“Your time is much shorter than we had previously calculated.” What Lord Ar’Taz said chilled us to the bone.

The Minister asked with tremble in his voice: “What… what do you mean by that?”

Lord Ar’Taz answered: “The Portal’s energy has become much stronger just now. It means the first two Degloka, are coming much faster than we had previously calculated.”

“General Theodore. Mr. Minister.” Abruptly, one of the agents stormed into the room and ran towards the Minister and the General. He was stopped by the soldiers before Minister Marcus said: “Let him through.”

After taking a breath of air, the agent informed us: “Sir, two more spheres, like the one in Melbourne, have appeared. One in Sydney, the other in David Town, Strzelecki Desert.”

“How big are they?” asked General Theodore with clear concern.

“They are much bigger than the one in Melbourne, Sir. Roughly 100 meters in diameter, EACH.” Said the Agent.

Judging from everyone’s expression, the fear became more palpable.

Colonel Hannibal spoke up: “Sir Ar’Taz, how long do we have?”

“The First Degloka, Halg–Eithgras will land in 16 hours 45 minutes. The Second, Halg–Arkmez will follow 52 minutes later.” Lord Ar’Taz replied.

“We need to make preparations.” The Colonel asserted with the Minister: “Mr. Minister, General, your orders?”

“Please come with us.” Said the Minister.

Deep within the base, they led us to a large room filled with computer screens, where everyone was busy with their own task. The General guided me, Colonel Hannibal and Lord Ar’Taz to our position, while the Minister went to his office and made a call.

Out of curiosity, everyone glanced a peek at Lord Ar’Taz before returned to their computers.

Minister Marcus came back after 5 minutes, said something to one of the female officers.

Then, he informed us: “Mr. Prime Minister Nathan Turnbull wants to speak with you, Sir Ar’Taz.” He signaled the officer lady from earlier.

The main screen lit up, showing the Prime Minister and the National Security Committee situated inside the Parliament House, Canberra.

The Prime Minister spoke: “Greetings, Sir Ar’Taz! I am Nathan Turnbull, Prime Minister of Australia. On behalf of Australian people, I welcome you as our official state guest. I would like to apologize that I cannot meet you directly because of our current circumstances.”

Lord Ar’Taz responded: “The honor is ours, Prime Minister.”

Mr. Prime Minister continued: “I also would like to apologize about any inconveniences my subordinates had given you. I take full responsibility for their actions.”

The Prime Minister lowered his head a little bit to show his sincerity.

Lord Ar’Taz spoke: “It is fine! Prime Minister, we believe you have read those files.”

“Yes, we have. To be honest, I almost had a heart attack when I received them directly from you. Normally, it would be Marcus to deliver them to me. However, given the fact that you are standing here, I suppose we have no choice but to believe it.”

The Prime Minister paused for a second. He seemed shaken as if he was afraid of something. The fact that even the Prime Minister himself was acting in such a way, made me wonder just what was inside those files.

He cleared his throat and asked: “Sir Ar’Taz! Are you really here to help us?”

Without hesitation, Lord Ar’Taz replied: “We are.”

Mr. Prime Minister let out a sigh of relief, then looked at Mr. Marcus: “Marcus! I have ordered for full evacuation of Port Jackson and David Town. You will make use of both Royal Navy and Air Force to intercept these monsters. Follow the command guideline from the files Sir Ar’Taz sent you.”

“Understood, Mr. Prime Minister.” said Minister Marcus. He immediately ordered General Theodore to prepare his forces.

The General took some documents from an agent and gave Colonel Hannibal his own files: “This is for you and the Lieutenant, Colonel! You will understand once you read them.”

“Yes Sir” The Colonel took them and saluted him.

“There is something else we would like confirm, Mr. Prime Minister.” Said Lord Ar’Taz. “Would you mind if we informed President Eisenhower, regarding the others?”

The entire NSC (National Security Committee) was shocked at Lord Ar’Taz’s question.

“And why would you do that, Sir Ar’Taz?” asked Mr. Deputy Prime Minister – James Davidson.

“From our knowledge of your world, only his country would have the necessary resources for such operations.” Asserted Lord Ar’Taz.

