Chapter 69: Educated Beasts
The metallic stench slammed into Petra’s enhanced sensesblood, but not the stagnant decay that choked the battlefield. Fresh blood, still warm, mingled with the distinctive musk she’d learned to associate with apex predators. Her grip welded to her katana’s hilt as her pale eyes dissected the horizon through the perpetual gloom.
"Eleven signatures," Gareth reported, his voice carrying the flat precision of someone relaying tactical intelligence. "Crimson Maulers. Moving in coordinated formation."
Petra felt her stomach twist. Three of these creatures had nearly butchered her before massive, intelligent hunters with pack tactics honed through countless successful kills. Now they faced eleven, approaching with the methodical patience of predators who knew their prey had nowhere to run.
"That’s more than you’ve handled before," she observed, noting how Gareth’s expression remained analytically calm despite the impossible odds.
"Significantly more." Gareth’s earth manipulation detected their approach pattern through ground vibrations. "Standard hunting formation. They’re attempting to strangle our position while leaving one escape route that leads directly into an ambush."
The familiar tactical precision crawled across Petra’s skin. These weren’t just random beasts they wielded intelligence that matched human military units, coordination that suggested either hive-mind communication or leadership sophisticated enough to orchestrate complex strategies.
"How long before they complete the encirclement?"
"Four minutes. Maybe five if they maintain their current pace." Gareth’s analytical tone carried no trace of panic, but Petra caught the subtle tension coiling in his shoulders. Even his hidden abilities had limits.
The first Crimson Mauler materialized from the corpse-strewn landscape like a nightmare given form. Its massive frame, built like a cross between bear and wolf but scaled up to impossible proportions, prowled with predatory grace that defied its size. The creature’s fur was matted with old blood from countless kills that had stained its coat permanently crimson.
Steam rose from its nostrils in the cool air, and its yellow eyes tracked their position with disturbing intelligence. When it unhinged its massive jaws, revealing teeth designed to shred armor and bone, the sound that erupted wasn’t a roar but something else.
Two more Maulers emerged from different directions, their coordination perfect as they established overlapping fields of fire. Where Petra had faced desperation and chaos during her previous encounter, now she witnessed tactical precision that rivaled Academy military doctrine.
"They’ve learned," she whispered, her katana sliding free of its scabbard with a whisper of steel. "They’re not hunting randomly anymore. This is coordinated warfare."
Gareth’s response was immediate and unprecedented. Instead of the usual three clones she’d observed, five perfect duplicates materialized around their position. Each one possessed his full capabilities, his complete knowledge, and his strategic thinking. The earth manipulation that had seemed adequate before now multiplied into a coordinated force that could reshape the battlefield itself.
"Petra," the original Gareth said, his voice cutting through the growing tension. "I’m going to create terrain advantages. Use them."
The ground erupted.
Not the simple barriers or spikes she’d seen during their previous encounters, but complex earthworks that transformed the battlefield into a tactical maze. Stone walls rose at calculated angles, creating chokepoints that would force the Maulers to approach from predictable directions. Elevated platforms provided high ground for better positioning. Hidden pitfalls opened in locations where the creatures’ pack tactics would naturally lead them.
The Crimson Maulers responded with adaptability that chilled her blood. Instead of charging blindly into the modified terrain, they paused to assess the changes, their pack leader issuing those complex vocalizations that directed tactical adjustments in real-time.
’They’re analyzing the battlefield just like human commanders would,’ Petra realized. ’Whatever these creatures are, they’re not just intelligent they’re strategically educated.’
The first assault came from three directions simultaneously. The Maulers had identified weaknesses in Gareth’s earthworks and exploited them with military precision, their massive forms flowing around obstacles while maintaining coordinated pressure on multiple fronts.
Petra’s blade work had evolved during her time with Gareth. Where before she’d fought with desperate improvisation, now her techniques integrated seamlessly with his tactical support. His clones created openings, and she exploited them with surgical precision. His earth manipulation channeled the creatures’ movements, and she positioned herself to capitalize on their redirected momentum.
But eleven A-Class predators, each one capable of matching her Academy-trained skills, created a mathematics of violence that tested both their capabilities to the breaking point.
The first Mauler died to coordinated effort Gareth’s clone creating a stone restraint that held its leg just long enough for Petra’s katana to find the vulnerable joint where armor met flesh. Black ichor sprayed across the modified battlefield as the creature collapsed with a sound that might have been surprise.
The pack’s response was immediate and vicious. Where before they’d approached with calculated patience, now they struck with the fury of predators who’d realized their prey possessed fangs. The coordinated assault that followed pushed Petra and Gareth’s tactical coordination beyond anything they’d achieved before.
Petra flowed between stone barriers as massive claws raked the air where she’d been standing milliseconds before. Her katana carved through muscle and sinew with techniques her family had spent generations perfecting, but each successful strike came at the cost of positioning that left her exposed to retaliation from other pack members.
