Chapter 6 The Beginning of a Nightmare (6)

  They didn’t waste time with the fodder. The Rotten Fangs scurried around, chittering in the bushes like gossiping pests, but the team had bigger vermin to exterminate. The Rotten Fang King was feasting in the center of the park, something meaty and recently human by the look of it.

  Tilus signaled.

  William’s arrow sang through the air and smacked the beast right between its beady eyes.

  It didn’t die. Of course not. That would’ve been merciful.

  It raised its head, snarled, and then screamed loud enough to make the ground tremble.

  Ben responded the only way he knew: with a war cry and an axe to the jaw. The King twisted away, just in time to avoid a splitting headache. Too bad it turned its back.

  Leon, silent as a curse, slid a dagger right into its tendon. Jasmine slashed her sword down and managed to land a hit somehow

  Its health bar inched down slowly. It tried its best to escape, but that was the wrong direction.

  Tilus was already there, standing in its path with cold eyes and a blade itching for closure. He’d mapped out every twitch, every snarl, every twitchy little feint from the last fight.

  The King roared again, tried to summon its horde, and immediately caught another arrow to the neck. The Rotten Fang King staggered, and Ben’s axe slammed into its leg like a falling guillotine. It screeched and spun—only for Leon to bury another blade in its back.

  A final, desperate lurch.

  “Too late,” Tilus said. His sword slashed upward in a clean arc. The creature froze mid-step, then collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut. One last wet gurgle escaped its maw.

  [You had defeated the Rotten Fang King]

  [You have achieved an incredible feat; 500 coins were rewarded.]

  The Rotten Fang King lay dead at their feet, its grotesque body dissolving into the corrupted earth. The stench of decay clung to the air, thick and suffocating, yet none of them moved. Their bodies were sore, their breaths ragged. But the plan had worked.

  Clap. Clap. A slow, mocking applause.

  Then came the voice.

  “Well done,” a man sneered, stepping out from the shadows with a group of survivors behind him. His grin was a sickle moon in the gloom. “Didn’t think you’d actually manage to kill that thing. You guys are strong. Want to team up?” The man stepped closer, his boots crunching over brittle bones embedded in the soil. "Name's AJ."

  Tilus said nothing. Names didn’t matter here—only the hungry glint in AJ’s eyes as he looked at us as his prey.

  Leon scoffed. “You mean carry your dead weight?”

  AJ’s face twitched. A flicker of annoyance, quickly masked. “Watch your words,” he warned, thumbing the serrated edge of his knife. “You wouldn’t want to end up like that rat you just killed.” He took a step forward, his men shifting with him, a silent show of intent. A pack of hyenas circling a wounded lion. “But it’s fine if you don’t want to team up,” AJ continued. His voice dripped with false camaraderie. “Just hand over the loot. You’ve got enough, right? Sharing is only fair.”

  Tilus exhaled slowly. The stench of sweat and rusted metal rolled off AJ’s group—the sour tang of desperation. Predators who’ve become prey, he thought. But desperate men were the most dangerous kind. “So what if I don’t?” Tilus said bluntly

  “Sorry,” AJ said, voice flat. “Did I give you the impression you had an option?” His smirk faded as he gestured to their trembling hands, their bloodied armor. “You’re barely standing. Unless you want to die, I suggest you think carefully.”

  Tilus glanced at his team. “Barely standing?” He sighed, like he’d heard this script before. “Ben?”

  Ben let out a tired sigh and pulled a bottle from his inventory. “Tilus, I told you, man. Sometimes you overthink too much.” He downed a stamina potion.

  The rest followed. Now the tide had turned

  AJ’s grin faltered as color flooded back into Ben’s face, and Leon rolled his shoulders with renewed vigor. “What… what did you just—?”

  Leon grinned, stretching his arms. “Oh, just something to kick your ass.”

  "Last chance," AJ hissed, twirling his knife. "Join or bleed."

  Leon spat blood on the ground. "How about you kiss my—"

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  Tilus had already sprinted to the back and cut down a man from behind. His speed had improved due to his level-up after defeating the Rotten Fang King.

  A bulk guy came at him. “You son of a…”

  Tilus sidestepped, his pommel cracking the man’s temple with a wet crunch. Two others lunged at Ben, only to freeze as William’s arrows thudded into the dirt between their feet.

  "Next ones go through your heads," William said

  AJ laughed—a hollow, scraping sound. "Hah, really now," He snapped his fingers.

  The ambush came from the trees. Three more survivors descended with rusted pipes, their eyes wild and starved. Tilus met the first mid-air, his blade shearing through the pipe and the man’s collarbone in a spray of crimson.

  The second attacker swung wildly at Leon, who danced back with a smirk. "Yikes. Ever heard of footwork?" Leon taunted before disarming him with a twist of his wrist. The man’s scream curdled as Leon’s dagger found his thigh.

  But the third landed a lucky strike on Ben’s ribs.

  Crack. Ben staggered, breath whistling through clenched teeth.

  AJ seized the opening—his knife flashing toward Ben’s throat like a silver viper.

  Tilus’ sword met AJ’s blade in a shower of sparks. "I said," Tilus growled, shoving him back until AJ’s boots carved furrows in the dirt, "your opponent is me."

