Adil trailed at the very back of the group, every breath coming out as a jagged, burning gasp that tasted faintly of iron and dry dust.
It's not like I have bad cardio, he argued with himself, his legs feeling heavy as lead with every stride. Maybe... internal bleeding usually requires more than a two-minute nap. And a glass of water wouldn't hurt either.
His throat felt as though it had been scrubbed with sandpaper, his tongue sticking uncomfortably to the roof of his mouth. On top of that, a hollow, gnawing cramp was twisting in his gut—a sharp, clawing hunger as his body desperately demanded fuel to repair torn muscle and lost blood.
He tried to pick up the pace, ignoring the cold ache pulsing in his torso. The iron door behind them was sturdy, but ten panicked Zogs throwing their weight against it meant it wouldn't hold forever. Time was running out.
Up ahead, the narrow corridor ended, dropping off into a dark, echoing stairwell that plunged into the deeper sub-levels.
Suddenly, Eron raised a sharp hand, halting the group in their tracks. He froze, his head tilted slightly upward toward the dark ceiling. His eyes flicked back and forth as he silently tapped his fingers against his thigh, rapidly calculating—timing the rhythm of something clinging to the shadows.
Three... two...
In a blur of motion, Eron whipped his arm forward and hurled his dagger straight into the dark upper corner of the stairwell.
A thick drop of neon-green liquid plummeted from the ceiling, hitting the floor with a violent hiss. It instantly gnawed into the solid stone, bubbling up and sending a wisp of acrid smoke into the air. The chemical stench scorched Adil's dry nostrils, making him cough up a bitter, dry wheeze.
Before anyone could even draw a breath, a heavy, sickly thud rattled the stairwell floor.
A creature hit the concrete, its long, spindly legs twitching erratically—Eron's dagger buried deep into its chitinous shoulder. As it pulled itself up into the faint light, the nightmare revealed itself: eight hairy, segmented legs sprawling from a pale, hairless torso, topped with the stretched, gaunt face of a human man.
Its dark, sunken eyes locked onto the group as acidic venom bubbled between its jagged, unnatural teeth.
Before the creature could spring, Eron moved.
It wasn't light-speed fast, but a burst of explosive, trained acceleration that blurred the air. Before anyone could react, Eron closed the distance and drove a heavy straight punch directly into the spider-humanoid's sickly pale face.
CRACK.
The sheer impact echoed through the tight stairwell as the creature's head snapped violently backward, its legs flailing to catch its balance.
Adil's eyes widened. That hit... it had the raw, bone-shattering weight of one of Jake's punches, but refined with terrifying precision. It's like Jake, but even stronger.
Beside him, Jake glanced down at his own massive knuckles, his jaw tightening as a rare spark of silent, competitive respect flickered across his face.
Without wasting a single second, Eron ripped his dagger free from the creature's shoulder in one fluid, brutal motion.
Before the stunned monster could regain its balance, Eron unleashed a flurry of strikes with lethal precision—plunging the blade directly into its throat, followed instantly by deep, calculated thrusts into its chest and stomach.
As Eron's blade sank home, the creature let out a final, distorted screech—a horrific mix of grinding metal and wet shrieks that echoed down the stairwell before it collapsed. The noise was completely inhuman, but deep down, it felt unnervingly familiar.
Dark, foul blood squirted across the stone as the spider-humanoid twitched violently. Without missing a beat, Eron twisted his dagger deep into the monster's shattered chest cavity, expertly popping out a small, marble-sized dark mana core slick with black fluid. He tossed the glowing core into a leather pouch at his belt with a dull clink before flicking the dark fluid off his blade.
Adil blinked, his jaw slack as he scanned the freshly sliced corpse. Beneath the monster's ruptured skin, his sharp eyes picked out three distinct, pierced organ pockets: one near the base of its throat, a second deep in the sternum, and a third in the lower abdomen.
Three hearts.
His eyes drifted to Eron's bloodstained dagger, then back to the leather pouch.
Those stabs weren't random. And he knew exactly where the core was.
Eron didn't pause for praise or even catch his breath; he simply signaled with a sharp, downward gesture for them to keep moving.
As they stepped past the slumped carcass, Garu suddenly nudged Adil with a quick elbow, subtly gesturing down toward the creature's neck.
Adil followed Garu's gaze. Tangled around the monster's pale skin was a melted lanyard holding a cracked, blood-stained lab ID badge. Adil leaned down without missing a step, swallowing hard against his dry throat, and swiftly snatched the ID badge from the corpse, slipping it into his pocket.
