The Wolves crept forward, rifles tight to their chests, visors scanning every corner. The hive groaned around them, walls twitching with veins of alien light. Each step felt like walking inside a living nightmare.
Then the tunnel widened into a vast chamber.
And it was there.
A giant armored war beast.
It towered over them — thirty meters of grotesque muscle fused with Typonian alloy. Its body was plated in thick carapace, glowing runes etched across its hide, its head crowned with jagged horns. Its footsteps alone made the hive tremble.
Woo's visor pinged red, AI voice screaming: "Warning: Armor immunity detected. Conventional rounds ineffective."
Raul cursed. "¡Mierda! Bullets aren't doing a damn thing!"
Jerome fired anyway, watching his rounds spark harmlessly off its hide. "It's... it's just eating it!"
Marco shouted, "We're screwed unless—"
Carla cut in, her voice steel. "...We use that."
⸻
The Black Hole Grenade
She reached into her belt pouch, fingers brushing against the forbidden weight every Marine carried but rarely ever touched.
A matte-black sphere. Veins of faint blue quantum energy pulsed inside its core.
The rookies froze.
Woo's eyes widened. "No way... is that...?"
Min-seo whispered, trembling, "...A Black Hole Grenade."
Jerome nearly dropped his rifle. "I thought those were just... for legends. For... wars."
Hunter smirked. "Kid, this is a war."
Carla raised the grenade high, her visor glowing. "FALL BACK! Fifty meters minimum! NOW!"
The Wolves didn't hesitate. They sprinted back, armor thrumming as they scrambled for cover.
⸻
The Throw
Carla's stance was perfect — every muscle trained for this. She thumbed the trigger rune, the grenade humming with impossible weight. Then, with a grunt, she hurled it forward.
The sphere bounced once, twice, then rolled directly beneath the beast's armored chest.
For a heartbeat, nothing.
Then the world collapsed.
⸻
The Singularity
A black hole ripped into existence with a thunderous pulse. The air snapped violently, pulling everything within thirty-five meters into its ravenous maw.
The war beast roared — a guttural, alien scream — as its body tore apart at the seams. Armor plates ripped free, its grotesque limbs bending backward, bones and alloy shrieking as they were sucked into the singularity.
Even the hive walls warped inward, ichor and machinery shredding apart, dragged screaming into the void.
The Wolves clung to cover, armor straining against the crushing pull. HUDs flashed warnings: "Gravitational surge detected — HOLD POSITION."
And then — silence.
The black hole collapsed on itself with a final flash of blue light. Nothing remained. No beast. No debris. Only an empty crater, carved clean into the hive floor.
⸻
The Aftermath
The rookies stared, breathless.
Woo whispered, "I... I only ever saw that on the news feeds..."
Min-seo was pale, her hands shaking. "...It's like... like we just erased reality."
Jerome muttered, "That wasn't a grenade. That was a damn... cosmic event."
Marco swallowed hard. "...We really have that kind of power?"
Raul smirked bitterly, reloading. "And that was just one grenade."
Carla stood tall, visor glowing. She clipped her rifle back to her chest. "Don't get used to it. We don't have many. And you only use them when nothing else works. Understood?"
The Wolves nodded, still shaken.
Reaper's voice rasped, distorted but calm. "...The hive now knows what you carry. Expect retaliation."
Asura finally spoke, his voice even, steady.
"The queen felt that. She is watching closer now."
The Wolves tightened their grips on their rifles. The path was clear — but the cost was written in their pounding hearts.
-
The Wolves froze as the tunnel widened.
Something stepped into the dim alien glow.
A humanoid beast — impossibly tall, slender, faceless. Its body stretched unnaturally, skin like pale alloyed sinew. Its limbs twitched with static motion, each step silent but oppressive. The air itself seemed to bend around it.
Then it struck.
An unseen force lashed outward. Five UNE Marines were lifted into the air and crushed instantly, their armor folding in on itself like tin. Blood and steel rained as their bodies slammed into the walls.
John roared in pain as another invisible strike ripped across him, tearing through his side. He fell hard, clutching his wound, stim fluid hissing into his armor.
"JOHN!" Woo shouted, scrambling toward him.
Carla fired a full burst at the faceless figure — but the rounds bent mid-air, twisting away as if reality itself refused to touch it.
⸻
Reaper's Read
The beast raised a long, skeletal arm. The air grew heavy — like existence itself was being erased.
Reaper stepped forward, cloak rippling. His visor eyes glowed blue, burning like twin flames.
"Conceptual... invisible."
The rookies froze as his voice distorted, almost like an echo in the void.
"Conceptual Tactic: Invisible Attack."
⸻
The Clash
The faceless beast lashed out again. This time, the force wasn't seen — but felt. The very idea of existence collapsing surged toward the soldiers.
But before it could land — Reaper's tactic snapped into place.
The invisible strike reflected.
The air cracked like thunder as the beast's own conceptual attack bent back toward it. Its faceless head tilted unnaturally, body convulsing as the unseen force slammed into its frame.
The ground shuddered. Veins in the hive walls burst, ichor spraying as reality itself warped from the clash.
Its own attacks are disappearing like it never existed. Its own attacks is literally — attacking itself from the inside out.
Woo shielded Min-seo, shouting, "It's fighting itself—!"
⸻
The Counterattack
Reaper's voice rasped through the comms, distorted but cold.
"You cannot hide what I already see."
Carla barked, "LIGHT IT UP!"
Hunter vaulted, blasting rounds into its torso as Hudson placed precision shots at its limbs. Raul and Marco poured suppressive fire, covering Reaper's stand. Asura blurred forward, Blink Stepping behind the beast to deliver clean bursts into its back.
The creature shrieked — not in sound, but in a psychic wail that rattled every Marine's skull. Helmets blared with static, AI systems flashing red.
