The shrieks did not stop. Even after Kelvin's glaive split the air in a fiery arcs, even after Lyra's bow was hissed with glowing shafts, even after Darius tore through the flesh and scale with his war-axe and the tide only thickened.
What had begun as a swarm of vermin twisted into something that is far more sinister. The creatures poured from burrows, trees, and the very shadows. Their forms blurred the line between insect, beast, and nightmare with hollow-eyed, bone-armored, with too many limbs scraping stone.
Kelvin felt it immediately: this was no random swarm. Something had driven them here. Something had sent them to test the intruders.
The path that had been merely a road to the zombies' den was turning into a graveyard in the making, which was a sudden division.
The swarm surged forward in a new pattern, which is no longer crashing as a chaotic wave and they split, splitting the three into isolation pockets.
