The Manaless King Of Sigma

Chapter 8: The Creatures at the Eastern Gate

By the time Mateo and Lucía emerged from the maintenance entrance, the morning had grown warmer, but the atmosphere around the transit station had become more dangerous.

Three armored creatures prowled near the overturned delivery truck. Their dark shells reflected the blue light hanging over the city, and their narrow heads moved constantly as they searched for prey. The fourth remained trapped behind the lowered service gate, scraping its claws against the metal.

Beyond them, several volunteers had gathered behind a line of abandoned vehicles. Marcos stood at the front, gripping a heavy wrench. Beside him, the maintenance technician was trying to convince two frightened men to help reinforce the barricade.

A woman suddenly shouted from the road.

“It's coming this way!”

One of the creatures had left the truck. It moved toward the barricade, its claws clicking against the pavement.

Marcos raised his wrench.

“Hold your positions!” he ordered. “Nobody runs unless I say so!”

The creature stopped several meters away. Its head tilted, and a low growl vibrated through its plated body.

Mateo immediately noticed something different.

The creature was not simply approaching the barricade. It was moving from one abandoned vehicle to another, keeping most of its body behind cover. Every few seconds, it paused to study the people ahead.

It was learning.

“Marcos!” Mateo called. “Don't attack it yet!”

Marcos turned sharply. “You were supposed to investigate the source of the disturbance, not disappear underground.”

“We found something, but we need to discuss it later. That creature is watching your formation.”

“So?”

“So, if you rush it, the others may use the opening to get past us.”

Marcos looked toward the two creatures still near the truck. One had begun circling toward the opposite side of the road.

His expression changed.

“Everyone, tighten the barricade!” he shouted. “Keep the gap closed!”

The volunteers scrambled to obey.

Mateo approached Marcos, keeping the abandoned vehicles between himself and the nearest creature.

“How many people do we have?”

“Eleven who can fight, including us. Six others are helping with supplies and barricades. Most have never held a weapon in their lives.”

“Then we shouldn't treat them like soldiers.”

Marcos frowned. “And what would you suggest?”

“Give each person a job they can actually perform. The stronger volunteers hold the barricade. The others move obstacles, watch the side streets, and carry injured people away. Nobody pursues a creature alone.”

Marcos looked as if he wanted to argue, but another growl interrupted him.

The creature had moved closer.

“Fine,” he said. “You handle the one in front. I'll keep the others from getting around us.”

Mateo nodded. It was not friendship, but it was cooperation, and that was enough for now.

He turned to Lucía.

“Can your sensor tell us whether these creatures are connected to the underground disturbance?”

“Not from this distance. The readings near the maintenance level were too unstable, and I haven't calibrated the device for these creatures.”

“Can you get a reading if we bring it closer?”

“Possibly. But I'm not walking up to one just to satisfy your curiosity.”

“I wasn't going to ask you to.”

“Good. Because I would have said no.”

She moved behind a concrete barrier and began adjusting the sensor.

Mateo focused on the creature approaching the barricade.

He had fought one of these things before, but only for a few seconds. His first encounter had ended with a desperate strike to a vulnerable point beneath its left shoulder. He had barely understood what he was seeing, and the effort had left him injured.

This time, he needed a better plan.

He glanced around the road. The overturned truck blocked half the eastern lane. A delivery van stood at an angle near the pavement, leaving a narrow passage between its rear bumper and the wall. Several metal pipes lay scattered beside a construction barrier.

The environment offered possibilities, but none guaranteed success.

His status window flickered into view.

STATUS

Mateo Álvarez

Cultivation: Unawakened

Mana Circulation: Unstable

System Standing: Unregistered

Anomalous Trait: Partial Synchronization

Stability: Low

No sudden increase in power. No new ability to save him.

He would have to rely on his judgment.

“Gabriel would love this,” he muttered.

Then he remembered his nephew was back at the shelter, responsible for keeping the supplies organized. Mateo had promised to give him more responsibility, not drag him into every dangerous situation.

He hoped Gabriel was taking the assignment seriously.

The creature lunged.

Mateo sidestepped behind the concrete barrier. Its claws struck the edge, showering him with chips of stone. He swung a metal pipe at its exposed foreleg, but the blow bounced off the armor.

The impact numbed his hands.

The creature twisted and snapped at him.

Mateo retreated, narrowly avoiding its jaws.

Too hard to injure with a direct strike.

He needed to limit its movement.

