The white glow pulsed again, brighter this time, cold light threading beneath the predator’s pale fur like

  veins of frost. Bash’s eyes narrowed, and the muscles in his neck tightened.

  “Warning,” S-C’s voice cut sharply into his mind. “High-intensity resonance detected. That pattern,

  Bash, this is not good,”

  “Stop filling the silence and tell me what the hell it is,” he hissed under his breath.

  Before S-C could answer, movement rippled inside the den.

  A Tier-One Common beast, the same mineral-plated creature they’d seen the predator drag inside the

  night before, crawled out on trembling limbs. Its eyes burned the same stark white.

  “What the...” Taren began.

  “That’s a Summoner-class reaction,” S-C snapped. “Minimum Tier Two. Possibly Greater.”

  Bash’s gut went cold. “Summoner? As in...”

  “As in it calls the dead to fight for it.”

  He didn’t need to hear more. “Everyone! Weapons up, open fire!”

  The world erupted.

  Nyra’s rifle cracked, a concussive roar that split the air. Calen’s arrow followed, a streak of green

  energy through the dusk. Bash and Taren fired in unison, their rounds whistling downrange toward the

  predator.

  But before the bullets could land, the reanimated rabbit leapt into their path, its mineral shell flashing.

  The rounds slammed into it, ricocheting or shattering against the hardened hide. The beast spasmed,

  riddled with impacts, but it didn’t scream, it simply fell, lifeless once again.

  The predator hadn’t moved an inch. Its glowing eyes swept slowly across the group, reading them,

  measuring them.

  “Come on,” Bash muttered. “Do something.”

  The rabbit twitched.

  Then it began to glow again.

  “Impossible,” Taren whispered.

  The light intensified until the wounds sealed and the corpse jerked upright, steady once more on its

  legs.

  Bash’s stomach twisted. “S-C, tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

  “Confirmed,” she said grimly. “It can re-summon previously slain beasts if the Beast Fragment remains

  intact. That fragment acts as a tether, unless it’s destroyed or removed, the summoner maintains

  control.”

  “So it can just loop them?”

  “Yes. Infinite recursion, limited only by its essence reserves.”

  “Fantastic,” Bash growled. “So it can just keep throwing bodies at us until we drop.”

  “Correct.”

  Bash clenched his jaw. “Not helpful.”

  More movement from the den.

  A blur of fur and feathers poured out, rodents, rabbits, birds. Each pair of eyes glowed white. Behind

  them, the mineral-horned creature they’d fought the day before stomped forward, dragging its heavy

  limbs through the dirt.

  The predator remained still, silent conductor to a growing army.

  “It’s summoning everything!” Calen shouted. “How do we stop this?”

  “Kill him,” Bash yelled back. “He’s the core!”

  Taren’s twin pistols lit up the ravine, bullets flashing through the dark. “You see that thing? We can’t

  even get a shot through all this!”

  The revived beasts crashed into them in a rush of motion and dust. Birds screamed overhead, wings

  cutting the air. Rodents swarmed Rixor’s legs, claws scraping his armor. He swung his hammer in a

  broad arc, sending bodies flying, but more filled their place instantly.

  Six. Then ten. Then more.

  Darik and Liora moved to flank him, but the creatures swarmed in overlapping packs, perfect

  coordination without hesitation, without fear.

  “S-C, how are they moving like that?” Bash demanded, firing into a cluster to his left.

  “Summoner’s link. Shared sensory input. He’s controlling them simultaneously.”

  Bash ducked behind a fallen tree, swapping magazines. “You mean we’re fighting him a dozen times

  over.”

  “Exactly.”

  He fired again, but every round felt wasted. The beasts didn’t retreat, didn’t even stagger. They fought

  with mechanical precision, unbothered by pain.

  Taren shouted something, Bash couldn’t hear over the chaos. He saw the flash of her guns, the sweep of

  her motion. Then the antlered beast slammed into her, its weight throwing her back. She hit the dirt

  hard and rolled, came up firing. The bullets tore glowing holes through its hide, but it kept coming,

  relentless until Rixor’s hammer smashed down between its eyes. Bone cracked, and the creature

  collapsed.

  Before it hit the ground, its eyes reignited.

  Bash’s heart pounded. “No… no, no, no.”

  “Kill the fragments!”

  “I’m trying!”

  “Try harder!”

  He broke cover, sprinting sideways through the fight. His knives flashed out, twin arcs of silver. One

  buried itself in a rabbit’s spine, the other took a bird mid-flight. Both dropped instantly. He yanked the

  knives free, each strike sparked that same faint jolt through his chest.

  He looked up, the predator was watching him. Still unmoving. Still glowing.

  “You want me?” Bash snarled. “Fine.”