After a few seconds of discussion, Mr. Prime Minister answered while wiping the sweat on his forehead: “No, that wouldn’t be necessary, Sir Ar’Taz. You have done quite enough for us already. This time, it is our responsibility.”

“We understand. We shall return to our mission.” Said Lord Ar’Taz. “Mr. Minister, shall we?”

“Okay, we will discuss the details in our office.” Said Minister Marcus.

We followed him to his office to discuss our battle plan to fight the incoming Inter-dimensional Monsters. Because of His size, Lord Ar’Taz had to wait with the agents outside the Minister’s office.

The documents we were given stated that there were 7 Entities in total headed for Earth. They compiled specific details about these creatures, their origin, sizes, capabilities and possible countermeasures.

It was then I understood what all of the earlier commotion was about. By the time we finished gathering all of this information, we would have become monsters’ food.

The following was the summary of the Intel on these monsters:

“The Intelligence you are reading was gathered by the Ascendant Fleet – Eternal Judgment, under the command of Lord Ar’Taz Drekgard. We are conducting Extermination Process on an infestation plaguing Dimension 517. This Infestation is called The Rajmez, which created by an extinct species as a biological weapon during an Intergalactic War 10 million Earth years ago.”

There were several redacted pages which I assumed was reserved for only important figures within the government. I could only guess it had something to do with the origin of this “Rajmez” Infestation and how the Ascendant Fleet came into contact with it.

“The Rajmez is a parasitic entity which infects every living animals of a planet and slowly destroys its environment before spreading to other life–hosting planets and repeating the process, one way or another. The Klovaz, who were one of the species suffering greatly from this infestation, had been developing Inter-Dimensional Portal technology before being overrun by the parasite.”

There are four stages to a Rajmez Infestation:

First Stage – Rajmez Cell: These Cells would land on the target planet’s surface in forms of asteroids. After landing, they would release spores into the planet’s atmosphere and proceed to Second Stage.

Second Stage – Trejmorph: When spores are released into the planet’s atmosphere, its inhabitants would breathe in these spores and become infected. Their bodies would mutate into hideous monsters, called the Trejmorphs. They would actively seek, hunt and infect any survivors who hadn’t been infected with the spores. When necessary, these Trejmorphs can gain and filter knowledge of their hosts and use it to serve their collective Hive Mind. For example, if the Infected are formerly scientists, engineers and mechanics specialized in fields regarding spaceships, they would utilize their hosts’ knowledge to help them spread further, beyond planetary boundaries.

Third Stage – Brevak: Generally the Final Stage within the Rajmez’s life cycle. After all of the planet’s inhabitants are infected and turned into Trejmorphs, each Rajmez Cell would act as a Hive Mind* and pull all of the Trejmorphs into them. Their biomass would pile up and assemble to a humongous entity. Depending on the amount of biomass the parasite could harvest from the infested planet, a Brevak can be as big as the largest asteroids. They are mostly round shaped monsters with gargantuan tentacles and the entity themselves can reach hundreds of kilometers in diameter.

Fourth Stage – Degloka: A rare mutation within the Rajmez’s life cycle which is used against species with enough technology to counter their spore infection. If the inhabitants of the planet could counter the spore infection and even fight back, Hordes of Trejmorphs would gather and assemble into individual giant monsters, called “Degloka”, to crush this resistance. After killing the resistance, these giant monsters would gather their victims’ corpses, turn them into Trejmorphs (if possible) and reach their species’ Final Stage – The Brevak.

With enough bio–material within them, Brevak can send Rajmez Cells encased in solid rock and biomass to other solar systems, seeking planets which host life and repeat the process.

“When our Fleet cornered one of the last Brevak, it fled to an overrun Klovaz Colony World which served as an IDP (Inter-Dimensional Portal) research and experiment facility. The fleeing Brevak disassembled itself into the Trejmorphs and hid deep within the planet’s surface. While hiding from our orbital bombardment, some of these Trejmorphs gained intelligence from the infected Klovaz scientists and activated the Inter-Dimensional Portal Engine within the facility. Using all of the energy of the entire colony, the Engine opened a massive Portal. When our bombardment damaged some of the power stations supplying energy for the Portal, it became unstable and split into seven smaller ones. The Trejmorphs assembled themselves again into 7 Deglokas and went into the Portals. When we landed on the planet, we triangulated the Portals’ coordinates and determined that they led to populated cities of Planet Earth, Dimension 652. His Majesty would head into the Portal to intercept them and work with local governments of Earth. By the decree of His Majesty – Lord Ar’Taz, the Eternal Judgment Fleet would remain in Dimension 517 to cleanse this universe of the remaining few Brevaks and make sure this parasite is properly exterminated.”

