Freedom.

That was the first word that came to mind. The feeling of flying under his own power couldn't quite be put into words no matter how much he searched his vocabulary, but the simple concept of being able to soar high above the world, divorcing himself from the petty worries of the ground, was easy to define.

It was freedom. In multiple senses: he was free from whatever bullshit the system tried to inflict on him in Watford, because he could just fly straight over the hordes of monsters that were meant to herd the participants of its grim death game. He was also free from being accosted by enemy combatants who'd sunk so deeply into PvP that they saw no other way forward. He was free from having to see the destruction the apocalypse had wrought on the world, free from having to consider the implications of this bloodstain or that torn piece of clothing.

Just so long as he kept his gaze on the horizon, he didn't have to think about any of it. He was in a whole different world, reserved, at this moment, just for him.

That wasn't to say he managed to empty his mind of earthly concerns. For example, he was keenly aware that these wings shouldn't have been physically capable of keeping him afloat, no matter how big and strong they looked. It went without saying magic was in play here. Every flap of his draconic wings carried far more thrust than they should have been capable of; it reminded him of Force Push, in a way, with how it seemed to generate an unseen wave of gravity-defying force beyond the simple movements of air.

The first flap of his wings had taken him a bit off guard, launching him up far higher than expected. Luckily, he didn't think he'd done anything particularly embarrassing. If he'd made any sound of surprise, the wind had drowned it out.

He'd corkscrewed a hundred metres into the air in one go, and the next flap of his wings had done much the same. Trial and error had been the name of the game for a few minutes after that, but, oddly enough, he got the hang of it pretty quickly.

While none of his Spells granted him perfect understanding of how to use them, they were never particularly unintuitive, either. These abilities had been designed to be used. They weren't meant to be monkeys paw's or ironic tricks beyond the mental anguish they were inherently supposed to cause their user.

He could see how the Draconic Wings fit into that mould. Quite apart front the potential humiliation—and horrendous bodily harm—that would come with messing up and crashing, they were, not to put too fine a point on it, rather eye-catching, and John had spent most of his life trying not to catch the eye.

Case in point: he couldn't exactly miss the Aura gains that were coming in as he flew through the sky. After gaining some confidence with the ability, largely won by confirming that he could use Teleportation to get out of trouble if it looked like he was about to crash, he'd decided to go on a flight around the town, giving himself a bird's eye view that would provide a better understanding of the town's layout than Doug's explanations could ever give him.

He had to admit, he hadn't registered much of Watford yet. The sheer exhilaration from being able to fly had rather distracted him, and he'd decided to indulge himself in a rare moment of childlike joy. Hell, he couldn't even call it childlike. He challenged any adult not to be overwhelmed by awe at the experience.

The wind in his hair as he soared across the sky, the swoop in his stomach when he dove or climbed, the light-headedness that came with trying to turn too hard, somehow exhilarating rather than uncomfortable—he suspected the G-forces of those moves would have had him emptying his stomach, if not for his Vitality and Strength.

He had been executing more and more elaborate manoeuvres in the sky as his confidence grew, and Aura gains had been coming in with increasing regularity.

+1000 Aura

+800 Aura

+600 Aura

+1000 Aura

+800 Aura

It took no genius to figure out the cause: he was doing cool shit, and people down on the ground were bearing witness. He briefly wondered what they saw, what they thought. Did they only see another potential enemy flying through the burning sky? Did they think he could be a potential ally in whatever vendettas or ploys they were pursuing? Did they think, "Damn, I wish that was me?"

Whatever the case, John endeavoured to ignore it, for a time. He felt like his flight could occupy his thoughts forever, drowning out all other distractions. He flipped, he corkscrewed, he flitted from side to side. Barrel rolls, loop-de-loops, and spins abounded. Most of the time, though, he just enjoyed the feeling of being above the world, separated from its concerns. It was nice.

His glee came to an end when "night" fell once more. Previously, he'd only ever seen the secondary effects, with the dark veil enshrouding the burning sky. This time, he was afforded an unobstructed view of the black hole's arrival over Central London.

