“What is that?”
“...Hmm?”
Blon was a newly recruited soldier of the Brog Defense Force who had been urgently mobilized. Wearing an enhancement suit and laden with heavy gear, he panted heavily as he moved through the razed city center.
Hearing the veteran's remark, Blon casually looked up at the sky.
In the distant sky, a colossal monster was floating.
At first glance, the monster was encased in an extremely hard exoskeleton, but when it unfurled its curled-up body, bizarre biological tissue and legs sprouted from where its soft underbelly should have been.
What is that?
In Blon's eyes, he saw something falling from the Chronos.
The object was wedge-shaped, as massive as the heavy machinery or large steam trucks they used.
Its sharp head pointed vertically toward the ground, while its rear was connected to a biological generator—a Void Core Cone—which also served as a thruster.
“It's going to crash!”
Launched from the Chronos, the object plummeted to the ground several hundred meters away from Blon and his companions.
The magic shield of his combat suit flickered and shook, and Blon ended up stumbling and falling to the ground, struggling to stand.
Yet, just before impact, the wedge-shaped exoskeleton burst open, spraying viscous, acidic toxin mucus and biogas. Instead of being crushed by the massive impact, the bizarre organism shattered the paved ground and rocks, rapidly burrowing deep into the earth.
Tentacle-like roots spread out in all directions, instantly preparing to absorb nutrients from the soil, while its body swelled like a tumor, causing the enclosed seed of Gaia inside to sprout rapidly.
“Could that be...”
“It's a nest! It's one of their nests!”
Before Blon could even whisper in a daze, the veteran began screaming in a trembling voice.
Just as they suspected, this newly deployed orbital drop nest was an instant nest-generating unit.
Conceived by Celia and adopted, designed, and created by Elise, it was the core of this invasion operation and a symbol of their continuously evolving offensive capabilities.
“All available forces, destroy it immediately! Now!”
The commander's urgent voice crackled through the communicator.
Endless torrents of acidic toxins and poisonous gases melted everything on the ground. The orbital drop nest swept everything away, accelerating Gaia's growth and expanding the nest.
Its terrifying and bizarre appearance made it obvious even to the uninitiated that it had to be destroyed as quickly as possible.
Blon's body shuddered violently as he received the order for the nearest unit to immediately destroy the orbital drop nest.
The closest unit was none other than his own.
Sure enough, Blon's unit commander urged his subordinates to rush forward and destroy the thing.
“Even artillery fire is useless! What can we possibly do?!”
“Get close and plant a bomb! The explosive power from overloading a large Central Gear is stronger than any artillery shell!”
It was clear that the Void Core Cone attached to the orbital drop nest since its initial launch was generating a psionic barrier, blocking all incoming artillery fire.
However, the core power source of their combat suits was a device known as a Central Gear, crafted from processed magic stones.
The massive explosion triggered by intentionally overloading it was indeed powerful.
But the enemy was not about to let them carry out their operational plan so easily.
In the sky and on the ground, the Great Devourer's flying species and ground forces surged forward to stop them with all their might.
“In the sky! Look in the sky!”
A colossal flying species, a Void Siren, flapped its massive, membrane-covered wings. With a sharp venomous stinger on its long tail and six blade-like claws, it swept down toward the ground, slicing through everything.
Bodies cut in half, combat suits and all, collapsed to the ground in geysers of blood.
However, Blon had no time to be shocked by this.
He had to quickly aim his flamethrower at a Razorclaw Ravager charging at him from the side.
It was no ordinary fire.
It was a magical flame processed through the power of magic stones in the massive equipment on his back, heavily infused with mana.
It seemed to work; through his squinted eyes, he saw the limbs of the monsters thrashing amidst the raging, intense flames.
“Ugh...”
But the Lictor ignored the searing pain of the flames on its body. Charging straight through the fire, it delivered a powerful blow with its forelimbs.
Blon's defense shield and combat suit shattered. Spitting blood, he was sent flying through the air.
Struggling on the ground, Blon watched his comrades fall one by one.
