Blood and flesh cut away from the joints. Faces torn apart with the refinement of carnage.
So this was what war meant.
"Hold on! We're descending two kilometers north of the beach!"
The war had already arrived — but not for the nobles, and not for me. The first wave sent to the battlefield were the protectors of the sector's planets and the frontier armies. My mind flew quickly to those who guarded the entrance and exit of the farms — I used to think that was an easy job, safe, the kind of function that keeps food on the table without requiring any effort. However, while the ship flew over the beach being dominated by ships packed with these protectors, I managed to see something unforgettable. Something that made my stomach churn with a violence no fight in the Oasis had ever managed. After all, unlike the bodies I summoned from the barracks, these didn't disappear when they died. They were like I was before the Oasis — and even so they were sliced without modesty or benevolence. The screams of pain and agony managed to cross the ship's thick metal in a muffled way, like an agonizing wind.
The little dark earth and green-moss water they gained was filled with blood and pieces cut away from the joints with an almost surgical precision. Limbs scattered across the volcanic sand like discarded parts of something that no longer served. Torsos split open. Faces frozen in the instant they understood they were going to die. Everything arranged with the indifference of someone who destroys without caring about the mess they leave behind.
Did they know? Did they believe it was easy the way I thought? So this was what it meant to protect planets and frontiers — when they received the uniform and the weapon and the title of protector — did anyone tell them they would be forced to face this? Honestly, I doubted it.
"Try not to look too much."
The voice came from my side — firm, without pity, but with the honesty of someone who had already seen that before and knew that looking for too long charged a price that didn't show on the body.
"Unfortunately, the function of those poor souls is to protect the perimeter of our sector. From what I know, Izabel was entirely against it. But the other families thought it would be a good opportunity to clean out the prisons a bit and generate influence with those who believe the enemy came here to talk. Damn bureaucrats and pacifists — those sons of bitches have more blood on their hands than the monsters killing those poor souls."
Those torn bodies on the beach weren't just soldiers. They were prisoners. Disposable. Flesh sent to die with the purpose of feeding an idea.
Wretches and poor souls.
That was how the noble families spoke of human lives.
✦ ✦ ✦
The woman beside me had violet hair — a lighter tone than Izabel's, diluted, mixed with streaks that almost seemed natural but that I already knew were the mark of the Unicorn family. I had met her the same day I accepted the mission.
Eleonora.
The agreement that brought me to that place had been made with her and Izabel, which demonstrated that Izabel trusted that woman of similar beauty and age deeply — and I must say those two extracted more from me than I received. They pushed me to the limit of what was acceptable and advantageous, and even without using any dirty trick or stratagem, putting my sister in the equation, I still felt that in the end there was clearly no draw. But being someone who was part of the highest circle of one of the most influential families in the sector, I expected nothing less.
Eleonora would be my right hand and the bridge between me and the Unicorn nobles. If there was one advantage to that woman, it was that she seemed not to care about my origin — but rather about my capability. It became clear in the first conversations that she had watched my fight with Viego more than once, and that what she saw there was enough to deposit something I already recognized as trust. Not the blind trust of someone who believes on faith — the calculated trust of someone who measures, evaluates, and decides the investment is worth the risk.
She was a woman of strong temperament. Firm in her opinions, direct in her words, extremely concerned with the team she commanded. But observing the torn bodies on the beach below us, it became clear that, for her, any person who wasn't from her family or didn't have enough power to surprise her was equal to the bodies stretched across the ground.
Flesh about to rot.
It was hard to live with that. But it was the world I was in.
✦ ✦ ✦
While I watched the human cargo ships descend one by one onto what should be the beach of that small island, I finally managed to get a good look at the enemy responsible for the carnage filling the beach. They walked on four legs, but could rise on two, reaching nearly three meters in height. And it was clear that even the soldiers' bullets seemed to have little or no effect on those things.
"Eleonora, what are those creatures?"
She spat on the ground.
The gesture came loaded with something that wasn't disgust — it was rage. The rage of a memory that filled her mind before she could prevent it, and that brought along a weight I saw descend upon her shoulders like something physical.
"Tyrannomorphs." She let the name settle in my mind before continuing. "See the way they move?"She crossed her arms, her eyes fixed on the creatures below. "Pay attention. Record every detail. Because if you ever encounter a horde, you won't have time to look."Her voice dropped half a tone. "Even for us returnees, encountering more than a few dozen is almost a death certificate. Believe me. I know."
She paused. Her fingers squeezed her own arm hard — the knuckles white.
"The first thing you notice on a battlefield isn't their shape. It's the sound." Her eyes didn't leave the beach. "A click. Wet. Rhythmic. That doesn't stop. Sounds like bone nails scratching stone. Then comes the hiss, from deep in the throat, and you understand that thing doesn't breathe like we do."Her jaw locked. "That thing only makes noise when it's ready to tear."
