Max opened the thick leather cover, the spine cracking in the silence of the cell. He immediately frowned; the first ten to fifteen pages had been violently torn out, leaving only jagged strips of paper near the binding.
He turned to the first intact page. The handwriting was scrawled and frantic, but the information was clear. It detailed the nature of the Power Fluids, revealing a system Max had never heard of before. The text explained that each Fluid possessed five distinct levels of evolution. It stated that a user would automatically "level up" to the next stage only when they pushed their abilities to their absolute limit, using their power at its full potential.
Max flipped through the rest of the book, hoping for more tactical data, but the middle section was filled with what looked like nonsense. It was page after page of rubbish—ramblings about "life in the cage," complaints about the food, and mundane, delirious details about the passing of time in the dark. Max skimmed it quickly, dismissing it as the diary of a madman. He reached the end of the book, only to find that the last few pages had also been ripped away, removing whatever conclusion the author had written.
He closed the book and shoved it into his tactical vest. Phasing back through the bars, he climbed the stairs and exited the decrepit building, stepping back out into the silent, shadow-filled streets of the city.
He didn't get far. Standing directly in front of the building's entrance, waiting for him, was a Mutated Guut. It stood on two legs, its body sleek and armored, watching him with an intelligence that the lower classes lacked.
The scene shifted across the dark city.
In the East Sector, Malina stopped dead in her tracks, staring down a creature that looked like a knight made of obsidian. In the West, Edy and Eren found their paths blocked by two more humanoid shadows.
The ambush was coordinated. Every member of the team had encountered a Mutated Guut at the exact same moment.
Malina tapped the side of her helmet for the third time, her fingers rapping against the hardened polymer.
"Edy? Max? Instructor?"
The only response was a wall of white noise, a static hiss that sounded like sand pouring onto a tin roof. The interference from the Dome was absolute. The local shadow density was scrambling everything. She was, for all tactical intents and purposes, completely alone.
She lowered her hand and looked forward.
Standing in the center of the intersection, bathed in the dim, unnatural twilight of the Dome, was the entity.
It was a Mutated Guut. An M-Class.
It didn't look like the beasts they had studied in the textbooks. It didn't scuttle like a Scavenger or roar like a Bruiser. It stood upright, six and a half feet tall, encased in an exoskeleton that resembled matte-black medieval plate armor. Its proportions were frighteningly human—broad shoulders, a tapered waist, and legs built for sprinting rather than lumbering. Where a face should have been, there was only a smooth, featureless visor of obsidian shadow.
It held no weapons. It was a weapon. Its hands ended in fingers that were tipped with three-inch claws, serrated and glowing with a faint, sickly purple hum.
"Target identified," Malina whispered to herself, her voice devoid of fear, slipping into the cold, analytical mindset Jod had drilled into her. "Class: Mutation. Type: Close-Quarter Combatant. Threat Level: High."
She stepped forward, her boots crunching on the glass of a shattered streetlight. She clenched her fists. The Red Fluid in her veins surged in response, her muscles tightening with the density of steel. Her skin flushed slightly as her body temperature rose, her internal engine revving up.
"Disengage," she stated calmly, giving the creature a chance to flee, though she knew it wouldn't.
The Guut tilted its head. It didn't scream. It didn't hiss. It simply raised its fists into a boxing stance—a perfect, disciplined guard.
"Mimicry confirmed," Malina noted. "It has absorbed martial data."
The silence broke.
The Guut moved first. It didn't charge blindly; it dashed. It covered the twenty meters between them in a blur of motion, closing the gap instantly. It threw a jab—a straight, technical punch aimed directly at Malina's throat.
Malina didn't dodge. She was a Titan; she didn't dance. She blocked.
She raised her left forearm, meeting the strike.
CRACK.
The sound was like a gunshot. The impact shockwave kicked up a ring of dust around them. Malina's eyes widened slightly. She hadn't moved back, but she felt the vibration travel all the way down to her marrow. This wasn't the mindless swipe of a beast; this was a concentrated kinetic strike. The creature hit with the force of a wrecking ball compacted into the size of a fist.
"Force output exceeds Class 4 parameters," she calculated instantly.
She countered. Dropping her guard, she drove a right cross into the creature's ribs. It was a blow meant to shatter concrete.
THUD.
Her fist connected with the creature's black armor. It felt like punching a mountain. The armor didn't crunch; it absorbed the blow. The Guut didn't even stumble. It simply absorbed the kinetic energy, its dark surface rippling like a stone thrown into a pond.
Before she could retract her arm, the Guut spun. A roundhouse kick slammed into the side of Malina's head.
Malina went flying.
She smashed through the glass front of a derelict coffee shop, tumbling over tables and chairs before crashing into the back counter. The espresso machine exploded in a shower of brass and steam.
She lay there for a second, the taste of copper filling her mouth. She spat blood onto the tiled floor.
"Pain receptors active," she muttered, wiping her lip. "Structure integrity: 98%. Pride: 50%."
She stood up, kicking a broken table aside. The Red Fluid was pumping harder now, reacting to the trauma. Her eyes began to glow with a faint crimson light. The hit hadn't broken her; it had woken her up.
The Guut stepped through the broken window, walking slowly. It was taunting her.
