Through the scope, Ivan could see the true horror of the Scorpus Cerus. Its body is low and wide, covered in thick, dark-red and black armor plates, layered and built to withstand a siege. It moved with deliberate, terrifying intelligence, its huge front claws scraping the ground as it focused its segmented, high-arced tail. The complex, multi-channeled crystal structure on the tail's tip pulsed bright azure. This was the heaviest Cerus they had yet to encounter. The Sabot round loaded by Leonard was their only hope of piercing its thick, obsidian-plated bulk.
Without skipping a beat, Ivan ordered, "Fire!" 120mm gun roar to life
The 120mm gun roared to life. Jusis pulled the trigger and the shot screamed through the air. The Sabot was a streak of white-hot kinetic energy heading straight for the target. Ivan watched with grim confidence, waiting for the impact that would end the hunt.
When the smoke cleared from the barrel and the kicked-up dirt finally settled, the result was not what they expected.
"What?!" Leila's voice was a sharp spike of disbelief as she peered from the turret hatch.
Through the thinning fog, two glowing azure eyes stared back at them. The monster remained standing.
"It dodged?" Ivan exclaimed. His hands tightened on the controls. It was impossible for something that size to move that fast.
"It cannot be. It was right there!" Panic bled into Jusis's voice. He stared at his empty reticle, his breath coming in shallow hitches.
"By the goddess," Leonard whispered, his hand hovering near the next shell.
"Mister!" Leila shouted into the intercom.
The azure eyes vanished, leaving only a streak of ghostly light as the beast side-stepped with unnatural grace. It moved like a shadow caught in a gale.
"Where is it now?" Ivan demanded.
Leila strained her senses, her eyes darting across the dark battlefield. A sudden gust of wind slammed into her, and a primal chill raced down her spine. "Get back! Now!"
Ivan slammed the Abrams into reverse. The engine shrieked in protest as the tracks bit into the earth. At lightning speed, a crystallite projectile whistled through the space they had occupied a second before. It did not hit the hull, but the sheer atmospheric pressure of the pass shook the seventy ton tank like a toy. Dust exploded around them and Leila's hair whipped violently in the turbulence.
"It is at our three o'clock! Closing fast! Distance, five hundred meters!" Leila screamed the coordinates.
The creature is too fast, Ivan thought. He knew they couldn't win a sniping match with a ghost. "Leo, canister now!"
Leonard lunged for the shell marked with a bold 'C'. He shoved the massive canister round into the breech with a metallic clang.
"Jusis, keep your eye on the scope! When I say fire, you pull that trigger! Do not wait for a perfect lock!" Ivan commanded.
"Understood!" Jusis replied, his voice trembling but determined.
Ivan shifted his strategy. If he couldn't hit the heart, he would shred the limbs. He would use the tank like a massive shotgun, blast the beast with thousands of tungsten balls to break its momentum, and then follow up with a killing blow.
He wrenched the tank around. The hull groaned as it pivoted toward the three o'clock position.
"Mister! It is right in front of us!" Jusis panickingly shouted.
As the tank finished its rotation, the moon escaped the clouds to reveal the nightmare. The Scorpus Cerus was only one hundred meters away. Its heavy, segmented legs carved deep gouges in the earth. Its massive claws pulsed with an angry, electric blue light, and its high-arced tail was coiled like a spring, the crystal tip humming with lethal intent.
Leonard, his mana nearly depleted, pressed his palm against the cold interior hull. He felt the vibration of the engine. He prepared to pour the last of his spirit into the steel, hoping to reinforce the armor for the inevitable impact.
"Fire!" Ivan barked.
The Abrams kicked back as the canister round detonated. A cloud of lethal tungsten pellets sprayed into the darkness. The Scorpus Cerus shrieked as the metal rain shredded the air. The pellets did not pierce the thickest plates, but the sheer kinetic force hammered against its carapace, forcing the beast to stumble and leap backward to maintain its balance.
"Effect?" Ivan shouted.
"It is wounded, Ivan, but the damage is light!" Leila reported, her eyes locked on the retreating shadow. "We only pushed it back!"
"Keep tracking on it!" Ivan barked, wrestling the Abrams through a jagged, bone-jarring turn. "Leo, load HEAT!"
