A line of destroyed and disabled Avatars lined the hill, the wall of inoperable robots being anywhere from two to three machines thick. After a close call where an Avatar was able to keep up with Preston's movements, the entire rest of the party had to target the single machine to take it out. Teresa began using <Identify> a lot more during the fight, calling out any Avatar with a level high enough to be a problem.

Avatars were backed up and they needed to find new paths to cross the hill, and it was just about time to retreat. They were all struggling by this point, with multiple party members close to death. Even if the robots could understand them, the party still called out their status as the fight continued regardless of what Chernobyl could do with that information.

Sarah had the most HP at the moment proportional to her full pool, sitting at a third of her health after getting grazed by a bullet and even stabbed by flying chunks of rock from shots hitting the ground near her. Teresa and Jake each had a higher amount of actual HP left that surpassed Sarah's full HP, but they were taking far more damage at a consistent rate.

Preston had the most Stamina, but he was blowing through it incredibly fast. A lot of his skills had a very short cooldown, though he chained together so many movement abilities again and again that he probably couldn't have used up his Stamina faster if he tried. <Stutter Step>, which very quickly reversed his most recent movement, could be repeated to make him look like he was rubber banding in a game. He liked to chain it into <Pivot> and then <Momentum Build>, sometimes he managed to find a way to throw <Second Step> into the mix to make him even harder to read. Unfortunately, using four movement skills again and again was costly on his resources, and that was without mentioning <Dash> which was practically always active.

Jake's shield that once had a smooth outer surface now looked like scrap metal. At one point he had gotten hit in the chest by a higher level Avatar, which dented his armor and made it incredibly difficult to breathe. Teresa helped him out by briefly channeling Mana through his equipment, causing it to start repairing while Jake covered both of them to the best of his ability with his shield.

Sarah had said she was at a fifth of her Mana roughly a minute ago, while Preston also seemed worried about his resources and had given Teresa a few glances that told her he was almost out. Jake had taken enough hits for his HP to drop quite a bit. During the fight, he had actually regenerated just enough Mana to use <Taunt> once, which wasn't super effective but it still got some attention off of the others.

Teresa wasn't in good condition either. No one had been using any methods to conserve their resources, as doing so would result in death. She hadn't been able to use <Retaliate> without too many potential consequences, <Sturdy Outer Shell> had been using Mana for better control and movement, while <Dash> had been rapidly using up her Stamina. Mana and HP were her main concerns at the moment, as the vast majority of her skills used more Mana than Stamina. She needed to diversify more.

Seeing everyone was just hanging on by a thread, Teresa made a decision. It was time to retreat.

"Fall back!" Teresa yelled, putting her sword away into her <Inventory>. Mana built up in both hands as she fired shotgun <Embers> repeatedly towards the Avatars, trying to obscure their vision rather than damage them. Bullets rained down around her as Preston took cover behind Jake who was backing up quickly using his shield as protection.

Teresa's fire spell helped a lot with their retreat, but they were still getting hit occasionally. Teresa kept her status screen open as she moved, nervously glancing at her HP as it continued to drop. Not many of the Avatars were able to get through her <Sturdy Outer Shell> in a way that mattered, most of the hits melted through her Mana more than anything. Despite that, a few were still leaving bruises underneath the spell that were instantly healed by <Facilitated Restoration>.

Even in good physical condition, her HP had reached the double digits. She was tired in a way sleep could not fix, her Soul literally felt like it was fading. It was lame, and definitely not the way she wanted to die if she had to. Teresa would much rather go out in a more dramatic fashion. Getting hit in the stomach by something that felt pretty light only to keel over and die would suck. At that point, she'd rather just fall off a cliff or something.

They reached the crest of the hill and immediately dove for the cover it provided, all of them exhausted. Sarah continued to blindly fire her Mana arrows while using <Air Burst> to deal whatever damage she could, but as the cover provided by Teresa's shotgun <Embers> faded she was forced back as well.

"Shit." Preston gasped, clutching his chest as he tried to catch his breath. "How are we still alive? Being up close wasn't too bad, but that initial charge and falling back was terrible."

"Forget that, are we good to run away for good now?" Jake asked, looking at Sarah and Teresa who had the higher Perception stats.

"I think they're good now, but the fighting hasn't stopped." Sarah said, looking in the distance. Teresa saw the same scene as the Completionists were still fighting with the army, who had now managed to reposition in the middle of a battle so that the attacking Completionists were sandwiched between the Avatars and the army.

