The next day arrived quickly. After the first battle, the recruits did not engage with the monster horde, and the monsters also stopped advancing. It seemed that whatever creature was commanding them had stopped them. They just moved around with no sense of direction.
The morning after the battle began in stillness. Not peace—never that—but a quiet tension, the sort that hangs in the air like invisible wire, waiting to snap.
The city's northeast sector lay beneath a washed-out sky, where dust and smoke coiled in ghostly spirals above shattered rooftops and sun-bleached debris. The A.R.D. outpost stirred to life with quiet urgency. Recruits, their armour freshly patched and bandages still damp, stood in staggered formation. Their new gear—earned through blood and Contribution Points—gleamed faintly under the pale light, mirroring the dual edge of exhaustion and grim resolve.
Nearly four hundred soldiers stood ready, but not all would march the same path.
Derek stood at the front, wind tugging at his cloak. Beside him, Yvalna was silent, her presence like a loaded spring—eyes sharp, mana pulsing faintly in warning.
They had split the forces into two.
The main force, commanded by Andrew and the now formidable Genesis Unit, had been assigned the critical—albeit far more brutal—task of holding the outer perimeter. Their role was to engage the monster horde head-on, creating as much noise and chaos as possible to divert attention from the real mission. It was the more violent of the two objectives, a relentless war of attrition against overwhelming odds, but it was necessary—a bloody distraction to carve a narrow corridor of opportunity for the second team.
Derek's team. Thistranslation
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Comprised of a much smaller and nimbler group of elite recruits, this squad moved under the command of Derek and Yvalna, slipping through the city's shattered veins like shadows avoiding the notice of any monster. Their orders were clear: advance stealthily toward the suspected lair of the S-rank beast, bypass the worst of the horde, and stay out of the main battle. They were not there to fight the monster—such an encounter would only reduce them to smears on the concrete. At best, they could offer support; at worst, they would only die screaming.
It was understood—even if unspoken—that if the S-rank beast realised something was amiss and summoned the horde back to its side, the mission would turn from difficult to suicidal in an instant. The second team's presence wasn't just backup; it was a thin insurance policy, a fragile line of defence meant to buy Derek and Yvalna just enough time to do what had to be done.
And yet, as Derek moved with practised silence through the ruined cityscape, he couldn't help but question the odds. Killing an S-rank beast wasn't a guaranteed success, not even close. At best, he estimated a sixty per cent chance of victory, which, given the stakes, was alarmingly generous. Still, sixty per cent was better than none. It was a gamble, but one they had no choice but to take.
The real fear wasn't failure—it was the interruption. If the horde returned before the deed was done, their already fragile advantage would collapse, and what hope they had of surviving would vanish with it.
It was a race against time, and whoever held the advantage would win.
The recruits, aware of the plan, were feeling a mixture of emotions, as they looked at the yellow haired youth who was the same age as, some of them and even younger than most of them.
Maya was part of the second team as well, her eyes were focused on Derek as well, a faint spark of hope in her eyes, like the rest of the recruits.
She whispered under her breath, just loud enough for the wind to carry the words to no one."Lila… did you see this in him too?" Her hands curled slightly at her sides, nails digging into her gloves. "You should've been here. With all of us."
A brief gust swept through the ruined street like a passing sigh, and Maya closed her eyes against it, remembering her fallen friend—her twin in spirit if not in blood.
Of course, she was not aware that Derek had plans to bring Lila back to life…plans forged not in desperation, but in cold, deliberate intent.
Derek hadn't spoken of it to anyone—not even Maya, but in the quiet moments between missions, in the short hours of sleep granted by exhaustion rather than comfort, he would stare at the Netherworld, thinking about when he would finally be able to bring her back.
He had to.
The loss of Lila had marked more than just the start of the apocalypse for him. It had drawn a boundary between who he was and who he was becoming—a crack in the foundation of his soul, now filled with a purpose so sharp it could cut. She had died, but her presence still lingered like phantom pain… or a promise left unfulfilled.
As the small strike team advanced deeper into enemy territory, the atmosphere grew heavier. Buildings loomed like grave markers, jagged and hollowed out. Every step was cautious, each breath measured, as though the very air might betray them if taken too loudly.
Yvalna's voice broke the silence, low and steady, almost like a thought spoken aloud.
"Mana density is spiking." She held her hand out, feeling the currents like a weathered sailor reading the tide. "We're close."
Derek nodded. He had felt it too—an undercurrent of raw power that made the skin crawl and bones feel too tight inside the body. It was the signature of something ancient, something that had survived hundreds of battles and clawed its way to the top of the food chain not by luck, but sheer, unrelenting dominance.
An S-rank beast wasn't just stronger.
It was smarter. More territorial. More calculating. And, worst of all, more aware.
Behind them, the echoes of battle rang faint and distant—Andrew and the Genesis Unit were already engaging the outskirts of the horde. From this far away, the sounds were muffled, like the roars of giants through thick fog, but it was enough to confirm that Phase One of the plan had begun.