine. We've handled everything it's thrown our way so far."

  "Speak for yourself," Chester muttered. "I've nearly died like six times."

  "And yet here you are, still breathing and flying around on magic dragon wings like it's the most normal thing in the world," Jade pointed out. "We've all nearly died multiple times, Chester. I did die. That's just how things are now."

  John let their chatter wash over him as he continued scanning the surrounding area. The resistance was back on the M25 now having reached a huge junction, the column spreading out as people climbed onto the raised motorway. The crashed and abandoned cars provided obstacles, but nothing they couldn't navigate around.

  Through the Walkie-Thinkie, Sam's calm voice joined the conversation. "We've reached the motorway. Heading south along the route now. The ground forces are holding together well, though many are exhausted."

  "How's morale?" John asked.

  There was a pause before Sam responded. "Mixed. Many had expected to fight their way to the airport. The lack of monster attacks has them... unsettled. They don't trust it."

  "They're right not to," John said grimly. "Make sure everyone stays alert. Just because the monsters aren't attacking now doesn't mean they won't later."

  "Understood."

  The resistance moved south along the M25, following the motorway's curve as it ran parallel to the airport grounds. John kept pace above them, constantly scanning for threats even though Mana Sense would alert him to anything approaching long before he could see it with vision alone.

  Time crawled by. Every minute felt like an hour, tension ratcheting higher with each passing moment. The resistance reached a junction where the M25 intersected with what looked like a smaller road leading directly toward the airport. After some debate transmitted through the Walkie-Thinkies, they decided to leave the motorway and cut across the fields.

  The ground was uneven, full of ditches and obstacles that slowed their pace even further. John watched from above as people helped each other across the rough terrain, the stronger supporting the weaker, Daniel using his earth manipulation to smooth the worst of it.

  They were getting close now. The perimeter fence of Heathrow loomed ahead, a tall barrier of metal topped with barbed wire that had once kept trespassers out.

  Through Mana Sense, significant parts of Heathrow were falling within John’s range. The main terminals were indeed infested with monsters, magical signatures clustered so densely they blurred together into a seething mass. Hundreds of creatures, maybe thousands. All of them waiting, dormant for now but ready to activate at a moment's notice.

  Clearing them out would take time. Time they didn't have right now. The resistance needed to regroupsomewhere safe to catch their breath before the next wave of horror crashed down on them.

  "The main terminals are a no-go," John announced through the Walkie-Thinkie. "Absolutely swarming with monsters. We'd be fighting for days just to secure one terminal."

  "Royal suite it is then?" Chester asked hopefully.

  "We'll see. Let me get a better sense of the layout once we're actually on the grounds."

  The resistance reached the fence. There was brief discussion below about how to get through, but John decided to simplify matters.

  He descended rapidly, Dragon Wings folding as he dropped to ground level in front of the fence and manifested Aurora Blade. The crystalline weapon extended from his arm with a flash of icy light and trapped auroras.

  The fence stood at perhaps three metres of heavy-duty metal designed to keep out determined intruders. John sliced through it like it was tissue paper, the Aurora Blade's various effects making short work of the metal. Ice spread from the cut, gravity warped around the blade's edge, phantom force yanked the severed sections apart, and the whole thing came down in a clatter of falling metal.

  He stepped back, surveying his work. A hole large enough for several people to walk through side-by-side now gaped in Heathrow's perimeter fence.

  "Don't exactly need to worry about getting arrested for trespassing anymore," John said, loud enough for the nearest resistance members to hear.

  There were a few nervous laughs, and then:

  +15000 Aura

  The resistance began filing through the gap, people moving with renewed urgency now that they were so close to their destination. John took to the air again, but stayed low this time, only a few metres off the ground, low enough that he could drop and engage any threats immediately if needed.

  The airport's layout started to resolve in his mind's eye as Mana Sense spread out like a radar wave, forming a three-dimensional map constructed from magical signatures. There were monsters everywhere, clustered in the terminals, lurking in cargo facilities, prowling through the underground rail connections.

  But none of them were approaching. They were all just... waiting.

  It made John's skin crawl.

  The resistance started to spread out across the tarmac, and John indulged himself for a moment by landing on one of the runways. The painted lines stretched out in front of him, white against the dark asphalt, perfectly straight and impossibly ordinary despite everything. He stood there for a few seconds, feeling the surreal absurdity of the situation wash over him.

  How many people got to just walk around Heathrow Airport like this? To stand in the middle of a runway without security tackling them to the ground? It was such a small, stupid thing to focus on given the apocalypse and the monsters and the death surrounding them, but it appealed to some childish part of him.

  He took off again before the moment could stretch into something awkward that would cost him Aura.

  That's when everything went to hell—or at least, the next layer of hell, since they were already pretty deep in it.

  The massive horde of monsters that had been following them, suddenly surged forward. It flooded into the surrounding urban areas, to fill every gap and space around the airport grounds like water filling a container.

  John could only watch as possibly hundreds of thousands or even millions of creatures poured into the hotels and buildings around Heathrow, spreading out to form a living barrier that surrounded the entire airport complex.

  Within minutes, every exit was blocked. Every escape route cut off. The airport was an island now, surrounded by a sea of monsters that stretched in every direction.

  They were trapped.

  So this was it, then. The System's endgame for this particular scenario. Force them into the airport, surround them with monsters, and then see if they could survive whatever awaited within.

  Did I make the wrong call? The thought churned his gut. Did I just doom two hundred people by bringing them here?