Unfortunately, that meant Teresa and her party were stuck between the Avatars and the Completionists. The Completionists were certainly losing, but not without getting a few hits in. Teresa couldn't make out the details, but there were more bodies than there should be. The army seemed smaller, and it was only going to get worse if a wave of Avatars attacked.

"What are they going to do once the Avatars get there?" Teresa asked, worried. "We stalled them, bought a few minutes at least, but what now? Nikolas made it sound like they'd just retread until Ezio arrived to help out, but how is the operation going to work long term?"

"Are you saying what we just did was pointless?" Jake asked, but Teresa shook her head.

"No, if the Avatars weren't impeded then there would be a lot more casualties on both sides. I just don't know if it was enough."

"Alright, what's the plan then?" Jake asked, rolling his shoulders as he stretched. "I know damn well that means we're still going to be doing something, I'm still in."

"I… I need to think." Teresa said, racking her brain for ideas. "Fuck, there's not enough time to think."

"Maybe we should just fall back." Sarah said. "I want to do more too, but I don't know what we can do. Attacking the Avatars means we die, but retreating means we'll die later. We can figure out something in between then and now."

"You have a point, but I don't think we'll be able to solve this if we run." Teresa replied. "We were taking care of those Avatars just fine, but it took all of us to deal with the high level Avatars. Once there are entire waves of level 80 Avatars, I don't know if we'll be able to handle it. Once we run, we never stop."

"At least these guys give good experience." Preston said. "I don't remember the last time I leveled up twice in one fight before."

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It was true, Teresa herself had hit level 58. Farming experience in the Contaminated Zone was certainly lucrative, though Chernobyl still needed to die.

What could she do? What could any of them do? Attacking the Avatars would result in dying and changing nothing and retreating would result in Chernobyl becoming too powerful to stop. They could try falling back and meeting up with the army again, but then they'd just be another party of people out of resources and struggling to help. Ezio's nuclear <Embers> could probably help out a lot, but even then Teresa didn't expect them to take out the massive wave of Avatars by themselves.

Last time they had used Ezio as a distraction, leading the bombing drones away from the fight while a fully prepared army dealt with the Avatars. Now, with most people unable to use their skills anymore, it would be a slaughter. It's not like they could lead a train of Avatars away like they did in the Tutorial, and most of Teresa's experience came from fighting monsters.

Well, actually, holy fuck. Teresa was a genius.

"We push deeper into the Contaminated Zone." Teresa said, looking north.

"Why? The Avatars will just attack the army and we'll be in a terrible position." Jake said.

"We're going to use a monster hunting strategy. When someone starts to get overwhelmed, you attack the Portal. It gets the monsters' attention and relieves your ally." Teresa explained. She could practically see the lightbulbs turning on in everyone's head as they got the same idea.

"You're saying we should attack Chernobyl directly." Jake said, a smile growing on his face. "I like it, but what are we going to really do? We aren't really much of a threat right now."

"Maybe, but I've got this." Teresa said, pulling something out of her <Inventory>.

"Is that…" Jake started, but he started laughing before he could finish speaking.

"You've had that the whole time?" Sarah asked incredulously, while Jake and Preston laughed together while still out of breath.

"It's not like there have been many good chances to use it, and I didn't use all of it. Honestly I considered it against the Avatars, but using it would create an opening for them. Besides, there was another Monster Stronghold I looted during the bossfight." Teresa explained, as she put her magical C4 back in her <Inventory>. "I don't have much, and it took a whole lot more to deal with Lady Liberty who was only level 40. Regardless, this can seriously fuck up some infrastructure, and isn't Chernobyl just a glorified building?"

"Okay okay, I can breathe now." Preston said as he stood up straight. "Let's stop wasting time and go."

"Someone's coming!" Sarah yelled, a Mana arrow already drawn.

"Oh for fuck's sake if it's not someone from the army I'm going to be pissed." Teresa groaned as a man wearing leather armor casually walked out of a nearby cave.

"You know, I'll give you credit. I thought you guys were going to die." The man said, seeming far too relaxed. "I was even going to let you go, but it seems like you're going to be a problem."

Teresa scoured her brain as she prepared for another fight. From the looks of it, he was a light warrior, and after just a second of thinking through her memories Teresa recognized him. The man who seemed prepared to go into a monologue was from Angelo's party, he was someone with skills that relied on knives and speed, killing his opponents with a thousand cuts.

