During the flight, Aria's vision blurred because of unimaginable speed.
She was encased in the rapid-hardening polymer cocoon, which secured her body from the air friction, the drone moved with a silence that defied its velocity.
In the brief moments before the chemical foam completely suppressed her vision and sound, two things registered, shattering her preconceived assumption regarding the enemy.
The first was the sudden, seamless transition through the transparent barrier.
One moment, she felt the oppressive, arid air of the sands; the next, the drone was moving through nothing, yet the swirling red-gold light of the portal was suddenly and impossibly far away. The barrier was not just an ordinary wall; it was a vast, invisible membrane spanning the desert, a structure whose existence she could not have predicted even with the aid of Kai's power enhancement.
The second was the drone itself. It was a dark, flying crane shape of pure, geometric efficiency, its movements precise, silent, and entirely swift. The sheer, cold technology and integration that surpassed anything in her decaying, horror filled world.
Inside the rapidly curing foam, Aria's physical expression was calm, already hardened by the horrors of the apocalypse she had lived through. But her internal reality was violently seized by horror.
'I haven't heard of any drone capable of lifting humans and flying at such speed. It's even faster than those jets.'
Her mind raced, 'The speed and silence, the net made of invisible materials which resisted my full second-grade strength… and also that invisible wall, which was entirely invisible from the invasion point, constructed and deployed in hours since the portal opening. This level of automation, this raw manufacturing power… it's definitely a high technological force, not a trivial civilization like ours.'
She was a scout, the apex predator of her world, always ready and equipped to face primitive settlements, undead beasts, or disorganized survivors. But here she was captured so easily, subdued by a few drones, an automated force that hadn't even registered her existence as a threat, only as an object to be contained.
She felt extremely unwilling as her journey ended abruptly before it began.
After a while,
The drone decelerated into a vertical building, the polymer cocoon sliced open by a precise, laser-thin yellow beam, and the dark foam dissolved into inert dust.
She was unceremoniously dropped onto a smooth, cold floor made of a dark, obsidian-like composite material.
The drone detached the high-tensile nets from her body, allowing the filaments to recoil back into its chassis, and then silently zipped out of the area.
Aria's muscles screamed in protest from the intense force of gravity during the flight.
She pushed herself up forcefully and stood up, her training taking over. Her breath hitched, not from exertion, but from the sudden, overwhelming silence of her new surroundings.
She was in a massive, circular chamber. The walls were tall, perfectly smooth, and curved, made of the same dark composite as the floor, devoid of any visible seams, windows, or traditional doors. There was no entrance, no exit, only a circular opening, perhaps a hundred meters above her, revealing a patch of clear, orange sky. Dim sunlight poured down in a focused beam onto the center of the floor.
'It looks more like a well, instead of a prison. Are they planning to bury me in this well by pouring sand.'
Aria's heart was gripped by fear and nervousness. She observed dark walls flickering in orange sunlight, her eyes scanning the vast, empty space.
The absence of movement, the lack of guards, the cold, inhuman geometry of this building. It amplified the terror that had just surged in her heart.
'Looks like they don't want to interrogate me; they have simply contained me, probably considering me an insect captured for study.'
Her thoughts were becoming more and more darker each passing moment, rapidly dissolving her composure in fear.
'This entire facility feels like a sterile lab. It seems my guess is correct. Don't worry Aria, death is the final destination after every journey.'
She took a deep, shaky breath inside her oxygen mask, forcing the clean air into her lungs, trying to comfort herself in the terrifying, logical reality of this world.
"Don't worry, I won't harm you, until it's necessary."
Suddenly an unexpected voice sounded, interrupting her surging uncontrollable thoughts.
"Who is there?" Aria asked reflexively, her pupils shrank scanning the vast, empty space around.
The silence was abruptly shattered. It didn't come from a speaker or a hidden door; it seemed to emanate directly from the dark, seamless walls themselves, a cool, synthesized voice that resonated in the air around her, devoid of human inflection or emotion.
