Dual flaming daggers blinked into existence in both of Daniel’s hands, his muscles tensing as he closed within the Kharnidd’s guard. The daggers were designed similarly to his Heavenly Armament’s Dagger Mode, but with a few twists. Their blades were longer and thinner, slightly curved on the edges and more contained in their design. The Armament’s flames burned hot and obvious, tongues of fire regularly leaping up and down its length, while the Fangs of Eternity looked more like they were made of tightly controlled, ivory plasma. Not a ripple disturbed their surface as Daniel brought them up to cut through the enemy.
At the last second, the Kharnidd tried to dodge, twisting around to block the attack with its arm as it floated away with its Telekinesis. Daniel’s blades cut through the outstretched arm like butter, drawing shallow gashes across the creature’s chest as he struck. Nevertheless, the young man gnashed his teeth as he realized that his sneak attack wouldn’t be fatal. The Kharnidd flew away faster than Daniel could run, manifesting its Spheric Shield and using its Telekinesis to hurl a storm of debris right at him. Daniel frowned as he leapt to the right, evading the attack and contemplating his next move. One of the key weaknesses of the Hands was that the Uriel Protocol couldn’t totally hide their energy signature once they were manifested, no matter how contained they were. An enemy with keen senses would notice if they were under attack, especially if they possessed the Sense Danger Attribute.
He dismissed the daggers and ducked under another flying chunk of rock, mindful of the fact that his time was ticking. Daniel was confident he could slash through that barrier eventually, especially with the Destroyer’s Strike. Still, it was very unlikely that he’d manage kill the Gamma class before his charge ran out. The Uriel Protocol specialized in assassinations, not direct combat. The enemy had already begun taking countermeasures, picking up countless pieces of smaller debris and spinning the rocks around the room in a hurricane. Daniel manifested his Hunter’s Domain, allowing him to see and dodge the attacks that were now coming from all sides. To make matters even better, the Uriel Protocol dampened the visual effect of the ability, allowing Daniel to remain hidden even while the Domain was active. In reaction, the enemy Overclocked its Telekinesis, forcing the debris to spin at blinding speeds. It scoured the walls and floors with brutal force, and Daniel staggered backward as one of the smaller rocks crashed into his shoulder, thankfully deflected by the armor’s shielding:
“System Power: 2%”
The Kharnidd seized on the opening, flinging several boulders in his direction and forcing Daniel to jump and roll through a new blizzard of attacks. It was past time to get out of here. Daniel dashed over to the door, ducking and diving through everything that came his way. He managed to reach the exit in one piece, while the Kharnidd had lost track of his location once again and resorted to flailing around and attacking everything around it. Standing on the threshold, Daniel suddenly paused. Dropping his cloaking, he fired off a single blaster shot at the enemy and slipped out of the room. Daniel felt the enemy pause for a handful of seconds before beginning to fly after him, all according to plan.
Daniel had chosen this pathway because it was the alternative to the route the other Pioneers had taken. As the Gamma class chased after him, they both grew further and further away from Daniel’s allies. Now he just needed to kill this thing.
…
Hars blocked the blaster shot and seethed as it watched the enemy leave the room. It was tempted to give chase immediately, but there was something It needed to take care of first. Its subordinates had followed after It and were just arriving in the room as the human ran away. Hars gestured with Its one intact arm toward the route the other nine humans had run down, speaking in Its guttural, throaty language: “Go. Kill the others.”
Hars hadn’t forgotten Its original mission. It was possible that the humans had found Litradia on the ship, so they all needed to die. But now, a greater threat had arisen. This weapon the enemy possessed had the potential to be a deadly threat to the Kharnidd war effort. There was nothing in the ancestral record that indicated the existence of any device of this kind, yet Hars knew that some enemies possessed dangerous technology that grew and evolved as its user improved. If this weapon had such an ability, then it could even have the potential to threaten the Khargon. Nipping this threat in the bud had now become Its highest priority.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Without further ado, Hars shot after the enemy.
…
The Pioneers sprinted down the facility’s hallways, squinting carefully through the darkness around them. Arnold and Emily lead the pack, weaving around every obstacle in their path without hesitation. They may not have been hesitating, but others certainly were. From behind him, Arnold heard a man call out in frustration: “Where are we going? What’s the plan?”
