"Hurry," Kael said as he rushed toward the upper parts of the building.
The stairs groaned under their weight, every step biting into old stone and half rotted wood that had no business still holding together.
The Atrax Stalkers had finally broken off the chase, not out of mercy, but out of instinct. Kael could feel the shift even without staring at the map every second.
They had stopped hunting prey and started guarding territory. After seeing so many bodies piled, split, burned, and left behind, the colony's mind had snapped into survival mode. Survival always preceded the hunt, even when the hunt was how you survived.
And right now, Kael was too fiery to be worth the risk. That pressure still clung to him, that lingering heat under the skin that made him feel like a walking flare. The risks were too great, not for him, for them. It was easier for the red dots to watch, retreat, and hold their nest than to keep throwing themselves into a grinder.