They desperately tried to approach the enemy nest, but the monsters only grew in number.
In the sky, a massive, finned monster fired light cannons from the tips of the snow-white bones protruding from its body.
On the ground, other monsters opened their back carapaces and extracted their spinal bones, firing back to suppress the defenders' artillery support.
That's right, it's better this way...
In Blon's blurring vision, he saw a trail cutting across the sky.
That was undoubtedly a magic missile, the most powerful weapon in their arsenal.
Firing something capable of erasing several cities directly into the most developed downtown area of this region was nothing short of self-destruction.
But Blon realized, from just this brief clash, that the monsters attacking his home were a disaster far worse than cancer.
If one feared amputating a tumor slowly eating away at the body, it would eventually spread from the limbs to the entire body, rotting everything.
Blon did not resent headquarters for this decision. It was better for everyone to be vaporized together.
If he could wipe out those terrifying monsters from his home, Brog, at the cost of his own life, he would gladly pay it.
Of course, he was just one of countless nameless grunts. Whether the magic missile exploded or not, his life was already forfeit.
But if he could find a sliver of peace in his heart like this and close his eyes, that would be enough.
Yet, at that moment, Blon saw her.
A silver-haired woman, suspended in the air with black wings unfurled, aimed with her staff.
“Hive-mind synchronization initiated. Seize it.”
The moment Celia cast her spell, countless magic circles materialized in the air and shot out chains.
Her eyes behind her mask blazed like fire.
This grand magic, which pushed the hive mind to its absolute limit, was a spell only she could use, containing delicate yet immense power.
The chains flew like whips, their trajectories calculated with absolute precision, and snared the magic missile in midair—an object several times larger and heavier than her own body.
The immense propulsion snapped several chains, but she summoned new ones each time, binding the magic missile securely in the air.
“The structural formula of the magic missile is being reverse-engineered!”
The headquarters personnel, who had fired the magic missile with agonizing reluctance, were struck with absolute terror.
The magic missile was undoubtedly the pinnacle of their civilization, a decisive weapon that combined both mechanical and magical power.
But they had overlooked one thing: as long as magic was involved, Celia, as the colony's premier mage, was fully capable of interfering.
The magic formula responsible for energy emission and amplification was disrupted. The missile broke free from their control and began to run wildly out of control.
“I don't understand! Does this even make sense?!”
The bewildered voice of the commander, who knew nothing of magic, spoke for everyone.
In theory, it might be possible, but actually executing it should have been out of the question.
To immediately reverse-engineer a formula upon first sight without having been involved in the magic missile's manufacturing process from the start was practically impossible.
At least in the eyes of the locals, what Celia was doing had already transcended the boundaries of ordinary magic.
More... More power...
Celia was turning the impossible into reality.
Using her body and brain as a transmitter, she provided real-time information to the hive mind, utilizing computational power far beyond that of ordinary organisms to analyze and reverse-calculate a magical formula she was seeing for the very first time.
Then, she transmitted the results back to her own brain to manipulate the magic.
This was by no means something anyone could do.
Without sufficient capability and absolute confidence in oneself, one could easily lose their sense of self in that massive and rapid exchange of information.
As a result, the scope of her analysis expanded, and the energy radiating from the magic missile gradually dwindled.
Instead, control over that power shifted to her. Celia absorbed the immense energy contained within the magic missile through the chains, neutralizing it.
“The magic missile has ceased functioning...”
Ultimately, the magic missile that was supposed to be their trump card turned into a heap of scrap metal. Stripped of all its power, it plummeted to the ground.
Even upon impact, it would do nothing more than shatter to pieces with a loud crash.
“The erosion continues.”
With a splitting headache, Celia frowned and stared blankly at Brog, murmuring to herself.
Perhaps because she had connected to the hive mind too deeply, she felt countless incomprehensible whispers surging in her mind.
Whenever this happened, Celia had to desperately remind herself of who she was and what her goal was.
Because if she didn't, she would instantly lose herself in the hive mind.
Rate on N.U.
