Chapter 25
The squad moved like a unit, quiet, sharp, and practiced. Boots crunched against broken glass, their shadows stretching long in the flickering remains of streetlights overhead. The area looked like it had been through hell: burnt-out vehicles, blackened walls, entire storefronts caved in as though sothing massive had torn through.
Ronan kept his breathing steady. One hand on his sidearm, the others hovering near his gu. He scanned the streets, checking corners, rooftops, anything that looked off. His ears were tuned to the squad comms, but no one spoke. Even Felix, usually the one to crack a dumb joke under pressure, was dead silent.
Up ahead, Sienna raised a fist—halt signal.
Everyone froze.
She crouched and picked sothing up off the ground, holding it up between her gloved fingers. It was a piece of armor—lted, twisted, unrecognizable. And still smoking.
"Still fresh," she said through comms, her voice tight.
Hugo muttered, "Sothing went down here. Recently."
"Keep your eyes peeled," Sienna ordered. "We're not alone."
They split into formation—Mila and Hugo on the left flank, Felix and another operative on the right, Ronan close behind Sienna. Every alley looked like a trap. Every blown-out window felt like a sniper's perch. The deeper they moved in, the more Ronan's instincts scread.
"Still nothing on thermal," Mila said. "No movent."
"That's what worries ," Sienna muttered.
They turned a corner—then stopped.
The street ahead looked worse than the others. It wasn't just destruction—it was mutilation. Walls had been clawed through. Entire tal signposts torn in half. Craters riddled the road like land mines. Whatever had been here wasn't human.
Felix exhaled sharply. "What the hell did that?"
Sienna turned. "Eyes on everything. Scan for residual energy."
One of the squad mbers who system could scan literally anything activated his system lens. The mont it synced, his breath caught.
"There's... residue," he said. "Lots of it. It's everywhere."
A pulse of blue light shimred in his vision. It wasn't just one signal—it was dozens. Overlapping. Layered. The street was practically glowing with system distortion.
"That's not normal," Mila said, frowning. "This looks like a war zone."
"No," Sienna said slowly, eyes narrowing. "This looks like a trap."
And then it happened.
A low, guttural growl rolled through the air—followed by the crunch of sothing dragging itself across broken pavent. Then another. And another.
They spun around.
Figures began erging from the shadows—twisted, misshapen abominations. Once-human forms now bloated with overgrown muscle, warped skin crawling with glowing veins, eyes shining with unstable energy. So had jagged bone protrusions, others bled from places they shouldn't have been alive to bleed from. Their movents were twitchy, erratic—like their minds were no longer their own.
Soone cursed. "What the hell are those things?!"
Another wave spilled out from behind them—crawling up from alleyways, climbing over rooftops, bursting out of broken buildings. Their growls harmonized into a chilling chorus that scraped against the mind.
They were surrounded.
"Form up!" Sienna barked. "Defensive formation! Don't break!"
Ronan's heart slamd in his chest, adrenaline hitting like a wave. He moved back-to-back with Felix and another teammate, weapon drawn as they got ready to attack. The monsters paced in a slow circle, snarling and cracking joints that shouldn't even move.
But sothing felt off.
They weren't attacking.
They were waiting.
Ronan's gaze flicked upward—and he froze.
On a rooftop, barely visible in the shadows, a silhouette stood watching. And smiling. His heart thundered in his chest, it had to be that man.
Sothing flared in Ronan, and without thinking, he left his other teammates, flying past the system monsters in controlled flips as he headed straight for the figure.
"Ronan, where are you going, I ordered everyone to maintain formation." Siena yelled through the comms.
"I'll be right back." Was all Ronan said before ripping the comm of his ear, if he was going to have a talk with that man, he needed it to be away from everyone's listening ears.
The other teammates watched Ronan skip away, eyes wide with horror, the hell did he an he'll be right back. He was clearly running away, abandoning a mission without direct orders from the squad captain was a cri, if Ronan really was escaping, he was definitely going to get suspended after this.
"What a jerk." One of them muttered through gritted teeth.
"Forget him, we can handle this ourselves."
Each of them started out strong, graceful, precise, ruthless.
Mila swept under a lunging brute, slicing its tendons with her plasma-edged blades. Hugo slamd his fists into the ground, sending out shockwaves that knocked a trio of monsters off balance. Felix ducked beneath a bone spike and responded with a burst of calculated gunfire, targeting exposed joints. The others moved with lethal efficiency, working in near-perfect sync.
