The crystalline growths known as mana crystals have revolutionised nearly every aspect of human civilisation, surpassing even the most optimistic projections. What was once mere theory is now the foundation of modern energy infrastructure. Fossil fuels are obsolete, replaced entirely by mana crystal technology. Power generation, transportation, climate control, industrial manufacturing—each has been reshaped by their unparalleled ability to store and release mana in the form of electromagnetic, electrical, thermal, and even kinetic energy. Their capacity to autonomously recharge during periods of high environmental mana density has rendered traditional fuel cycles meaningless.

  Yet, the true potential of mana crystals extends far beyond energy. Recent breakthroughs have revealed their capability for high-capacity data storage and processing, a discovery that has led to one of the most controversial fields of modern research: Synthetic Crystalline Intelligence (S.C.I.). This emerging discipline, pioneered by the Thanatosynthetic Engineering community, has pushed the boundaries of technology—and morality. By binding and modifying the minds of lab animals into altered mana crystals, researchers have created a new form of cognition, one that blurs the line between artificial intelligence and organic consciousness.

  But perhaps even more unsettling is the growing investment into Mana-Encoded Cognition, a theoretical method of transferring human minds into crystalline constructs. Rumours of billionaire-funded projects seeking to achieve immortality through these means are gaining traction, yet regulatory oversight is virtually non-existent. What are the implications of such a development? Would these individuals truly persist, or would they simply be replaced by a hollow facsimile of consciousness?

  Yet, even as we push forward with these advancements, we must confront a far greater question—one that extends beyond ethics and into the unknown. Are these developments within mana crystals purely natural, or are they part of a larger, unseen design? Just as we question the origins of Mana Beasts, we must ask: Is the evolution of mana crystals following an organic path, or is it being deliberately shaped by the system?

  If so—what is the end goal?

  — Extract from a lecture by Dr Elliot Barnes, Doctor of Applied Mana and System Theory, delivered in September 2042.

  Chapter Seven

  Day of awakening – 03:00

  The next two hours netted us quite the bounty of exp with twenty-three monster kills to our name and we had fallen into a pretty efficient takedown process, where I would ambush, running them through from behind or the side and then pinning them to a wall, while the kid would then come up behind and try and stab it in the neck and quickly sawing the blade back and forth and then withdrawing with the knife so that it would quickly bleed out while Stevenson would distract and occupy any second monster that might have been there or if there wasn’t one he would just start smashing its head in.

  While initially hesitant to harm the monsters, he had quickly hardened after finding our third house with everyone dead inside with a monster inside eating one of the bodies. Specifically, he seemed to go cold after finding the corpse, which monster was eating, belonged to a young girl around five or six with dirty blond hair. He had gone very cold upon seeing her and started aggressively pushing us to move faster, move on from the last fight quicker and get to the next encounter. I was happy at the increased farming rate, but I was growing concerned about him, that he might snap.

  Luckily we only encountered more than two monsters once, we had come across a house with two monsters trying to ram the front door, one monster with bulging arm muscles and antlers on its head like a roided-up elk-human hybrid. It had its head down and kept smashing it horns into the door which was already smashed and ajar, but was being held closed by a man shoving a couch up against the door, desperately trying to prevent the door from opening further, but it was slowly losing battle as with each ram, the gap got a bit bigger, while a second monster that looked it had been crossed with a moles or maybe a hairless badger slowly forced its head into the widening gap preventing it from closing.

  The front garden of the house had been concreted over, and a workman’s van took up most of the space, backing up so that it blocked and almost touched the lounge window, leaving a narrow path to the front door. Seeing my chance and knowing that I was running out of time until the door got forced and the bald-badger monster got inside and started killing people, I charged the elk monster, hoping to pin it to the door while trapping the bald-badger monster behind it.

  I was mostly successful, my makeshift spear caught the creature from behind and running it though passing below the ribs as I had now done many times, the monsters being as weak as humans anywhere that hadn’t gone through some form of transformation, but I ended up carrying the momentum into the bald-badger monster and slamming it deeper into the gap and forcing an arm though that it was now using to try and drag it self-deeper.

  “Fuck! Shannon I’m going to try and drag this one out, see if you can get the other one, it is trapped in the door-”

  “Jack! Above you!”

  Above me?

  I didn’t have battle-hardened reflexes to save me, or drilled combat training to react on command without thinking. I was just a normal, exhausted, adrenaline-fatigued twenty-seven-year-old whose mind was barely holding together—strained by an escalating migraine and the mounting pressure of ignoring every horrific thing I’d seen in the last few hours.

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  So, I just... slowly looked up.

