An hour later, the summit no longer resembled the chaotic killing ground Brock had first laid eyes on.
It had been reshaped—disciplined, calculated.
The excavators had worked relentlessly under protection, carving deep, angular trenches across the stone. What had once been open terrain was now a web of controlled paths, forcing the zombies into narrow channels where numbers meant nothing. The trenches funneled the undead straight toward designated kill zones, each one overseen by an awakener squad positioned on higher ground.
It was… impressive.
Brock watched as a wave of zombies surged forward, only to be swallowed by the trenches. The Howlers' shrieks were cut short as awakeners rained down attacks from above—blades flashing, abilities detonating with brutal precision. Spitters tried to climb to better positions, but ranged awakeners picked them off before they could gain height. When a bloater fell into one of the channels and burst, the trench absorbed most of the impact, sparing the fighters standing above.
Order had replaced chaos.
At least five awakener teams were now visible across the summit, each operating in tight coordination. Brock recognized the formation immediately—this wasn't a hastily thrown-together defense. These were experienced teams, likely veterans of multiple Rends, moving with confidence and practiced rhythm.
Jim's team held one of the central lanes, their positioning aggressive but controlled. Brock and Cira remained just behind the front line, exactly where they had been instructed to stay, ready to move supplies or step in only if ordered.
And even then, Brock could tell—
This wasn't the full force yet.
Transport signals flickered at the edge of the summit. In the distance, figures were already climbing the winding paths upward, silhouettes framed against the warped sky. More awakeners were coming, drawn by the severity of the C-rank Rend and the opportunity it represented.
The battlefield was stabilizing.
But Brock's combat sense refused to calm.
If this many teams were gathering so early, then whatever lay deeper within the time Rend was far from ordinary.
The signal to advance came without ceremony.
....
The summit roared like a living thing.
Steel rang against claw and bone, a thunderous chorus echoing across the warped crown of the mountain. The five teams stood like bastions driven into the stone, banners and markings snapping in the distorted wind, each holding a section of the summit as the zombie horde surged upward in waves.
At the center-right stood the Iron Vultures, Jim at their head, his presence alone steadying the line. To the left, another team formed a crescent wall of shields and spears, their leader barking commands with hoarse urgency. Farther uphill, a lighter, faster unit darted in and out of the fog, blades flashing like silver fish. Two more teams anchored the flanks, one heavy with armored fighters, the other thick with ranged awakeners whose fire stitched the battlefield together.
The zombies came like a tide.
Mutated corpses scrambled over rocks, tripping over their own twisted limbs, only to be trampled by those behind them. Armored zombies advanced slower but relentless, plating clattering as blows rang uselessly against their chests until a hammer found a neck seam or a blade slid under a helm of bone.
Above them, lickers screamed.
They flowed along the warped terrain, crawling sideways across stone as if gravity had forgotten them. One leapt—then another—then ten more, bodies flung through the air in a grotesque rain. The Iron Vultures met them head-on. Spears thrust upward. Blades swung in wide arcs. One licker landed behind the line, shrieking, only to be dragged down by three fighters who crushed it beneath shields and boots.
Then the air burned.
Spitters unleashed their venom from elevated ground, acid streaking through the sky like sickly comets. Stone hissed and melted where it landed. A man screamed as his shoulder guard dissolved, and Brock was already there, hauling him backward while Cira sealed the wound with shaking hands that never once faltered.
The trenches filled with bodies.
Zombie blood ran thick, dark, and steaming, clogging the channels until the dead piled high enough for others to climb over them. Excavators scrambled to widen the flow, shouting warnings as the ground shook beneath the strain.
And then the bloaters came.
Huge. Grotesque. Swaying with every step.
The ground quaked as they advanced, pressure building in their swollen forms. Fire teams focused them down, flames licking across their distended flesh. One exploded too close, the blast flinging men backward like dolls, smoke and gore spiraling into the sky.
Through it all, Jim moved.
When he stepped forward, the noise seemed to bend around him. His sword came free in a smooth, deliberate arc. The space before him compressed violently—armored zombies crumpled as if struck by an unseen giant, their bodies folding inward, bone and metal collapsing together. Each swing carved a path of ruin, buying precious seconds for the line to reform.
Brock stayed behind the front, every nerve screaming danger. He dragged, shoved, braced, and shouted warnings a heartbeat before disaster struck. He never crossed the line. He never drew attention. He endured.
