A Glimpse in the Past

The Devil's Enclave was no longer a battlefield. There was a flood of death.

Stone locusts poured in from the broken cliffside, forming a living tide of serrated wings and armored mandibles. They swarmed the ruined landscape, consuming everything in their path, including flesh, steel, and even the ground beneath them. 

The skies darkened as the creatures blotted out the sun, their constant chittering creating a deafening cacophony. Soldiers fired indiscriminately into the crowd, plasma rounds burning holes in carapaces, but for every one that fell, a hundred more replaced it.

[Live Chat – 6.1M Viewers]

DarkShadow88: "This isn't a battle anymore. This is EXTERMINATION."

Lunatic66: "Where the hell are the reinforcements?! Why are they STILL fighting?!"

RoyalBlood47: "They need to give up... We already lost one Prince. I don't want the rest to die!"

XenoWarlord12: "The public feed is just chaos now. I can barely keep up with it!"

The public feed was a storm of disbelief, millions of voices clashing in panic and awe. The cameras struggled to track the chaos, catching glimpses of the island slowly vanishing beneath the swarm, 

PixelShifter: "The island is literally disappearing under the swarm!"

HellRaiserX: "Why is the swarm THIS large?!"

StealthWraith77: "OMG! They're coming from EVERY side. There's no way to hold them off!"

MechaKing99: "I salute their courage, but they are NOT going to last long."

CyberEnigma17: "You guys are such downers. A couple of days ago, you were cheering for Pax!"

SilentShade34: "These guys are the future of our fiefdom! They are honorable. They are defending our home, too!"

Lunatic66: "Yes! They are doing an AMAZING job, and they're not retreating!"

ChaosReaperX: "Where is Prince Nioh? Where is Cryo?"

JadeViper77: "Good observation. What happened to them?"

-

Nioh gasped, stumbling forward as the cave walls warped around him. His vision blurred, colors twisting into unnatural shapes. His breath caught in his throat as if he was falling.

And then the next instant he was somewhere else.

The world reassembled around him, but it was not the same he knew. The sky above was a deep, unnatural orange, thick with the smoke of endless war. Explosions bloomed in the distance, their shockwaves rattling the broken ground. The sea stretched out beyond the cliffs, dark and violent, waves crashing against shattered warships.

His hands were not his own. His breath came ragged, his body worn and battered. 

"This is the wyvern? AM I piloting the Wyvern mecha?" He wasn't just seeing through the wyvern's Corebinder eyes—he was the Corebinder.

"Hold the line!" The words tore from his throat, but the battlefield had already collapsed.

They were supposed to win this fight. They were supposed to purge the biocore infestation from the islands, cut off its spread before it reached the mainland. But the enemies had been waiting. They adapted. They learned.

Now, the Corebinder's unit was in full retreat. The few remaining mechas limped backward, their armor shattered, their pilots barely conscious. Rael, his closest friend, struggled to keep pace, his energy readings were flickering dangerously low.

"The stronghold is gone," Rael panted. "They're everywhere. We need to fall back to the fleet." There was no fleet to fall back to. The swarm of biocores had devoured it.

The realization settled like a stone in his gut. The mission was over. There was no victory here. Only survival. But then—his sensors flared red.

Ahead of them, the central biocore moved. It was a large, writhing mass of shifting flesh and inorganic corruption. It had taken pieces of the fallen mechs, their shattered weapons and armor fused into its form. It was learning. Growing stronger. Preparing to spread beyond these islands.

It could not be allowed to leave.

"Go," the Corebinder said. Rael turned, confused. "What?"

"Get out of here. Take whoever's left and get back to the mainland. Tell them what happened."

Rael's eyes widened as realization dawned. "No. No, you can't—""I can."

The Corebinder opened his mech's core reserves. Every last drop of energy, rerouted to one final attack. His wyvern-class mech groaned in protest, the ancient frame struggling to contain the overload. The cockpit screens flickered, warning systems screaming. He ignored them.

The biocore sensed the change, the way the wyvern's systems surged beyond normal limits. It hesitated. Good. That meant it could feel fear. Rael's voice crackled over the comms, desperate. "Don't do this!" But the Corebinder had already severed the connection. And then—he charged.

The world became a blur of speed and fire. The wyvern's wings ignited, jets burning white-hot as he slammed into the biocore's center. The impact shattered reality, metal and flesh colliding in a cataclysm of destruction. His vision flooded with light.

He felt everything. His mech was tearing apart, but so was the biocore. The energy inside them fused, tangled, merged. The corruption that had plagued the archipelago, the monstrosity that had claimed thousands of lives—it was dying.

But so was he.The last thing he saw was Rael's mech retreating, disappearing into the smoke. His friend had survived. That was enough.

Darkness took him.

Nioh collapsed, gasping, the vision tearing away like a blade through flesh. His hands shook. His heartbeat thundered in his ears.

But the memory was still there. Scarred, ancient armor plating. A mech, buried beneath the earth. The wyvern-class frame. It had survived.His final will, his obsession with purging the biocore—it lived on.

A chill ran down Nioh's spine. The Corebinder had died, but his will had never faded. His hatred, his purpose—it had remained, burning like an eternal flame.

Nioh wasn't sure if it was fate or madness, but he knew one thing for certain. The Wyvern still wanted to kill.

"What happened? Are you alright?" Ekoh asked feeling Nioh come back to himself. "I think I touched a particular waveform. And I had a vison" He said hasting himself as he climbed up the wyvern.

"What are you looking for" Ekoh asked feeling confused. But the ever focused Nioh did not relent as he reached the core area of the wyvern and an fiddled around until he found it.

"What is that?" Ekoh asked after detecting the ominous aura form the retrieved part.

"This is an Ancient Biocore. This is the thing, keeping the Mech alive." Nioh replied.

"How do you know?" Ekoh pushed "I saw it in the vision." Nioh explained while fiddling with the cockpit. 

 "Do you know its abilities? I feel a dreadful energy from it" Ekoh warned again.

 "Although it is dangerous. This thing is very powerful" Nioh grinned.