Laz believed her, hence why once they had both dispatched their opponents, he was already on his way up the wall and climbing the gate.

"GET BACK HERE YOU BASTARD!"

"Can’t die yet. Take care of yourself sugarlips. I see you soon," Laz replied as he disappeared over the wall.

Athena’s scream echoed over the landscape as she found more beasts to take out her anger on.

"I almost feel sorry for them," Laz said.

"Don’t" Hera said as she stood there, pumping her energy into the barrier to try to keep it as firm as possible. The attacks coming from outside were massive as level six beast after level six beast came to the barrier and blew themselves up, making an attack equal to a level mid level seven beast over and over again. Even for Hera at the ninth stage of the God realm, it was beginning to be too much to hold on. Her hair was a mess, her dress torn and dirtied and she was missing a shoe. Laz looked around for it instinctually, but she stopped him.

"Don’t bother. When the seal broke the first time and beasts stormed the wall, one of them got it while I was kicking it down. I just haven’t had a chance to get a new one out of my storage ring," she said, seeing his behavior.

"Where’s Pooja?" Laz asked, knowing that they were usually together.

"Fighting somewhere. She enjoys going more hand to hand on these things, just like her people in general."

"What about reinforcements? Don’t you have a fortress full of solders up there?" Laz asked the obvious question. Even the Empress was down here fighting and yet where were all the guards and solders from the fortress.

"Heh. Most of the ones who arrived here were part of the individual armies kept by the council. As for those loyal to me, if they disappear from up there, what do you think will happen?" Hera said with a sad laugh. All over the walls, the members of the death walkers were repelling the monsters who kept sneaking in the barrier. While Hera’s energy could repair it at an incredible rate, every time one of the beasts blew itself up, a hole would form and beasts would swarm.

"We need to abandon this gate..." Laz said, looking around. The path was too wide at this point and the gate allowed for too many beasts to slip past while Hera’s strength could only repair things so quickly. The second gate, further up the mountain, was much narrower and would bottleneck the beasts, preventing them from being overwhelmed.

"Then retreat with your people and I’ll hold here as long as possible," Hera suggested and Laz laughed.

"Not happening. Look who’s back," Laz said, seeing a blood covered pooja returning.

"You’re awake?" she asked first before Laz made a move, grabbed Hera and threw her towards the newly arrived woman. Laz then stepped up and placed his hands on the orb controlling the barrier.

"What are you doing?" Pooja asked as she caught the exhausted Hera.

"Get everyone back to the second gate. This one is finished. I’ll keep this this fully charge so there are no breaks in it but you’d better move quickly," Laz said, breathing deep before channeling his entire body’s worth of energy into the ball. The barrier lit up like a sun as the beasts were propelled back, the barrier burning them as they tried to get close. Seeing this, Pooja just started running and yelling for people to flee back to the next gate, getting everyone to run with her while Laz held the line.

’Too many god beasts. How the hell are this this many god beasts?’ Laz thought, using the barrier like a spy glass to see the dozens of god realm beasts still outside with even more dangerous beasts in the distance, still hiding.

’If there had been this many beasts in the past, why would they have needed to fear humans at all?’ Laz thought, trying to keep himself distracted while covering the retreat. He had to admit the strength of the barrier was amazing as he could feel the energy he used being amplified perfectly. He could even tell when the barrier was at max capacity and knew not to put more strength in for fear of damaging it. Of course he was overloading the whole thing with how much he was putting in currently, but that was the point.

It took almost ten minutes for them to clear out, leaving Laz with an overloading barrier and a massive wave of beasts roaring at the gate.

’Well. Now what do I do?’

*Blow the whole thing. I’ll keep you safe,* Kat said, the sounds outside making any sort of verbal communication impossible.

’Good enough for me.’ Laz ramped up his energy output, his blood boiling in his veins as he used everything last bit of energy inside of himself to inject it into the orb. The orb began to melt as it overloaded and the barrier cracked in dozens of spots before a brief silence overtook the entire area. Then, as though time was moving in slow motion, the barrier exploded as Laz’s body was suddenly enclosed in a red light as an almost skin tight armor covered his entire body.

...

As the last of the survivors from the first gate reached the second gate, a massive explosion rocked the entire mountainside. Pooja, Hera, Athena, Clio and Erato along with Persephone looked back before channeling their power into an emergency barrier to block off the wave of energy that came for them.

"LAZ!!!" They all seemed the scream at once, once the wave had diminished and the dust rose up.

But there was no answer back. Hera and Pooja dragged the younger girls into the gate as Two and Seven stepped forward.

"Empress. Is there any word from the commander?" Two asked, looking around and not seeing Laz anywhere. He had already gathered what was left of their forces as Blake sent them around to make camp. As it turned out, Blake was rather skilled in logistics even if his mouth got him into trouble more often than not so Two usually left those things up to the young man to do.

Hera looked back at the still rising dust cloud and then turned back the the older criminal before shaking her head.

"There is no communication as of yet. We need to prepare the defenses as quickly as possible. We’ve gained some time but even that blast won’t stop them," Hera said.

"What is it that they want so badly from us? I mean, what kind of a threat are we now that we are trapped within this fortress and cut off from the rest of the world?" Erato asked, sitting her tired body on the ground as her breath came in deep gasps.

While she had asked the question, it was something they all wanted to know. With the strength the beasts had displayed and the repeated loss of the human’s side, why did they need t keep going after them, even if it meant their own deaths in the process. If they waited long enough, wouldn’t the humans just starve in the mountains?

Hera took a deep breath before ordering the guards to disperse. Seven also walked away while issuing orders for everyone to back away and give the Empress some room. From beneath the collar of her dress, she pulled out a strangely shaped pendant attached to a golden chain. The pendant had five sides and looked almost like a pentagram with special runes engraved upon it. While the other’s looked on, Hera explained.

"This is the key to leave this pocket dimension. While this single world is quite large, it is but a tiny pocket in a vast universe, the one in which Laz came here from. While you can get in from the outside fairly easily, leaving here requires one to open a lock and this is the only key. I stole it from the Emperor shortly after he was injured and sent back from the front lines after I had already recovered a bit and replaced it with a fake. At that point, I knew he couldn’t be trusted. The beast that took him over has probably already figured out that the one on the body he now inhabits is a fake and is looking for the real one," Hera explained with a sigh.

"So as long as we have this key, that beast is trapped here along with the rest of us."

"Then why don’t we just let it leave if it wants to so bad?" Athena asked along with the nods from several others.

"Because if it is able to get out, then it will come back, but it will no longer be alone. And the things out there, the ones waiting for it? If what Laz said is accurate, then we will have lost any hope for survival."