The city was in chaos.

  For a Godless city like Zeb, we had lived in fear of there being a Surge on one of the floors and the Dungeon breaking. Though when it happened because of a Surge, the monsters started pushing out through the Dungeon Mouth, one floor at a time, until the increase in monsters from whichever floor had been dealt with. The thing about that situation was that the monsters from, for instance, the thirty eighth floor would have to travel down through the thirty seventh, then the thirty sixth, and so on. If a hundred monsters left the thirty-eighth floor, then only ninety-eight might make it down to the thirty-seventh, just due to monster interactions alone. That number would keep dwindling until it was possible that the Surge would peter out on its own. With Adventurers able to deal with the level one monsters that were initially forced out and the slowly increasing level of monsters that were being pushed out.

  With a full on Dungeon Break like what was currently happening, it was like all of the gates inside the Dungeon had become unhooked up to a certain level and had sprouted new Dungeon Mouths all around the Dungeon that they were coming from. Whatever Adventurers who were already inside the Dungeon would only be able to leave that floor once they defeated the Floor Boss. The problem with that was that the Floor Boss was no longer hidden away in their Room and if they were really unlucky, then the Floor Boss would have left the Dungeon entirely, trapping them inside until Adventurers outside the Dungeon were able to defeat it, which would reattach the floor back to the normal Dungeon structure.

  It didn’t take long for us to realize that we weren’t going to be making much headway in the vehicles. Our convoy was only four vehicles, but one was too many to try to get through the traffic jam that was trying to get out of the city. With Mive unavailable and the Six unconscious in our custody, there was no one in charge of the city to tell the people what to do and the guards at the gates were still processing anyone who was trying to leave, which had created this massive buildup that was barely moving. It also probably didn’t help that Most people knew that Klix and Harror were here, so I was sure there were a lot of people who thought that this was an invasion and they were trying to get out before the Desolation flattened the city.

  “Out!” Klix kicked the door off. “We’ll run the rest of the way!”

  The ivory Goddess stomped over to the vehicle that Harror had gotten into as I got out.

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  I grabbed Ether’s arm and the two of us ran over to the moving van with Kara right behind us.

  “Get everyone out!” I banged on the hood of the moving van. “We’re running the rest of the way!”

  Gesai got out and came over to me, while Whisper went around to the back.

  “Are you okay?” The redhead looked at the Scarlet behind us, then back at me.

  “She’s with us…” I wasn’t sure how to explain it and didn’t think we had time. “We’re fine. How is everyone on your end?”

  “Roughed up, but alive.” The older woman wrapped me in a tight embrace. “I was so worried…”

  “You’re… Squeezing me…”

  “I’m sorry!” Her hug loosened, but she didn’t release me.

  I saw the rest of my team getting out. Justia was carrying Astrid, while Fray and Oz had Trent and Mive again.

  I heard a scream and saw a Grim run towards Oz. Whisper had his sword through them and pinned them to the ground before they got close, but that was just the first one. Kara had her hand out and a golden barrier appeared around our convoy. Two more Grim collided with the barrier, while Whisper dealt with one who had gotten through before it had been put in place.

  “What’s going on?!” Klix stomped over to us.

  “They were under attack.” Kara gave her grandmother a small bow.

  “Heretics…” Klix looked at the gathering crowd that was banging on the barrier, while a much larger crowd had rushed the gate, which was now fully open with people running out of the city with whatever they could carry.

  The ivory Goddess looked at Harror, who had walked over. Her four guards were helping the two Scarlets that had been in the front of the larger vehicle get the Six out.

  “Can your tree cover the gate from here?” Klix made no attempt to hide the irritation in her voice.

  To respond Harror bent down and touched the pavement, but this time as grass and flowers spread out around her, a large tree began to grow in the middle of the road. It went almost a hundred feet in the air, easily taller than any building in the city.

  Klix nodded and began looking around, then settled on a restaurant two stores down. “We’ll set up there.”

  As the group began to move, it amazed me that they were ignoring the people trying to break our mobile barrier like they were nothing but flies buzzing outside of a net. I had thought Trent was powerful, but I was starting to realize just how much power these beings had. And I was only watching their guards. I couldn’t imagine what would happen once the Gods themselves began to throw around their full power.

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