The day started wrong in the western village. The sky, usually a dull gray, had turned a sickly purple, as if the atmosphere itself knew what was coming. Cain was sharpening his pole beside the hut when the ground shook, a deep tremor that vibrated through his bones and sent a warning echo to his brain. Not an earthquake, he thought. He stood, pole in hand, as the air filled with an electric hum that prickled his skin.

  Lira burst from the hut in an instant, dagger already drawn, her ears swiveling like antennas. “Feel that?” she said, her voice sharp, eyes locked on the northern field. Before Cain could answer, a scream tore through the air, followed by a chaotic crunch: wood splintering, earth splitting. The crack wasn’t far; about a hundred meters from the village, the ground ripped open like a festering wound, spewing purple light and a stench of sulfur and burnt flesh.

  “Move!” Lira barked, sprinting toward the field’s edge. Cain followed, his mind racing: Not a vermin crack. It wasn’t a guess; it was a calculation, a mental map built from every scrap of data he’d absorbed over the past month.

  The village erupted in panic. Villagers poured from huts—the scaly man from the counter, the gaunt woman with a child in her arms, the scruffy-bearded bread vendor—their screams blending with the roar rising from the crack. Cain saw the creature before it fully emerged: a bulbous body, three meters tall, covered in black spines dripping viscous liquid. Six segmented legs, like a giant centipede’s, pounded the earth, and a eyeless head—just a circular mouth of spiraling teeth—snapped at the air. Aberrant biology, Cain thought, dissecting in real-time. Chitinous exoskeleton, high bone density, likely acidic secretions. Threat level: medium-high.

  Lira stopped beside him, her stance tense but ready. “That’s no vermin,” she said, her voice low but firm. “We can kill it, but not easily. Plan?”

  Cain took a deep breath, his mind cycling through variables: Estimated mass: 400-500 kilos. Attack speed: 4-5 meters per second, based on leg length. My current limits: hardened skin 20 seconds, claws 15, reinforced muscle 10. Lira: unknown max speed, but lethal in short bursts. “Distract and strike,” he said, quick and precise. “I keep it busy, you find a weak point. But first, the villagers.”

  She looked at him, surprised. “What? Since when are you a hero?”

  “I’m not,” he replied, his tone cold but honest. “If they don’t clear out, they all die, and the chaos screws us. I’m buying time, not lives.” Pure pragmatism, he thought. Collective survival boosts my odds. Heroism’s irrelevant.

  Lira nodded, though her eyes said she wasn’t fully convinced. “Fine. Make it quick.” She darted left, a blur of motion, as Cain ran toward the village center.

  The monster was already advancing, its legs gouging furrows in the earth. Cain reached the nearest group of villagers—five, fleeing toward the well—and shouted, “South! Run south, now!” His voice cut through the panic, and two obeyed, a woman and a child, but the bearded old man tripped, his leg trapped under a fallen plank. Cain reached him, hardening his skin in a heartbeat—hexagonal matrix, collagen tensed like cables—and lifted the wood with an effort that burned his muscles. “Move!” he growled, and the old man crawled, alive but slow.

  No time for more. The monster pivoted, its mouth snapping, and a leg rose, fast as a whip. Cain blocked with his hardened forearm, the impact ringing through his bones like a hammer on an anvil. The skin held—twenty seconds, counted in his head—but the acid from the spines hissed against it, burning the air. He rolled aside, pole in hand, and glimpsed Lira: a flash of speed, her dagger probing the joints between the legs. Black blood sprayed, but the creature barely flinched, sweeping with another leg that Lira dodged by inches.

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  Cain ran to the well, where more villagers screamed, trapped among collapsed huts. “Back!” he yelled, hardening his skin again and heaving a broken beam to clear a path. A woman followed, dragging a child, but the scaly man—the counter guy—wasn’t fast enough. A leg speared him, pinning him to the ground in a burst of blood and guts. His scream cut off, and Cain turned his head, his stomach twisting but his mind cold. Death confirmed. Three seconds lost. Next.

