Before Vigil could finish, Yu Xi leapt from the tree to the next, dagger flashing in his grip. The perimeter lights instantly shifted from green to red, bathing the camp in warning glow.
Alarms blared through their communicators. The secure zone had been breached. Yu Xi knew what they were facing. "It's an Umbravore," he said in the comms.
The Umbravore was no ordinary predator. It was an S-rank aberration, a nightmare that defied the laws of nature and perception. It wasn't simply invisible to the eye; it was absent from reality's senses altogether. No camera could capture it, no sensor could detect it, and no sound betrayed its passage. It glided silently, inches above the ground, as though the world itself refused to acknowledge its existence.
Yu Xi's team froze, their breath caught in their throats. They had heard of Umbravores, and knew that only a few had ever seen one and lived to tell the tale.