  Ah. I’ve been pushing my luck again, haven’t I?

  Dumb.

  That was all I managed to think as I watched a pair of serrated mandibles descended toward my head.

  I didn’t see, just felt Stevenson smash into me and colliding into the monster, its beetle-like head narrowly missing me as we fell into a scrum.

  Adrenaline once again fired into my system, forcing awake brain and kicking it into full fight or flight mode punching through the fog of exhaustion. I twisted around from where I lay on the floor and grabbed the monster in a bear hug, locking its arms to its side as Stevenson equally had his arms wrapped around the creature’s mandibles, keeping them closed as he dug his knee into its back and wrenched its head back exposing its neck, seeing the opportunity I inhaled and let out a roar.

  “SHANNON, NOW!”

  But I needn’t have bothered, as the kid had already launched himself at the monster, driving the knife into its neck and down into it throat before making a quick side to side motion to do as much damage as possible before withdrawing and positioning himself so he could keep all three monsters in his line of sight while we kept the beetlehead monster locked in place.

  Releasing the now dead beetle creature I rounded on the remaining two monsters, the bald-badger monster still trapped in the doorway, while the elk-man monster was still pinned face first to the door by my steel box section spear, which had the combined weight of myself and the beetle-head monster to keep it pinned in place and prevented it from twisting around to get at me.

  Keeping my makeshift spear pinned against the driveway wall with my off hand, I reached down and withdrew the length of iron pipe I had tucked into my belt and began smashing it into the back of the elk monster’s head, its thrashing back it hard to land a good blow, it antlers able to deflect or absorb most impacts, but after Stevenson came forward and took over bracing the makeshift spear, the gap between the workman’s van and the driveway wall to narrow for him to safely get pass, I was able to land a solid blow on the back of the elk-man monster’s head, just above where the spine connected to the skull and the monster suddenly collapsed, like a puppet with its strings cut.

  My grin at finally getting a major contributor was short lived as the elk-man monster slumped to the ground, something behind the door gave slightly and the bald-badger monster was able to pull himself inside followed by immediate yelling and the sound of someone screaming.

  “Melissa!”

  The kids panicked yell came down from above me and I looked up to see him dart across the top of the workman’s van, having apparently climbed up to get a better vantage, and down the front and started pushing himself sideways through the gap in the door.

  “Shannon Wait!” I cried after him, but it was too late, his thin frame allowing him to squees through.

  Fuck!

  The elk-man monster was blocking the door, and it took precious seconds, to drag both it and the beetle headed monster out of the way, and to then force the door open enough to get through against the sounds of a massive battle coming from within.

  Clambering over what was left of the sofa blocking the front door, I quickly looked over the living room, which appeared to be the scene of a titanic battle with what looked like anything that could have been picked up and thrown smashed around the area just after the door way, the signs of battle and debris of small furniture scattered in a path that led to the stairs leading up to the landing.

  Stevenson led the way, sprinting up the stairs to find the battle already over, the silhouette of the kid hunched over the body of the monster, repeatably raising his knife above his head before bringing it down into the monster’s back.

  “Whoa there kid, calm down, you got it, I think it is dead”

  I reached out and grabbed the kid’s shoulder, but he flinched away and turned quickly to face me, knife drawn, the panicked madness of adrenaline fuelled fight or flight filled his eyes before recognition dawned and he relaxed.

  “Did you get the kill notification?” The kid nodded as he tried to slow his breathing.

  “Then you did good, suicidally stupid going in solo like that, but you managed it and as the saying goes ‘it is only stupid if you fail’”

  I looked around assessing the scene and noticed that Stevenson was staring down at the bald-badger monster with a grim look on his face, looking down at what he was looking at and my brain seemed to skip as it was unable to process what it was looking at.

  “Hey Kid, what happened to the other people?” Stevenson voice sounded far away as I just continued to stare down.

  “They locked themselves in the bathroom I think.”

  “Okay, go check on them and make sure they are okay and then clean yourself up, we’re clean up here”

  “Sure Okay, Hey Melissa, Melissa’s parents it is fine now, you can come out now”

  There was a muffled response, but my mind was elsewhere as I just started, and Stevenson slowly reached down and gently lifted up and cradled the monster and headed down the stairs with me just following behind.

  Outside he found a clean area out of the way area, hidden on the other side of the workman’s van, and taking care to be as gentle as he could, laid the monster out, arms at its side and we both just stood in silence as we stared down at the bald-badger like monster, the small bald-badger like monster, the bald-badger like monster that was still in its pyjamas, the bald-badger like monster that had at one point been a ten-year-old child.

  “We can never let him know about this” I managed to let out in a whisper.