"Fear not, Sire! The furnace shall be fed!" Leo's voice boomed through the intercom with knightly resonance. He slammed the shell into the breech, the metallic clang echoing like a gauntlet hitting a shield. "The bolt of liquid fire is chambered!"
Leila perched from the commander hatch and raised her wooden staff again. "Aetheric Beacon!"
A sharp, emerald ripple of mana expanded from the tank like a physical shockwave. It struck the obsidian hide of the Scorpus Cerus with a distinct metallic clink that echoed back to the crew. Instantly, a needle-thin beam of green light erupted from her staff, tethering the Abrams to the monster's chest like a laser designator.
"That Cerus can't escape my sight now!" Leila exclaimed. The Scorpus Cerus shrieked, realizing it couldn't shake the "Beacon." It abandoned its flanking maneuver and pivoted, its legs carving deep trenches in the sand as it lowered its head for a suicidal charge.
"He is coming straight for us!" Leila screamed. "Brace, Mister!"
The Scorpus Cerus bridged the hundred-meter gap in a predatory heartbeat. Its massive tail coiled over its obsidian back like a high-tension spring, the crystalline tip humming with a blinding azure energy that threatened to turn the Abrams' frontal plates into molten slag.
Ivan didn't flinch. He slammed the transmission into reverse, the turbine howling as he wrenched the steering left, then right, dancing the seventy-ton beast in a desperate, jagged zigzag. A searing ray of azure light streaked through the air, a near-miss that hissed against the frontal hull, charring the paint and shaking the crew to their bones.
"Goddess save us," Jusis whispered, his prayer lost in the sweat dripping off his chin.
"Ivan! The Cerus is speeding up!" Leila's voice spiked. She glanced upward, her eyes widening in sheer disbelief. "The monster jumped! It will strike from above!"
The sight was a defiance of physics. The Cerus propelled its massive bulk fifty meters into the air, a silhouette of nightmare blotting out the moon. It was a flying titan of obsidian, its sharp claws splayed as it descended like a falling star directly toward the tank's roof.
"Not a chance," Ivan said, his voice dropping into a terrifying, icy calm.
He stomped the brakes, killed the reverse, and hammered the gas. Instead of fleeing, he threw the Abrams into a tight, grinding circle. The sudden change in geometry robbed the falling beast of its target. The Cerus slammed into the earth exactly where the tank had been a second prior. The ground groaned and buckled, sending a violent shockwave through the desert floor as dirt and mud erupted like a volcanic blast.
Before the debris could settle, Ivan pushed the throttle to the full speed, gaining a few precious meters of distance. Then, he yanked the steering bars sharply to the right. The Abrams performed a brutal, 180-degree drift, the tracks screaming and sparks flying as it swung around to face its pursuer.
Slowly, the wall of dust began to part. Jusis stared through his optics, the horrifying scorpion-like monster looming in the haze. His hands were trembling with a life of their own, but he didn't let the fear break him. He waited, finger hovering over the trigger, listening for the only voice that mattered.
"FIRE!" Ivan roared.
The 120mm HEAT shell tore through the air, a streak of fire that slammed into the Cerus with a deafening, earth-shattering explosion. A direct hit. A fireball bloomed in the dark, obscuring everything in a shroud of smoke and burning fuel.
"Did we... did we kill it?" Jusis asked, his voice thin and hopeful.
Silence followed. Only the crackle of burning sand and the low hum of the engine remained.
"Don't ever ask that kind of question again..." Ivan muttered. His gut twisted. A projectile meant to disintegrate modern armor should have left nothing but dust, yet the atmosphere felt heavy—suffocating.
"It... it can't be..." Leila gasped, her hand flying to her mouth in horror.
"That abomination is yet breathing even after such a godly strike, huh?" Leo's voice was a low, knightly growl of disbelief.
"What?!" Jusis cried out, his lack of mana leaving him blind to the terrifying pressure radiating from the smoke.
As the flames subsided, the true horror was revealed. The Scorpus Cerus had survived, but it was transformed. Its obsidian armor had been blasted away, replaced by raw, pulsing flesh that glowed a sickly, burning purple. Its sapphire eyes had bled into a demonic, incandescent red. Its claws were still intact, snapping with a new, frenzied hunger.
