Chapter 141: Unexpected Danger!

The realization came a fraction too late.

Zeke’s mind raced back to the moment Cavendish had nearly lost his face to that same creature. He had been the only one who sensed it, and only in the split second before it lunged. Cavendish, an A-rank Sentinel with years of battlefield experience, hadn’t reacted at all.

Neither had Ares, nor Torrin, nor Feyd. Five trained Sentinels, all with heightened senses meant to detect danger, and not one of them had felt so much as a ripple of warning.

Something hadn’t been right then.

Now, standing in the freezing dark with hundreds of glowing fins flickering to life around them, Zeke understood.

This annexed contaminated zone wasn’t simply hiding its monsters in shadow. It was swallowing their senses whole, smothering every instinct that should have made them aware of the danger before it got close to them. That was why they’d walked so deep into the tunnel without a single flicker of unease. That was why Galithe’s foot had landed directly on a monster’s carapace before any of them knew it was there.

And by the time they realized it, it was already too late to retreat.

"Don’t move," Zeke ordered, low and controlled despite the surge of alarm racing through him.

He’d barely finished the words when the first wave surged forward.

They came all at once, a tide of midnight-purple bodies scrambling over each other in their hunger, jaws unhinging wide to reveal rows of jagged, backward-curving teeth built for tearing rather than biting. Their bioluminescent fins cast the tunnel in a sickly blue glow, illuminating a horde that seemed to have no end.

Because Zeke had shouted his warning half a second before impact, Gwen and Galithe managed to raise their guard just in time. Gwen’s blade flashed out in a wide arc, the air around it screaming as it sliced clean through three of the creatures’ throats in one stroke.

Meanwhile, Galithe stumbled back, dagger raised defensively, barely managing to deflect a lunging bite aimed at her face.

Zeke’s power came alive around them, a dense, invisible pressure bending the space just beyond their position. Creatures that leapt toward them found their trajectories twisted, gravity folding in on itself to slam their bodies against unseen walls with bone-crushing force. One after another, they burst apart against the barrier, reduced to wet, pulped matter that slid down an invisible curve and dropped to the icy floor.

For a moment, it seemed to be working. The wall of gravity held the swarm several meters back, buying them room to breathe.

Then the creatures did something none of them expected.

The ones that had been flattened against the barrier and had already burst into a bloody mess were being devoured by their own kind. The living ones tore into the corpses of the dead without hesitation, gorging themselves in seconds before shoving forward again, using the mangled remains as stepping stones to climb closer to the barrier.

They just kept coming.

"Fall back!" Zeke barked, already calculating an escape route. "Go back the way we came!"

Gwen didn’t hesitate. She spun on her heel toward the tunnel mouth they’d entered through—only to freeze mid-motion, her eyes widening.

"It’s blocked!" she shouted over the chittering shrieks of the swarm. "They’re also coming from this direction!"

Zeke’s gaze snapped backward. She was right. What had been an open path minutes ago was now packed wall to wall with writhing bodies, fins glowing in a solid wave of blue light stretching as far as the darkness allowed him to see.

They were now being surrounded.

There was no time to panic or hesitate. Zeke’s power expanded outward, gravity bending and twisting at his command, folding space itself into brutal, invisible blades that sliced through the horde in controlled bursts. He directed the crushing pressure with surgical precision, collapsing pockets of space around clusters of creatures, imploding them into wet ruin before they could even scream.

Beside him, Gwen fought with everything she had. Her power sang through the air, wind condensing into razor-thin blades that whistled with every swing, cutting down anything within reach in wide, sweeping arcs. Blood and gore sprayed across the ice with every pass, staining the frozen ground a deep, glistening purple-black.

Half an hour passed. The two of them fought without rest, without pause, carving a bloody path through wave after wave of the relentless swarm.

And yet the numbers didn’t dwindle.

If anything, more crawled forward from somewhere deeper in the dark, drawn by the scent of blood and the desperate thrash of prey that refused to die easily.

Zeke and Gwen carried the brunt of it, their bodies moving on pure instinct and years of battlefield discipline.

Galithe fought too, in her own way, swinging her dagger wildly whenever a creature strayed too close, but exhaustion crept into her limbs faster than either of the seasoned Sentinels beside her. Her strikes grew sloppier, her footing less certain.

Zeke had meant what he said earlier. He wasn’t going to protect her. He wanted her to understand, in the clearest terms possible, that her survival depended on her own strength and nothing else. It wasn’t that he was being cruel to her. He had already discouraged her from joining their newly assembled team. She was the one who insisted on coming and boasted about being capable enough not to need their help. They never dragged her here.

And he was only teaching her a hard lesson about her reckless actions that could’ve risked their lives.

The Federation had sent her here for reasons of their own that neither of them had bothered to question, given the fragile cooperation still holding between their organizations.

Still, even without obligation, he didn’t want her to die needlessly in front of them.

Gwen noticed her faltering first. She glanced toward Zeke, a silent question in her eyes, and he gave no order either way. Whatever she chose to do about Galithe was hers to decide.

Then Galithe screamed.

A creature had sunk its teeth into her forearm, tearing through fabric and flesh alike. The sound that tore from her throat was raw and piercing, loud enough to draw the attention of every nearby monster at once. More turned toward her, drawn by the fresh scent of blood, jaws snapping as they surged in her direction.

Galithe, half out of her mind with pain and terror, swung wildly. She managed to cut down the creature on her right, but the one on her left lunged unchecked, jaws wide, aimed straight for her throat.

Gwen moved instantly, cutting through the swarm to intercept, her blade already rising to meet the threat.

And that was when Galithe, blinded by panic and the searing agony spreading through her veins from the creature’s bite, shoved Gwen forward with both hands.

Directly into the surging wall of monsters.

Gwen’s eyes went wide with disbelief in the split second before the swarm swallowed her whole, bodies piling over her in a frenzied, writhing mass.

"Gwen!"

Zeke’s power detonated outward the instant he understood what had happened, gravity collapsing violently around the swarm, crushing creatures into paste as he tore his way toward her with a speed that blurred the air around him.

He reached her in seconds, ripping the last of the monsters away with brute force.

But it was already too late to undo the damage.

Gwen lay in a spreading pool of her own blood, chunks of flesh torn from her shoulder and thigh, her left eye gone entirely, replaced by a ragged, bleeding socket. A gaping wound had opened across her stomach, organs barely held in place by shredded muscle. Dark veins were already spreading beneath her skin, the telltale mark of miasma seeping into her bloodstream from every bite that had broken her flesh.

In those seconds that passed, the damage that had been done to her was far too great for any reversal.

Though it was fortunate she was breathing, Gwen could no longer fight now or ever again.