The hum hadn’t stopped.

  Kenji was still in the control room, staring at the shifting glyphs on the Shack’s main interface when the first distant roar rolled in—low, animal, and far too close.

  He didn’t flinch. Just sighed through his nose.

  It wasn’t wind.

  Kenji sat up in bed before the alert even pinged. His head throbbed with the sound—a chorus of roars, howls, and shrieks echoing across the ice like a storm of lungs and fury.

  [Alert: Hostile signatures detected]

  [Threat Level: Escalating]

  [Estimated Force: 100+]

  He threw on a shirt, stepped into his boots, and limped toward the command terminal, already muttering.

  “Three days, huh? Of course it’s three days.”

  By the time he reached the core room, the Shack was alive. Drones deployed. Turrets rotated. Power shunted from heating to shielding. The Crimson Core pulsed a deep, angry red.

  Outside, beyond the thermobarrier, shapes began to form in the snow.

  Lira appeared beside him, eyes wide. “Those things aren't moving like animals.”

  She was right. The first wave wasn’t raiders or unfamiliar monsters—it was the local beasts. Familiar shapes, corrupted by something in the air or the Core’s pulse. Driven mad with rage. Berserk. Mindless. Feral. Dozens of twisted shapes, some walking, some crawling, some slithering, all headed straight for the Shack.

  “Target range?” Kenji asked.

  [Outer range breach in 60 seconds]

  “Wake the whole damn crew.”

  Astarions moved out in silence. Each team headed to their assigned compass point—north, south, east, west. Drones filled the sky. Turrets snapped into position. Mirelle’s voice echoed over the intercom, sharp and clear.

  “All personnel, brace for contact. This is not a drill. First wave incoming.”

  Kenji cracked his neck.

  “Let’s see what you freaks brought to the table.”

  And the ice exploded.

  Down in the holding quarters, chaos was building.

  The prisoners—young, attractive women taken from the noble forces, most with noble or highborn features but no real combat or field experience—had huddled behind the reinforced viewing slit in the corridor wall. When the howls began, one screamed. Another pressed her hands over her ears and slid down the wall.

  “They’re coming here?” one asked, voice high and shaking.

  “Why wouldn’t they?” another snapped. “We’re not in a castle anymore—we’re above ground!”

  Behind them, Serika Malloran sat perfectly still on the bunk provided to her. Her noble features were pale, but composed. She didn’t speak. Didn’t need to.

  They were all thinking the same thing.

  Whatever they were now—slaves, servants, or spoils—none of them had expected to die like this.

  Outside the small viewport, the snow flashed red with turret fire.

  And something shrieked just close enough to shake the walls.

  The hum hadn’t stopped. The ground beneath the Shack seemed to vibrate with pressure. Kenji watched the incoming wave through a dozen drone feeds, half-dressed and half-asleep, coffee cup in hand.

  The first detonation hit the snowfield like a dropped bomb. Beasts slammed into the outer defenses with the full stupidity of berserk rage—twisted wolves, scaled brutes, and a two-headed moose-looking thing that sounded like someone strangling a trumpet.

  Turrets hissed to life. Plasma bursts lit the blizzard.

  Flanksteak stood unblinking on the front line. Behind him, two combat drones rotated fire arcs with mechanical precision. He didn’t move until a burrower launched from beneath the snow—he caught it mid-air and slammed it to the ground hard enough to crater the ice.

  Razor swept through the flanks, vibroblades flashing in clean arcs.

  Above them on a platform, Elyra directed a volley of turret-linked fire using her spotter scope and auto-linked wrist module. Each marked target exploded with a pop of plasma, carving gaps into the rushing tide.

  “Status?” Kenji asked over comms.

  “North wall holding,” Flanksteak replied, flat.

  “Good,” Kenji muttered, sipping. “Let ’em pile up. More biomass that way.”

  He tapped into the Shack’s systems.

  [Biomass Recycling Queue: Active][New Entry: Surface Material – ‘Beast Steak Surprise’]

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  He snorted. “This crap better sell like coffee. If I’m gonna be buried in monster meat, might as well make it profitable.”

  On the Shack’s southern approach, things weren’t quite as clean.

  Before the full wave hit, the remaining Astarions deployed across their zones. Each had a role—brutal, efficient, and unmistakably tailored.

  Barrage, quiet and massive, manned the west with autocannons calibrated to precision.

  Stitch moved between fronts, patching armor and limbs alike with eerie calm.

  Chisel stood over the Shack’s capacitor lines like a sentinel carved from stone.

  Havoc prowled the east like a ghost with a flamethrower, setting snow and sinew alike ablaze.

  Reaper flanked the north, a blur of motion.

  And Buttercup—eight feet of clawed silence—followed behind like a nightmare with a flower name. Mute, brutal, and dismissive of anything not ripped to shreds, he didn’t like guns. He didn’t need them.

  Then the southern front broke open.

  Brisket and Dante led the defense—Brisket hurling grenades with a chuckle, Dante laying down fire like a turret on legs.

  A beast tackled a drone mid-air. Another slammed into the turret wall, denting steel.

  Brisket stepped forward, launched a concussive round, cleared five. Dante followed, cutting the next pack down to bones and snow.

  [South Wall Integrity: 94%]

  [Damage: Superficial]

  “Could be worse,” Dante muttered.

  One beast made the mistake of jumping the line. Brisket split it mid-leap.

  “Correction,” Dante added. “Getting better.”

  Kenji switched feeds. “What are they doing down there—playing whack-a-beast?”

  Brisket’s voice crackled back: “It’s therapeutic.”

  The west wall was quiet—for the first six seconds.