  For a heartbeat, AJ’s cocky mask slipped, revealing his true self. Then he grinned. "You’re good. Let’s trade scars."

  Their duel was short but brutal. AJ fought dirty—kicking up gravel, feigning a stumble, pulling a handful of ash from his pocket to fling at Tilus’ eyes. But Tilus moved like water, anticipating every trick. When he disarmed AJ with a flick of his wrist, the knife spiraling into the weeds, the remaining followers broke.

  "Kill me," AJ panted, blood dripping from a split lip. "Or you’ll regret it."

  Tilus pressed his blade to AJ’s throat. The man’s carotid pulsed against cold steel. One thrust. One less monster.

  “Tilus.” William’s voice cut through the haze. “They lost. Leave it.”

  “They’ll come back to bite us.”

  “Then we’ll deal with them when they do.” William’s hand closed over Tilus’ wrist. “This isn’t how we do things.”

  Tilus exhaled sharply. Somewhere behind them, a twig snapped.

  “Fine.” He turned away. “It’s on you if they come back.”

  AJ scrambled backward, eyes blazing. “You'd better prepare yourself next time.”

  Leon rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Great villain speech, dude.”

  AJ and his group flee deeper into the park, and some glared at us as they retreated. They were injured on most of their bodies, but it's not that lethal if treat right. Not until them was gone that we feel at ease. As they cleaned up all the loot, they heard screams. The first scream came from the woods—high-pitched, cut short.

  Then the air thickened, sweet and cloying, like rotting fruit left in the sun.

  Tilus turned.

  The Bloodfeaster. A fully infected man.

  Bones cracked and twisted as the thing lumbered toward them, joints popping in a grotesque symphony. Flesh sloughed off its body in putrid ribbons, arms stretched unnaturally long, claws dragged furrows through the pavement. Its head twitched—sniffing—as a fly crawled from its empty eye socket.

  Why was it here?

  Monsters stayed in their zones. That was what was said in the journal. Did those idiots lure that thing here?

  William stood frozen as he saw one of the girls from the AJ group being attacked, the same person who had just fought. It reminded him of his sister that he saw on television when the world turned to chaos, he saw her sister devoured by this monster, her screams echoing through the supermarket parking lot. He raised his bow, aiming at it

  "Wake the fuck up, William!" Tilus roared. “We need to run. NOW.”

  They sprinted.

  The Bloodfeaster’s shriek peeled through the air behind them—closer, closer—

  Jasmine stumbled.

  Tilus’s mind snapped into fragments. A barbed tentacle—arcing toward her throat.Ben—diving, arm raised like a shield—

  Thud. The spike tore through his hand, stopping a breath from Jasmine’s eye.

  “MOVE!” Tilus roared, yanking them both up, shoving them forward to the exit of the park.

  William’s arrows whistled past, each one buying them time

  The Bloodfeaster surged after them until it caught the scent of easier prey.

  By the time they reached the edge of the park, they heard the scream of Aj group getting devoured by the monsters. AJ’s men begged. They sobbed. One called for his mother with a voice so cracked it stopped Jasmine in her tracks.

  The Bloodfeaster answered with the sound of meat tearing off bone.

  Tilus and his friends had survived.

  AJ’s men had not.

  They collapsed in their apartment, tired, exhausted. Ben leaned against the wall and exhaled a shaky breath that he tried to pass as a chuckle. “Guy hit like a toddler,” he grunted, gently pressing against his bruised ribs with a wince. “I’m fine.”

  “Liar,” Jasmine muttered, tearing cloth into makeshift bandages. She kneeled beside him, her hands trembling slightly as she wrapped the gauze around his side.

  Neither of them said it. The moment when Ben had shielded her, diving into the path of that thing’s tendrils. She would’ve died. She still saw it—those empty eyes, the spiral jaw, the raw hunger of the Bloodfeaster. Even now, the image clung to her like oil.

  Tilus stood by the window, watching the night bleed into silence. His fists were clenched. "We made it out this time," he said, voice low. "But tomorrow..." He didn’t need to finish. The next Stage was in twelve hours. He turned to them, eyes sharp. "Rest while you can. Stage One starts tomorrow—and if today was the preview, then hell’s curtain call is next."

  No one argued. They all knew it was luck that they managed to escape. Tomorrow will be harder than today. Would they survive this? Tilus spends time in the dark corner of his room reading the journal again to prepare.

  Unseen by the group, AJ dragged himself through the mud, his left arm ending in a cauterized stump. The Bloodfeaster had taken the rest.

  “Boss…” A wheeze came from the bushes—one of his men, gutted and bleeding out.

  AJ didn’t slow. “Should’ve been faster.”

  “Please…” A whimper. A wet gurgle. Then silence.

  AJ clutched the charred photo in his remaining hand as he escaped: his brother, standing beside him with a bright smile, the very person who brought him to survive as he ran away with his life. He thought he could protect his younger brother even though the world was chaotic. Now, he’d failed because of them.

  “Those brats,” he rasped to the uncaring night. Blood dripped from his stump, watering the hate taking root in his chest. “This is all your fault.”