“What do you mean no?” Don stared at the person sitting opposite the table with steely eyes. The room was a brightly lit bar, while the person opposite was flanked by two heavily armed guards in combat armour and shotguns.
Don wasn’t the least bit intimidated, with his confidence placed in the standardized rebel exosuit called ‘Victorious Revolt’ that he had along with an in-house VR-01 energy rifle designed by the rebellion.
“No means no. Haven’t you watched the pre...
2023-02-26 11:00:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
The ‘White Fang’ tapped his finger on the table with obvious stress, looking at a document detailing the budget that the central rebellion command has provided to him. “This can’t be right, the budget is ridiculously low!”
Sierra nodded her head. “This budget is the final approved version. The unification has come much earlier than expected. The announcement by Oliver Athen in the recent press conference has had our supporters dwindle by more than 50%. No sane business on At...
2023-02-25 13:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
“Are you an idiot?” Melissa scoffed. “You can get executed for crimes against the Loeric Dynasty, I don’t care. We should be targeting Athen itself. The main crux of the problem is that Athen is doing extremely well for itself. It has completely flipped the script on what a resource mining colony should be doing.”
She was right: the Loeric Empire never had a history of a planet changing its designation that quickly like what Oliver managed to achieve in the short span of five ...
2023-02-25 12:00:03 +0000 UTC
View Post
Cardenia chopped off the hand of an imprisoned traitor, causing the guy to scream in pain as blood began to seep out slowly in a strong flow onto the cold metal table. Still wearing her Violet Dusk exosuit, she frowned as the loyal guards took the traitor away back to his cell. “Do they not really know who was financing the entire assault?”
Over the past few days, she’s been trying to find out who was funding Doctor Theria specifically.
She knew it was the enforcers, but she...
2023-02-25 11:00:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
Kitana didn’t recognize the username. If Kieran had told her that he wanted to watch another pro player, she would be fine with it, but this SentientHamster189 sounded like the person barely even knew he had such a username.
Of course, her username of ‘Steel Raven Lady’ was not that well known either, but she had put a lot more thought into it. “Maybe that player is a bot, or just boosting an account while saving the first free name change.” Kitana thought to herself.
Sh...
2023-02-24 11:00:03 +0000 UTC
View Post
“Kitana, protect the family! Don’t worry I’ll come back soon. Get your mum and brother out of here!” A man’s voice yelled before he was grabbed by a multitude of hands, ripping him limb from him right in front of a young girl holding a baby boy.
Kitana jolted awake with a sharp scream, her back drenched in sweat as she panted heavily. She quickly looked around her, her mind still locked in the nightmare she had just experienced.
The holographic wall clock showed that it...
2023-02-23 11:00:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
[Winner: Kitana.]
The automated voice echoed through the testing chamber, where there were more than five Keepers knocked out and scattered pieces of Athen Defender drones were littered all across the floor, the parts sparking with electrical arcs. A single Keeper stood in the midst of all the carnage, with a whimpering Keeper at her feet, clutching a wounded arm.
Dozens of dummy modular structural blocks were scored with thousands of burnt scars, some still sizzling from the rece...
2023-02-22 11:00:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
“Who’s that, fresh blood? Which zone is he from?” Randy, the younger boy who was caught bickering with Dom by Madam Sierra after the drill looked at his multi-terminal. The screen showed the black mask of Ceres with the blood crescent stroke.
“Says he’s from Zone 17! That’s crazy, isn’t the entire zone already brainwashed to hell or replaced by other outers? How did the ‘White Fang’ even find him?” Dom groaned, continuing to sweep the floor as part of their punishmen...
2023-02-21 11:00:03 +0000 UTC
View Post
Ardan and Ceres returned back to the other two, only to see Halyon on the ground pinned by two soldiers. “What’s going on here?” Ardan asked Sierra, who was furious.
“This man tried to go towards you guys when we went to alert state yellow just now. Kept talking about having to stick with the main character or something to stay alive…” Sierra grumbled as she glanced at the struggling Halyon.
“Look, I’m sorry, I got a bit jittery okay? Could you please let me go now...
2023-02-20 11:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
“Are they snatching outers right off the streets? Why isn’t anybody saying anything about it on the tv?” Ceres asked, trying to dig deeper into the situation.
“Yea, this sounds impossible to pull off without garnering some attention. I never heard of anything like this!” Halyon was indignant at what he thought to be obvious slander.
“You’re right in that they are not snatching outers off the streets against their will. Rather, the university trials are a paid program...
2023-02-19 11:00:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
Julia quickly assisted Ceres to the hovercar. “Don’t forget about Halyon…” Ceres muttered before he closed his eyes to take a nap.
Yet another moment of ‘oh shit we forgot’, but Julia and Saater quickly headed to the last known location of Halyon, finding him chilling on a bench and eating ice cream bought from a nearby store. “Oh, you guys are done?”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I could only kill like five of them, afterwards I couldn’t get p...