I listened to every word like someone listening to survival instructions — because that was exactly what they were.
"They're fast. Faster than anything I've ever seen running on four legs." She pointed below, where one of the creatures advanced on a newly landed ship. "Those down there seem to be under command, so it looks controllable." Her voice hardened. "When they move without control, the entire body goes flush to the ground. The legs push backward like an insect and each stride drives a claw into the earth. Doesn't slip. Doesn't stumble. Never. And before you even notice, it's on top of you."
She glanced sideways — as though searching for something in memory she'd prefer not to find. Her face contorted for an instant. Probably, like down below, it meant blood and dismemberment.
"But the problem isn't just the speed. It's what comes with it." Her voice descended to nearly a whisper. "They're never alone. Never. Where there's one, there's twenty. Where there's twenty, there's a hundred. And they all move together, at the same time, without a single sound between them. If one has tasted your blood, they all seem to have felt the flavor."Her eyes hardened. "They're more of an insatiable killing machine. Without reason. Without modesty. Just a frantic desire for blood and dismemberment." A pause that weighed. "By God, I've never seen one actually eating. If they told me they were simply sadistic creatures, I'd believe it. This hive symbiosis — where one turns left, all turn. One attacks, all attack. In the same second — is something that, even today, still gives me chills."
She uncrossed her arms. Her right hand closed into a fist.
"I saw an entire platoon of returnees swallowed in less than a minute." The voice didn't tremble — but the fist did. "Thirty. Trained. Who had already seen many things in the Oasis. Didn't help at all." Her eyes finally left the beach and found mine. "They use their claws and jaws to attack, but what you need to fear are their blades that come out of the shoulder — see there, folded? That opens in an arc so fast I've seen colleagues lose an arm before they could scream."Her breathing grew heavier. "The cut seems to arrive before the sound."
She swallowed hard.
"And when one dies, the others don't stop. Don't retreat. Walk over the body." Something changed on her face — not fear, something worse. Acceptance. "The most ironic thing is that after a few days, when you return to the battle site, nothing remains to be catalogued. They say that when they win, they make a point of coming back. And eat everything."The corner of her mouth contracted. "Even their own kind."
She turned her face to the window while pointing at some creatures that had finally reached one of the ships — where nearly fifty heavily armed and protected humans waited in formation.
"Pay attention to how those men die." Her voice was clinical now — the doctor describing a disease that has already killed too many patients for hope. "See that saliva dripping? It's acidic. Where it falls, it corrodes. I saw a steel shield last three seconds." She didn't look at me. "If it touches the skin…"
She didn't finish the sentence.
"Remember the smell. Rust mixed with rotting flesh. If you smell it, it's already too late. It means something of yours is going to fall. Maybe with your healing magic you can survive, but even I'm not certain. And even if you do, it won't be without feeling as though your body were being torn and eaten alive."
I watched through the window while her words became reality before my eyes. In a few seconds — a few seconds — the fifty soldiers were decimated. Slaughtered. Dismantled into pieces that were left exactly where they fell. The creatures took nothing. Didn't eat. Just destroyed and moved on to the next ship.
She turned her gaze to the horizon.
"For us, those enemies are manageable." The voice returned to the professional tone — as though the entire monologue had been a parenthesis she now closed with the same efficiency with which she had opened it. "But you need to understand: it's not advice. It's a warning." Her eyes found mine. "Those things in front of you? They're just scouts. Pets, if you want to be more simplistic. But if they're here, the Infernals already know we've arrived."
✦ ✦ ✦
Our ship was different from the ones descending to the beach.
While the square cargo ships had enormous hatches through which the soldiers disembarked — like cattle being dumped into a slaughterhouse — ours was sleek, armored, equipped with various siege weapons that glowed in standby along the hull. As Eleonora pointed out the first time I saw a regular army ship: bullets were too expensive for walking corpses. For us, they were worth it.
And our function, despite seeming more dangerous than the ones descending on the beach, was infinitely safer due to the perimeter the ship guaranteed. We weren't there to dominate the beach. Our destination was a more remote location, equally dangerous — but with a surgical objective that justified every resource invested in that ship.
It was strange to think that everyone being dismembered on the beach in pain and agony were nothing more than mere pieces that served only as a distraction for the real attack — which was us. That churned my stomach. Not only seeing those deaths, but seeing that they seemed to affect little or nearly nothing everyone who was there with me.
The ship carried nearly two hundred people — the majority from the Unicorn family, with a scattered few from Bloodline and Crivald among them like rare seasoning in a dish that didn't ask for it.
"Éle, you're too worried."
The voice cut my conversation with Eleonora with the delicacy of an axe. The man who approached wore the red uniform of Bloodline and the posture of someone who thought the world was built around him and that everything else was scenery.
