The assault grew smarter.
The creatures were no longer hammering a single point. They were working the seams. Arthur heard a sharp, continuous tearing sound from the northwest corner of the workshop, where the two corrugated steel walls met. They had found the weakest joint.
He abandoned his improvised barricade and ran for the corner. What he saw iced his blood. The sheet of metal forming the building's edge was being pulled outward. Slowly. Inexorably. With the groan of bolts surrendering, the seam was splitting open. Through the widening gap, he saw a tangle of limbs and claws at work—pulling, twisting, leveraging with brutal efficiency.
They were not mindless beasts.
They were intelligent demolishers.
Arthur struck the wall with the flat of his axe. The metallic clang rang out, and the claws recoiled for a second—then returned, harder than before. It was useless.
He scanned the room, panic threatening to overtake him. His gaze locked onto the heavy chain hanging from the ceiling at the center of the shop. It was used to lift engine blocks and other massive parts. It was mounted on a trolley that ran along an I-beam.
A reckless idea, born of desperation, took shape.
He sprinted to the chain, grabbed the hook, and pulled. The trolley rolled smoothly along the beam, allowing him to drag the hook toward the corner of the building. He needed an anchor. His eyes fell on a large metal lathe bolted to the floor a few yards from the failing wall. Solid. Immovable.
Hands shaking with strain and pain, he looped the chain around the lathe's massive base, hooking it onto itself to form a secure hold. Now he had a ton of steel chain, firmly anchored. He hauled the free length toward the assaulted corner.
But how to use it?
The gap was nearly a foot wide now. An arachnid head forced its way through, mandibles opening and closing, eyes gleaming.
Arthur moved on instinct. He grabbed the loose chain and began feeding it through the opening, wrapping it around the very sheet of metal being torn free. It was a dangerous, idiotic maneuver—his hands and arms exposed to the claws beyond. A sharp burst of pain flared as one talon raked him, slicing open a fresh cut along his already injured arm. He shouted, but he did not stop.
He fed the chain around, looped it, and dragged it back inside. Now he had a steel noose cinched around the compromised section of wall. Using a short metal beam he found on the floor as leverage, he began tightening the chain, hauling the wall back toward its original position.
The metal groaned.
Outside, sensing resistance, the creatures pulled harder.
It became a grotesque tug-of-war. Arthur—one man—against a dozen monsters, with a slab of steel as the prize.
He was losing.
With an explosive crack of shearing metal, the bolts finally gave way. The entire section of wall—nearly six feet across—was ripped free and hurled inward, crashing onto the workshop floor.
Purple light flooded the corner, revealing three creatures poised to enter through the gaping breach.
The siege was over.
The invasion had begun.
Arthur stumbled back, heart slamming against his throat. His fortress had fallen. There were no walls left to hide behind. The chain he had used in his attempt to save it now lay useless on the floor—a dead serpent of steel.
The first creature—one of the agile hunting hounds—did not hesitate. It leapt through the opening, landing lightly on the workshop floor, muscles coiled, ready to strike.
The sanctuary had become an arena. And the walls closing in around Arthur were no longer steel—but chitin, teeth, and a collective hatred focused entirely on him.