CHAPTER 20
Just then, a loud mechanical alert broke the calm of the research facility —
"ERROR DETECTED!"
The letters scrawled in a searing red on every monitor. There was a deep, metallic growl from beneath the floor and then a cascade of shaking. Suddenly, before anyone saw, the metal floor underfoot upended, slamming, as in the movie "Scary Movie" something ancient and enormous had just risen from under their feet.
The solid earth began to lift, sinking and pulsing beneath them like the chest of a dying beast gasping for air. It was unnatural—terrifying.
And then—it collapsed.
The whole floor collapsed inward, creating a shock through the facility. The walls twisted and contorted as if writhed in agony. Thick steel beams, originally designed to withstand the pressure of deep-sea water, cracked like brittle bones. Machinery sparked and exploded, fire and seawater pouring in all at once.
The whole underwater research vessel began to implode.
The havoc, Ego remained frozen, his body stuck a thousand times more powerful than fear — realization.
"Mechanical manipulation…?" he whispered, struggling to be heard over the sound of destruction crackling around him. "Is there anyone here who is able to do this?"
His breath caught, his muscles tightened, and before he could even register the moment, his mind was grappling backward — into a memory he had locked away.
The Past…
A war zone, soaked in blood and flames.
Ego lurked on the outskirts of the devastation, his breath shallow, heart racing. His nostrils filled with smoke and the acrid smell of burning flesh. His own soldiers were scattered in pieces around him — some still screaming, some already lost to the void.
His brother stood next to him, tall and unmoving, his expression unnaturally calm for the chaos surrounding them.
"Little brother," Ego said, his hands balling up into fists, "this is foolish. The whole army is coming apart at the seams. Why are we not going direct attack?! Why are we waiting?! "
His brother hardly looked up at him, their tone coldly indifferent. "Don't be so hasty. We've only decimated their outposts. We haven't really connected yet."
Before Ego could protest, a soldier lurched into view — a shattered, bloodied wreck of a man. His armor had been smashed, his right arm hanging uselessly, his chest in-dented as if he had been crushed from the inside.
But in his pains, the soldier's fear was deeper than his aches. His eyes were bulging, his body shaking all over.
"Sir…" he rasped, spitting up blood. "The MD field … We have to retreat!" He grasped at Ego's uniform, his hands feeble. "We're all going to die if we're here!"
Ego's blood ran cold. The raw terror on the soldier's face was something he'd never experienced.
Ego snarled, pushing the soldier away from him. "Are you insane?! I mean, do you even know who we're up against right now?! This isn't just any opponent. This is General Austin!"
Only a few words had escaped the lips when a terrible explosion rocked the frontlines.
How many did you see out there? Austin's voice rang out across the battlefield.
The dying soldier gasped, his breathing shallow. His lips opened, the words that followed were hardly a whisper.
"Just… one."
And then—poof—the frontlines were vaporized.
The Monster Arrives
The battlefield was engulfed in a suffocating silence.
Not because the fighting had ended.
Because there was no one to fight.
What had once been a neat warfront was now a wasteland of corpses. Women and men who had stood shoulder-to-shoulder so recently were simply heaps of flesh and crumpled metal. Entire portions of the ground they stood on were shredded as they watched massive trenches form at the spot where the mysterious force impacted.
And then, out of the smoke and ash, he stepped.
A solitary figure moved through the wreckage, his footsteps purposeful, unhurried. His armor polished obsidian black, with blood-red Japanese sigils etched across his chest plate. His face was concealed behind a dark helm, but just his presence added to the battlefield's already descending air of crushing pressure.
The air itself grew heavier.
And then—why, he let go of his power.
A demon thing radiated out from his body like the invisible afterwave of a sonic boom. It wasn't energy; it was something much worse.
It focused on the armor of every soldier.
Metal that had once been a protection turned back, twisted and deformed, against its wearers. Screams echoed on the battlefield as men crumpled from the inside out, their bones shattering under the burden of their own gear. They were impaled upon the very weapons they wielded.
Austin reacted instantly.
In the next instant, he unleashed his mutated powers, his body engulfed in a blaze of feral energy. He threw a rapid shot, focused on the enemy's blind spot—
Only for the man to catch it with one hand.
Effortlessly.
Austin's most dangerous attack was snuffed as if it were nothing.
For the first time, the battlefield was deathly quiet.
The fight quickly devolved into savage, close-quarters hand-to-hand combat.
The air inched with the crack of each strike. Austin stayed on the move with lethal precision, but the enemy was faster — stronger.
And then—the ultimate and glorious blow.
Austin's ribcage collapsed under one crushing blow. He went flying, his body cartwheeling through the air before crashing to earth with a bone-jarring thud.
Blood pooled beneath him.
He attempted to get up — but the enemy didn't let him.
A brutal kick to the gut. A sickening crunch.
Austin's armor collapsed inward, crushing his bones, his organs — his very being — into a shattered, useless mass.
When it was finished, Austin had become a mangled corpse.
The warrior turned to Ego slowly.
And then—he smiled.
"Go." His voice was a cold, emotionless monotone. "Run back to your high officers. Let them know that if they come to my land again…
"I will wipe out their whole nation."
Ego couldn't breathe. His body wouldn't move, frozen in pure fear.
The man lifted him off the ground with a flick of his power — and threw him away like a spent bug.
Ego's vision went blurry as he was propelled for miles, his body tumbled through the air like a ragdoll.
The last image before the shadows took him
The faint crimson glow of the warrior's sigil…
… the indomitable tide of destruction he has just witnessed
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