[A/n: This chapter contains disturbing content!]
A suffocating silence descended, words died in his chest, leaving nothing but bitterness to gnaw at his soul.
Elena's words held truths he couldn't refute: he had never truly known war, never met its grim face, never borne its stinging brand, never possessed the sheer will to commit its atrocities.
"Do what you must."
His voice came out barely audible; its echo didn't even fade before the Wartopian lines erupted. A barrage of bolts and lead tore through the air; a storm of blood mist, screams, and torn limbs followed in its wake.
Humans, Earthlings of his kin, people of every hue and skin, all crumpled before the crimson scythe of the reaper. Their lives were extinguished in a blink, their forms broken where they once stood like uprooted trees.
In the span of a single agonizing second, all lines blurred, and all taboos vanished.
He was no longer merely a killer…
≪ You have gained 1 EXP! ≫
…but a serial killer…
≪ You have gained 1 EXP! ≫
…a mass murderer…
≪ You have gained 1 EXP! ≫
…a war criminal.
≪ You have gained 1 EXP! ≫
System pop-ups blocked his vision as if they were trying to tell him not to look, but every experience was etched onto his soul with the thundering reverberation of every bullet and blast.
A hundred human lives, traded for a paltry four experience points. And he, the harbinger of this carnage, remained rooted, silent, petrified—a complicit butcher in the churning slaughter.
✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧
—10 Minutes Earlier—
It was a risk worth taking, from which Adam learned and experienced something new.
Runesmithing, a skill he must have heard about a few times throughout pop culture fiction and games but had never been able to process how it was used or what it looked like, was a skill of immense and ridiculous power. Among the Alfari, only the Elden caste possessed that type of skill, and for it, they were seated as kings and rulers of their people, who worshiped the concepts of the runes with great reverence.
But Adam, ever the techie, shifted his focus from strategizing the incoming siege to analyzing the logic of what Lord Kaimu was doing.
Due to their unique physiology, being conduits to "shimmering light" as the Elden Lord stated, Lord Kaimu's body started pulsating with light more frequently than before along his body patterns.
"La Xuja! Gaha!"
Lord Kaimu spoke in Alfari, then raised Adam's Gobzkin Club overhead, aiming it at the sun.
Adam could see a phenomenon form around his club and Kaimu's left hand—a manifestation of light—but it seemed that it wasn't coming from Kaimu; rather, it was absorbed from an outside source: the Sun.
Then, like a network of lightning sparks, cracks started forming all across the Gobzkin Club, light coming from within. Kaimu wasn't trying to preserve the staff; he was breaking it deliberately.
"That!"
Something familiar struck Adam's heart: a familiar beat, a resonance. He felt a fear he couldn't explain or fathom, but it was mixed with a great deal of desperation and a willingness to survive.
That?
Could it be the rune?
Could it be that it was as the Elden claimed: alive?
"Justiciar, equip the bracer and hold steady."
Lord Kaimu addressed Adam and extended his other hand to reach Adam's forearm as he slid his arm through it. Adam didn't know how to lock it around his arm, but Lord Kaimu did so effortlessly with a single touch, simply squeezing the two parts with his big hand around Adam's arm until their bindings shrank and stiffened. Then, Lord Kaimu chanted once again:
"Ja! Uji!"
CRACK!
And the Gobzkin Club shattered to smithereens.
An orb of light hovered in its place, Lord Kaimu holding it between his fingers, then slowly shrank it with enough willpower to make him grit his teeth and grimace. His pattern's pulsation shifted, now going in reversed waves as if trying to pass something through his body, and he was in a state of deep focus.
Only a few seconds passed before the orb appeared from his other hand, the one that held Adam's forearm.
"La fa."
Conduits of shimmering light: Adam understood from that demonstration a few things about the properties of the Elden, their patterns as conduits, and how "Runesmithing" was performed.
Energy conduction! Precise, mentally powered, will-enforced, much like using runes, but it acts on a more fundamental level than just casting rune techniques.
It was the power to manipulate the runes themselves.
As soon as Lord Kaimu lifted his hand off Adam's new bracer, a rune was now shimmering on it with a golden hue, taking form over the metal itself.
"It… is a success."
