Chapter 13

  Angels of Destruction

  [DATA: 10. CYCLE 11. YEAR 40 INDUSTRIAL]

  [LOCATION: RESEARCH INSTITUTE “U 731” — XAPAN ARCHIPELAGO]

  [TIME: 09:00 LOCAL]

  [STATUS: “G-CLASS” WEAPON TESTING — PHASE ONE: POSITIVE]

  Five days had bled away since Nax-Geot’s Operation Blitzkrieg began devouring borders. In the Far East, within Xapan, the situation appeared tranquil to the populace, but inside the reinforced walls of Institute U 731, the engine of death was churning at a breakneck velocity. A ferocious storm was lashing the coastline, flaying the structure with destructive violence, yet this did not deter Hugo’s scientists from proceeding with Experiment G.

  ?Hugo entered the central command hall. His mere presence instilled a frozen silence. He demanded the results immediately, his eyes behind his lenses seeking nothing but progress.

  ?“Lord Hugo,” a scientist reported in a hushed tone, not daring to meet his gaze. “Project G-Class is currently at 95% capacity.”

  ?“Exquisite!” Hugo replied, adjusting his spectacles. “Commence the first trial by fire.”

  ?Technicians remotely primed the systems. Computers began hemorrhaging millions of data points per second, agonizing over the machine’s thermal stress. Hugo paced toward the observation balcony overlooking the valley. As he stepped out, the gale snatched at his white coat, and freezing rain collided with his face. He did not flinch.

  ?Suddenly, a lance of light erupted from the void, impaling the opposite mountain with surgical precision. The ensuing detonation was so violent its glare blinded every reflection in the institute’s glass. Seconds later, a deafening roar and a savage shockwave slammed into the balcony. The force was so immense that the black storm clouds were scattered in all directions, leaving the sky flayed open.

  [ATMOSPHERIC ANOMALY: DETECTED]

  [STRIKE RADIUS: 12 KM]

  For the first time in days, sunlight illuminated the institute, but it was an unnatural, sickly radiance. The laboratory panes began to spiderweb under the pressure.

  [SUBJECT: G-CLASS — STATUS: AGGRESSIVE]

  [DESTRUCTION LEVEL: 98%]

  “Magnificent...” Hugo whispered with a frozen smirk, staring at the fresh, smoldering crater carved into the mountain.

  ?“Sir, the first G-Class trial resulted in 75% positive yield,” the scientists announced as they emerged behind him, visibly terrified by the god-complex they had just manifested.

  One of them approached with a dossier, his hands trembling like dry leaves in the gale.

  “Sir, we still face critical thermal instability. The G-Class nearly liquefied its own chassis during the discharge. The excess energy is... uncontrollable.”

  ?Hugo lunged forward and snatched the analytics with a jagged motion. As his eyes clawed through the temperature gradients—charts that had shattered every known safety limit—a faint, predatory smirk traced his lips. He looked up at the scientists, who were vibrating with collective dread.

  ?“If heat is our solitary foe, then the gods ought to begin fearing us,” Hugo’s voice vibrated with a fanatic’s fervor. “Present the solution. If you truly represent the scientific elite of Xapan, you have already carved an exit from this dead end.”

  ?The scientists exchanged hollow glances. One took a faltering step forward, his voice barely audible over the screaming wind.

  “Sir... what if we install a massive coolant reservoir? Cold water circulating through the core for continuous thermal suppression?”

  ?Hugo erupted into a cacophony of caustic laughter, casting the analysis papers into the wind like industrial refuse.

  “That was the most ignorant drivel I have ever endured! Where would you cycle this water in the heart of a slaughterhouse? Where would you find such a deluge while under enemy fire?” Hugo’s laughter sent the man recoiling into the shadows.

  ?Then, another stepped into the light. His eyes glinted with a cold, terrifying clarity.

  “Let us install exhaust vents protruding from the upper chassis. They will vent high-pressure steam directly into the atmosphere, bypassing the valves beneath the hull. The thermal load will be balanced through atmospheric discharge.”

  ?The balcony fell into a state of evaluative stasis. Murmurs of grim approval began to spread. Hugo sank into thought, obsessively polishing his lenses. His pupils dilated, mesmerized by the brutal simplicity of the concept.