It started with a mere pinprick of darkness in the distance. Then it unfolded like the aperture of a lens, a black tear ripping apart reality until it formed a perfect circle no matter what angle one looked at it from. The darkness deepened until the centre of the hole was a total absence of light, like the vantablack he'd seen in science videos. Around its edges was a kind of purple haze, and it began leaking dark ichor like it was dribbling.

From his higher vantage point, he could now confirm it was leaking that foul sludge right into the River Thames, just as he'd theorised a while ago. He was tempted to try and go higher, but the burning sky demanded caution—it was hard to tell where the flames of the burning sky actually began. Though his wings were Draconic and, thus, implied to be fire-resistant, he wasn't keen to test the theory only to pull an Icarus.

Once the black hole seemed to have fully established itself in existence, the veil followed. It was like the anomaly was pressing itself right onto the fabric of reality, and its weight was almost too much for this mortal plane to bear. Dark creases spread across the sky, spiralling out from the epicentre. The sky darkened a few shades, and the world gained the closest thing to a nighttime it seemed likely to get.

John stared at it with utter loathing for a long moment. He had another reason to hate it, now: enjoying his flight seemed nigh impossible now that that thing was ruining the view.

Not that the view had been great anyway, he had to admit. London's skyline wasn't exactly imprinted perfectly into his memory by any means, but he could recognise that it had changed drastically over the last few days. The Shard was gone, for one thing. No sign of it. A bunch of other towers he'd never known the names of were missing, too. Those that were still standing were skeletal, damaged. He could see that one was leaning against another.

Worse were the massive beasts that seemed to be patrolling the area around the black hole. There were fewer skyscrapers to use as reference now, but he'd still guess that the smallest of these things was a hundred metres tall at least. He didn't need Soul Vision to tell him those were reds.

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Long term goals, John thought, turning away from the scene and dragging his attention to the more immediate problem facing him: Watford. It took a bit of finagling to get his wings flapping at a rhythm that mostly kept him in one spot, looking down on the town from perhaps half a kilometre up, and then he finally allowed himself to consider the place.

It was a mess, to put it simply. Before the apocalypse, the internet had been rife with pictures of various urban war zones around the world, whether they be historical accounts or contemporary ones, and the current state of Watford put a lot of them to shame.

Watford had been a bit of an urban sprawl before the apocalypse, a typical English town that kept spilling out of its boundaries with more and more cookie-cutter suburban estates cropping up. There were a couple of areas that seemed to have been industrial estates with warehouses and such, and a rather large town centre. To the north there was a large complex he suspect was the Warner Bros theme park thingie Doug had described, to the south the football stadium stood out, and he could see a large train station nestled close to the town's heart—three strong suspects for portal locations.

A generous soul could've called Watford a circular shape overall, if you included the attached satellite towns like Bushey and the other ones John couldn't remember the names of. Hovering above the hospital he'd just helped destroy, the town's layout resembled a random splatter of paint, and the apocalypse had added to that impression.

The devastation was extensive. Maybe half the buildings in the town were still standing, and those all sported plenty of damage. Debris was utterly strewn across the place from one end to the other. Fires burned here and there, along with more colourful effects he struggled to put a name to from high above.

But it wasn't a completed picture. The damage was not yet done. Even now, he could see hundreds of monster hordes rushing across the town in their columns, looking like solid black lines sweeping across the landscape from his high vantage. Among them, there were flashes of light of varying description, and smaller hints of movement.

People were still fighting. Still dying. Killing each other. The monsters were herding the fighters towards each other, it seemed, and those people were obliging the system's desires.

Through gritted teeth and clenched fists and burning eyes, John wondered how many people down there were completely unaware that the whole world wasn't being subjected to this PvP death game bullshit? How many people hadn't even considered the possibility of trying to get past the monsters and escaping the town?

He tried not to blame them. The system had obviously set things up so that they didn't have time or space for such considerations, always having to move to the next fight, prevented from stopping to think and plan long term.

His heart clenched as he wondered if Doug, Lily, Jade, and Chester were out there somewhere. Part of him hoped they were, and he'd be able to reunite with familiar faces. Another part hoped they weren't, and they'd gone straight to the rendezvous point to meet up with Alissa.

