Built like a wall of meat and bone, the Tanker moved like living stone. Its arms bulged like steel drums, shoulders cracking with every step. The beast roared and slammed both fists into the shield.
CRACK!!
The shield trembled. Then bent. Then folded.
The shieldbearer's knees buckled. Blood poured from his mouth. He held on. He screamed.
"ARGHHHH!!"
The Tanker grabbed the entire top of the shield, and with a monstrous grunt, ripped it downward with brute force.
KKKRRRRRZZZH!
The shield split down the middle.
The shieldbearer's eyes widened in horror.
"Oh god…"
The archer trembled, backing away as the metal shrieked.
"He's gonna get torn apart… we all are."
The spearwoman gasped, voice cracking.
"Shit—!"
Then came the punch.
A full-force haymaker to the chest. A quake disguised as a fist.
THUD!!!
The shieldbearer's armor cracked. His ribs shattered. A blood geyser burst from his mouth.
Time slowed for a second.
He looked toward them. His lips barely moved.
"Sorry… I couldn't… protect you all…"
Then the Tanker lifted both fists high and brought them down like hammers.
CRAAACKKK!!
The shieldbearer was flattened. Spine broken. Chest caved in. Bones shattered like brittle plastic. A puddle of blood spread from the crushed wreckage of his body.
The spearwoman watched in wide-eyed horror. Her fingers twitching. She tried to scream. Nothing came.
"No… no no no—"
She dragged herself backward, slipping in her own blood. Her blade sparked once, then went dark. Her Eater flow was gone. Her lungs barely worked. She was crumpled on the floor.
The archer stood above her, frozen.
He turned and ran.
"NO—HEY—HEY DON'T LEAVE ME!" she screamed.
The spearwoman clawed at his boot as he pulled away.
"YOU BASTARD! COME BACK! DON'T LEAVE ME HERE!"
He pulled his leg free.
"I'm sorry! I'm not dying here! I'm not fucking dying here!"
He bolted.
Her voice cracked into a cry.
"SKRRAAACK!"
Dozens of Eaters swarmed her like a wave.
They ripped her blade from her hand. Tore into her stomach.
She screamed.
"ARGHHHHHHHH!!!"
Blood sprayed across the pristine mall floor. One grabbed her scalp. Another ripped open her ribcage. Another bit into her face, cracking her cheekbone.
Her legs kicked once. Then stopped.
Her sobbing was cut short… The spearwoman was no more.
Above them, the archer fired his hookline, desperation in his veins.
FWIP!
It locked onto the balcony above.
"C'MON—C'MON!!!"
He launched into the air, soaring toward safety.
"I'M OUT! I'M OUT! I FUCKING MADE IT!"
He laughed, breathless, his heart racing.
But then—
Something else moved.
Fast.
Faster than anything should.
From behind a pillar, a shape crawled low and launched upward, its body twisted in a blur of motion.
[HIGH EATER]
[CLASS: Runner]
[LEVEL: 2]
[FEED POINTS: +1000]
The Runner leapt its claws out, mouth wide.
"NO—NO NO NO—"
SLAM!!
The two collided in midair.
The hookline snapped. They crashed to the floor.
The archer screamed as the Runner tore into him mid-fall. Its claws punched through his gut, pulling out organs like tangled wires.
He hit the tile. The Runner landed on top, screeching.
His legs kicked helplessly.
"PLEASE—PLEASE I—"
CHOMP!
His throat was gone.
The Runner chewed as he spasmed. Then it ripped the rest of his face off.
Blood painted the polished tile.
The jingle above still played, cheerful and endless:
"Shopping's better when you're fed!
Come on down until you're—dead!"
And just like that…
The second floor fell silent.
Everyone was dead.
Except Rex.
And Johnquis.
And the anomaly had just begun.
Up on the upper level of Seaside Mall, the casino floor. Rex followed a trail of blood, moving slowly.
