The briefing had barely settled when Touya leaned against the edge of the table, arms crossed.
His smile was small but sharp, the kind that didn’t leave room for argument.
“The Phantoms won’t be joining us.”
Tom’s head snapped up.
His jaw tightened.
“What?
That’s ridiculous.
We need their numbers.
We need their experience with the base.
Do you even understand how much easier this mission would be with them?”
Touya tilted his head, eyes narrowing in faint amusement.
“Kyle told me himself—you don’t really need them.”
“That’s bullshit.” Tom slammed his marker onto the table, the crack of plastic loud enough to make some recruits flinch.
“We’re running into something we barely understand.
The Phantoms have walked those grounds.
They’ve faced those creatures.
Every soldier counts, Touya.
Every single one.
You’re just—”
Touya cut him off with a quiet chuckle.
He stepped away from the table, his shadow long across the floor.
“They’re laying low.
A stunt like this?
It’ll drag them out into the open.
Kyle’s not stupid—he knows showing up in force will just paint a target on his men.
And he’s already preparing to leave Europe.”
Tom’s eyes narrowed, suspicion dark.
“…Leave?
To where?”
Touya’s smile widened, but his eyes stayed cold, unreadable.
“You’ll know after the mission.”
He turned on his heel and walked out, leaving Tom staring after him, fists clenched.
The room buzzed with nervous whispers again—recruits murmuring about the plan, about Kyle, about Touya’s tone that felt too much like someone giving orders instead of receiving them.
The air in the base that night was a storm of restless energy.
Recruits moved through the halls carrying crates, strapping gear to their bodies, double-checking weapons they didn’t fully trust.
Some whispered about the briefing: about giant bees, scorpions, bulls bigger than trucks, and lions with power enough to erase a city.
Others whispered about Touya and Kyle—how the General of the Phantoms had walked in like a bored king and called him “Your Highness.” Some laughed nervously.
Some cursed under their breath.
The tension was suffocating, like smoke that wouldn’t clear.
Then, in the middle of the chaos, two Phantoms showed up at the gate.
Their swagger was unmistakable—black coats, smirks carved into their faces like they owned the place.
They walked straight into the prep room, ignoring the stares from Interpol recruits.
“We’re not dropping the tranquilizers unless we see Boss Touya,” one of them announced, his voice carrying across the room.
The air shifted instantly.
Every recruit turned, waiting.
Tom’s brow furrowed, annoyed but unwilling to start a scene.
Minutes later, Touya walked in, adjusting his jacket with the same casual air he always carried.
His presence filled the room without effort.
“There you are, Boss,” one Phantom grinned, slapping his shoulder.
“You left the party so early yesterday—didn’t even stay long enough for the girls we brought.”
Touya froze.
His composure cracked, just for a second.
Color rose faintly to his cheeks.
“…I don’t do girls,” he muttered, looking away.
The two Phantoms exchanged a look, grins spreading wickedly across their faces.
“Oi, oi… don’t tell me, Boss—”
“—you’re a vir—”
“Let’s get all the tranquilizers,” Touya snapped, cutting them off, voice sharper than steel.
His ears burned red.
The room exploded with laughter.
Interpol recruits tried to hold it in, but failed, choking out chuckles.
The Phantoms howled, clutching their sides.
Even Tom, who had been grinding his teeth for hours, cracked the faintest smile.
The tension broke like glass, laughter spilling out where fear had been caged.
Touya buried his face in his palm, muttering something that only made them laugh harder.
But when the last crate of tranquilizers was pushed into the loading area, the laughter faded.
The air shifted again.
This time heavier.
Dark.
On the runway, the massive transport plane waited, engines growling low like a beast ready to leap.
Floodlights painted the night in sharp white beams.
The recruits lined up in their gear, helmets clipped, rifles strapped, tranquilizer darts carefully packed.
Their boots clanged against the metal as they marched into the belly of the plane.
Inside, the roar of engines drowned out the quiet fear that lingered on every face.
Tom stood at the front, headset on, voice steady as he gave the last orders.
“Check your comms.
Check your gear.
This isn’t going to be clean, so don’t pretend it will be.
Once we hit the ground, the only thing keeping you alive is each other.” Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
He pressed his hand to his earpiece.
“Truck team, are you in position?”
A crackle of static.
Then: Yes.
Tom nodded.
“We’re clear.” His gaze swept across the rows of young faces, some tense, some pale, some burning with reckless fire.
He raised his voice, steady, commanding.
“Good luck.
Don’t die on me.”
The rear hatch of the plane began to open, the night sky swallowing the cabin in icy wind.
The recruits tightened their grips on their weapons.
The laughter from before was gone, replaced with silence so sharp it felt like a blade pressing against their throats.
Touya stood near the hatch, eyes fixed on the darkness below.
The wind whipped at his hair, but his expression was calm.
Somewhere behind him, Kyle’s words echoed like a whisper from the shadows.
See you later, Your Highness.
And then the red light above the hatch turned green.
The sky split open with the roar of the transport plane’s engines.
One after another, dark silhouettes leapt into the cold night, parachutes blooming like pale flowers under the moonlight.
Team One descended first.
Twenty recruits dropped into the abyss, their bodies buffeted by howling winds.
Far below, the black landscape shimmered with movement.
The glow of eyes.
The flutter of wings.
The hive awaited.
Marcus Veynar, the team leader, gritted his teeth as he adjusted his comms.
His hands didn’t shake.
Not once.
He’d been through more firefights than most people had birthdays.
A rifleman who could hit a coin tossed in a storm.
The man Tom himself had chosen to lead the charge.
But even he felt it—the suffocating dread of what was waiting.
“Brace yourselves,” he barked, his voice steady in the comms.
“The ground isn’t ours tonight.