"You are durable," Malina said, cracking her neck. "But durability has a limit. Everything is just math. Force equals mass times acceleration. I just need to change the variables."
She grabbed the heavy, marble countertop she had crashed into. With a grunt of exertion, she ripped the entire slab—weighing easily four hundred pounds—off its foundation.
She hurled it like a frisbee.
The marble slab spun through the air. The Guut didn't dodge. It raised its arm and chopped. Its hand moved like a guillotine blade. It sliced the marble slab cleanly in half in mid-air. The two pieces clattered harmlessly to the floor on either side of it.
"Razor appendages," Malina noted. "Do not engage in grappling."
She charged.
This time, she didn't throw a punch. She lowered her shoulder and tackled the creature. The impact was seismic. She caught the Guut mid-stride, driving it backward through the brick wall of the coffee shop and out into the alleyway behind.
They tumbled into the dirt, a tangle of limbs and fury. Malina mounted the creature, raining down blows.
SMASH. SMASH. SMASH.
Each punch created a crater in the earth beneath the Guut. But the creature was fast. It caught her third punch, gripping her wrist with a strength that rivaled her own. Its claws dug into her tactical suit, scraping against her diamond-hard skin.
It twisted its hips and threw her off, kip-uping to its feet instantly.
Malina rolled and stood up. She was breathing heavier now. This wasn't a fight; it was a stalemate. Her strength was equaled by its armor. Her durability was matched by its speed.
"Jod said to find the weak point," she reminded herself. "Force Concentration."
She looked at the Guut. It was perfect. Too perfect. The armor was seamless. But it moved like a human. That meant it had joints. It had a fulcrum.
The Guut lunged again, aiming a spearing strike at her heart.
Malina didn't block. She stepped into the attack.
The claws raked across her shoulder, tearing the Kevlar and drawing a line of red blood. She ignored the pain. By stepping in, she was now inside its guard.
She placed her palm flat against the center of the creature's chest armor.
"Analyze," she whispered.
She could feel the vibrations of the creature's core. It wasn't biological; it was a swirling mass of solid shadow held together by a shell. The shell was hardest at the impact point but brittle at the resonance frequency.
She channeled the Red Fluid into her hand. She visualized the molecular bonds of the shadow-armor. She didn't push. She pulsed.
CRUNCH.
A hairline fracture appeared on the Guut's chest plate.
The Guut shrieked—a sound like grinding metal. It realized she had hurt it. It panicked.
It unleashed a flurry of attacks. Knees, elbows, claws. Malina took them all. She became an immovable object. She planted her feet, the pavement cracking under her boots. She took a knee to the jaw that rattled her brain. She took a slash to the ribs that burned like fire.
But she didn't move her hand.
"Stress point identified," she gritted out through clenched teeth.
She pulled her other arm back. She condensed every ounce of strength she possessed into her right fist. The air around her hand distorted from the sheer pressure.
"Variable... removed."
She punched her own hand—driving her fist into the back of the palm that was pressed against the Guut's chest. It was a pile-driver strike, transferring 100% of the kinetic energy directly into the fracture she had created.
BOOOOM.
The sound was deafening. The shockwave blew out the windows of the buildings on both sides of the alley.
The Guut's chest armor didn't just crack; it shattered. It exploded outward like shrapnel.
Malina's fist continued through the armor, plunging deep into the creature's chest cavity. She felt the cold, oily substance of the Guut's insides. She felt the pulsing core—the "heart" of the shadow.
The Guut froze. Its claws, which were raised to strike her neck, stopped inches from her skin. It looked down at the arm buried in its chest.
Malina looked the creature in its eyeless face. Her uniform was torn, her face was bruised, and blood dripped from her nose. But her eyes were cold, calculating, and victorious.
"Target... neutralized," she whispered.
She opened her hand inside the creature's chest and squeezed.
She crushed the core.
The Guut didn't fall. It dissolved.
Starting from the hole in its chest, the black armor began to flake away like burning paper. The solid shadow turned into grey dust. The creature let out one final, hollow sigh before it collapsed into a pile of ash at Malina's feet.
Malina stood there for a moment, swaying slightly. The adrenaline crash hit her hard. The pain from her shoulder and ribs flared up, hot and sharp.
She pulled her hand back. It was covered in black ichor that was rapidly evaporating.
She slumped against the brick wall, sliding down until she was sitting on the dirty alley floor. She took a deep, ragged breath.
"Damage report," she murmured to the empty air. "Left shoulder mobility reduced by 20%. Mild concussion probable. Multiple contusions."
She looked at the pile of dust that used to be a monster capable of killing a tank.
"But I am alive."
She reached for her belt, checking for the sample kit, but then remembered Jod had the main device. It didn't matter. The dust was useless now. The core was destroyed.
She slowly stood up, using the wall for support. She needed to regroup. If she had faced one of these, the others likely had too. Max. Edy. Eren.
She tapped her comms again, hoping the destruction of the Guut might have cleared the interference.
"Squad 5," she rasped. "Status?"
Static.
Malina set her jaw. She wiped the blood from her face and began to limp toward the rendezvous point. She had solved her equation. Now she had to help her friends solve theirs.