The next dawn was a red smear across a cracked sky.
Kai stood with his new team outside a portal whose darkness seemed thicker than any he had seen before. This one pulsed along the edges, as if breathing. The plaque above what used to be a jewelry store still read "Rings & Things" in cheerful script. The portal had devoured the front half of the shop. Shattered glass glittered around their boots. The smell that wafted from inside was not metal or damp stone this time but iron and rot, the scent of blood in large quantities.
"Second floor," Darius said, voice low. He tapped the frame of the door with his knuckles. "Reports say it's nastier. More traps. More… weird. Stay sharp. Watch your step. Today's objective is simple: find a curse fragment and haul it back."
Kai's pulse quickened. A curse fragment. The Seal Charm in his shirt seemed to warm at the mention. The sword pulsed in its wrappings like a dog straining at a leash. The ring sang a high, eager note.
Alongside him, Marcus hefted his ax. Marcus was a tall man with broad shoulders and a quick laugh. Kai had met him yesterday in the loot division tent. He'd been one of the few who didn't look at Kai like he was a monster wearing a human face. Marcus had introduced himself, slapped Kai on the back, and joked about stealing his loot if he stood too close. He had a wife and two kids in a city three hours away that he hadn't heard from since the sky cracked.
"We'll get in, we'll get out, we'll get rich," Marcus had said then, grinning.
Now Marcus's grin was gone. He stared at the portal like it might bite him. His hands flexed on his weapon.
"You good?" Kai murmured.
Marcus nodded without looking at him. "Just got a feeling," he said. "Like I'm about to do something stupid."
Kai almost told him to stay behind. But what was the alternative? Hide and starve? Wait for the System to send someone else to knock on your door? There were no good options.
Darius raised his fist. The group of nine hunters fell silent. Shirin checked her gun. A woman named Hana, a former paramedic, tightened the strap on her shield. A skinny teenager who couldn't have been more than eighteen—Theo—swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing.
"On my go," Darius said. "Three, two, one—"
They stepped through.
The floor dropped away.
Kai's stomach lurched as he plummeted down a shaft of pure darkness. Wind screamed past his ears. Something cold slapped his face. He tried to grab onto anything, but there was only air. Somewhere above, someone shouted. Somewhere below, something roared. Then he slammed into something soft and wet that squelched under his weight.
He groaned. For a second he lay there, stunned, the breath knocked out of him. He blinked and realized he was lying on a mat of giant mushrooms. They were springy and oozing, like fungal trampolines. Bioluminescent patches glowed green and purple, casting eerie light across a cavern the size of a cathedral. Massive mushroom stalks rose up like pillars, some slimy, some covered in thorns. Red veins pulsed underfoot.
"Darius?" Shirin's voice echoed. "Everyone here?"
Kai pushed himself up. He saw figures scattered across the fungal field, rising groggily. To his right, Marcus rolled to his feet and cursed. To his left, Theo was tangled in a net of luminescent vine.
"I'm here," Kai called. "Marcus? Hana? Theo?"
"I'm good," Hana grunted somewhere behind a mushroom cap twice her height. "Theo's stuck."
Kai scrambled over and hacked at the vine with his spear. It resisted like thick rubber. The sword in his bag thrummed with impatience. He ignored it and kept sawing until the vine snapped and Theo tumbled free.
"Thanks," the boy gasped, wiping glowing sap off his arms. "I thought I was a goner."
"Not yet," Marcus said, offering him a hand up. "Save that for the fun part."
They regrouped under the largest mushroom. Darius took a headcount. All nine were there. The portal overhead had already sealed like flesh closing over a wound.
"No way out but forward," Darius muttered. He spat glowing green slime off his boot. "Watch your footing. These things'll slow you down. And for the love of everything, don't eat anything."
They picked their way across the mushroom forest. The floor squished and squeaked. Spores puffed up at every step, sparkling in the dim light. Kai tightened the cloth over his nose and mouth. His eyes watered anyway. He could taste fungus in the back of his throat.