  He hurled a knife straight for its chest. The blade spun, whistling through the air… and a bird dove

  from the den, intercepting the strike. It fell dead at the predator’s feet, Bash’s knife buried to the hilt in

  its body.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  He raised his pistol and fired twice more. The rounds tore into two rodents rushing Rixor’s flank,

  giving the big man a second to breathe. Rixor grunted, lifting his hammer again, smashing downward

  hard enough to send cracks spidering through the earth.

  “Thanks,” Rixor bellowed.

  “Don’t thank me yet!” Bash yelled back.

  He pulled another knife, spun it once, and threw. This one sailed low, right under the dust line, aimed

  true for the predator’s chest, but the ground moved.

  A deep rumble shuddered under his boots as the den split wider. The hulking shape of a durability-type

  beast, the same kind from their first battle, rose from the dark, intercepting the throw. The knife sank

  deep into its side, but the creature didn’t even flinch. It turned, glowing white eyes locking onto him.

  “Oh, come on,” Bash muttered.

  The beast charged.

  He fired three rounds into its head, then sidestepped, narrowly avoiding the bulk as it slammed into the

  tree he’d been standing beside. Bark exploded outward. Bash pivoted, jammed his last magazine home,

  and shot again, nothing slowed it.

  The beast lunged, hoofs carving deep furrows into the dirt. Bash dropped low, slid beneath the swing,

  and drove a knife up into its throat. The blow carried through; the creature gurgled and collapsed, its

  momentum throwing its bulk into the ground at his feet.

  He yanked the blade free, panting.

  “S-C, still nothing. No pulses. Nothing’s transferring.”

  “Correct,” she said, her tone clipped. “These bodies have already been drained. Their essence was

  consumed when they first died. What remains are hollow vessels, reconstructed from the Beast

  Fragments the predator is using to summon them.”

  “So it’s just throwing corpses at us,” he muttered, ducking under another strike.

  “Reanimated corpses,” S-C replied. “Each one tied to the summoner’s energy field. Destroy the source,

  and they fall.”

  He ripped the other knife from the fallen beast’s ribs and, without thinking, threw both at once. They

  spun perfectly, aimed straight for the predator’s chest, and two more birds burst from the den,

  intercepting again, their bodies dropping like sandbags in front of the summoner.

  The white glow flared brighter in the dark.

  “How do we stop this thing?” Bash demanded.

  “He’ll keep summoning until he’s dead or out of energy,” S-C answered. “You have to shut him down

  directly.”

  “Then we focus fire,” Bash shouted across the comms. “Center target, now! Hit him before he calls

  more!”

  “We can’t!” Taren’s voice came through, ragged with exhaustion. “We’re barely holding these off!”

  Bash turned, scanning the chaos.

  Rixor, Liora, and Darik were swallowed under swarms of rodents and rabbits, six to ten each, their

  armor streaked with dirt and blood. Taren was half-kneeling, firing through a haze of feathers as the

  horned beast pressed her hard. Calen’s arrows streaked overhead, slicing through birds, while Nyra’s

  rifle cracked sharp, precision shots cutting down anything with wings.

  Still, it wasn’t enough.

  He sprinted toward Rixor, firing as he ran, dropping two rodents off the big man’s shoulder. The others

  piled on immediately. Darik screamed as one of the mineral rabbits slammed into his chest, ripping his

  armor. Liora went down under three more.

  He slashed another reanimated beast across the neck, its body collapsing in a heap of dust and bone.

  “S-C,” he said through clenched teeth, “still no end to them.”

  “Confirmed. Its summoning loop hasn’t broken. Its energy readings remain stable.”

  “Then it’s not just endless, it’s efficient,” he spat. “Great.”

  Bash drew another knife, the grip slick with sweat. He exhaled, centered his aim, and threw, clean, fast,

  precise.

  The ground shuddered mid-release.

  Something massive slammed into his back the instant the blade left his hand, the collision violent

  enough to hurl him forward. The knife veered off course, spinning low and embedding itself in the dirt

  just in front of the predator.

  He hit the ground hard, the breath crushed from his lungs, rolled twice, and came up on one knee. Pain

  flared down his spine as he twisted toward the impact.

  The durability beast he’d just killed stood there again, eyes glowing white, ribs still torn open where

  the last knife had hit. It charged without sound, without hesitation, like a corpse being puppeted by will

  alone.

  Bash swore, teeth bared. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  The reanimated creature charged. He sidestepped, barely, the shockwave of its weight knocking him off

  balance. His last knife flashed out in reflex, burying into the beast’s neck, but it didn’t even slow.

  He dove aside again, scanning the ground, three knives buried in corpses, one stuck in the dirt before

  the predator, and one now lodged uselessly in the reanimated brute’s hide.

  The predator hadn’t moved. Still watching. Still glowing.

  Bash’s mind raced. “S-C, talk to me. How many times can it do this?”

  “As long as the fragments remain intact,” she answered grimly. “It’s recycling corpses through its own

  field.”