The year 2600...

For the last few centuries, humanity had been exploring a countless number of stars, colonizing planets and open clusters, and in these last few centuries, their technologies had already developed to a point where they can harvest the energies of the sun and officially recognized as a type II civilization.

It was a prosperous time for humans, everyone was living their lives to the fullest, without having to worry about any problems like aging or sickness. Everything was on the right track, sailing smoothly towards the future, and continued expanding with arrogance as if they had no equals… That is, until today.

Somewhere deep in the corner of the Galaxy.

A voyaging ship was entering the field of stardust which belongs to a cluster which is on the outermost edge of the Galaxy. When the ship entered the cluster, it stumbled upon many strange creatures. Not only were they extremely powerful, but they were also hostile towards humans. After their encounters with these creatures, only then did they realize they had made a terrible mistake. In the eyes of these creatures, they were nothing more than food.

And from that day onwards... Interstellar war broke out between humans and the Entomons, and the predator became the prey.

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Planet Earth

March 16, Sunday 1:56 AM, Union military-based Texas...

It was a peaceful day at the Union Military camp. Some of the soldiers were doing their military exercise, while the others could be seen enjoying their barbecue. Everything seemed to be fine until a loud siren suddenly went off.

The speakers blared.

"Warning!”

“Warning!”

“All personnel… report back to your units immediately.”

“I repeat! All personnel, report back to your units immediately... and wait for further instructions.”

“This is not a drill!, I repeat! This is not a drill."

Similar things were happening all around the world, sirens were going off in every military base on Earth. Soldiers were scrambling to their post, and many battleships could be seen landing on the airfield.

"Lucas!”

“Lucas!"

"Over here!!" David waved his hand and shouted.

"David!!”

Lucas makes his way towards David as he pushes through the crowd.

“What the hell is going on!! Why are they summoning all of us? And what's up with the emergency siren?" He took a deep breath and bombarded him with many questions.

"I don't know either.” David shook his head and replied. He observed his surroundings to understand the situation, but all he saw were soldiers rushing to their posts.

“Let's go to the briefing room and find out." Both of them followed the sea of soldiers and headed to the command center

"I have a bad feeling about this. I hope everything is alright." Lucas said, feeling a little restless.

"I hope so... Now let's move faster, we are getting late!" David dragged Lucas by the shoulder and ran towards the restricted zone.

After passing through a few security checks, they arrived in front of a large dome. It was a gigantic dome connected with magnetic railways and two large airfields platforms sticking out from the side. They saw many people arriving in a similar manner and a few battleships descending on the platforms.

When they saw the symbols on the battleships, they knew some high ranking officers were coming to their camp.

“Some officials from the central towers are coming. Let’s go!” David said and both of them hurriedly went inside the dome and took the elevator to the underground base. After a few seconds, both of them arrived at the briefing room.

The briefing room was a large hall that could accommodate thousands of people. When they entered the hall, they saw many of their colleagues had already taken their seats in the front row. In the middle of the hall, they saw Sergeant Major Jordan sitting with another person who seemed like a high-ranking officer. After finding an empty seat, both of them sat down and soon, the briefing started.

"Many of you, must be wondering why we are here?” Jordan looked around and continued. “I'm clueless as each one of you.”

He then introduced the person sitting next to him. “This person here is Second Lieutenant Nicholas Dan! Our future commanding officer... And he is here to explain the reason what's all this about. I hope you all give him proper respect.”

“Are we clear soldiers!!" Shouted Jordan.

"YES SIR!!"

The officers stood up and gave a salute.

“At ease...”

Nicholas Dan stood up and waved his hand, indicating everyone to sit down.

“As Sergeant Major Jordan has introduced me, I'm Second Lieutenant Nicholas Dan, your future commanding officer.

"No, let's get to the reason why we summon all of you, right now, humanity is facing an unprecedented crisis. Before I go into details, I would like to show you something first."

A ray of light was shot out from D2 Spider pet (Ai pet in the shape of a spider) and produced a large 3D hologram in the middle of the hall.

"Isn't that the new military standard AI pet?" Lucas whispered to David.

"Shhhh..." David shushed Lucas to keep quiet.

