The pulsating mound of flesh tore open like rotten fruit, and from its depths emerged something that defied nature.
It stood on six segmented legs, its chitinous body glistening with mucus. Its head was a nightmare—a grotesque fusion of wolf and insect, with a mouth that split vertically, revealing rows of needle-like teeth. And those eyes—violet, glowing, intelligent—locked onto the Umbra with terrifying focus.
Kael didn't flinch. "Kill it."
The Dance of Blades
The fight erupted in a blur of steel and shadows.
Kael vs. The Alpha
The squad leader moved first, his dagger wreathed in darkness. He lunged, aiming for the beast's throat—but the creature twisted, its exoskeleton deflecting the blade with a screech of metal on chitin. A claw lashed out, sending Kael skidding back, blood welling from his ribs.
Vex's Poisoned Shadows
Vex's hands wove through the air, tendrils of inky blackness coiling around the beast's legs. The shadows burned, smoking where they touched, but the monster shrieked and ripped free, charging.
Ryn's Flanking Strike
Ryn darted in from the side, his twin daggers carving arcs toward the creature's flank. One blade bit deep, black blood spraying—but the monster's tail whipped around, slamming into his chest. Bones cracked. Ryn hit the ground, gasping.
Cedric's Desperation
Cedric, small and fast, wove between the chaos. His daggers—Shade and Whisper—felt like toys in his hands compared to this abomination.
He struck where he could:
A slash at the back of its knee joint. The beast barely noticed.
A stab into the soft tissue between its plates. It howled, flinging him off like a ragdoll.
He hit the ground hard, his vision swimming. Eleven years old. Too small. Too weak.
Then the Alpha turned its gaze on him.
The Squad's Resolve
Kael forced himself up, blood dripping from his lips. "Distract it!"
The remaining Umbra operatives moved as one:
One hurled smoke bombs, filling the clearing with choking fog.
Another unleashed a volley of throwing knives, aiming for the eyes.
The Alpha roared, disoriented—and in that moment, Kael struck.
His dagger, fueled by every ounce of his dark energy, plunged into the beast's remaining eye.
Black blood erupted. The creature thrashed, its screams echoing through the jungle.
The Fall… and the Rise
The Alpha collapsed, twitching—but the nest shuddered.
From the ruptured flesh, more violet eyes blinked open. Smaller, but no less ravenous.
"There's more," Vex hissed.
Kael spat blood. "Fall back to the tree line. Reform."
The fight wasn't over.
It was only getting worse.
The nest convulsed like a dying heart, its fleshy walls splitting apart as dozens of smaller creatures spilled forth. These were not the lumbering Alpha from before—these were fast, their malformed bodies built for speed.
Wolf-rats with elongated jaws and whip-like tails
Crow-scorpions, their wings fused with chitinous stingers
Something that might have once been a boar, now a writhing mass of teeth and tentacles
Kael wiped blood from his lips. "Tight formation. Protect the injured."
Ryn, clutching his broken ribs, was hauled behind the squad by Vex. Cedric stood frozen, daggers trembling in his hands.
The Battle Turns
Phase 1: The Tide Breaks
The swarm hit like a storm.
Kael became a whirlwind of dark energy, his dagger carving through three wolf-rats in a single motion. But for every one he killed, two more took its place.
Vex lashed out with her shadow-whips, severing limbs and wings—but the crow-scorpions were too fast, dodging her strikes to dive-bomb the squad.
The remaining Umbra fought back-to-back, their blades flashing. One operative went down, his throat torn open by a leaping rat.
Cedric saw it happen in slow motion:
A scorpion-tail arcing toward Ryn's exposed back.
The injured man couldn't turn in time.
Cedric's Choice
His body moved before his mind could protest.
Dagger throw - Shade spun through the air, embedding itself in the scorpion's eye.
Roll - He hit the dirt as another creature lunged, feeling its claws graze his hair.
Retrieve - He yanked Whisper free from a dead wolf-rat's skull just in time to parry a tentacle strike from the boar-mass.
The impact sent him skidding, his arms screaming in protest. Eleven years old. Bones still soft. Muscles still growing.
But he held the line.
Phase 2: The Cost
The squad was being overwhelmed:
Kael's left arm hung limp, the armor there melted by acid-blood
Vex's shadows were flickering—her energy nearly spent
Two more Umbra operatives were down, their bodies being dragged toward the nest
Then—a new sound.