Lord Kaimu finally spoke, seemingly out of breath, his skin glistening with what seemed like sweat. The process seemed to have taken its toll on him, but rather than exhausted and weakened, the Elden Lord seemed refreshed, grinning genuinely after doing something he seemed to love more than anything—a grin so familiar to Adam as it always found his face whenever he finished working on a miniature.
"Thank you."
Adam looked at the bracer that now covered his left arm, and let his mind slip through it slowly, the same forceful process he was used to whenever he activated his rune. But rather than getting the feedback he was used to, he found that the connection between him and the rune's authority had been fundamentally changed.
"That…" Adam couldn't help but frown, trying to get used to this new feeling.
"Clearer?" Lord Kaimu asked, seeking a high praise review for his work. [A.n: Ehem! Me too.]
Adam simply let some of his power slip through the bracer's structure, reaching the rune through the natural lattice of the metal, and something felt completely different.
Swoooooooh!
The wind moved fast in a gradual gust, but then died down half as quickly as it had risen. A cyclone emerged after that, and the earth and wind started dancing, mimicking the simple instructions of Adam's hands.
"It's beyond perfect."
Adam blurted, a new sensation registering in his mind: a thrilled shiver, a twitching smile, and an intense overflow of power that felt greater than anything he had ever performed before.
"I am gladdened you like it, Justiciar Clay." The Elden Lord smiled proudly, "Now, it is time to…"
Just as he was about to announce something, a sound came from the distance.
Tak-Tak-Tak-Tak-Tak-Tak-Tak!
Almost everyone turned to face the northern border of the factory, where Candice's group was stationed in a storehouse building that shared part of the factory's outer wall.
"It's starting!" Adam said and immediately ran towards Elena's group. "Buzz, status report."
"They are holding out effectively, but there is a larger contingent of monsters moving about. More than fifty." Buzz replied as he moved the drone north.
Adam didn't wait and stood behind Buzz before picking up the radio mic from his communicator.
"Mobile squad. Move to reinforce the north and be on standby. Don't engage unless ordered to." Adam spoke into the mic before releasing the switch and waiting for a reply.
"Acknowledged, sir." The voice of Officer Reeves came from the other side, "Will we be seeing fireworks, sir."
"Patience is a virtue, Officer Reeves." Adam replied before turning to Elena, "The boys want some action, Sergeant."
"Working on it." Elena replied impatiently as her hands worked in careful motions, performing accurate bombardment procedures with extreme care.
She was given a task most familiar to her as a combat engineer—assembling a mortar gun—and as expected, it was one of the few things engineers excelled at. Once assembled, even Lord Kaimu approached carefully, fearing the energy pulsating from his body might affect the construct the humans were working on with meticulous care.
Elena finally placed a compass near the mortar gun she assembled and started fixing its mechanical gyroscope to calibrate its accuracy. Then, when she was done, she turned to Adam with a thumbs-up.
"Give them hell."
Sharp immediately moved to the crate holding the explosive shells and opened it with care, revealing intricately organized, slender tubes with pointy caps and sleek tails, each the size of the mortar's cylinder. He waited for Patch to give Elena the exact coordinates of the target before moving it above the mortar's barrel. Elena approached him and armed it with ease, before returning behind the mortar, playing two roles at once. Then, she signaled him to drop.
Clank!
The mortar shell dropped through the cylinder tube, and not a second passed before…
BOOM!
A violet discharge occurred as the mortar shell burst into the sky.
None could follow its trajectory as it was launched, not the keen Corporal Sharp or the supernatural Lord Kaimu. It flew in a lethal arc and descended midway to its target with precise movement and destructive precision before…
KWABOOOM!"
"Direct Hit!"
Buzz announced with a jolt of joy running through his body.
"Report." Adam ordered him.
"Of the fifty assailants, not many had survived; the shell landed among their rear ranks." Buzz raised his goggles, revealing the good news.
Adam exchanged a high five with him, but playfully turned him around mid-motion to pick up the radio mic and change the mobile team's position back to the area between the defensive zones.
"Good job, Sergeant." Adam congratulated Elena for the successful firing of the mortar after fist-bumping with Sharp.
"Sol Imperius is watching us, Sir," she said before giving Lord Kaimu a dissatisfied stare, then looked back at Adam. "Hopefully, long enough."