“We are sharing this Intel to you, the local governments of planet Earth from Dimension 652, so you can cooperate with His Majesty to eradicate the incoming Degloka until we arrive. Should you choose to not cooperate with His Majesty, Lord Ar’Taz would proceed with the mission on His own.”

The documents included some of the detailed images depicting what these Trejmorphs, Brevak and Degloka looked like.

There were images of the presumably normal Klovaz on the left. Based on what I saw, the Klovaz were a humanoid species with several physical differences. Next to it, we had the Trejmorphs which were heavily mutated version of Klovaz individuals.

Trejmorphs were truly a thing of nightmare. They looked like someone had pumped steroids into zombies from the typical horror movies, then stuck sharp blades onto their bodies. There were many images of different mutations but all of the Klovaz individuals were disfigured beyond recognition. Minister Marcus had to hold himself from puking while revealing those files.

Brevak were, surprisingly, less disturbing than the Trejmorphs. They looked like giant meat ball with tentacles, whips and mouths filled with razor sharp teeth. The only horrifying about them was their sizes, which were nearly as big as the moon. One of them, according to the records, was three thousand kilometers in diameter. One single Brevak was created by attracting tens or hundreds of billions of Trejmorphs into one spot, breaking down their biomass and reassembling them into this ginormous of a monster.

Because of how rare they were, there were only several images of the known Degloka. They were practically giant monsters with the average height of 70 meters. What made them stand out from the other two was their regenerative ability. The ones who had escaped their original Dimension to ours were around 80 meters height, but they could be bigger because of their insane growth rate.

According to the files, despite their sizes and numerous mutations, they were not entirely immune to heavy fire power. The most effective weapon against the Rajmez parasite was energy–based weapons, specifically, plasma weapon, due to the tremendous heat they could produce. Thus, Glassing or Heavy Orbital Bombardment proved effective, even against the titanic Brevak.

The seven Degloka would land on different locations across the planet. The following Intel consisted of their names, EIPs (Expected Impact Point) and ETAs (Estimated Time Arrival). They were as follows:

+ First Degloka: Halg–Eithgras; Impact in Sydney, Australia on July 25th, 2022 at 4:20 AM.

+ Second Degloka: Halg–Arkmez; Impact in David Town, Strzelecki Desert, Australia on July 25th, 2022 at 5:12 AM.

+ Third Degloka: Halg–Beugor; Impact in Delhi, India on July 27th, 2022 at 12:17 local time.

+ Fourth Degloka: Halg–Kulvar; Impact in Mexico City, Mexico on July 28th, 2022 at 19:34 local time.

+ Fifth Degloka: Halg–Irrakol; Impact in Osaka, Japan on July 29th, 2022 at 9:45 AM local time.

+ Sixth Degloka: Halg–Lakros; Impact in Shanghai, China on July 30th, 2022 at 10:16 AM local time.

+ Seventh Degloka: Halg–Cthulas; Impact in São Paulo, Brazil on August 1st, 2022 at 3:25 PM local time.

EIPs and ETAs of the other five Degloka listed within the files were calculated based on the Portals’ energy signatures which were gathered by the Ascendant Fleet.

“Military forces of the countries where they would supposedly land were tasked with the civilian evacuation and engage the monsters directly, if necessary. There was a strong possibility that these Degloka would be able to produce many smaller drones which served similar functions as the Trejmorphs. Though much smaller than the Degloka themselves, these drones are not to be underestimated. They are much faster and stronger than normal humans. However, they can still be killed by conventional weapons.”

Our responsibility were to neutralize these drones while Lord Ar’Taz would handle the Degloka Himself.

The Department of Defense designated this monster counter operation as “Hammer Dawn”, which was divided at two locations, one at Port Jackson, Sydney and the other at David Town, Strzelecki Desert.

