SWNOVELXO Chapter 48: Teeth Within
Location: Safe Zone - Eastern Border Time:
July 17th, 2:22 PM
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The alarm sirens wailed like dying beasts, slicing through the heavy air with a screech that made even seasoned guards freeze.
Kael tightened the straps of his mask and lowered the hood of his battle-worn cloak. The spiral-threaded robe clung to his frame like living shadow, swaying softly as he turned to his team.
> "We don't hold the line," he said. "We drag it with us."
Armin cracked his knuckles. Elle tightened the grip on her spear. Dain already had his kinetic field humming, boots pressed to the dirt.
They charged.
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2:25 PM – Frontline Chaos
What waited for them was worse than any mission yet.
The safe zone's outer gate had already been torn apart. Flames licked the edges of shattered barracks. Screams echoed through corridors where people once slept.
And the monsters—
A hundred at least. Sabertooths with split jaws. Raptors with molten spines. Dire wolves nearly twice Kael's height, moving in coordinated bursts. Their eyes glowed crimson. Their breath steamed like chemical vents.
And among them?
Humans.
Twisted. Changed. Once scientists, guards, even children—now mutated brutes with sinewed arms, bony protrusions, and movements too sharp to be human. Their minds gone, hijacked by something else.
> The copy mimic.
It had unleashed them.
And now Kael and his team stood between them and everyone left alive.
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2:30 PM – Full Assault
Elle launched first.
With a shriek, she drove her flaming spear into the maw of a lunging sabertooth. It squealed as bone and flame met flesh. She twisted, struck again—and again. Behind her, Dain launched kinetic blasts that sent wolves flipping into barricades. Armin body-checked a raptor into the side of a burning APC and crushed its skull with a booted stomp.
Kael remained still.
Then, with a whisper, he moved.
He ducked a swipe from a mutated brute and drove his dagger into its throat. Divine Echo triggered.
Routine Serge.
Ghost Veil.
Injury Heal.
The cooldowns vanished. He was a storm of motion. Masked. Hooded. Unnamed.
> To them, he wasn't Kael. He was fear given form.
When three wolves leapt for him, he rolled between them, slashing tendons and arteries mid-spin. He used one corpse as a stepping stone to launch into another, dagger glowing faintly with mimic residue.
> "They don't know who I am," Kael thought. "Let it stay that way."
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2:34 PM – Mimic Joins
The ground trembled.
And then, from behind Kael, it rose.
His mimic.
Human-sized, skeletal, laced with red neural threads and smoke-like essence. It didn't speak. It moved.
It mirrored Kael's style perfectly, as if a shadow extension. It deflected a raptor's claw with its bony forearm, then impaled it with its own jagged rib.
The team paused only briefly.
> "You summoned that thing again?" Armin shouted.
Kael didn't answer. He and the mimic moved in perfect sync. Where Kael struck high, the mimic struck low. Where Kael flipped, the mimic coiled.
They were not fighting like humans.
They were predators.
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2:40 PM – Tipping Point
But the enemy kept coming.
Dain's kinetic flow began to waver. Blood dripped from his nose. Armin had taken a blow to the ribs and gritted his teeth with every swing. Elle had a gash along her arm but pressed on.
> "There's too many!" Dain called out. "We need to fall back!"
> "No!" Elle snarled. "We fall back, the monsters flood in. The shelters are full!"
They knew the odds.
But they fought anyway.
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2:45 PM – Strategic Pressure
Kael clicked his tongue. The mimic responded without words, leaping forward into the densest wave. Kael used the moment to circle behind enemy lines, silently disabling key mutated humans who looked like squad leaders.
Each kill slowed the enemy coordination.
Then he triggered his robe's hidden effect—a brief moment of invisibility. A tool for repositioning. He landed atop a fuel container and hurled an oil torch toward the largest wave.
> BOOM.
Fire erupted.
Five raptors and two sabertooths were instantly consumed. The flames caught others. Some fled.
But the humanoid monster—the merged brute and sabertooth—roared through the smoke, shrugging off damage.
It was coming.
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2:50 PM – Cliffhanger
Kael and his mimic stood ready.
Elle, Armin, and Dain regrouped beside him, forming a broken V-formation.
> "It's leading the rest," Kael muttered. "We drop it... we break their mind-hold."
The massive beast stared back. Its four arms flexed. Two human-like with claws. Two bone-like with blade-length scythes.
The battlefield went quiet.
Then—
A new siren.
From the southern tower.
> "Warning. Unknown entity breaching Sector 3."
The mimic flickered.
Kael felt it.
Monsters.
More monsters were approaching from the outskirts.
His head snapped toward the direction.
> "How many of these things are there...?"
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TO BE CONTINUED...