Deep guttural groans echoed from a reality breach nearby, as the first beast crossed the boundary and stepped into their world.

Leading with rotting, grasping hands, the first wretched monster stepping through the gate was a familiar one, bringing with it a similarly familiar, utterly putrid stench. It was the first creature that Seth had ever faced. The decrepit zombie let out another groan as it shuffled through the gate, grasping at the air with its moss covered, flesh dripping fingers.

Strange... He almost felt nostalgic, thinking back to the scared and panicked IT guy he had once been. Locked in a storage closet with a rotting corpse come to life. To think, how he had struggled with it so much back then, how a simple bite could have ended his adventure right there and then.

It immediately turned its attention to Seth, it's jaw hanging open as a long bead of drool hung from its lip, which swung hypnotically with the movement of its head, as it stared at Seth with those lifeless, glassy white eyes.

Perhaps it was sensing his heat, or his life energy. He had no idea, but it didn't really matter how it was sensing him. Only that it had, and it was now steadily approaching him.

Just as it was taking its very first step, a dagger flew through the air, conducted by invisible threads, and pierced the rotten fiend through the skull. It immediately halted in its tracks, swaying slightly as it died in an instant.

The dagger immediately removed itself, flicking off the black blood covering its blade, before Seth lunged forward and planted a kick in the rotters chest.

Its body flew back like it was launched from a cannon, blasting back through the portal in rotten chunks that disappeared into the breach in reality. Its upper half left so fast that the legs were still left standing in the same place, the flesh where they used to be connected to the torso torn to shreds.

Of course, how could the impending battle be so simple as to be just a single zombie? No, that rotting corpse being blasted back through the reality breach seemed to open the flood gates for the rest of the unwelcome visitors.

They didn't neatly line up for their slaughter or come through in an orderly fashion, no these beasts piled through the portals with blood lust in their hearts and hunger in their eyes.

Just like before, and with the rest of the city, there seemed to be no cohesion or reason behind what came through each portal, although what came through the individual portals seemed consistent.

Through the gateway that Seth had launched the rotting walker through, more zombies and undead immediately began to pour out like a flood. Others spawned swarms of insects, sparks of electricity arcing between the members of their swarm as their beating wings buzzed with energy, while another spawned a herd of bison-like beasts that had three, long horns like that of a triceratops.

That was not all that appeared from the various gate ways surrounding them, but I'm sure you understand the concept. Whatever these portals were, or whatever they led, it definitely wasn't the same place.

Or if it was, this was seriously one coordinated attack. But if so, then by who?

CLUUNG!

Seth quickly raised his metallic arm and let a zombie bite into that instead, its rotten tombstone teeth scraping uselessly against the tough alloy. It seems he let himself get a little too lost in his thoughts for a moment there as he mindlessly plowed through this horde of enemies.

He wasn't sure how well his 'Black Blood Second Skin' would fare against the zombies teeth, but letting these infectious rotters bite into his blood didn't feel like a good idea. Man, did he really need to think of a better name for this phenomenon when he got the chance.

Ripping his hand from the zombies mouth, he sent yellowed teeth scattering across the ground before slamming his metallic fist into the living corpses head, splattering its wormfood brains across the ground.

He immediately slipped to the side, dodging the grasping hands of another undead, before slicing off its head with a simple knife handed chop. Luckily these things were only low level, with no transcendents in their number... Yet. But even with their low levels, they were making up for it with numbers.

His mentally controlled dagger was working over time, constantly weaving through the crowds of beasts and monsters, piercing through heads and organs, not having a single second to clean itself of the blood that accumulated on its blade.

Reality shattered once more, high above Seth's position as if it was targeting him specifically, as a chimp-like beast immediately fell through it, plummeting towards Seth from above as one of the Tri-horned Bison charged at him from behind.

Without a hint of panic, Seth summoned the [Weaver's Curse] onto his left hand, casting out the steel threads as he leapt backwards into the air. He flipped backwards, sailing over the charging Bison.

Planting his metallic hand on its hunched back, Seth used it to pivot and lash out his foot, hitting the falling ape with an axe kick that shattered bones on impact.

The ape, that had barely been in their world for not even a minute, blasted away from the kick so fast that it nearly broke the sound barrier. When it hit the ground, it didn't even bounce or leave a crater. It simply burst, leaving a gnarly puddle, like a water-balloon filled with blood, organs and broken bones.

When Seth landed back onto the ground, he immediately clenched his fist and yanked the steel threads taut, which just so happened to be wrapped around the Tri-horned Bison's leg like a noose snare.

The beast let out a crying moo of pain as its leg was suddenly yanked backwards, immediately halting its charge and sending it face first into the dirt. But it didn't lay there for long.

Dragging the beast backwards by the threads on its leg, Seth began to spin. Dragging it across the ground before the centrifugal force lifted it into the air as he spun it like an Olympic hammer throw.

He used the Tri-horned Bison's body like a flail, slamming it into the other beast's bodies and splattering them against it. Shattering bones and crushing some on impact, until finally the tendons of the Bison's leg ripped from the force, leaving just a leg attached to Seth's threads as the rest of the body was launched through the air and disappeared through another portal.

A flash of light appeared in the corner of Seth's eye, causing him to quickly whirl around only to find the charcoaled, and still smoking corpse, of a six legged wolf that had lunged at him when he was otherwise occupied.

It was one of the beasts he had killed with his flying dirk, [Kiss of Death], but it seemed that the zombies rotten blood that lingered on his blade had brought the beast back to life as a member of the undead.

He glanced to the side, where Astra was glaring at him as she stood with her hand held up, fingers pointed like a gun as those blackened fingertips still smouldered from the lightning blast. Similarly charcoaled corpses surrounded her, yet the ground in the area within a metre of her body was perfectly clear. It created a perfect circle, showing that these worthless beasts hadn't been able to even get close to the Queen of Lightning.

It made sense, however. The sparking insects buzzed around her insistently, constantly generating electricity with their whirring wings and arcing it between each other in an attempt to electrocute their victim. But the swarm was simply too stupid, driven completely by instinct, to understand that their attempts were only powering Astra instead of harming her.

It was a constant source of power she took no shame in using to wreak havoc upon her foes, so much so that she even had time to save Seth's ass from a rookie mistake.

Really, he should have known that the zombie blood would have been infectious, but he was too busy trying to kill everything fast enough that he didn't bother taking the precaution. Sure, the blood armour would have probably protected him from the wolf's attack long enough to kill it, but she didn't know that.

Seth gave her a curt nod as thanks and used this brief moment of respite to take in the situation around himself. His reinforcements were only a few seconds away at this point, but so far it wasn't anything they couldn't handle.

They were surrounded by corpses, there had to be dozens, maybe approaching a hundred beasts and it didn't seem like it was going to stop any time soon.

In the distance, he could see the Triclops giant was struggling with its opponent, its giant hands swatting at the living dust swarm swirling around it like a tornado to absolutely no avail. Bob was performing perfectly, Seth had no doubt in his mind that he could take down the Triclops. It was only a matter of time.

KKRRTTSHH

Reality shattered once more as a gateway broke through the veil once more, directly behind Seth. He didn't even bother waiting for the next thing to come through, he simply whirled around and lashed out with a punch.

Yet instead of blasting away a rotten corpse, or crushing the skull of a helpless beast, Seth's fist thumped uselessly against a thick, tree trunk like leg that was covered in auburn fur.

"Well well, What have we found ourselves here, hmm? New prey for the hunt?"