DATE: 01/20/501 PC
LOCATION: The Red Zone – 10 Miles Beyond Bastion Gamma
The air in the Red Zone was no longer a mist; it was a physical weight, a bruised purple fog that tasted like copper and old blood. Zel’s suit hissed as it adjusted to the crushing ambient pressure, the Red Core in his chest pulsing a deep, warning violet.
"Stay tight," Zel whispered, his voice low in the squad's private comms. "We’re five kilometers into the dark. If we breathe this air for more than a minute without filters, our lungs will look like jagged quartz."
They moved with ghostly precision through a deep, jagged gorge. In a hidden, shadowed crevice between two massive petrified spires, Zel signaled a halt.
"Plant it," he ordered.
Jim knelt, his black armor clinking as he hammered the Command Beacon into the rock. The device hummed, a thin blue needle of data piercing through the mana-interference to link back to Bastion Gamma.
"Beacon's live," Sara whispered, her eyes glued to her Mk. IV scanner. "Mapping complete. We’re officially—wait."
Her voice went flat. "Zel, I’ve got multiple high-output signatures. MBS. Twenty of them, eight hundred meters north-east. It’s the Iron Vultures."
Zel checked his own HUD. The Vultures were in a heavy battle formation. "They’re hitting a high-value target. Probably hunting a Great-Grade shard for the CEOs." He gave a sharp signal. "Let's move closer. If they’ve cleared the area, our path back is safer. We'll rendezvous and head home."
The Void Wolves approached with caution, keeping to the shadows of the gorge. But as they closed to five hundred meters, the sound of the battle reached them. It wasn't the sound of a victory. It was the sound of a slaughter.
CRUNCH. BOOM. SCREAM.
"Zel..." Sara’s voice trembled. "The signatures... they’re disappearing."
On the scanner, the bright blue dots representing the Iron Vultures were blinking out. Twenty. Eighteen. Fifteen.
"They’re in full retreat!" Sara gasped. "Fourteen... twelve... oh gods, something is moving through them. It’s fast. Too fast for its size."
Zel stopped, his hand going to his sword. "Size?"
"It's a massive Red signature," Sara whispered, her face pale behind her visor. "An Ogre. At least four times the height of a human. But the speed... it shouldn't be possible."
The scanner pinged a rapid, mournful rhythm. Seven signatures left. Then six.
A massive, bone-chilling shriek erupted from the valley ahead, followed by a blinding explosion of red mana that shook the very ground beneath the Void Wolves' feet. The shockwave rattled their helmets.
On Sara’s screen, the remaining six blue dots flickered once and vanished into nothingness. Twenty of the Bastion’s finest 'god-soldiers' had been erased in less than ten minutes.
"They're gone," Mac whispered, his rifle lowering in shock. "All of them. The Vultures are wiped out."
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
The silence that followed was more terrifying than the explosion. Then, the scanner let out a low, long drone.
"The Ogre signature," Sara breathed, her voice a mere thread of sound. "It’s stopped. It’s turning. Zel... it’s locked onto us. It’s coming this way!"
Zel didn't hesitate. The bravado of the elite hunter vanished, replaced by the survival instinct of a man who had just seen twenty gods die.
"Emergency retreat! Full burn!" Zel roared, his voice horrified. "Jim, dump any non-essential gear! Mac, Sara, don't look back! RUN!"
Behind them, the purple mist began to churn. A shadow larger than a house detached itself from the gloom, its eyes glowing like twin furnaces of molten hate. The ground began to rhythmically quake—THOOM. THOOM. THOOM.—as the mountain of red meat and madness began its pursuit.
The Void Wolves turned and fled, their black armor a streak of shadow against the bruised sky, as the nightmare of the Red Zone followed close behind.
DATE: 01/20/501 PC
LOCATION: The Red Zone – 8 Miles Beyond Bastion Gamma
The ground didn't just shake; it groaned under the Ogre’s approach. Zel’s HUD was screaming, the sensors struggling to categorize the monster's signature.
"It’s not just a brute," Zel hissed into the comms as they sprinted through the narrowing gorge. "It’s a Mana-User. It’s channeling through its own nervous system just like a Warden."
But this was worse. Most mana beings were tied to a single color, but as the Ogre smashed through a petrified spire with a casual swing of its arm, Zel saw the secondary aura. Beneath the dominant, violent Red mana that fueled its explosive speed, there were veins of vibrant Green light pulsing through its massive muscles.
A Dual-Mana Hybrid. The Red gave it the speed of a lightning bolt; the Green gave it the stamina and regenerative power of an ancient forest.
"Grenade! Now!" Mac yelled.
Jim spun mid-run, tossing a High-Output Neutral Mana Grenade. The explosion was a brilliant flash of blue light that should have blinded anything in its path. The Ogre didn't even flinch. It ran through the blast, the smoke parting around its massive chest as if it were nothing but a breeze. It was only fifty meters away now, its predatory grin revealing rows of jagged, yellowed teeth.
It was toying with them. It could have closed the distance in a single leap, but it seemed to enjoy the rhythmic terror of the chase, watching the "little black wolves" scramble for their lives.
"It’s not letting us go," Zel realized, his heart hammering against his ribs. "It’s just waiting for us to tire out so the meat stays tender."
Zel stopped. He skidded to a halt, his boots carving deep furrows in the purple mud.
"Zel? What are you doing?!" Sara screamed, her voice cracking with terror.
Zel reached into his tactical belt and pulled out the encrypted data-drive containing the Command Beacon's coordinates and the mapping data—the proof they needed to become an official Task Force. He tossed it to Mac, who caught it out of instinct.
"Go! Don't stop at the Thicket! Go straight to the Bastion! That’s a direct order!" Zel’s voice was no longer horrified. It was cold. Absolute.
"Zel, you can't—" Jim started, but Mac grabbed the giant's shoulder. The veteran scavenger looked at Zel’s eyes—the obsidian was gone, replaced by a swirling, violent crimson light.
"He’s in Full-Tuning," Mac whispered. "We go. Now. Don't let his sacrifice be for nothing."
Zel didn't look back. He turned to face the mountain of meat.
"Suit Output: 100%," Zel whispered. "Redline the core. Break the limiters."
The MBS screamed. The black latex suit didn't just glow; it began to vent steam as the Red Core hit a supercritical state. The mana-veins on the suit turned a blinding, incandescent white-red. The physical strain was immense—Zel could feel his own capillaries bursting under the suit's intensified compression, but the power was unlike anything he had ever felt.
The Ogre roared, a sound that shattered the nearby crystal trees, and lunged forward with a speed that blurred reality.
Zel didn't dodge. He used the Ogre’s own momentum. He launched himself into the air, a streak of red lightning. Time seemed to slow. He saw the Ogre’s massive, wet eye—a furnace of dual-mana hate.
DIE.
Zel drove his blackened alloy sword upward with every ounce of his augmented strength. The blade, infused with high-frequency lightning, pierced the Ogre's massive cornea.
A fountain of steaming, acidic red blood erupted. The Ogre let out a shriek of unimaginable agony that echoed for miles.
Mac, Sara, and Jim didn't look back. They ran into the dark, the data-drive clutched in Mac's hand, as the sounds of a god-tier battle began to tear the Red Zone apart. Zel was alone, wounded, and facing a monster that had just eaten twenty men—but for the first time, the Ogre wasn't smiling.