2023-02-18 11:25:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
Julia flew the hovercar, circling the now half-damaged Queen’s Tower. The tower was still structurally standing, but the damage was very much visible. A sizeable chunk of the middle floors was blown out, billowing with thick black smoke and sparks of flame, making it seem like a monster took a single chomp out of it.
“The timing is too precise…” Saater mumbled. He was also involved in the previous hovercar attack, so both he and Julia were slightly aware that there must be a tra...
2023-02-18 11:20:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
Ceres hobbled over to the nearest empty dark unlit room before closing the automatic door behind him. With a strong punch, he broke the electronic control of the door, causing him to cough out blood again as he exerted strength.
“Shit, that fight really got me…” Ceres slumped against the door, breathing heavily while his ribs strained against the bleeding wounds that marked his body. It was a cinch to avoid the patients that were beginning to spread out, as more and more restraine...
2023-02-18 11:15:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
Ceres left the complaining Halyon behind, heading to one of the entrances. He breathed deeply, allowing the long-repressed sense of hunger to finally let loose and overtake him.
The black goo seeped out of every pore again, forming the black-scale armour around him.
The range of his vision now allowed him to see into the city. He could even absorb emotions at a wider range as well ever since he absorbed the slovesa core. However, as the area was deserted on the ground level, Ceres...
2023-02-18 11:10:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
Dr Theria nodded at the exosuit to leave the two of them alone, before explaining to Kitana quietly in a gentle tone. “Someone is testing a new form of biological weapon in Rockhold, and I intend to stop it. However, certain forces like the Queen’s Guards are not that gracious to let me help.”
“Why would they try to stop you?”
“Who knows?” Theria shrugged. “Perhaps they see it as an affront to their authority, thinking they can solve it on their own, or they have v...
2023-02-18 11:05:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
Ceres strolled through the market, keeping an eye out for anything weird and generally conversing with the residents. It was naturally grimier and sleazier compared to Zone 17, but he felt a similar sense of intimacy and unity between the people who stayed here.
Word of the worm plague had spread thanks to the group, but no one panicked or was fazed. As far as they knew, this was probably one of the least dangerous plagues or dangers they had faced in the last five years. Having gone th...
2023-02-18 11:00:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
Julia shook her head, the stoic image of Ceres’s strength shattered by his outright naivety. “If you think this is impossible, you’re in for a shock when you see the Beyond. You probably won’t even be able to wrap your head around how entire planets function there.”
The Beyond was a completely different zone that Ceres could not even begin to imagine. How would such an anarchic society survive in the desolate zones of the frontier, which was teeming with hostile alien races an...
2023-02-17 11:00:03 +0000 UTC
View Post
Halyon stared in awe as the elevator brought him up along the Queen’s Tower, his face planted on the glass. “I never got to go to the ceiling when I was living in the inner zone!” He still wore his arena cleaner medical suit, though it was a clean set.
“Shut it, kid, you’re making me look bad.” An old man wearing a formal suit was adjusting his blazer and checking his hair in the glass. “Finally, I get the recognition I deserve. Thank God that overpowered monster who upend...
2023-02-16 11:00:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
Ceres walked into the Queen’s office, all properly cleaned up and now sporting the same uniform of the Queen’s Guards.
“Looks like you really enjoyed that room.” Cardenia smiled as she saw Ceres’s beaming face. No doubt her plan to entice him had already taken root in Ceres’s mind.
“Never had such luxurious accommodation like that before.” Ceres said as he observed the equally luxurious interior of the Queen’s office.
“You’ll get more of that if you hel...
2023-02-15 11:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
The next hour passed with a flurry of exchanges between Ceres and Cardenia. Cardenia had not talked to anyone related to the incident in the last six years. She had gone completely underground, changing her identity to that of the Queen and building her own fortress deep in Rockhold.
It wasn’t easy for her. The last six years had been fraught with uncertainty and danger lurking at every step she took, but she gritted through it all, surviving at any cost.
Cardenia had been left ...
2023-02-14 11:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
The hovercar spiralled downwards out of control, crashing into an abandoned district with collapsed pre-fab buildings and dilapidated homes.
Due to the sturdy construction of the hovercar, the hovercar did not explode but instead managed to dampen the force enough for the survival of its passengers.
However, the buildings and loose power lines left all around the district were ripped apart by the crashing hovercar, causing sparks and setting off electrical fires all over the area....
2023-02-13 11:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
[Comrades, it’s been a tough year for all of us, but we are making good progress. Despite the setbacks, achieving our goals is something that will not happen in a single day. Remember our motto!] ‘Bonfire’ clenched her fist.
“Equality starts with a fire!” The cell leaders shouted back in unison.
[Good. I have already read all your personally written reports and understand your issues fully. Future assignments and operations will be allocated with your circumstances in mi...
2023-02-12 09:26:12 +0000 UTC
View Post
