Inside the armory, cold lights shone on neatly arranged weapon racks.
Blaster rifles, grenade launchers, portable plasma cannons. Every weapon was meticulously maintained, exuding a metallic scent of death.
Major Victor pointed to a standard set of Assault Trooper equipment.
"This is yours. Power armor, rifle, high-explosive grenades. You should know how to use them."
Reinhardt's gaze swept over the equipment without the slightest flicker of emotion. He picked up a half-meter long, roughly-made combat dagger and weighed it in his hand. Then, he took three high-explosive grenades from the rack and hung them on his worn-out belt.
"This is enough."
Victor's brow furrowed deeply.
"Are you sure? The target of this mission is the 'Shadow Claw,' an extremely dangerous alien infiltrator. They are fast, strong, and excel at stealth and ambush. Without the protection of power armor, their claws can easily tear through steel."
Reinhardt didn't answer, simply sliding the dagger back into his waist.
His silence was a wordless refusal.
Victor wanted to say more, but remembering Colonel Marcus's orders, he ultimately just gave a cold snort.
"Suit yourself. Just don't drag the squad down."
He turned and left to process Reinhardt's temporary identity and equipment registration.
Soon, a five-man squad walked into the armory.
They were well-equipped, each wearing heavy standard-issue power armor, their faces under the helmets calm and professional.
Leading them was a sergeant named Gray. He was burly, with an old scar on his face and eyes as sharp as an eagle's.
Gray walked up to Reinhardt, sized him up, and let his gaze linger for a moment on his ragged clothes and bare feet.
His eyes showed unmasked doubt and contempt.
"You're the 'expert' headquarters shoved onto us?"
Reinhardt didn't speak, just looked at him calmly.
"Listen, rookie. I don't care where you came from, in my squad, you follow my rules. Keep up, obey orders, and stay out of the way. If you hold us back, I won't waste time coming back for you."
"Understood," Reinhardt uttered a single word.
Gray ignored him and turned to give orders to his team members.
"Check your gear, prepare to move out. Assemble at the transport pad in fifteen minutes."
"Yes, sir!"
The squad members quickly dispersed to make their final preparations. No one spared Reinhardt another glance. To them, this oddly dressed guy who didn't even bring proper weapons was just a burden forced upon them from above.
The "Thunderbird 7" transport cut through the dark cosmos and landed on the gray soil of Planet K-7.
The hatch opened, and a cold wind mixed with metallic dust and the scent of sulfur poured in.
This was a place of deathly silent ruins.
Massive open-pit mines were like hideous scars across the surface. Abandoned mining equipment and prefabricated buildings cast distorted shadows under the dim light of the star.
"All units, activate environmental scanners, overlapping fields of fire, maintain alert formation and advance."
Sergeant Gray's voice came through the comms channel, calm and clear.
The squad deployed quickly. Two soldiers were in front, Gray and a heavy gunner in the middle, and a comms officer in the rear. Reinhardt was placed at the very back of the line, the position easiest to overlook and easiest to attack.
They stepped onto the soft gravel beneath their feet, slowly advancing toward the target area—a massive entrance to an abandoned mine shaft.
The surroundings were terrifyingly quiet.
There was only the sound of the wind and the heavy footsteps of their power armor.
Reinhardt's gaze swept across the towering, rust-stained metal cranes and pipes.
His eyes were calm, but his spiritual sense had already spread out like an invisible spiderweb, covering an area of several kilometers.
He could "hear" them.
In those dark corners and distorted shadows, things were peeking out.
Their heartbeats, their breathing, and their minds filled with malice and hunger.
Like a pack of venomous snakes lurking in the grass, waiting for prey to approach.
"Report: Mine entrance three is three hundred meters ahead. Thermal scans show no anomalies," the point man reported.
"Continue advancing, stay alert," Gray ordered.
They drew closer and closer to the mine.
One hundred meters.
Fifty meters.
Thirty meters.
Just as the squad was about to step into the cold darkness of the mine, which loomed like the mouth of a giant beast—
A sudden change occurred.
A dark shadow, so fast it was almost impossible to track with the naked eye, pounced down from the top of an abandoned container on the side.
