Chapter 11

Rex exited the tunnel at the newly cleared catacomb, his breathing heavy from the fight inside. The morning air hit his sweat-soaked skin like a cold slap, making him shiver despite his enhanced constitution. Three weeks since his transformation, and he was still getting used to how much punishment his new body could take—and how much energy it burned through.

Stone dust clung to every exposed surface of his body, mixing with the green ichor from destroyed puppets to form a paste that was already hardening in the cool air. He'd fought through seven chambers in this catacomb, each one packed with increasingly aggressive puppets. The final room had held something new, a puppet that could spit acidic bile. His left shoulder still stung where a glob had eaten through his skin.

He turned back to the entrance, a natural cave mouth hidden behind a cluster of dead trees. Time to mark it as cleared. He raised his bone club, feeling the familiar weight of it in his hand. The bone had changed over the weeks of constant use, taking on a darker color, almost black at the striking surfaces. It thrummed with barely contained power even at rest.

The marking pattern came easily now—three horizontal lines crossed by a vertical slash, his simple symbol for "clear". He'd developed it after the third catacomb, realizing he needed a way to track which sites he'd already cleared. But this morning, something made him pause.

Maybe it was confidence from another successful clearing. Maybe it was boredom with the routine. Or maybe it was the memory of the elaborate murals he'd found in this catacomb, paintings of mushroom creatures that suggested they'd been using these tunnels long before the invasion.

He decided to try something more elaborate. A wolf's head, he thought. Strong, fierce, protective. A predator trying to protect its pack. The symbolism felt right.

His demolition dao flowed into the bone weapon, but instead of the usual destructive pulse, he tried to moderate it, to control it with precision. The first stroke carved the outline of the head. So far, so good. The second and third strokes attempted to add features—a snout, ears.

The result was... unfortunate.

The snout was too long and bent at an odd angle, like the wolf had run face-first into a wall. One ear stood straight up while the other drooped sideways. The eyes, which he'd tried to make fierce and penetrating, were definitely crossed. If anything, it looked like a sick dog that had eaten something it shouldn't have.

"Getting artistic, are we?" Riasha materialized beside him, her four arms crossed in amusement. She leaned in to examine his work, her head tilting at various angles. "Is it... supposed to be having a stroke?"

Rex stepped back, tilting his head to match hers, hoping a different perspective might improve the image. It didn't. If anything, from this angle it looked like it was also melting.

"I suppose so. Though I should probably stick to what I'm good at." He raised his weapon to strike out the failed attempt, but Riasha stopped him with one hand.

"Leave it. It's memorable, at least. Anyone who sees that will definitely know something happened here, even if they're not sure what."

Three weeks of constant combat had changed him in ways he was still discovering. Not just physically—though his control over the Berserker's Constitution had improved dramatically. The first week had been a disaster. He'd torn three door handles completely off trying to open them gently. He'd jumped to reach a high shelf and put his head through the ceiling. Once, he'd tried to pat a stray cat and accidentally launched it across the street. It survived but refused to come back.

Now he could control his strength well enough for daily tasks, though he still occasionally misjudged. Yesterday he'd cracked a can of food in half trying to open it, covering himself in cold beans.

The anger dao was different. It no longer felt like a foreign invader in his body but something more integrated. It still surged during combat, still threatened to overwhelm him if he drew too deeply, but he'd learned to ride it rather than fight it. Like surfing a wave of rage instead of being pulled under by it.

Seventeen catacombs cleared in three weeks. Each one a small victory against the invasion. The early ones had been simple—a few chambers, basic puppets, crude creation devices. But they were getting more complex, more defended. This latest one had featured trap rooms where the floor would give way into pits filled with puppets. He'd lost his new shirt to the acid-spitter, the fabric dissolving before he could tear it off.

But in all that time, through all those clearings, he hadn't found a single living human. Not one survivor.

He did a final patrol of the catacomb's perimeter, checking for stragglers. The area was a small valley between two hills, hidden from casual observation. Dead grass crunched under his feet, killed by the earth dao corruption that leaked from the catacomb. He found three puppets wandering aimlessly near a dried creek bed. They didn't even react when he approached—some of them were degrading, their programming breaking down. He destroyed them quickly, almost mercifully.

"Clear," he announced, rejoining Riasha at the catacomb entrance. "That makes seventeen. We're running out in this area."

"The infection started somewhere," Riasha said, gazing toward the city visible in the distance. "The puppets had to come from a source. If these catacombs are just production facilities..."

"Then the main nest is elsewhere." Rex finished. "Probably in the city itself. Higher population density would give them more raw material."

The thought made his anger stir. All those people, turned into mindless servants or worse. He pushed the emotion down, saved it for when he'd need it.