D2 Spider pet was a new military AI pet, known for its combat effectiveness. They were highly equipped with sophisticated technologies and weapons for tactical purposes. Even though it was a low-tier AI pet compared to the AI pets owned by the high ranking officers, they were the perfect companion for low-level officers like Lucas and David.

The hologram showed a visual scenery of a 3D cluster of a galaxy.

"Here is a video of the Cluster we are currently exploring." Nicholas Dan tap on a small hologram screen on his wrist and played the video. The hologram started changing its scenario.

“The scene is recorded from one of our recon satellites before it was destroyed.” He explained.

The video started playing slowly... It showed one of the voyage ships travelling to the edges of a galaxy. It crosses many lonely stars, passing through many fields of cosmic dust and enters into a dark region. After crossing the dark region, it stopped near the edges of the cluster just for precaution. In the past, they made a big mistake of barging in, into a small cluster and to their surprise, they encountered a hostile race with destructive nature. They won the war, but it also taught them a lesson, not to be overconfident and act blindly just because they can travel and survive into space. Some species can survive in space, and that's a fact. Even the infamous "water bear" can survive in space, not to mention a superspecies with weird abilities. The Universe is full of mystery and produces many wonderful things. The existence of humans itself is a miracle.

The voyage ship started sending out a few recon satellites into the cluster to collect information. The recon satellites were similar to an octopus, it travels alone deep into space collecting all kinds of information, and transmitting it back to the voyage ship.

The recon satellite noiselessly enters the cluster and starts gathering information. The stars were much more sparse than the clusters near the bulge.

"Beep, Beep..."

“A large amount of Carbon 14 detected in C1-R7824 star.”

“Calculating distance: 6 light-years.”

“99.9% chance of life on the solar system.”

The recon satellite quietly enters deeper into the cluster and scans its surroundings. As it got closer to the C1-RS7824 star, the radar suddenly went off and beep continuously.

“Beep, Beep, Beep.”

“A large number of life signals and activities detected on C1-RS7824 star.” An automated voice informs the voyage ship. The recon satellite followed the signals and started zooming in on the solar system.

The soldiers started seeing things as the recon satellite zoom in the video. They were horrified at what they saw.

“Good Lord!!”

Everyone exclaimed. The recon satellite went deeper and recorded everything in its sight, at the end of the video, they couldn't sit anymore, all of them were petrified.

Suddenly the video snapped and shut off as if something had eaten the satellite.

"My God!!"

"What was that?"

"Is this for real?"

“Is my eyes playing tricks on me!!.”

Voices started to burst out among the soldiers. They couldn’t believe what they just saw. Never in their wildest dreams thought something like that could exist. All of them were perplexed except for Nicholas Dan

"SILENCE!!"

Sergeant Major Jordan shouted as he slammed the table.

“.....”

Everyone came back to their senses and quickly sat down quietly. Jordan looked at everyone with stern eyes, even though he was appalled by what he just saw... he was still an experienced soldier. So, he quickly calmed down and regained his composure.

Nicholas rewinds the video and pauses at the sight of the creature.

"I know everyone has a lot of questions, Everyone is wondering what this thing is, right...?" Facing himself at the atrocious appearance of a life-like creature who was floating in the middle of the hall, he glared at the face of the creature and continued. "What you are looking at right now is a Class 10 monster, named: Leviathan...”

He enlarges the creature exposing its hideous look for better visuals.

“And there is not just one of this ugly freak of nature, there's a whole... bunch of them.”

“Gulp!”

The soldiers took big gulps when they heard there was more. ‘One is already enough to make us pee our pants now he is telling there are more of them out there, how does that even make sense?’ That was on all of the soldier's minds.

They had never seen a creature that big, It was as big as a mountain, almost similar to the size of a mothership which can house millions of soldiers. Some of the soldiers were even shivering just the thought of its existence. Nicholas calmly waits for the soldiers to calm down. Looking at everyone calm down, he continued.

“Up till now, we are only able to detect 3 of them. The biggest one we spotted was estimated to be around 2.5 miles in height and 4.2 in length, there is also a possibility that there might be even bigger Leviathans somewhere deep inside the cluster, but we will never know for now."

He turned around and examined the faces of the soldiers, all of the soldiers had already regained their composure, after realizing the seriousness of this matter.

