“Thorns, swap the anesthetic compounds for lethal neurotoxins.
Prepare to activate Destreza for the third rotation.” The Doctor’s voice was a chilling monotone over the comms.
“Exusiai.
Thorns’s third burst will create a 1.6-second vacuum on the front line.
I need you to synchronize your reload with that exact window.”
On the tactical map, Rosmontis’s massive tactical equipment—affectionately dubbed her ‘refrigerators’—had entered a berserk state, completely ignoring standard command protocols.
Fortunately, his gamer instincts had pre-positioned the Feline exactly where her devastating area-of-effect would maximize the carnage.
“Attention all operators,” he broadcasted, his tone devoid of empathy.
“Our localized firepower is about to breach the thresholds of the Terra Local Conflict Accord.
We are transitioning to Phase Two.
From this moment on, eliminate every hostile within your operational radius.
No quarter.”
The front line dispersed further outward.
The once-impenetrable base gates groaned, twisting and deforming under the sheer kinetic stress, on the verge of total collapse.
Without a second thought, he funneled more operators into the bloodier, infinitely more dangerous secondary kill zones.
Through the visor of his helmet, the PRTS display screen seemed to take on a faint, menacing blood-red hue as his commands grew increasingly ruthless.
[Annihilation Progress: 428/600]
“Shrink the defensive perimeter.
Follow the pathing vectors I’ve marked on your tactical overlays,” he ordered.
“Lemuel, confirm mobility.” He didn’t wait for a reply.
“Hostile density is approaching critical mass.
Detonate the corridor.”
The deafening roar of shaped charges drowned out the ensuing wails of agony.
Shredded flesh, shattered armor, and boiling blood instantly clogged the once-pristine choke point.
It was a scene of visceral, unadulterated carnage—a nightmare most ordinary citizens of Terra would never witness in a dozen lifetimes.
The entire outpost had been transformed into an industrial meat grinder.
Through his seamless, frame-perfect redeployments, mangled corpses were churned out of the choke points like discarded refuse, allowing the blood-slicked blades of his vanguard to spin freely once more.
The metallic stench of fresh blood in the air was so overwhelmingly thick it clung to his skin like a greasy film.
Bile rose in the back of his throat.
He desperately wanted to vomit, but he swallowed it down, forcing his trembling hands to remain steady over the console.
[Annihilation Progress: 498/600]
“Radian, deploying the final emergency tactical med-kit to your coordinates.”
He switched channels, his voice betraying a fraction of a tremor.
“Exusiai…
no, Lemmy.
Status?”
Over the feed, Lemuel’s ragged breathing filled his earpiece.
The Sankta was gritting her teeth, desperately trying to set her right arm.
A grazing hit from heavy shellfire had stripped the flesh away, leaving stark white bone exposed to the ash-choked air.
He had just routed the last available med-kit to another operator.
It was cold, brutal math: Radian’s defensive sector was under heavier pressure.
The algorithm of survival dictated the sacrifice.
“Fall back,” the Doctor ordered, his mechanical cadence slipping back into place.
“I will formulate an alternative.”
But for the first time today, the Sankta defied his instructions.
“Boss…
has anyone ever told you…”
Her Guardian gun roared to life.
Firing one-handed didn’t degrade her monstrous marksmanship in the slightest; a volley of Originium bullets tore through the advancing line.
“You’re practically the living avatar of war!” she yelled over the gunfire.
“I never thought I’d see the day I could hold off an entire army like this.
You won’t let me die here, right?”
Right on cue, Blaze’s chainsaw roared.
A localized explosion of heated air erupted at a mathematically impossible angle, perfectly intercepting a barrage of mortar fire aimed at Exusiai’s blind spot.
“We really are holding back an entire movement with just a handful of people…” Lemuel laughed, a bright, breathless sound amidst the slaughter.
“Righteous One, just like always…
my gun only sings for you!”
If PRTS came equipped with a dating sim module, a bright pink [Lemuel’s Affection +10] notification would undoubtedly be flashing across his retinas.
Unfortunately, PRTS didn’t have that feature, and frankly, neither did he.
He hadn’t even processed half of her romanticized declaration.
His eyes were bloodshot, his mind hyper-fixated on frame-counting the exact microsecond required to trigger her Overload skill.
I’m not joking around here!
he screamed internally.
If I don’t pop her skill right this second, my precious Thorns won’t proc his self-heal in time!
