Terra—Warehouse "Souley"—North Wall
The Imperial sentinels were quite grateful to be inside the warehouse and far away from the fighting.
They'd just learned that the military warehouse where they were stationed was being attacked by several million Eternals! Even if they were confident that the warehouse's defenses would hold, everyone was tense. The Eternals were renowned as very bloodthirsty Ascenscionist warriors who thought nothing of killing innocents. Nevertheless, the soldiers' mission was clear: to defend the area with their lives.
And the neural implants in their brains would ensure that death was the only alternative.
Two soldiers were talking to each other while guarding a part of the inner double-layered wall far away from the conflict. "Do you have any information, Lieutenant?" one asked.
The lieutenant answered, "The assault is happening at the south entrance. We should be spared the fighting."
The soldier replied with a relieved sigh, "Thank God! I hope the chas will kill those sons of bitches. Because of them, I was mobilized for two weeks without my consent, and I have no news from my wife and daughter!"
The lieutenant answered, "Don't worry. I've seen assault chas in action. These bastards don't stand a chance!"
The two laughed—but then a burning hand lted through the wall and struck the poor soldier, charring him in an instant!
The rest of the wall quickly collapsed, and behind it were about fifty Eternals.
The lieutenant fell to the ground in panic and said desperately, "Why are they here?!"
Apophis, clad head to toe in armor, stepped forward and kicked the man down, then crushed his head under an armored boot. "Eclipse," he said, "deploy and clear the area."
Hulk leaped up and punched several soldiers who were raising their weapons, exploding them like tomatoes. White summoned a mutant bear, which stord down the walkway in the other direction and tore down enemies one by one.
The various Eclipse mbers made quick work of the poor Imperial soldiers, cutting through them like hot knives through butter. However, one person stood out to Apophis as particularly strange.
He wasn't the only one using black flas to devour his enemies. Antanria was using them, too.
Not only had she absorbed so of Apophis's Corrupted Zetark energy due to their innate link, but it seed that she could also access so of his Skills. Not all of them, however. She seed to lack his ~Eternal Fla (lvl 3)~, which allowed the user to use fire-based Skills for free. Instead, Antanria's Energy could be seen draining on her character information page when Apophis examined it.
Apophis was very interested in how all of this worked… but for now, it was ti to destroy his enemies, not to ponder the workings of cosmic power!
The poor garrison, which was only constituted of common infantry sentinels, was completely massacred in a matter of minutes. Unfortunately for them, the assault chas were busy at another part of the warehouse, and simple humans couldn't hold a candle to even a single Rank C Ascenscionist.
Eclipse infiltrated deeper into the warehouse, destroying one guard after another and burning through reinforced doors as though they were made of tissue paper. Eventually, they arrived in front of a huge double door which seed to guard a research and developnt lab.
Antanria, quite proud of her new ability to use black fla, ignited fire in her hand and stepped forward to burn through the door.
However, Apophis caught her by the elbow. "I'll take care of this," he said—then simply put his thumb to the biotric scanner beside the door.
It beeped and then opened.
Apophis gave an arrogant smirk. "As I suspected, they seem to have forgotten to reprogram the locks so that colonels of the Federation can't get inside. I suppose they thought that all the soldiers would do a good enough job keeping their enemies out."
Hulk laughed. "Ah yes, all those colonels of the army of a nation that no longer exists!"
The doors swung open, and the players stepped in, quite impressed with what they saw. The laboratory was a vast space, lit from above with clear, bright fixtures. Shelves several ters high covered the walls and were lined up in one half of the laboratory, filled with weapons of all types. Tables and machines filled the other half of the huge chamber, no doubt for repairing, testing, and developing new weapons.
This was truly the jackpot, the treasure Apophis had co here to claim. "Let's get to it," he said at last. "There's no ti to lose."
***
Warehouse South Gate
While Apophis and his allies were slaughtering Imperials on the other side of the warehouse, another butchery was also taking place at the south gate.
In addition to the first one, nine more V5 assault chas were completely untouched, fresh to the fight, and pouring their imasurable firepower on the millions of players trying to get inside.
The ten chas' laser cannons relentlessly pulverized players, cutting them down like grass. This constant assault was also… periodically interrupted by incendiary or fragntation shells that one-shot thousands of players at once.
But in the end, the groups of players who faced the Vk.5 assault chas were rather lucky compared to those who faced the other threat!
The two Vk.6 chas wielded several-ter-long bionic swords with such ease that they might have been simply twigs. The chas swept their blades like a grim reaper's scythe, slaughtering several thousand players every second. They left behind only a tide of blood and piles of mutilated corpses.
