Chapter 43: Shelter of Strangers
The second day had brought doubt. When her calls went unanswered and her systematic search patterns yielded nothing but more corpses, Petra had been forced to confront the possibility that she might be truly alone. The realization had shaken her more than she cared to admit.
By the third day—today—doubt had transformed into something darker. Not despair, exactly, but a cold recognition that her situation was far more precarious than her pride wanted to acknowledge. She was lost, alone, and running out of the academy rations she’d had in her badge’s pocket dimension.
The battlefield stretched endlessly in every direction, a grotesque tapestry of death that seemed to mock any hope of escape. The corpses varied wildly. Petra couldn’t begin to guess at their origins. The smell had become a constant companion, a mixture of decay and dried blood that clung to her clothes and hair no matter how much she tried to avoid the worst areas.
Her uniform was now stained with mud, blood, and worse things she didn’t want to identify. The fabric was torn in several places where she’d had to squeeze through tight spaces or where claws had come too close for comfort. Her boots, designed for training grounds and classrooms, were holding up better than expected but showed clear signs of wear from three days of trudging across unforgiving terrain.
A distant rumble made her freeze. Not thunder—she’d learned to distinguish between the sounds of this place. This was something moving through the battlefield, something large enough to displace the smaller carrion feeders she’d been avoiding.
The smaller scavengers were constant nuisances. Rat-like creatures the size of housecats that traveled in squeaking swarms, picking clean anything they could find. Bird-like things that dove from the perpetually overcast sky. None of them were particularly dangerous individually, but they created a constant background of chittering, squealing, and rustling that kept her nerves on edge.
Petra’s hand found her katana’s hilt as she dropped into a defensive crouch. The sound was coming from her left, beyond a ridge of corpses that blocked her view. Whatever it was, it was moving with purpose rather than the random wandering of scavengers.
She crept forward, using the grotesque landscape as cover, until she could peer over the crest of rotting flesh. What she saw made her blood run cold.
Three creatures moved in perfect formation across the battlefield, each one easily twice the size of the largest beast corpses she’d seen. They weren’t feeding or scavenging—they were hunting, their massive heads turning in coordinated sweeps as they searched for something specific.
Her heart sank. A-Class beasts. Three of them. Working together.
The lead creature’s head snapped in her direction, those predatory eyes fixing on her position with terrifying intelligence. There was no point in hiding now—they’d caught her scent.
’Of course,’ Petra thought bitterly. ’Three days of nothing, and now I find the welcoming committee.’
The Crimson Maulers began to move, their massive forms flowing over the uneven terrain with predatory grace. Each one was built like a cross between a bear and a wolf, but scaled up to nightmare proportions. Their fur was matted with old blood—not their own, but from countless kills. Muscles rippled beneath their crimson-stained coats as they spread out in a hunting pattern that spoke of intelligence and experience.
Steam rose from their nostrils in the cool air, and Petra could see the intelligent calculation in their yellow eyes. These weren’t mindless beasts driven by hunger—they were predators with the cunning to match their physical power. The way they moved suggested they’d done this dance many times before, coordinating their attacks with the precision of a military unit.
Petra drew her katana in one fluid motion, the blade singing as it cleared the sheath. The familiar weight in her hand was reassuring, but she harbored no illusions about her chances. One A-Class beast would have been a challenging fight. Three of them, coordinating their attacks...
The first Mauler reached her position and launched itself forward with explosive force. Petra’s air manipulation flared to life, creating a barrier of compressed air that deflected the creature’s claws. But the impact sent her skidding backward across the blood-soaked ground, her boots struggling for purchase on the slick surface.
Before she could recover, the second beast was already flanking left while the third moved right. Perfect pack tactics.
Petra spun her katana in a defensive arc and began to move, her air manipulation creating pockets of enhanced mobility that let her stay one step ahead of their coordinated assault. But she was fighting a losing battle—every dodge, every deflection, every moment of breathing room came at the cost of essence she couldn’t afford to waste.
The battle raged across the corpse-strewn landscape, Petra’s blade work keeping her alive through pure skill while her air manipulation created the space she needed to avoid being overwhelmed. Her academy training kicked in automatically: stance corrections, breathing techniques, energy conservation methods drilled into her through countless hours of practice. But A-Class beasts weren’t just physically powerful—they were intelligent, adaptable, and these three had clearly been hunting together for a long time.
Sweat mixed with the grime on her face as she fought, her muscles beginning to burn from the sustained effort. The Maulers seemed tireless, pressing their attack with mechanical precision that spoke of countless successful hunts. Each time she managed to wound one, the other two adjusted their tactics to compensate.
When the largest Mauler feinted left and then launched itself right, Petra’s combat instincts saved her life. She dropped into a slide, katana held vertical, and let the creature’s momentum carry it onto her blade. The beast’s weight drove the sword deep into its chest, black blood spraying across her face and uniform.
The creature’s death cry was a sound she’d never forget—part roar, part shriek, with an almost human quality that made her stomach turn. The smell of its blood was worse than the general decay around them, carrying an acrid chemical tang that burned her nostrils.