  ?“This... this will function,” Hugo commanded, his tone brookno opposition. “But it must be executed within the window. The G-Class must be combat-ready before the shipment date to Nax-Geot. Not a single second of delay!”

  ?As the staff retreated inside to lobotomize and rebuild the project, Hugo remained solitary on the balcony. His stare remained impaled upon the mountain, disfigured by that initial strike. He didn’t see broken stone; he saw the pyre of the old world.

  ?“The power of the gods is now clutched in my hands,” he whispered, as the sickly sun illuminated the wreckage. “And the world will recognize the New Order... at long last.”

  [DATA: 11. CYCLE 11]

  ?[LOCATION: ROYAL PALACE — CAPITAL OF SRR, MISKA]

  ?[TIME: 07:30 LOCAL]

  ?[STATUS: CLANDESTINE NEGOTIATIONS — MILITARY SUPPLY ACCORD]

  Unlike the sunlight already saturating the institute in Xapan, a frozen morning had just dawned over SRR. The snowfall was light, almost deceptive in its peace, shrouding the city in a white veil that masked the industrial rot beneath. But under this silence, the foundries were churning beyond human capacity; their metallic groans muffled by the monolithic walls of the Royal Palace.

  ?Inside a hermetically sealed chamber, Bruskin sat with his right hand, Grade S Marshal Shuker—a 51-year-old veteran—and the leader of Kian, Xhushi, age 53.

  “It is a truly colossal sum. Gigantic, I would venture,” Xhushi said, stroking his grizzled beard. “Five hundred tanks of the U 531 model... that is an entire army, Bruskin.”

  ?Bruskin sat opposite him, a cigarette exhaling thick plumes of smoke. His voice was coarse, laden with the authority of a man who knows the clock is hemorrhaging seconds.

  ?“Do not fret over the currency, Xhushi. I must act now. The non-aggression pact with Halter is fragile; there is no telling when he will decide to shatter it.”

  ?Xhushi fell silent, weighing the hazard. Bruskin’s eyes burned with impatience, while his foot tapped nervously beneath the table. In contrast, Shuker resembled a predator in stasis; reclined in his chair, drawing on his cigarette with a lethal stillness.

  ?“Fine,” Xhushi’s voice cut through the tension. “But on one condition: I demand 70% of the ore extracted from your mines this year.”

  ?“That is insanity! An extortionate price!” Shuker erupted, bolting upright, but Bruskin severed his protest with a sharp gesture.

  ?“Done. We have an accord,” Bruskin concluded without hesitation.

  ?After the handshake, Xhushi departed with haste. At the threshold, he brushed past Watson, a 45-year-old Grade B General, though he didn’t even register his presence. Watson maintained a rigid military posture until the Kian leader vanished, then entered.

  ?“Watson?” Bruskin asked, surprised. “What brings you here at this hour?”

  ?“Sir, a short time ago, I informed you that I wished to introduce someone,” Watson said, gesturing toward the door. “This is my daughter, Masha, age 25. I have forged her myself. She is among the most lethal soldiers this state has ever produced.”

  Masha entered with measured, ghost-like strides. Her eyes betrayed a fleeting revulsion for the air putrefied by tobacco, but they quickly locked onto Bruskin with a predatory focus. There was a defiant glint in her gaze—a structural fire that Bruskin recognized instantly.

  ?In Bruskin’s estimation, she appeared as nothing more than a fragile adolescent, her amber eyes and orange hair flickering like sparks in that sepulchral room. He pivoted toward Shuker and succumbed to a mocking roar of laughter that recoiled off the walls. Shuker remained more clinical, releasing only a thin, derisive smirk through the smoke. But when Bruskin realized Watson’s expression had not flinched, his laughter hemorrhaged away, replaced by a lethal frost.

  ?“So, you are not jesting?” Bruskin stood, his silhouette looming. He closed the distance toward Masha with heavy footfalls and flicked his glowing cigarette at her feet, his stare unyielding. “If you are truly as forged as he claims, I shall grant you the opening. But mark my words: if you falter, I will not claim your head... I will take your father’s.”