The first trap was a field of pits hidden beneath a layer of thin hyphae. Theo found one when his foot plunged through and he nearly disappeared entirely. Marcus caught his arm and hauled him back. They peered down and saw a mass of white worms writhing at the bottom, their mouths like circles of teeth.
The second trap was a cluster of mushrooms that exploded in a cloud of paralytic gas when Hana brushed past them. She collapsed, choking. Kai dragged her away while Shirin administered a potion. Hana's lips turned blue before the antidote worked.
The third trap was not a trap. It was a monster.
They heard it before they saw it—a wet slithering and the sound of something heavy being dragged. It emerged from behind a giant stalk, its body shimmering with a rainbow of slime. It was long, like a centipede, but its segments were irregular and its legs were human arms. Dozens of arms sprouting from a body the width of a truck, ending in clawed hands that scrabbled across the mushrooms. In place of a head was a cluster of open mouths, all chewing and drooling. Faces protruded between the segments, eyes blinking and lips mouthing silent cries.
Theo gagged. "What—"
"A chimera," Darius barked. "Hold your breath. Those arms spit acid."
The chimera lunged. Arms reached. Mouths snapped. Kai dodged behind a stalk as acid hissed on the mushroom cap, eating a hole straight through. Shirin's bullets sparked harmlessly off the creature's slimy hide. Marcus roared and swung his ax, cleaving through three arms at once. Black blood sprayed, burning his sleeves. The creature screamed through its many mouths.
The sword sang for blood.
Kai hesitated. The Seal Charm pressed cold against his chest. The ring pulsed. The spear in his hand felt like a toothpick.
He dropped it and yanked the sword free.
Power flooded him. The whispers surged, exultant. He leaped forward and slashed. The blade sliced through limbs like air. Arms fell, writhing on their own, clawing at the mushrooms. Kai ducked acid spit, rolled under a grab, and drove the sword up into one of the creature's faces.
For a moment, everything inside those mouths screamed at once—human voices, animal sounds, something like wind. Then the chimera convulsed, body spasming. It collapsed, crushing a circle of mushrooms. Black ichor spilled out and hissed where it landed. A shard of something hard and dark clattered onto the floor.
Kai's screen flashed.
[Cursed Fragment – Chimera's Spite]
Effect: Unknown.
Curse: Unknown.
He bent to pick it up. The fragment was a triangle of obsidian-like material, no larger than his thumb, etched with a single curved character that glowed faintly. It was cold, and it hummed softly in his palm. He felt the Seal Charm pulse. The ring hummed in harmony. The sword keened, a thin, hungry sound.
"You okay?" Marcus asked, coming up beside him. Acid had burned holes in his jacket, revealing angry red skin beneath. "Never seen anything like that."
Kai nodded. "Found a fragment."
Hana panted, wiping sweat and spores off her brow. "Good. Let's grab it and get out."
They didn't get out.
As they turned to retrace their steps, the ground trembled. Mushrooms rippled like they were caught in a breeze. A rumble rolled through the cavern. Kai's stomach dropped.
"Run!" Darius shouted, but there was nowhere to run. The cavern floor buckled. A giant fungal stalk behind them exploded, sending spores like bullets. Marcus threw his arms up and shielded Theo. A piece of shrapnel tore through Kai's thigh. He stumbled. The sword slipped from his grip and hummed indignantly.
Then the floor cracked open.
Not in a neat portal this time, but in jagged fissures that raced across the mushrooms. Great slabs of fungal matter tilted. Hunters slid. The chimera's corpse rolled. Kai felt his feet go out from under him. He grabbed for a stalk. His hand closed on slick flesh. He slipped.
Marcus's arm shot out. He grabbed Kai's wrist with one hand, Theo's with the other. Hana clung to Marcus's waist, forming a human chain above a chasm full of writhing white worms and sharpened bones.
The fissure widened. Marcus grunted, muscles bulging. "Climb!" he barked.
Kai planted his feet against the side of the fissure and pushed. His thigh screamed. He managed to scramble up and throw himself onto relatively solid mushroom. Theo followed, trembling. Hana found footholds with her shield. Marcus hung there, arms shaking, eyes wide.
