The solid wood of the door looked like an impassable barrier, but for Pierre, there was no other choice. The boy closed his eyes, concentrated the residual Mana burning in his veins, and projected his intent into the empty space on the other side.
The air around his body warped into a gray vortex. With a dry crack of displaced vacuum, Pierre vanished, leaving behind only the echo of his ragged breathing.
"He made it...?" Abner muttered, pressing his weight against the wood, praying the latch would yield.
There was no time for a reply.
The three mutated shadows broke through the corridor's darkness at full speed. Creatures horribly deformed by Mana contamination, with exposed muscle tissue, bone fangs protruding past their jaws, and claws scoring deep grooves into the ceramic floor with every bound.
"Hold the center, Paulo!" Allisson ordered, adjusting his stance behind the Mineral-Alloy Twin-Blade Spear.
The first Mana hound leaped in a high parabolic arc, jaws wide. Allisson, utilizing the extended reach of the metal shaft and his 17.5 Perception, stepped quickly to the side and delivered a rising thrust. The mineral-alloy tip pierced the monster's chest, shattering its ribcage with a sickening crunch of broken bone. The hound let out a sharp whine and dropped heavy to the floor, but the force of the collision jammed the spear shaft deep inside the animal's carcass.
In that microsecond of vulnerability, the second hound lunged from above.
With no time to yank his weapon free, Allisson raised his left arm diagonally, thrusting his forearm—protected by the Rigid Chitin Bracer—as his only viable shield.
The impact was brutal. The hound's bone jaws clamped down like a hydraulic press over the insect carapaces. The chitin resisted the direct crushing force, preventing Allisson's bones from splintering, but the sheer kinetic load punched right through the equipment's seams. The fangs ripped into the flesh of his forearm, sending Allisson crashing backward onto the tile floor.
A sharp, searing bolt of pain lanced through the professor's nervous system as hot blood began to pool inside his tactical glove.
Simultaneously, the third hound flanked the group, charging straight at Paulo.
[Synaptic Acceleration]! Paulo screamed internally.
For a single second, the boy's temporal perception dilated to its absolute limit. The world around him slowed down dramatically: droplets of the hound's blood hung frozen in mid-air, and the beast's movements turned sluggish and predictable. Paulo ducked by a millimeter under the creature's sweeping paw, feeling the rush of air graze his cheek.
As the accelerated state snapped off, Paulo's vision returned to normal speed just in time to see Allisson pinned to the floor, a hound snapping viciously toward his throat.
"Get off him!" Paulo roared.
Throwing the full weight of his body forward, Paulo gripped the iron bar with both hands and brought it down in a crushing overhead arc. The metal struck the top of the monster's skull with a deafening crack. The Mana hound released Allisson's arm guard with a sharp yelp and staggered to the side. Without a moment's hesitation, Paulo snapped his hips and drove the jagged, cut end of the iron pipe straight into the beast's eye socket, sinking the metal deep into its brain.
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[ENEMY ELIMINATED: Mana Hound - Lv. 3]
Kill Credit: Paulo
XP Gained: +35 XP
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Allisson rolled aside instantly, ignoring the blazing fire of his bleeding left arm. He rose in a single fluid motion, jerked his Twin-Blade Spear free from the first carcass, and advanced.
The first hound, though severely wounded in the chest from the initial thrust, was struggling to push itself back up. Allisson closed the distance and drove the opposite spear tip down through the animal's throat, extinguishing its spasms for good.
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[ENEMY ELIMINATED: Mana Hound - Lv. 2]
Kill Credit: Allisson
XP Gained: +20 XP
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Next, Allisson and Paulo closed the trap on the third hound, which was trying to recover from Paulo's initial dodge. A precise lateral slash from Allisson's spear threw the monster off balance, opening a clean window for a devastating neck strike delivered by Paulo. Their combined effort snuffed out the life of the front-line predator.
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[ENEMY ELIMINATED: Mana Hound - Lv. 3]
Shared Kill: Allisson and Paulo
XP Gained: +20 XP (Allisson) | +15 XP (Paulo)
[(PAULO) YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 4!]
Current XP: 5 / 100 XP
Level Bonus: +0.5 to All Attributes / +1 Mana / +1 Free Point
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Silence fell abruptly over the corridor, broken only by Paulo's ragged breathing and the wet dripping of Allisson's blood onto the floor.
Both men spun on their heels, staring back at the Faculty Lounge door.
Nothing. The latch remained completely motionless. There was no rattle of keys, no footsteps, and no sound of a lock turning from within.
"Pierre?!" Abner hammered his fists against the wood in mounting panic. "Pierre, unlock this! Open it right now!"
"Did he... did he fail? Did he fuse into the wall?!" Jade cracked completely, burying her face in her trembling hands as a convulsive sob tore through her chest. "We're going to die here! There's nowhere else to go!"
Allisson pressed his right hand hard against the laceration on his left arm, feeling his heart pounding furiously. His tactical mind processed the silence. Pierre might have miscalculated the folding coordinates, materialized inside a blind spot, or been incapacitated by something already waiting inside the room.
Before they could take corrective action, a new sound echoed from the dark end of the school.
It was no longer just a loose growl. It was the synchronized scraping of dozens of claws tearing across drywall and metal, accompanied by the muffled thunder of heavy paws. The rich scent of fresh blood hanging from the combat zone and the three dead hounds acted as a dinner bell down the enclosed hallway.
The second wave—larger, denser, and driven by the raw hunger of the entire pack—was surging rapidly out of the shadows.
"Paulo..." Allisson said, his voice dropping to a glacial chill as he hoisted his bloodstained spear once more. "Guard posture. They're coming."