CHAPTER 379: CHAPTER-379.

His head jerked, teeth clacking together with a nasty crack. He stumbled. She twisted, drove her shoulder into his chest, and body‑checked him into the opposite wall. His skull clipped the concrete with a solid thud.

Fourth bullet.

Bang.

Right into his sternum at knife‑distance. His eyes went wide, then empty, as he slid down the wall, leaving a dark trail.

"Three down," Veer said. His voice sounded strained now. "Kaya—"

She spun. One last jackal had slipped past while she was busy, racing straight for Veer and Cutie.

Veer couldn’t lift his arms without risking dropping the boy. So he used what he had.

He stepped forward and smashed his knee up into the jackal’s stomach, using Cutie’s weight to anchor himself. The beastman doubled over with a wheeze, but still clawed forward, grabbing at Veer’s shirt.

"Annoying," Veer snarled. He pivoted, snapping his head forward. His forehead smashed into the jackal’s nose with a sick crunch. Blood sprayed over Veer’s chin. The jackal reeled, dazed.

"Down," Veer ordered, and drove his heel into the side of the jackal’s knee. The joint gave with a tear. The beastman collapsed.

Kaya stepped in and pressed the gun to his temple.

Fifth bullet.

Bang.

She didn’t watch him fall.

Hyena laughter echoed down the corridor—the last one she’d seen in that packed group, weaving between the fallen bodies with sick excitement lighting his eyes. Behind him, two more shapes appeared, later reinforcements she hadn’t counted before. A fox and something heavier, maybe bear, pushing through the bottleneck of corpses.

Her stomach twisted. More. There were always more. Too many for quick knocks and fancy throws, not when she had an injured friend and Veer already carrying almost a full‑grown man.

’This is why,’ she thought bitterly, eyes narrowing. ’This is why guns exist. For nights like this.’

The hyena lunged, claws reaching, mouth wide.

Sixth bullet.

Bang.

The round punched through his open mouth and out the back of his head. His laugh cut off mid‑sound as he crumpled over the boar’s body.

Behind him, the new fox tried to use the chaos to dart sideways, angling to slip around along the wall. Kaya didn’t let him. She took a half‑step to the side and fired before he completed the move.

Seventh bullet.

Bang.

Chest shot. He slammed backward, knocked into the heavier beastman behind him, tangling their feet. Both stumbled, balance ruined.

"Kaya," Veer called, shifting Cutie higher with a grunt. "You running out?"

"Not yet," she answered. Her voice was flat, focused. "I started tonight with full mags for a reason."

The heavier beastman—a bear, she could see now in the way he moved, all weight and unstoppable intent—roared and charged anyway, boots crushing over his friends’ bodies, eyes fixed on the scent of Cutie’s blood.

Too big to play with. Too close to let him touch Veer.

Kaya stepped into the center of the corridor, feet planted, both hands on the grip. Everything in her narrowed down to the iron sight and the oncoming mass of fur and muscle.

Eighth bullet.

Bang.

The shot dug into his shoulder, twisting him sideways. He roared, but didn’t fall. Still coming.

Ninth bullet.

Bang.

Straight between the eyes. His head snapped back, body taking two more clumsy steps on pure momentum before crashing down like a collapsing wall, shaking the tiles under their feet.

Silence hit again. Heavy. Absolute.

Kaya lowered the gun slowly. Her arms shook now that the adrenaline had somewhere to go. Her ears buzzed. The corridor was a tunnel of bodies and blood and shattered plaster, her bullets marking a straight, brutal path through all of it.

She’d used the gun because she had no other choice. Because there were too many of them and too little room and too much to lose. Because fists and broken furniture couldn’t stop a wave like that fast enough.

Behind her, Veer adjusted Cutie again with another annoyed grunt. "Seriously," he muttered, half to cut the tension. "Next time this kid gets attacked, I’m putting him on a diet."

Despite everything, Kaya huffed out a rough breath that was almost a laugh. She glanced back at them—Veer, bleeding from his shoulder, arms full of dead weight; Cutie, head tucked against Veer’s neck, fingers still curled weakly in his shirt.

Then she turned toward the exit again. "Come on," she said, gun still in her hand, the wood now truly part of her. "Let’s get out before the rest of the zoo shows up."

.

.

After a while

In the storage room of the inn.

The "storage room" Veer pushed into looked like nothing—just brooms, cracked clay buckets, and a back wall of rough stone blackened by old oil smoke. Kaya almost snapped at him for wasting time, until he shifted Cutie higher in his arms, set his heel to one low corner of the wall, and kicked.

Stone thudded against stone. A hairline split shivered across the blocks, then a whole slab loosened and slid inward with a slow, grinding sound. Cold, stale air breathed out from the gap, smelling of old earth and shut‑in darkness. No metal. No pipes. Just rock carved by claws and tools long before this inn ever existed. It felt ancient in a way the polished capital above never did, like the bones under the city had just opened an eye.

As they slowly entered inside.

Clafkkk...

The stone closed behind them with a slow, grinding sigh, and the last thin sliver of hallway light vanished.

Darkness rolled in, whole and heavy.

Kaya blinked once, twice, then let her eyes stop fighting it. The black wasn’t empty if she didn’t force it. After a few heartbeats, shapes began to float up out of it—soft edges, stacked shadows. The narrow drop of carved steps right in front of her. The curve of a low ceiling. The bulk of Veer behind her, arms full of Cutie’s limp weight.

"Can you see?" Veer’s voice was rough and low, closer than usual.