Cira knelt amid the chaos, blood on her hands that wasn't hers, tying tourniquets, stabilizing fractures, dragging the wounded back from the brink. When she looked up, her eyes were wide—not with fear, but with awe and dread at the scale of it all.
The five teams held.
Barely.
When the last zombie of the wave fell, it did not fall alone. It collapsed atop a mound of corpses so thick the trenches were nearly lost beneath them. The summit fell into a heavy, ringing silence broken only by labored breathing and distant groans from the rend itself.
No one cheered.
They all stared toward the center, where the air twisted and pulsed like a wound that refused to close.
This was only the beginning.
.....
The Iron Vultures stood alone in their stretch of the summit.
Their formation tightened, boots grinding against blood-slick stone as the ground shuddered again. The trenches before them were half-choked with corpses from the first wave, and beyond them the air twisted violently—space folding and unfolding like a wound being forced open.
The second wave arrived all at once.
The rend disgorged them in a flood of broken silhouettes—faster, heavier, wronger than before. Razorfiends surged first, lean zombies with elongated forearms hardened into blade-like growths. They moved low and fast, skimming over rubble, cutting down toward the trenches in coordinated packs.
Behind them lumbered Ironhulks, massive armored corpses fused with warped plating, each step cracking stone. Their presence alone bent the terrain, forcing fighters to adjust their footing constantly.
And above—
Screams tore through the air.
Winged Crawlers burst from the rend's edge, flayed wings snapping as they dove, clutching hooked talons meant to grab and lift, not kill. Their shadows swept over the Vultures like omens.
"Hold," Jim said.
Not shouted. Not forced.
Just spoken.
The Iron Vultures moved as one.
The front line locked shields and planted spears between the plates. The moment the Razorfiends hit the trench, they were impaled mid-leap, momentum driving them deeper onto steel. Blades scraped shields. Sparks flew. One Razorfiend vaulted over the line—
—and vanished.
Space folded with a thunderless crack. The creature reappeared five meters higher, twisted mid-air, and slammed headfirst into the stone, its body folding unnaturally as Jim's space warp released it.
Then Jim stepped forward.
The battlefield seemed to recoil from him.
He raised his sword and space buckled. A corridor of compressed air and warped distance tore through the oncoming horde. Razorfiends were crushed together, their bodies snapping inward as if reality itself clenched a fist around them.
"Left flank, now!"
The order snapped the team into motion. Heavy hitters surged forward, hammers smashing into Ironhulks' legs while blade-users slipped under swings meant to shatter boulders. An Ironhulk roared and raised its arm—
—and the arm disappeared.
Space sheared clean through it. The severed limb reappeared ten meters behind the creature, slamming into another zombie with bone-crushing force.
Above, Winged Crawlers dove.
Arrows streaked upward, pinning wings, dragging screaming shapes out of the sky. One broke through, talons locking onto a fighter's shoulders—
—and then it froze.
Space twisted around its torso. The creature was yanked sideways, momentum redirected, and it smashed into the mountainside hard enough to leave a crater.
Brock stayed near the rear, eyes wide, body tense. Every instinct screamed warning. He pulled a fighter back just as a bloater's corpse detonated where the man had stood. Shrapnel and bile sprayed the air, sizzling against shields.
Cira was already moving.
She dragged the injured clear, hands steady despite the chaos, administering suppressants and sealing wounds as the ground shook beneath her knees. She didn't look up when a scream tore through the air—she already knew where it came from.
The Ironhulks reached the line.
One slammed into the shields, driving three fighters backward. Jim stepped in front of them, sword raised.
The space between him and the Ironhulk collapsed.
The monster imploded—not exploded, but crushed inward, armor folding like paper, body compacted into a dense, twitching mass that dropped to the ground with a sound like stone hitting stone.
Silence followed for half a heartbeat.
Then the rend pulsed again.
More silhouettes formed within it—larger, stranger, worse.
The Iron Vultures tightened their grip on their weapons.
They hadn't broken.
But the war had only just begun.
The summit began to buckle under sheer numbers.
The trenches clogged faster than they could be cleared. Razorfiends vaulted over their own dead, using corpses as stepping stones. Ironhulks pushed forward in pairs now, their weight collapsing stone supports the excavators had barely finished reinforcing. Above them all, the rend pulsed erratically, vomiting shapes faster than the fighters could cut them down.
A screech split the air.
Three Winged Crawlers dove at once. One was cut down mid-flight. The other two made it through.
