Saori Makishima had more or less put the pieces together. She just hadn't expected Kuroneko's "unbelievable encounter" to be this unbelievable.
More importantly, the footage Kuroneko had just pulled again… the streamer on the other end was literally livestreaming with his life on the line.
Meaning he could "log off" permanently at any moment—dead, stream cut, gone.
And the only real way they could help him was by pushing the energy coins that accelerated the [Cross-World Invitation]—enough to let him escape that hellish battlefield, even if only briefly.
Those energy coins weren't just something he could earn from streaming. From the looks of it, helping spread the stream's content also sped up that energy bar.
So they couldn't waste time.
Saori immediately told Kuroneko to upload the segment she'd "captured" on-site just now as Episode 2.
Episode 2 would start from the moment he crashed—right up through his first engagements with the swarm.
"This software will work better."
There were countless video-editing programs online.
What Kuroneko had used yesterday was the basic free kind—simple features, limited tools.
But now, for footage ripped and parsed directly from a livestream, Saori had a more professional program on hand.
"This fight is way too fast. You can't see anything. It's all afterimages."
The combat looked like someone had hit fast-forward on a movie.
If the entire video stayed like that, nobody's eyes could keep up. And if you couldn't see the details, it wouldn't feel "impactful"—it would just feel like a blur.
So Saori needed to process it: slow it down to a level viewers could actually digest.
And seeing those flickering, ghosted frames made one thing very clear to her—how dangerous it was out there, and just how terrifying those bugs were up close.
In the marching unit the protagonist had blended into, even the most basic troops—the grunt-looking soldiers—would be absolute top-tier elites if you dropped them into Saori's world.
The kind you'd call the strongest soldiers, period.
As for the protagonist himself… dual-wielding daggers, moving like a feral blur—his fight scenes felt like Wolverine.
Let's just say that was the "power level."
Then there were the hulking figures in the thick armor—Astartes, each one probably around two and a half meters tall. Little iron giants.
Their brutality was ridiculous. Calling them "human tanks" wasn't just a metaphor here—it felt literal.
And when they tore into the swarm, it looked like a pack of Hulks rampaging through a crowd.
Note: "human tank" was a label, not an exaggeration.
Their weapons were obscene.
When they shot a bug, a single round could blow the creature apart—but it was hard to judge raw firepower just from that, since Saori didn't have a benchmark for how tough a Tyranid body really was.
But then she saw what happened when that same firepower hit a human.
It was like being struck by a heavy autocannon. The body didn't just fall—it shattered into dozens of chunks.
As for why they were hitting their own side at all… it was because some soldiers had already been grabbed and used as living shields.
And it was obvious those soldiers were going to die in the bugs' hands anyway.
So this time, Saori even saw the Astartes hesitate for exactly zero seconds before vaporizing the problem—hostage and all.
With that kind of output, a modern tank's armor would probably get punched through.
And to the Astartes, that kind of firepower was just baseline kit. They had plenty worse.
For example, they had a weapon that looked like a grenade launcher. The effect on impact was so violent it felt like a fuel-air explosive had gone off.
Even so, more than half their kills didn't come from shooting at all.
They killed by wading in and carving the bugs apart with swords and blades.
Those weapons looked like cold steel… but soldiers with that level of technology were obviously not swinging "normal" blades in any common-sense way.
Some of them carried weapons shaped like chainsaws, using high-speed chain teeth to do the work—though there was no way it was as simple as Saori's first impression.
When those chain-bladed swords spun up, they screamed with a harsh, droning whine. It was so intense it felt like the air itself was being sliced apart. The teeth even glowed—heat and light from friction at absurd rotational speed.
Bug shells that regular rounds couldn't penetrate were torn open by those weapons with unsettling ease.
And beyond the chain-blades, there were also greatswords that looked like pure, old-fashioned steel.
Except the blade surface faintly shone, like it was wrapped in an energy field.
If you described it in "magic-world" terms, it was basically a weapon with a buff enchantment slapped onto it.
Those swords were just as terrifying—no weaker than the chain-blades—and the damage they caused looked more like a beam-edge cutting through matter.
And that glowing sword seemed higher-grade than the others, because among all those human tanks, only one person carried it—the squad leader.
Meanwhile, lasguns were something the Astartes didn't seem especially interested in. Those were more the standard issue for the grunt-line PDF soldiers.
So if Saori could get more detailed info about the weapons and the bugs—actual names, actual specs—she could work that into the video and make it much more compelling.
A world only really hooks people when it has details—when the setting rules and power scaling feel concrete.
Otherwise—
"M35M—Galaxy Short Pattern."
Kuroneko suddenly blurted that out.
Saori happened to be working on a shot of a grunt firing a lasgun.
Kuroneko stared at the frame and started rattling off additional data as if she were reading it straight out of a database:
Weight: 2.3 kg
Length: 90 cm
Fire modes: semi-auto, full-auto
Rate of fire: 220 rounds per minute
…and more.
That was exactly the kind of detail Saori needed.
"Then what about this one?"
Saori pulled up another weapon from the video and showed it to Kuroneko.
"It's…"
Good. Perfect.
This would make the upload far more informative—and far more addictive to watch.
Unfortunately, not every weapon had a full spec sheet available.
But they could still roughly identify categories.
For instance, the "teeth" on a chainsword were described as monomolecular blade edges, and when it ran, it really did operate like a chainsaw—just at a level that bordered on the absurd.
And as for the power sword… that was the scary one.
Its blade was wrapped in a disintegration field—something that could break matter down at the molecular level.
And those "cans"—no, correction—those Astartes weren't wearing "just thick armor."
That was a high-tech product in its own right: power armor.
The specific pattern wasn't explained clearly, but the material did give a general description of how formidable power armor was.
And those Astartes were said to belong to the Imperium's Space Marine XVIII Legion, created during the Great Crusade—the Salamanders.
"Anything else? What is that mech?"
That was the biggest monster on the protagonist's side right now.
Saori looked up—because Kuroneko's expression had suddenly tightened.
"What's wrong?"
Kuroneko's voice dropped, heavy.
"Something's not good."
Over there… the reason he'd had time to share weapon details earlier was because the bugs had suddenly pulled back.
Kuroneko hadn't asked—she couldn't risk distracting him. This was information he'd sent on his own.
But now he'd gone quiet.
And both he and the Astartes had clearly sensed something. They'd slipped into a level of alertness that was nothing like before.
Which meant the retreat hadn't been "good news."
It was the calm before the storm.
It meant the Tyranids were about to send something worse.
Something much worse.
(End of Chapter)
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