  The monster surged forward, its open mouth spewing a jet of acid that melted an entire hut. Cain spotted the bearded man’s child, alone, running north—the wrong way. Tactical error, he thought, and sprinted after him, claws sprouting from his right hand: elongated phalanges, edges sharp as razors, a design refined over a month of practice. He leaped, grabbing the child and rolling just as a leg slammed down, tearing a chunk of earth where they’d been. Acid splashed nearby, burning his leg—normal skin, not hardened—and the pain was white-hot fire he suppressed with a quick calculation: Affected area: 5% body surface. Tolerable.

  Lira shouted from the other side: “Cain, here!” She was on the monster, her speed a whirlwind, her dagger lodged in a joint near the head. Black liquid gushed, but the creature bucked, throwing her into an earthen mound. Cain left the child with the woman he’d saved—“South, now!”—and ran to her, pole ready.

  The monster saw him coming, its mouth swiveling toward him. Cain hardened his skin—twenty seconds at max—and reinforced his right bicep, fibers spiraled like a biological spring, boosting strength by 40%. He drove the pole into the open mouth, the tip sinking between spiraling teeth, and pushed with everything he had. The wood creaked but pierced something soft, and a gurgling roar erupted from within. Lira was up, a blur again, her dagger hitting the same spot, cutting deep. Black blood sprayed, drenching them both, and the monster staggered, its legs trembling.

  But it didn’t fall. A leg swept the air, smashing a hut and crushing two villagers who hadn’t run—a man and a girl, their bodies mangled in an instant, blood and bone mixing with splintered wood. Cain fell back, his mind logging the carnage: Losses: three confirmed, two probable. Horror hit, but he filed it away, cold as ever: Emotions are useless. Survival first.

  “Doesn’t die easy!” Lira yelled, wiping blood from her face. “We gotta go!”

  Cain nodded, his breathing ragged but controlled. “South!” he replied, running toward her. The monster roared, lurching after them, but its speed had slowed, wounds taking their toll.

  They sprinted through the shattered huts, the village a field of death and debris. Cain saw bodies—the gaunt woman, the child he’d tried to save, both crushed under a fallen wall—and his mind calculated without pause: Estimated mortality: 20-30% of population. My intervention: marginal. It wasn’t heroism; it was failed pragmatism, and he knew it. The acid on his leg burned, but he hardened the skin around it to contain the damage, a trick honed over the past month.

  Lira caught up, her speed still lethal even in exhaustion. “Faster, little one!” she growled, yanking his arm. The monster pursued, its legs pounding the earth, but the gap widened. They cleared the village, the southern field opening before them: dry grass, scattered rocks, a stunted forest half a kilometer away. Cain pushed his legs to their limit, muscle reinforcement spent but adrenaline compensating.

  The roar faded behind them, replaced by the forest’s broken silence. They stopped under a gnarled tree, panting, blood and acid clinging to their clothes. Cain leaned against the trunk, his mind logging the massacre, every detail etched into his memory, but he didn’t let it shake him.

  Lira cleaned her dagger on her cloak, her breathing ragged but her eyes sharp. “That was a mess,” she said, blunt. “We could’ve died.”

  “Could’ve,” he agreed, flexing his burned leg. Chemical burn, second-degree. Mobility reduced 20%. “But we didn’t. And we can’t go back. If that thing follows, or if someone saw us…”

  She nodded, cutting him off. “We’d draw Ravens, or worse. We move. Now.”

  Cain glanced back, the village a blur of smoke and ruins. He wasn’t a hero, never had been. He’d tried to buy time, not save souls, but the deaths weighed all the same. Data, not guilt, he told himself, filing away the horror. He straightened, pole in hand, and followed Lira into the forest, the crack’s echo fading behind them. Survival was all that mattered now.