Ch 15

" Psch." Blood splattered on Sophie's hair. Trembling, a crack appeared in her tightly closed eyes, and she faintly saw Aishwarya repeatedly bashing the skull of a greenish creature.

" Kiek!." Its companion cowered at the gory sight before it. It charged at Aishwarya while he was swinging his small mace.

"Keep your eyes closed, kid," Aishwarya ordered as she glared at her enemy while clutching her dead opponent's mace.

Dodging her opponent's aimless strike with ease, she swung her mace, landing a powerful blow to its chest.

" Crack." Her opponent went flying, puking bright blue blood as its rib cage caved in, puncturing its heart. Not sure about its death, she ran and smashed its seemingly lifeless head to bits.

Covered in blue and white matter, she wiped herself and saw Sophie puking her stomach out.

Thankfully, she had moved before puking; otherwise, Nitin's long, lustrous silver hair would have been tainted with filth.

Sighing at her low tolerance, Aishwarya approached her and asked softly after she had stopped puking, "I hope you exercise regularly because you have to lift that big guy."

Without waiting for her to speak or calm down, she tore a piece of cloth and bound it to his bleeding head.

'Please wake up soon.' She prayed as she anxiously surveyed the area.

"What are you doing? Hurry up. " She shouted at Sophie, who was frozen at the devastation in front of them.

Broken out of her stupor, she stumbled toward her and carried him on her back with Aishwarya's help.

As the wormhole started fluctuating, they hurried toward the exit while Aishwarya watched their backs.

But upon leaving the store, they were met with a sight that chilled them to the bone. 

' So, that's why there was no message of an earthquake.' Aishwarya thought as she looked at an incredibly tall being destroying every building in its way. 

A headless giant whopping eighty meters tall was walking around while sniffing the fresh yet polluted air.

It had a single eye on its chest, which was blinking around rapidly, registering the unfamiliar display. Its mouth, located on its stomach, was dripping with drool. Pink-skinned, it was currently walking away from their location.

" Rah!" Its roar blew the building and trees near him to bits. Beating its chest wildly, it surveyed the area before racing forward.

Leaving Sophie and Aishwarya with no choice other than to hide. As they hid, the monster continued rampaging a considerable distance from them.

Opting to survey their surroundings, they finally noticed the building and its inhabitants' abhorrent state.

The building was flattened in the middle. Buried in the rubble, a human body pierced with glass could be seen occasionally.

The once-glamorous mall now lies in ruins. Crumbled walls and shattered glass created a hazardous path. The acrid smell of smoke lingered in the air, mixing with the metallic scent of blood. The flickering emergency lights cast eerie shadows on the chaos.

Creatures that couldn't seem to exist in reality were walking out of wormholes.

Creatures already inside the mall were busy munching on the dead bodies. Their mouths were soaked in blood as they fought each other to get more meat and prey.

"Save me, Mummy." A piercing scream broke their stupor.

A little girl with blood spots on her cute pink princess dress and body screamed as she ran for her life from a 5-meter-long grayish-white wolf.

Adults hiding helplessly in various parts of what was left of the mall from the monsters could only look on as the giant wolf drooled from its mouth and approached her slowly.

Its eye was filled with playfulness as he looked at its weak victim running around helplessly.

It was then that a hot-blooded young man gritted his teeth as he forcefully ripped a steel rod out of the wall.

With the rod in hand, he plucked his courage, shouted, "You motherfucking fool," and ran toward the giant wolf, crazed.

While he attempted to distract the monster, a group consisting of both genders sneaked toward the girl, hoping to sneak her to safety while the monster was distracted.

Aware of the girl's immediate demise, Sophie wanted to run forward to save her, but her trembling legs refused to budge.

'Please move,' she said, hitting her legs with her trembling fists, desperately hoping for a miracle. But in front of monsters and blood, her body refused to listen to her wishes.

The giant wolf ignored the boy and leaped, appearing next to the girl in the blink of an eye. The screaming boy stopped, with everybody's heart lurking in their throats as they awaited the girl's gory death.

But the wolf didn't attack the girl; instead, it ate another monster in a single bite that had sneaked near her.

