Inside the ship, everything was plunged into darkness, likely because it had been inactive for over two thousand years.
James watched us from the entrance as Dan and I advanced through the corridors.
As we went deeper, something strange happened: some of the lights began to turn on, illuminating only the area we were in.
Behind us, the lights went out once we passed.
"It's as if the ship perceives us," Dan murmured.
"Hopefully, the heating won't turn on," I joked.
If there were a heating system and it activated... we risked waking the White Spikes from their hibernation.
Finally, we reached the command room.
In it were several humanoid alien figures, all dead, frozen in their seats.
"Weren't the White Spikes quadrupedal aliens?" Dan asked, visibly confused as he studied the corpses.
"These are not White Spikes," I explained without looking away from the bodies. "It's clear that Earth wasn't their target, but they had an accident. They crashed here. Lucky for us..." I said sarcastically.
Dan said nothing more, just gestured for me to move on.
And so we did, traversing more corridors until we reached another room.
In the center of the room, the White Spikes Queen lay trapped in a transparent cocoon, motionless, in hibernation.
Around her, other sizable cocoons contained White Spikes, all asleep, waiting to wake up.
"Are those them?" Dan whispered, clearly shocked.
I was about to point out the obvious, but I simply nodded, my eyes fixed on the creatures.
They were much more terrifying in person than I had imagined.
"From now on, absolute silence. We cannot risk making noise," I warned him.
Dan nodded, and without saying anything more, we began to place the explosive charges throughout the ship.
We moved with maximum stealth, covering both the Queen's room and other key sectors of the ship.
At one point, while I was in the middle of the task, Dan called me over with a shaky gesture.
As I approached, I saw the reason for his terror.
A gigantic room opened up in front of us, so deep that it was impossible to see its end.
The walls were covered with what looked like an endless swarm of White Spikes, all hibernating.
There were hundreds, maybe thousands, perhaps more, no, surely there were many more.
The image was terrifying, a true nightmare of beings ready to wake up and devastate everything.
Dan and I exchanged a look. Neither of us needed to speak; we understood how dangerous the situation was.
We continued placing the charges without making a sound, fearful that an accidental noise would wake them up.
It was surreal to think that all this happened because of an accident.
A group of unknown aliens crashed on Earth, bringing with them a colony of White Spikes.
Perhaps they used them as biological weapons, intended to eliminate any form of life on the planets where they were released.
It was impossible to know.
Thinking about the monstrous reproductive capacity of these creatures made everything even more terrifying.
When finished, I looked towards the cocoons once more.
If there were so many of them here, I couldn't imagine how many there would be in the future...
How lucky for me that it hadn't been necessary to go to the future to complete the mission.
...
Dan approached me after we finished placing the explosive charges.
We were both mentally exhausted by what we had just done.
The hours of tension and stealth had accumulated in our minds.
Then Dan broke the silence.
"It's time to leave," he said, but before I could move, something caught my attention.
One of the cocoons near us began to tremble.
Dan hadn't noticed, but I saw it clearly.
"We have to get out of here now! They are waking up!" I shouted, seeing the cocoon start to writhe violently.
Suddenly, a sharp claw pierced the cocoon's membrane.
Dan noticed it, and we both started running towards the exit, aware that we had only a few minutes before the White Spikes fully woke up.
James, who was waiting near the entrance, saw us running towards him and yelled, bewildered:
"What's happening?!"
"Run! The White Spikes are waking up!" Dan shouted urgently.
James, eyes wide with terror, didn't hesitate a second longer and began running with us.
We headed towards the cave exit, aware that we needed to get far enough away so as not to be caught in the explosion.
As we ran, I grabbed the detonator from my pocket, making sure that when the time came, it would be me who activated it.
The roar of the White Spikes echoed behind us, growing closer.
Finally, we reached a safe distance. Without a second thought, I smiled and pressed the button.
"Die, bastards!" I shouted, euphoric.
