"Ehem, I cannot tell you that. It is a trade secret, you know～?" Ys said with her usual mischievous tone. She turned at last to face Cleo, her light green hair swaying as she moved to the couch opposite her.
Crossing her legs, she sat with the easy elegance of soone who felt no sha under the weight of Cleo’s gaze. "Instead, how about this? I give you so good news and so bad news. Which one do you want first～?"
Cleo studied her for several long seconds, the golden glow in her eyes unblinking. Then she let out a slow, deep sigh, a sound that carried both weariness and restraint. "Which is the bad news?" she asked at last.
"Well, let’s see," Ys leaned back comfortably and folded her hands over one knee. "Do you rember that giant beast that ca crawling out of a planet not too long ago? The one that caused the gacorps such a headache, tearing through their assets and bleeding their profits?"
At her words, Cleo flicked her hand, summoning a cluster of hovering holo-screens that filled the air with ghostly light. Data streams and recordings played images of a colossal creature shattering fleets and consuming entire industrial zones; this information was hacked from the gacorps most protected databases.
Cleo’s gaze lingered on the monster’s image, silent but attentive. "Yes, that one," Ys said while sipping lightly from a glass of amber liquid a maid bot had delivered.
"Mother told there is sothing very similar sleeping beneath the crust of this very planet. Only, she ntioned sothing about this one being... corrupted, twisted in so way. She was not very clear."
Ys waved her hand dismissively as though the details did not matter. "But what she did say, quite clearly, was that I must tell Rex to evacuate the planet at once."
The room grew colder at her words. Cleo’s hands stilled above her holo-keyboard, and her golden eyes sharpened, narrowing with suspicion. "Why," she asked slowly, "would your mother send a warning to Rex?"
Ys shrugged, tilting her head with that sa playful smile that always made her difficult to read. "Who knows? Maybe because he is my mate? Or maybe because she thought it amusing? Mother rarely explains herself to . In truth, she never does."
Cleo leaned back, folding her hands beneath her chin as if asuring the truth in Ys’s words. "Then what," she asked carefully, "is the good news?"
"Oh, that," Ys said lightly, setting her glass down with a soft clink. Her tone was cheerful, almost too cheerful for what followed. "I don’t know if you will call it good news, but... the entire Swarm is on its way to this sector."
The words fell like stones into the silence. Cleo’s hands froze mid-command, the holo-screens flickering with half-written code. For the first ti in a very long while, her composure cracked.
Her slender fingers trembled ever so slightly, betraying sothing even she could not fully control, whether it was fear, anger, or both; only she herself would know.
anwhile, the surface of the planet had already descended into sothing far worse than chaos. It had been five days since Rex began his struggle to ascend into Tier Five, and in that short span of ti, the battlefield had transford beyond recognition.
The first change was the sudden flood of infected creatures that had reached the peak of Tier Four. They ca in all sizes and grotesque shapes; their bodies brimd with power that dwarfed ordinary soldiers and monsters alike. The ground quaked wherever they passed.
The second change was more alarming still... the birth of mutants with wings. The skies, once dominated by Kaelzar warships and rcenary gunships, now sward with these abominations.
Their wings tore the air with unnatural speed, their shrieks drowning out the thunder of engines. For the first ti, the heavens themselves were contested, the infected clawing to seize supremacy of the air.
The third change shattered what little stability remained. New horrors erged, mutant creatures twisted into living transports, their massive, hollowed bodies carrying swarms of infected within.
They dropped their cargo straight into the defensive lines of both armies, bursting open in showers of gore as they unleashed packs of shrieking nightmares into the fray. Entire formations were shredded apart in hours, and the frontlines devolved into chaos.
The Kaelzars, with their relentless portals and their hulking Mauler juggernauts, barely managed to contain the assaults, buying themselves breathing room through sheer brutality.
But the rcenaries and their Lizardman allies were not so fortunate. Their ranks were organic, their soldiers of flesh and blood, and against the infected that fed on corpses to grow stronger and heal their wounds almost instantly, their resistance was crumbling. Death itself was being turned into fuel for the enemy.
The war for the planet was shifting, and the balance leaned ever further toward the infected tide.
On one of the Kaelzars shattered frontlines, the battlefield burned with chaos. The air stank of ash and blood, and the ground was littered with the broken remains of both infected and machine.