⸻
The Fall
Reaper advanced through the noise, his cloak dripping with alien ichor. His visor eyes flared once more.
Another invisible strike lashed toward the Wolves.
Reaper raised his blade, whispering in that cold, distorted tone:
"Invisible... returned."
The beast convulsed violently as its own unseen attack folded back onto it, crushing its form inward. Its elongated limbs bent until they shattered, its faceless head imploded into itself — until finally, it collapsed into nothing but a pool of writhing ichor and shattered metal.
⸻
Aftermath
Silence fell. Only the Wolves' ragged breathing filled the comms.
John groaned, forcing himself upright with Woo's help. "I'm okay... armor took most of it. Just bruised ribs."
Min-seo was trembling, her hands shaking as she reloaded. "...It... it killed them without even touching them."
Marco muttered, pale, "...That wasn't a monster. That was... something else."
Carla put a hand on Woo's shoulder, voice firm. "You just saw what conceptual war really looks like, rookies. Get used to it."
Reaper wiped his blade clean, voice rasping low.
"The queen sent her shadow. The real storm is above."
The Wolves tightened their grips on their rifles. The hive was only getting darker.
-
The soldiers regrouped, John patched with stims, their rifles hot and armor scorched from the faceless beast encounter. The silence was thick, tension coiling in their chests.
Then Raul finally exploded.
"Conceptual this, conceptual tactics that — WHAT IS THIS?!"
Everyone turned, blinking at him. Raul threw his hands up, rifle swinging on its sling.
"It's almost like y'all got superpowers out here!"
For the first time in hours, Hunter laughed — a sharp, genuine bark of amusement.
"Hah! Superpowers? Nah, kid. It ain't superpowers. It's tactics."
Raul pointed at him, incredulous. "Tactics?! Bro, I just saw Reaper reflect an invisible attack back at that thing like he was playing tennis with reality itself!"
Hunter smirked under his visor.
"Exactly. We're fooling reality, not breaking it. You don't remember your training? The instructors told you this. You just didn't think you'd see it up close."
Raul groaned, pacing. "Yeah, but c'mon! Blink Step was already OP — boom, teleporting across the room. Silent Shadow? OP too — turning whole squads into mute ghosts! But this—" he gestured wildly at the ichor-soaked floor, "—this is on a whole other level, man!"
Jerome muttered, pale but nodding. "He's... not wrong."
Marco raised a hand half-seriously. "...Kinda feels like cheating, doesn't it?"
Min-seo stayed quiet, hugging her rifle, her wide eyes betraying her fear.
Carla cut in, sharp but almost amused.
"Cheating? No. It's survival. Out here, reality itself is the battlefield. You either learn to bend it... or it breaks you."
Hudson added flatly, "Rookies always call it superpowers until they see the price."
Reaper didn't even turn, his voice a distorted rasp as he walked forward into the dark.
"It isn't power. It's burden."
The banter died there, the mood snapping back to heavy silence. The Wolves fell in behind him, hearts pounding, but Raul still muttered under his breath.
"...Still feels OP though."
Hunter chuckled again, chambering a fresh mag.
"Kid, wait 'til you see what comes next."
-
The soldiers thundered upward for thirty more minutes, their UNE armor pushing them at Mach 5 speeds through the pulsing hive tunnels. The walls twisted and screamed as they passed, grotesque droids bursting from fissures, beasts lunging from shadows — but every time, they cut them down without stopping.
By the end, their armor was dripping ichor, rifles running hot. The tunnel widened...
And they arrived.
⸻
The Threshold
The chamber opened into a vast black maw. Veins of alien light pulsed across the walls like arteries, converging into a single massive gate of bone and alloy. Beyond it, a low hum reverberated — like a heartbeat the size of a city.
Woo's throat tightened. "...This is it."
Jerome muttered, "Feels like we're standing outside hell's door."
Raul whispered, "...And the devil's waiting inside."
Carla raised her rifle, visor glowing. "Eyes up. She won't let us walk in clean."
⸻
The Trap
The soldiers fanned out in formation, rifles raised, scanning every shadow. Their helmets pinged with static interference, AI warnings scrambled.
Then the walls bulged. Alien tendrils uncoiled, razor-sharp — ready to impale the squad.
But before anyone else could react—
"TRAP! LEFT SIDE!"
It was Min-seo. Her voice cracked, raw, but she screamed it with everything she had.
They spun just as the tendrils lunged.
⸻
The Counter
Hunter barked, "MOVE!"
The squad dove aside as the tendrils slammed into the floor, gouging molten holes where they would've stood. Reaper flickered into existence behind one, slashing it down before it recoiled. Hudson placed three perfect bursts into another, severing it mid-whip.
Woo dragged Min-seo back into cover, his heart racing. "You saw it first— you saved us!"
Her hands trembled on her rifle, but she nodded quickly, breath ragged. "I-I... I just saw the wall move— instinct."
Raul clapped her on the back. "Not bad, Min-seo. Guess fear's good for something, huh?"
Carla's voice cut through, calm and commanding.
"Rookies — remember this moment. Fear can sharpen you, but it can also kill you. Min-seo turned it into awareness. Do the same."
⸻
The Queen's Voice
The gate rumbled. The hum grew louder, vibrating through their bones.
Then a voice — not sound, but thought — slithered into their minds. Cold. Vast. Ancient.
"Little sparks... you crawl so far. Do you think yourselves worthy to touch me?"
Woo clutched his head, his visor flickering. Jerome whimpered, Marco cursed under his breath. Even Raul went pale.
But Reaper's voice rasped, distorted and unyielding.
"We don't think, monster. We fight."
The gate split open.
And the soldiers saw the Hive Queen.
——————————————
To be continued...