Kalli waited as the timer counted down, but there didn’t seem to be anyone else coming. She had moved to the top of the wall with a folding chair so that she had a better view, without being too visible above the crenellations.

But there was nothing to see.

They hadn’t gotten many more students since the day she reached level three, and there was nobody else coming today. So, this would have to be the entirety of their force.

It was a far cry from the entire Academy of Heroes that they had hoped for, but every person in the Academy gates was considered to be a veteran at this point. They had put in their hours fighting and running quests. Even the cooks and tinkers had taken the time to do at least a few missions to get their experience levels up.

True to her word, Esmeralda came out to join Kalli on the front lawn, where the Coordinator was resting on a bench, waiting to see if anyone would arrive in the final panic before the timer expired.

{Introductory Protections lifted} Warning: Higher level monsters may appear.

{Trial Timer Ended} Fallen Heroes who have not reached level 2 will be stripped of Hero status and cast down from their positions as failures.

Kalli turned her attention to one of the special forces soldiers, who gave her a thumbs up gesture. He hadn’t been affected by the notice, and he was still considered a level 0 Mercenary.

He also hadn’t lost any of the gains that he had acquired from the gym sessions in the last week.

The team might not be up to the standards of the warriors, but they were already far beyond what would be considered normal for a human soldier of any level of training.

They didn’t get as much from the training as Kalli did, at best one point split between two stats. But four points of agility and strength since the quest started was enough to assure them that they were on the right path.

The sky began to darken again, as it had during the last upheaval. But this time, there was no wave of expanding portals to merge the worlds.

Instead, everywhere that the teams on the wall looked, monsters were simply shimmering into existence.

Giant creatures, the same sorts that they had seen the first day during the fifteen-minute invasion, appeared all over the city, and even in the sky above. Their mostly depleted battlefield, with the sparse population of pig men, armoured boars and rat demons, was suddenly home to thousands of other monsters.

Some of them were simply beasts. Strange alien beasts, but clearly beasts. Others were terrifying on an entirely different level.

To the Northeast, near the docks, a group of zombie Giants shambled around, attacking something that Kalli couldn’t see from her vantage point.

Most likely, it was another monster.

In preparation for the monsters that were sure to appear around them, Kalli took her Lasrifle out of storage, and set it against the wall.

The special forces team had collected multiple cases of ammunition, trading for them from the students who didn’t need them. That would get them through a few days, but Kalli suspected that Sergeant Sanchez was going to hit level five soon.

That felt like something significant to her.

There was a chance that it was just a few more stat points and a skill point, like the previous advancements, but for some reason she was certain that something good would be unlocked at level five.

"Contact!" the guard in the tower on Kalli’s left called, drawing her attention to a spot two blocks away, where a giant shambling monster had just come through the remains of a building.

It was that same crocodile headed thing with long legs and random patches of fur that she had seen once before.

There was only one issue with the sudden appearance of all these monsters. They had no practical way of knowing how strong any of them were when they had never seen or fought any of them before.

But now, the monster had seen them, and it was charging their way.

"Test its durability first. Let’s see if it’s something that we need a small or a large group for," Kalli instructed as she shifted the rifle to her shoulder.

{Mandatory Bonus Quest Activated} Assist the Coordinator in eliminating the monsters in the vicinity of the Academy. Hard Mode Quest.

"Ooh, quest. That’s wonderful, I love quests, and this one is double points," Esmeralda cheered.

Then, she waved her hand, and her undead were transported from their spot near the wall to one just outside the Academy. The monster charged at them, and the pig man zombies ambled to the front, while the little skeletons took out a collection of scavenged weapons.

Kalli focused and fired a round into the beast’s forehead.

The laser left a small crater in the flesh, exposing bone, but didn’t seem to slow the creature down at all.

"Well, it’s not soft. I will give it that," Kalli muttered, as the soldier in the tower fired a series of three round bursts into the side of the beast.

Those left bleeding holes, but the creature was massive, and they didn’t seem to be slowing it down at all.

"It’s not bulletproof. That’s a good sign. I was worried that the scales would be metal or something," Esmeralda noted.

Sergeant Sanchez chuckled as he joined them at the top of the wall, and then put three rapid shots into the crater Kalli had made in the creature’s head.

That blew a hole in the skull large enough they could see inside its mouth, but apparently, they had been aiming in the wrong spot to hit its brain. The pig men smashed clubs into it, and the creature chomped down on one.

It was nearly bitten in half in one strike, a testament to the creature’s attack power.

That was only getting Esmeralda excited at the prospect of getting to raise its corpse. Kalli joined Carlos and the tower guard in focusing on the side of the long-legged crocodile, and after a half dozen more shots it finally collapsed, the mangled remains of the Swineherd Zombie still flailing in its mouth.

The Skeletons picked up the lower half of the zombie, which had been bitten off, and held it against the rest of the torso. After a few seconds, the zombie began to stitch itself back together, red sinew mending the gap.

"Oh, now that is a powerful ability."

Esmeralda nodded. "Twenty Mana to regenerate a zombie from the pieces of its corpse, if it’s not had its head damaged. Thanks for not shooting the brain out of that thing, I’m going to have them drag it here so I can make it a zombie too."