  Then came the thudding.

  Massive footsteps, distorted silhouettes, and what looked like a mutated caribou with steel plating fused into its spine. The kind of thing that didn’t charge so much as plod forward, like it knew it had all the time in the world.

  Barrage stood at the center line, unmoving. Kenji remembered he'd requested a cigar from the fabricator before deployment—he never smoked it, just kept it clenched between his teeth like some ancient war film hero. His twin autocannons spun up with a mechanical whir that could be felt through the Shack’s floors. He didn’t speak. Just deployed.

  The first wave hit like a wall of meat.

  And was immediately reduced to shredded snow and limbs.

  Drones supported from above, but most simply hovered on standby. Barrage didn’t miss.

  [West Defense Status: Optimal][Ammunition Sync: 92%]

  Kenji leaned in, watching the overhead feed. “Barrage is doing that thing again where he makes everyone else look lazy.”

  On-screen, the big Astarion calmly walked through smoke and ruined beast parts, his armor flecked with steam and gore. He didn’t pause. Didn’t flinch. When a crawler leapt from the ridge, Barrage simply caught it midair and pinned it with one arm while unloading a point-blank burst into its chest.

  Lira, watching over Kenji’s shoulder, let out a low whistle. “That’s… excessive.”

  Kenji shrugged. “Overkill works.”

  The west wall held.

  For now.

  Inside the Shack, the control room was too warm, too quiet, and smelled faintly of synthetic curry.

  Kenji sat at the head of his command table, one leg kicked up, plate in front of him—a heated ration labeled Spicy Beast Gumbo – Rev. 2.4. He chewed slowly, watching the battle feeds flicker across the wall screen like it was a weekend movie marathon—something he used to do on his days off, back before gods, snowstorms, and supersoldiers.

  Outside, chaos.

  Inside, lunch.

  Sola and Luna stood behind him in their custom maid uniforms—sleek, tight, and unnecessarily flattering, cut just short enough to distract but armored just enough to function. Their long white legs gleamed beneath thigh straps, and the faint hum of reactive fiber ran up their spines.

  They were beautiful, elegant in that deadly, elven way that made traders nervous and made Kenji occasionally forget what he was eating.

  Quiet and unmoving, they watched the feeds as if waiting for his next breath to become an order. Alert-linked comm bands glowed faintly on their wrists, synced perfectly to the Shack’s internal grid.

  Kenji didn’t speak to them. They didn’t ask.

  Mirelle stepped in from the hallway, tablet in hand. “Minor breach near the capacitor line. Stitch handled it. One drone melted.”

  Kenji pointed at the gumbo. “Put ‘slightly less acid’ on the next batch. Pretty sure my tongue just died.”

  He didn’t sound concerned. Outside was fire and blood, but inside, it was just another Tuesday. Saeko and Elyra had already joined the battle—Kenji caught glimpses of them through side drone feeds. Saeko hurling salvage bombs with enthusiasm, Elyra marking targets for turret calibration while grinning like a fox who found the wine stash.

  Lira lounged on the corner platform, arms folded, eyes lazily tracking the battle cams. She showed no interest in joining, though her glare kept drifting toward the twins like they’d stolen her favorite seat.

  Mirelle, ever the professional, stood near the wall like a secretary from hell. Slightly worried, maybe. But composed.

  Sola and Luna, however, looked awestruck. Though educated on the world’s dangers, this was their first time witnessing a beast wave in person—uncut, unsimulated. Their posture didn’t change, but their wide-eyed stares said everything.

  Kenji didn’t say a word. Just smirked and kept chewing.

  Mirelle didn’t blink. “Also, system logs are acting weird. We’re getting repeated sequence strings. Same glyphs over and over again.”

  Kenji raised an eyebrow. “Looping?”

  She nodded. “Like a heartbeat. Every thirty seconds.”

  He looked at the red pulsing glow of the Crimson Core embedded in the wall.

  “I swear,” Kenji muttered. “You level up once and suddenly the Shack thinks it's the main character.”

  The Shack’s walls steamed under the strain, crusted with frozen blood and cracked plating. Night had fallen—but the beasts hadn’t stopped. The attacks pulsed in waves. Shorter. Angrier.

  Kenji hadn’t moved much, but he looked far too relaxed for someone being sieged. He leaned back in his chair, chewing a protein bar like he had nowhere to be.

  "Pull Saeko and Elyra back," he told Mirelle. "Let them rest. You take over monitoring for the night."

  Mirelle blinked. “Alone?”

  “You’ll manage,” Kenji said, stretching. “The Astarions have this. If something breaks in, yell real loud.”

  He didn’t wait for a response—just waved her off and wandered toward his private quarters, yawning.

  Sola and Luna had already gone ahead, silent and efficient. By the time he entered, the lights had been dimmed to a warm low, his bed turned down with absurd precision. The twins stood on either side of the bed in their nightgowns—matching soft silk with high slits, custom-made by the Shack’s fabricator. They looked more like obedient wives from a decadent age than combat-capable assistants.

  Neither spoke. They bowed slightly as he entered.

  Kenji just grunted in approval, stripped off his shirt, and collapsed into bed.

  He was asleep within minutes.

  Outside, Havoc ignited another wave of beasts in fire. Buttercup stalked the southern ridge like a ghost. Barrage repositioned silently, twin cannons locked into place. Stitch dragged three drones to safety, patched a crack in his chest armor, and kept moving.

  None of them needed orders.

  None of them stopped moving.

  Above the Shack, the stars glinted cold and uncaring.

  Day One never really ended. But Day Two had already begun.

  End of chapter