This was the worst encounter they could face, as any damage could be lethal and <Identify> revealed the man was level 67. He wasn't much higher level than Teresa, but he also wasn't coming fresh from a battle. This man could speedblitz all of them, Preston included. If they were all in good condition they could annihilate the Completionist standing in front of them, but now they were kind of screwed.

"You're not the kind of people I like to kill, but I can make exceptions." Silas, the Completionist said. Preston and Sarah both groaned, seeming more annoyed than anything.

"Are we really about to get killed by this guy?" Preston asked. "You're not the kind of people I like to kill, how edgy."

"He is a corny ass bitch." Sarah agreed, shaking her head.

"Excuse me?" Silas asked, caught extremely off guard. Teresa herself was caught by surprise a bit, but it dawned on her what they were doing. Their only chance was if Silas made a mistake, emotionally tormenting him might make him more inclined to do exactly that.

"Well fuck you dude, if you're gonna kill us then we're not gonna make it satisfying for you." Sarah said. "If you want to go into the apocalypse roleplaying as some edgelord then you're a friggin loser and you should feel bad about it."

"How long were you waiting in that cave man?" Jake asked. "Were you just sitting there, looking for a cool moment to come out?"

"Actually I used a silence inscription. I'm experienced in both hand to hand combat and magic. You should be scared, you stand before the greatest Assassin-"

"You should be scared, you stand before the greatest Assassin-" Sarah mocked in a goofy voice, following along. "Why'd you stop?"

"You should be begging for your lives."

"Does it ruin it for you?" Teresa asked, joining in. Her mind was running at a million miles an hour, trying to figure out what exactly they could do in their situation. "It's just, you're corny. I mean, I know I've probably said my fair share of corny shit since the apocalypse started, but you're really into it."

He was clearly getting upset by his facial expression, though Teresa was admittedly a bit worried. How exactly they could capitalize on this, she wasn't sure. Everyone was ready for a fight, but if he speedblitzed them then it would be over before they could do anything. In perfect condition, Teresa felt like they could take him, but clearly they were not in that scenario. If Silas wanted, the fight would be more like an execution. It was better to goad him into taking his time.

"When you bleed out on the ground before me, we'll see how cocky you are then." Silas threatened.

Ugh, he actually was kind of corny. At this rate, the Avatars would show up and kill them first. If this guy wanted Teresa's respect, he would have attacked them immediately rather than trying to sound cool first. He hadn't really spoken that much, but still.

She could pull out her handgun and try to shoot him with her last bullet, but everything she knew about him suggested it would be futile. He was incredibly fast and very sneaky according to the research they had done on the Completionists before the operation. He had a lot of skills that allowed him to obscure vision, get in close, deal damage, then fall back. He was in the perfect position to deal with the party. Shooting him would take too long, and while detonating the C4 might take all of them out that would also take too long.

Their best bet would be if Jake could capture him with <Golden Anchor>, but that would most likely result in Jake's death. Judging by the look on his face, he had the same idea, and he had gradually moved towards the front of the party throughout the encounter. A look of despair crossed both Preston and Sarah's faces as they caught on, but this might be the only option. Did he have enough resources to even use that skill? If so, it wouldn't be for long.

Couldn't they catch a break one time?

Bang!

Teresa blinked as Silas toppled over screaming, a hole going through the back of his leg. The wound was black and burning, with the smell of cooked flesh filling her Perception enhanced nose.

Huh?

On a separate hill, a man holding what looked like a musket was running towards them, but Teresa didn't have time for that. <Embers> activated in both hands while everyone in the party drew their weapons. Two streams of fire engulfed the suddenly crippled Completionist as an arrow struck him in the back. His back burst into gory chunks as <Air Burst> activated, only for Preston to hit him with an <Air Slash>. Jake swung his axe downwards towards the man, but by the time he connected Teresa had a feeling he was already dead.

The party all exchanged looks with each other as they just completely obliterated the Assassin the moment they got an opportunity, then looked back at the musket man running towards them.

"Who is that?" Sarah asked, not recognizing the man. Of course she wouldn't. He hadn't been in the army, and he hadn't been studied during their research. As a matter of fact, Teresa knew he wasn't from Arconette or The Mall either. Tears streamed down her face as he yelled out her name. For a moment, the entire operation slipped away from her mind.

"That's my dad."

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