The first Gnawer shot into the narrow corridor like a bone-white cannonball. The confined space amplified the sound of its chittering, turning it into a deafening roar. Its mind was a laser-focused point of hunger, fixed on the two figures retreating into the shadows.
It never saw Kai's shield.
He didn't try to block the creature's momentum. He angled the heavy autoclave lid and used the Gnawer's own speed against it, deflecting its charge into the wall of metal mailboxes with a deafening crash of dented steel. The creature was stunned, its spindly limbs tangled for a critical half-second.
That was all Elara needed. She lunged forward, not with a wild swing, but with a precise, economical thrust, her shorter saber plunging into the back of the Gnawer's neck. It went down with a final, gurgling shriek, its body collapsing in the narrow hall.
[You have slain a Level 4 Gnawer.]
[XP Gained: 50]
[XP: 75/1200]
The second Gnawer was already upon them, scrambling over its fallen kin. The choke point was working perfectly. It couldn't bring its numbers to bear; it could only attack one at a time. It leaped at Kai, its wide mouth snapping. Kai caught it on his shield, the impact jarring him, and grunted from the strain.
"Now!" he yelled.
While he held the creature at bay, Elara became a whirlwind of steel at his side. She used her twin blades in a brutal, efficient flurry, stabbing and slashing at the Gnawer's exposed limbs and torso. It was a messy, desperate ballet of violence. The creature shrieked, tearing itself away from Kai's shield, but it was too late. It collapsed, riddled with a dozen wounds.
The third Gnawer, seeing its two companions fall in seconds, hesitated at the mouth of the corridor, its eyeless head twitching with a flicker of primal caution.
"Don't let it warn the others!" Elara hissed.
She didn't wait for Kai. She charged out of the kill box, her sabers a silver blur. The Gnawer, surprised by her aggression, reared back, but Elara was a different person from the girl who had cowered in her apartment. She moved with the deadly grace of her new skill, her blades finding purchase, and the third monster fell.
The corridor was suddenly silent, the air thick with the smell of monster ichor. They stood panting, their chests heaving, their bodies humming with adrenaline.
"Three down," Kai said, checking his mental XP counter. "One hundred and fifty XP. We need five more."
"How do we get five more without getting the whole pack?" Elara asked, wiping her blade on the leg of her pants.
Kai pointed his saber at one of the dented metal mailboxes. He jabbed the tip into the lock and, using all his strength, wrenched the small door open with a loud, metallic screech.
It was a crude, but controlled, noise.
They waited. For a moment, nothing. Then, from the distant second floor, they heard an answering chorus of inquisitive, hungry shrieks. The sound of scrabbling feet began to echo through the lobby again.
"Get ready," Kai whispered, retreating back into the blood-slicked corridor.
This time, five of them came. They swarmed into the lobby, a larger, more agitated group. They saw their fallen kin at the mouth of the mailroom and descended into a frenzy, their shrieks overlapping into a single, mind-numbing wall of sound.
The first of the new wave charged into the kill box. They met it with the same brutal efficiency. Kai blocked, Elara struck. The monster fell. But the others were smarter now. One of them didn't charge down the center. It leaped onto the wall, its long limbs finding purchase on the mailboxes, and scrambled along the side of the corridor, trying to get behind them.
"Above you!" Kai yelled.
Elara reacted instantly. She kicked off the opposite wall, her body twisting in mid-air as she swung her sabers in a scissor-like motion, slicing the wall-crawling Gnawer and sending it crashing to the floor.
But the move left her off-balance. The next Gnawer in line surged forward, knocking her down. It loomed over her, its gaping mouth drooling as it prepared to bite.
Kai roared, a sound of pure protective fury. He abandoned his defensive stance, lunged forward, and literally threw his body into the remaining two Gnawers, his shield acting as a battering ram. The maneuver sent all three of them sprawling in a tangled heap of limbs and steel.
He dispatched them with a series of brutal, desperate thrusts, his vision turning red at the edges.
[You have slain a Level 4 Gnawer.]
A notification flashed, then another, and another, and another.
He scrambled back to Elara, who had already shoved the monster off her and ended it with a knife-thrust to the skull.
The mailroom fell silent once more, the floor now choked with the pale bodies of the slain.
A final, beautiful notification bloomed in Kai's mind.
[XP Gained: 50]
[XP: 425/1200]
He had more than enough. "We got it," he panted, offering a hand to his sister and pulling her to her feet.
They cautiously exited the kill box. The lobby was empty. The diversion, and their own controlled noise, had worked perfectly. From the shadows near a side entrance, a figure emerged. It was Ben, his face pale but his eyes shining with triumph.
"I assume by the state of you, the hunt was successful," he said, a small, proud smile on his face.
"We got what we came for," Kai confirmed, clapping a hand on Ben's shoulder.
They were a mess. They were bleeding, exhausted, and covered in monster gore. But as they slipped out of the student union and began their silent, ghostly retreat to the science building, they moved with the confident swagger of a team that had just executed a flawless plan. They were no longer just surviving. They were hunting.