They headed east, following an old hiking trail that wound through the hills toward the city proper. Rex had been avoiding the urban area for practical reasons—the density of enemies would be exponentially higher there, and he wasn't confident in his ability to handle sustained combat against hundreds or thousands of puppets. But if there were survivors anywhere, it would be where resources and shelter were most abundant.

The trail emerged from the hills onto what had once been a scenic overlook, complete with a parking area and informational plaques about the city's history. The plaques were still there, though one had been splattered with something dark that Rex didn't want to identify. The view they described was gone, replaced by devastation.

The city sprawled before them in the morning light, but it was wrong, broken. Even from miles away, the damage was catastrophic. Smoke still rose from multiple points—fires that had been burning for a month, fed by gas leaks or chemical stores. Buildings had collapsed into rubble-filled streets, creating new geography of destruction. The familiar skyline he'd known his whole life was jagged, gap-toothed, fundamentally changed.

"Lord have mercy," Rex breathed. He'd known in his head that the city would be bad, but seeing it was different.

"Your previous gods won't help here," Riasha said, but her tone was gentler than usual. "This is what happens when a world is unprepared for integration. The lucky ones die quickly."

They descended toward the city's outskirts, following a winding road that had once carried tourists and commuters. Abandoned cars littered the asphalt, many with doors hanging open as if their occupants had fled in panic. Rex checked a few, finding nothing but bloodstains and scattered belongings. A child's toy in one backseat made him close the door quickly and move on.

As they reached the outer suburbs—a mix of industrial buildings and lower-income housing—something caught Rex's eye. A glint of reflected sunlight from a large building about half a mile away. As they got closer, details emerged that made Rex increasingly suspicious.

The building was pristine.

Not just intact—pristine. It looked like a courthouse or maybe a library, solid stone construction with classical architecture. Columns flanked the main entrance, and wide steps led up to heavy wooden doors. It was the kind of building designed to last centuries, to weather storms and time with dignity.

But this was beyond simple durability. While everything around it showed clear signs of the apocalypse, burned cars in the parking lot, cracked streets with grass growing through, scattered bodies from the first days that had mummified in the dry air, the building itself stood untouched.

No broken windows, despite the dozens of puppets pressed against them. No structural damage, even though the building next to it had partially collapsed, debris scattered across the adjoining parking lot. The stonework looked freshly cleaned, almost polished. Even the brass fixtures on the doors gleamed.

"That's not right," Rex muttered, ducking behind an overturned bus to observe.

The puppets surrounding the building weren't behaving normally either. Usually, they wandered randomly when not actively hunting, their movements aimless and disconnected. These were different. They pressed against specific points on the building's walls, clawed at particular windows, as if drawn to something inside. They moved with purpose, even desperation.

But whatever barriers protected the building, the puppets couldn't breach them. Rex watched one repeatedly slam its head against a window hard enough that it should have shattered. The glass didn't even vibrate.

Riasha had a concerned look on her face. "We need a better view," she suggested, pointing to an office building across the street.

The office building had seen better days. The lobby windows were shattered, glass crunching under Rex's feet as they entered. Water damage from broken pipes had warped the floors, and the smell of mold was overwhelming. But the stairs were mostly intact, though Rex had to skip the third floor when the landing proved too damaged to support his weight.

From a fourth-floor window, Rex could see the pristine building clearly. It was even stranger up close. Not a single bird dropping marred its walls. No plants grew in its gutters, even though the building next door was being consumed by vines. The windows were so clean they looked like mirrors, reflecting the morning sun in perfect sheets of light.

Rex pushed his spiritual senses outward, trying to penetrate the building's interior. Immediately, he hit resistance—not the passive blocking of dense materials but active opposition, something intentionally preventing observation. It felt like trying to push through tar that pushed back.

He pressed harder, mixing anger with his perception to force through. The resistance fought him, making his head throb with the effort, but gradually he broke through.

Heartbeats. Dozens of them, quick and nervous. Breathing, some steady, some panicked. He saw movement. Pacing, huddling, the restless motion of people under stress. Living humans, clustered in what felt like the building's center. They were weak—mortals, no cultivation at all—but definitely alive.

"There are people in there," Rex breathed, his hands tightening on the windowsill hard enough to crack the wood. "Actual survivors. At least thirty, maybe forty."

"Yes," Riasha said slowly, her tone cautious in a way that made Rex pay attention. "But there's something else. Push deeper. Feel past the humans."

Rex did, extending his senses beyond the cluster of human life. At first, he felt nothing unusual—stone, wood, metal, the normal materials of construction. But then, underneath it all, he found it.

A presence that permeated the building itself. Not a creature inside the building but the building itself, somehow aware. And it was hungry. Not for food but for something more essential. It was feeding on the humans inside, not their bodies but something else, their fear, maybe. Their life force, slowly siphoned away to sustain whatever the building had become.

