Chapter 78 — Third Team
Morning did not come gently. The industrial blocks west of the compound smelled heavily of old rain, rusted iron, and rotting insulation. Broken glass glittered faintly across the cracked asphalt like spilled salt. The air felt entirely wrong—not silent, but heavily suppressed.
Ragnar did not look at Lufias when he gave the cold order from the warehouse steps. "Team Three. Western perimeter sweep."
Six men. Two captives. It was a routine disposal patrol on paper, but Lufias recognized the selection instantly: an expendable rotation. Darius Kane was not assigned to the detail. That was the first critical metric Lufias noted.
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[TEAM THREE COMPOSITION & PAYLOAD]
├── Halvek : Shotgun (12-gauge), high aggression, loud
├── Brann : Shotgun, chin scar, impatient
├── Miro : Submachine gun, thin, jittery
├── Garet : Rifle, heavy set, slow reaction time
├── Soren : Rifle, older, quiet veteran
└── Lufias : Sidearm / Axe (Controlled payload)
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The two captives were bound tightly, barefoot, and blindfolded. They stumbled blindly as they were marched over the jagged, broken asphalt. Lufias quietly mapped the group's weapon distribution. Three shotguns, two rifles, one SMG. No heavy squad rifles. No short-range radio support to the main office.
Yes. This team was entirely expendable.
The Walk They moved deep into the dead commercial district, their boots crunching softly on the debris. Halvek shoved the male captive forward roughly. "If any walkers come sniffing out here, we drop 'em immediately," he muttered, keeping his finger resting on his shotgun trigger. "No wasting ammo."
Lufias said nothing. He watched the distorted reflections of the team in the shattered storefront windows, listening to the loose roofing insulation and sheet metal shift overhead in the rising wind.
Then, a scraping sound cut through the breeze. It wasn't the dragging footstep of a walker on the ground. It came from above.
Garet looked up first, his brow furrowing. "What the—"
Something was moving rapidly along the vertical brick wall of a three-story building. It wasn't falling or slipping; it was climbing.
The creature dropped from a second-floor ledge, landing on all fours. It did not stumble or grovel like a normal walker. Its shoulders were compressed forward into a permanent, predatory hunch. The fingers were unnaturally elongated, the bone structure extended by thick, exposed tendons, and the fingernails had been worn down into hook-like curves from constant, violent contact with concrete and brick. The muscle fibers along its exposed back were tighter, incredibly compact—not larger, but optimized for sheer efficiency.
An urban predator.
It landed and lunged instantly. Brann fired his shotgun too early, the blast tearing a useless chunk out of the asphalt.
The creature leapt—not forward, but sideways. A sudden, calculated lateral bound onto the roof of a parked van, and then it climbed up the side of the building again. It was fast. Terrifyingly fast.
Halvek shouted, his voice cracking, "What the hell is that thing?!"
The creature ran along the brick wall for half a second, clinging effortlessly by its hooked nails and specialized toe grip, and then dropped straight down behind Miro.
A sickening, wet sound echoed through the street. Miro screamed, a brief, choked sound before blood sprayed violently across the pavement. The creature did not bite randomly or tear at flesh like a standard infected; it targeted the throat with chilling, arterial precision.
#### The Decision
"Drop the bait! Drop the bait now!" Halvek yelled, panicking. He shoved his captive forward into the open street.
Brann grabbed the second captive by the hair, drawing a long hunting knife across the throat line. Lufias stepped directly between them, his frame blocking the blade.
"Don't," Lufias said, his voice entirely flat.
Halvek stared at him, his shotgun shaking in his hands. "You want to die out here, new guy?!"
"We can kill it."
"That thing isn't normal!"
"It bleeds," Lufias replied calmly.
The creature crouched on the side of a rusted delivery truck ten meters away, its unblinking eyes watching them. It wasn't mindless chaos. It was actively assessing their defensive movement patterns.
Lufias kept his heart rate under tight, clinical control. "I'll pull its focus. When it commits to the lunge, you shoot together. Don't scatter."
The remaining raiders hesitated, fear battling their basic survival instinct. But they had seen him survive the yard with Darius. Brann spat on the ground, pulling his knife back. "Fine. Make it quick."
#### The Lure
Lufias drew his pistol and fired a single shot directly into the creature's left shoulder. It was a deliberate, non-lethal hit designed to provoke.
The creature shrieked—a high, guttural, metallic sound—and launched itself forward from the truck.
Lufias turned and ran. His pace was fast, but tightly controlled. He sprinted directly into a narrow alleyway he had memorized during his Day One observation from the water tower. The alley was cluttered with heavy metal shelving stacked against the brick walls, loose construction debris, and a low-hanging, severed utility cable.
He kicked a rusted metal rack as he passed. The creature hit the falling shelving mid-leap, snarling as the iron frame altered its trajectory. It recovered almost instantly, but the brief delay was all Lufias needed.
He pivoted sharply, firing two successive rounds at the creature's primary knee joint. One round connected cleanly. The predator shrieked, clinging to the brick wall with its leg visibly compromised but still functional.
That was enough data. Lufias turned back toward the entrance of the alley. Instead of continuing deeper into the trap, he grabbed both of the bound captives who had huddled near the opening. With two quick, heavy slices of his knife, he severed their arm restraints.
