Chapter 50: Untitled
"What in the actual hell? How are they able to breed so fast?"
Standing atop the hill, the group looked down at the scene below and couldn’t help the frown that settled across each of their faces.
Ethan had chased the retreating beast for several miles, tracking it steadily through the mountain pass until the terrain opened up and the source revealed itself.
This was not what any of them had expected.
Hundreds.
Hundreds of the creatures covered the area below, spread across the cave systems carved into the rocky peaks and perched along the cliff ledges in clusters that shifted and moved with a restless, crawling energy. Every one of them a tier beast without exception, the sheer number of them filling the visible terrain from one end of the ridge to the other.
White Ghost studied the scene without speaking for a moment, his eyes moving slowly across the spread of bodies below.
"Probably mixed with some low breed blood to increase the birth rate."
He said it quietly, more to himself than the group.
"Sigh. This is more troublesome than I thought."
He watched the beasts a moment longer before his gaze pulled back from the ledge.
"Our first action should be killing the mother. All others are male, so it’s safe to assume there’s a singular female."
He reached into his coat and pulled out a scroll, beginning to write across it in quick precise strokes as he turned away from the ledge and started walking.
"For now, we hold Tona Town. When the equipment I require gets delivered, we begin the operation."
He gestured for the group to follow, pulling them back from the ridge and away from the open view of the cave systems below.
They couldn’t clear this in a single push. The numbers were too large and the terrain was too uneven to control a simultaneous engagement across that many creatures. But cutting the mother removed the engine driving the population’s growth, and stopping that growth was the most meaningful step available to them with what they currently had.
It was the right call.
Without wasting time they made their way back down through the pass and returned to camp, sending the command ahead to fortify their positions before anything below had a chance to move.
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Meanwhile, the mass of beasts below began to shift.
Not randomly.
The movement had a different quality to it now, a concentrated churning that suggested organization rather than the idle restlessness of creatures occupying shared territory. They swarmed around a central mass, bodies pressing inward and then spreading outward in patterns that didn’t belong to animals simply moving between feeding and rest.
The town didn’t notice.
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"We will have one forward team of our best heavy hitters clearing the beasts on the roads."
White Ghost stood at the front of the makeshift room they had commandeered in the middle of town, his clipboard in hand, his expression carrying the focused calm of someone working through a problem he had already solved and was now distributing to the people around him.
"That team will include Hela, Ella, Fin, and Ethan. The rest will occupy three positions inside the town."
The room held ten people in total.
Ten to hold a town and manage a beast population that had just revealed itself to be numbering in the hundreds. The math was uncomfortable, and everyone in the room had done it the moment White Ghost began laying out the plan.
Survival first. The town second. The operation third.
If the town took serious damage before the equipment arrived, the whole mission unraveled. Every decision flowed from that reality.
"3rd Chair."
One of the summoners spoke up, his voice carrying the careful tone of someone choosing their words while still making certain they landed.
"I think you made a mistake with the heavy hitter list. I understand Lady Ella’s healing and defensive abilities are considerable, but the new member is at tier 8."
He left the rest of it hanging in the air without completing the sentence, the implication clear enough without needing to be spelled out.
Comparing themselves to the twins or to Fin was a distance none of them were willing to claim. But this newcomer had no record inside White Tower, no missions on file, no reputation built through work anyone in this room had witnessed. He was a tier 8 sitting inside a tier 7 assignment and being placed on the forward team ahead of people who had earned their positions through actual service.
That wasn’t something they could simply absorb without comment.
"There’s no mistake."
White Ghost shut it down immediately, his voice carrying no particular heat, just a finality that didn’t invite continuation.
"Now take your seat."
He turned back to the board.
They didn’t stop.
"3rd Chair."
A different voice this time, sharper, carrying frustration that had moved past the careful register of the first objection.
"This is unprofessional and unsafe. You cannot put the lives of these townsfolk in the hands of an inexperienced newcomer!!"
A hand came down flat against the table, the sound of it cutting through the room.
White Ghost paused.
He didn’t turn immediately. He stood where he was for a moment, the pause carrying its own kind of weight, and then he turned around slowly and looked directly at the young woman standing with her palm still flat against the table.
"Do you have a death wish, Giana?"
His voice was cold and level, each word placed with the steadiness of someone who had no interest in raising his tone because the tone he was using already carried everything it needed to.
She wasn’t untrained. White Tower had built her from the ground up, instilled the rules, made the expectations clear. She understood the chain of command and what it meant to challenge it inside an active operation.
So why was she doing this.
Her jaw worked.
"3rd Chair, this is just too unnatural. I can’t"
"You versus him."
White Ghost cut across her before the sentence finished, pointing between her and Ethan with a single sharp gesture, his clipboard already moving back under his arm as he turned toward the door.
"Tonight. No excuses."
He said it the way he said most things, without particular ceremony, and then he was gone, his footsteps already moving down the corridor outside before the door had finished closing behind him.
The room stayed where it was.
Giana’s hand remained flat on the table, the silence that had replaced White Ghost’s voice settling into the space around her as the weight of what had just happened finished arriving.
Ethan looked at her from across the room.
His expression hadn’t changed.
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