They reached the next ridge just before midnight, a low spine of cracked earth that gave them a clear view of the world ending and refusing to lie down.
Beyond the Hollow Plains, the quarantine zone rose out of the dark like a blunt promise.
The wall was taller than anything they'd seen since the cities fell, reinforced concrete poured over old military bones, plated with Rift-metal that drank moonlight and exhaled a faint, oily sheen.
Watchtowers punched into the sky at regular intervals, each a caged lighthouse of steel and teeth.
Floodlights raked the kill zone between wall and wasteland, combing the night until shadows had nowhere left to hide except inside monsters.
And monsters obliged.
The first wave hit the light like a tide, F-Rank Razorbacks; low, sloped brutes plated in bone like welded shovels.
They came on in a clattering, grunting mass.
Behind them sprinted Pack-snarlers, gray-furred things with too many elbows and mouths that split to their ears.
