They walked in silence at first.

  The road stretched ahead like a scar cut through the land—cracked asphalt, rusted barriers, burned-out vehicles half-swallowed by weeds and ash.

  The further they moved from the farm, the heavier the air felt, thick with a faint metallic tang that clung to the back of the throat.

  Veyor slowed his steps and fell into pace beside Luken.

  “Lieutenant,” he said quietly, careful not to draw the attention of the others. “There’s something that’s been bothering me.”

  Luken glanced at him, eyes tired but alert. “Speak.”

  “The cleaning teams,” Veyor continued. “The ones following behind us. Won’t they… kill or enslave the dog and Vivaan?”

  Luken stopped walking.

  For a moment, Veyor thought he’d said something wrong. Then the lieutenant exhaled slowly.

  “You don’t need to worry about that,” Luken said. “I’ve met the president personally. He’s… different from most leaders. He doesn’t believe in discrimination against new species.”

  Veyor nodded, but the tension in his chest didn’t ease.

  “Still,” he said after a pause, “don’t you think the president seems… prepared for all this?”

  Luken didn’t answer immediately.

  That alone unsettled Veyor more than any reassurance could have.

  They resumed walking.

  The terrain began to change as they merged onto the main industrial road.

  The remains of transport trucks lined the sides—some crushed inward, others torn open as if something had climbed inside and never come back out.

  The silence here was different. Heavier. Expectant.

  That was when the Lostbonds appeared.

  “Ah! Here we go boys, be ready!” Luken said.

  At first, only one.

  It staggered out from behind a collapsed signpost, its movements jerky and uneven, skin stretched tight over warped muscle. A gunshot rang out, clean and precise, and the creature dropped before it could react.

  No one relaxed.

  Then more followed.

  They came in clusters now—three, five, then ten at a time—spilling onto the road from side paths and broken service routes. Their forms varied wildly: some bloated and slow, others unnervingly thin, joints bending the wrong way as they moved.

  They were drawn to the road.

  The distance to their next checkpoint was supposed to be three hours on foot. A straight push. Reach it by morning, regroup, then observe the industrial zone from safety.

  Instead, the road fought back.

  By the fifth hour, exhaustion had set in.

  Luken no longer took the front. He stayed near the center of the formation now, issuing commands with sharp gestures and clipped orders. His breathing was steady, but Veyor could see the strain in his posture—residual pain from the farm still lingering.

  But he still fought. He still protected them.

  The team’s confidence came from his presence alone. If someone was about to get hurt, Luken would shove them back without a word and step forward himself, taking the impact before anyone else had to.

  He was a guardian to them.

  The team composition became clear in motion.

  The four gunslingers formed rotating firing lines, conserving ammunition, aiming only when clean shots presented themselves. The six warriors held the flanks, blades and blunt weapons keeping the Lostbonds from overwhelming the shooters. The two healers moved constantly, patching wounds mid-fight, their abilities strained by repeated use.

  And Veyor—

  Veyor filled the gaps.

  He wasn’t the strongest. He wasn’t the fastest. But he was observant.

  When a Lostbond lurched toward a wounded warrior, Veyor put it down before it could finish the charge. When a gunslinger reloaded too slowly, Veyor dragged him back and took his place for those crucial seconds. He fired carefully, deliberately, conserving his limited ammunition.

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  The Lostbonds kept coming.

  Hour after hour.

  By the tenth hour, the road was stained dark with blood—some human, some not. Bodies lay piled along the edges, twisted into unnatural shapes. The smell was unbearable now, thick and rotting beneath the metallic haze.

  “Why are there so many here?” Bran muttered between breaths.

  “This was a high population area.” Luken replies

  “Shouldn’t we look for survivors?” says a healer

  “Good luck finding something alive around here.” a soldier replies

  Their movements slowed, but their resilience increased. Shots that would have dropped earlier creatures now barely staggered them. Warriors had to work in pairs, coordinating strikes to bring them down.

  At one point, a Lostbond broke through the line and slammed into Veyor, sending him crashing into the road. Pain flared through his shoulder as his rifle skidded away. The creature loomed over him, mouth splitting open wider than it should have been.

  A blade took its head off an instant before it could strike.

  Veyor rolled to his feet, chest heaving, grabbed his weapon, and rejoined the line without a word.

  Fifteen hours.

  That’s how long it took.

  By the time the checkpoint finally came into view—a cluster of collapsed buildings and elevated ground overlooking the industrial land—everyone was barely standing.

  The checkpoint sat on elevated ground, half-hidden among the remains of old infrastructure. What had once been a maintenance hub now stood as a broken spine of concrete pillars and collapsed observation decks. From here, the land ahead opened up.

  And everyone stopped.

  No one needed to be told to slow down.

  Beyond the checkpoint, the industrial land stretched outward like a scar carved into the earth. The factories were massive—too massive—rows of steel giants packed tightly together, chimneys clawing at the sky. Above them, the clouds hung unnaturally low, thick and dark, layered like soot-soaked wool.

  The sun was still high.

  Yet the industrial land was dark.

