Hubert Bone exited the control room, finding himself in a dark corridor. The ground surface was mottled with hexagon-shaped holes, each a centimetre in size, allowing him to gaze below. It was a maze, the paths interlinked to each room in the otherwise three-storey structure.

Each room housed either Ground Controllers or Shifters, the elites of the batch departing from Sector 9. They were all battle-ready, seated with their weapons in hand. None of them spoke a word, unwilling to make pointless chat lest they don't hear the announcements.

They didn't want to distract themselves on the eve of a long, drawn-out battle. Hubert Bone crossed numerous paths, his gaze focused on the rooms that trailed underneath him, inspecting the strength of their batch.

'The quantity is the same but our overall strength is a lot weaker than the batches led by the other Aristocratic Families.'

Truck '0' was commanded by five Tier 5 beings, with the rest present in it at Tier 4, a total of 2000 soldiers. Each of the other trucks was commanded by five Tier 4 beings, the rest possessing Tier 3 strength, a total of 1000 soldiers per each.

There were also safely guarded rooms within each truck, filled to the brim with Heart and Brain Crystals, ready to replenish their expended energy.

As Hubert Bone walked further, he came across a flight of stairs, similar to the porous flooring, looking fragile. As he held the guardrails in hand, he realised their sturdiness, the aura flowing within them conforming to Tier 5 Frenzy Beasts, seemingly refined with their bones.

The division of power in their batch was between the Bone Family, the majority who lead the charge, the Light Family and Marble Family who oversaw the operation and made up for the deficient power, and the Veera Family who were part of the Medical Corps, in charge of the recovery.

The Espers from the Veera family were the dominant faction among the Medical Corps, dispersed into all the 12 batches as healers. The remaining healers consisted of the regular populace, ones who had accumulated enough contributions to exchange for the Unranked Skill Regen, affiliated with the Veera Family.

The Flight of stairs was a spiral, thin enough to facilitate only a single person's traversal. His footsteps produced muffled sounds, quickly dissipated when he controlled his force exertion.

Arriving at the top, he opened a door, walking into the topmost area of the truck. It was shaped into the form of a semi-circle, spanning a radius of 3 metres, with the curved surface facing the front. A guardrail existed, separating the foot area from the rest of the truck, looking retractable.

Beyond the guardrail was a steep elevation, aerodynamically designed to facilitate easier movement of the truck. Hubert Bone gazed into the Wild, looking at the trail of trucks spanning to his front and back, forming a long line.

The speed of the march was slow, with the trucks at the front dispersing into the wilds one after another, collecting all the Frenzy Beast carcasses sprawled on the ground. Their actions were swift, thanks to the Espers in charge of the collection duty.

None of the trucks dared to stray far from their line, lest they were ganged up by the Frenzy Beasts that were lured in by the dense stench of blood.

The air had a bloody tinge to it, mixed amid a faint aura, dispersed thanks to the Frenzy beast carcasses. Despite their deaths, their Brains or Spines still showed a trace of activity, depending on whether they were Espers or Warriors respectively.

Not all of them had been annihilated, proving their unrelenting vitality. The greater their evolution, the sturdier they were, becoming harder to kill.

Hubert Bone gazed in silence, sporting a stoic face, clenching the guardrails with his hands. A voice resounded in his ears, followed by a figure that walked out the door, her tone bordering on a feeling of vexation.

"Your actions paint a negative impression of our Bone Family. Sir Ankrakhen Light and Sir Wunris Marble are part of the older generation in their families, their influence is tremendous. The only reason they even look us in the eye is thanks to father. The other families will use your actions as an example to further mock us." The lady iterated, standing beside him, gazing into the surroundings, imprinting the desolate land deprived of vitality.

"As if I care about the Bone Family's reputation; it can be damned for all I care." Hubert Bone's tone experienced a slight increase in pitch, quickly controlled in an instant.

"Henrietta's death wasn't due to father. You must remember that." The lady grunted, sporting an expression of feeling annoyed. She curled a lock of her hair, her vision lingering on a truck that collected the Frenzy Beast carcasses a kilometre to her right.

"At the end of the Flying Signature Raid, who do you think passed the information about Jyorta and Heima to Henrietta?" Hubert Bone swerved his head, glancing at the lady's eyes, displaying his bloodshot eyes. "Until then, she was doing perfectly fine, thanks to mastering the uses of Bone Devour. Even though she hadn't contacted home for 4 years, she wasn't affected much; her determination to survive remained at the peak."