"West. Three blocks down," Lufias commanded, looking into their terrified eyes. "Hide inside the collapsed storefront until you see a green flare. Do not move before then."
They stared at him in utter shock. He shoved them physically out of the line of fire. "Go."
Then, Lufias sprinted up a broken iron fire escape he had scouted earlier, scaling the rungs silently until he reached the rooftop ledge. From above, he watched the remaining members of Team Three enter the alley.
#### The Collapse
Halvek rushed into the narrow space first, his shotgun raised. "Finish it off! It's cornered!"
The creature dropped from the upper wall—wounded, bleeding, and entirely enraged. It didn't attempt to retreat. It accelerated down the corridor.
Garet fired his rifle, but the round missed, tearing a deep hole in the masonry. The creature slammed heavily into Garet's chest, its elongated fingers clawing through his throat in a single, upward rip.
Soren fired his shotgun upward from the mouth of the alley. The buckshot pellets grazed the creature's back, but it used the very momentum of the impact to leap sideways—wall to wall, utilizing a terrifying kinetic pattern. It wasn't supernatural or magical; it was simply a biological system perfectly optimized for vertical, close-quarters terrain.
Halvek tried to retreat back into the main street, but his heavy boots slipped on the loose gravel. The creature bit deep into the side of his neck, severing the carotid artery in a second. Brann attempted to coordinate a counter-fire, but Miro's discarded SMG lay in a pool of blood, and the subsequent ricochets fired wildly into the sky.
Within less than a minute, the entire team's defensive structure collapsed completely. There was no tactical formation, no discipline—just raw, human panic.
Lufias did not move from his vantage point on the roof. He calculated the response time, counted the remaining targets, and waited.
The creature fed briefly on Halvek's remains, then dragged Garet's heavy body upward along the opposite fire escape, claiming the high ground to protect its kill. It did not search the alley further. Its hunt was complete.
#### Extraction
Lufias moved immediately. He didn't drop down toward the dead raiders to salvage their gear; that would alter the narrative layout. He ran across the rooftops toward the western blocks.
He located the two freed captives huddled trembling behind a collapsed storefront display. They were shaking violently, but they were alive. He reached into his vest and handed one of them a small flare capsule.
"Green light tonight," Lufias said flatly. "Move toward it the second it hits the sky."
There was no hero speech, no reassurance, and no emotional lingering. Just direction.
At exactly 01:10 AM, from the deep shadow of a rooftop chimney, Lufias used his hidden transmitter to send a short-range coded burst back to the island.
E X T R A C T I O N . T W O S U R V I V O R S . W E S T G R I D . I M M E D I A T E .
#### The Return Performance
To secure his positioning within the compound, Lufias prepared his physical appearance. He tore his left sleeve deliberately against a rusted nail, smashed his side lightly against a brick corner to induce immediate deep bruising over his ribs, and smeared fresh blood from his split brow across his collar. It was entirely controlled damage.
When he reached the side gate of the Wolves' compound near dusk, he dragged his left leg, staggering just enough to project exhaustion.
The wall guard raised his rifle immediately. "Hold! Who's that? Where's Team Three?"
"Dead," Lufias rasped, leaning heavily against the scrap-metal gate.
The guards hurried down, dragging him inside the safety of the courtyard. Ragnar Voss appeared quickly from the main office, his clean boots clicking against the concrete. "Explain what happened out there."
"A variant," Lufias breathed unevenly, holding his bruised ribs. "Vertical movement along the brick. Fast. We tried to hold a perimeter in the alley, but it broke our line in seconds."
"And the captives?" Ragnar asked, his eyes narrowing.
"We used them as a distraction to pull its focus," Lufias lied seamlessly, presenting a half-truth that aligned with the Wolves' philosophy. "But it wasn't enough."
Ragnar studied him intently. He wasn't listening to the words; he was evaluating the metrics—the breathing rhythm, the micro-movements of his pupils, the sweat on his skin. "And yet, you ran."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Someone had to report the threat change to the compound," Lufias said, meeting his gaze.
A heavy silence fell over the yard. Darius Kane stepped forward from the shadows, reaching out to touch the dark blood drying on Lufias's torn sleeve. It was still warm. It was entirely real.
Darius searched his eyes, looking for the frantic terror that usually followed a catastrophic field failure. He found none. There was only an intense, rigid control—far too much control for a recruit who had just watched five experienced men get torn to pieces.
Ragnar finally nodded once, stepping back. "We adapt to the environment. That's how we survive." He turned away toward his office. "Get him to the warehouse. Let him rest."
But as he walked up the stairs, he whispered a cold instruction to a nearby guard: "Double the watch on his sector tonight. Do not let him out of your sight line."
Darius overheard the command. He said nothing, his eyes locked on Lufias's retreating back.
#### Outside the Perimeter
Miles away, Revas's extraction team moved like ghosts through the shadows of the western blocks. The two freed captives were already under secure escort, moving silently toward the river edge without a single shot fired or an alarm raised. It was a perfectly clean extraction.
Team Three was entirely gone. Five wolves had been permanently removed from the compound matrix, and the pack's overall defensive capacity had been weakened by fractions.
But inside the compound walls, a subtle, dangerous shift had begun. Ragnar Voss no longer viewed Lufias as just a highly valuable recruit. He saw him as an anomaly.
And seasoned predators do not ignore anomalies in their territory.