We’re walking into hell.”
The first sting of battle came the moment their boots slammed into the dirt.
The ground trembled.
The air itself seemed to scream as the swarm erupted from the earth like an ocean of wings and venom.
Bees the size of hounds, their stingers glinting with poison thick enough to eat through steel.
Scorpions the size of motorcycles, pincers snapping with the sound of cracking bones.
The recruits broke formation.
Panic clawed at their discipline.
“We can’t fight this!” someone screamed.
“There’s too many of them!” another cried.
Fear spread like wildfire, faster than the swarm itself.
Then a voice cut through the chaos.
“Shut up and move!”
It was Aria Kusanagi, the newest cadet among them.
Barely nineteen, barely trained, but her eyes burned like fire under the moon.
She spun her rifle in her grip and let loose a burst of gunfire that tore through a bee lunging for her throat.
The insect collapsed, wings twitching.
She turned on the others, voice sharp enough to stab through despair.
“Listen to me!
We don’t have to win against all of them—we just need to keep them off the captain!
Cover him!
Protect his line of fire!”
Her words slammed into the recruits like a whip.
The chaos steadied.
The recruits formed ranks, their rifles crackling, grenades flashing like thunder.
Marcus didn’t waste the chance.
His boots dug into the ground as he raised his weapon and locked eyes on the true threat—looming at the center of the swarm.
A monster.
Half-bee, half-scorpion, its chitin shimmered black and gold under the night sky.
A stinger longer than a spear curled above its back, dripping venom that sizzled on the dirt.
Its mandibles clacked, the sound echoing like grinding steel.
Its wings beat so fast the air itself warped around it.
The hybrid boss.
Marcus’s lips curled into a grim smile.
“You’re mine.”
He dashed forward, bullets streaking from his rifle, each shot aimed with machine precision.
The beast roared, its stinger whipping forward.
He rolled under it, the venom hissing as it struck a rock and melted it into nothing.
Behind him, Aria’s voice rang again: “Keep the swarm busy!
Do not let them near him!”
The battlefield became a storm.
Bees dived, their wings slicing the air like blades.
Scorpions charged, their pincers smashing into earth and bone alike.
Recruits screamed, but they held their ground. Find the original chapter at g.com.
Aria stood at the center, rallying them again and again, firing, reloading, cursing under her breath but never faltering.
Still, the tide pressed in.
Marcus fought like a demon.
His rifle clattered empty; he dropped it without hesitation, drawing twin sidearms.
The hybrid boss lunged, and his bullets traced across its armored body, sparks flying where they struck.
Too shallow.
Too weak.
The beast slammed him with its claw.
The blow hurled him across the field, smashing him into a boulder.
Pain flared white-hot across his chest, but Marcus spat blood and rose again.
“You’re not killing me that easy.”
He pulled a combat knife from his thigh, its blade gleaming with silver coating.
He charged back into the fray, dodging another stinger thrust by an inch.
He slashed across the beast’s limb—venom hissed, black blood spraying.
But the cost was steep.
Its claw clamped down on his leg, bones cracking under the pressure.
He screamed, drove the knife into its joint, and broke free, limping but still alive.
“Marcus!” Aria screamed, blasting a bee off his flank.
He didn’t answer.
His world had narrowed to the monster before him.
Every breath hurt, his veins burned with the poison already coursing from shallow wounds.
But his eyes blazed.
If I fall, they all fall.
The beast reared back for the final strike, wings screaming like thunder.
Marcus raised his last pistol, cocked it, and whispered, “Right between the eyes.”
He fired.
The bullet ripped through the night and slammed into the beast’s skull.
The creature shrieked, venom spraying as it staggered back.
Marcus didn’t hesitate.
He lunged, driving his knife deep into its head, twisting until black ichor exploded outward.
The hybrid collapsed, convulsing, then stilled.
Silence.
For one breath.
Then chaos.
The swarm lost its order.
Bees and scorpions turned rabid, clawing and stinging wildly without coordination.
“They’re out of control!” someone shouted.
Before panic could strike again, another voice cut through the storm.
“Leave it to me!”
Darius Cole, another recruit, barely twenty.
He raised his rifle, firing into the sky.
Then he bolted across the battlefield, his shots rattling, his shouts taunting.
The swarm turned on him instantly, wings and claws thundering behind him.
“Over here, you bastards!
Come and get me!”
He ran full tilt, weaving through ruins, leading the horde in a single direction.
Towards the truck.
Towards the trap.
The swarm thundered after him.
Just as the mass of insects was about to descend and tear him apart, he vaulted over a ridge, diving aside.
The swarm poured into the transport cage, hundreds cramming into the steel hold.
The doors slammed shut with a boom, locking them inside.
The truck shuddered, the cage rattling violently, but it held.
Darius’s voice crackled through comms, panting, almost laughing.
“This is Darius… the swarm’s in the truck.
Repeat, swarm’s contained.”
Relief exploded through the team.
Marcus staggered back into view, his body shredded, his veins burning black, but still breathing.
His men caught him before he fell.
He forced himself upright, dragged forward by sheer will, until he reached Tom at the secondary point.
“Entrance…” His voice cracked.
He coughed blood.
Then forced the words out.
“Cleared… and secure.”
He collapsed into his comrades’ arms.
Medics swarmed him instantly, shouting vitals, pumping antivenom, holding him down as he thrashed.
But he was alive.
Tom stood tall, his fists clenched.
For the first time that night, his lips curled into a grim, fierce smile.
“Good work,” he said, voice low but steady.
“We’re almost at the children’s cells.
Let’s move.”
The recruits roared in answer, their voices echoing into the night, drowning out the hiss of venom still dripping into the earth.
The swarm had fallen.
The path was open.
The war was only beginning.