  Not shadowed—smothered.

  Smoke poured endlessly from furnace stacks and pressure vents, rolling upward and spreading outward until it swallowed the sky itself. The clouds didn’t drift. They accumulated, folding over one another as if the air had nowhere else to go.

  Veyor felt it immediately.

  A pressure in his chest.

  A weight behind his eyes.

  The subtle sense that something down there was still very much alive.

  “Those factories…” one of the gunslingers whispered. “They’re running.”

  That was the most unsettling part.

  There were no lights in the streets below. No movement of people. No visible transport. Yet the machines never paused. Pistons hammered rhythmically. Conveyor systems rumbled. Distant furnaces glowed faintly through gaps in the smoke like dying stars.

  All without human operators.

  Everyone stood still, absorbing it.

  Then someone noticed the second thing.

  The land closest to the factories was… empty.

  No Lostbonds wandered the streets.

  No wild beasts lurked in the alleys.

  No corpses littered the roads.

  The ground was clean.

  Too clean.

  “This area should be crawling,” one of the warriors muttered. “There’s nothing.”

  “Maybe General Noris and his team already cleared this place,” a soldier said, forcing optimism into his voice.

  Veyor glanced at Luken.

  The lieutenant’s expression hardened.

  “That’s not possible,” Luken replied. “Noris was assigned to the highways leading into the industrial lands. Five major cities connect here. His task was to clear the routes, not rush forward.”

  He studied the dark skyline.

  “It would take them at least half a month more to reach this point.”

  Silence followed.

  “And even if they had,” Luken added, voice low, “this isn’t what ‘clean’ looks like.”

  No one argued.

  The absence felt deliberate.

  “What are they even burning? What does even cause so much smoke.” Bran asks

  “They are burning Lostbonds, we have tried burning them down, it is not good for atmosphere.”

  “Then how do you even decompose them” another soldier adds

  “Definitely not by burning them” Luken says

  The healers exchanged uneasy glances as their instruments suddenly spiked.

  “The air’s toxic, sir,” one of them said. “We’ll need masks to proceed.”

  The distance between factories and checkpoint was nearly a kilometer.

  A low mechanical hum rolled across the land, carried by the wind. It wasn’t loud, but it was constant—an endless pulse, steady and unbroken. The sound crawled beneath the skin, syncing with heartbeats before anyone realized it was happening.

  Bran shifted uneasily. “Who’s even operating these? Lostbonds?”

  He slouched forward and groaned, “Huahhh…” mimicking a zombie.

  A few soldiers laughed.

  “Wouldn’t it be wild if Lostbonds started driving cars?” Bran added.

  “You can barely outrun them now,” another soldier shot back. “What’ll you do when they show up with vehicles?”

  One of the healers laughed a little too hard.

  Bran turned toward him. “What’re you laughing at? I bet they can drive atleast.”

  “Enough.” Luken says

  “We set camp here,” Luken ordered. “We observe. No advancing until we understand what we’re dealing with.”

  The team moved quickly, exhaustion overridden by tension. Temporary barriers were set. Firing positions established. Scouts rotated shifts despite their fatigue.

  As dusk approached, the contrast grew worse.

  The sun dipped lower, casting golden light across the world behind them—fields, ruins, open sky. Ahead, the industrial land remained unchanged. No sunset. No warmth. Just darkness and smoke.

  The factories didn’t care about day or night.

  It worked regardless.

  Veyor sat near the edge of the checkpoint, watching the skyline. The rhythmic pounding from the factories began to feel less like noise and more like a heartbeat. Slow. Heavy. Mechanical.

  “Lieutenant,” he said after a while.

  “I think we should send a team to that watchtower near the entrance,” Veyor said, eyes fixed on the silhouette rising from the haze.

  Luken turned toward him. “What makes you think that?”

  “The rhythm,” Veyor replied. “It’s not just machinery. There’s something else mixed in—something heavier. Footsteps.”

  A soldier says, “That doesn’t make sense. Lostbonds don’t move in any patterns or rhythm .”

  Veyor exhaled slowly. “Nothing about this place makes sense. And nothing that’s happened to us so far has either.”

  Luken studied the dark skyline for a moment, then nodded.

  He gestured to two nearby warriors. “You’re with him.”

  The watchtower stood quiet and abandoned—no signs of recent activity. There was no need to send more.

  Luken’s voice hardened. “Your task is observation only. No engagement. If anything moves toward you, you retreat immediately.”

  He met Veyor’s eyes. “Am I clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Veyor replied.

  Kael and Riven were assigned to accompany Veyor.

  Kael, the spear-wielder, was the second strongest in the team after Luken—calm, precise, and unwavering.

  Riven carried a sword, quick and sharp-tempered, excelling in close combat where chaos ruled.

  Riven scoffed. “Why did you have to drag me along?”

  Veyor didn’t look back. “I didn’t ask the lieutenant to send a hothead with me either.”

  As they moved closer, the rhythm grew denser—louder, heavier, almost layered.

  And when they reached the tower and looked out…

  What they saw made their instincts scream to run.