A horn, deep and resonant, echoed through the jungle.
The creatures hesitated.
Something was coming.
Something worse.
The mutated alpha monster towered over the exhausted Umbra operatives, its six segmented legs planted wide as black blood dripped from multiple wounds. Kael leaned heavily against a tree, his left arm hanging useless at his side. Vex crouched nearby, her breathing ragged as she clutched the deep gashes across her ribs.
Ryn lay propped against a mossy rock, his face pale from blood loss. His bandaged torso was already seeping crimson where the monster's claws had torn through earlier. "Damn thing... hits like a battering ram," he wheezed, his daggers lying just out of reach in the dirt.
Cedric knelt beside him, his small hands shaking as he pressed a fresh strip of torn cloak against Ryn's wounds. The eleven-year-old's blue eyes kept darting between the injured operative and the snarling beast.
"Stay with him," Kael ordered Cedric, pushing off the tree with a grunt. "Vex - we end this now."
A Desperate Strategy
The alpha monster charged, its remaining violet eye burning with unnatural intelligence.
Kael and Vex moved in perfect sync:
Vex's Distraction
The female operative somersaulted forward, hurling a smoke bomb directly at the creature's face. As the cloud erupted, she rolled right, her shadow-whips lashing out to entangle two of its legs.
Kael's Strike
The squad leader channeled the last of his dark energy into his dagger. The blade hummed as he leaped onto the monster's back, driving it downward with all his weight toward the base of its skull.
The beast reared up violently, its claws raking at Kael's legs as he held on. Blood sprayed as the dagger bit deep, but not deep enough.
"It's not working!" Vex shouted, her shadows straining to hold the thrashing creature.
Cedric's Moment
From his position guarding Ryn, Cedric saw what the others couldn't - the monster's wounded underbelly was completely exposed as it reared back.
Ryn followed his gaze. "Kid... don't you dare—"
But Cedric was already moving. He snatched up Ryn's fallen dagger - the serrated one coated in monster blood - and sprinted forward.
"CEDRIC!" Kael bellowed.
The boy didn't stop. He dove beneath the creature's flailing legs, feeling the wind from a near-miss claw rush past his ear. With a yell that sounded far too loud for his small frame, he plunged the dagger upward into the soft flesh where the beast's armored plates met.
And twisted.
The Kill
The alpha monster's shriek shook the jungle. Its legs buckled as black blood gushed from the wound. Kael took the opening - with a final surge of strength, he wrenched his own dagger downward, severing the creature's spinal cord.
The massive body collapsed like a felled tree, landing so close to Cedric that its dying breath ruffled his hair.
Silence.
Then—
"You suicidal little idiot!" Vex stormed over and yanked Cedric up by his collar, shaking him. "What part of 'stay with Ryn' was unclear?!"
Ryn chuckled weakly from his position against the rock. "Kid's got stones, I'll give him that."
Kael limped over, his expression unreadable. After a long moment, he simply nodded. "Burn the nest. We're going home."
The Return
Dawn painted the sky in pale gold as the battered squad emerged from the jungle.
Kael supported Vex, her arm slung over his shoulders
Two operatives carried Ryn on a makeshift stretcher
Cedric brought up the rear, clutching Ryn's bloodied dagger like a talisman
The boy's entire body trembled with delayed shock. He'd almost died. He'd killed. The weight of it pressed down on his small shoulders like a physical thing.
Ryn, despite his pain, noticed. "Hey, twerp," he called weakly. When Cedric looked up, the operative tossed him something small and metallic. "Keep it. You earned that."
Cedric caught the object - an Umbra insignia, the mark of a full operative. His breath caught.
Kael didn't contradict the gesture.
The Duke's Judgment
Godfrey Leonheart's study was silent as Kael gave his report. The duke's piercing gaze lingered on Cedric, who stood stiffly near the door, still covered in dirt and monster blood.
"You let a child make the killing strike?" Godfrey's voice was dangerously calm.
Kael met his lord's eyes without flinching. "He saw what we couldn't. And he acted when others couldn't."
A long pause. Then Godfrey waved a hand. "Dismissed. All of you."
As they filed out, Cedric heard the duke murmur to his captain:
"Double his training. If he's going to fight like a man, he'd better learn to survive like one."