The morning was pale and cold, a thin veil of mist rolling through the half-finished streets of Haven.
The hammering had stopped. The smell of cooked meat drifted from the fires, rich and heavy — but it didn't make Ethan hungry.
He stood by the training yard, arms folded, watching Marcus spar with two of the Titan Bloods.
Their weapons were real, their swings heavy enough to splinter the air. Marcus moved like an avalanche, his strikes crashing into shields and shoulders, forcing both men back. When one of them faltered, Marcus barked,
"Up! Again!"
The man obeyed, blood dripping from his split lip, eyes burning with the stubborn will that had become common here.
Ethan clenched his fists.
He could feel it — the gap widening between them.
Everyone around him was changing — stronger, sharper, faster.
Marcus was a walking fortress. Darren and Caleb could cut down a mutant before it even struck.
Even Aria, barely thirteen, had grown fearless beside her spider.
And Ethan?
He could heal, he could bind… but when the killing started, he wasn't the one standing at the front.
The gods had given him a system, but sometimes it felt like they'd forgotten to give him a purpose.
"Brooding doesn't suit you," Marcus said as he approached, wiping blood from his knuckles. "You're not built for watching."
Ethan raised an eyebrow. "You offering a spar?"
Marcus grinned. "No. I'm offering a hunt. You, me, Ravi, Kira — and the new ones. Time to get everyone moving before the siege."
Ethan hesitated. "Aria too?"
Marcus nodded. "Her spider's been restless. Better she learns to control it out there than let it chew through the walls here."
Ethan thought for a moment, then nodded. "Fine. We'll leave by dawn."
---
The Hunt
The forest beyond Haven was quiet when they entered — too quiet. Fog hugged the ground like spilled milk, muffling the crunch of boots and the hum of insects.
Aria rode ahead, perched carefully on the back of her spider. The creature's black carapace gleamed like wet stone, and its eight legs moved in perfect silence.
Beside her, Sofia adjusted her new leather armor and tested her bowstring, the movements neat and precise.
"I was a police trainee before," she said as they walked. "I never thought I'd end up hunting monsters."
Kira, walking a few paces ahead, smirked. "Welcome to the apocalypse. Don't shoot me in the back and we'll get along fine."
Sofia didn't reply, but her eyes stayed sharp, scanning the treeline.
Ravi walked near the middle, jotting notes into his half-torn notebook, his glasses fogging in the damp air.
"Essence readings are stronger here," he muttered. "I can sense creatures within a hundred meters. Some are weak… some, not so much."
Marcus grunted. "Then we're going the right way."
Riley followed quietly, the youngest among them save Aria. His clothes were borrowed, too big for his frame — but his eyes burned, pale and sharp, alive in a way that made Ethan uneasy.
He still bore faint scars where corruption had once crawled beneath his skin.
"You sure you're ready?" Ethan asked.
Riley nodded. "I want to fight."
"Then stay close," Ethan said. "Don't be a hero."
---
The Wolves
It started with a low growl. Then another.
Five sets of eyes blinked open in the fog — blue, burning, too bright to be natural.
Mutant wolves. Lean and skeletal, with sinew where fur should have been. Their bodies shimmered faintly, half-phased with essence corruption.
Marcus didn't wait.
"Form up!"
He charged, hammer raised. The first wolf lunged, jaws snapping — Marcus's blow hit midair and turned its head to paste. The others scattered, howling.
Ethan's threads flashed to life, emerald strands of light cutting through the mist. He sent Thread Lash snapping toward one wolf's throat, slicing it clean. Then he shifted his focus, sending more to bind another as it lunged at Ravi. The threads coiled around its limbs, dragging it to the ground long enough for Kira to finish it with a dagger through the eye.
Sofia loosed an arrow — it struck another beast mid-leap, exploding in a small burst of essence. The wolf hit the dirt, convulsing, then went still.
Her breath came fast, but her aim was true.
Riley froze until the last of them lunged for him.
Then instinct took over.
He thrust out a hand — and the air warped. A pulse of compressed wind slammed into the creature, hurling it backward into a tree. The trunk cracked. The beast didn't get up.
Silence fell. Then Marcus grinned.
"Now that's more like it."
Ethan's heart hammered. His threads hummed with residual essence, glowing faintly in the mist. Every fiber of him burned with adrenaline — and something else.
Growth.
The system pulsed.
---
> Level Up!