  ?Masha kept her chin high, an unmovable monolith. Her eyelids did not flicker even as the hot ash brushed her boots. Watson stood like a monument of salt, offering no protest, silently affirming the horrific wager. Bruskin exited, slamming his shoulder against Masha’s to clear his path—a display of raw power she absorbed without swaying.

  ?The Grade S Marshal crushed his cigarette into the tray and followed his leader, but paused for a fraction of a second before the girl. He placed a hand upon her shoulder—a gesture that carried the combined mass of a curse and a benediction.

  ?“Good luck, little one,” Shuker remarked with an enigmatic smirk before vanishing behind the heavy door.

  ?In the room choked by stagnant smoke, only Watson and his daughter remained. He dropped to one knee before her, seizing her shoulders with a crushing grip—not as a progenitor, but as a mentor surrendering his final weapon.

  ?“This is merely the inception,” Watson’s voice was serrated, stripped of every paternal fiber. “Now the true agony begins. War possesses no mercy for your years.”

  ?“I am primed for anything,” Masha cut him off, her voice as frigid as the Miska permafrost.

  ?Watson wore a grim pride upon his face, but Masha’s gaze was already fixed elsewhere—on a slaughterhouse of a battlefield that only she could envision.

  [DATA: 12. CYCLE 11]

  ?[LOCATION: BORDER SECTOR — THIRA]

  ?[TIME: 05:30 LOCAL]

  ?[STATUS: OPERATION “BLITZKRIEG” — PHASE ONE: DEBARKATION]

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  While snow smothered Miska in silence, the sun had yet to dawn over Thira. The sky was fading into a sickly pallor, allowing a shroud of dense fog to settle like a leaden curtain over the ridges and timberlands. The border hamlets slumbered in a treacherous tranquility; only a few silhouettes clearing the thoroughfares or driving livestock fractured the frozen landscape.

  ?Suddenly, a metallic groan—deep, rhythmic, and incessant—began to vibrate the earth from beyond the hills. The few souls outside froze, their stares impaled upon the white horizon. Even those within their dwellings emerged onto doorsteps, lured by a cacophony that bore no resemblance to anything natural. For a heartbeat, there was only mist. Then—BOOM—a shell lacerated the air with a demonic shriek, detonating directly against the city’s primary gate, reducing it to splinters and hellfire.

  ?The fog was not torn by wind, but by the cold mass of steel devouring the distance. One by one, the obsidian silhouettes of 3-TIGER tanks emerged like sharks in a white sea. They were leviathans of black iron, bearing upon their turrets the dreaded sigil of Nax-Geot: The Red Cross.

  ?Thira’s soldiers, ensnared in ambush, seized their L-EE rifles, but despair hemorrhaged through their ranks as they watched their rounds skip harmlessly off the sloped armor of the 3-TIGERs without leaving so much as a scar. The city shuddered. The water in the canals surged into waves under the staggering mass of the armor. Behind the vanguard, more 3-TIGER models appeared, towing reactive ammunition carriages, primed to level any residual resistance.

  [SUBJECT: 3-TIGER. SLOPED-ARMOR MAIN BATTLE TANK, EQUIPPED WITH REACTIVE SHELL CARRIAGES]

  [OBJECTIVE: FRONT-LINE DEFENSES — 68% NEUTRALIZED]

  The tank hatches cranked open with a metallic shriek. Nax-Geot’s infantry disembarked with robotic coordination. In their grips, SX-4 assault rifles glinted under the first gray light. There were no war cries, no heroic shouts. There was only the dry, synchronized clatter of SX-4 mechanisms cycling rounds into chambers—a sound that heralded absolute expiration.

  [SUBJECT: NAX-GEOT SOLDIERS — ARMAMENT: SX-4 ASSAULT RIFLE, HIGH PRECISION WITH STABILIZED RECOIL]

  [TARGETS: THIRA SOLDIERS — ARMAMENT: L-EE BOLT-ACTION RIFLE, ARCHAIC MODEL]

  [STATUS: 78 THIRA SOLDIERS — KIA COUNT ACCELERATING]

  Behind the barricades crumbling under the weight of Nax-Geot’s advance, the few remaining Thira forces clung to their positions. A Thira soldier, hands trembling violently, attempted to level his archaic L-EE rifle—a relic of wood and iron. He squinted through the sights, aiming for the visor of a Nax-Geot infantryman, but before his finger could squeeze the trigger, he heard a sound that was neither a gunshot nor a scream.