Letting out another mighty scream in the hope of taking the agro instead of the fallen girl, but it was all in vain as the wolf decided to eat the girl right next to him.

" Crunch." The girl's small intestine fell out of the wolf's mouth. Crunch, crunch, the wolf continued chewing as he stared at the frozen boy with his bright red beady eyes.

"You bastard." The boy group let out a tearful shriek as they looked at the girl's incomplete remains.

The boy, a gym freak, was the first to approach and attack the wolf. A few seconds later, his torso slowly slid down, and as his body fell, a geyser of blood erupted from them.

As the wolf massacred the group, Aishwarya grimly watched Nitin's bleeding head. The smell of blood would attract the monsters, and she couldn't abandon him.

'What should I do?' She thought as sweat drenched her back. Despite that, she patted Sophie's shoulders with a calm face, as she couldn't appear weak in front of her.

Stranded on the first floor near the broken stairway, Aishwarya rapidly scanned the building, looking for an easy way out. Fighting the monsters was equivalent to suicide, and there were too many monsters to sneak out with an injured patient.

"Goddamnit." She cursed softly under her breath. Her hand was balled into a fist, her fist shaking profusely in self-loathing and anger.

'God, why can't I save anyone?' With tears in her eyes, she despaired at their hopeless predicament.

The god seemingly heard her voice, and a flaming oil truck slammed into countless monsters before flipping over and going boom.

The truck blasted near the massacring wolf. The blast killed every monster or human in its vicinity.

The wolf, with its unrealistic speed, dodged at the last minute, but if its burnt fur and bleeding hips were indicators, then they indicated that it did not escape unharmed.

" Whimper." It tried to howl in anger, but the sharp pain of being burned transformed its once-mighty howl into a whimper.

Taking advantage of the ensuing chaos, Aishwarya tried to sneak away with her companions.

"Kiek." The escaping trio froze in their tracks, hoping desperately not to be discovered, but the small footsteps of green creatures came closer.

" Go! Run straight toward the exit." Aishwarya spoke softly but firmly.

She turned to finish her ragtag group of enemies. Assured of her victory, she turned around sneakily but confidently.

But that confidence was shattered moments later when she saw the ragtag greenish monsters in a well-balanced group equipped with short weapons prepared for the fight. 

Sweat trickled down Aishwarya's face as the enemy group maintained their formation while approaching her.

'I am fucked.' That was her only thought as she clutched her mace, which was too short for her.

It was then that she caught sight of Sophie crawling desperately with an unconscious Nitin.

*****************************

Meanwhile, at an earlier time...

After entertaining his guest, Kunal wiped his hands on a clean hankey before entering the hall, lest he be punished for his hygiene.

"Mom, what are you doing?" Kunal shouted, imitating a baby voice, upon entering the hall.

Met with complete silence, he kicked open Nitin's locked door and found it empty.

Suddenly feeling uneasy, he asked Sam, and to his astonishment, Sophie had visited the place without any warning and left with his mom for Ohja Mall.

"Why that cursed mall? You knew it was made by my bastard father." His voice rose an octave at the mere thought of his father, who was still doing his business, unperturbed.

"You should have stopped them, dude. And why did you not tell me about Sophie's visit? I was wasting my time with that lump of meat downstairs.

If you had told me, I would have taken them to a better location. They wouldn't be walking around shopping in that cursed mall."

Sam, busy playing 'Evil 8, The Town' on his 4K Sony TV, felt too lazy to respond to his friend's baseless complaint.

Kunal, feeling ignored, continued with his willful ranting, forcing Sam to finally focus on him.

"Dude, can you stop, please?" It was at this moment that the light in the entire area went out.

"Why did they cut the light?" Sam raged and let out unintelligible curses, as he had failed to save the game after killing a boss monster in an extremely difficult setting.

While Sam was busy cursing the light department, Nitin danced gleefully.

" Roar," A sudden roar interrupted their activities as parts of plaster fell on their heads.

They glanced at each other before scrambling to get guns. With their guns equipped, they raced toward the door, and outside of the door, a new world awaited them.