Chapter 43: Anomaly
The two guards stood at the checkpoint watching the portal shimmer in the late afternoon sun, their spears resting against the perimeter while they passed a canteen back and forth.
"You think they’re dead yet?" the second guard asked.
The first guard took a sip and handed it back, squinting at the rippling blue wall. "Probably. That thing has killed better parties than two kids."
"You should have told them about it before they walked in," the second guard said, his tone carrying a hint of frustration.
The first guard let out a slow breath. "The order came down from the guild this morning. This gate is on restriction until a proper ranker clears the anomaly, nobody in or out." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Then that boy walks up and hands me a letter with the King’s wax seal stamped across the front."
"Still."
"Still nothing. You know how gate permits work. Guild badges, stamped paperwork, maybe a noble crest if you’re important enough. That’s the usual stuff. I wave it through because it’s all I’ve ever seen."
He turned to look at his partner. "When was the last time someone walked up to this checkpoint holding a document signed by the King himself?"
The second guard didn’t answer, his jaw working side to side.
"Exactly," the first guard said. "I figured if the Crown is sending someone in personally, it’s a special case. Maybe he’s some prodigy the King took interest in, or maybe he’s got knights on standby outside my line of sight. Either way, I’m not the guy who tells the King’s personal courier to come back later."
He leaned back against the wall, staring at the gate with a tired expression. "The problem isn’t that I let them in. The problem is that thing in there shouldn’t exist at all."
The second guard shifted his weight. "How long has it been in there?"
"Months, maybe longer. Nobody keeps track of a two-shard gate this close to the capital because it’s entry level. Guild sends new adventurers through it to farm kills, rank up their Shards and collect scrap loot. High rankers don’t bother with places like this." He paused, watching the portal pulse once. "But there was one monster in the back nobody could kill."
"The gray wolf."
"Yeah." He nodded. "New parties would get to the boss area, see it watching them from the trees and turn around. The smart ones did anyway. The dumb ones tried to fight it, lost a member or two, then ran. And every time someone died, every corpse left behind, that thing fed."
The second guard was quiet for a moment. "How long does it take to evolve like that?"
"Depends on what it eats." The first guard’s voice dropped. "Adventurers carry more mana than normal monsters, way more. A wolf that size eats a party of three two-Shard fighters... that’s not just any meal."
"So it just kept farming kills until it hit four."
"Pretty much... now we have a four-Shard anomaly in a two-Shard gate that nobody important cares about clearing because the reward isn’t worth their time. So it sits there growing fatter every week while we send rookies in thinking it’s still entry level."
The portal flickered.
Both guards looked up at the same time, their conversation dying out as the blue light inside the frame suddenly rippled in fast, uneven bursts, like something was moving toward the exit.
"Run."
The word left his mouth and Juna immediately reacted, her feet tearing across the ground as the thing above them dropped from the canopy like a boulder.
He threw himself sideways a heartbeat before it hit, the impact blowing a crater into the ground where they had been standing and sending a shockwave through his legs that staggered his sprint.
Dirt and splintered wood came raining down around him as he scrambled forward without looking back.
’Four shards,’ he thought, running flat out through the trees. ’This gate caps at two and three, so where the hell did that thing come from.’
A branch snapped behind him far closer than it should have been. He ducked on instinct and a clawed arm swept through the space his head just occupied, ripping bark off the trunk next to him in a spray of wood.
[ CringeSlayer91: I am actually scared, what the fuck is that massive thing]
He vaulted a fallen log, pushed off a tree mid-sprint to change direction and heard the monster crash straight through the log without slowing, the wood exploding under its weight as it adjusted course to follow him.
Juna cut in from the left running on three limbs, her bandaged hand still pressed against her chest. "It’s tracking you and ignoring me," she called out, her voice tight. "I can’t get its attention."
"That’s great news for you and terrible news for me," he said, diving under another swipe.
[ NewViewer_02: he’s still cracking jokes while running for his life ]
The forest blurred past in chunks of green and brown, branches whipping his arms and leaves slapping his face as he threaded between trunks at full speed.
His lungs were starting to burn but it didn’t matter because the thing behind him was not getting tired and the gap was shrinking faster than he could widen it.
He saw a gap between two leaning trees ahead, barely wide enough for a person, and threw himself sideways through it while the monster tried to follow.
Its shoulders hit the trunks and the trees bent outward with a sound like bones cracking, roots tearing up from the ground as its momentum carried it halfway through before it stopped, stuck but not for long.
"This way," he shouted to Juna, cutting right down a dry creek bed.
She fell in beside him, her breath coming in ragged gasps. "We can’t outrun it forever."
"I know," he said, "I’m thinking."
"How long do you need?"
"More than we have."
[ CringeSlayer91: COME ON BRAINCELLS WORK ]
[ ShadowMage44: chain? chain?? ]
The creek bed ended at a wall of rock. He spun around and planted his feet, drawing his sword as the sound of splintering wood echoed through the trees behind them.
’An elite three-shard,’ he thought, gripping the hilt with both hands while his ring flared bright. ’I was ready for an elite three. Even that would have pushed us to the limit, maybe beyond, but at least it was possible.’
He watched the treeline shake as the thing broke free. ’What kind of bullshit is this. Why is there a four-shard inside a gate this low. That makes no sense, this doesn’t happen, it’s not supposed to happen.’
The monster stepped through the trees and the light hit its face for the first time, four shards orbiting slow around its horns while its split mouth curled into the same awful smile.
"Fuck," he said.