It's gonna be a huge pain to deal with this, Adil thought, clutching his aching torso as a dull, cold sensation settled in his chest.
It wasn't just Eron's physical speed—Jake had raw strength in spades. It was the terrifying layer of cold, calculated precision behind it. Jake was a wrecking ball; you could outsmart a wrecking ball, bait it, or lead it into a trap. But a veteran hunter who could read a mutated monster's hidden anatomy mid-air, harvest its core, and execute a flawless three-point kill in under two seconds?
Adil took a slow, jagged breath, keeping his deadpan expression locked firmly in place as they left the dead spider behind.
Note to self: keep this old man as an ally at all costs. Because fighting him isn't a battle—it's an execution.
At long last, the endless spiral of steps ended at the ground floor. Standing between them and the outside world was a heavy, rust-caked exit door, its steel frame bowed slightly as if holding back the weight of the ruined world beyond.
Eron held up a hand, bringing the group to a silent halt. He pressed his palm against the cold metal, listening intently for a long, tense beat, hearing no immediate movement on the other side. He threw the heavy deadbolt back and pushed.
The heavy exit door clanked open, and cold, damp mist washed over them.
Eron loosened his grip on his dagger and swept his gaze across the hazy, silent expanse. "Now you all can speak," Eron said, his low voice barely carrying through the freezing fog.
The moment the words left Eron's mouth, Adil's legs completely gave out. He slid back against the metal door frame and collapsed onto the ice-cold concrete, letting out a long, exhausted sigh. He pressed a trembling hand against his bandaged torso, where fresh Zog claw wounds burned across his chest and abs, compounding the deep, empty ache in his stomach.
"Finally..." Adil muttered, leaning his head back against the steel, the swollen dark bruise on his forehead throbbing softly alongside a dehydration headache. "Class is over."
He licked his cracked lips, inhaling the damp air just to feel a fraction of moisture in his throat.
Jake, on the other hand, immediately tensed. The instant his eyes caught the translucent, pale shapes drifting aimlessly through the fog, he jerked back a step and threw his fists up, knuckles white and ready to strike.
"Whoa! Are we safe around these things?!" Jake demanded, his stance low as his eyes darted from phantom to phantom.
Eron didn't even turn his head, calmly wiping dark spider blood off his blade with a rag. "Yes. They're harmless."
Garu frowned, looking between the drifting specters and the veteran hunter. "If they're harmless out here, why did the ghosts inside attack us?"
"Because that place wasn't just a facility—it was a containment site," Eron replied, stowing his bloody rag back onto his belt. "The entities inside were experimental subjects, locked in pressurized chambers filled with concentrated dark mana. Being trapped in those environments rots their minds and mutates them into hyper-aggressive territorial monsters."
Garu's brow furrowed, his eyes widening with concern as he glanced down at his bandaged hands. "Wait... does dark mana affect humans too? Could it corrupt us?"
Adil opened one heavy eye, his deadpan voice cutting through the chill. "Yeah, good point. If being trapped in that pressure cooker turns things into mutated horrors, why haven't we turned into ugly bastards yet?"
Eron gave them a curt, offhand glance. "Short-term exposure to ambient dark mana won't mutate a human with a functional nervous system. It takes months—sometimes years—of continuous, high-density saturation to break down human cellular structure, unless you're stupid enough to inject raw mana core fluid directly into your bloodstream. You three were in there for a few hours. You're fine."
Garu let out a small breath of relief, but Adil remained quiet, his fingers pressing against the hard plastic edge of the stolen lab ID inside his pocket.
Still slumped against the iron door, Adil slowly tilted his head upward. Cutting through the thick, featureless grey fog above them, a solitary pale moon hung completely alone in the endless sky, casting a cold, eerie light over the shattered landscape.
Adil stared at the lone sphere, his eyes narrowing slightly as a strange, nagging chill settled deeper than the winter air.
I think I forgot something...
He let the thought sit there, unfinished, refusing to surface. Whatever it was slid back under before he could grab it.
Eron turned away from the heavy iron exit door, his boots crunching quietly against the frost-dusted rubble. He pulled the high collar of his coat up against the biting wind, his sharp eyes cutting through the thick grey soup of mist that swallowed everything beyond ten paces.
"On your feet," Eron said, offering Adil a hand without ceremony. "Sitting there won't make the wounds close faster, and resting on an empty stomach won't fill it."
Adil took it, hauling himself upright with a groan he didn't bother hiding anymore. His head swam for a second from sudden orthostatic pressure—a classic sign that his blood volume was running dangerously low.
