Brute 271

Posted by ADMINMMADMIN, ? Views, Released on January 30, 2026

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Chapter 271

Atasha’s POV

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35 vouchers

I kept my eyes on the direction of the cave line, the place where the land began to change from ordinary ruin into something that looked wrong even from a distance.

The terrain ahead was broken, scarred by blast marks and clawed trenches, and the air carried a smell that did not belong to normal battlefields. It was not only blood and smoke anymore. It was damp rot, old earth torn open, and that sour note of poison that kept catching at the back of my throat whenever the wind shifted.

Grace came up beside me and studied my face as if she expected me to sway,

“Are you alright?” she asked, low enough that only I could hear.

I nodded. My body still felt stiff from the healing I had done earlier, and my chest carried a faint soreness that reminded me of the week I had lost, but my legs held and my hands were steady. That was enough.

Still, I could not stop my gaze from drifting.

Cassian stood not too far away, his shoulders squared, head slightly lowered as he listened to the King. King Xylas’s posture looked relaxed in the way predators looked relaxed, like he did not need to prove strength because everyone around him already knew what he was capable of.

The two of them spoke in short bursts, and even from here I could feel the friction, not the kind that erupted into shou but the kind that existed because neither of them trusted the other to be the first to blink.

Then the King’s voice rose just enough to reach the rest of us.

“The passage is not too far,” Xylas said, gaze sweeping across the group. “We will reach it in about an hour, but the nearer we are to the hole, the more beasts we will be forced to cut through

I nodded without speaking, because that matched what we had already confirmed.

We had learned the pattern the hard way. The beasts did not surge endlessly. They moved in a cycle that made the entire situation feel engineered instead of wild. Four hours of activity, four hours where the ground around the passage behaved like a mouth that refused to stop producing teeth. Then twenty hours of silence where the beasts simply stopped emerging, as if something on the other side closed its hand and waited for the next day.

That meant there was a window.

Twenty hours to enter the hole before the next surge began.

In theory, it sounded almost manageable.

but

In reality, we still had to get there, and every step toward that place increased the number of beasts already roaming the area, lingering near the source as if they were drawn to it even when the surge ended. They were not as frenzied now, they were not harmless, and they were still more than enough to tear a small team apart if we lost control of our formation.

We had started this journey the moment the surge began to die down.

It had been two hours since then.

From the encampment to the hole, it took three hours on foot through terrain that kept shifting under our boots, past collapsed structures and sinkholes that were still unstable. We were cutting it close on purpose, because waiting meant giving the enemy time, and none of us believed time was on our side.

The King’s gaze settled on me next.

1/4

18:05 Fri, Jan 30 GGGD

Chapter 271

80%

35 Voucher

“No time to waste,” he said, then his tone shifted slightly into something sharper. “Atasha Valemont, were the wounded taken care of?

I nodded without saying a word. He was talking about his aide, cho. The man who sustained injury just now.

Xylas’s expression barely changed, but his eyes narrowed a fraction in approval, like he liked efficiency more than gratitude.

“Good,” he said. “Then we move.”

I glanced around, taking in the small group again, because it still felt strange that an operation this important had been reduced to only six people.

The King. Cassian. Me. Nicho the King’s aide, who carried himself like a man who had been trained not to panic even when death was close enough to touch. Grace, who stayed near me without hovering, her attention sharp enough to catch movement in the shadows before it became a threat. And Rio, who looked exhausted but steady, shoulders tense, eyes scanning the dark as if he expected it to attack him from every direction.

All of us could fight.

All of us had fought already.

The King had decided to bring only a few, not because he underestimated the beasts, but because larger numbers meant louder movement, more scent, more confusion, and more chances for the enemy to pick off someone at the edges. So far, the strategy had worked. We were still alive. We had not been surrounded. We had not drawn the kind of mass attention that turned small fights into slaughter.

That did not mean we had escaped unscathed.

Nicho’s breathing had changed an hour ago, the subtle tightening that came with poison settling in his system. Rio had taken a scratch across his ribs when a half–solid beast slipped past a strike and raked him before we could pin it down. Neither of them had collapsed, but their skin had gone slightly pale, and their eyes had carried that faint glassiness that made my stomach tighten because it reminded me of how fast things could turn.

I had healed both of them as soon as I confirmed the poison was not the kind that killed instantly.

“We should move,” I said. “The longer we stand here, the more likely they will find us.”

Xylas gave a short nod that passed for agreement.

“Then we move,” he repeated, and this time his gaze flicked across each of us as if he was counting and confirming he still had all six pieces on the board.

We started again.

The terrain ahead swallowed our boots, and the darkness thickened as we left the faint glow of the encampment behind. The only light came from the sky, which offered almost nothing. That would have been a problem for humans.

For us, it was simply night.

Werewolves did not see like daylight, but they tend saw enough. Shapes stood out. Movement betrayed itself. The world had edges, and shadows did not hide scent.

We moved in a tight formation, not shoulder to shoulder, but close enough to cover one another without tripping over steps. Cassian stayed slightly ahead, blade angled downward but ready. The King walked near him with the ease of a man who did not need to prove he belonged at the front. Grace remained near me, and Nicho and Rio took the rear and flank positions, trading glances whenever they heard something shift in the trees.

The beasts did not stop appearing.