Adam's shoulders sagged, and he shook his head wryly, knowing that his summoned allies would never like those aliens, despite how instrumental they were in the fight.
"More movement to the northwest and moving south. Large contingent of monsters," Buzz reported before pausing for a bit, then continued the report. "Sir, the monsters are armed with firearms."
Adam heard that, and a look of worry emerged on his face.
"Relay coordinates to the bombardment team," he said and used the radio once again. "All units, we have firearm-armed assailants heading towards Ivan's squad. Lock the enemy in place for bombardment. Mobile squad, move west to assist."
"Sir!" Buzz spoke once again as he flew the drone more frantically than before. "More monsters, sir. The south… I think they're coming from the north again."
Adam frowned deeply and relayed the order to lock the enemy for bombardment on all fronts, yet when he looked to the east, he couldn't help but worry.
"Those Gobzkins were too organized," he said and shook his head. "They had more of our technology this time."
"I must say, this is not a good sign," Lord Kaimu spoke, walking closer. "It is a sign of an Ogni."
"I'm sorry, what?" Adam asked, eyes narrowed.
"A Gobzkin Prince… a Lord of the Gobzkin Horde." The Elden Lord let out a long sigh. "The only entity that could mobilize the green menace in such a force as you've described is an Ogni, a Prince."
"How bad?" Adam asked, his voice steeped in worry.
"Among the ones present here, only I could kill an Ogni," Lord Kaimu said in a tone as heavy as Adam's. "And it would be a laborious feat."
"Save your strength then. Once that fucker emerges, Sergeant Elena will open a path for you with bombardment to take its head. I imagine the Gobzkin wouldn't be so organized if we killed their Prince."
"The Gobzkin are crude in every way you can imagine—cruel and murderous. But the Ogni caste is the scariest because it is not crude; it is sharp and twisted. The Ogni will challenge you in ways you can't imagine, Justiciar. Don't underestimate that kind of enemy." Lord Kaimu advised.
Adam nodded with worry and turned to Buzz.
"Any word from Creed?" Adam asked.
"No signal, sir," Buzz replied, coordinating between the various teams and Elena's bombardment. "The Base couldn't reach him either, but they wanted to form a team and come to our rescue."
"It would take them an hour to get here, and they didn't have enough cars. Tell them to stay organized and arrange a rendezvous point halfway with enough heavy weapons to deter any chasers if we were forced to make a run for it."
"Yes, sir."
"And keep trying to reach Creed."
Adam's hands were tied, but he still believed he could open a way and run with his team, though it would cost him the entire Factory Shelter—his strategic ally that could safely make trade with the aliens. He also didn't want to abandon the 200 survivors inside the shelter, who, aside from being people like him, had an immense value as future trainees and base staff once he managed to absorb all of them.
But on the eastern front, where no Gobzkins had yet emerged, something terrible was approaching the shelter.
It was a platform as wide as the street itself, raised on four wheels, with a single-horned Gobzkin on its top. Its face was the most hideous of any Gobzkin, fangs extending from its mouth upward and downward. Its face was formed into a terrifying grimace not by some craftwork, but by a cursed visage of terrifying monstrosity. His size was above that of a Hobgob, but less than a Gork, yet his muscles were terrifyingly defined down to every shredded detail, twisting into a structure that could only be defined as demonic.
Yet that green demon wasn't the most terrifying feature of this parade of power and madness, nor its contingent of roughly 300 Gobzkin of various shapes and sizes, nor the one towering Gobzkin Goer (Gigant) that towered over the warband like a walking siege tower. None of these were the main attraction.
Groans!
Screams!
Wails!
It was the humans in their ranks.
The Gobzkin's platform was being driven by a hundred slaves—chained, lashed, mutilated, and no dignifying fabric covered their bodies as they marched.
Around the platform there were others, their backs hunched by the weight of the Gobzkin mounting them, their eyes blindfolded, their limbs nailed to chains that made them move at the will of their jockeys.
And above the platform, in the hand of the Gobzkin Prince, were six chains, each ending with a human at its end—all females, all on all fours, their tendons in their feet cut, rendering them creatures that crawled on all fours.
A scene that erupted from hell, a scene that brought madness—visceral and uncensored—to the doorstep of the fortified humans, a scene that spelled the fateful demise of the human race.