Its target was the point man at the front of the line.
"Enemy attack!"
The point man only had time to let out a roar as he raised his blaster rifle.
But it was too late.
The shadow's speed exceeded his reaction limit. It was a creature the size of a leopard, covered in black chitinous shell, with two sharp bone blades for forelimbs.
A Shadow Claw.
*Pfft!*
The bone blade easily sliced through the point man's power armor. Blood sprayed out.
The soldier didn't even have time to scream before he slumped down. His life signal instantly vanished from Gray's tactical helmet.
"Scatter! Suppressive fire!"
Gray reacted instantly, roaring as his blaster rifle spat out lethal red beams.
The other members also turned and opened fire immediately.
For a moment, the roar of blasters echoed throughout the ruins.
But having struck once, the Shadow Claw immediately turned into a dark blur and vanished into the shadows of the complex piping.
Bullets hit the metal walls, kicking up a series of sparks, yet they couldn't even touch its shadow.
"Medic! Check Hansen's status!" Gray bellowed.
The comms officer rushed forward and knelt by the fallen soldier. A few seconds later, he reported in a trembling voice.
"Sir... Hansen... he's already..."
The atmosphere in the squad instantly became heavy to the extreme.
In just one encounter, they had lost a comrade.
"Damn it!" the heavy gunner cursed, raising his heavy machine gun and firing wildly at the surrounding shadows.
"Cease fire! Conserve ammo!" Gray shouted him down. "Everyone, back-to-back, form a perimeter defense! There's more than one of them!"
No sooner had he spoken—
*Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!*
Three more dark shadows pounced out simultaneously from different directions.
The squad was instantly plunged into a bitter struggle.
The movements of these Shadow Claws were incredibly fast. They used the complex architectural structures to constantly jump and pivot, making it impossible to lock onto them.
They didn't engage the soldiers head-on, but used their speed for harassment and sudden strikes.
One soldier's shoulder was sliced open, a wound deep enough to see bone, and electrical sparks flew from the joint of his power armor's arm.
The comms officer was hit hard in the back, sent flying, and slammed heavily onto the ground, unable to get up for a long time.
Though Gray was experienced and a sharp shooter, in this passive situation, he could barely manage to protect himself.
They were like drowning men surrounded by bloodthirsty sharks, only able to watch as their companions were dragged into the abyss one by one.
"No, we're too vulnerable here! We have to retreat!" Gray gritted his teeth and issued the helpless order. "Heavy gunner, cover us! We're falling back to the transport!"
However, their path of retreat had already been silently blocked by another Shadow Claw.
Five.
A total of five Shadow Claws had the four of them pinned down in this narrow open space.
An atmosphere of despair began to spread through the squad.
Inside the command center of the Dominion military base.
Colonel Marcus and Major Victor were watching this one-sided slaughter through the helmet cameras of Gray's squad.
The command center was deathly silent.
Everyone was stunned by the Shadow Claws' terrifying combat style.
"This is the reality of the frontier," Colonel Marcus's voice was low. "No matter how well-trained the soldiers are, they will find themselves in a bind when facing these natural-born killers. Numbers and tactics seem so powerless in the face of absolute speed and stealth."
Victor's expression was grim.
"We underestimated the number of aliens that infiltrated. This mission... is a failure."
Marcus shook his head, his gaze shifting to a corner of the screen.
To the figure that had been standing in place, motionless, since the battle began.
Reinhardt.
He hadn't participated in the fight, hadn't fired a shot, and hadn't even drawn his knife.
He just stood there quietly, watching.
Like a spectator who was not involved.
"What is this guy doing?" Victor also noticed Reinhardt's abnormality and growled angrily, "Is he just watching the show?!"
"No," Colonel Marcus's eyes narrowed, "He is observing."
On the battlefield.
"What the hell are you dazing for! Fire!"
Sergeant Gray let out a desperate roar in Reinhardt's direction. One of his legs had been injured by a bone blade, and he was half-kneeling on the ground, only able to rely on cover to return fire.
The squad was on the brink of collapse.
Reinhardt finally moved.
He didn't go for a gun.
He simply took a slow step forward.
