PURSUANT The Ozark Howler. Pursuant, #10

In the Missouri Ozarks, five men disappear in nine days, leaving Sheriff Daniel Mercer with one dead body and a terrifying question. The victim, contractor Carl Benton, appears to have been attacked by something powerful, but the injuries do not match any ordinary predator. His ruptured eardrums and strange internal trauma suggest exposure to an unnatural resonance before his death. Pursuant Inspectors Marion Kenway and Zia Kose are sent to investigate, expecting a dangerous Meta predator.
Their investigation quickly leads them toward the legend of the Ozark Howler, a massive wolf like creature with reflective eyes and a scream capable of overwhelming the senses. When the creature attacks them in the forest, Kenway discovers that conventional gunfire is ineffective and relies on his spring loaded Pursuant rod weapon to drive it back. The mystery deepens when Kenway and Zia discover that the missing men were connected.
Historian David Hollis found evidence of an old cave and unexplained disappearances. Forester Michael Reed helped map the underground location. Truck driver James Pike transported equipment. Contractor Carl Benton purchased an artifact from antique dealer Lucas Warren. Warren, part of a civilian network of artifact and antiquities brokers previously encountered by the Pursuant, assembled maps and objects connected to the ancient Agartha network.
Inside the Ozarks cave, the team discovers something far more significant than a monster's lair. Buried beneath the earth is a dormant Agartha node and an ancient Portal Anchor, a technological device capable of stabilizing a portal connection. The node has been dormant for centuries and was never previously confirmed by the Pursuant. The Ozark Howler is revealed to be more complicated than a simple monster.
It is an unusually old Meta predator whose territory developed around the dormant node. Its biology has become sensitive to the anchor's resonance. It does not control the technology and it is not a Level Four entity. Instead, it has learned through generations of instinct and experience that humans disturbing the cave can trigger dangerous portal activity. Unable to distinguish investigators from those attempting activation, it attacks anyone who enters its territory.
When the ancient anchor begins responding to an external signal, Kenway realizes the immediate threat is not the Howler but the network itself. Using vibrational equipment originally designed to disrupt Level Four intangible entities, he improvises a method of disrupting the anchor's resonance. The portal collapses without destroying the underlying node. The case appears resolved until the Pursuant monitoring system detects additional Agartha nodes responding across North America.
The signal is not coming from Warren, and there is no evidence that the nodes are activating independently. Something is reaching through the larger network and causing ancient anchors to respond. Kenway cannot determine what is behind the signal, whether anything has actually crossed the network, or what the ultimate purpose may be. But one fact is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: the Agartha network is no longer completely dormant.