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18.05 Fri, Jan 30 GGG

Chapter 271

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240 voucher

No time to waste,” he said, then his tone shifted slightly into something sharper. “Atasha Valemont, were the wounded taken care oft

I nodded without saying a word. He was talking about his aide, cho. The inan who sustained injury just now.

Xylas’s expression barely changed, but his eyes narrowed a fraction in approval, like he liked efficiency more than gratitude.

“Good,” he said. “Then we move.”

I glanced around, taking in the small group again, because it still felt strange that an operation this important had been reduced to only six people.

The King. Cassian. Me. Nicho the King’s aide, who carried himself like a man who had been trained not to panic even when death was close enough to touch. Grace, who stayed near me without hovering, her attention sharp enough to catch movement in the shadows before it became a threat. And Rio, who looked exhausted but steady, shoulders tense, eyes scanning the dark as if he expected it to attack him from every direction.

All of us could fight.

All of us had fought already.

The King had decided to bring only a few, not because he underestimated the beasts, but because larger numbers meant louder movement, more scent, more confusion, and more chances for the enemy to pick off someone at the edges. So far, the strategy had worked. We were still alive. We had not been surrounded. We had not drawn the kind of mass attention that turned small fights into slaughter.

That did not mean we had escaped unscathed.

Nicho’s breathing had changed an hour ago, the subtle tightening that came with poison settling in his system. Rio had taken a scratch across his ribs when a half–solid beast slipped past a strike and raked him before we could pin it down. Neither of them had collapsed, but their skin had gone slightly pale, and their eyes had carried that faint glassiness that made my stomach tighten because it reminded me of how fast things could turn.

I had healed both of them as soon as I confirmed the poison was not the kind that killed instantly.

“We should move,” I said. “The longer we stand here, the more likely they will find us.”

Xylas gave a short nod that passed for agreement.

“Then we move,” he repeated, and this time his gaze flicked across each of us as if he was counting and confirming he still had all six pieces on the board.

We started again.

The terrain ahead swallowed our boots, and the darkness thickened as we left the faint glow of the encampment behind. The only light came from the sky, which offered almost nothing. That would have been a problem for humans.

For us, it was simply night.

Werewolves did not see like daylight, but they tend saw enough. Shapes stood out. Movement betrayed itself. The world had edges, and shadows did not hide scent.

We moved in a tight formation, not shoulder to shoulder, but close enough to cover one another without tripping over steps. Cassian stayed slightly ahead, blade angled downward but ready. The King walked near him with the ease of a man who did not need to prove he belonged at the front. Grace remained near me, and Nicho and Rio took the rear and flank positions, trading glances whenever they heard something shift in the trees.

The beasts did not stop appearing.

2/4

18:05 Fri, Jan 30 GGG

Chapter 971

49.80%

They were not surging out of the ground anymore, not in the vilent waves of earlier, but they were still here, scattered like rot that refused to be cleaned away. Some lurked near broken stuctures, bodies half–hidden in rubble. Others moved between trees, low and fast, testing our scent, circling just beyong the range where we could strike easily.

We fought repeatedly, and every fight felt like it stole minutes we could not afford.

A warped beast came at Nicho first, its body stretched wrong, its oints too loose, claws scraping stone as it launched. Cassian cut it down before it reached him. The thing collapsed with a we sound, dissolving into mud and ruined flesh. Another followed, and Rio intercepted it, taking a hit to his shoulder that made him grunt but did not slow him down. I reached for him as soon as it was safe, pressed my hand to the torn skin, and forced it closed while Grace kept her weapon up and watched the treeline for the next threat,

We moved again.

We fought again.

At some point, the ground began to change underfoot.

The soil grew softer, damp in a way that did not match the weather. The air grew colder, not because of wind, but because something below us breathed up through cracks and carried the scent of deep earth and something else that did not belong. The smell reminded me of the moment the passage first formed that sense that the land had been forced into becoming a doorway.

Then, after what felt like an eternity of cutting through shadows and broken paths, we crested a rise and saw it.

The hole.

It was massive.

It sat in the ground like a wound that refused to close, carved into the earth where the Nightfall mansion was supposed to stand. The remains of that place still existed around the edges, not as walls or structure, but as shattered stone and twisted beams half–swallowed by the collapse. Pieces of foundation jutted out at awkward angles, and the mud around it looked darker, thicker, as if it had been soaked with too much blood and too much poison for too long.

The hole itself was not a clean circle. It was uneven, broken, jagged at the rim, widening where the land had split and sunk. Darkness filled it, heavy and layered, like it had depth that should not fit inside the world above.

I felt myself shiver inwardly as I stared at it.

This was where everything had fallen apart.

I looked around and found some beasts nearby.

Some crouched near the broken stones as if guarding the rim. Others moved in slow, restless arcs, sniffing at the earth, turning their heads toward the hole and then back toward us as if they could sense we did not belong here. Their forms were wrong in the same ways we had seen before.

Then… one of them lifted its head and bared its teeth.

King Xylas did not speak.

He raised his hand slightly, fingers moving in a sharp signal.

Go in.

Cassian’s gaze flicked to the hole, then to me, and the meaning was clear even without words. This was the point where hesitation killed people. This was the point where we either stepped into the mouth, or we wasted everything we had risked.