At the center of this ruin stood the commanding unit of the sector, a Tyrant unit that was battered and worn, its once-glorious armor now scarred with deep cracks and burns. Despite its failing systems, it continued to fight, its colossal fra leading hundreds of Aegis units against a towering Tier Three mutant.
The battle dragged on with brutal cost. One by one, the Aegis units fell, torn apart by claws and acid, their glowing cores extinguished on the blood-soaked soil. But the Tyrant did not waver.
When the mutant exposed its core for the briefest instant, the commander seized the chance. With a roar that shook its broken fra, it lifted its massive two-handed sword and brought it down in a single devastating arc.
The blade split through flesh, armor, and bone, cleaving into the pulsating core. The mutant shrieked in agony before collapsing in a heap of steaming gore.
The Tyrant staggered but did not fall. It reached into the remains and wrenched free the cracked, half-shattered core. Its voice, heavy and tallic, echoed through the comms.
[Unit 2BI3: Guard this. Make sure it reaches the princess. The task she entrusted us with... is not yet fulfilled.]
With all the strength left in its body, the Tyrant hurled the core to a waiting Aegis unit. The soldier caught it and, without hesitation, sprinted toward the teleportation rings. Even though its armor sparked from the damage from the battle, its pace was unrelenting.
The Tyrant turned to face the battlefield again while his sensors flickered. But there was no ti for triumph. From the smoke and shadows, dozens more Tier Three mutants surged forward, their grotesque bodies glistening with sli, their jaws dripping with hunger.
The defenders had no chance. The swarm crashed over them in a wave of teeth and claws, tearing through the remaining Aegis units until only the Tyrant stood.
Even then, the commander did not yield. It swung its blade in great arcs, cleaving through flesh and bone, cutting down as many enemies as it could. Each blow carried the weight of duty, of defiance, of sacrifice. But eventually, its strength reached its end. Surrounded on all sides, its cracked systems began to glow with a sinister red light.
[Autodestruction sequence complete. For the resurfacing of the Kaelzar Empire.]
Its final words rang out like a vow. A mont later, the Tyrant detonated. The explosion tore the earth apart, a blast equal to dozens of artillery shells striking in unison.
Fire and shockwaves engulfed the battlefield, obliterating everything in range. When the smoke cleared, at least two of the massive mutants lay dead, their hulking corpses smoking from the inferno.
From the distance, Little Red had watched the sacrifice unfold. Her crimson eyes narrowed as she vanished in a ripple of spatial energy, reappearing in the very heart of the destruction.
Without hesitation, she raised her hand toward the sky. A sphere of radiant light swelled in her palm, condensing into a searing beam of sunlight. The ray lanced downward, hotter than molten tal, vaporizing every infected creature that remained in the blasted zone.
She stood in silence among the ashes. Only when reinforcents began to arrive did she lower her hand. They would reclaim this ground, but the cost weighed heavily on her. The battle was escalating, and even with her power, there were only so many places she could be at once.
The situation had grown critical. Little Red and the two Tier Six vampires had been working without pause, darting across the frontlines to patch holes in the defenses, each appearance holding back what could have been a catastrophic collapse.
On the rcenary and lizardman sides, their forces struggled in the sa way. Tier Five and Tier Six warriors rotated constantly, protecting weak points wherever the tide threatened to break through.
Their strength was imnse, but they were still bound by flesh and blood. They needed food, water, and rest, luxuries that were becoming rare in this endless war.
Yet, unlike the Kaelzars, the rcenary coalition was not lacking in elite numbers. They had several dozen Tier Fives at their disposal, enough to cycle them through the lines without collapsing the rotation.
And whenever the frontline threatened to break entirely, their Tier Six powerhouses surged forward, appearing like storms to stabilize the chaos before vanishing again to prepare for the next desperate call.
In the midst of this storm, in one of the forward encampnts, Volkong leaned against a scorched barricade. His face was grim as he glanced at Valxir, who was kneeling beside his power armor, connecting thick cables to recharge its failing battery.
Sparks hissed as the energy cells drank in power, the armor’s systems humming back to life.
"Boss," Volkong muttered, his voice low but edged with unease. "Shouldn’t we be leaving by now? We are rcenaries, not soldiers sworn to die for soone else’s cause. This is not our war."
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