A grim, brooding shadow fell over Derek as the convoy returned to base. He tried to focus on the tasks ahead, but Mauro’s betrayal gnawed at the edges of his mind. Every step he took, every corpse he saw, was a reminder of the trap he’d been left in. The weight of the horde’s onslaught, the fury he’d unleashed—it all felt like a distant storm, but the sting of betrayal was sharp and immediate. The larder was only an excuse for him to depart from the convoy.
The bodies scattered around the battlefield were ruined and the area stank of the recently dead. It smelled like nothing he could ever imagine, and it made him want to vomit. He pulled a respirator from his storage device and put it on. The smell was still there, but it wasn’t as awful.
As he approached the ruined school, he took a moment to steady himself. The school was a small representation of the destruction of society. It was a single instance of all the death and destruction caused by integration into the Collective.
Thick black mist radiated off the combat zone, so dense that it was a fog. The once-bright sun was now significantly dimmed, overshadowed by the thick black mist as if a storm cloud had settled over the area. He trudged through the dead horde, careful of where he stepped. The blood covering the battlefield had congealed since the fighting ended and it left the ground a sticky mess. After one incident of getting his foot stuck in a goblin’s remains, he never wanted a repeat.
The inside of the school mirrored the outside chaos, an absolute disaster, but at least he didn’t have to keep avoiding corpses. Though from the amount of bodily fluid, he didn’t imagine that the place smelled pleasant. He walked through the school looking at the destroyed walls and the vast quantities of bedding that made the place look like an abandoned, homeless camp. It was a mess, and it was disgusting.
The monsters smashed every classroom doorway open so that an ogre could fit inside. Once bright classrooms with colorful posters, paintings and drawings, now was a scattering of filth and monstrous inhabitation. They scattered dead humans and their body parts around half-eaten. The bones, with remnants of ligaments intact, were smothered in a layer of filth. The sight of half-eaten limbs and freshly exposed muscle left abandoned was unsettling. Derek knew he should feel for the dead, but only pity rose to the surface. He shook his head sadly as he continued.
The school wasn’t that large, and it didn’t take him long to find the hole leading down into the earth. A huge section of foundation was missing from the floor and a tunnel sank down into the earth on a gentle slope. The tunnel, reinforced with stone, bore an unnatural appearance. Its rough, flat walls and ceiling were transformed from solidified earth to stone by the horde’s mages. They turned it into solid rock to prevent cave-ins. With each step further down into the tunnel, the temperature dropped noticeably. The winding passage led him to a vast, artificially carved cavern that matched the tunnel in construction.
Inside the dome-shaped cavern, the air was frigid and damp. The cold seemed to seep into his bones, made even more chilling by the dampness that clung to his skin. He pointed his flashlight around and found the source of the cold air. Several massive sheets of ice lined the walls and slowly melted, pulling the heat from the room as the water drained off into a pool at the back of the room. Chopped trees were arranged in a design reminiscent of a swing set. But instead of swings, bodies hung from wooden frames, tied by rough-hewn ropes. Clothes had been stripped from the bodies, their bellies and heads removed. Dark, coagulated blood stained the floor, pooling separately from the water.
Stolen novel; please report.
Sleds, filled with the heads and bowels of the dead, were grouped together, clearly intended to be hauled up the ramp. There was a distinct and obvious process to what happened here. Bodies were brought in, brutally processed, then hung. The organs and heads were separated and loaded onto sleds, likely for distribution. The gruesome sight churned Derek’s stomach, making him feel as if he might retch up his breakfast.
As he shined his light around, he found that humans weren’t the only food. Dead monsters also hung here in the same condition. Either different tribes or disloyal members of the horde. He didn’t find anything other than bodies and associated parts.
He knew what he had to do. He worked quickly, dismantling the magical structural reinforcement spells that held up the ceiling of the cavern. It took some time, and he worked in stages. It would have taken too much mana to burn everything, but collapsing the structure wouldn’t be too difficult.
When he destroyed the last spell formation in the cavern, the ground shifted with cracks and groans. Derek created a fireball full of energy in the palm of his hand. He modified the spell structure to emphasize the force in an explosion without the flames, turning the fireball into a small bomb. Then he launched it into the center of the room.
It exploded, causing the spell formations over the tunnel to struggle and break as the ambient mana feeding the spell was used. Seeing the formations shatter, a surge of panic gripped Derek. Memories of how fast a cave-in could happen raced through his mind. He bolted just as the cavern began its violent collapse. The tunnel followed suit and started collapsing as the reinforced rock lost its magic. The cave-in halted just short of the tunnel’s entrance, allowing Derek a narrow escape from certain destruction.
Dust and debris settled around Derek, the gritty particles sticking to his sweat-soaked skin as he emerged from the aftermath of the collapsed cavern. He took a moment to survey the now-buried bodies. As he exited the dust filled school, each step away from the cavern brought back memories: the monsters, the selfish humans, the chilling sight of the larder. But above all, Mauro’s betrayal gnawed at him. These thoughts didn’t just ignite his anger; they fanned its flames. Despite using the emotion as fuel earlier in the fight, the rage within him felt insatiable. Like a bottomless maw, it only grew. The last time he’d succumbed to it, he’d been so consumed that he had to be knocked unconscious.
He walked toward Mauro’s warehouse with a singular purpose. Every single thought that crossed his mind sent him closer to that berserk rage. He had to change his mindset or nobody would be safe around him.
Derek wondered if Marie knew where he was headed. She had to. But she remained silent, letting him go. The cheerful, innocent Marie he once knew seemed to have vanished. In her place was someone more calculating, adept at manipulating events. He’d blamed the brutal world for her transformation, but deep down, he feared he’d been willfully blind to a deeper change.
Before he realized it, Mauro’s warehouse loomed ahead. The tall chain-link fence stood as a barrier, and the sentries on duty were alert, their eyes scanning the surroundings with a mix of caution and anticipation. They were waiting, perhaps for him.