Terra—Warehouse "Souley"—North Wall
The Imperial sentinels were quite grateful to be inside the warehouse and far away from the fighting.
They'd just learned that the military warehouse where they were stationed was being attacked by several million Eternals! Even if they were confident that the warehouse's defenses would hold, everyone was tense. The Eternals were renowned as very bloodthirsty Ascenscionist warriors who thought nothing of killing innocents. Nevertheless, the soldiers' mission was clear: to defend the area with their lives.
And the neural implants in their brains would ensure that death was the only alternative.
Two soldiers were talking to each other while guarding a part of the inner double-layered wall far away from the conflict. "Do you have any information, Lieutenant?" one asked.
The lieutenant answered, "The assault is happening at the south entrance. We should be spared the fighting."
The soldier replied with a relieved sigh, "Thank God! I hope the mechas will kill those sons of bitches. Because of them, I was mobilized for two weeks without my consent, and I have no news from my wife and daughter!"
The lieutenant answered, "Don't worry. I've seen assault mechas in action. These bastards don't stand a chance!"
The two laughed—but then a burning hand melted through the wall and struck the poor soldier, charring him in an instant!
The rest of the wall quickly collapsed, and behind it were about fifty Eternals.
The lieutenant fell to the ground in panic and said desperately, "Why are they here?!"
Apophis, clad head to toe in armor, stepped forward and kicked the man down, then crushed his head under an armored boot. "Eclipse," he said, "deploy and clear the area."
Hulk leaped up and punched several soldiers who were raising their weapons, exploding them like tomatoes. White summoned a mutant bear, which stormed down the walkway in the other direction and tore down enemies one by one.
The various Eclipse members made quick work of the poor Imperial soldiers, cutting through them like hot knives through butter. However, one person stood out to Apophis as particularly strange.
He wasn't the only one using black flames to devour his enemies. Antanria was using them, too.
Not only had she absorbed some of Apophis's Corrupted Zetark energy due to their innate link, but it seemed that she could also access some of his Skills. Not all of them, however. She seemed to lack his ~Eternal Flame (lvl 3)~, which allowed the user to use fire-based Skills for free. Instead, Antanria's Energy could be seen draining on her character information page when Apophis examined it.
Apophis was very interested in how all of this worked… but for now, it was time to destroy his enemies, not to ponder the workings of cosmic power!
The poor garrison, which was only constituted of common infantry sentinels, was completely massacred in a matter of minutes. Unfortunately for them, the assault mechas were busy at another part of the warehouse, and simple humans couldn't hold a candle to even a single Rank C Ascenscionist.
Eclipse infiltrated deeper into the warehouse, destroying one guard after another and burning through reinforced doors as though they were made of tissue paper. Eventually, they arrived in front of a huge double door which seemed to guard a research and development lab.
Antanria, quite proud of her new ability to use black flame, ignited fire in her hand and stepped forward to burn through the door.
However, Apophis caught her by the elbow. "I'll take care of this," he said—then simply put his thumb to the biometric scanner beside the door.
It beeped and then opened.
Apophis gave an arrogant smirk. "As I suspected, they seem to have forgotten to reprogram the locks so that colonels of the Federation can't get inside. I suppose they thought that all the soldiers would do a good enough job keeping their enemies out."
Hulk laughed. "Ah yes, all those colonels of the army of a nation that no longer exists!"
The doors swung open, and the players stepped in, quite impressed with what they saw. The laboratory was a vast space, lit from above with clear, bright fixtures. Shelves several meters high covered the walls and were lined up in one half of the laboratory, filled with weapons of all types. Tables and machines filled the other half of the huge chamber, no doubt for repairing, testing, and developing new weapons.
This was truly the jackpot, the treasure Apophis had come here to claim. "Let's get to it," he said at last. "There's no time to lose."
***
Warehouse South Gate
While Apophis and his allies were slaughtering Imperials on the other side of the warehouse, another butchery was also taking place at the south gate.
In addition to the first one, nine more V5 assault mechas were completely untouched, fresh to the fight, and pouring their immeasurable firepower on the millions of players trying to get inside.
The ten mechas' laser cannons relentlessly pulverized players, cutting them down like grass. This constant assault was also… periodically interrupted by incendiary or fragmentation shells that one-shot thousands of players at once.
But in the end, the groups of players who faced the Vk.5 assault mechas were rather lucky compared to those who faced the other threat!
The two Vk.6 mechas wielded several-meter-long bionic swords with such ease that they might have been simply twigs. The mechas swept their blades like a grim reaper's scythe, slaughtering several thousand players every second. They left behind only a tide of blood and piles of mutilated corpses.
