Chapter 70: Puppets
The battlefield exhaled silence except for the rhythmic drip of ichor from Petra’s katana and the ragged gasps of two survivors who’d just accomplished the impossible. Six massive Crimson Mauler corpses sprawled across the modified terrain, their crimson fur now darkened with their own blood. The pack leader’s body collapsed nearest to them, its yellow eyes dulled in death but still radiating traces of the calculating intelligence that had made it so dangerous.
Petra scrubbed her blade clean with methodical precision, her movements automatic despite the adrenaline still surging through her system. The silence stretched between them, heavy with unspoken observations about their coordinated battle performance. The acrid stench of beast blood mingled with the metallic tang of their own sweat.
"We should extract the cores before scavengers arrive," Gareth said, his analytical tone masking whatever exhaustion gnawed at him from maintaining five clones through extended combat. He approached the nearest Mauler corpse with practiced efficiency, withdrawing his bone-carved knife.
As they labored side by side, carving through thick hide and muscle to reach the essence cores that powered these dimensional beasts, Petra found herself studying Gareth’s movements. During the battle, she’d noticed something that bothered her from a tactical perspective.
"You held back during most of the engagement," she said, not quite an accusation but definitely an observation that demanded explanation. Her katana sliced through sinew as she spoke, her enhanced perception allowing her to locate the beast core with surgical precision.
Gareth paused in his own extraction, his pale eyes meeting hers with that same analytical detachment she’d grown accustomed to. "I was gathering intelligence on their coordination patterns. Understanding how they communicate, how they adapt to tactical changes, whether their pack leader was directing strategy or simply coordinating instinctive behaviors."
"Observations," Petra repeated, her voice carrying skeptical undertones. "While I engaged what seems to be A-ra predators with my blade."
"Your combat style relies on directness," Gareth replied matter-of-factly, resuming his work on the beast core extraction. "You excel at close-quarters engagement where precision and speed determine survival. My advantages lie in tactical coordination and battlefield control. We played to our respective strengths."
The explanation was logical, but something in his tone suggested there was more to it. Petra had witnessed enough political maneuvering at the Academy to recognize when someone was providing technically truthful information while withholding crucial context.
"Just like you held back during our Academy duel," she observed, her voice carrying the cold precision she used when dissecting opponents’ weaknesses. "Only showing enough earth manipulation to make the challenge seem legitimate while gathering intelligence on my techniques."
This time Gareth’s hands stilled completely. When he looked up, his expression held something approaching genuine interest rather than his usual analytical detachment. "Are we doing this again"
"I’ve been thinking about a lot of things since arriving in this nightmare." Petra extracted the core with expert precision, the crystallized essence pulsing with residual energy. "Including how someone with your capabilities managed to maintain such a convincing facade of mediocrity for so long."
"The same way someone with your political acumen convinced the Academy you were simply a weapon without strategic thinking," Gareth countered quietly. "We both understand the value of controlled information."
The observation struck home because it contained uncomfortable truth. Petra had cultivated her reputation as the Academy’s perfect warrior specifically because it served her family’s political objectives while concealing her own intellectual capabilities. Let enemies underestimate her mind while respecting her blade.
They continued working in thoughtful silence, moving from corpse to corpse with practiced efficiency. Each extraction yielded an A-Class core, crystallized essence that represented weeks of accumulated power from creatures that had terrorized this dimensional landscape. The cores would prove valuable for advancement if they ever escaped this place, but more immediately, they served as proof of what coordinated tactics could accomplish.
When they reached the pack leader’s massive corpse, Gareth’s extraction technique revealed something that made him freeze mid-cut. His enhanced perception caught details that would have escaped ordinary observation, and what he found sent ice through his analytical mind.
"Petra," he said quietly, his voice carrying an urgency that made her immediately abandon her own work. "Look at this."
She moved to his position, studying what his careful dissection had revealed. Behind the pack leader’s primary core, barely visible beneath layers of muscle and sinew, was a secondary structure that defied everything she understood about dimensional beast anatomy.
Geometric patterns were carved directly into the creature’s spine, etched deep enough into bone that they pulsed with their own malevolent energy. The symbols were clearly artificial, burned into the beast with surgical precision rather than developing naturally. Each sigil was identical to the others, forming a complex matrix that spoke of external control rather than natural evolution.
"Someone marked this creature," Petra breathed, her enhanced perception picking up residual energy signatures from the carved symbols. "But what could do this? What entity has the power to carve control matrices directly into living bone?"
"I’ve never seen anything like this," Gareth admitted, his analytical composure cracking as he studied the geometric patterns. "These aren’t natural formations or battle scars. Someone deliberately carved these sigils with surgical precision, then somehow kept the creature alive during the process."
The implications crashed over them like cold water. If something in this dimensional space possessed the capability to capture, mark, and control A-Class predators, then the tactical intelligence they’d witnessed wasn’t natural evolution. It was artificial enhancement, imposed by an entity with abilities that transcended anything they understood about dimensional manipulation.
"Extract the core ," Petra ordered, her voice carrying the authority of someone accustomed to making life-or-death decisions. "We need evidence of what we’re dealing with."
When Gareth finally extracted the pack leader’s core, the difference from their previous harvests was immediately apparent. Where the subordinate Maulers had possessed normal A-Class cores that glowed with steady luminescence, this one writhed with darker energies. The crystallized essence was shot through with veins of corruption that pulsed in rhythm with the carved sigils still etched into the creature’s bones.
"The markings have contaminated its core," Gareth observed, studying the corrupted crystal with clinical fascination despite the revulsion it inspired. "Whatever process branded this creature also altered its fundamental essence structure."
"Which means every tactical adjustment they made during our battle was being monitored and analyzed by whatever entity runs this place," Petra added, the tactical implications making her grip tighten on her katana’s hilt. "Our fighting styles, our coordination patterns, our individual capabilities all of it has been catalogued."
They packed both sets of cores carefully, understanding that the evidence they’d discovered might prove crucial for understanding the true nature of their imprisonment. But as they prepared to leave the battlefield behind, both survivors carried the weight of terrible knowledge.
The creatures hunting them weren’t just intelligent they were weapons, enhanced and controlled by an entity with capabilities that dwarfed anything they understood about dimensional manipulation. And if that entity could mark and control A-Class predators with such precision, what did that suggest about its ultimate objectives for the awakened humans trapped in this nightmare landscape?
"We need to find the others," Petra said as they began moving away from the corpse strewn battlefield. "Professor Leo, Harold, the surviving students. If these creatures are being systematically enhanced, then isolated groups won’t survive much longer."
Gareth nodded, his analytical mind already processing tactical options for locating and coordinating with other survivors. But privately, he wondered whether bringing their groups together would provide safety or simply make them a more attractive target for whatever intelligence controlled this dimensional prison.
Either way, the mathematics of their survival had just shifted dramatically. They were no longer just lost students trying to endure until rescue arrived. They were prisoners in a system designed to study, enhance, and ultimately control awakened individuals for purposes they couldn’t yet comprehend.
The question was whether they could uncover those purposes before becoming the next subjects marked for enhancement and control******