The large man recognized the voice of Li Huang, a blocky-faced man with a hooked nose and narrow, angry-looking eyes. Arnold suppressed some frustration at that question, though he did understand where it came from. Even if some of the men hadn’t trusted Daniel, he was the one with the map. They’d followed him because he knew where he was going. Now, they were just running through the dark with only the light of their Codices to guide them. They were following Daniel’s directions, but it was harder to take those directions seriously while he wasn’t here. Allen Praxis was the man to respond to Huang’s question: “Whatever shot that laser at us isn’t something we can fight. Leave it to the guy with the power armor. We’ll keep running until we find a part of the facility that still has power. Then we can talk about where we’re going.”
Arnold nodded, giving the man an appraising look. Praxis was a smart fellow, with a sober outlook and an analytical mind. His plan made sense, so they’d follow it. If only they knew which parts of the facility still had power and how to get there.
The moment he thought that, as if in answer to his internal plea, Arnold received a notification ping on his Codex. It was a message from Daniel, so he opened it immediately, a grin splitting his face as he saw what it was. A map of the facility, complete even with the recent damage that’d been done, appeared in a holographic outline on Arnold’s HUD. The pieces that didn’t have power had been darkened, allowing him to determine a route to the safer locations quickly. From the gasps of several of the other men, Arnold could tell that Daniel had sent the map to them as well. Praxis was the first to speak up again: “Well, how about that?”
Arnold was still smiling as he barked out new orders: “We’ll do this like Praxis said. This way!”
He led the Pioneers down another avenue, legs pumping as they ran with newfound vigor. As he did, another yell cut through his newfound excitement: “Incoming! On our six!”
Looking back, Arnold felt his blood run cold as he watched the Xenos foot soldiers round a bend, the monsters releasing high screams as they saw their prey was within sight. The Pioneers had been so distracted that they hadn’t felt the enemies running up behind them. The Kharnidd were still far away, since the current hallway was a very long one, but that didn’t stop the Delta class from shooting out a Psionic cross-chop attack. One of the men threw up a shield, but Arnold watched as the attack crashed through it, weakened yet still deadly. He stopped running, allowing the others to run around him as the attack flew toward them. Arnold barely managed to get his body between another man and the attack, manifesting his Last Moment Defense. A skin-level, hexagonal armor appeared on the palm of his hand, which he stretched out in denial. The center of the cross-chop landed on it perfectly, and the entire attack exploded in a flash of sun-colored light.
Arnold was totally unharmed, a stoic expression never leaving his face. Last Moment Defense was much more limited than other defensive abilities, but it made up for that in sheer power. Even a Delta-class attack would struggle to break through, especially when weakened. Many eschewed it due to the high consumption, which usually forced a user to only manifest it at the “last moment” before an attack. Still, the cannier veterans recognized its impressive potential when it was wielded by a skilled Pioneer.
Arnold turned to see the man he’d saved, raising an eyebrow as Harold Goldstein’s pallid face was illuminated in the cerulean Codex light. The man stared back at him with wide eyes, trembling with fear, yet Arnold could only spare him a few gruff words: “Keep moving.”
They did just that, continuing onward and turning a corner to prevent the Kharnidd from shooting at them again. The Pioneers’ surroundings soon changed, as they switched from running through a long metal hallway to running through what appeared to be a glass tube. Arnold saw a few bubbles floating on the outside in the corner of his eye, but he dismissed its presence as unimportant. He shouldn’t be surprised that there was an underwater section of the facility, as the Aeterna that built this place had likely been interested in studying the underwater sea life, given its location. The moment he dismissed this knowledge, he saw more movement in the distance. That movement didn’t stop, transforming into a flurry of seawater that grew closer and closer to their long glass hallway. Two massive, crimson eyes gleamed in the darkness, and Arnold felt his heart freeze over.
“INCOMING!” Arnold cried out, half a second before their whole world shattered.
With the crash of glass and a rush of water, massive fangs pierced through the walls of their sanctuary. Arnold narrowly managed to dive out of the way, the fangs closing on the hallway just behind the Pioneers. More cracks formed around the sides of the tube as the beast’s momentum crashed into the construction, the screech of tortured glass ringing in the soldiers’ ears. The hallway held for a single moment before breaking down entirely, walls splintering and sending the group of Pioneers flying out into watery darkness.