The explosion was deafening.
A shockwave knocked us down, throwing us into the snow and covering us with it.
The cold was piercing my skin, and my face began to feel numb, almost frozen.
James, due to his age, seemed the most affected. He was shivering, his skin bluish from the cold, and he could barely hold his weapon.
When the cloud of snow and debris cleared, four White Spikes emerged from the wreckage, roaring.
A few had survived the explosion.
Dan reacted immediately, shooting one of them in the weak spots I had taught him.
James, despite his condition, joined the attack.
In a matter of seconds, each had taken down one of the White Spikes.
"Eat lead, motherfuckers!" James yelled as he unleashed his last shots.
However, two still remained.
Dan and James had exhausted their ammunition, and the remaining White Spikes lunged towards us.
While they were both reloading, I decided to take a step forward. The briefcase I was holding in my hands transformed. It changed shape, deploying into a dark katana.
Dan and James looked at me, astonished.
"Is that your damn weapon from the future?!" James yelled at me.
Dan also looked at me in surprise.
Of all they had imagined, they never pictured that the weapon from the future I had boasted about so much would be a sword.
With a smile, I jumped toward the White Spikes, lunging with the sword raised.
I was glad I had upgraded my attributes before entering the Tower of Trials.
My body was many times stronger than any average human.
With a single slash, I cut one of the White Spikes in two.
The green blood was absorbed by the dark blade of my sword.
Just then, the remaining White Spike fired a venomous spike in my direction.
I moved fast enough to easily dodge it.
The spike embedded itself in the snow behind me, and the creature began to prepare another shot.
"Too slow!" I yelled, and I aimed the sword at it.
Suddenly, the edge of the katana transformed into a gigantic tentacle that lunged towards the enemy.
At the tip of the tentacle, a grotesque mouth opened wide and devoured the White Spike in a single bite.
In an instant, the alien had disappeared.
The tentacle returned to me and, in a matter of seconds, re-transformed into a sword.
Dan and James looked at me in amazement, speechless.
"It is undoubtedly a weapon from the future," James corrected himself, swallowing hard, retracting.
I couldn't help but smile at him, amused by his astonishment.
Dan, for his part, approached one of the White Spikes corpses, observing it closely.
"To think that these things have almost completely destroyed humanity in the future..." he murmured, with a mixture of disbelief and revulsion.
"It doesn't matter," I told him. "We have changed the future. The White Spikes no longer exist."
James interrupted the moment: "Let's get the hell out of here. From now on, my favorite season of the year is summer."
Dan nodded in agreement. "Yes, there's nothing more we can do here."
We were all frozen by the intense cold, although I felt it less thanks to my high attributes.
When we turned around, ready to leave, a deafening roar made us stop dead in our tracks.
When we spun around, we saw a gigantic, completely white silhouette emerging from the debris of the destroyed ship and the snow.
My attention focused on its belly, red as blood.
"It had to be the White Spikes Queen," I muttered, annoyed but focused.
Both James and Dan looked at me expectantly, trusting that I would repeat the same miracle as before and finish her off.
The Queen lunged toward us with surprising speed for her size, her colossal claws ready to tear us apart.
When she was only a few meters away, I plunged my sword, Ginkui, into the frozen snow.
"Trap Mode."
Immediately, small tentacles sprouted from the snow, surrounding the Queen in a matter of seconds.
As if they were hungry predators, they lunged at her, tearing her hide and piercing her limbs.
Despite her immense power, the Queen didn't have time to react. The tentacles worked quickly, destroying her body, bite by bite.
In just moments, the White Spikes Queen lay dead in the same spot where she had tried to devour us.
"That was easier than I thought..." I murmured, as I pulled my sword from the snow.
That a Reincarnated started the Tower of Trials at Rank C was unheard of, and that he had a weapon like this even more so.
It was obvious that the mission would not turn out to be as difficult as I initially expected.