Battle guideline which came from the Department based on the Intel shared by Lord Ar’Taz stated: “Because of their ability to use spores to infect living organisms, all combatants who participate in Operation Hammer Dawn must wear M54 Joint Service General Purpose Masks. Should any individual shows signs of possible infection, they must be isolated and safely quarantined. If the individual is confirmed to be infected, they must be terminated on the spot.”

The idea of witnessing such cruelty happening upon our fellow soldiers, as well as having to kill them to prevent further infection sent chills down my spine.

I was assigned as Colonel Hannibal’s aid for this operation. He would command the 9th Armored Division defending Port Jackson where the First Degloka, Halg–Eithgras would land. The Royal Air Force would provide support with heavy ordnance. The same strategy would be applied for the Second Degloka, Halg–Arkmez in David Town, Strzelecki Desert as well.

“Are there any questions, gentlemen?” Minister Marcus asked us.

As we all agreed with the guidelines, Minister Marcus concluded the meeting.

We left room and headed for our station followed by Lord Ar’Taz to prepare for battle.

I followed the soldiers to the armory and picked up my weapons. Before I joined Lord Ar’Taz and Colonel Hannibal at the airfield, I bought some sandwich and water to refill myself in the base’s cafeteria. Exhaustion and hunger were fatally dangerous for soldiers like us, especially during an intense battle.

This time, Lord Ar’Taz boarded the container with that weird logo alone, whereas I and the Colonel boarded another helicopter along with our fellow countrymen. Together, we headed for Sydney to join the 9th Armored Division, accompanied by a squadron eight ARH Tiger Attack Helicopters armed with 30mm heavy machine guns and Hellfire missiles accompanying us.

It took us approximately 40 minutes to reach Sydney from Johnson Air Force Base. Since we had some ranks within the ADF, we were allowed to carry our own phones. I tried to call my family to warn them about the coming disaster, but I couldn’t get through to them. Hopefully, I would be able to call them once we reached the city.

Whilst we were checking our equipment, my phone buzzed. It was Albert, so I answered immediately. “Albert?”

“Hey Jack! Things are pretty crazy on your side, aren’t they?” He exclaimed.

“No shit, mate!” I answered. “I am with the Colonel now. We are heading for Sydney. Something big is coming and it might be worse than the Saudi War.”

“Yeah, I figured. We got orders for deployment over here too. We are going to a small city called “David Town” in Strzelecki Desert. Another one of those sphere things just popped up there.”

Albert signed before continued: “I swear they are giving a shit ton of work, mate. We really should ask for a raise, you agree?”

In dire times like this, it felt reassuring to hear his jokes. “Yeah, we are going to need it real bad.” I commented. “Listen, Albert! Can you call my brother? Tell him to avoid major cities for the time being. I tried but the cell isn’t very good over here.”

“Yeah, I’ve got this, mate. I will tell the guys to do the same too. Don’t die on me, you hear? We didn’t survive that hellhole just to die here at home.”

“Of course! Don’t you dare kick the bucket on me either, you bastard.” I told him.

“Jack!” The Colonel called me right after Albert hung up and asked me: “How is your arm?”

“It is good, Sir. It makes me almost forgot that it is a prosthetic.” I answered.

“Glad to hear that. I will be counting on you to watch my back down there. Can you do that, Lieutenant?” He patted my shoulder.

“Yes Sir.” I replied with confidence.

When our transport reached the outskirts of Sydney, we were greeted with a truly incredible sight: the streets were full of vehicles, both civilian and emergency services; thousands of people were directed by the police and ADF forces out of the Port and areas surrounding it; the entire area was almost completely dark. Imagine Melbourne this morning, then double it and you would get the idea of what I was witnessing at that moment.

Our transport touched down at one of the defensive positions the armored division had set up in Port Jackson, also known as Sydney Harbor. Other divisions were stationed at strategic locations surrounding the Harbor as well. Since they were still evacuating city blocks surrounding the Port, we did whatever we could to assist them.

After more several hours, nearly half of the entire city had been successfully evacuated. Now, it almost looked like a ghost town. Even the airspace above Sydney had been placed under lockdown.

Right now, the only thing flying was military helicopters. Squadrons of Tiger attack helicopters, Black Hawk and MRH–90 transport helicopters kept circling the skies above the city. Hundreds of LAVs, AFVs (Armored Fighting Vehicles), tanks and heavy artilleries placed at strategic defensive positions around the entire Port area.