  ?It was the “Stabilization System” of the SX-4. A faint, clinical electronic hum.

  ?Halter’s soldier wasn’t aiming with his eyes; he was executing a calculated command. A single three-round burst sliced through the air. The first bullet shattered the defender’s wooden stock, the second disintegrated his helmet, and the third left him without a face. It all transpired in less than 0.5 seconds.

  ?There was no hatred in the eyes of the aggressors. There was only efficiency.

  [TECHNOLOGY: SX-4 STABILIZER — SHORT-RANGE EFFECTIVENESS: 100%]

  ?Meanwhile, a lone 3-TIGER ground to a halt before a human barricade. The tank commander didn’t even bother to peer out. From behind the armored periscope, he simply pressed a button. The reactive carriage at the rear of the tank unlatched like the maw of a dragon, unleashing a projectile that vaporized every obstacle in its path. Then another followed, obliterating anything that dared to stand, and then a relentless succession, leveling the entire sector to dust.

  ?The soldiers of Thira broke rank, sprinting for their lives, but it was futile. The shells pursued them as if possessed by a mind of their own.

  ?[TECHNOLOGY: SELF-TRACKING REACTIVE SHELLS]

  [TARGET: THIRA FORCES — KIA 128 AND ACCELERATING]

  ?“Advance,” a mechanical voice commanded through the tank’s external loudspeakers. “Crush anyone who offers resistance. In the name of the New Justice.”

  ?The soldiers of Thira retreated slowly, desperately attempting one final maneuver: using the dense smoke from the detonations as a shroud to hide and counter-attack. But every time they surged forward, the Nax-Geot forces were faster. They emerged from the haze with mechanical precision, their SX-4 rifles cutting down the remaining Thira defenders in a matter of seconds. The Thira soldiers couldn’t see through the smoke, but the Nax-Geot visors glinted with a cold, thermal glow, locking onto their targets before a single shot was fired.

  ?[OBJECTIVE: THIRA FORCES — KIA 174 AND ACCELERATING]

  [LOCATION: COMMAND HUB — HILL 402, THIRA]

  ?[TIME: 06:15 LOCAL]

  Upon the heights dominating the slaughter, the command pavilion shuddered rhythmically under the concussive resonance of the artillery. The interior air was stagnant, putrefied by the tobacco of Stancer—a 54-year-old Grade B General whose visage was etched in pure cynicism. He loomed over the timber table, flanked by Zeta and Ette, the elite Grade A generals who stood like twin angels of ruin.

  ?“What is our rate of attrition?” Stancer asked, his stare impaled upon the strategic charts that carpeted the table, scarred by crimson arrows hemorrhaging deep into Thira’s territory.

  ?“At this velocity, sir, our armored echelons will have breached the northern perimeter of Byg by nightfall,” Zeta replied, dragging a thick charcoal lead across the map, symbolically erasing every settlement the 3-TIGER tanks had left as smoldering husks.

  ?Stancer ignited another cigarette, inhaling the heavy smoke as it commingled with the stench of propellant drifting from the valley below. He leaned over the table, fixated on the coastline where the soil met the turbid, grey waters of the East.

  ?“And Alfo? Is he primed?” he asked, receding back into his leather chair.

  ?“Yes, sir. He awaits only the ignition signal to deploy,” Ette interjected, standing at a rigid attention, hands fused behind his back. “The assault will be lightning-fast. The shoreline is still reeling from the Chancellor’s preliminary strikes; their defense is fractured. Our infantry will debark there to secure the bridgehead for the subjugation of Byg.”

  ?“Exquisite, gentlemen. Sustain the momentum,” Stancer’s voice was tranquil, yet it bore a frigid pride in the precision of this death-mechanism. “I demand our armor cleaves through their resistance as if it were parchment. Halt for nothing.”

