154 Little Sister, Need Some Help?

Nik glanced behind him. The new recruits safely reached the western residential side of the bridge and were now acting as bystander's, watching the scene. He shouted, "Get out of here! Have you received your portal runes yet? If not just run back to the mall and ask for help."

The new recruits, mostly women, retreated after much hesitation. Two people remained and walked back on Nik's side of the bridge.

"Get moving!" Nik yelled once more.

"We want to help!" said the only man.

"Our friend's still missing." replied the woman.

Nik saw their resolve hidden in their anxious expressions. Since they have a reason to stay and they seem to know their stuff, he agreed but told them to stick closely and to not do anything stupid.

At the same that he started giving pointers on how to defend and attack as a group, Bartolome shouted with all his might from his side. He said, "Get on the van!"

Nik became startled and quickly turned around. He saw a woman ran out of an alley just to meet with the horde of carriers. She quickly run and got a headstart but the carriers behind were gaining momentum as if they were an engine revving up and were only reaching their top speed.

Since she was unable to think clearly and after hearing the restless snarls and groans behind her,  she quickly accepted the suggestion and jumped as high as she could to reach the van's hood in front of her. Her legs spread as wide as it possibly could but she felt her jeans resisting and caused her other leg to not produce the movement she wanted to, resulting in her knees hitting the front bumper. She endured the pain and quickly got up, then limped towards the van's roof.

The man and the woman behind Nik widened their eyes in horror after seeing the person being chased. They both shouted their friend's name, "Anna!

Emman and Erin rushed out and started clanging their shields. They bravely strode forward but when some of the carriers turned to them, they froze on the spot. They were afraid and couldn't move their bodies as if paralyzed. Its because "some" was already a huge amount since there were hundreds of carriers.

Nik didn't know what to do. If he had atleast ten experienced people with him, he was sure that he could take this horde and stall for time. But reality wasn't that good to him. Besides Bartolome, the two people that remained appeared courageous but were still green. He's a bit regretful that he wouldn't be able to help the woman but he can't sacrifice more people for her sake. Just as he was about to give the order, the man stashed his sword and shield, then brought out a crossbow.

"Enri! Let's go! We have to save her!" said the man as he loaded the crossbow while walking forward.

The woman appeared daze and unmoving. She watched as her friend defended herself from carriers that tried to climb up the hood of the van. She used the sword to destabalized those who managed to climb the hood and the shield to sometimes push them off, while staying at the center of the roof.

The van was now surrounded and due to overcrowding, some became uninterested and walked past the van, choosing to go after the people in the distance.

Emman fired of a lucky shot that struck one carrier on the head. The carrier fell down and caused the ones behind it to tumble down and sprain their legs. Some fell first on the ground causing their noses to break, making dark blood drip down ceaselessly.

"Erin!" Emman shouted to wake her friend, which succeeded, as Erin finally turned to him. "We need to saver her. She could have ignored as back when we got pinned down, but she saved us." Emman stared at his one-time partner after loading a bolt on his crossbow. "We owe her."

Emman fired another bolt and since the carrier were now 20meters in front of them, he hit a head shot after taking aim properly, then switched to sword and shield and waited in bated breathes for the carriers to come closer.

"Damn it!" Erin yelled abruptly. It wasn't known why, maybe to convince herself or just she truly hates the situation. When they were going back after their scavenging trip, they met a group of carriers. With her as the vanguard and Emman as support, they were able to barely win. The moment they felt relieve was the same moment that a new group came after them since they didn't really fought quietly. With Emman having not retrieved his bolts, they quickly lost their advantage of being to thin out the group and could only try a melee combot. That's the time when Anna came and save them. That's also the reason why she was in a bad mood whenever she sees Anna. Deep inside her, she felt that she could do better than her and was just caught in a bad position.

Erin positioned herself beside Emman, armed with the steel sword and stout shield, she said, "So, what's the plan? This isn't even in the same scale as to what happened with us. We can't kill them all, and you know that. You can't expect a miracle either. Look at her movements. It seems that her leg has some problems. She's stuck there until we killed all of them."

"I know the odds aren't good... but, we should atleast try."

The carrier finally arrived and lunged at him. Emman gripped the handle of the shield tighter and braced for impact. Just then he heard a voice from behind him, telling him to dodge. He listened and stepped to the side. The carrier missed him and continued moving forward due to its momentum.

Shrwaak.

A sword lodged itself on its head after being swung from the top.

Nik shook his head and run forward, "Watch closely!" He charged at the regular carriers and tackled them with the shield. "First, you want to be the one doing the tackle. Don't stay for too long and quickly take a step back. Severe the head if you can, to stop them from reanimating but never get surrounded. Dodge their lunges, then counter-attack. The patterns are easy to familiarized with if your courageous enough. Do you understand?"

Nik explained as he demonstrated with his actions. When he was done, piles of dead bodies and severed heads were piled around him.

"And always have support that watches your back." Bartolome said while trying to catch his breath. He glared at Nik, and the teenager only smiled and nodded to him.

Nik glanced at the oncoming detachment and felt the number they just killed wasn't even a drop of what their numbers as a whole.

"There's atleast a hundred and that's already a conservative guess."

"Old man, can your bones still do it? We can go and extract her if were quick enough. The problem was getting out alive."

As the two were talking about plans and success rates, they suddenly felt a breeze passed them. When they turned their heads, they saw Jun already clashing with the incoming detachments, mauling them with his bonehammer. Afterwards, a few more people ran behind, trying to catch up to him.

Nik and Bartolome's eyes shone with delight as they saw their colleagues. Nik hurriedly ran after them, leaving Bartolome, Emman and Erin behind.

Bartolome shook his head at the sight. "What an excited bunch."

As he was about to run after them, he heard Erin exclaimed, "Are they crazy!? There's... there's only six of them."

Bartolome looked back and showed a meaningful smile, he proudly said, "That's Black Haven's leader, Jun Reyes." he started to jog but then turned back to them. "By the way, welcome to Black Haven."

—

A blazing whirl wind created enough space for Jun after he spun with much power and speed. His spinning action created the illusion of a whirl wind as the fiery bonehammer left behind blazing trails of fire. An undead man, who got hit on the sides, had a missing chunk of its stomach but continued walking towards him. Jun swing once more and its head disappeared causing its body to fall down.

All of the carriers that were summoned by the pillar of light were naked. Some had skin while others were skinned, showing their twitching muscles. When Jun swung his bonehammer a female carrier got its breast section cleaned off. Both lump of meat disappeared and has scorch marks remaining on them.

His personal guards were doing a good job of staying out of his range while dealing with the enemies on his sides. With their stable advance, they're only twenty meters away from the van that Anna was trapped on.

After clearing the detachment, Jun was able to get some time to breathe. He stared at the woman on the van and shouted with a smile on his face.

—

"Jun Reyes... Reyes. I feel that I've heard that before. I just can't remember where." said Emman as he tried his best to recall. From the way those people battled, it seems like their help weren't needed and to not become deadweight, they chose to stay back.

Erin who watched Anna in trepidation, fight for her life above the van's room, was suddenly reminded of something. She turned to Emman and said, "Anna Reyes? Isn't that it? That's her last name right?"

"Oh yeah, right! That's probably what I'm trying to recall." said Emman leisurely. Then, his eye sockets popped as he quickly faced Erin. "Does that mean..."

"Let's not jump to conclussions here. Its a common surname—"

Just as Erin was replying back to Emman. a loud voice reverberated on the street. They easily found were it came from but couldn't help but be shocked from what they heard.

Jun Reyes, Black Haven's leader shouted, "Hey, little sister! Need some help?"