?The forest was no longer silent. It was screaming.

  Behind them, the sound of trees snapping like matchsticks echoed through the fog. CRACK. BOOM. CRACK.

  The Alpha wasn't weaving through the trees. It was running through them.

  "Faster!" Amari yelled, vaulting over a fallen log.

  His left arm throbbed with every step, warm blood soaking the sleeve where the pup had bitten him. He ignored it. Pain was just data.

  Elara was struggling. Her breathing was ragged, her face pale. She wasn't an athlete; she was a rich girl who sat in libraries. Every step was a battle against the mud sucking at her boots.

  "I... I can't..." she gasped, stumbling.

  Amari didn't slow down. He grabbed her by the back of her tactical vest and practically threw her forward.

  "You stop, you die!" Amari barked. "Hear that sound? That's a three-ton killing machine. And it wants its scent back."

  They burst through a dense thicket of thorns and skidded to a halt.

  In front of them was the ravine.

  It was a deep, jagged scar in the earth, about thirty feet wide. At the bottom, white water raged—the river.

  Spanning the gap was a single, rotting wooden bridge.

  "The bridge!" Amari pointed. "Cross it. Once we're on the other side, we cut the ropes. The Alpha is too heavy to jump the gap."

  Elara nodded, her eyes filled with terrified hope. They sprinted toward the wooden planks.

  They were ten feet away when the ground shook. Not from the monster behind them, but from the earth in front of them.

  RUMBLE.

  Golden earth mana flared as a wall of polished granite shot up from the ground, blocking the entrance to the bridge. It was six feet high and solid rock.

  Amari skidded to a stop, his boots carving tracks in the mud.

  "Going somewhere, trash?"

  A figure sat casually on top of the rock wall.

  It was Bronson.

  He was dangling his legs over the edge, cleaning dirt out from under his fingernails with a dagger. His four lackeys emerged from the bushes, flanking him, blocking the escape routes.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Bronson," Amari said, his voice dangerously low. "Move the wall."

  "Nah," Bronson grinned. "See, this is a strategic position. House Granite holds the high ground. We don't yield to panic. We're holding the bridge to make sure no... weak links compromise the safe zone."

  "There is a Silver-Back Alpha one minute behind us," Amari said, pointing to the trembling trees behind him. "If we don't cross, it kills us. And then it kills you."

  Bronson laughed. "Stop trying to scare me. I heard the howl. It's miles away. You're just trying to cut in line."

  He leaned forward, his face twisting into a sneer.

  "Beg," Bronson said. "Get on your knees, admit F-Class is garbage, and maybe I'll let the girl pass. But you? You can swim."

  CRASH.

  A massive oak tree fifty yards behind Amari toppled over. The ground shook so hard that Elara fell to her knees.

  From the fog, two glowing blue eyes appeared. They were ten feet off the ground.

  The Alpha had arrived.

  [System Alert: Regional Boss Detected] [Entity: Silver-Back Alpha (Level 15)] [Threat Assessment: LETHAL]

  It stepped into the clearing. It was magnificent and terrifying. Its fur rippled like liquid mercury. Its claws dug furrows into the stone. It opened its mouth, revealing rows of serrated teeth, and let out a hiss that smelled of copper and death.

  It looked at Amari. Then it looked at the rock wall blocking him.

  Bronson’s grin vanished. He stared up at the monster, his face turning the color of milk.

  "That... that's not a construct," Bronson whispered. "That's real."

  "Move the wall!" Elara screamed.

  Bronson panicked. Instead of dropping the wall, he poured more mana into it, reinforcing the stone. "Defense formation! Block it out!"

  "You idiot!" Amari roared. "You can't block physics with a wall!"

  He's treating the Alpha like a spell, Amari realized. He thinks because it's big, he just needs a bigger shield. He's dead.

  The Alpha didn't care about the wall. It didn't care about the bridge. It roared and charged.

  Amari looked at the wall blocking his escape, then at the monster charging his back. He was pinned.

  I can't go forward. I can't go back.

  He looked at the ravine. It was a fifty-foot drop. The edges were jagged rock, but in the center, the river cut deep, churning into white foam.

  Option C, Amari thought. Survival probability: 40%. Better than zero.

  He grabbed Elara’s arm.

  "Take a deep breath," Amari said.

  "What?" Elara looked at him.

  "Jump."

  "What?!"

  Amari didn't wait. He tackled her.

  Just as the Alpha’s massive claws swiped through the air where they had been standing—shredding a tree trunk into splinters—Amari and Elara flew off the edge of the cliff.

  They plummeted into the gorge.

  Bronson screamed as the Alpha, missing its prey, slammed into the rock wall with the force of a freight train.

  CRACK.

  The stone wall shattered. Bronson was thrown backward onto the bridge, his armor cracking.

  He scrambled up, terrified, looking for the monster. But the Alpha wasn't looking at him. It was peering over the edge of the cliff, sniffing the air.

  It snarled, frustrated. The water below masked the scent.

  Bronson lay on the bridge, his heart pounding. He was alive.

  But down in the river, amidst the white foam and deadly rocks, two figures had disappeared.

  [Warning: Candidate Vital Signs Unstable.] [Status: Submerged.]