"Monsters! They're monsters!"
The scream ripped through the heavy, humid air of the park, originating from high above on the maintenance ladder. It was Arnold—the lanky youth I had already earmarked as a potential recruit for his quick thinking. His voice wasn't just loud; it was jagged with a primal, unadulterated terror that seemed to vibrate the very metal of the tower he clung to.
"What exactly does he mean by that?" Isabella asked, stepping closer to me. The harsh, artificial light of the generator-driven spotlights caught the sweat on her brow and the worried set of her jaw. Her pretty face, usually so composed and sharp, was now a mask of dawning realisation.
She wasn't alone in her dread. Every student in our small circle was wearing the same expression—a cocktail of disbelief and soul-crushing anxiety.
They were looking to me, waiting for a denial, waiting for me to tell them that Arnold was just hallucinating from the stress. I didn't open my mouth to offer comfort. In the world that was coming, comfort was a lie that got people killed.
"We'll know the truth of it soon enough," I said, my voice steady and cold. I raised my metallic baseball club high into the air, the polished surface reflecting the blinding light. "When it comes, we face it. We survive this together, or we don't survive at all. Pick your side of the fence and hold it!"
My sudden shout acted like a physical jolt to the group. It pushed back the encroaching fog of confusion just enough for them to grip their weapons. I didn't want this burden—I would have preferred to move in the shadows with just Isabella—but as long as these "sheep" were standing in my circle, I might as well use them as a defensive perimeter.
Roar!Roar!Roar!
The sound was deafening, a bass-heavy vibration that seemed to rattle my very teeth. As I had expected, the Void-Hyenas moved as a pack, emerging from the tree line to surround the baseball diamond.
The wolves, the true masters of the hunt, were nowhere to be seen; they were far too intelligent to test the "burning suns" we had created. They would let these dumb, aggressive brutes test our defences first.
The hyenas halted tens of meters away from the perimeter, pacing back and forth just at the edge of the light. They were nightmare visions: four meters of corded muscle and patchy, yellow fur stained with black spots.
"What... what the hell are those things?!" "There's no way... There aren't animals like that in the world! Is this a movie? Am I dreaming? Someone, please, just hit me and wake me up!"
The exclamations were frantic and predictable. It was a standard psychological tactic for these monsters—they either paralysed their prey with a terrifying, silent vigil or they crushed them with an immediate, indomitable charge.
This time, we were lucky. They were hesitating, their sensitive eyes struggling to process the brilliance of the spotlights. This gave the students a few precious seconds to let the reality of their situation sink in, rather than being slaughtered in a state of total shock.
"Get ready!" I yelled, refusing to show even a flicker of the surprise they felt. To me, these were just level-one mobs, but to them, they were gods of death. "Stand near the netting! Use the maintenance carts and the bins as shields! Don't let them see your fear!"
"Can we really be secured by these useless pieces of metal and wood?" Isabella asked, her logic as sharp as ever, even in the face of extinction. Despite her doubt, she moved when I did, her instincts guiding her to my side.
"We do our best with what we have," I said, focusing on the nearest beast.
"Can these clubs even kill them?" she whispered, pointing toward a hyena that had just stepped closer. Its head was a massive, blocky nightmare ending in two long, curved ivory tusks that looked capable of flipping a car. Those tusks weren't just for show; they were sensory organs that tracked the electrical impulses of a beating human heart.
"We have to make them work," I said, stopping her before she could spiral into negativity. "Don't say another word that isn't a battle cry. Look at them, Isabella. We are outnumbered, surrounded, and our only weapons are sports equipment. These kids are barely holding on to their sanity. If they hear you doubt our chances, they'll break, and we'll be buried under a mountain of fur and teeth."
I was playing the role of the stoic commander, protecting the fragile morale of my "troops." She gave me a long, searching look before nodding and exhaling a shaky breath. She was smart; she understood the necessity of the theatre.
"Listen up!" I shouted to the group, standing in the centre of the defensive circle they had instinctively formed. "Do not try to be a hero! Do not engage them alone! If one breaks through, help the person next to you!"
"What if they come all at once? What if we're overwhelmed?" The shout came from Allen, his voice surprisingly eager, his knuckles white as he gripped his club.
"Then Isabella and I will be there," I promised, my voice carrying a deceptive weight of authority. "No matter what breaches the line, we will have your back. You aren't fighting alone."
Roar!
The hyenas seemed to sense the change in our atmosphere. They didn't like the rising defiance; they preferred the scent of cowering terror. Realising that the light wasn't going away and their prey wasn't surrendering, the lead male lowered its head, its tusks scraping the dirt.
