Iron Haven – The Rotten Core of the New World

The world reeked of death. Not just in the physical sense—the rotting corpses, the festering wounds, the stench of damp blood pooling in broken streets—but in the way people lived. Or rather, the way they no longer did.

We had left the ruined city behind, and now the world stretched wide and barren, painted in shades of decay and desperation.

Bodies hung from rusted streetlights, stripped of flesh in some places, gnawed on by creatures too grotesque to be natural. Some had been used as warnings—ribcages pried open, organs arranged into symbols only madmen could decipher. Others were just forgotten, their deaths insignificant in the grand suffering of the apocalypse.

Zhao Yue walked beside me, her silence heavier than the overcast sky above. Yusheng scouted ahead, blade in hand, his posture that of a man who had seen too much blood spill to be fazed by more. Mei held onto her medical supplies tightly, her knuckles white—she had barely spoken since we had left the city.

Chen Rui wiped the sweat off his brow. "I don't like this. Feels like we're walking into someone's trap."

He wasn't wrong. But we had no choice. The Divine Crystal's resonance had been growing stronger, its pull like a thread stitched into my very bones. The problem? The stronger it got, the more the monsters seemed to be drawn toward us.

The Hunt Never Ends

Our journey had been anything but quiet. Last night, we barely slept as creatures—some that had once been human, others that had never been—crawled from the darkness, drawn to me. We killed them. We looted their corpses.

It was simple math now—kill, loot, survive.

I wasn't sure when I had stopped feeling disgusted about looting bodies. Maybe it was when we found the half-eaten merchant corpse with pristine bullets in his pockets. Maybe it was when I peeled a combat knife from the fingers of a man who had been too slow to use it.

Survival didn't allow for sentiments.

Zhao had killed three last night. Quick, efficient shots from her fingers—newly awakened power that she had once resisted using. But something had changed. The first time she fired, there was hesitation, but the next? Her accuracy was deadly, her expression unreadable.

"Zhao?" I murmured as we walked.

She glanced at me, her fingers still curled as if remembering the sensation of firing. "What?"

"You okay?"

She exhaled. "No one's okay anymore."

Fair.

Iron Haven – The Last Civilization or Just Another Slaughterhouse?

By midday, the ruined highway led us to something unexpected—a settlement.

Massive iron gates loomed ahead, topped with rusted barbed wire. The walls had once been part of a military base, now repurposed with scrap metal and blood-streaked banners. A line of desperate people gathered outside, waiting for entry, many clutching bags of whatever supplies they had scrounged up.

"Iron Haven," Yusheng muttered. "Didn't think it still stood."

"It shouldn't have," Lin Hua whispered. "Settlements this big attract too much attention. If not from the monsters, then from the worst kinds of people."

The closer we got, the clearer the stench of blood became. The guards at the gates weren't just men with guns. They were executioners. A fresh corpse lay near their feet, its throat slashed open—another rejected soul who had nothing to offer.

The Price of Entry

As we approached, a man in a patched military jacket raised a hand. His face was lined with scars, and his eyes were void of patience.

"State your worth."

No greetings. No pleasantries. Just value assessment.

"We kill," I said flatly. "We trade. We don't die easy."

The guard's gaze swept over us, lingering on Zhao and Mei. His lip curled in amusement. "Strong bodies are useful. But everyone pays a toll."

He gestured to a nearby platform. A cage hung there, filled with people too weak to pay their way in. Some were screaming. Some were silent, their eyes hollow.

Those who failed the price were thrown into the arena.

A fight. A test.

I felt my pulse slow, the familiar cold creeping in.

"I'll fight," I said.

Zhao tensed beside me, but she didn't argue. She knew better.

The guard smirked. "Good. Let's see if you're worth keeping."

Blood on the Sand

The arena was nothing more than a pit of rusted metal and shattered bones. The crowd roared from the stands—filthy, desperate people who had traded their souls for a moment of entertainment.

My opponent? A monster in human skin.

Massive. Scarred. Eyes black with hunger. He had lived off killing others, and today was no different for him.

The announcer's voice barely registered before the fight began. The brute charged at me like a beast, his bloodstained axe swinging downward.

Too slow.

I ducked, slicing my blade across his exposed thigh. Blood sprayed as he stumbled, but pain didn't register in his dead eyes. He swung again—I sidestepped, drove my knee into his ribs, then buried my blade into his throat.

A gurgling sound.

A spurt of blood.

The crowd went wild.

I barely felt anything.

Survival or Damnation?

After the fight, we were granted entry. We owned our place in this rotting hole now.

Inside, Iron Haven was worse than I imagined. The stench of burnt flesh mixed with sweat and metal. Merchants haggled over weapons, children carried crates of ammunition like pack mules, and women with dead eyes walked in chains.

This wasn't a haven. It was a kingdom built on suffering.

We moved as a unit, our hands always near our weapons. Every shadow held a threat. Every deal had a price.

Then, the resonance of the Divine Crystal pulsed in my chest, stronger than ever.

We weren't here by accident.

Something—or someone—had what we were looking for.

And Iron Haven wasn't going to let us leave without a fight.