But the victory was pyrrhic. Her katana was trapped in the dying beast’s body, and the other two Maulers were already adjusting their attack pattern. Without her weapon, she was down to pure air manipulation against two A-Class predators.
Petra wrenched her blade free and rolled away from the retaliatory strike, but she could feel her essence reserves dwindling rapidly. At this rate, she had maybe minutes before exhaustion left her helpless.
That’s when she saw it.
In the distance, smoke was rising from what looked like a cave entrance. Not the random fires that sometimes ignited from decomposing organic matter—this was controlled, purposeful. A campfire.
Someone else was here.
The realization gave her a surge of desperate hope. If she could reach that cave, if there was actually another person alive in this hellscape...
One of the Maulers lunged at her, claws extended for a killing blow. Petra gathered the last of her strength and released it in a concentrated burst of air pressure that launched her backward across the battlefield. The technique drained her reserves to dangerous levels, but it put precious distance between her and the predators.
She ran.
Pride demanded she stand and fight, but survival instinct overruled pride. Behind her, the two remaining Maulers gave chase, their powerful legs eating up the distance between them. But Petra had one advantage—she knew where she was going now.
The cave entrance loomed ahead, carved into what looked like a natural rock formation that rose from the battlefield like a jagged tooth. The smoke was definitely from a deliberate fire, and she could smell something cooking—actual cooked meat, not the raw decay that permeated everything else in this place.
Petra dove through the cave mouth just as the first Mauler reached the entrance. The creature’s massive form filled the opening, but it hesitated to follow her into the confined space. A-Class intelligence meant understanding when terrain advantages shifted.
The Mauler’s frustrated snarl echoed through the cave as it tested the entrance with one massive paw, but the opening was just narrow enough to prevent it from entering comfortably. After a few moments of consideration, the beast settled down outside to wait, joined by its surviving pack mate.
She pressed deeper into the cave, her heart hammering as she searched for whoever had lit that fire. The smoke was coming from ahead, along with the faint glow of flames. The cave walls were rough-hewn stone, natural formations that created a maze of passages and chambers. Someone had marked the correct path with small piles of stones, clearly indicating the way to the main camp.
What she found made her stop dead in her tracks.
A makeshift camp had been established in the cave’s main chamber. A fire pit constructed from carefully arranged stones, with what looked like meat cooking over the flames. A sleeping area marked out with salvaged fabric that looked like it had been cut from various uniforms and clothing. And scattered around the camp...
Monster cores. Dozens of them, arranged in careful piles by size and apparent quality.
But no sign of whoever had created this survival sanctuary.
Petra approached the fire carefully, her exhausted mind trying to process what she was seeing. The meat cooking over the flames was definitely from one of the beasts outside—she could smell the distinctive gamey scent that all the monster corpses carried, but this was fresh, recently killed. Someone had not only survived in this nightmare place, they’d been thriving well enough to establish a permanent camp and harvest resources.
The organization was impressive. Tools crafted from bone and metal scraps were arranged neatly along one wall. Water containers fashioned from beast skulls sat filled and ready. Even more telling, someone had created a crude but effective ventilation system that drew smoke up through natural chimney formations in the rock.
Her stomach clenched painfully at the smell of cooked meat. Three days of being without food had left her desperately hungry, and the aroma was almost overwhelming.
She looked back toward the cave entrance where the Crimson Maulers prowled just outside, then at the fire with its promise of food and warmth.
For the first time since arriving in this hellscape, Petra Blackthorne made a decision based on pure survival instinct rather than pride or calculation.
She sat down beside the fire and reached for the cooking meat with trembling hands.
’If whoever built this camp comes back and finds me here, I’ll deal with the consequences then,’ she thought. ’But right now, I need food more than I need dignity.’
The meat was tough and gamey, nothing like any cuisine she’d ever experienced, but it was protein and it was cooked. As she ate, Petra studied the cave more carefully. Whoever had been here was organized, methodical, and clearly planning for a long stay.
The monster cores alone represented a fortune back at the Academy. But more importantly, they represented power—raw energy that could be absorbed to strengthen one’s soul core. Some of the larger cores pulsed with contained energy that made her skin tingle just being near them.
The exhaustion hit her all at once. Three days of constant vigilance, the desperate battle with the Maulers, and now finally having food in her stomach—it all combined to make her realize just how desperately tired she was. Her eyelids felt heavy, and the warmth from the fire was making her muscles relax in ways she hadn’t allowed herself for days.
She tried to fight it, tried to stay alert and ready for whoever might return to this camp. But her body had reached its limits.
’Just for a few minutes,’ she told herself. ’I’ll just rest my eyes for a few minutes.’
Petra found herself nodding off despite her best efforts. The cave felt safe, secure in a way nowhere else had since she’d arrived in this nightmare. The Maulers outside couldn’t reach her here, and whoever had built this place clearly knew how to survive in this environment.
She curled up near the fire, her katana within easy reach but no longer clutched in white-knuckled desperation. The sound of the flames crackling was soothing after days of nothing but the constant background noise of scavengers and decay.
Sleep took her gradually, her consciousness fading in and out as her exhausted mind finally allowed itself to rest.