Then, with a coordinated burst of speed that defied their massive size, the first wave of hyenas charged the fence.
It was a total delusion to believe that the flimsy fibre netting surrounding the field, or the scattered wooden benches and makeshift barricades, could truly stop those behemoths. When the lead hyenas crashed through the perimeter, the rope snapped like thread, and the wood splintered into toothpicks.
However, the moment the monsters breached the line and entered the full, concentrated glare of the industrial spotlights, their massive bodies suddenly twitched. They staggered, their muscular frames contorting as they clawed at their own eyes, visibly struggling against the blinding agony of the artificial suns.
"Hit them now! This is our chance!" I yelled, throwing my voice across the field. I acted as though we had just received a divine stroke of luck, using the "opening" to jolt the paralysed students into action. "Don't let them recover! Strike!"
The command worked. Driven by a desperate, cornered energy, the youths finally found the courage to step forward. They began rain-heavy, frantic blows upon the disoriented monsters with their clubs. I didn't expect their amateur swings to do much; I was simply waiting patiently for the perfect window to intervene and cement my status as their protector.
"The hits don't seem to be inflicting much real damage," Isabella noted, her voice tight as she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me. "But the monsters... they look like they're in physical pain. They're completely off-balance."
"I have no idea why, but we have to take the win while we can!" I replied, continuing my charade of ignorance. I kept my eyes moving, scanning the chaotic battlefield for the inevitable shift in momentum. "Keep your eyes open, Isabella. If you see anyone about to get crushed, alarm me instantly. I can't see everything at once."
I gave her the task specifically to keep her sharp mind occupied. I knew that if she spent too much time analysing the hyenas' behaviour, she would realise the light was a weapon, and eventually, she would wonder how I had known to find the generator in the first place.
Roar!
As I had predicted, the aluminium and wooden clubs weren't doing any structural damage to the thick hides of the Void-Hyenas. However, the constant stinging impact on their sensitive snouts and joints was infuriating them.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
One after another, the monsters began to lash out blindly, swinging their massive, tusked heads and heavy tails to clear the space around them. Their sheer mass acted as a blunt-force weapon even when used crudely.
Several were sent flying, tumbled backwards by the sheer kinetic energy of the thrashing beasts. The hits weren't lethal yet, but the situation was deteriorating as more hyenas began to flood through the gaps in the netting, drawn by the scent of blood and the sound of battle.
"Hye! Look! Over there—fast!"
The adrenaline and the crushing pressure of the engagement had finally bypassed Isabella's stoicism. She was frantically tapping—practically punching—my shoulder to shift my attention toward the far left corner of the diamond.
"There..." my eyes narrowed as I saw the opportunity I had been waiting for.
Three hyenas were pivoting away from the main group, their predatory instincts locking onto two fallen youths who had been tossed aside by a berserk male. The students were dazed, sprawling on the dirt directly in the path of the three oncoming monsters. It was a moment of horrific bad luck for them, but for me, it was the perfect stage.
"Stay here!" I commanded Isabella. Without giving her a chance to argue or follow, I lunged forward, my aluminium bat gripped so hard my knuckles turned white. I wasn't feeling any real pressure; I had killed thousands of creatures far worse than these in the future. But for the sake of the "Queen" and the "Recruits," I had to put on a legendary show.
"Run! Get up and run!" I screamed, my voice cracking with a manufactured, high-pitched nervousness. I put on an expression of pure, frantic worry as I sprinted across the grass.
My dramatic shouting and the sheer speed of my charge acted like a magnet for every eye on the field. The other students turned, their combat momentarily slowing as they watched their "leader" run headlong into a three-on-one suicide mission.
Good, keep watching, I thought, a cold, calm smile hidden behind my mask of panic. I was never much for lecturing people in the past, so I'll just have to hope you learn the mechanics of survival by watching me bleed.
"Get away from them now!" I kept yelling, playing the role of the self-sacrificing saviour to the hilt.
"AAHHH!""HELP!"
Two agonised screams erupted from the throats of the fallen youths as the massive paws of the hyenas pinned them to the dirt. The monsters, hearing the delicious sound of suffering, paused their charge. They lowered their tusked heads, their black-lipped mouths beginning to part to harvest the soft flesh of the boys' shoulders.
"Stop your claws, you damn barbarics!" My final shout was a roar of fabricated, righteous fury. It was the signal.
Despite their blurred vision and the aching stabs of the spotlights, the hyenas possessed perfect hearing. The moment I bellowed, all three massive heads snapped in my direction, their mouths drooling in anticipation of the fresh, "arrogant" meal running straight into their jaws.
