The Siege of Shadows

The fortress was a storm waiting to break. Shen Mu stood atop the northern wall, his fingers brushing the cold metal of the sentry turret as the system's holographic map flickered in his peripheral vision. Crimson dots pulsed ominously on the horizon—dozens of them, converging like scavengers to carrion. The Crimson Fangs' vanguard had been a test. What came next was annihilation.

They will strike us when dusk falls," Zhao Ling said in a monotone voice, while adjusting the scope of her sniper rifle. "The scouts had been making circles since dawn. They wait for the sun to blind us.

He nodded. His gaze had never drifted away from the horizon. Before his mind stood a brittle new acquisition of schematics for the latest EMP generator from the system. It was a gamble; yet he would make it anyway. "Let them think that they have already won the light, and drown them in the darkness.

Luo Qi limped up the stairs, his face pale but determined. "The refugees are panicking. They're saying we should abandon the fortress and run.

And die out there?" Shen Mu's voice was a blade. "The Fangs have hunters. They'd pick us off before sunrise." He turned, his gaze sweeping over the courtyard below. Survivors hurried between barricades, their faces gaunt but resolute. A group of children helped stack sandbags under the watchful eye of an elderly woman—Granny Wen, a former engineer who'd rigged the fortress's first electric traps. "They stay. We fight.

Two hours passed. The first mortar shell hit.

The eastern wall shuddered, concrete splintering as flames clawed at the sky. Shen Mu crouched behind the central watchtower, the system's alerts screaming in his mind:

[Fortress Integrity: 72%]

[Hostile artillery detected: 800 meters northeast.]

[Recommend countermeasures: EMP deployment.]

"They're softening us up!" Luo Qi yelled over the din, clutching a makeshift bandage on his arm. Blood seeped through the cloth—a graze from shrapnel.

Shen Mu ignored him, gazing into the drone feed projected across his vision. The Fangs' main force had fanned out—a dozen armored trucks, two retrofitted tanks, and a hulking excavator rigged with a battering ram. At the center sat a black-modified jeep idling, its roof hatch open. A figure stood there, silhouetted against the smoke: Zhuo, the Fang's warlord, his scarred face twisted into a grin as he raised a megaphone.

"Fortress Lord!" Zhuo's voice boomed across the wasteland, tinged with mockery. "Send out the survivors, and I'll make your death quick. Fight, and I'll feed your bones to my hounds!"

Shen Mu's jaw tightened. He muted the system's warnings and turned to Zhao Ling. "The generator?"

"Primed and ready," she said, patting the bulky device at her feet—a jury-rigged monstrosity of scavenged tech and system-blueprint precision. "But it's a one-shot deal. Once we trigger it, every electronic in a half-mile radius fries—including our turrets."

"We'll compensate." Shen Mu activated his comms, his voice cutting through the panic on the fortress's internal channel. "All units—fall back to the inner courtyard. Granny Wen, ignite the oil trenches."

The Fangs charged as the sun dipped below the horizon, their headlights cutting through the settling dust. Zhuo's jeep led the pack, the excavator's ram gleaming like a fang.

"Steady…" Shen Mu murmured, crouching beside Zhao Ling behind a collapsed pillar. The EMP generator hummed between them, its wires snaking into a cracked car battery.

The first truck hit the oil trench.

Granny Wen's trap exploded into a wall of flame, immersing the vehicle in just a few heartbeats. Men screamed and rolled in the dirt to stamp out their smoldering clothing. But Fang did not give up-the bulldozer forged ahead, crushing into the burning fortress gates.

[Fortress Integrity: 58%]

"Now!" Shen Mu shouted.

Zhao Ling thumped her palm onto the generator's detonator.

A pulse of blue light shot out, silent and deadly. All the headlamps went dark. The excavator seized up, its engine coughing. Even the Fang's radios fizzed dead.

Darkness engulfed the battlefield.

The chaos was explosive.

Shen Mu charged forward, his night-vision goggles—scrounged from the system's shop—painted the world in ghostly green. The Fangs moved blindly, their night-vision gear fried by the EMP.

"Luo Qi—left flank!" Shen Mu yelled out, shooting his pistol into the thick of it. A Fang soldier flopped onto the ground, clutching his throat.

Zhao Ling's rifle cracked out in drumbeat from the shadows, each shot true. Zhuo's jeep door flung open as the warlord leapt out, machete in one hand, pistol in the other.

"Find him!" Zhuo bellowed, riddling one of his own men with bullets as he rampaged through their ranks. "I want the Fortress Lord's head!"

Shen Mu ducked behind the excavator, his breath ragged. The system's combat protocols flared, highlighting Zhuo's silhouette in red. [Target Acquired.]

But as he moved to strike, the ground trembled.

The entity's voice slithered into his mind, colder than the void.

"You waste time with insects… while the storm gathers."

Shen Mu stopped. The back of the army, the ruins writhed. Oil droplets collected, coalesced into a stature of a man with empty, glowing eyes-what appeared in that warehouse. It raised its claw-covered hand and it seemed that the air screamed.

A soldier near the anomaly, of Fang Force, began to twist and contorted. Dissolved into black mist, then another, and one more.

"What the hell is that?!" Luo Qi shouted while taking a step backward. Darkness goes out in spreading.

[Warning: Unknown energy signature detected.]

The system's alarm blasted, and the being's attention shifted to the castle. Shen Mu's blood solidified. The Devourers were not a potential threat of the future; they were here.

Zhao Ling's bullet pierced Zhuo's shoulder and snapped Shen Mu back to reality. The warlord roared, stumbling backward as his remaining soldiers panicked between the horror of the castle defenders and that of the void behind them.

"Fall back!" Zhuo yelled, backing away toward his jeep. "Regroup at the—"

The entity's claw flicked.

Zhuo's words died as his body unraveled, flesh and bone dissolving into the hungry dark. His men broke, fleeing in all directions—but the shadows were faster.

Shen Mu's retreat was a blur.

He pulled Luo Qi through the fortress gates, Zhao Ling covering their rear with careful shots. Granny Wen sealed the doors behind them, her hands shaking on the rusty lever.

"What… what was that?" Luo Qi panted, staring at the security feed. The entity stood amidst the carnage, its form flickering as it surveyed the fortress.

"A warning," the system said, its voice strained. "The Devourer's vanguard has breached the Veil. Fortress defenses insufficient. Recommend immediate evacuation."

"No." Shen Mu slammed his fist into the console. "We hold. We adapt." He pulled up the EMP blueprint, his mind racing. "Granny Wen—can you modify the generator to target it?"

The old woman studied the schematics, her eyes sharpening. "If we reverse the polarity… maybe. But it'll take time."

"You have until dawn." Shen Mu turned to the survivors, their faces etched with terror. "Listen to me! That thing out there—it's not invincible. It bleeds energy. We hurt it once; we can hurt it again."

A child's voice piped up from the crowd. "What if it comes back?"

Shen Mu knelt, meeting the boy's wide eyes. "Then we'll be ready."

As night fell, Shen Mu stood alone on the wall. The entity lingers at the edge of the ruins, its presence a cold weight against his skull.

"You cannot win," it whispers. "Your world is already lost."

Shen Mu grips the turret controls. The system power hums through his veins. "Maybe. But I will make sure you remember us."

In the wasteland below, the shadows begin to stir.