The first impact hit like thunder.
A bone-spiked variant hurled itself into the southeast barricade, splintering steel and sandbags in a single lunge. Behind it, dozens of others poured through the dark like floodwaters—twisted limbs, broken jaws, and snarling hunger.
Jaden was already moving.
Phase Trigger: Engage.
He blinked through the first wave, appearing behind the lead creature and driving both knives into the back of its skull. It spasmed and dropped, but another took its place almost instantly.
"South line! They're pushing hard!" Marcus's voice cracked through the comms. "We've got leapers—three just hit the upper scaffolds!"
"Raya, cover left! Tess, route more power to the floodlights!"
The lights above surged weakly. Tess stood frozen near the power conduit, her fingers trembling. Static sparked faintly around her, uncontrolled. She didn't understand it—not yet—but something inside her was stirring.
"Come on, Tess!" Jaden barked, slicing through another aberrant. "Now or never!"
But even as she tried, it wasn't enough.
A deafening screech tore through the night. The barricades buckled. A Dredge Mauler—twice the size of a normal variant and clad in bone-plated armor—smashed through the outer line. Behind it surged more twisted corpses. The defense line trembled.
One more hit, and they'd be breached.
"Fall back to secondary—" Jaden started, but was cut off by the roar of the Mauler.
It charged.
Raya screamed, ducking behind cover. Marcus fired round after round, but the beast barely flinched.
Tess stared at it. Her fear peaked. Her breath hitched.
Something broke.
And then—
It ignited.
The lights didn't just surge—they exploded outward in a pulse of blinding white-blue. Arcs of lightning ripped through the sky and grounded themselves into the earth, surging toward the Mauler and the incoming wave like guided vengeance.
The electricity obeyed her.
The beast convulsed mid-charge, its plated armor cracking under the voltage. The zombies nearest it combusted in bursts of scorched ash.
Everyone froze.
Tess stood at the heart of it, eyes glowing, body haloed in dancing electricity. She wasn't just a spark now.
She was a storm.
Jaden blinked. "Tess…?"
She didn't answer right away. Her eyes flicked toward him, dazed, flickering with power.
"I didn't know... I could do that," she whispered, the static fading around her fingertips.
"You just saved all of us," Jaden said.
The Mauler collapsed in a smoldering heap. The rest of the horde, stunned and scorched, scattered into the night.
Thirty minutes later.
The fires still burned, but the base stood.
Barricades were broken. Ammo was spent. But not a single civilian was lost.
Tess sat near a scorched generator, staring at her hands. Her body still hummed with the aftershock of the awakening. She didn't know what it meant—but she felt it now. She wasn't powerless.
She was becoming something.
Jaden approached and crouched beside her.
"We'll figure out what this is," he said. "Together."
The Lock System chimed softly in his mind.
Quest Completed: Defend the FaultlineObjective: Survive Without Civilian Casualties — SUCCESSReward Unlocked: +1 Lock Point | Unique Lock Mutation AvailableSkill Enhanced: Identification Lv. 2New Passive Unlocked: Loyalty Gauge – Detail View
He glanced at Marcus and Raya in the distance, helping secure the perimeter. Above their names, faint glowing numbers appeared—Loyalty Ratings.
Jaden felt the power of that knowledge settle into him.
No more guessing who he could trust. No more blind faith.
They'd come close to losing everything tonight.
But Tess had turned the tide.
And Jaden now had a clearer path forward.
The wave had been a warning.
Something was pushing the horde toward them.
And he would find out who.