They were relying only on raw combat skill—no system enhancents yet. It was too early to burn through energy.
But then...
The creatures twitched.
The ones they'd already taken down groaned and convulsed. Broken limbs cracked back into place. Wounds stitched themselves together unnaturally fast. Sizzling blood reversed direction, crawling back into their bodies. Even the decapitated ones started shifting. It was like, ti reversed for them.
Mila took a shaky step back. "No... no, no, that's not possible."
Hugo's voice was tight. "They're regenerating?!"
The realization hit hard.
This wasn't just dangerous, it was endless.
Minutes passed. Then more. Their stamina dipped. Their attacks slowed. Sweat clung to their faces under their helts. Gasping breaths filled the comms. They fought, and the creatures just kept healing. No matter how many tis they were brought down, they got back up.
Jace stumbled to his knees, nearly crushed beneath the hamrfist of a monster. "I can't... keep up..."
Then it happened.
"System—activate!" Jace shouted.
His body lit up with a radiant green glow. A ripple shot outward, touching the others. Everyone staggered as warmth surged through their exhausted limbs.
"Whoa," Hugo blinked, straightening. "I feel... alive again."
Jace's system: Revival Core. It replenished energy, boosted endurance, and temporarily erased fatigue for nearby allies. It was rare. And it was exactly what they needed.
One by one, the rest activated their systems.
Mila vanished in a blink—Phantom Echo—a teleportation-based combat ability that left afterimages to confuse enemies.
Felix's hands ignited as Inferno Lock surged to life. He conjured heat-based constructs to trap enemies mid-attack.
Hugo's body grew heavier, skin turning tallic. Titan Shell—a defense-based ability that made him nearly indestructible.
Even the quiet ones unleashed terrifying power: lightning, ice, kinetic bursts, gravity distortion.
And this ti, they weren't holding back.
The battle erupted.
Felix leapt onto a beast twice his size, fire wrapped around his fists as he pounded into its skull, screaming, "DIE ALREADY!"
Mila blinked in and out of existence, slashing through tendons and hamstrings, leaving monsters spinning and confused.
Hugo barreled through a wall of flesh and bone like a wrecking ball, shielding two cornered teammates.
Still, no matter how powerful the attacks, no matter how many tis they fell—
The monsters didn't stay down.
One of the operatives snapped. "Why won't they freaking die?!" he shouted, slamming a hamr into a creature's chest so hard its ribcage caved in—only for it to burst back out seconds later, fully healed.
Sienna's eyes narrowed, her breathing ragged. "This isn't working."
She opened comms to all channels. "Fall back. Now. Everyone, regroup—"
But suddenly, BOOM!
The sound split the air. A shockwave tore across the battlefield, slamming into every operative like a wrecking ball. They flew—crashed into walls, flipped through the air like ragdolls.
Screams echoed through the comms.
Dust exploded everywhere.
And then they saw it.
Lumbering out of the smoke ca the biggest one yet.
Towering. Fifteen feet tall. A grotesque fusion of other monsters—stitched together by pure rage and violence. Muscles bulged with unstable energy, glowing veins crisscrossing its body like molten lightning. Horns curled from its skull. One eye was chanical. The other glowed like a star losing its mind.
It roared—a deafening, bone-shaking sound that shattered windows, ruptured eardrums, and made the ground tremble.
Then ca the stomp.
BOOM.
The earth cracked beneath its weight.
And Cara—one of their own—wasn't fast enough.
She was thrown through the air like a ragdoll, her body twisting before crashing onto a spiked tal railing. It impaled her straight through the abdon and chest.
Ti froze.
Blood poured from her mouth. Her eyes widened... flickered... then went still.
"No..." Mila's voice cracked.
"CARA!" soone scread—a raw, broken sound that echoed through the comms and cut through the chaos.
The monster took another step, the ground quaking beneath it. Its mouth split open too wide, revealing rows of spiraling teeth. Black sludge dripped from its massive hands.
Its presence was overwhelming, and hella scary.
And as its shadow fell over their broken ranks—
They all knew the truth.
They weren't winning this. This thing was unbeatable, if it could heal like the rest, no way they were winning this.
They were done for.And in all this chaos, a teammate had abandoned them.
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