ROAR!
The monsters roared, their cavernous maws opening wide to reveal rows of serrated teeth designed to gnash through bone. With a terrifying grace that belied their elephantine mass, they coiled their powerful haunches and launched themselves into the air.
For these behemoths, a single bound was equivalent to three or four meters of ground covered; for a normal human, it was a distance that should have been impossible to close.
"Hye! Watch out! Get away from there!"
The anxious scream ripped through the air behind me. It was Isabella. Despite the cold, tactical shell I had built around my heart, I felt a slight, unexpected flutter of warmth at the genuine panic in her voice. She actually cared if I lived or died.
But I was far from being in harm's way. I had shouted specifically to provoke them, to act as a lightning rod that would divert their primal hunger away from the fallen students and onto me.
As the lead hyena's shadow loomed over me, I dropped low, leaning my body into a controlled slide against the dirt. I used my momentum like a professional ballplayer stealing second base, letting the monster's own forward leap carry it directly over my head. They had made the mistake of leaving their soft underbellies exposed, and I was driven by a speed they hadn't anticipated from "prey."
Die, you weaklings! I inwardly snorted. I planted my heels into the sod, arresting my slide, and launched myself upward like a released arrow. My arm blurred in a perfect arc, the iron club whistling through the air as it sought the precise anatomical point I had been aiming for.
During the first quest in the original timeline, humanity had tried everything to kill these monsters—stabbing the eyes, aiming for the heart, trying to ham-string the legs.
It wasn't until much later, after everyone had acquired Systems and upgraded their physical stats, that the fight against the Void-Hyenas became trivial. That was when the survivors realised the truth: every monster had a "kill switch."
The irony was that the weakness of the Hyena was so glaringly obvious that everyone felt a deep, bitter regret for not noticing it earlier.
The secret lay in the ivory tusks.
While the two long, curved tusks on the side of the neck were the most visible, the internal structure was far more complicated. Hidden beneath the thick, patchy fur was a second pair of smaller, vertical, thorn-like tusks.
They were positioned directly over a cluster of vital nerves and the carotid artery. A direct blow with just enough force to smash an eggshell against the lower part of the neck was sufficient to drive those internal thorns deep into the creature's own vital organs.
My club connected. To the watching students, the hit looked weak—a desperate, glancing blow that shouldn't have even bruised the beast. But the effect was instantaneous. The first hyena's head snapped toward the sky, its eyes rolling back as its nervous system short-circuited. All signs of life vanished in a heartbeat.
Thud!
Its massive body slammed into the dirt, motionless, the sheer kinetic energy of its charge causing the carcass to glide for several meters across the grass before coming to a dead stop.
The scene struck the battlefield like a thunderclap. The other students stood frozen, their mouths agape. Even the monsters remaining inside the circle seemed to feel the sudden vacuum left by their comrade's death. A heavy, deafening silence—unnatural and suffocating—prevailed over the chaotic diamond as both man and beast tried to comprehend what had just happened.
I didn't stop to admire my handiwork. I knew exactly what I was doing, and I didn't need to check for a pulse. Without pausing my motion, I pivoted on my heel and swung again. The iron club hissed as it found the neck of the second hyena, then the third. To me, it felt like I was swatting at mosquitoes rather than slaying giant, terrifying monsters.
Thud!Thud!
Two more muffled impacts echoed across the field as the remaining two hyenas collapsed in identical heaps of dead meat. I immediately hunched over, clutching my knees and faking a state of total exhaustion, panting heavily to catch my breath.
Dammit! Fighting without stats really is a nightmare!
I had just pulled off a series of manoeuvres that my current, unenhanced body was ill-equipped to handle. I had momentarily forgotten that the legendary, high-stat vessel I once inhabited was gone. My lungs burned, and my muscles screamed in protest. I was a level-zero human in an apocalypse that didn't forgive fatigue.
"Hye! Get back here! Now!" Isabella's voice was sharp with a new kind of fear.
I looked up and realised why she was screaming. In my pursuit of the three hyenas, I had drifted too close to one of the main breaches in the perimeter fence.
While the monsters inside the field were disoriented and tortured by the spotlights, the ones lurking outside in the shadows of the park could see me perfectly. I was a lone, exhausted target silhouetted against a wall of white light.
I expected them to come in waves, and they didn't disappoint. I saw a dozen pairs of glowing eyes lock onto me from the darkness. I turned to run back toward the centre of the field, but my legs felt like lead. My speed had decreased significantly, and the safety of the pitcher's mound felt a thousand miles away.