Before Ivan could even register a shadow, the Scorpus Cerus struck. As if it blurred through space or literally teleported, appearing instantly at the Abrams' nose. The massive, gore-slicked claws clamped onto the frontal hull with the force of a tectonic shift. Despite the seventy tons of reinforced steel, the Cerus pushed the tank backward inch by agonizing inch, the tracks grinding uselessly against the sand.
Face-to-face once more, Ivan stared through the narrow viewing port. The monster was a vision of visceral horror. The obsidian elegance was gone, replaced by raw, pulsing purple flesh that bled a sickly light into the cockpit. A single, incandescent red eye burned inches from the glass, staring directly into Ivan's soul. The air was filled with the deafening, screeching ring of metal on metal as the beast tried to bite through the Chobham armor, its mandibles shrieking against the steel.
Ivan's eyes went blank. For twelve hours, he had endured the seemingly impossible like magic, monsters, and the weight of a dying world. He was hollowed out, exhausted to the marrow of his bones. A part of him wanted to let go, to find eternal rest in the silence of the dunes.
But then, the voices crackled in his ears. Leo's steady breathing. Jusis's frantic prayers. Leila's defiant spirit. They still needed him.
"You're just persistent and don't know when to die," Ivan said with a sub-zero chill. "And I don't have time for this crap."
He punched the release on the driver's hatch and threw it open. The roar of the turbine and the stench of purple ichor rushed in.
"Mister! What are you doing? Get back inside!" Leila's voice shrieked through the intercom. She watched the hatch swing open on her monitor, her heart hammering against her ribs. "Ivan, no! You'll be shredded!"
"Sir, please! Get back down!" Jusis cried out, his hands hovering over the firing controls. He tracked the monster in his sights, but Ivan's silhouette was right in the line of fire. "I can't shoot! I'll hit him!"
Ivan did not listen. He hauled his body out of the safety of the iron box and gripped his SCAR rifle. He vaulted onto the tank's glacis plate, standing as a raw human shadow against a mountain of pulsing meat.
"Ivan, stay thy hand!" Leo's voice boomed from the turret. "Do not leave the fortress! Sire, I implore you!"
Ivan pulled the trigger at point-blank range. The rifle barked in a continuous stream of lead. The 7.62mm rounds chewed through the exposed nerves of the monster's face. Every bullet sent a spray of glowing violet fluid across Ivan's uniform.
The Cerus shrieked and recoiled, its claws losing their grip on the steel. It tried to scramble back into the darkness, but Ivan did not let it breathe. He sprinted across the tank's hood and leaped. He landed squarely on the beast's raw, unarmored shoulder. He dropped the rifle to its sling and drew his combat knife. With a guttural shout, he drove the blade deep into the purple muscle.
The Cerus took off in a frantic, wounded gallop. Ivan clung to the pulsing flesh.
"I have a lock! I can fire!" Leila shouted, her staff humming as a jagged spear of crystalline ice began to form at the tip. She aimed at the retreating mass, but the beast was zig-zagging too violently. Ivan was a tiny, dark speck clinging to the monster's neck. "No... the ice will pierce him too! I can't release the projectile!"
"Master Jusis, don't think about it!" Leo roared as Jusis's finger twitched on the trigger. "The risk to the Sire is too great! We can only watch!"
Ivan swung his rifle back around and jammed the muzzle directly into a cluster of pulsing vessels near its neck. He emptied the rest of the magazine. The creature let out a wet, gurgling sound. Its momentum slowed as its central nervous system began to fail. Ivan climbed toward the gore-slicked head and grabbed the edge of its mandible. The massive red eye stared at him in a final, panicked tremor.
"Rot in hell," Ivan whispered.
He pulled a fragmentation grenade from his vest. He hooked the pin with his thumb and yanked it hard, feeling the cold metal ring snap away. He shoved the canister deep into the creature's open, gasping throat. He kicked off the beast's head and tucked into a hard roll as he hit the ground.
Behind him, a dull, muffled thump echoed through the creature's chest. A cloud of dark mist and bone fragments erupted from its mouth.
The Scorpus Cerus collapsed. Seventy tons of biological nightmare slid across the dirt before coming to a dead stop. Ivan stood up slowly and wiped the black ichor from his cheek. He looked back at the idling Abrams.
"Target neutralized," Ivan breathed.