Global Devourer: I Survive by Slaughtering Beasts

Chapter 8: No Mercy for Traitors

Kai did not waste a single second asking useless questions. He grabbed Chloe by her wrist, pulling her back inside the small iron door.

Fang slipped in right behind them, his dark eyes glowing softly in the dim light of the library hallway.

"Where is he?" Kai asked, his voice flat and cold.

Chloe pointed toward the dark storage closet at the end of the corridor. "In there. He snuck through the ventilation duct while we were fixing the front desk. He tried to stab one of the girls to steal the key to the back door, but I managed to cut his arm with my knife. We tied him up."

Kai walked down the hallway, his heavy boots making soft, echoing sounds against the floor. He kicked the storage closet door open.

Inside, a young man was tied tightly to a wooden chair with thick electrical wire. He wore a dark jacket with a security badge pinned to his chest. Blood dripped down his left arm, where Chloe had slashed him.

When the captured scout saw Kai entering with a six-foot blood-bone spear and a massive black shadow-wolf, his eyes went wide with pure terror. He began thrashing wildly against the wire.

"You!" the scout gasped out, his teeth chattering. "You are supposed to be dead! Brandon said the monsters ate you!"

Kai pulled a wooden crate over, sat down right in front of the scout, and rested his spear across his knees. Fang crouched beside Kai, letting out a low, terrifying growl that made the scout's legs shake.

"Tell me what Brandon is planning," Kai said quietly, his dark eyes staring straight into the scout's soul. "And maybe I will let you die quickly."

"I will not tell you anything, you poor trash!" the scout spat, trying to look brave. "Captain Vance and Brandon have real guns and crossbows! They have twenty men! You are just a scholarship student playing house!"

Kai did not get angry. He did not yell. He simply raised his right hand and made a quick gesture to Fang.

The shadow-wolf lunged forward, snapping its jaw shut around the scout's right knee. The sound of crushing bone echoed through the small closet.

"AHHH! MY LEG! STOP! PLEASE STOP!" the scout shrieked, tears and sweat pouring down his pale face.

"I will ask one more time," Kai said, his voice completely calm. "What is Brandon planning?"

"I will talk! I will tell you everything!" the scout sobbed, coughing up blood. "Brandon and Captain Vance are coming at dawn! They know you built a safe place here. They are going to bring twenty armed guards to raid the library!"

"Why?" Kai asked.

"They ran out of luxury food in the sports building!" the scout cried out desperately. "Captain Vance wants to take all the female survivors for his men! Brandon wants to force the rest of the students into slave labor to build a wall around his mansion! They plan to kill any boy who refuses to work!"

Standing in the doorway, Chloe gasped, her face turning completely white. The other surviving students who had gathered in the hallway began to cry and shake with fear. Brandon and his guards were not coming to save them. They were coming to turn them into slaves.

Kai stood up slowly, picking up his blood-bone spear. He looked at the scout with total indifference.

"I gave you your answers!" the scout begged, squirming against the chair. "I told you everything! Please, let me go! I will tell Brandon I found nothing! I swear!"

"You snuck into my base," Kai said softly. "You tried to hurt my people. In my shelter, traitors do not get second chances."

Before the scout could scream again, Kai thrust his blood-bone spear straight through the scout's chest. The green poison edge instantly stopped the man's heart.

Kai placed his palm over the dead man's forehead.

"Extract," Kai commanded in his mind.

A dark red aura rose from the corpse, flowing up Kai's arm.

[Target Killed! Extracting Human Attributes: +3 Strength, +3 Agility, +2 Stamina!]

Behind him, the surviving students backed away in complete horror. They had seen Kai kill monsters, but seeing him execute a human enemy without blinking made their blood run cold. They realized that Kai was no longer the soft, poor student they used to know. He was a ruthless ruler who showed no mercy to those who crossed him.

Kai pulled his spear out, wiping the blood off the tip with a cloth. He turned around and walked out into the main study hall, looking at the terrified faces of the survivors.

"They think they are coming at dawn," Kai said, his voice ringing loud and clear. "They think they are going to march in here, take our food, and turn you into slaves."

"What are we going to do, Kai?" Chloe asked, stepping forward with her knife still held tight. "We cannot fight twenty guards with crossbows and riot shields. Should we hide in the basement?"

"Hide?" Kai sneered, a dark, dangerous smile spreading across his face. "Why should I hide from bugs?"

He walked toward the small side hatch door, checking the poison edge on his blood-bone spear. Fang trotted right beside him, his black bone-spikes raised and ready for battle. His three purple-eyed zombie thralls lined up behind him like a dark guard squad.

"Lock the gates behind me," Kai ordered Chloe, looking back one last time. "Do not open these doors for anyone until I come back."

"Kai, wait!" Chloe called out, her eyes wide with shock. "Dawn is still three hours away! Where are you going?"

"They expect me to wait here like a target," Kai said, his voice dripping with cold malice. "I am going to meet them in the dark."

Instead of waiting for dawn, Kai orders his survivors to lock the gates while he steps out alone into the pitch-black, purple-fogged night to ambush the raiding party halfway.