"Unit Three! Respond."
Tactical boots sank into the thick ash in utter silence.
"Unit Three!"
Unit Two's breathing was as steady as the ticking of a precision instrument, his heart rate ruthlessly suppressed to exactly seventy beats per minute.
Damn it. I should have seen this coming.
He frantically filtered the surrounding telemetry in his mind. No heartbeat. No gasping. Even that nauseating chewing sound from moments ago had vanished. The shadow behind the load-bearing column was as dead as a tomb.
The searing ash drifting in the air rolled and parted the moment it neared his sides.
Unit Two had never believed in the absolute martial supremacy of the Sanctum. He trusted only his instincts.
And right now, his instincts were screaming.
The shadow directly overhead suddenly expanded!
Wrong!
Without a microsecond of hesitation, Unit Two swung his thermal blade upward, viciously cleaving the plummeting shadow in two!
The stench of charred meat and the coppery reek of viscera instantly exploded in the air!
Sssshh—
From his right blind spot came an ear-piercing shriek of displaced air!
"Unit Two! Above!!"
With no time to adjust his stance, Unit Two instinctively raised his blade to block.
CLANG—!!!
Blinding sparks and the abyssal stench of rot instantly detonated! A terrifying weight and an eerie, crushing force slammed directly into his blade. The webbing between Unit Two's thumb and index finger split open, and he staggered backward uncontrollably.
The monster.
But the next second, the crushing pressure on his blade abruptly vanished.
That malformed claw, stitched together from white-gold crystals and dark red flesh, had cunningly stamped its full weight onto Unit Two's shoulder! Using this massive recoil, the monstrosity twisted eerily in mid-air, retreating like a ghost back into the deeper darkness of the dome.
Bait.
Only at this moment did Unit Two's brain finally sound a shrieking death alarm.
This blasphemous monster hadn't attacked on blind instinct. It understood how to use a comrade's corpse as a projectile to shatter their tactical formation!
"Abort! Close ranks! Execute now!" Unit Two stood rooted to the spot, cold sweat pouring down his spine like a waterfall.
This split-second exchange was proof enough. This was no out-of-control contamination breach. This was a perfect predator—one that understood tactical deception, terrain advantage, and the psychological manipulation needed to divide and conquer its prey.
"Damn it! Where is it?!" Unit One closed the distance, his blade swinging uselessly through the empty air. Anger and a thread of barely perceptible panic had stripped him of a captain's requisite calm.
His thermal beam began sweeping the dome in erratic, chaotic arcs.
"Back to back! Hold formation!" Unit Two barked, icy sweat sliding down his temple.
The monster hadn't fled.
Unit Two was absolutely certain. The eerily sweet stench of blood in the air hadn't dissipated; it had grown thicker, heavier. Like an invisible, freezing spiderweb, it was slowly, incrementally pulling tight around them.
Dead silence.
And from the darkness above, within that dead silence, came a sound.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Filthy blood slid down the steel framework of the dome, striking the ash at their feet drop by drop. Each wet impact was a sledgehammer blow against their fraying nerves.
"THERE!!!"
Unit One's psychological defenses finally shattered. Raising his blade recklessly, he hacked like a madman at a patch of shadow above and to the side, the high-energy beam slashing blindly through the darkness.
"Hold your ground!"
Unit Two spun to follow Unit One's line of attack, but his retinas only captured a scene of utter despair—
A blurred afterimage of white-gold and dark red, moving at a terrifying speed that completely defied biomechanics. It flickered across the curved ceiling and instantly vanished into another blind spot.
Too fast. Impossible to lock on.
CRASH—!!
At that very moment, the steel floor beneath their boots violently shuddered!
It's over.
The high ground was completely lost. Breaking through their defense and draining them dry like Unit Three—for that monster, it was merely a matter of time.
Absolute rationality, when confronted with absolute despair, instantly warped into an incredibly ugly madness.
"Where?! Where the hell is it?! I'll kill it! I'LL KILL IT!" Unit One was still spinning erratically in place, his blade hissing as it sliced empty air.
Unit Two stared dead at Unit One.
His back was completely, defenselessly exposed.
If one of us has to die... at least...
SHLUCK—!!!
The incredibly dull, sickening sound of flesh being instantly punctured by extreme heat.
Unit One's neurotic screaming stopped abruptly.
He looked down in disbelief at the length of searing energy protruding from his own chest. There was no blood from the wound; it had been instantly vaporized into a fine red mist.
"Unit... Unit Two..." Unit One turned his head with agonizing slowness, his eyes behind the faceplate wide with incomprehensible terror and confusion. "You..."
"Leave it to me."
Unit Two's voice was eerily calm—a calmness that chilled to the bone. He didn't extract the blade. Instead, his left hand shot out, brutally thrusting into the gaping wound in Unit One's chest. His fingers curled like iron hooks, ruthlessly latching onto the sacred Mark embedded in his captain's sternum!
"AAAAHHHHHH—!!!" Unit One unleashed a scream a hundred times more harrowing than when facing the monster.
Brilliant, holy energy flooded backward through Unit Two's blood-soaked left hand, surging madly into his own body! The muscles that had previously trembled with terror began to swell grotesquely. Under the impact of the colossal energy, his eyes ignited with a sickly, pathological gleam.
He casually kicked Unit One's desiccated corpse aside like a piece of trash, letting it crumple into the very ash where Unit Three had perished.
Basking in the blinding, stolen light, Unit Two tilted his head back. His blood-splattered faceplate aimed at the fathomless darkness above, and he unleashed a deranged, bestial roar:
"COME ON!!!"
He spread his arms wide, letting the violent energy crackle and hiss across his armor. His voice was hoarse and completely unhinged. "MONSTER!! COME OUT!! Let's see... WHO THE FUCK IS THE REAL MONSTER HERE!!!"
His roar echoed endlessly through the hollow wreckage.
And from the deep darkness directly above him.
The singular response.
Crunch... crunch... crunch...
The incredibly distinct, spine-chilling sound of bone being slowly and gleefully pulverized drifted down.