Then, his figure vanished.
It wasn't that he was so fast he blurred; he simply vanished into thin air from where he stood.
Gray's pupils contracted sharply.
The next second.
A shrill screech, unlike anything any living creature should be able to make, sounded from behind him.
He turned his head with difficulty.
And saw a scene he would never be able to forget for the rest of his life.
Reinhardt had appeared, somehow, behind the Shadow Claw that was blocking their retreat.
His hand was thrust directly into the Shadow Claw's hard dorsal shell.
*Crack!*
With the crisp sound of bone shattering, he forcefully ripped the Shadow Claw's spine out of its body.
Green, foul-smelling blood splattered all over him.
The Shadow Claw that had just been so ferocious twitched twice and then slumped limply to the ground.
For a moment, the entire scene froze.
Whether it was the attacking Shadow Claws or the struggling soldiers, all were deterred by this bloody and overbearing scene.
Reinhardt expressionlessly tossed aside the spinal column in his hand.
He turned around and looked at the other four Shadow Claws, who were equally stunned.
In his eyes, that cluster of golden flame began to burn fiercely.
"Roar!"
One Shadow Claw seemed to be provoked; it abandoned Gray and turned into a bolt of black lightning, lunging straight at Reinhardt.
Its bone blade traced a lethal arc in the dim light, slashing toward Reinhardt's neck.
Reinhardt didn't dodge.
He simply reached out his hand and precisely grabbed the Shadow Claw's head.
The bone blade struck his shoulder squarely.
A loud *clang* rang out, as if it had struck some kind of super alloy.
Sparks flew in all directions.
Only a faint white mark was left on Reinhardt's shoulder.
Meanwhile, the Shadow Claw's entire head was crushed by his single hand.
Red, green, and white tissue fluids mixed together, like an exploded tomato.
"This... this is impossible..."
A trembling, dreamlike voice came from the heavy gunner over the comms channel.
In the command center, Colonel Marcus suddenly stood up from his chair, staring intently at the screen. His breathing had stopped.
Reinhardt's slaughter had only just begun.
He was done waiting.
He struck first, his figure tearing golden afterimages through the ruins.
That was not a speed a human should possess.
He crashed into the remaining three Shadow Claws like a prehistoric beast loose among sheep — no technique, no finesse, just raw, primal strength and speed. One punch caved in a chest. One kick snapped a spine.
The last one tried to flee, but he caught up to it, grabbed its two hind legs, and ripped it directly in half.
The entire process took less than ten seconds.
The battle was over.
Silence.
A deathly silence.
Only the wail of the cold wind blowing through the ruins remained.
Reinhardt stood amidst the three mangled alien corpses and slowly straightened his back.
He was covered in alien fluids, but his gaze was terrifyingly calm. It was as if he had just casually swatted a few flies.
Gray and the remaining two soldiers stared at him blankly.
The guns in their hands were still smoking, but their brains had completely stopped thinking.
Fear, shock, disbelief...
All sorts of emotions were churning in their hearts.
Was the man before them still human?
He had torn Shadow Claws apart with his bare hands.
He had withstood the slash of a bone blade with his physical body.
This had completely exceeded their understanding of biology.
Gray swallowed hard; he stood up and limped toward Reinhardt.
The contempt and doubt on his face had long since vanished without a trace.
In its place was a complex expression mixed with awe and fear.
"Wow..."
"Just now... thank you..."
His voice was a bit dry.
"The mission... is complete. The aliens here... have been cleared out."
Reinhardt slowly turned his head to look at him.
Those eyes burning with golden flames made Gray involuntarily take a step back.
"This wasn't a clearing out."
Reinhardt's voice wasn't loud, yet it carried a sacred, unquestionable authority.
"This was a purge."
The word exploded like a thunderclap in the minds of Gray and everyone listening.
They looked at Reinhardt standing atop the alien carcasses, looking at those golden eyes that seemed capable of piercing through the soul.
At this moment, they seemed to understand something.
This wasn't just a battle.
It was a judgment.
A sacred judgment of filthy things from a higher level.
And the man before them was not a soldier, not an expert.
He was... one who carried out a sacred mission...
To purge.