We ran through endless darkness. The horde pursued us like an unrelenting river, hounding our footsteps as we ran for our lives.

I constantly used alteration essence to activate renewal, keeping everyone’s stamina high. With every single minute, tiny bits of my alteration essence drained away. My keywords, {Duality}, {Ocean}, and {Alteration}, worked to boost my essence regeneration - but even with three of my keywords active, I was losing essence every second. 

But that wasn’t without benefits. After a few minutes of nonstop sprinting, I saw that the worldstriders were tiring out. Apparently, the creatures didn’t have very good stamina. It was possible for them to fly as fast as we could sprint away, but they didn’t have any sort of stamina restoration, and they struggled to maintain the same speed as us for any decent amount of time.

We also managed to stay out of their attack range. A few of them tried to hurl stone pellets at us, but with how far away they were, their aim was abysmal. I still needed to teleport away a few projectiles, but most of them weren't even close to hitting us.

On the other hand, my essence reserves were starting to bottom out. I had done too many different things with my alteration essence today, and I hadn’t had enough time to regenerate.

It was thankful that Old Mo seemed to have some sort of endurance-type ability, because without Old Mo and Sallia helping carry the slower members of the party, we would have been swarmed by the worldstriders minutes ago.

After the first few minutes of our desperate sprint, I started to believe that we were going to be fine. The worldstriders were falling behind, we were out of attack range, and I could deflect any lucky shots with my portals.

And then, I realized that we were getting close to another spatial crack. 

This entire dimension was littered with spatial cracks, and they were teeming with worldstriders.

I redirected our group away from the new spatial crack. But a few of the flagging worldstriders managed to put on one last burst of speed. They flew to the new spatial crack, and started chittering at the other worldstriders inside of it.

Most of the residents of the new spatial crack ignored us. Only one in ten flew close enough to the talking worldstrider chasing us to even listen to what it had to say. Half of them ignored it right afterwards.

Unfortunately, a new group of about twenty worldstriders joined the group chasing us. They didn't make a big difference in numbers - but the newcomers had fresh reserves of essence and stamina.

I hesitated, wondering whether we could turn on the pursuers and wipe them out. If we kept fleeing, they would just keep recruiting more enemies. Maybe we could escape if we found a way to handle the horde?

But then I looked at the much larger group of exhausted worldstriders, and gave up the idea. I was close to running on fumes for my alteration essence, and there were too many of them. A fight against them wasn’t winnable.

Luckily, the worldstriders from the new group still struggled to catch up to us. They maintained pressure on us as we ran, but they couldn’t actually reach us. I also saw some of the worldstriders from the original group drop out of the chase. We had exhausted some of our pursuers.

The problem was that there was no path forward in this dimension that didn’t pass by more spatial cracks. As we kept running, every time we got near another spatial crack, a few more pursuers would join the chase. The worldstriders hand an unlimited supply of new combatants, while we did not.

So we kept running.

The group of pursuers renewed their manpower again…

And again…

And again…

And again…

By the seventh time it happened, I was starting to lose my mind. The worldstriders weren’t even attacking us at this point - they were just wearing us out. They only ever attacked if we slowed down. As we continued to run, I started to realize something.

We were being herded somewhere.

As we fled, the density of spatial cracks was increasing. The worldstriders weren’t stupid. They weren’t like the monsters we had fought before in other worlds.

They were an intelligent group of communicative creatures. It was normal for them to use tactics and planning against us. They weren’t a threat individually, but they had planning, organization, and teamwork.

We were going to die if we couldn’t find a way to take control of the situation.

I searched for a way out of this - any way at all.

But nothing came to mind.

My best idea was to try to force open one of the half-open portals using my alteration magic - but given how fragile they were, I felt it was more likely that we would all die than flee back to the real world. I was more likely to turn a broken portal into a blender than a doorway. And most of them were buried under several times my body weight in boulders.

<They’re herding us closer to somewhere,> said Sallia, as I desperately searched for a way to turn the tables. <I don’t know where, but I doubt it's good for us.>

<I’m so sorry. I didn’t think-> Anise started to stutter out.

<Shhh. You did nothing wrong, Anise. It’s their fault, not yours,> I said, sending every single speck of emotion I could into that mental message. I sent every single drop of pride, fury, and love I could at Anise. Fury at the worldstriders, for blaming Anise for something she had nothing to do with. Pride for the strides Anise had taken forward during our time on this planet. And every single ounce of love I felt for my friends. Pride was the strongest emotion.

Anise had been willing to take a dangerous, untested magical surgery to let her pursue her dreams. It might not be working to our advantage right now, but there was no way I was going to let these damn worldstriders hurt Anise for trying to pursue her dreams. If we died here, I still wouldn’t regret a single one of our choices. I just wished Old Mo and our parents weren't going to die with us. Still, I felt that we had done our best to keep them safe. Due to the war situation, keeping them completely safe had been a pipe dream from the beginning.

<We might not live to see the end of this, but Anise… if we die, I don’t want you to think for a second that you got us killed. We were with you every step of the way, encouraging you and trying to help you manage the risks of your decisions. If we die, it’s because of the actions we took as a team - not because of you. Okay?> I sent, after a few moments of silence.

<Okay.> Anise didn’t sound completely convinced, but she still sent her words back to me.

<Miria, less defeatist talk, more strategizing. Is there a way out of this?> asked Sallia.

And then, a few moments later, Felix injected his first words into the conversation.

<Do you guys see that giant pyramid in the distance?>

I blinked in surprise. I immediately squinted, and in the distance, I could definitely see a giant pyramid. I should have seen it first, but I had been so wrapped up in our conversation and my expectation of death that I had missed it.

Surrounding the pyramid was what appeared to be the center of the void cracks. It was almost like there was a giant wall of worldstriders there. Many of them didn’t seem to have taken interest in our flight yet, but that would change soon.

In the midst of the wall of enemies, I also found a tiny, tiny sliver of hope. The area directly around the pyramid was free of spatial cracks. There was a giant circle surrounding the giant pyramid that looked like a completely intact chunk of pocket dimension. Unlike the rest of this dimension, it also had a few plants trees inside of it. The space around the pyramid also felt more... stable than the rest of this place. I couldn't see anything more specific, because it was too far away. But it was the first thing we had found in this dimension that wasn't endless darkness and spatial cracks.

I didn’t know if there was a way out of this pocket dimension inside of the pyramid - but it was the only interesting place we had seen here.

I looked at the horde of worldstriders chasing us, and realized that they must be trying to herd us into the wall of worldstriders. If we kept moving forward, they could trap us between two hordes of worldstriders. Then, they would swarm us and annihilate us. 

We couldn’t run in another direction, either. The horde of worldstriders, finally seeing the group they had been herding us towards, seemed to be picking up the pace. They seemed excited to have finally found a way to catch us.

I gritted my teeth. We needed to survive. We couldn’t run in another direction, or we would be torn to shreds . We couldn’t fight our way out - there were way too many enemies to fight.

I glanced at the giant sets of spatial cracks again, and the swarm of enemies behind us, and finally, a desperate plan hatched in my mind.

acaswell

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