  But even as the doubt threatened to overwhelm him, a colder, more pragmatic part of his mind pushed back. What other option had they had? Stay at Micklefield Hall and get overwhelmed by escalating sieges? Try to flee into the countryside and get picked off by monster packs? At least here they had the possibility of defensible positions, of clear sight lines, of establishing something resembling a fortress.

  What's done is done, John told himself firmly. Can't change the past. Can only deal with the present and plan for the future.

  He opened the Walkie-Thinkie. "Everyone see what just happened?"

  "Aye," Doug responded, his mental voice grim. "We're well and truly fucked now, aren't we?"

  "We're committed," John corrected. "There's a difference. We knew going in this was going to be dangerous. The situation hasn't really changed, it's just been made explicit."

  "That's a very glass-half-full way of looking at us being surrounded by millions of monsters," Lily said, but there was strained humour in her tone.

  "Chester, you said the royal suite was near Terminal 4?" John continued, pushing forward before the doubt could resurface.

  "Yeah, I think so. Bit west of it, closer to the centre of the complex."

  "Guide us there. Sam, get the ground forces moving in that direction. Stay tight, stay alert. If anything attacks, call it out immediately and fall back to defensive positions."

  "Understood," Sam's calm voice provided a steadying anchor.

  The resistance began moving again, cutting south between the massive satellite terminals 5B and 5C. John flew low, taking in the devastation. Destroyed planes littered the tarmac like fallen giants, some torn completely in half, others crumpled as if crushed by enormous hands. Windows in the terminal buildings gaped like empty eye sockets, glass scattered across the ground in glittering drifts that crunched under people's feet.

  Blood stains were everywhere. Dark patches on the concrete, smears on the walls of buildings, drag marks leading into darkened doorways. But no bodies, as usual. Whatever happened to corpses in this new world, they didn't stick around long. Monsters disintegrated into puddles of gore. Humans just... vanished. Whether that was the System's doing or something else entirely, John didn't know.

  The question of what happened when the apocalypse first hit haunted him as they moved deeper into the airport. How many people had been here? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Between passengers, staff, and everyone else, Heathrow must have been packed when the sky started burning and monsters began manifesting.

  What had the casualty rate been? Did anyone escape, or had they all died in the initial chaos?

  And what about the planes that were already in the air when it all went to hell? Did they just fall from the sky? Crash in fields and oceans around the world? Or had the System done something else with them?

  He pushed the questions aside. They didn't matter right now. Right now, all that mattered was keeping the resistance alive and finding somewhere to hole up before exhaustion took its toll.

  Through Mana Sense, John could feel the monsters in the main terminals. They were moving around, pacing, patrolling. But none of them were attacking, weren't charging out to meet the resistance.

  There were underground tunnels too, railway connections between terminals that the monsters were using to move around beneath the surface. John made a mental note to be careful about those. The last thing they needed was monsters popping up from below when they weren't expecting it.

  It was unusual behaviour for nighttime Normally monsters were much more aggressive after dark, hunting actively instead of waiting passively. But these creatures were just... there. Present but inactive, like they were waiting for some signal to begin.

  The black hole in the eastern sky glared at him with its awful, hateful presence. John could feel its attention, a sense of being observed by something vast and malevolent.

  Maybe the monsters were waiting for orders from it. Or maybe the System had put them in a holding pattern, giving the resistance a brief window to get established before the real horror began.

  It felt like the calm before the storm.

  Regardless of the reason, John would take the reprieve. They needed it.

  "There," Chester's voice came through the Walkie-Thinkie, and John glanced at the younger man to see him pointing. "That building to the left, at the edge of the cluster of buildings at the back of the airport. That's the royal suite."

  John angled his flight path, bringing the building into clearer focus. It was indeed much smaller than the main terminals, perhaps three stories tall with an elegant facade that spoke of wealth and exclusivity. The kind of place that would have separate security, private check-in, all the luxury amenities for people too important or rich to mingle with common travellers.

  Now it looked abandoned and somewhat battered, windows dark and parts of the roof sagging inward. But it was still standing, and more importantly, it was small enough to potentially secure quickly.

  "Looks viable," John announced. "Not perfect, but nothing is. We clear it out, set up a defensive perimeter, and then figure out our next moves from there."

  The resistance converged on the royal suite. John could see the exhaustion on their faces even from the air, the way people stumbled and leaned on each other for support. They'd been marching for hours, some of them injured, all of them running on fumes.

  They needed this to work.

  John locked in on his Mana Sense and squinted through his Soul Specs, focusing on the royal suite specifically. The building was maybe fifty metres long and thirty wide. Small by airport standards, enormous by normal building standards. Three floors, basement level probably, lots of interior walls dividing it into separate rooms and suites.

  There were no monsters inside. His Mana Sense radiated out for miles in every direction, filling his mind with countless magical signatures, but there were none in the building before him. Having been starting to think there wasn't a single building in this entire complex free of the fuckers, that took him off guard.

  What took him even more off guard was the single silver soul his Soul Specs started to pick up, mere moments before it reached the front doors of the place. He didn't have a chance to do much more than call out, "Wait here!" to the others before they slammed open.

  And there, wearing a black leather trenchcoat that swayed in its own wind, black jeans that were artfully torn, a black shirt with the words 'bad motherfucker' printed on the front, black gloves with gleaming metal studs on the knuckles, a choker around his neck, circular black sunglasses on his eyes, and dark hair styled into a spiked mullet that added an extra foot to his already considerable six feet of height, was a man so pale he looked almost ill.

  "Who dares approach my domain?" he asked in a thin, reedy voice that trembled ever so slightly.

  John could already feel a headache coming on.