"We can’t go on like this."

Darius threw himself onto the ground within the protection of the shield. The fifth wave had finally ended, leaving everyone exhausted. Even Silas looked terrible.

After the second wave, Silas had retreated into Rune Heart and spent most of his time meditating, trying to suppress Shadowheart’s growing revolt. The third and fourth waves had passed without anyone disturbing him. Aside from a handful of troublesome squirrels, the monsters posed little threat, and under Cher’s leadership, the team managed to deal with them efficiently.

The fifth wave had been different; the bears returned.

This time, three of them reached the outpost itself, turning the battle into a desperate struggle. Fortunately, the team already knew the creatures’ weaknesses and had enough experience to bring them down before disaster struck. Even so, the victory came at a steep price. And they had to interrupt Silas’ meditation to come and fight.

Eventually, everyone was exhausted. And Silas suffered the most.

Shadowheart was revolting once again, and this time, he could feel that his control was reaching its limit. Meditation would buy him little time now. The creature was no longer content to remain imprisoned.

Hearing Darius complain gave him the opening he needed. Ignoring the pain coursing through his body, Silas slowly rose to his feet.

"We can’t keep sitting here," he said. "I’ll scout the surrounding area. There must be something we can use to deal with the monsters more efficiently. Otherwise... we’re doomed."

The suggestion immediately drew objections from his stunned teammates. Cher warned him that venturing into the area around wasn’t a good decision. She even hesitated for a moment and asked to come with him, but Silas refused. He reasoned that someone had to remain behind and lead the others if the next wave arrived before his return.

Darius tried to stop him as well, looking overly worried. Silas patted his friend’s shoulder, merely pointing out the obvious. If they failed to find a solution soon, losing the outpost would only be a matter of time.

Lara offered to send several of her babies with him. Her collection of tamed monsters had already grown to more than thirty creatures. Yet again, Silas shook his head.

"Keep your babies here. If the pattern continues, the next two waves should only contain squirrels. I’ll be back before the bears return."

Lara warned him that stray monsters could still be wandering the area despite the large waves. Hearing that, Alfred immediately offered to come and defend him. But Silas rejected that suggestion, too.

He rejected all of their attempts to stop him or come to help, yet he felt quite the warmth inside thanks to their genuine worry for his well-being.

’I hope I find a monster wave path.’

’Something strong enough to feed that bastard.’

With that thought, he left the outpost while his friends watched him depart with worried expressions.

Silas looked far worse than he allowed them to see. The moment he walked away, Shadowheart raged wilder inside his chest, flooding his mind with hatred and hunger. It felt like a starving beast cursing him for denying it its meal. More than once, he had to slap himself to restore his fading focus.

’Not yet.’

’I need a suitable target first.’

’I need to get farther away.’ 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

He repeated those words like a mantra, reinforcing his weakening resolve. It felt as though he was carrying a bomb that had already reached zero.

Knowing that roughly half an hour separated each wave, Silas deliberately avoided travelling in a straight line from the outpost. If he released Shadowheart too close, the sounds of battle might reach his friends.

He did not want them to witness what was about to happen. Nor did he want to risk their lives against the brutal beast living inside him.

So he followed a winding path while the world around him alternated between moments of clarity and haze. Eventually, after wandering for what felt like an eternity, he found himself standing before a massive valley.

The enormous scar stretched far into the distance, as though a colossal sword had cleaved the earth in two. The valley was broad enough to swallow an entire forest. Yet something about it felt wrong.

Throughout his journey, Silas had encountered scattered monster corpses from time to time. They confirmed Lara’s suspicion that wandering monsters existed outside the large waves.

This valley, however, was completely empty. Despite its size and its position along the route leading toward the crystal mine, not a single corpse could be found within it.

Even after walking deeper inside, he found nothing. The deeper he went, the stronger the unease in his chest became. Soon, it rivalled even Shadowheart’s revolt.

Unfortunately, Silas was in no state to investigate the source of that troubling feeling.

’Leaving is the smart choice.’

’This place feels wrong.’

’It’s better to find somewhere else.’

Abandoning the search, he hurried back toward the entrance and looked around. Then he saw it. Far away stood a hill surrounded by countless dark, tiny dots scattered across the landscape. He didn’t need to go there to know these were monster corpses.

Realising this drove a grin across his face. Without hesitation, Silas sprinted toward it.

In his current state, he paid little attention to the details. Had his mind been clearer, he would have noticed that those corpses were far larger than ordinary monsters. He would have realised that there were not hundreds, but thousands of bodies littering the area.

Among them lay human corpses as well. Enhancers were killed here.

When he finally reached the hilltop, his entire body was trembling. Sweat soaked his clothes, and his skin felt as though it were burning. Yet he smiled in triumph.

"I’ll set the ambush here."

Looking around, he nodded in satisfaction.

"I’ll let you loose here, bastard. Just don’t get me killed."

Silas had not come empty-handed or without a plan. Inside his smaller backpack were mana crystals taken from the supplies issued by the academy. It would make defending the outpost harder later, but he no longer cared.

All that mattered was putting Shadowheart back to sleep. Then he would handle the problem of lacking enough crystals later, one problem at a time.

He scattered hundreds of crystals across the hilltop before sitting among them.

"Now come, you bastards."

Using every ounce of willpower he possessed, Silas continued restraining Shadowheart. Fortunately, fate finally decided to show him mercy. Only a few minutes later, a monster wave appeared in the distance.

Several hundred monsters advanced across the plains. And among them were ten bears. Seeing them, Silas nearly laughed. When the horde altered its course and headed directly toward the hill, he actually did.

"See the delicious meal Papa prepared for you, bastard? Eat your fill and sleep for a few months, then."

As soon as the monsters drew close enough, Silas finally released his hold. Every restraint shattered, Shadowheart broke free, and it felt extremely good, as a rock was lifted off his chest.

Silas lost control of his body instantly. Just like before, he found himself floating above his own body, watching events unfold from an outside perspective. Unlike last time, however, he felt no panic.

Instead, he smiled with satisfaction. The trap he prepared was perfectly working, and the monsters he lured were only a few hundred meters away.

"Kekeke..."

Shadowheart’s laughter echoed across the hill in a sound that felt savage and utterly inhuman. Watching its excitement only widened Silas’s smile.

Then Shadowheart suddenly turned its head, as though it could see him. A vicious grin spread across its face, one that froze the smile over Silas’ face and made him frown. The next moment, his heart sank as he watched Shadowheart spin around.

Instead of charging the approaching horde, it grabbed the backpack, collected the crystals, leapt down the opposite side of the hill, and sprinted away, abandoning both the monsters and the carefully prepared trap.

It ran in only one direction: towards the valley.