A cold wind blew through the silent buildings of the southern part of the city.
After entering the city, they decided to spend today exploring and gathering information from the southern sector, one of the five sectors of the city.
Also, the sector that was known as the safest and had the lowest risk level.
The sound of the group’s footsteps echoed through the empty street and disappeared again among the tall walls. About two hours had passed since they had passed through the base gate.
But something was wrong. Many things were wrong.
The southern part of the city was different from all the areas they had seen before.
The streets were almost intact. Cars were still parked along the sidewalks. Some traffic lights were still blinking intermittently.
The shops were closed, and the display windows were intact. Even in some restaurants, plates were still on the tables.
As if people had suddenly disappeared in the middle of a normal day.
Selina looked around. Her gaze moved from the windows to the empty street, then to the tall buildings.
"This place is too normal..." She finally said quietly.
"After what we saw... normal itself is scary." Marcus, who was carrying his shield on his shoulder, answered without taking his gaze off the street.
No one disagreed, because everyone felt the same way. For those four who had experienced being surrounded by monsters, everything in this city seemed scary and dangerous.
Even this silence and normality triggered a sense of danger in them.
An hour passed. No monsters were seen.
Two hours passed. Still nothing.
No howls, no footsteps, no sound of claws scraping on asphalt... Nothing.
Not even a bird could be seen in the sky.
Absolute silence. A silence that was slowly becoming irritating.
Cassian was frowning. A frown that deepened moment by moment.
"This doesn’t make sense."
"What?" Liana looked at him.
"The monsters. That city has thousands of monsters. We saw them with our own eyes. So where are they all?"
No one had an answer. Even Lian, he had scanned the area several times with Blood Hunt, but the result was zero.
No sign, no living presence. As if the entire area was dead.
So where had the monsters disappeared to? Could they be afraid of them?
A few minutes later, they entered a large park.
Dry trees, a silent fountain, an abandoned playground. But something caught Marcus’s attention.
He suddenly stopped.
"Wait."
Everyone stopped. Marcus knelt down and pointed at the ground.
Footprints.
Hundreds of footprints.
No...
Thousands of footprints.
Cassian immediately crouched down. A few seconds later, his face changed.
"Damn it..."
The entire surface of the park was covered in footprints. Bloodfang footprints, Gravehide footprints, footprints of creatures they did not even recognize.
But the strangest part was something else. All the footprints were in only one direction. Toward the city center.
All without exception. And no footprints could be seen in the opposite direction. No footprints that led out of the city center.
"So..." Selina said quietly.
"The footprints don’t look new, but they are not that old either. They all went. All of them went toward the city center." Lian continued.
A question came to everyone’s minds. Why had all the monsters left here? Why had they completely emptied this area? And what had made this area a safe zone?
A little later, they reached a massive residential complex. Dozens of tall towers, hundreds of apartments. But again, there was no sign of life.
At first, nothing until Liana noticed the writing.
"Look at this."
Everyone came closer. On the entrance wall of the tower, a sentence had been written in red that appeared to be blood.
Seeing it made Claire and Marcus’s hair stand on end. Writings written in blood!
"Don’t answer its call." Lian read the writing quietly.
A few meters ahead, on another metal door, another writing.
"Don’t look out the window."
And a little further, on the wall of a hallway.
"If it calls your name, run." No explanation existed.
Only warnings. Desperate warnings. Warnings probably written by the city’s survivors.
"What the hell is this...?" Even Liana felt uncomfortable.
No one answered. No one knew what these warnings were for, what monster they were about, and why such warnings even needed to be given.
At that moment, Liana suddenly froze.
"Wait."
Everyone looked at her. She was staring into the distance.
"Did you hear that?"
"What?" Cassian immediately asked.
"A sound..."
Silence.
Then again. Very far away, very faint, like the voice of a little girl.
"Help..."
Liana lost color. Selina also suddenly raised her head. She had heard it too.
"I heard it too."
"No one separates." Cassian immediately drew his sword.
"It’s impossible for it to be a child’s voice." His voice was firm.
He looked around.
"No child should have survived here. If there is something, it’s a trap." They were not stupid enough to fall for such a cheap trick.
A few minutes passed. Everyone moved in silence, until Marcus suddenly stopped.
"Damn it."
Everyone turned around.
Marcus was frowning.
"Now I heard it too."
"What?"
"The same sound."
But this time... he pointed to the street on the right.
"It came from that side."
Everyone fell silent, because a few minutes ago, the sound had come from the left. This meant the source of the sound was moving. Like a hunter leading its prey.
"So it really isn’t a child." Selina said quietly.
Cassian nodded.
"No."
Lian thought in silence. There was a more important question. If this creature really wanted to hunt them... why did it not enter the southern part of the city itself?
Why was it only calling them from outside? Why did it want to lure them out of this area? Was there something in the southern part of the city?
Or perhaps... the monsters could not enter this area at all?
This thought made even Lian frown, because it did not make sense at all. Commander Gareth had also said that the southern sector was the safest.
But the question is, why is this sector the safest? What is the reason behind it?
Slowly, evening came, and they explored as much as they could of the different parts of the southern sector.
They visited residential buildings, shops, stores, and any place that was still intact and searchable. They checked those places to see if they could find any survivors or anything about the monsters.
Lian found something. A security camera on the wall of a shop. And contrary to expectations, it was still working.
Its emergency battery was active. The group connected the device to a portable monitor.
The footage began to play. The day the city fell. People in the street.
Cars and traffic. Everything was normal. Then chaos. Screams. Escape. And they could see multiple monsters in the image.
"So even in the southern sector of the city, monsters had come at this time." Lian whispered.
"So what happened that the monsters no longer come near this area?" Cassian frowned.
"Let’s watch further. Maybe we’ll find the answer." Marcus said, and they fell silent.
And then... the footage showed a few seconds of noise.
Everyone stared at the screen. In the last frame, for less than a second, something appeared.
A tall creature. Very thin, slender, with unnatural hands and red, bloodshot eyes.
Everyone held their breath.
"Red-Eyed Stalker..." Cassian whispered.
They knew this monster well. The monster that had killed Andreas. A level 16 monster! And a monster that had been easily killed by Lian.
But the scary part was not that. Around the creature, no other monsters could be seen. No Bloodfang Hounds, no Gravehide Brutes, no other creatures.
And in fact, in the whole image, if they looked closely, no monsters could be seen around.
Only humans... Dozens of humans, all moving calmly behind that creature.
Without resistance, without fear, without will. Like sleepwalkers, like puppets controlled by invisible strings, they moved behind that creature.
The footage cut off and then went to the following days. After that day and that scene, no monsters came to this area again... As if after the Red-Eyed Stalker had come here, the monsters no longer dared to set foot in this place.
And the camera footage ended.
No one spoke. A few seconds passed until Marcus slowly said.
"So the monsters didn’t come here after the Stalker."
"But why?" Selina looked at the blank screen.
"Where did it take those people...?" Liana whispered.
No one knew the answer. Everyone fell into silence, until Lian finally spoke.
He was still staring at the last image.
"Maybe..."
Everyone looked at him and waited to see what he would say.
"Maybe the Red-Eyed Stalkers aren’t the commanders of the monsters." He then said quietly.
"What do you mean?" Cassian frowned.
Lian pointed to the image of the creature.
"If they were commanders, there should have been monsters all around them. But there were no monsters there. Rather, it seemed like the monsters kept their distance from it."
"Maybe..." His eyes narrowed.
"Maybe the monsters don’t obey them. Maybe they’re afraid of them..."