Lotus, who was observing the fight a kiloter away with the other guild representatives, had ordered the players facing the Vk.6 to do everything they could to avoid damage and to delay the assault chas. Their purpose was to buy ti, of course.
The chas' destruction of the players far eclipsed anything she had predicted. Even still, she remained unmoved by the scene, refusing to panic.
One of the other representatives said to Lotus, "Commander! We've just passed 200,000 player deaths. Should we adjust our strategies at all?"
Lotus had never understood how exactly Apophis's plan to attack an Imperial army depot with a frontal assault was supposed to work. It sounded insane to her. No matter how quickly Apophis claid his team could infiltrate the base, she doubted that the weapons inside, even if they could destroy these chas, could be easily configured and set up before all their players died at the gate.
Yet, his plans always seed to work out in the end, so she had already fully committed to his plan. "We'll continue on," she said in a firm voice.
Suddenly, she received another ssage from one of her scouts. "Commander, all infiltration groups have successfully completed their missions and entered the building. The Imperials aren't diverting any of their chas, so the alarms seem to have been successfully shut sabotaged by our Engineer squad."
Lotus took a deep breath, thinking of Apophis making his way into the building. "Let's hope you were right this ti," she muttered, as though he could hear her.
***
Inside the warehouse, Apophis's group continued to browse the long, endless shelves filled with weaponry.
Hulk remarked, "I bet if we sold all these weapons and turned the GC to credits, we could all buy one-way tickets to the moon back ho! What do you say, everyone? Fancy a vacation?"
White smirked as she replied, "That'd be lovely. Too bad we're sharing the loot with close to two million people."
The group passed beyond the lines of shelves and found, embedded into the wall, another set of double doors leading into a huge elevator. "Well," said Apophis, "let's get on this thing and keep exploring."
Chocolate frowned as she noticed a detail on the wall beside the elevator. "Wait, what's this information?"
Apophis gave a huge grin. "Ah, that would be the current floor number… and beside it, the total number of floors!"
White pushed past Apophis and stared at the number in shock. "You're telling that there are two hundred floors like this one?!"
A bead of sweat shone on Hulk's forehead as he thought about the potential of this information. "There must be billions of credits' worth of military equipnt in this place!"
Apophis laughed triumphantly. "Oh, there'll be a lot more than that! The surface floors, of course, will be the worst-protected. That's where the least valuable military equipnt is stored, of course. The deeper we go into the bowels of the facility, the more valuable the equipnt will be. There's no doubt millions of billions of credits' worth of equipnt stored here!"
Apophis opened his nu and opened the minimap. It showed him the dwindling players facing the assault chas at the southern gate and how huge numbers were dying with every passing mont.
However, he didn't care about that. What interested him was the progress of the other infiltration groups like Lucifer's, Ceasar's, or Zelda's. Their objectives were all the sa: locate enough top-grade explosives in the warehouse to give them an advantage against the chas.
They were looking for anything with a high destructive potential that could be enhanced with the cosmic power of class Skills into sothing even more devastating: dynamite, thermite, napalm… and, of course, nuclear bombs.
This was the only way for them to counteract the defenses of the chas' shields and armor so that they could be aningfully damaged by normal attacks.
Apophis sent a ssage to Lotus. "The ti has co! Kick my squad out of the Raid."
System: The player "Lotus" has removed you from the Raid group.
Apophis smiled, knowing how much trust Lotus had in him to go along with what must seem like an insane plan to her.
At the sa mont, all fifty mbers of the Eclipse party received that sa notification.
White growled, "What the fuck?! Those bastards betrayed us and kicked us out of the group!"
Hulk replied, "Apophis! How could Lotus do this?! What's going on?"
Chocolate's voice was more thoughtful. "Hmm. It must be part of the plan, right, Apophis?"
Apophis nodded briefly and invited all the players back into a new party.
"Don't worry, it's all part of my plan."
Everyone glanced at Apophis suspiciously, wondering why he hadn't bothered to tell them what was going to happen.
Hulk asked, "What are you planning for us this ti?"
Apophis gave an arrogant grin in return. "If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise anymore! Co and get on the elevator. It's ti to go underground." He laughed. "Feels just like a Dungeon, doesn't it?"
Despite their concerns, everyone obeyed Apophis's instructions and got into the huge elevator, which was clearly designed to support huge, heavy loads. Then Apophis activated the console with his thumbprint and selected Floor 59.
The heavy blast doors closed, securing them, and then the elevator descended smoothly downward.
After a few minutes, a man appeared in the middle of the elevator.
Then another.
And another.
It was Joker, and so of his guild mbers, wearing invisibility suits.
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