Chapter Two: Angel Hunters
AD2188, Siberian Plain, Dusk.
The sunset wasn't red, it was rusty.
The sky was torn into pieces of dirty silk, ashes and electromagnetic interference mingling into low-hanging clouds. On the frozen ground stretching to the horizon, a black tide was slowly rising—the Calamity Cluster, without flags, without numbers, only the crushing metal bodies and the relentless advance.
Three lines of defense had been constructed in forty-eight hours. In the trenches, soldiers gripped the control sticks, their faces beneath their helmets bathed in a ghostly blue light from the holographic interface. No one spoke; only the silent surge of electromagnetic pulses through the encrypted channels.
Karl stood in the cockpit of "Belial," his palm resting on the activation panel.
A cold blue light spread from the mechanical arm to the entire body—the MPU-5000 "Belial," a colossal blue and white machine, eighteen meters tall and weighing seventy-three tons, lay silently at the deck release port. Its head was lowered, its optical lenses extinguished, like some kind of sleeping giant raptor.
Karl closed his eyes.
Three years ago, this machine was first activated by Lieutenant Colonel Herman Kakov. Three years later, Kakov was executed for "colluding with the calamity," a bullet piercing the back of his head, clean and swift.
The one who pulled the trigger was his own student.
"Belial, awaken."
The optical lenses lit up. The amber light carved sharp shadows across Karl's face. "Karl Kakov, sortie."
The deck release hatch opened, letting in a gust of wind. Belial slid off the hull, free-falling for a second before its thrusters ignited twenty meters above the ground—the blast wave whipped up frozen soil, creating a dust ring centered on the machine.
On the right, the black and red Florence D landed heavily, its hydraulic joints groaning.
"Anta Chen, sortie preparation complete." A young voice came through the communicator, the last syllable tinged with excitement.
"Florentine D, confirmed." Karl responded.
"Ha, still the same old jerk." Anta chuckled, a laugh tinged with the battlefield's unique flippancy. "Fine, same old routine—I'll clear the field, you clean up."
Karl didn't answer. His gaze swept across the communicator screen, landing on the approaching black line in the distance.
The horizon was disappearing.
"Fire—"
The commander's voice was completely swallowed by the roar of the particle cannons.
Dozens of crimson beams swept across their own lines, slicing through frozen ground like blades, carving burning trenches within the calamity cluster. Ripples from the explosions spread in layers, debris flew everywhere, and countless distorted shadows were reflected in the firelight—they were not human, nor were they machines.
They were the third kind of existence bred by war.
The first contact occurred seventeen seconds later.
The clanging of steel against steel was as dense as hailstones pounding on a tin roof, high-frequency, dull, and incessant. Soldiers piloted MPUs into the enemy ranks, beam sabers slicing through armor, hydraulic arms tearing joints apart. Someone screamed in the channel, someone pressed the self-destruct button before their mech crashed, flames blooming one after another, then quickly engulfed by a denser blackness.
Belial moved at high speed across the battlefield.
Karl shut down the external speakers, leaving only the sounds of breathing, heartbeats, and the monotonous "beep-beep-" of the optical locking system in the cockpit.
He swung his sword, sidestepped, and slashed again.
An enemy plane was severed in two at the waist, hydraulic oil and coolant gushing out, casting a thick arc across the cockpit glass. Karl didn't pause; the aircraft swerved, the blade slicing into the head of another enemy plane—sparks flashed, the optical lens shattered, and the thing collapsed like a broken puppet.
"We can't finish this!" someone shouted over the channel.
"The more the merrier, huh!" Anta's voice shifted from high-pitched to shrill, "Fire control system unlocked! All missiles launched—!"
The Florence D deployed its back weapon bay, thirty-six missile pods unlocking simultaneously.
"Tell me about missiles—!"
Pipes crisscrossed in a white net of exhaust plumes as the missile swarm, trailing plumes of smoke, hurtled toward the heart of the enemy formation. The first explosion created a breach, unleashing a swarm of small missiles that detonated a second time, then a third—flames and debris forming a 100-meter-diameter sphere of death that tore all enemy aircraft within its radius to shreds.
A brief void appeared on the battlefield.
But three seconds later, the black tide receded.
"…The particle tanks are all empty." Anta's voice trailed off. "Damn it, what the hell is this—"
Before he could finish, a beam of light shot straight up from the ground, piercing Florence D's right shoulder armor.
"Anta!"
"I won't die! The EN field is still there!" Anta roared through gritted teeth, his machine staggering backward, fragments of his shoulder armor peeling off.
Karl turned toward the source of the beam.
It was a machine that shouldn't be here.
Four-legged, iron-gray, with a deformed turret protruding from its back. Its tentacles—mechanical arms twisted from high-voltage cables—were dragging two friendly landships into its belly, the armor plates twisting and caved in under the immense force, like prey coiled by a python.
"A Chimera…?"
Karl's throat tightened.
He'd seen this thing before. Three years ago, Kakov's last sortie was against a nascent Chimera. After that battle, Kakov was accused of "deliberately letting his target escape" and executed by firing squad a week later.
Now the Chimera had appeared.
It had evolved.
"Power reactor!" Anta roared, "Blow up its power reactor, Karl—!"
Belial charged forward.
The beam gun fired in rapid succession, all hitting the same spot—the underbelly cooling vent. That was the Chimera's only weakness, Kakov had told him himself three years ago.
The beams dissipated three centimeters before contacting the armor.
An invisible barrier shimmered, like an oil film on water.
"…Force field." Karl heard his own voice barely audible. "Evolved to the point where even particle cannons are useless."
"Physical attack!" Anta shouted. "Force fields can't stop solid objects! Charge in and detonate the generator!"
Belial sheathed his beam rifle and drew his greatsword from his back.
The engine overloaded, the thrusters emitting a sharp screech. Karl lowered his center of gravity, cutting into the chimera's defensive perimeter amidst the barrage of bullets.
Three hundred meters away. The force field deflected missiles, shrapnel grazing his shoulder armor.
One hundred meters. Tentacles swept across, Belial slid along the ground, the metallic scraping sound piercing his eardrums.
Fifty meters. The vent opened in the center of his vision, like an inverted pupil.
Karl plunged the greatsword in.
The blade sank into the exhaust duct, wedged between the transmission mechanism and the armor plate. Hydraulic oil gushed out, sparks flying.
"Anta—!"
"Roger—"
Florent D raised the remaining main cannon, aiming it at the flaming fissure.
Trigger pulled.
Explosion.
Flames erupted from within the chimera, armor plates cracking from the inside out, hydraulic oil and coolant mixing into a toxic mist, igniting completely in 0.3 seconds. The four-legged colossus's joints snapped one by one, the machine tilting forward, kneeling heavily on the frozen ground.
But the sound of its fall was drowned out.
A denser swarm of enemy aircraft was pouring in from all directions.
"Too many—really too many—!" someone broke down in the channel.
"All retreat, advance to the third line of defense." The commander's voice was cut into intermittent static by electromagnetic interference. "Polaris, provide support."
"I'll cover the rear," Karl said.
On the communicator screen, Anta's face flashed briefly, offering no thanks, only a very low curse.
Belial stood before the burning wreckage of the chimera, sword drawn across his chest.
Waves of black water surged toward him.
Three minutes later, the mothership's tractor beam pierced the smoke and hooked Belial's breastplate.
As the machine was dragged away from the battlefield, Karl glanced back. The Siberian plains were completely ablaze, the flames merging with the rusty sunset.
He remembered the girl's eyes.
He still hadn't changed anything.
But he was still alive.
And the war was far from over.
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