The room was in chaos. People were running from left to right, clutching docunts, yelling instructions, and making frantic calls across all sectors of the academy. Alarms echoed through the air, heightening the urgency. Fear laced the atmosphere. The reports had co in fast—and grim.
An attack had been confird.
Military officials were already being deployed to every corner of the academy. It was a full-blown mobilization, swift and exact, like a warti protocol activated without hesitation.
At the center of this storm of activity stood the man in charge—Sergeant Tommy. A rugged, hardened veteran with scars running down his arms and face like old, jagged maps. Each mark told a story, and none of them were peaceful.
His jaw tightened as he stared at the flickering monitors in front of him. Numbers were climbing, flashing red and orange warnings across the holographic screens. His dark eyes scanned them with a mixture of disbelief and concern.
’This can’t be right...’
The screen glitched for a mont before displaying sothing new—movent across the east and north sectors.
He leaned closer, voice low and sharp. "How many beasts are there?"
His assistant, a young tech specialist with large round glasses and trembling fingers, sat just a few feet away, furiously typing commands into her computer. Her eyes flicked across the data streams, pulling information from a dozen scattered feeds.
After a tense mont, she answered, her voice cracking slightly. "Five hundred abyssal-ranked beasts... and... a hundred Mythic-class beasts as well."
The words hung in the air like a noose.
Tommy froze, his body stiff as iron. Then the shock hit him.
"What the hell?! Did soone teleport all these beasts in?" he roared, his voice booming across the room and cutting through the panic like a whip.
It made no sense.
Beasts of that scale never worked together. It was against their very nature. They dominated, they competed, they killed each other for territory and pride. But this... this was organized.
And if it was organized...
’Then soone controlled them. Soone planned this. A demon among n...’
He turned back to his assistant, whose fingers were still dancing frantically over the keys.
"Alert the generals—"
Before he could finish his sentence, a deafening explosion ripped through the building.
It wasn’t nearby, not in their control room—but it sounded close enough to be.
All eyes snapped toward the screens. One of them flickered, then stabilized. What they saw drained the color from everyone’s face.
The stadium.
The entire structure—its walls, roofing, and everything in between—had been reduced to nothing more than dust and shattered rubble. The force of the explosion had caved in the entire facility in a single instant, as if a titan’s fist had descended from the heavens and crushed it.
"What is that...?" his assistant whispered, frozen in place. Her voice trembled.
No one answered.
Everyone stood still, watching.
Only Sergeant Tommy moved. He clenched his fists, staring hard at the screen, knowing—no, recognizing—what kind of power could level an entire stadium and silence such chaos in an instant.
"That... is the strength of our head general, Shia Vantress."
---
Dust swirled in the air like ghosts of the fallen.
The ruins of what was once the academy stadium stretched for miles—a field of debris littered with cracked pillars, shattered tal beams, and torn flags. Blood soaked into the earth. Pieces of flesh and charred bone were scattered everywhere, barely distinguishable from beast or human.
In the center of this devastated wasteland stood a lone figure.
Shia Vantress.
Her clothes were in tatters—just a torn military singlet and rugged trousers stained with ash and blood. Her hair hung loose and soaked in sweat. Her breathing was shallow, every rise of her chest sharp with pain. Blood dripped from her forehead, trailing down her cheek like a slow-moving tear.
She didn’t move.
’My body hurts all over,’ she thought, twitching her fingers slightly.
The pain shot through her like a bullet. She flinched.
’I need to heal a bit more...’
She inhaled, slow and deep, but even that made her ribs rattle inside her. Her hands trembled faintly by her sides.
The battle had been one-sided—because she had made it so.
When the Nyxaris, the ringleader of the attacking beasts, first struck, Shia hadn’t responded with brute force. No. She had waited. Strategized.
Instead of imdiately using her integration abilities, she had focused them in secret—attaching her essence to every living person in the stadium.
Then, in one breathtaking mont, she had unleashed all her might.
She collapsed the entire stadium.
Stone, tal, air—all reduced to shrapnel under the weight of her devastating power. She buried the Nyxaris and every last Abyssal-ranked beast under thousands of tons of rubble.
And at the sa ti, she activated a coordinated teleportation field using the links she’d ford—transporting every marked person to military bases spread across the region.
It had been... perfect.
Calculated. Risky. Unbelievable.
A feat only Shia Vantress could pull off.
That was why she was head general. Not many knew the exact nature of her abilities, but those who had witnessed her strength—those few survivors—respected her more than any dal or title ever could.
But now...
Now the consequences had caught up to her.
Thousands of lives had been saved. An entire battalion of beasts had been wiped out.
But she was spent.
Her body trembled with exhaustion. Her knees wobbled as she shifted her weight slightly. Even standing was a chore.
Still, she didn’t fall.
A strange clattering echoed in the distance—once, then twice—followed by a low thump near her feet.
Her eyes dropped.
A massive creature slowly pulled itself from the rubble.
It had survived.
A single Abyssal-class beast, its body mangled and torn beyond recognition. Its dark, oil-slicked skin shimred beneath the dim light. It had no eyes—just a gaping maw filled with endless rows of needle-like teeth. One of its arms was missing entirely. The other claw dragged its enormous fra forward, while trails of blackened intestine dangled behind it like grotesque vines.
It snarled.
A deep, primal sound.
A sound of hunger.
Shia’s heart thudded once more in her chest. ’Damn it... I should have released my summon before saving everyone...’
She tried to raise her hand—to call upon her partner, her beast, her guardian—but nothing happened.
Her energy was gone.
There was nothing left.
She swallowed hard, forcing herself to breathe. Her body protested every movent, every heartbeat.
The beast growled again, louder now. It was crawling toward her, jaws unhinged, fangs glinting like daggers.
’Co on, Shia... think. Move. Do sothing...’
But no plan ca.
No strength returned.
She was out of ti.
If she didn’t find a miracle in the next few seconds... this might truly be her end.
Shia Vantress—could do nothing but stand and watch... as death crawled toward her.
’This... is not how I die...’
Reviews
All reviews (0)