The sensation made Rex's skin crawl. The humans weren't prisoners, exactly. They were more like... livestock. Kept alive and safe because they were more valuable that way.

As the sun began to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and red, a light flashed from one of the upper windows. Rex almost dismissed it as reflected sunlight, but it flashed again. Three short flashes. Three long. Three short.

"SOS," Rex said, sitting up straighter. "Someone's signaling for help."

The flashing became more frantic, desperate, like whoever was signaling had limited time. The pattern repeated twice more, then suddenly stopped. The window went dark, and a moment later, Rex saw a shadow move across it from inside. Someone had been pulled away from the window.

Rex stood, his decision made. "We're going in."

"It's obviously a trap," Riasha pointed out, her tone matter-of-fact. "Whatever that building has become, it's using those people as bait. It wants you to come."

"With real people as bait. I can't just leave them."

They descended the office building as darkness fell, Rex having to feel his way down some of the darker stairwells. Outside, the temperature had dropped, and the puppets around the pristine building grew more agitated. They threw themselves against the walls with renewed violence, their movements becoming more frantic as night approached. But still, they left no marks on the perfect stonework.

Rex circled the building at a distance, looking for weaknesses or alternative entrances. The service entrance on the east side had fewer puppets—only four compared to the dozens at the main entrance. He destroyed them quickly, his bone weapons crushing their control stones with practiced ease. At his current level, standard puppets were barely an inconvenience.

The service door was metal, painted green, with a simple handle and deadbolt. Rex gripped the handle and pulled, channeling enough strength to tear a normal door completely off its hinges.

His hand slipped off like the handle was coated in oil. He tried again, this time channeling anger dao for enhancement, his muscles swelling with power. Same result—his hand simply couldn't maintain contact with the handle.

"Sealed," Riasha observed, running one of her hands along the door frame. "Not locked in any physical sense, protected by something beyond normal force. These types of things are usually created using dao." She ran her hand over the door, trying to get a sense of it.

Rex placed his palm flat against the door, pushing his senses through the metal. The resistance was stronger here, actively fighting his intrusion. But he could feel the humans more clearly now. They were terrified, their fear so thick he could almost taste it. One signature stood out—stronger than the others, though still mortal.

"I'll go through a window," Rex decided, backing up to get a running start.

"That won't—" Riasha began.

Rex was already moving. He sheathed his body in demolishing dao and used his enhanced legs to launch him at a second-story window with enough force to crack the pavement where he'd jumped. He should have crashed through the glass easily, his mass, dao and velocity more than enough to shatter any normal window.

Instead, he hit an invisible barrier inches from the glass. It felt like slamming into a wall of compressed air. The impact reversed his momentum completely, sending him flying backward to land hard on the pavement. The landing cracked the asphalt but didn't hurt him—his constitution made him incredibly durable.

A voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere, not heard but felt, vibrating through the ground and air:

_"The sanctuary accepts no forced entry. Those who would enter must be invited. Those within must choose to leave. These are the rules."_

"Invited by who?" Rex demanded, getting to his feet and addressing the building directly.

The voice didn't answer, but a third-floor window suddenly lit up from within. A figure appeared—a middle-aged woman in torn business attire, holding what looked like a flashlight. She pressed against the glass, her mouth moving frantically, clearly shouting. But no sound escaped. The barrier that kept things out also kept sound in.

She held up a piece of paper, pressing it against the window. In large, desperate letters:

"HELP US. IT WON'T LET US LEAVE."

Then something yanked her backward into the darkness. The flashlight fell, its beam spinning crazily before going out. The window went dark. The building stood perfect and silent, surrounded by its circle of mindless puppets, keeping its secrets.

Rex's anger flared, red light flickering across his skin like heat lightning. His people were trapped by something that fed on them while pretending to protect them. It was obscene, a violation of everything sanctuary should mean.

"We need information," Riasha said, her practical tone cutting through his rage. "This isn't something we can solve with violence. At least, not yet. It has rules, which means it has limitations. We need to understand both."

"Where would we get information about something like this?"

"The city proper. If this thing has been here since the invasion, other survivors might know about it. People who avoided it or escaped. Or..." she paused, considering. "We could try to communicate with someone inside. That woman was trying to tell you something. Maybe if we can establish contact..."

Rex looked at the building one final time. The woman's desperate face haunted him—the terror in her eyes, the hopelessness. Whatever this sanctuary was, it was no refuge.

"One day," he said to the building, knowing somehow it could hear him. "I'm giving you one day to release them. After that, I'm coming for my people, rules or no rules."

The building stood silent, perfect, and hungry in the darkness. But Rex thought he felt something—a tremor of acknowledgment, maybe. Or amusement.

Rex turned toward the city proper, his weapons ready. Whatever this sanctuary was, whatever game it was playing, he would figure it out. He would find its weakness.

And then he would end it.