“Move toward the van!” he shouted to the nearest volunteers. “Keep the space behind it clear!”

Two men dragged a loose barrier aside. Another rolled a metal drum into the lane, forcing the creature to turn away from the barricade.

It followed the movement.

Mateo noticed that the creature's right foreleg dragged slightly after each sharp turn. The damage might have been minor, but it affected its balance.

He concentrated, trying to summon the strange perception that had revealed the weak point in the first creature.

A thin blue line appeared beneath the creature's armor.

Pain immediately pressed against his temples.

He gritted his teeth and focused for one brief moment.

The line flickered near the joint of its right foreleg, where two plates overlapped.

Then the vision blurred.

Mateo released the effort before it could worsen.

He had a possible target, not a guarantee.

“Marcos! I need one of those pipes!”

Marcos threw him a length of metal.

Mateo caught it awkwardly. His fingers were still numb from the previous strike.

The creature charged again.

He waited until it committed to the attack, then stepped aside and drove the pipe toward the exposed joint.

The tip struck between the plates.

The creature shrieked.

It stumbled, its right foreleg folding beneath its weight. Mateo immediately backed away instead of trying to finish it.

“Now!” Marcos shouted.

Two volunteers shoved the metal drum into the creature's path. It crashed into the obstacle and rolled onto its side.

The impact gave the others enough time to drag a construction barrier across the narrow passage.

The creature thrashed, but its damaged leg could no longer support its weight properly. It struggled to turn, repeatedly striking the barrier with its armored head.

Mateo's breathing grew ragged.

His hands trembled, and the road seemed to sway beneath him.

Lucía appeared beside the barricade.

“Don't use that ability again,” she warned.

“I used it once.”

“And nearly fell over the last time you did.”

“This time I stopped quickly.”

“That doesn't make it safe.”

She checked the sensor. Its display showed a sharp rise in energy readings, followed by a sudden drop.

“The creature's energy output changed when you struck its leg,” she said. “I can't tell whether you disrupted its circulation or simply damaged something important.”

“Can you measure the others?”

“Not accurately. But I can compare their readings if they come closer.”

A roar came from the truck.

The remaining two creatures had noticed their companion's distress.

One rushed toward the fallen creature. The other veered toward the gap between the barricade and the delivery van.

“Side entrance!” Marcos yelled.

The volunteers scrambled to close the gap, but the creature was already moving.

Mateo forced himself to stand upright. He wanted to charge toward it, but his body had not recovered from the previous exchange.

If he pushed himself too hard, he could lose his balance at the worst possible moment.

“Don't chase it!” he shouted. “Close the road behind it!”

The creature slipped past the first barricade and entered the narrow lane beside the van. It was heading toward the residential district.

Mateo looked at the surrounding buildings. A row of parked cars blocked the far end of the lane, but a pedestrian opening remained between two structures.

If the creature reached that opening, it could disappear into the neighborhood.

“Marcos, can your people move the van?”

“With enough help, maybe. Why?”

“I need to close the lane.”

Marcos studied the vehicle, then pointed at four volunteers.

“You heard him! Push from the rear. Everyone else, keep that creature away from them!”

The volunteers braced themselves against the van and began pushing. Its tires scraped against the pavement, but the vehicle moved only a few centimeters.

The creature turned toward them.

Mateo grabbed a loose metal pipe and struck the side of an abandoned car.

The sharp clang echoed through the lane.

The creature's head snapped toward him.

“Come on,” Mateo whispered.

It charged.

He ran toward the van, leading it away from the volunteers. His lungs burned, and every step sent a dull ache through his legs.

He had no intention of outrunning it.

He only needed it to follow him into the narrowest part of the lane.

At the last moment, Mateo slipped behind a concrete pillar.

The creature struck the pillar shoulder-first. Its armor cracked against the concrete, and its momentum carried it sideways into the abandoned car.

The impact shook the vehicle.

Before the creature could recover, Marcos and two volunteers shoved a heavy construction barrier into the lane. Another volunteer dragged a second barrier behind it.

The creature found itself trapped between the van, the pillar, and the barricade.

It struck the metal repeatedly, but there was no room for it to build enough momentum to break through.

Mateo leaned against the wall, struggling to catch his breath.

Lucía reached him first.

“Are you injured?”

“Not seriously.”

“That's not an answer.”

“My legs are shaking, but I can stand. I don't think anything is broken.”

She examined his hands, then his face.

