"Jake, isn't it?" Silas's eyes narrowed, a playful glint in them despite the intense stare.
"By any chance, are you carrying a Blood Crystal?"
He wasn't trying to intimidate the boy. Honestly, a common Blood Crystal was about as impressive to him as a slightly interesting rock.
But he was curious; the faint energy signature coming from Jake was unmistakable.
"Yeah, right before I came in, I got jumped by an Ash-Howler out front."
Jake replied, playing it cool. "Guess I got lucky and bagged one."
He carefully omitted the "Golden-Thread" part.
He had no idea how rare that was, but flashing a legendary loot drop in front of high-level players screamed "please mug me." No thanks.
Silas studied him for a moment, a question hanging on his lips.
But before he could speak, Rolly bounded over and slapped Jake on the back with the force of a happy troll.
"WOAH! Lucky duck! Spill the beans! How'd you scrap with a Crimson-Howler? That's properly mental, that is!"
Rolly bellowed, his excitement practically shaking the walls.
In response, Jake just sighed and slowly, dramatically, pulled out his trusty... contraption.
"Is that... the 'Take-Your-Life-O-Matic 3000'?!" Rolly gasped, his eyes wide with a mixture of horror and delight.
Jake just stared back, deadpan.
"No way! You actually bought it?! I thought that merchant was a complete nutter! I just, uh... told him to get lost!"
Rolly admitted, scratching his head sheepishly.
"Enough!" Silas cut in, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Everyone, do a gear check. We move out in five. "
------
Jake followed the AR route glowing on his tactical lenses, the feed spliced together from the drone buzzing overhead.
He kept firmly to the middle of the pack. Silas Von took point at the front, while the Vice-Director, Vincent Franks, brought up the rear, a silent, watchful presence.
The deeper they ventured, the thicker the miasma became—a cloying, crimson fog that clung to everything.
It was so dense even the drone's flight began to stutter and lag, its video feed dissolving into fuzzy, blood-red static.
An oppressive, metallic scent of blood filled the air, and a terrifying silence descended, broken only by their own cautious footsteps.
Yet, the buildings around them told a violent story; the strange, un-dried "blood-branches" crawling up the walls grew more numerous and vivid.
With visibility nearing zero, Silas recalled the struggling drone with a sigh. With practiced ease, he pulled components from his spatial backpack, his hands a blur as he assembled four sleek, canine-form mechanical scouts.
He deployed them with a silent command, sending them trotting into the gloom in four different directions.
A moment later, Jake's display flickered and transformed.
The fuzzy live feed was replaced by a crisp, real-time holographic scan of their immediate surroundings.
The range was shorter, but the precision was breathtakingly sharp.
He could see the outline of every crumbling wall, every piece of rubble in stark, digital detail.
A message, cool and direct, piped directly into his consciousness through the neural interface of his glasses:
[Stay sharp. We're approaching the Blood Nest.]
Jake's eyes were already drawn to the massive, two-kilometer-wide scar on the holographic map—the Blood Nest.
Though its monstrous core had been slain by the military, the place was still a festering wound, crawling with leftover bio-beasts and Dymin-Zoan (A weapon incarnate—an amalgam of human DNA and Bisolaran bio-creatures, forged for singular purposes: conquest and espionage.).
Their destination, a derelict office building, sat far too close to the edge of that pit for comfort. There was no way around it.
Suddenly, a sharp, insistent alarm blared inside his skull. His tactical lenses flashed red.
Silas's warning followed instantly, its digital calm laced with urgency:
[Contact! Defensive positions!]
An alert pulsed directly into their minds. A moment later, Jake's tactical display lit up with a dense swarm of crimson dots materializing on their left flank, closing in fast.
[Fall back to that building.] The command arrived alongside a glowing waypoint on his TDG.
The team broke into a sprint. A few stray Ash-Howlers lurched into their path, but they were swiftly and silently dispatched by Silas and Vincent.
Jake and the others just focused on running, following the veterans' lead all the way up to the building's roof.
[Disperse to the four corners. Report contacts via link. Absolute radio silence from now on.]
Silas pointed to each corner of the roof. He then motioned for Leon to follow him to the southwest position.
It didn't take long. A tide of shambling figures poured into the streets below—a horde of Ash-Howlers.
Moving among them were three monstrous figures that dwarfed the others.
Each stood at least eight feet tall, the central brute pushing ten.
They had nightmarish, reptilian heads that looked like a grotesque fusion of mismatched parts, and though their frames were vaguely humanoid, they were obscenely muscular.
Their bodies were encased in a natural armor of sharp, bony plates and spikes, making them look like walking fortresses of death.
[We have Dymin-Zoan.]
Silas's message was cool, though a faint frown creased his forehead.
He wasn't overly concerned yet.
He assumed the horde was just passing through; their own presence was hidden, and these bio-creatures, without the direct mental control of the Bisolarans, usually just operated on base instinct.
But a moment later, he realized something was wrong. The horde wasn't passing by. It was converging directly on their building.
[What in the world?!] Just as the team was processing the shock, their tactical lenses blared with fresh alerts.
Swarms of crimson dots emerged on the other three sides. While not as dense as the southwestern horde, their numbers were still alarming.
[Director Von, they all appear to be converging on our position!] Vincent Franks's message arrived instantly, his digital tone sharp with urgency.
[How did we get exposed? And since when did the New Claimed Zone have hordes of this magnitude? They're supposed to be scattered!]
Rolly's message flashed across their neural feed, each word vibrating with palpable fear, even though not a sound was uttered.