One crashed into the Iron Vultures' rear line.
The formation staggered.
"Rear's breaking!" someone shouted.
Jim twisted, space warping instinctively as he erased one attacker—but the second slammed into the line, scattering fighters. A bloater lurched forward, swollen and leaking, forced ahead by the press of bodies behind it.
For the first time, Jim's jaw tightened.
"Brock. Cira."
His voice cut through the noise like steel.
"Gear up. You're in."
Cira froze for half a second.
Brock was already moving.
They stepped past the line just as a Razorfiend vaulted the trench and landed in front of them.
It was taller up close—too tall. Its forearms had grown into jagged, obsidian-like blades, each movement slicing the air with a hiss. Its head snapped toward them, eyeless face tilting as it listened.
Stone shifted under Brock's boot.
The Razorfiend struck.
It crossed the distance in a blink. Brock barely raised his weapon in time. The impact jarred his arms to the bone, the force driving him back several steps. Sparks flew as blade scraped steel.
"Fast!" Cira shouted.
The Razorfiend twisted unnaturally, blades scissoring toward Brock's neck.
Cira moved without thinking.
She slammed into Brock's side, dragging him down as the blades whistled overhead. The creature overextended—just for a moment.
Brock surged up and slashed at its leg.
The blade bit—but not deep enough.
The Razorfiend screamed, a shrill metallic sound, and kicked Brock square in the chest. He flew back, crashing into a pile of rubble, air ripped from his lungs.
"Brock!"
Cira raised her weapon, hands shaking, and struck as the creature turned on her.
Too slow.
A blade tore across her arm. Blood sprayed. Pain flared white-hot.
She stumbled back, teeth clenched, refusing to scream.
The Razorfiend lunged again—
—and Brock was there.
He tackled it from the side, driving it into the ground. The creature thrashed violently, slamming him against stone, blade slicing dangerously close to his throat.
Brock gritted his teeth, muscles screaming.
"Now!" he gasped.
Cira didn't hesitate.
She drove her blade down with everything she had—once, twice—until the Razorfiend's screech cut off abruptly. Its body went slack, dissolving into dark, twitching matter.
For a second, neither of them moved.
Then Brock rolled off it, chest heaving. Cira dropped to one knee, clutching her bleeding arm.
They looked at each other—wide-eyed, shaken.
That had been one.
Around them, the summit roared with battle. More Razorfiends were already leaping the trenches. Ironhulks advanced. The rend pulsed again, brighter than before.
Jim glanced back once, meeting Brock's eyes.
No words.
Just acknowledgment.
Brock tightened his grip on his weapon. Cira forced herself upright.
They turned back toward the horde.
The Iron Vultures held the line—but now, they were part of it.
The Razorfiend had barely finished dissolving when the air behind them shifted.
Not sound—absence of it.
Brock's combat sense screamed a fraction of a second before it happened. His spine went cold, every nerve flaring at once.
"Down—!"
The warning was torn apart by motion.
Something burst from the warped air behind Cira, its body folding unnaturally as it emerged—bone-thin limbs ending in hooked blades, its spine arched backward like it had been broken and reassembled wrong. Its skin was dark and wet, stretched tight over muscle that moved too fast to track.
A Razor Fiendling.
Smaller than the first—but faster. Far faster.
It struck from behind, scythe-like arms slashing toward Cira's neck.
Brock collided into her shoulder, throwing her forward as the blades cut through empty space where her head had been. The impact sent them both tumbling across the churned dirt, rolling hard toward the edge of a trench.
The Fiendling landed silently.
Too silently.
Its feet didn't sink into the ground. They rested on it, as if gravity itself hesitated to claim it.
Around them, the Iron Vultures were already stretched thin—Jim was locked in combat near the rend, space warping violently with every swing of his sword. Other members were fending off a surge of spitters spilling into the trenches.
No one saw this one.
The Fiendling moved again—vanishing in a blur, reappearing above Brock, both blades coming down in a killing arc.
Brock raised his weapon just in time.
CRACK.
The impact rattled his arms to the bone, forcing him to one knee. The blades screeched against reinforced metal, sparks spraying as the creature leaned its full weight into the strike, shrieking with a sound like tearing steel.
Cira reacted instantly.
She didn't think—she moved.
Her blade drove upward, slashing across the creature's torso. The strike landed, carving deep—but the Fiendling twisted unnaturally, bones shifting, reducing the damage as it leapt backward.