He didn't consider the possibility that they weren't out there at all anymore. It was there, at the back of his mind, but he didn't let himself examine it.

John took a deep breath. Throughout his observations, he'd still been receiving Aura gains here and there. Even now, there were people catching sight of him, witnessing the undeniable coolness of a man hovering in the air hundreds of metres above the town, above it all, a higher existence. He'd gained like 10k for basically nothing already.

What happens if I actually try?

That thought lodged itself into his mind and dug its claws in deep, refusing to let go once it had purchase. His brain kicked into life, glad for a new topic that didn't involve the grim reality of the scene below him, and the more he considered the possibilities, the more he liked it.

Up here, he was beyond judgement. That wasn't to say people couldn't judge him; the important point was that they could see him, but he couldn't see them. If he couldn't see their reactions, he couldn't overthink things. He was literally above their reproach, and that was perfect. This was an opportunity for Aura farming like no other. No quips, no nonsense, just showing off without having to worry too hard about messing up, because people wouldn't be able to see him in too fine detail anyway, and he didn't have to worry about their reactions.

If I'm going to do this, he thought a little giddily, I need to go all out.

First, he pulled his scythe out of his inventory, imagining himself as some flying reaper swooping across the skies, bringing awe and terror to his audience in equal measure. Then, he had another thought: why stop there? If there was one thing more badass than flying around with a scythe, it was flying around while dual wielding. And how about dual wielding a fucking katana.

The black blade he'd confiscated from Curtis appeared in his hand. It was still horribly heavy, but no one would be able to notice the strain in his face all the way up here.

He held the weapons out to his sides, and the Aura immediately started pouring in.

+1000 Aura

+1000 Aura

+1000 Aura

+1000 Aura

Did that mean four people were watching him right now? He shook his head. Didn't matter. This was just the beginning.

With one Spell slot taken up by Draconic Wings, he had to consider what would be coolest in the second slot. What would be the edgiest option?

It didn't take long to come to the conclusion that felt right. Ultimate Shot would be too aggressive, Aurora Blade wouldn't be visible enough from up here, Sanguine Clone would probably tumble from the sky, and his other offensive Spells weren't good fits for the situation, too destructive, too easily written off as someone else's doing.

So the choice was obvious. Among all the abilities in his repertoire, there was one that, while undeniably useful, was edgier than any other.

Shadow Stream sent oily darkness rushing out from his hands, but he didn't want the Spell working along its named purpose in this case. Instead, he had it curve out, turning back on itself to flow up his arms and over his shoulders. He made sure it didn't cover him completely, because he didn't want to be cut off from observers. Instead, he had it cascade down his back.

Once again, Aura poured in.

+1000 Aura

+1000 Aura

+1000 Aura

+1000 Aura

More awe from the spectators down below. He didn't blame them. He would've been impressed too, if he looked up in the sky and saw a dude with dragon wings hovering there, wielding a katana and a scythe, with a fucking cape made of shadows.

John grinned. He couldn't help it. It felt weird on his face. There hadn't been much to grin about, recently. A pang of guilt raked at his heart, some part of him rebelling against the idea of enjoying himself after everything that had happened over the last hour or so. He tried to suppress it, though his grin faltered a little.

Time to move.

Tucking his wings to his sides, he plummeted down, letting himself fall a few hundreds metres to gain speed, then swept them out to his side and gave a mighty heave, catapulting himself over the rooftops at incredible speed. The world blurred past below, and more Aura came in.

It felt like it took him no time at all to cross from one side of the town to the other, though it was definitely a good few minutes, and he banked to one side once he was done, turning north and soaring along the outskirts. It took him about five minutes to do a full arc around the northern edge of Watford, and he plunged back down toward the south, keeping up his speed until he'd completed the circuit, the hospital where he'd started flashing by beneath him.

His Aura was cascading upwards. Dozens or even hundreds of people had to be witnessing his flight. He was announcing himself in the flashiest way he could possibly imagine. He was saying:

I'm here now, and I'm gonna fuck you all up.

The moment was somewhat ruined when a familiar voice squawked nearby:

"Fuck you!" it said.

"Fuck you!" said another.

John's eyes snapped to their source, and found a pair of parrots trailing after him, one red, one blue.

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