"Give me your hand!" Kai shouted, reaching.
Marcus tried. His fingers brushed Kai's. For a split second, Kai thought they had him.
Then something lashed out of the darkness and wrapped around Marcus's ankle.
Marcus's eyes met Kai's. There was a heartbeat of pure understanding and resignation. Then the thing yanked.
Marcus's grip slipped.
He fell.
Kai lunged, fingertips scraping air. Marcus's scream echoed through the cavern, abruptly cut off as he vanished into the darkness below.
Kai's breath froze. He stared down into the fissure, but all he could see was writhing worms and darkness.
"Move!" Darius roared. "The whole place is going!" He grabbed Kai by the collar and hauled him upright. "We can't save him."
Kai stumbled after him, mind blank. They ran, leaping over widening cracks, ducking falling mushrooms, coughing through clouds of spores. The cavern shook and groaned like a living thing dying. Kai didn't remember much of the sprint. He remembered Hana dragging Theo who had gone into shock. He remembered Shirin shooting a tentacle that tried to grab his ankle. He remembered clutching the cursed fragment so tightly it cut into his palm.
They burst through a wall of hanging fungus and into an open chamber where a new portal waited, swirling and unstable. Without thinking, they dove through.
They hit asphalt.
Kai rolled onto his back and stared up at a street he didn't recognize. Cars lay overturned. A lamppost flickered weakly. The air smelled like gasoline and sewage. Darius lay ten feet away, chest heaving. Hana collapsed, coughing. Shirin dragged Theo away from the closing portal.
Marcus was not there.
For a moment, no one spoke. The portal shrank like a stitched wound. Then it snapped shut with a sound like bone breaking.
Only then did the sword speak.
Weak, it hissed. You let meat fall. You let blood spill without taking.
Kai's hands trembled. He looked down. The fragment was still in his palm, etched character glowing faintly. Marcus's blood was still under his nails.
He forced himself to his feet. "We need to go," he said, voice rough. "Before more monsters show up."
They staggered back to the mall base. Hunters came running, voices overlapping. Hana told them about the traps, about the chimera, about the fissure. Someone swore and punched a wall. Someone else sank to the ground and cried.
Kai handed the cursed fragment to Darius, who weighed it and nodded. "This'll fetch a high price."
"It cost us a man," Shirin snapped. Her eyes were red.
Darius's jaw tightened. "They all cost something." He looked at Kai. "This is your team now. Get some rest. We raid again in two days."
Kai nodded numbly. He walked back through the safe zone like a ghost. He passed by stall owners hawking their wares, by children drawing chalk portals on the pavement, by survivors arguing about how long the government aid would last. The world kept moving.
In the privacy of his apartment, he washed Marcus's blood off his hands. The water ran pink down the drain. He unwrapped the sword. It hummed, eager.
More, it whispered. They die. We grow. Take the helm. Take the gloves. Take the hearts. This is the way of the hunt.
Kai slammed the blade back onto the table. "Shut up," he snarled. "A man died. He had a family."
Weak, the voice repeated. Sentimental. Do you think the demons care? Do you think the System cares? Feed me and I will make sure you never fall like him.
Kai stared at himself in the microwave door again. He looked older. Tired. His eyes were bloodshot. He thought about the curse fragment still in Darius's possession, about the Seal Charm, about the black market merchant waiting for payment. He thought about Marcus's kids, waiting for a father who would never come home.
He slid down the wall and sat on the kitchen floor. He let the sword whisper. He let the grief roll through him like a tide. He didn't try to stop either.
In the end, all he could do was make a decision.
He picked up the phone, opened his contacts, and typed a message to an unknown number.
[Scar-Nose. I have your fragment. Meet me tomorrow night. And bring something stronger than a Seal Charm.]
He hit send.
Outside, the cracked sky darkened. Monsters cried in the distance. Somewhere underground, blood still dripped onto dungeon floors.
Inside, Kai clutched his weapon and whispered Marcus's name until dawn.