Gareth’s five clones worked with inhuman coordination, their earth manipulation creating a constantly shifting battlefield that kept the Maulers off-balance. Stone spikes erupted beneath charging predators, barriers redirected claws toward empty air, and pit traps opened precisely when creatures committed to attacks they couldn’t abort.
But the Crimson Maulers were learning even as they fought. Each tactical adjustment Gareth made was analyzed and countered, their pack intelligence adapting to his strategies with disturbing speed. What had begun as overwhelming advantage gradually became desperate improvisation as the creatures figured out how to predict his earthworks.
The battle stretched for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, each second demanding perfect coordination between two fighters who’d been strangers a week ago. Petra found herself trusting Gareth’s tactical judgment in ways that would have been impossible before not emotional trust, but operational reliance based on demonstrated competence under impossible conditions.
When the fourth Mauler fell to her blade, she caught sight of something that made her blood run cold. The pack leader was hanging back, observing the battle with analytical detachment while issuing vocalizations that adjusted its subordinates’ tactics in real-time. It wasn’t just participating in the fight—it was studying them, learning their patterns, preparing counters for their most effective techniques.
’It’s treating this like a training exercise,’ she realized. ’Using its pack mates to gather intelligence about our capabilities while preserving itself for the decisive engagement.’
Gareth’s clones were showing signs of strain not physical exhaustion, but the mental fatigue that came from maintaining multiple simultaneous tactical analyses while coordinating complex earthworks. His ability was powerful, but sustaining five perfect duplicates while engaged in life-or-death combat was pushing him toward his operational limits draining his essence at high speed.
The pack leader finally entered the battle personally, and the tactical situation shifted dramatically. Where its subordinates had fought with enhanced intelligence, the leader moved with strategic brilliance that incorporated everything it had observed about their fighting patterns. Every feint Petra attempted had been cataloged and prepared for. Every earth manipulation technique Gareth deployed was met with counters that suggested deep understanding of his capabilities.
The creature was massive even by Mauler standards, its crimson fur marked with scars that told stories of countless successful hunts. But what made it truly dangerous wasn’t its physical power it was the cold intelligence in its yellow eyes, the calculated way it maneuvered to exploit the weaknesses it had identified in their coordination.
When it struck, the attack came from an angle that forced Petra to choose between protecting herself and maintaining formation with Gareth’s clones. The tactical decision point was calculated precisely whatever choice she made would create openings the leader could exploit.
Petra chose aggression over safety, trusting Gareth to adapt his tactics to support her commitment. She flowed directly into the pack leader’s attack, her katana seeking the killing strike even as massive claws descended toward her exposed position.
The gambit worked because Gareth’s thinking had evolved during their partnership. Instead of trying to protect her through barriers, his clones created opportunities for her aggressive positioning to succeed. Stone erupted beneath the pack leader’s feet, disrupting its balance precisely when Petra’s blade found the gap between its armor plates.
The creature’s death cry was unlike anything she’d heard from the others not just pain, but genuine surprise that their prey had outmaneuvered its intelligence. The remaining Maulers scattered immediately, their pack cohesion broken by the loss of their strategic coordinator.
As silence settled over the modified battlefield, Petra found herself breathing hard but alive, her katana dripping with the ichor of six dead predators. Gareth’s clones began dissipating, leaving only the original crouched beside one of his stone barriers, his face showing the strain of the extended engagement.
"Eleven A-Class predators using coordinated tactics," Petra observed, wiping her blade clean. "That should have been impossible to survive."
"The pack leader was the key," Gareth replied, his analytical mind already processing lessons from the encounter. "Remove the strategic coordination, and the others defaulted to individual hunting behaviors. Predictable once isolated."
She studied him with new appreciation. A week ago, she would have dismissed him as the unremarkable mining duke’s son who’d foolishly challenged her in the arena. Now she understood he was something far more dangerous a tactical thinker who could adapt to impossible situations while maintaining the kind of coordination that turned desperate fights into calculated victories.
"Your clone ability," she said. "Five instead of three. That’s not something you’ve shown before."
"Necessary escalation." His tone carried the matter-of-fact assessment she’d come to associate with his strategic thinking. "The threat level required enhanced capabilities. Standard operational protocol."
The casual way he discussed expanding his abilities suggested depths she still hadn’t seen. How many other capabilities was he holding in reserve? What other tactical options could he deploy if their situation deteriorated further?
But those questions could wait. Right now, they had survived an encounter that should have killed them both, and the battlefield around them was littered with evidence of what coordinated tactics could accomplish against seemingly impossible odds.
"The pack leader was studying us," Petra said, settling beside one of his earth barriers to catch her breath. "Learning our patterns, preparing counters. That suggests intelligence beyond simple predatory instincts."
"Agreed. Someone or something is training these creatures in tactical coordination. The hunting patterns, the strategic patience, the ability to adapt in real-time that’s not natural evolution. That’s education."
The implications sent ice through her veins. If something in this nightmare dimension was systematically training the predators to hunt awakened humans with military precision, then their survival prospects had just become significantly more complicated.