Hibiscus had just been forcibly retreated and still had a grueling twenty-six seconds on her redeployment cooldown.
The entire squad’s HP bars were flashing a terrifying, critical red.
[Annihilation Progress: 546/600]
Suddenly, the tactical overlay stuttered.
The relentless red tide on the minimap began to recede.
Reality was asserting itself over the game mechanics: the enemy was breaking formation.
Someone within the Reunion command structure had forcibly overridden Talulah’s suicidal directives, halting this meat-grinder of a siege destined for failure.
Tracking the thermal signatures, he noticed one specific vanguard pulling back the slowest, acting as a deliberate rear guard.
The Yeti Squadron.
Frostnova?
Or Patriot?
His mind raced through the tactical implications.
Whoever ordered this retreat was committing treason against the Black Snake, bearing the full brunt of the consequences to save their dying soldiers.
To protect the routing infantry at the cost of their own elite forces…
the rear guard had to be their most fiercely loyal confidants.
Did Frostnova and Patriot deploy together?
A surge of pure fanboy adrenaline spiked in his chest.
He instinctively wanted to order a pursuit, desperate to catch a glimpse of Frostnova—the tragic ‘White Moonlight’, the ultimate unattainable waifu of his past life’s Arknights obsession.
But the suffocating stench of copper and the visceral tragedy bleeding out across his monitors violently anchored him back to reality.
The groans of the maimed.
The paralyzed, weeping civilians huddled in the ruins.
The abstract “600” kill count on his UI translated to nearly ten thousand shattered lives in the physical world.
Seventy to eighty percent of the local Reunion Movement’s effective fighting force had just been butchered or permanently crippled under his command.
If he ordered a blind pursuit now, his gamer instincts assured him he could wipe the floor with the Yeti Squadron.
But the cost would be real.
His operators would suffer irreversible, permanent injuries, and the remaining ordinary Infected soldiers would be slaughtered to the last man.
Look, I don’t actually care if these NPC mobs live or die, he rationalized internally, his gamer logic warring with his conscience.
But I literally burned thousands of brain cells micro-managing the early waves just to minimize casualties!
If I let them all die now, wasn’t all that sweaty try-harding for nothing?!
After a heavy, suffocating silence, the Doctor keyed his mic.
“…Halt the pursuit.” He swallowed hard, the dry click audible over the comms, ultimately allowing a fragile trace of humanity to bleed through his mastermind persona.
“Secure the perimeter.
Let’s save the lives of these Infected first.”
The menacing crimson borders of the PRTS combat interface flashed once, then dissolved into a standby blue.
In the ruined streets outside, the surviving Lungmen Infected waited in terrified silence for what felt like hours before cautiously emerging from the rubble.
They gathered around the perimeter, completely oblivious to the fact that an apocalyptic disaster had just been surgically amputated before it could truly begin.
He severed the neural link.
The moment the connection dropped, a tsunami of sheer, crushing exhaustion slammed into his nervous system.
Four uninterrupted hours of careful, high-APM, frame-perfect command had completely drained his mental reserves, but he couldn’t afford to shut down yet.
So tired…
God, I’m so tired.
So tired, so tired…
“Doctor.
You need to rest.”
A firm, elegant hand gently caught his arm as he swayed, and a smooth, resonant male voice broke through his fading consciousness.
Bet you didn’t see this coming, Talulah, the Doctor thought, a delirious, manic smirk twitching at the corner of his lips.
He had already queued up the next phase of the campaign.
The ‘Cornerstones’—the self-sustaining meta operators who could deploy the fastest—alongside Radian, were merely Team One.
Team Two was already in position: Logos, Ascalon, and the battle-hardened elites who had just completed their grueling march.
The very same monsters who had carved their way out of Chernobog with him during the rescue op!
He shook his head violently, forcing his heavy eyelids open to glare at the tactical map.
“…Long time no see.
I’m fine, Logos.
Do you remember your operational parameters?”
It was basic reverse-psychology.
Talulah would be utterly reeling from the sheer brutality of this premature, decisive clash.
She would never, in her wildest dreams, expect him to immediately hot-drop a second, fully rested elite strike force straight back into Chernobog while her defenses were shattered!
The Black Snake actually thinks she has the plot armor to survive past Chapter 20?!
he cackled in his mind.
Not on my watch.
[Rhodes’s Note:
Enjoying the operation so far, Doctor?
(This daily grind literally pays the landship’s rent!
to use the links!)