Lotus, who was observing the fight a kilometer away with the other guild representatives, had ordered the players facing the Vk.6 to do everything they could to avoid damage and to delay the assault mechas. Their purpose was to buy time, of course.
The mechas' destruction of the players far eclipsed anything she had predicted. Even still, she remained unmoved by the scene, refusing to panic.
One of the other representatives said to Lotus, "Commander! We've just passed 200,000 player deaths. Should we adjust our strategies at all?"
Lotus had never understood how exactly Apophis's plan to attack an Imperial army depot with a frontal assault was supposed to work. It sounded insane to her. No matter how quickly Apophis claimed his team could infiltrate the base, she doubted that the weapons inside, even if they could destroy these mechas, could be easily configured and set up before all their players died at the gate.
Yet, his plans always seemed to work out in the end, so she had already fully committed to his plan. "We'll continue on," she said in a firm voice.
Suddenly, she received another message from one of her scouts. "Commander, all infiltration groups have successfully completed their missions and entered the building. The Imperials aren't diverting any of their mechas, so the alarms seem to have been successfully shut sabotaged by our Engineer squad."
Lotus took a deep breath, thinking of Apophis making his way into the building. "Let's hope you were right this time," she muttered, as though he could hear her.
***
Inside the warehouse, Apophis's group continued to browse the long, endless shelves filled with weaponry.
Hulk remarked, "I bet if we sold all these weapons and turned the GC to credits, we could all buy one-way tickets to the moon back home! What do you say, everyone? Fancy a vacation?"
White smirked as she replied, "That'd be lovely. Too bad we're sharing the loot with close to two million people."
The group passed beyond the lines of shelves and found, embedded into the wall, another set of double doors leading into a huge elevator. "Well," said Apophis, "let's get on this thing and keep exploring."
Chocolate frowned as she noticed a detail on the wall beside the elevator. "Wait, what's this information?"
Apophis gave a huge grin. "Ah, that would be the current floor number… and beside it, the total number of floors!"
White pushed past Apophis and stared at the number in shock. "You're telling me that there are two hundred floors like this one?!"
A bead of sweat shone on Hulk's forehead as he thought about the potential of this information. "There must be billions of credits' worth of military equipment in this place!"
Apophis laughed triumphantly. "Oh, there'll be a lot more than that! The surface floors, of course, will be the worst-protected. That's where the least valuable military equipment is stored, of course. The deeper we go into the bowels of the facility, the more valuable the equipment will be. There's no doubt millions of billions of credits' worth of equipment stored here!"
Apophis opened his menu and opened the minimap. It showed him the dwindling players facing the assault mechas at the southern gate and how huge numbers were dying with every passing moment.
However, he didn't care about that. What interested him was the progress of the other infiltration groups like Lucifer's, Ceasar's, or Zelda's. Their objectives were all the same: locate enough top-grade explosives in the warehouse to give them an advantage against the mechas.
They were looking for anything with a high destructive potential that could be enhanced with the cosmic power of class Skills into something even more devastating: dynamite, thermite, napalm… and, of course, nuclear bombs.
This was the only way for them to counteract the defenses of the mechas' shields and armor so that they could be meaningfully damaged by normal attacks.
Apophis sent a message to Lotus. "The time has come! Kick my squad out of the Raid."
System: The player "Lotus" has removed you from the Raid group.
Apophis smiled, knowing how much trust Lotus had in him to go along with what must seem like an insane plan to her.
At the same moment, all fifty members of the Eclipse party received that same notification.
White growled, "What the fuck?! Those bastards betrayed us and kicked us out of the group!"
Hulk replied, "Apophis! How could Lotus do this?! What's going on?"
Chocolate's voice was more thoughtful. "Hmm. It must be part of the plan, right, Apophis?"
Apophis nodded briefly and invited all the players back into a new party.
"Don't worry, it's all part of my plan."
Everyone glanced at Apophis suspiciously, wondering why he hadn't bothered to tell them what was going to happen.
Hulk asked, "What are you planning for us this time?"
Apophis gave an arrogant grin in return. "If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise anymore! Come and get on the elevator. It's time to go underground." He laughed. "Feels just like a Dungeon, doesn't it?"
Despite their concerns, everyone obeyed Apophis's instructions and got into the huge elevator, which was clearly designed to support huge, heavy loads. Then Apophis activated the console with his thumbprint and selected Floor 59.
The heavy blast doors closed, securing them, and then the elevator descended smoothly downward.
After a few minutes, a man appeared in the middle of the elevator.
Then another.
And another.
It was Joker, and some of his guild members, wearing invisibility suits.