Jake fell in right behind Eron, his shoulders hitched tight and his eyes darting between the pale, drifting phantoms with a mix of caution and lingering adrenaline. Suddenly, a loud, violent rumble erupted from Jake's midsection, sounding like a rusted engine trying to turn over.
Jake rubbed his stomach with a pained expression. "Man... I feel like my stomach is actively digesting itself. How long has it been since breakfast?"
"We missed lunch, dinner, and whatever meal comes after surviving an apocalypse," Garu muttered dryly, leaning back to extend a supportive arm toward Adil.
Adil forced himself off the door frame with a low, breathy grumble, waving off Garu's hand with a weak shake of his head. "I've got it, Garu... Just keeping my arm pressed here so my gut doesn't fall out onto the highway."
"Where are we actually heading, Eron?" Garu asked, looking past the veteran hunter into the vast, silent gloom. "The entire district back there is completely dead. How far out is the nearest living city? Does it have clean water?"
"We're stepping out of the abandoned ruins of Old Sector 4," Eron replied, stepping off the concrete ledge and down onto the cracked asphalt of a ruined highway. "The closest active settlement is Vaelin City—about four miles south through the fog."
Adil nearly choked on his bone-dry saliva, his deadpan mask slipping for a fraction of a second. Four miles? he repeated internally, staring at Eron's back in utter disbelief. My throat feels like a desert, I can barely walk four yards without my stomach feeling like it's being unzipped, and this old man wants to march four miles through freezing fog?
"Vaelin?" Jake perked up at the name, a faint spark of desperate motivation breaking through his exhausted face. "That's the main regional hub, right? Walls, guards, actual civilization?"
"Civilization, yes. Safe? Depends on who you ask," Eron said dryly, not bothering to slow his pace. "Vaelin is run under the Regional Governor's charter, with the Hunter Guild holding ground authority over the perimeter gates. It has clean water, proper medical bays, and hot food—assuming you have the core fragments or trade credits to pay for it."
"Hot food..." Jake salivated at the mere mention, his eyes wide. "Actual meat. Clean water. A bowl of hot soup. I don't care if I have to trade my spare boots or fight another spider, I am getting a real meal."
Adil limped at the very back of the line, keeping his head down as cold sweat mixed with the damp mist on his forehead. Every single step down the shattered incline sent a dull, burning shockwave straight through his core, accompanied by the hollow, heavy gnaw of extreme hunger. Twice, his vision tunneled at the edges, the fog blurring to grey static before he blinked it back—each time forcing his next step to be smaller, slower, more deliberate than the last, just to stay upright.
Eron noticed. He said nothing about it, but he shortened his own stride, letting the gap between himself and Adil close by half without ever glancing back.
With his left hand, Adil's fingers brushed against the hard plastic rectangle tucked deep inside his coat pocket—the stolen lab ID badge.
A Regional Governor's charter. Guild authority at the gates.
His jaw tightened. Whoever ran Vaelin ran the paperwork, the permits, the license that let a facility like the one behind them exist in the first place. And he was about to walk through their front gate carrying a piece of it in his pocket.
Nobody sees this, he thought, pressing his palm flat against his coat like he could will the badge smaller. Not a guard. Not a clerk. Not anyone with a reason to ask questions before I know who's worth trusting.
He glanced ahead at Garu's back. Garu already knew—he'd been the one to spot it on the corpse, the one whose eyes had cut toward it in the stairwell without a word needing to pass between them. That was fine. That was safe. Whatever this thing turned out to be, it stayed between the two of them until Adil had a better read on this world than-
If that facility was a failed secret experiment, Adil thought, matching Garu's steady rhythm in front of him, then someone in Vaelin signed off on it. Or buried it. Or both.
Walking distance to the truth, and I still don't know if it's four miles closer to safety or four miles closer to the wrong person finding out what I'm carrying.
"Adil. Adil."
Adil snapped back, blinking toward Garu.
"What were you thinking about?"
Adil blinked again, then let out a short chuckle. "There's too many problems."
Garu frowned. "What problems?"
Adil gave a low whistle, tilting his head like he was seriously considering the question. " My stomach, mostly."
Garu held his gaze a second too long — not fooled, not quite unconvinced either, just that familiar, tired uncertainty of someone who'd spent seven years never being entirely sure where the joke ended and his brother began. He shook his head and faced forward again
He kept his head down, licked his dry lips, and kept walking, filing the thought away with all the others.
Behind him, the iron door of Old Sector 4 grew smaller in the mist, then vanished entirely—and ahead, somewhere past the fog, the broken bridges, and four long miles of gnawing hunger, Vaelin City waited.