"Welcome to the High Security Containment Unit (HSCU-1). You are secured within the southern hemisphere of UHS1. I am Keon, the ruler of this planet… Please introduce yourself."
The sudden introduction, and precise explanation, and the sheer computational coldness of the voice drove the dread deeper into Aria's heart.
She stayed silent, nervously looking at the walls without any reaction.
Keon didn't care about her silent reaction, he already anticipated such reaction from a captive of another civilization. He simply continued explaining,
"Your capture was a tactical necessity, as you have invaded my planet. Can you tell me about your planet?"
Aria remained motionless, her stoic face behind the mask, already expressing that she would not provide any information. Her sister's safety, their world survival, depended on keeping their world's vulnerabilities secret.
"I have nothing to say to an enemy." She stated, her voice tight, the words echoing unnaturally in the cylindrical building.
"A regrettable, but predictable response,"
Keon's voice replied, the tone unchanged, as if classifying her defiance as a minor variable.
"However, your refusal is irrelevant. Information will be acquired one way or another. I require the following data, and I advise you to provide them directly to conserve energy."
The temperature in the chamber seemed to drop, the invisible pressure intensifying.
Aria shook her head with a firm expression, and spoke with absolute refusal. "Go to hell, you'll get nothing from me. Don't underestimate Kai… He has powerful forces you cannot contend with."
Keon's response was immediate after hearing her words, "So his name is Kai, which means he is a male human. Also, he has more powerful forces beside these undead beasts and giants, which means he has the ability to control or enslave these creatures."
Keon held a subtle, calculating edge over Aria that suggested focus, not frustration.
Aria's face expression suddenly changed, realizing that she had misspoke, she hurriedly corrected, "No, it's not that."
Keon ignored her correction and continued,
"I will show you what true control looks like."
Before Aria could react, the seamless, obsidian walls surrounding her began to shift. The dark composite material rippled like liquid metal. Within a second, the entire cylindrical surface transformed into a colossal, wrap-around display screen.
Hiss!!!
Aria gasped sucking in a cold breath, taking an involuntary step back.
The walls now showed thousands of simultaneous, live feeds. Every angle was covered: high-altitude thermal, low-altitude multi-spectral, and dozens of close-up, high-definition views.
The subject of each display was a familiar invading undead force.
The entire 200-kilometer containment zone was visible. The Giant Zombies, thousands of them, were relentlessly thudding against the sandy terrain, their bone protrusions cracking the air with dull impacts.
The Rat Swarm was a continuous flowing river of millions black fur and red eyes, covering sand dunes.
Fifty thousand First Grade Zombies wandered aimlessly across the sands, countless among them crawling.
"Observe," Keon commanded, his voice now layered with the omnipresent sound of digital surveillance. "Your entire deployed army is categorized, tracked, and contained by me. They will serve their purpose as an ecological study."
Aria looked at the 200 kilometer bubble prison, her expression paralyzed hearing Keon words.
The sheer, overwhelming scale of the surveillance, the cold focus on every single rotten corpse, was terrifying for her world view.
"You sent cannon fodder, trusting in their sheer numbers and inherent horror to buy time,"
Keon stated. "I know it is a common, resource efficient strategy. But against absolute power, it is a fatal mistake. Every biological creature possesses intrinsic structural weaknesses."
Keon suddenly paused, the displays remained frozen on the futile, struggling show of Zombies. "You believe your low level zombies can cover this whole planet. I will prove that your planning is worthless."
Aria watched, her heart hammering against her ribs, the sterile air catching in her throat.
Suddenly, on every single display, a minute, high-intensity yellow light appeared: the firing solution of the SW Reconnaissance Drones, each one having silently taken a non-lethal, high-altitude position directly in front of its target.
Zap! Zap! Zap!
In a single, unified microsecond that defied human perception, thousands of invisible, pinpoint-accurate beams of focused, yellow energy plasma lanced down from the sky. They were not designed to vaporize or destroy the bodies; they were designed to incapacitate.
...