It was a bird. A sparrow—or what used to be one before the apocalypse had transformed it.
Now it stood nearly seven feet tall, its body the size of a small car. Wings spanning twice that length were folded against its sides. Its feathers shimmered a dazzling blue, each one glowing faintly like neon steel, creating an almost beautiful display.
But the creature was bleeding heavily—dark blue blood that looked wrong, alien, spreading across the rooftop like ink dropped in water.
"Guess I found the guard," Elric muttered, his hand moving instinctively toward his blade.
He stepped out slowly from cover, eyes locked on the dying creature. Its breaths came in short bursts, sharp and wet, accompanied by a rattling sound that spoke of internal damage.
Yet, even half-dead, mortally wounded, its golden eyes burned with the stubborn spark of survival—that primal refusal to give up that all living things shared.
The System flickered in his vision again, providing analysis:
[Mutant Detected]
Species: Azure Sparrow
Threat Level: C+ (Wounded - Originally B-)
Estimated Energy Yield: Moderate
Suggested Action: Harvest before decay. Usable materials detected.
Elric smirked at the clinical assessment. "A dying beast guarding an evolution fruit? How poetic."
He drew his blade, the familiar weight comforting in his hand. The faint hum of [ROOM] echoed around him as he prepared for combat. Fog swirled in response to the spatial distortion. Sparks of blue energy danced in the air.
"Let's make this quick and painless for both of us."
Elric crouched low behind a broken air duct.
The rooftop was quiet again—too quiet after that initial disturbance.
The massive blue sparrow lay motionless near the edge of the building, its glowing feathers dimming like dying embers. Deep gashes covered its wings, wounds that looked deliberately made rather than accidental. Dark blue blood pooled under its body, thick and metallic in the cold air.
What the hell did that to you?
The creature was already dying from injuries sustained elsewhere. Something else had beaten him to it.
Just as that thought crossed his mind—something shifted in the fog above.
A low hum filled the air, almost like electrical static, raising the hairs on his arms. Then—
Splat.
A dark, fleshy tendril fell from the fog like a living whip, impossibly long and thick as a tree trunk. It slammed straight into the sparrow's chest with wet impact.
Elric froze completely, every muscle locking up.
The tendril twitched once—a motion almost sentient—then began draining the bird.
The sound was wet, sucking, nauseating. Like someone slurping the last drops from a straw, but magnified a thousand times.
Within second—mere heartbeats—the giant bird convulsed violently and collapsed into a skeleton. Flesh, organs, blood, even the glowing feathers—all consumed or absorbed.
Its golden eyes went dark, the light extinguishing like blown candles. Even the bones turned brittle and gray, drained of whatever life force had animated them.
The tendril shuddered with satisfaction, gave a final flick that sent drops of blue blood scattering, and retracted into the mist above like a fishing line being reeled in.
Elric exhaled slowly, his heart hammering despite his attempts at calm. "Well, that's… new."
He scanned upward with [Thousand Eyes], tracing the tendril's origin through the fog and distance—and what he saw made his pulse spike dangerously.
It came from the center of campus. From the main courtyard—where the massive cocoon had been growing.
Except now… it was bigger. Way bigger.
When Elric had last seen it just days ago, the cocoon had been the size of a small van—already disturbing but manageable. Now it was the size of a three-story building, pulsing rhythmically like a living heart, its surface covered in those same bioluminescent veins.
Dozen maybe hundreds—of those tendrils stretched from what looked like a mouth opening, moving with purpose like the legs of some monstrous insect or the tentacles of a deep-sea horror.
And the one that had drained the sparrow was just one of many.
The Feeding Frenzy
As he watched with horrified fascination, the cocoon began to stir again.
"Brush. Brush."
The sound was like wind through dead leaves, but wrongly organic.
Several more tendrils shot outward in every direction, slicing through the fog like whips hunting prey.
Their next targets weren't mutants or animals. They were people—the remaining survivors scattered across campus.
Across the shattered university grounds, glass exploded outward as a tendril smashed through the girls' dormitory window with devastating force. Screams echoed across the empty streets, bouncing off buildings.
"Ahh—!"
The first girl's cry lasted less than a second before it was cut off abruptly, horribly. Her body hit the wall as nothing but a skeleton, flesh and organs simply gone.
Then another scream. And another. And another.
Within moments, dozens of students and teachers were caught—drained into bone and dust in seconds each. The tendrils waved in the air afterward, twitching like satisfied serpents, as if searching for their next meal.
The Growing Threat
And below in the courtyard, the cocoon grew noticeably larger with each soul it devoured. Its surface rippled constantly like something inside was pushing to get out, something massive trying to break free.
Elric's hands clenched into fists. Cold sweat slid down his temple despite the cool air.
"That… thing's evolving. Rapidly."
He had seen plenty of horrors since the world fell apart—mutants, parasitic beasts, even the walking infected that shambled through streets. But nothing grew this fast, nothing consumed with such efficiency.
If that cocoon hatched, if whatever was inside broke free, the entire university would become a feeding ground. A dead zone. And anything nearby would die.
I have to get out. Soon.
Tomorrow at the latest. After securing Grace as a recruit, after one final supply run, he'd lead Natasha and Jenna out of this cursed campus for good.
But before leaving—he had one more goal to accomplish.
He turned back to the rooftop, to the vine where the glowing Energy Fruit still hung undisturbed, pulsing gently in the darkness.
Elric summoned [ROOM], the spatial bubble expanding around him. He closed the distance in a blink through position swap, appearing directly beside the fruit.
He reached out, gripped the silky stem with both hands, feeling its unnatural warmth, and tore it free with a sharp pull.
The vine snapped with a wet crack that echoed across the rooftop.
As he turned to leave, something glimmered near the bird's skeletal remains—a small object catching what little light penetrated the fog.
A small blue crystal, smooth as glass and perfectly spherical, faintly glowing like liquid ice captured in solid form.
Elric crouched and picked it up carefully, rolling it in his palm. It was cold—too cold, almost burning with inverted heat. And it hummed softly, rhythmically, like it contained a heartbeat or was somehow alive.
"Dropped from the sparrow?" he murmured to himself. "You might be worth something. A core, maybe?"
He pocketed the crystal alongside the Energy Fruit, cast one last glance at the monstrous cocoon in the distance—watching another tendril strike and drain some unfortunate survivor—and vanished into the mist.
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