"But," Hubert Bone opened his mouth, feeling his voice unable to take form, getting chocked in his throat. He retracted his gaze, striving to control his emotions by gazing into the surroundings, speaking after a dozen seconds, "The news of her children managed to reach her ears, just 2 hours prior to the final battle when we were ambushed. She lost control on the spot, getting killed by a Frenzy Beast that took advantage of the situation."

"The fact that she lost control so easily just implies her weakness, nothing else," The lady retorted, watching the truck before her turn left, heading towards a nearby location where a giant pool of blood had collated.

Suddenly, she saw her vision moving horizontally to her right, feeling a shockwave course through her left, breaking the bones in her arms and ribs, forming cracks in the rest of her skeletal system. Vapour cones trailed after her figure as she made a beeline, coursing hundreds of metres due to the momentum that carried her.

Just when she managed to orient her hazy vision, her body slammed into the ground, allowing the coagulated blood to wash over her, turning her appearance murky. She made a long trench on the ground, spanning more than 50 metres, the depth conforming to a metre.

"Guff," She spat out a mouthful of blood, feeling a constricting pain throughout her body, morphing her expression into a twisted struggle. Bone spikes emerged from her skin, heading into the coagulated blood on the ground, intending to absorb the energy in them to recover, unwilling to expend the energy in her Heart Crystal.

The bone spikes melted, dissolving into the blood. Her skeletal frame too followed suit, becoming like rubber, unable to prop her internal organs. Numerous thin spikes appeared from them, piercing into her organs, making her shriek in pain.

A figure crashed into the ground before her, separated by a metre, looking like a sturdy mountain, emitting a suffocating aura, spilling copious amounts of blood and grime mixed with soil onto her. Just the aura alone suppressed her, despite the two of them being Transformers. Moreover, despite urging her Unranked Skill Bone Devour to recover her skeletal frame back to optimal condition, she failed to exert any influence.

The armour she wore was capable of resisting psychic influence to a great extent, thanks to it being a Tier 5 Artifact and a Tier 5 Relic. Beyond that was her Unranked Skill giving her control over her bones and muscles, preventing any psychic influence from exerting control over them. But, despite the two major effects, her bones were controlled by the other party, rendering her action useless, despite the two of them having become Transformers at almost the same time.

Hubert Bone snorted, stomping the lady's face with his foot, "Behave like the old bastard one more time, and I wouldn't hesitate to kill you. It was only thanks to Bone Devour that a pile of rotting waste like you could become a Transformer. If Henrietta was alive, she would have outclassed you without a sweat."

He retracted his legs, spitting on the ground; the spit fell next to her face, making a small plop on the ground, displaying the force of its ejection. "The number of losses we had faced in the Flying Signature Raid was only in two digits, with most of them at Tier 3. There were only three people at Tier 4 who had died, a vast difference from the Veera and Doppler Families, who too were dispatched for the Raid."

He turned around, noticing a faint stirrup in the truck he had been standing upon a moment ago, "This resulted in them raising false claims, stating that the members of the Bone Family used their comrades as shields to survive. In order to intensify the severity of our losses, the old bastard leaked the news to Henrietta, conveniently making use of Heima and Jyorta's situation. The Veera and Doppler Families didn't comment on the matter, on seeing that his daughter had been sacrificed in the Raid, retracting their prior statements."

The lady wheezed, craning her neck a bit to ease her breath, "B-But, Henrietta had been informed of Jyorta's situation long ago."

"No," Hubert Bone shook his head, "She was kept in the dark about the actual situation. I was there with her the whole time, the information she had received was concocted news, carefully created by Hancent to ensure she wouldn't be affected. Moreover, since she hadn't directly spoken to Hancent, she didn't take the information to heart."

Noticing a couple of figures appear above the truck '0', Hubert Bone retracted his influence on the lady's bones, dissipating his aura. "The old bastard did something to Heima and made her suffer a lot. I never managed to find it; Heima too is unwilling to comment on the matter. But, mark my words; I don't intend to leave the matter at this point."

"What happened?" Jyovic Bone landed near them, inspecting his surroundings, preparing for an ambush by the Frenzy Beasts. Hubert Bone ignored him, turned around, and dashed towards the truck numbered '0'.

Jyovic Bone glanced at the lady, shocked at her state, "What happened, Havita?"

"It is just another one of his emotional outbursts." Havita Bone activated her Unranked Skill, mending her skeletal structure, absorbing some energy from the surrounding pool of blood, and healing the damage she had suffered.

She stood up, about to dust herself of the blood and grime, turning silent, noticing something shocking, making her body involuntarily shudder.

On her skull, a sentence had been inscribed, visible only when viewed under the effect of Bone Devour, unable to be erased for the time being with her Skill.