[Ethan — Level 13 → 14]
---
He exhaled hard.
The numbers rose — a small comfort in a world that had turned survival into arithmetic.
---
The Alphas
The ruins of an old highway cut through the forest like a scar.
Rusted cars lay half-buried in vines. Crows wheeled above, their caws echoing through the silence.
Ravi crouched near a patch of scorched earth. "Tracks. Mutants — big ones. Two, maybe three alphas."
Marcus nodded. "Good. We'll take them."
Ethan wanted to argue, but he saw it in Marcus's eyes — the hunger to grow, to level, to be ready for what came next. He felt it too.
They found the alphas in the hollow of a collapsed overpass — three hulking beasts, each twice a man's size, hides blackened and steaming. Their essence burned red — stronger, hotter, alive. The air around them stank of ozone.
The first one charged before anyone could react.
Marcus met it head-on.
The impact shook the ground. His hammer slammed into its jaw, snapping bone and hurling the creature sideways.
The second leapt for Kira, but she spun low, slashing its belly open in a spray of black blood.
The third went straight for Ravi.
Ethan moved before he thought. Warden's Grasp flared — threads bursting from his hands like living vines, wrapping around the alpha's limbs. It screamed — the sound like metal grinding. Ethan felt the pull, the drain — essence flooding out of him like water through a cracked dam.
He pushed harder. The threads constricted, binding tighter, until Marcus came barreling in from the side, hammer first. One blow, two — the skull caved in. The alpha fell still.
The system chimed again.
---
> Level Up!
[Ethan — 14 → 15]
[Riley — 2 → 7]
[Aria — 7 → 10 — Evolution available]
[Sofia — 10 → 13]
[Kira — 14 → 15]
[Ravi — 12 → 13]
---
Breathless, Ethan dropped to one knee. His EP was nearly gone. His skin felt like fire, his vision a haze of green afterimages.
Marcus clapped him on the back. "That's more like it. You're catching up."
Ethan didn't answer. He could feel the change inside him — stronger threads, sharper control, a deeper well of essence pulsing at his core.
Finally.
---
The Queen
Then Aria screamed.
Ethan spun, ready for another attack — but the sound wasn't fear. It was awe.
Her spider crouched low beside her, trembling. Its body glowed faintly, veins of golden light pulsing beneath the carapace.
And beside it, the ant — the small one that had followed her since the first hunt — began to change.
Its shell cracked like glass. Light spilled through. The ground trembled as something larger pushed free — not monstrous, but regal.
The new form towered waist-high, carapace gleaming amber-red. Beneath it, dozens of smaller ants crawled up from the soil, answering a silent call.
"Aria…" Ethan breathed.
The girl looked terrified. "I didn't mean to—"
"It's okay," he said quickly. "You evolved. That's all."
Ravi's voice was hushed, analytical even now. "That's not just an evolution," he breathed. "That's a command structure. She's forming a hive."
Marcus gave a low whistle. "Remind me not to piss off the kid."
Aria's eyes shimmered with tears. "They're not attacking… they're just… waiting."
Ethan crouched beside her, meeting her gaze. "Then lead them."
She hesitated, then nodded.
The ants shifted as one, bowing slightly — not to Ethan, not to the others, but to her.
Ravi scribbled furiously in his notebook. "This changes everything."
Ethan's voice was low. "Then we keep it quiet. For now."
Marcus nodded. "Agreed. Don't need half the camp panicking over a bug army under their feet."
---
The Return
By the time they returned to Haven, the sun had set.
The mist had thickened into fog, glowing gold where it caught the firelight. The gates opened slowly to let them through.
People cheered when they saw the haul — meat, cores, and salvage.
The system responded in kind.
---
> Population: 134
Task Completed: Increase stronghold population to 100
Reward Granted: +250 Credits
---
A second line appeared beneath it — colder, sharper.
---
> New Task: Defend Haven for 48 hours.
Reward: Tier Advancement Token (Unranked).
*Beginning in 24 hours…
---
The message faded.
The fires burned lower. The night deepened.
Ethan stood atop the wall, staring into the fog beyond the perimeter.
He could feel it — something vast and watching, waiting in the dark.
Behind him, Aria's spider shifted, and the faint sound of clicking echoed beneath the earth where her ants moved unseen.
They were growing stronger.
All of them.
But so was everything else.
Ethan closed his eyes, the words whispering like a promise in the back of his mind.
Let them come.