“Your pupils are reacting slowly.”

“Is that bad?”

“It means you should stop fighting.”

Before he could respond, a deep crash came from the main road.

The creature they had injured had broken through part of the construction barrier. It dragged itself forward on three functioning legs, scraping its damaged limb along the pavement.

The trapped creature beside the van answered with a series of harsh clicks.

Mateo stared at them.

The clicks were too regular to be random. The creature near the van repeated the pattern, and the injured one responded.

“They're communicating,” Lucía said.

“Can you tell what they're saying?”

“No. But I can tell that the energy readings are changing in sequence.”

The sensor's display flickered.

For a moment, every reading aligned into a repeating pattern. Then the numbers scattered again.

Lucía's expression tightened.

“The underground signal may be affecting them,” she said. “Or the creatures may be producing the same pattern independently. We don't have enough evidence to distinguish between those possibilities.”

Mateo remembered the three knocks in the tunnel.

The thought made his stomach tighten.

He had assumed the symbol was responding to his presence. Now he wondered whether it had been responding to the creatures as well.

If so, the regional disturbance might be more than a nest of monsters.

“Can you record that pattern?” he asked.

“I already am.”

“Good. Keep the recording. We may need it later.”

Marcos approached, wiping sweat from his forehead.

“We've got two contained, one injured, and one still near the truck. The road is blocked, but I wouldn't call it safe.”

“Neither would I,” Mateo replied.

“What about the mission? Has the system acknowledged our progress?”

Mateo looked at the notification that had appeared at the edge of his vision.

A new message was forming.

REGIONAL MISSION UPDATE

Immediate threat containment: PARTIAL

Hostile creatures contained or restricted: 3

Hostile creatures uncontained: 1

Eastern access road: Obstructed

Safe passage: Not established

Additional objective: Identify the source of the regional disturbance.

Time remaining: 2 hours, 41 minutes.

“Partial progress,” Mateo said. “The road still isn't safe, and we haven't identified the source.”

Marcos looked toward the maintenance entrance.

“You think it's down there?”

“We found an unregistered structure and a signal that reacted to our presence. We don't know whether it's responsible for the creatures, but the system has linked the underground passage to the disturbance.”

“Then we should seal the entrance.”

“Maybe. But if we block it without understanding what's happening, we could trap something on the wrong side—or leave another route open.”

Marcos frowned. “You want us to keep investigating while those things are still out here?”

“No. First, we secure the road and make sure the residential district is protected. Then we decide how to investigate safely.”

For a moment, neither man spoke.

Marcos had the strength and practical experience to help organize the volunteers. Mateo had information and a clearer sense of the danger, but his body was already warning him that he could not continue fighting at this pace.

They needed each other, whether Marcos liked it or not.

Finally, Marcos nodded.

“I'll get the road team organized. You take your researcher and figure out what else we need to know.”

It was the closest thing to an agreement they had reached.

Mateo watched Marcos return to the barricade.

The creatures remained contained for now, but their synchronized clicks continued. Each time one sounded, the others answered.

Lucía held up her sensor.

“There's something else,” she said.

“What?”

“The energy pattern changed when you used your ability. It changed again when the creatures started communicating. And just now, it changed a third time.”

She turned the display toward him. The readings had settled into a repeating sequence, though the device could not interpret it.

“Those changes might be unrelated,” she continued. “But if they aren't, your condition, the underground structure, and these creatures may all be connected.”

Mateo stared at the screen.

He had spent his previous life believing that knowledge was the one advantage no one could take from him. Yet every answer he found now opened the door to more questions.

“What do you recommend?” he asked.

Lucía met his eyes.

“We return to the shelter. I need better equipment, and you need rest. We document everything before we make another move.”

He wanted to protest. There were still creatures on the road, and the mission clock was ticking.

But he could barely keep his hands steady.

“All right,” he said. “We'll report what we found, reinforce the shelter, and plan our next move.”

As they turned away, the system produced one final notification.

It appeared for less than a second, then vanished before Mateo could read the entire message.

He caught only a few words.

FOREIGN PATTERN MATCH: INCOMPLETE.

SIGNAL ORIGIN: UNRESOLVED.

And beneath them, a final line appeared in unfamiliar characters.

Mateo did not recognize the script.

Yet the moment he saw it, something deep inside his chest responded.

The three silver rings stirred beneath his skin.

Far below the city, something answered.

And this time, the sound traveled beyond the maintenance tunnels.