"Behind you! Hye, look out!"
Isabella's voice cut through the cacophony of the battlefield like a siren. I wished she wouldn't scream every time a predator closed the gap; it made me look significantly more incompetent than I actually was.
However, the time for theatre and faked exhaustion was rapidly drawing to a close. I had already demonstrated the mechanical secret to killing these beasts, and with the "lesson" concluded, I no longer had a reason to hold back my movements.
I focused on conservation of energy, minimising every gesture to prevent my unenhanced body from collapsing under the weight of its own fatigue. As the next monster lunged—a living bulldozer of muscle and malice—I didn't panic.
I waited until the very last millisecond, then pivoted on a single heel, jumping to the side with a fluid grace that defied my tired legs. The hyena missed me by mere inches, the wind of its passage ruffling my clothes. Before it could even land, my aluminium bat whipped around in a short, punishing arc, slamming into the sweet spot at the base of its neck.
Thud!
Another behemoth hit the dirt, dead before its heart realised the brain had stopped sending signals. But more were coming, a tide of yellow fur and ivory tusks pouring through the breaches in the fence.
The tide of the battle, however, was beginning to turn. The youths who had managed to survive the first ten minutes were quick learners. Inspired by my "accidental" discovery, they had begun to mimic my technique, aiming their clubs with desperate precision at the lower necks of the disoriented hyenas.
Suddenly, four of the athletic students surged forward to create a buffer zone around me. Isabella was among them, her face flooded with a look of such profound relief that I felt a sharp, unexpected pang of guilt.
I had played these people like a master of puppets, manipulating their fear and gratitude to secure my own position, and yet they were looking at me with eyes full of genuine warmth and loyalty. It was a level of human connection I hadn't experienced ever before, and it felt remarkably uncomfortable.
"Hit them at the lower neck! Aim for the base!" I shouted, maintaining the persona of the protective leader even as they shielded me.
"We know, Hye! Just get back to the centre and catch your breath!" Isabella commanded. She reached out and grabbed my arm, her grip surprisingly strong as she hauled me toward the relative safety of the pitcher's mound. "Can you still stand? Can you handle the next wave?"
"It's much easier now thanks to Hye-bro's tip," one of the four students called out, his voice brimming with a newfound, dangerous confidence.
I nodded, but I knew better than to share his optimism. Even if I was fighting in a weak, stat-less vessel, I still possessed a century's worth of survival instincts and combat experience.
Compared to me, these kids were toddlers playing with matches in a room full of gasoline. The gap between knowing a weakness and successfully exploiting it under pressure was wide enough to bury most of them.
As Isabella steered me back toward the centre of the field, I turned my head to observe the wider perimeter. My grim predictions were starting to manifest. Despite the fact that the monsters were blinded by the lights and the students were finally aiming for the kill-switches, the raw physicality of the Void-Hyenas was still a devastating force.
The battlefield was a grisly sight. Not everyone had emerged from the clashes unscathed. I saw students with deep, jagged lacerations from glancing claw strikes; others had been crushed by the sheer weight of a falling carcass or tossed aside like ragdolls by a thrashing tail. Several bodies lay cold and motionless on the dirt, their journeys ending before the System could even fully integrate.
"We... we can actually survive this," Isabella whispered. As I was cataloguing the casualties, she was looking at the piles of dead monsters and seeing a glimpse of hope.
She wasn't wrong. Despite the carnage, the group was performing far better than my initial estimates. I had expected to lose three-quarters of the group in the first wave, but it looked like we would only lose half, or even less. Those who remained would emerge from this hour as something far more than civilians; they would be the tempered steel of the new world.
"Wait... what is Arnold doing?"
Isabella's shocked comment broke my concentration. I followed her gaze, looking toward the maintenance tower where the lanky lookout was supposed to be stationed.
My heart dropped to the rock bottom of my chest.
Arnold wasn't on the tower anymore. He was on the ground, but he wasn't fighting. He was walking—no, he was sauntering—directly through the thickest cluster of the hyena pack.
The monsters, which should have been tearing him limb from limb, simply stepped aside as he passed. They didn't growl; they didn't lunge. They acted as if he were one of their own.
"No f*cking way!!!" I hissed, the blood draining from my face.
A terrifying realisation hit me like a physical blow. I had been so focused on the Traitor at the subway entrance that I had completely missed the one hiding in my own shadow. Arnold wasn't a "potential recruit." He was a planted agent, and he was currently walking toward the generator shed.