It hissed.
Not in pain.
In irritation.
Its head snapped toward Cira, eyes glowing a sickly amber. The ground beneath it cracked as it crouched low, muscles coiling for another burst of impossible speed.
Brock forced himself upright, breath ragged, blood trickling from where one blade had grazed his arm.
"Same pattern," he muttered through clenched teeth. "But faster."
The Fiendling blurred again.
This time, both of them moved.
Brock stepped into its path, intercepting the charge, weapon locking against one blade while Cira circled wide, boots slipping in mud and gore as she aimed for its legs.
The creature twisted mid-motion, spine bending backward far past what should have been possible, narrowly avoiding her strike—and that was when Brock saw it.
A faint distortion around its chest
"Cira—center mass!" he shouted.
She didn't hesitate.
As the Fiendling reared back to strike again, Cira lunged forward, driving her weapon straight into the warped point Brock had seen. The blade met resistance—then gave way.
The creature let out a piercing scream.
Its body spasmed violently, limbs flailing as fractures raced across its form like spreading cracks in glass. It staggered backward, clawing at the air
The Razor Fiendling shrieked as it recoiled, its body spasming from Cira's strike—but it did not fall.
Instead, it twisted.
Its spine folded inward, joints popping as its frame compacted, trading reach for speed. The amber glow in its eyes sharpened, locking onto Brock with predatory focus.
It chose him.
The Fiendling vanished.
Brock felt the pressure before the impact—air compressing, ground dimpling under invisible weight. He pivoted on instinct alone, dragging his battered weapon across his body just as the creature reappeared at arm's length.
Too close.
One blade punched through his guard, slicing across his ribs. Pain flared white-hot, stealing his breath. Brock staggered—but did not fall.
His combat sense howled.
Now.
He stepped into the creature's space instead of retreating.
The Fiendling screeched, surprised, its momentum carrying it forward as Brock slammed his shoulder into its chest. Bone cracked. The creature shrieked again, trying to disengage—
Brock didn't let it.
He reversed his grip and drove his weapon upward, straight through the Fiendling's jaw and into the warped core beneath its skull.
The scream cut off mid-note.
The creature convulsed once, violently, blades twitching—then its body shattered into dark fragments that scattered across the ground like ash caught in a gust.
Brock stood frozen for a second, chest heaving, weapon still raised.
Then the world answered.
---
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION
[Target Eliminated: Razor Fiendling]
[Threat Classification: Sub-Variant]
[XP Gained: +40]
---
Brock exhaled slowly, legs trembling now that the danger had passed. Blood soaked through his armor at the ribs, every breath sharp and shallow.
Cira was no better.
She leaned heavily on her weapon, face pale, a thin line of blood trailing from her temple. Her hands shook—not from fear, but exhaustion. Two Razor-class engagements back-to-back had pushed them well past what they were meant to handle.
No one was looking at them.
The battlefield had shifted again—another surge near the trenches, Jim's space warp flaring in violent arcs as he tried to hold a collapsing flank. The Iron Vultures were too busy surviving to notice two bronze-rank awakeners standing still.
Cira took a half-step closer to Brock.
Her voice was barely a breath. "Don't move."
Brock frowned, about to protest—
—and then warmth bloomed in his chest.
Not heat. Relief.
The pain in his ribs dulled, sharp edges rounding off as torn muscle began to knit itself together. His breathing steadied, each inhale coming easier than the last.
Brock's eyes widened slightly.
Cira's eyes were closed.
Her hand was clenched at her side, fingers trembling as faint motes of light—so dim they were almost invisible in the chaos—flickered around her skin before sinking inward.
She swallowed hard.
A second pulse followed, weaker but deliberate.
The gash on Brock's ribs sealed fully beneath his armor. His dizziness faded. Strength crept back into his limbs like blood returning after numbness.
Cira staggered.
Brock caught her elbow before she could fall. "You—"
"Quiet," she hissed under her breath, not opening her eyes. "Five seconds."
She turned the same warmth inward this time. The cut on her temple closed. The ache in her arms dulled. The tremor in her legs steadied—though the strain etched itself deep into her expression.
When she finally opened her eyes, they were sharp again.
But tired.
Very tired.
"No one saw," she said quickly. "Don't look relieved. Don't thank me."
Brock nodded once, jaw tight.
Around them, the summit roared—steel on bone, abilities flashing, trenches filling with the dead as the second wave pressed harder than the first.