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It hasn’t been easy writing this epic book, and lately, I’ve been feeling a little low because the book’s publicity and morale seem quite low.
If you’re enjoying the story so far, please kindly drop a five-star review and a nice comment in the review box. It would really help and motivate me.
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"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear." — Franklin D. Roosevelt
– – –
The automated turrets on the wall were designed to shoot anything that moved in the open, which meant the mutant packs had learned to travel through the ruins instead of across them.
The collapsed city blocks provided perfect cover for anything that wanted to move unseen, and the shadows between the buildings were deep enough to hide a dozen predators without a trace.
While the others sorted their packs and checked their weapons, Micah pulled up his system stats one final time before they entered the forest.
He needed to know exactly where he stood, because leading four people who didn’t want to follow him into mutant territory with anything less than a full understanding of his own capabilities was a good way to get everyone killed.
The blue holographic screen materialized in his mind, and the numbers settled into place with a familiarity that had become almost comforting over the past week.
┌─── [ SYSTEM PROFILE ] ─────┐
│ │
│ [Host]: Micah Selman │
│ [Rank]: Commanding Officer │
│ [Tier]: Awakened Soldier (Level 1) │
│ [Flux Unlock]: 0% │
│ │
│ ══════ TALENTS ═══════ │
| [Active Skills]: │
│ ◆ Beast Analysis (Critical-Tier) │
│ ◆ Kinetic Disruption (Critical-Tier) │
│ │
│ [Passive Skills]: │
│ ◆ Advanced Flux Breathing (High-Tier) │
│ ◆ Poison Immunity (Mid-Tier) │
│ ◆ Regenerative Tissue (Mid-Tier) │
│ │
│ ══════ EQUIPMENTS ══════ | │
│ [Weapon]: Widow’s Wail (S-Rank Katana) | │
│ [Armor]: Phantom Carapace (S-Rank Suit) | │
│ [Boots]: Shadow Step Boots Mk II (S-Rank) | │
│ [Sidearms]: Throwing Knives x12 (Dark-Steel) │
│ [Storage]: Spatial Compression Capsule │
│ │
│ ══════ INVENTORY ═══════
│
│ [Beast Cores]:
│ ◆ Magma Behemoth Core (S-Rank) [20%] | │
│ ◆ Bog Wraith Serpent Core (S-Rank) [20%]| │
│ ◆ Storm Apex Panther Core (S-Rank) [20%] │
│
│ ══════ FINANCES ═══════ │
│ [Military Merit]: 1,000 points │
│ [Credit Balance]: 55,400,000 credits │
│
└────────────────────┘
He closed the screen and looked at his squad.
"We move out now." That was the first real order he gave as the commanding officer.
– – –
Micah led the squad on foot through the desolate streets, his Beast Analysis talent running at full capacity.
The system scanned every pile of rubble, every shadow, and every crevice for the microscopic energy signatures of hidden predators.
The data stream was constant, feeding him information about temperature shifts, air pressure changes, and organic movement patterns in real time.
Tasha walked closely behind him, her twin blades drawn. Her grey eyes were fixed on the back of his head.
Myra held the rear with her blades low and ready.
Thomas took the left flank, moving through the rubble with a surprising quietness for a man his size. Dexter was on the right with his broadsword across his back and his expression dark.
The patrol moved slowly. Beast Analysis picked up faint energy signatures in the rubble, old and fading, the remnants of mutant passage from hours or days ago.
Nothing fresh. Nothing immediate. But the deeper they went into Sector 4, the stronger the residual signatures became.
They were on the right track. Dexter cracked first.
"This place smells like a rotting corpse," he said loudly, his voice echoing off the broken walls.
He kicked a piece of concrete debris across the street, the stone clattering against a fallen lamppost.
"How long do we have to crawl through this garbage before we—"
Micah was on him before the sentence finished.
He spun around, grabbed Dexter by the collar of his armor, and slammed him against the nearest concrete wall.
The impact was hard enough to crack the surface, and Dexter’s head bounced off the stone with a loud bang.
"Shut up," Micah said. His voice was low and hard, stripped of everything except command.
"You kick one more piece of debris, you make one more sound, and I will put you on the ground and leave you there for the mutants to find. Do you understand me?"
Dexter’s eyes were wide. Not from the impact, but from the force holding him against the wall. Micah was lifting him off the ground by his collar, his arm steady and his grip unyielding, and the strength behind it was nothing like what Dexter remembered from the tournament.
Myra watched from the rear position with widened eyes. She had sparred with Micah during training. She knew his baseline strength, and what she was seeing right now was at least double that.
Dexter swallowed hard. His eyes were with humiliation, but he didn’t fight back. The cold authority in Micah’s voice and the raw power in his grip left no room for argument.
"Understood," Dexter said through clenched teeth.
Micah held him for one more second, then released his collar and let him drop. Dexter landed on his feet, straightened his armor, and fell back into formation without a word.
The squad moved on in absolute silence.
They had been moving through the ruins for twenty minutes when the growl came.
It was low, deep, and came from the pitch-black shadows of a collapsed subway entrance to their immediate left.
The sound traveled through the ground and up through Micah’s boots, vibrating in his bones with a weight that made his teeth ache.
Beast Analysis fired instantly.
[Mutant Gray-Fang Wolf - Level 4]
Stats: High Agility, Moderate Strength, Moderate Vitality, Low Spirit.
Abilities: [Pack Coordination], [Flux-Fang Bite]
Flux Equivalent: 28% per individual.
Pack Size: 6 confirmed.
Behavioral Pattern: Ambush Predator, Coordinated Strike Team.
Then they came.
Six heavily armored, deeply mutated wolf-like beasts burst from the darkness of the subway entrance in a coordinated rush that was nothing like a random, disorganized attack.
These wolves moved as one, keeping low to the ground as they rushed forward, their jaws wide and amber eyes fixed on their target.
They had been waiting. The squad had walked right into their kill zone.
Micah drew the Widow’s Wail. The blade sang as it left the scabbard, the micro-vibration edge humming at forty thousand cycles per second.
He dropped into a low combat stance, his eyes locking onto the leaping predators as they closed the distance.
"Don’t break formation," he said, his voice cutting through the growls. "Hold the line."
The ambush shattered the squad’s fragile cohesion in an instant.
Dexter broke first. The noble recruit completely lost his composure the moment the wolves burst from the darkness.
His eyes widened in panic as he drew his broadsword and swung wildly, with no technique or control. There was little chance of the attack hitting anything.
The blade swung through empty air in a wide, clumsy arc. The wolf was already out of its path.
It had changed direction, keeping low as it rushed toward Dexter’s exposed side, its jaws wide open and its amber eyes fixed on him.
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