"You really think these insignificant creatures are going to do us any harm?" His smile was the kind that precedes bad decisions. "I myself am certain I could kill more than a thousand with just a few moves. Our group could clean those giant insects off the beach in an hour at most." His eyes descended upon me with the contempt I already knew well. "These insignificant humans are more of a hindrance than a help."
Blake.
If Eleonora was someone cautious and with a surprising absence of prejudice, the Bloodline commander who had arrived while I was talking with her was the exact opposite. Insane. With zero concern about strategy and the survival of his team. His desire for battle and blood was only surpassed by his stupidity and his phobia toward someone like me, from the farms. In any case, even without strategy or temperance, he was still strong. Strong enough that even Eleonora preferred to remain calm in the face of such ignorance.
"Blake, our objective is to destroy the contact points with the central base and with the planet Kazadun." Eleonora's voice came out sharp — each word measured to cut without opening a wound. "After we've severed the enemy's contact, I don't care if you want to bet how many Tyrannomorphs you can kill."
Eleonora's words seemed to make Blake nervous — but in that moment she knew that using words wisely was the only way to finish the mission as smoothly as possible. Dealing with Blake was no different from dealing with the Tyrannomorphs: you couldn't turn your back, couldn't provoke too much, and above all couldn't forget he was dangerous even when he seemed stupid.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Tell Magnus I need at least thirty minutes to dominate the main antenna's region." I said, cutting the acid interaction between the two colleagues at my side, and the silence that followed told me that both still hadn't gotten used to receiving orders from a mere colonist. "Honestly, I don't need all of you with me. What I need is just cover. If nobody new shows up, I'll handle it quickly. And then we can move to the second stage together."
Izabel's idea — discussed with me and the leaders on that ship to exhaustion — was simple, but extremely assertive. I would advance with Arachne to the communication antenna and destroy it. The team's mission on that ship came down to maintaining the perimeter protected during my advance.
Fortunately, Izabel's prior knowledge made everything easier. Risky, with all certainty — but the plan took into consideration the maximum danger I might encounter, with data on enemy quantity, their strengths and their weaknesses. Honestly, it was surprising how much that woman had studied — both about me and about the enemy we would encounter. Even while things happened in real time, she had predicted with two days' advance each possible scenario. If they asked me, I would say she could see the future. But as Eleonora emphasized, the Unicorn family was known for having more access to information than the other families even suspected.
Perhaps the information about me had come from the young woman with heterochromatic eyes. Perhaps from other sources I would never know. The fact was that Izabel knew what I could do — and knew what the enemy protecting the antenna could do against me.
"Sir, their intruder alert has been triggered. We need to descend fast." Eleonora pulled me from the stupor while looking at what seemed to be a tablet I hadn't seen where she pulled it from. "The moment has come."
I breathed deep.
I had accepted that mission out of madness, out of guilt, out of empathy — for reasons that varied depending on the second in which I thought of them. But knowing everything I could lose if I weren't there moved me. Helena. My family. The house my sister built from memories. Morgana waiting. Livina cursing. Zaridan training soldiers who didn't know they should be grateful for every beating. Everything I had built. Everything I still wanted to build.
I advanced to the hatch that led to a small door that barely fit two people side by side.
"Open the main hatch. I'm going to jump."
Eleonora and Blake seemed not to understand what was going through my head.
"Wouldn't it be better to wait until we've secured the perimeter first?"
Eleonora's voice came out squeezed — with the tone of someone who desperately wants the superior to reconsider but knows they don't have the authority to ask.
"Don't worry. It'll be fine." I looked at Eleonora, who observed me with something on her face I couldn't classify — it wasn't fear, wasn't doubt, was something between respect and the certainty that I was completely insane. "Follow the plan."
The hatch opened.
The wind struck me like a wall — freezing, violent, with the force of something that didn't want me there. From that height I could feel the air beating against the mark's armor that covered my body, each gust trying to push me back inside the ship, back to safety, back to the place where normal people stayed.
I jumped.
Leaving that ship full of nobles who barely cared about me was something more pleasurable than I thought it would be.
While I approached the ground — the humidity clinging to the armor, the cold cutting wherever the mark didn't cover, the wind howling in my ears with the insistence of something that didn't want to be ignored — I finally managed to see what was below.
A base.
Enormous. Strange. Alive.
It was something I couldn't conceive of conceiving — each structure, each wall, each tower seemed to have sprouted from the ground like something organic, with surfaces that pulsed in the same dark red I had already seen at the station. Even the antenna — which should be my target — had a shape different from anything I had ever seen. It didn't seem built. It seemed grown. As though someone had planted a seed and what was born was a communications tower made of flesh and metal fused together.
I was the unwelcome visitor there. It made sense that nothing I saw made sense.
The only thing that made sense to me was that, by the end of the day, none of that should be left standing.