  ?Stancer stepped out of the pavilion. The first sunbeams, sickly and frigid, splintered against the obsidian helmets of his endless, marching legions. From the summit of the hill, the tank column resembled a river of crude oil and iron, suffocating the Thira valley as it surged toward Byg. The dawn wind did not carry the scent of freshness, but the reek of oxidation and conquest.

  [DATA: 12. CYCLE 11]

  ?[LOCATION: “BLACK LINE” HIGHWAY — TOWARD THE PO FRONT]

  ?[TIME: 07:15 LOCAL]

  ?[STATUS: RESIDENT TRANSFER — UNDER PERSONAL CHANCELLOR CUSTODY]

  The sun over Po had ascended earlier than in Thira, illuminating a frozen, skeletal wasteland. Halter’s armored leviathan was closing in on the precipice of the Eastern Front; already, the stench of diesel and propellant began to seep into the pressurized cabin. Inside, Halter sat with legs crossed, absorbed in a book with a tranquility that sat heavy in the gut. Opposite him, Erten remained huddled in the corner of the seat, his wrists chafed by the bite of the shackles.

  ?“You realize you can’t actually do anything to me, right? Why won’t you strip these irons off?” Erten asked, his voice laced with a contempt that fought to mask his rising dread.

  ?“They are not there to shield me from you, boy,” Halter countered, his eyes never migrating from the printed page. “They are there to shield you... from me.”

  ?Erten exhaled a jagged, bitter laugh. “Your words are as fractured as your mind.”

  ?Halter regarded him through the corner of his eye, his head unmoving. His voice was, unnervingly, softer and more human than the one the populace had heard from the podium—a trait that rendered the situation even more visceral.

  ?“In what capacity do I strike you as mad?”

  ?“Starting with this absurdity,” Erten gestured with his shackled hands toward the book. “A manual for baking cakes? What leader of a global power reads cake recipes on the road to a slaughterhouse?”

  ?Halter closed the book with a dry thud that echoed in the cabin’s vacuum. He exhaled a thin sigh and pivoted fully toward Erten.

  ?“Disregard my reading material, boy. Tell me... are you truly a man of science?”

  ?“And what use is that to you?” Erten straightened, defying the distance between them. “Even if I am, what then? You’ll press-gang me into your death-mechanism?”

  ?Their gazes collided. Halter’s stare was sub-zero, void of any recognizable emotion—an abyss that caused Erten’s certainty to hemorrhage.

  ?“No. I despise idealists and purge them without hesitation. But I adore scientists,” Halter leaned in, invading Erten’s personal radius. “You strike me as an intelligent specimen. I believe we shall reach an exquisite understanding.”

  ?“Only in your fever dreams, Chancellor,” Erten spat through gritted teeth.

  ?“I do not dream, boy. I reconstruct,” a faint, almost imperceptible smirk traced Halter’s features.

  ?Erten measured him, from the polished military boots to the high collar of his overcoat. This man truly believes he is a deity, he thought.

  “You’re clearly unwell. And I still don’t grasp it... why escort me personally when any common grunt could have done it?”

  ?“Because I wished to discern if you were truly exceptional,” Halter replied, turning his head back toward the window as his smirk widened. “And I have seen exactly what I required.”

  ?Suddenly, the vehicle lurched to a violent halt. The driver’s voice from the front fractured the tension of the armored cell.

  ?“Chancellor, we have arrived. We are at Ground Zero of the Po Front.”

  [LOCATION: ADVANCED STAGING CAMP “PO-EAST” — WAR ZONE]

  ?[TIME: 07:45 LOCAL]

  Halter reached out and unlatched the shackles, leaving raw, crimson welts on Erten’s wrists from the duration of the transit. With a calibrated, slow motion, he heaved open the door of the armored transport. Outside, the rank-and-file froze, snapping into a rigid formation the instant they recognized the Chancellor’s sigils. But Halter did not disembark; he merely signaled a field officer. As Erten prepared to exit, Halter’s glacial hand arrested him by the shoulder.

  ?“Boy,” Halter said, adjusting his black gloves with a methodical stillness. “Since manuals fascinate you, retain this. You will require far more than your science in this void.”