‘They seemed to have grip control of their emotions.’ He thought.

"Good!”

Nicholas was impressed with the standard of these soldiers. He nodded his head and continued explaining. “There are many different types of these bugs, some are as big as the Mothership, some as small as your pet hamsters.”

A hologram of a thin long leg 15 meters tall Entomons with sharp jaws pops up in the middle of the hall.

“Some of these motherfvckers are fast. Like this creature…!” Nicholas pointed at the Entomon with a loathing expression. He seems to have some kind of animosity or hatred against this Entomon specie.

“Some are huge but very slow whilst some are small and very fast, some can fly at the speed of ‘high hypersonic’ whilst some can spit fire and hot acids that can melt the steel.”

With a slide, many Entomons with different abilities were shown on the hologram.

He continued. “We finally concluded that these creatures have a lot of similarities with the insects from our Earth, and so, we decided to dub their name as ‘Entomons’.

"That's Ancient Greek, meaning insects. We called them insects, but believe me we are the real insects in front of them."

He sighed, slouching his back feeling a little tired. "We will be sending all the information into your virtual file... and let me give you a reminder,” Nicholas said with a stern voice. “You better remember every single piece of information. As not only your own life but the existence of humanity depends on it. This is a fight against extinction.”

“Do you understand...!" Shouted Nicholas Dan.

"Yes, we understand. SIR!!!"

The soldiers stood up and gave a salute. They were full of energy and determination.

"Are there any questions?" Nicholas Dan asked as he looked around.

One of the soldiers hesitates. "Umm... excuse me, sir...! Are there any intelligent insec... I mean Entomons out there?"

"Good question soldier. What is your name?" Nicholas was impressed.

"My name is Lucas Gonzale... Serving as a Corporal in Unit 1284, 136th Battalion. Sir!" Lucas stood up and gave a salute.

"Sit down soldier,” Nicholas waved his hand to sit down.

“Then, to your question. With all of the information, we have gathered so far... We think there is a high possibility of intelligence bugs out there, but these are just speculation. So far everything is unknown.

"But according to their behavior, and the encounter we had, we believe there are intelligence bugs out there. And this is not the worst part, the worst part of all is that they can survive in space. That giant Leviathan you just saw can travel in space and act as a medium for transportation." Nicholas Dan explained.

Everyone almost collapsed when they heard those terrifying creatures can survive and travel in space. Even Sergeant Major Jordan had a tough time maintaining his composure, he looks like blood has been drained from his body.

‘Is this some kind of a joke?’

Is God playing a prank on me?’

That was on everyone’s mind. All of the soldiers had pale faces, they still couldn't believe all of this was happening.

"How is this even possible?"

"What the hell is going on?"

Everyone was full of doubts, they were at the limits of their mental capabilities. The whole thing was like a nightmare, they even began to wonder if the higher-ups were pulling a prank on them, their imaginations were getting wild.

Earth has been riding the peaceful wave for a long time, they were uncontested in terms of their strength. They have never faced a situation where their civilization is at risk. So people find it hard to believe and accept this sudden threat which could wipe out their existence.

Nicholas Dan sighed and shook his head with pity. He and his colleagues had portrayed the same despair when they first saw the creature.

"ATTENTION!!"

Jordan shouted, gaining everyone's attention.

"I know everyone is scared and worried, but now is not the time to be afraid. All of the things you have heard and seen in this room are all classified materials... “

He looked sternly at the soldiers and continued.

”So don't go around spreading it to the public or you will face one of the harshest military punishments. We don't want to create mass panic.

“Are we clear!!” Jordan shouted and gave them a severe warning. When the soldiers heard the punishment, It gave them a chill to their spine.

“Yes, we are clear. SIR!!”

They all stood up and gave a salute.

“Now, to the procedure...

"Most of you will be sent out of the Sol Cluster and assigned in IC2 outposts for combat. Some of you will be stationed here for backups, you have 1 day to meet your family and loved ones, report back tomorrow at the camp at 22.00."

"Now Disperse!"

The meeting was finally concluded.

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Ai Pet: Ai Pets are the new companions for the humans. They came in with different varied forms and sizes, and the quality of these Ai pets come according to your status and money.

There is a civilian and military-grade Ai Pets.