Each step echoed against the once-luxurious tiles, now restored to gleaming perfection by the system's glitch-field. Golden chandeliers above flickered with warped light, casting too-clean reflections across the glossy roulette tables and glittering slot machines.
Ding-ding-ding!
A jackpot chimed from a nearby machine. Lights blinked and coins poured into a tray that didn't exist.
He walked, soles grinding through red smears, each drop left behind by the Runner, the one he hunted, the one he would destroy.
He was twitching.
His right arm had begun to swell, pulsing violently. Thick violet veins snaked across the surface of his skin. They wrapped up his neck, leaking dark fluid down his cheek and jaw, soaking into the collar of his suit. His side twitched. His eyes pulsed with a glow red-violet, like an unstable reactor.
His grip on the massive saw-blade tightened. It groaned as he dragged it across the floor, the teeth screeching like laughter against the tiles.
His throat burned with every word.
"I know you're here, Johnquis…and your eater slave…"
He looked around slowly. The poker tables were empty. The slot machines blinked like soulless eyes. A thousand reflections of his fury danced in the glass walls, warped and stretched by the field.
"Do you know Lex used to love playing hide and seek? She was good at hiding. And I was good at seeking…"
His footsteps fell heavier. His breath fogged the air.
"I told her to hide… until she couldn't hear the sound of our mother's screams. Screams while she was being eaten alive by an Eater."
He passed a restored blackjack table. Cards scattered neatly across green felt. The dealer mannequin still stood behind it, posed like mid-game.
"She hid. She waited. She lived. And me…?"
His eyes twitched. The blade clanged behind him.
"I sought that fucking Eater. Found him. Took the wood-cutting saw we had in the back shed. And I cleaved him in half."
He paused in front of a mirrored wall. His reflection stared back, a man stitched with veins of violet madness, jaw clenched too hard, eye twitching too fast.
"Fucking Eaters… every last one of them deserves to die."
He slammed his fist into the mirror.
SHRAKKK!
Cracks webbed across the surface, distorting his reflection into fragments.
He breathed harder now, Eater Flow bleeding out of his pores in thick clouds. The veins crawled higher, wrapping toward his eyes. His body hunched slightly, shoulders too wide, his back flexing unnaturally.
"I enrolled. Trained. Graduated. Waited for Lex to catch up. When she finally did, we formed a squad… just like we dreamed."
He stepped past a row of slot machines now playing creepy nursery jingles, each one repeating:
"Spin and win! Spin and win! You'll never lose with Seaside sin!"
"She was the best of us. She was perfect."
He stopped.
Then whispered, venomous:
"Until Mars… stole her."
His mouth trembled. His fingers flexed against the handle of the saw.
"He made her smile different. Laugh different. He stole that from me."
The veins now reached his eyes. They were no longer human.
"Then you, Johnquis you protected that thing that murdered her."
He turned his head. A slot machine nearby spun on its own.
777.
It exploded in a shower of confetti and digital coins.
Rex didn't blink.
"That Runner. That fucking Runner. The Nemesis. It ripped her open like trash. You watched. You let it live."
His voice cracked. Something deeper surged behind it. His skin began to pulse, bubbling under the surface like something inside was trying to get out.
"She didn't deserve that."
He dropped to one knee.
"She deserved a life… not to be turned into food…"
ARGHHH!
He howled, grabbing at his face.
The Eater Flow rushed out of him now in visible streams. The air distorted around his skin. The casino lights stuttered. The entire upper floor trembled faintly.
He grinned. And it was wrong.
His voice dropped lower, guttural, feral.
"You think you've seen rage, Johnquis? I am rage. I am what happens when grief refuses to die."
He stood again, body hunched forward.
"AND I'LL CLEAVE YOU BOTH APART!"
The roulette table nearby cracked.
The walls flickered like video stuttering. The ceiling lights turned from yellow to red.
And the floor began to pulse.
He walked on, the saw-blade dragging behind him.
Somewhere above, the mall's corrupted speakers whispered cheerfully:
"Casino Floor — Enjoy your stay. Try your luck. Try your fate."