  ?Erten accepted the baking manual, paralyzed by the sheer absurdity of the gesture. He stared at the vibrant, colorful cover amidst that monochromatic military wasteland.

  ?“Why?” he asked, his voice fracturing.

  ?“Because on this front, you will be left with a foul aftertaste in your gullet,” Halter replied, his eyes igniting one last time before the door sealed shut. “At the very least, read how something sweet is constructed while you watch the world incinerate.”

  ?The vehicle lunged away, leaving a wake of dust and diesel. Erten remained solitary in the mire, encircled by the heavy boots of soldiers who looked upon this “civilian” delivered by the Autocrat himself with wary confusion. The field officer, after a predatory scan of a white envelope left by the Chancellor, barked at Erten:

  ?“On your feet, boy! Move! We are hemorrhaging time!”

  ?Erten began to trek through rows of soldiers who were scouring their armaments with a religious zeal—from compact sidearms to the massive, grease-slicked barrels of MGV-42s that glinted like obsidian. Every metallic click felt like a rhythmic strike against his ribs. After several minutes of marching through the sludge, they halted before a massive command tent, reinforced with sandbags.

  ?The officer stopped and regarded Erten with a distorted sense of curiosity.

  “You still clutching that cake book?” he asked.

  ?“Yes... but what use is it? Are we to bake confections here?” Erten replied, hoisting the book as if it were a pathetic, useless shield.

  The officer offered no rebuttal. He simply peeled back the heavy canvas of the tent, beckoning him into the void. Inside, the air was filtered, orderly, and frigid. Strategic charts were arranged with surgical precision across the tables. Directly ahead, her back turned to them, a girl stood motionless, consumed by the study of a titanic map mounted in a timber frame.

  ?“The forces at Po are as tiresome and repulsive as these sour apples,” a thin, yet lacerating voice remarked.

  ?The girl pivoted slowly, an apple clutched in her hand. Her red eyes impaled Erten instantly. As she rotated fully, the light caught the Grade S insignia on her razor-tailored uniform. The moment she registered the baking manual in Erten’s grip, she closed the distance with a supernatural velocity and snatched it away.

  ?In the corner of one of the pages, Halter had left a minuscule, almost invisible notation.

  ?“Oh, the Chancellor possesses exquisite taste. The chapter on chocolate torte is one of my personal favorites,” Avasha said, her eyes igniting with an infantile fascination that defied the weaponry surrounding the tent. “So, ‘Central Command’ finally deigned to dispatch a pastry chef after all my requisitions.”

  ?Erten felt the oxygen leave his lungs. He turned abruptly toward the officer, seizing a handful of his uniform as his eyes bulged with sheer disbelief.

  ?“Who is this? Where are the generals?” he hissed, terrified by the realization that this girl held dominion over his existence.

  ?“This is Colonel Avasha, Grade S,” the officer replied in a flat, mechanical tone. “You are to remain with her. Absolute orders.”

  ?“And where is the oven?” Avasha interjected suddenly, regarding them both with an impatience that threatened to metastasize into violence within a heartbeat.

  ?Erten and the officer exchanged a hollow, bewildered stare.

  “I... I beg your pardon, Colonel?” the officer stammered.

  ?“The oven! The one where this baker will forge my cakes!”

  ?“He is not a baker, Colonel... he is a scientist,” the officer clarified with a frozen smile, as if explaining a concept to a high-functioning, lethal child. “The Chancellor has personally mandated that you take custody of him.”

  ?Avasha discarded the apple with a contemptuous flick and exhaled, rolling her eyes toward the tent’s ceiling.

  ?“Exquisite... now I must play nursemaid as well,” she muttered, scanning Erten with a clinical, predatory gaze. “At least they sent one who appears coherent. I’m drowning in idiots on this front.”

  ?Erten stood paralyzed, emotionally decimated. His science, his logic, and his equations had just collided with a variable that existed in no textbook: an elite assassin with the temperament of a spoiled child.

  Why must every lunatic in this world fall into my lap? he thought, watching Avasha flip through cake recipes atop a map that plotted the annihilation of thousands.