Inside Sydney Harbor, The gigantic sphere, or the Portal was looming over the waters. This one was massive, estimated to be over 100 meters in radius.

Colonel Hannibal and I met up at Lord Ar’Taz’s position. While we were busy with the evacuation, He was waiting inside the container in that meditation-like position. The Colonel approached Him and said: “Good luck, Sir Ar’Taz!”

Lord Ar’Taz nodded at him in response, with the implication of “You are going to need it more than I do” the Chinook lifted and brought Him to the target point. We went to the mobile command center and the Colonel briefed the mission to the officers. This division was even greater in number of troops, tanks and attack helicopters than when Lord Ar’Taz arrived.

I was stationed to the M2 Browning heavy machine gun on top of an ASLAV (Australian Light Armored Vehicle). Finally, we finished setting up our battle formation and reinforcing the barricade around 2:00 AM.

The plan was simple: Lord Ar’Taz would jump from the container to engage the Degloka while we would eliminate the drones it might create. Tanks and artilleries would take them out with suppressive fire, then we pick off the remainders with our assault rifles and heavy machine guns. A squadron of MRH–90 helicopters would also cover us with their M134 Miniguns. Should we fail to contain them within the Harbor, the Contingency Plan would be in effective. This Contingency Plan, however, was not fully disclosed to us, at least to my knowledge.

With all the preparations complete, we braced ourselves to face the incoming threat.

Suddenly, a woman’s voice came through our radio: “Human soldiers, can you hear me?”

I and the Colonel knew that voice. I picked up: “This voice, is that you, Serina?”

“Correction. I am Gaina, a clone of Serina – His Majesty Ar’Taz’s Neferti or A.I in your language. I will be your support in this battle.” She swiftly answered.

“I understand. Thank you, Ms. Gaina.” The Colonel reluctantly answered.

“Your gratitude is unrequired,” She retorted: “It was His Majesty who ordered me to assist you. You should thank him instead. Furthermore, because of the unpredictable nature of the Rajmez Parasite, it is unwise to fight them without proper assistance. I have taken the liberty to link–up with your air and naval assets as well. In case of Containment Failure, they will rain fire upon this entire area.”

What she said hit us like a ton of brick and made me understand what the Contingency mentioned within the files meant. Containment Failure meant that we would have been wiped out by those monsters, or worse.

The Contingency Plan was that the Royal Air and Naval Forces would flatten the entire Harbor with bombs and cruise missiles, to make sure nothing survived.

“Remember, engage the drones with your ranged weapons only, you stand absolutely no chance against them in close quarters combat. They can transmit the venom or spores and infect you through whatever means necessary. Let not even a single one of them escape.” Gaina emphasized.

Out of curiosity, I asked her: “What happens if one of them escapes?”

“Depending on the situation, it will avoid detection and target weaker prey, your average civilian for instance. It will infect and turn them into a Trejmorph. Then, it becomes a domino effect and the number of Trejmorphs will increase exponentially. It should take roughly 120 days to spread to your entire human population, regardless of how your world leaders respond. If one of the Degloka survives the battle until then, it will serve similar functions to a Rajmez Cell. It will attract Trejmorph hordes into itself and begin reassembling their biomass to suit their purposes. Once that process begins, it will also strip your planet of both plants and mineral resources. All in order to create their ultimate life form – The Brevak.”

Though petrified, I managed to say: “When the Brevak is created, our world will become devoid of life, won’t it?”

“Correct!” She answered, without hesitation.

Despite having read all that in the confidential files, hearing it directly like this still terrified us. In order to clear our mind, we observed the helicopter which was carrying Lord Ar’Taz with night vision goggles.

Suddenly, we saw him jump straight down from 200 meters in the air. He landed right on top of the steel arch of Sydney Harbor Bridge. His landing created an audible metal bending sound but Lord Ar’Taz Himself sustained no injuries. He stood up and faced the Portal.

From my perspective, there were nearly two thousand soldiers here who were bracing themselves for the incoming monstrosity. Even though, they were all wearing masks, I could feel their fear and anxiety.

It felt like an eternity as we waited for the Degloka to appear. When the clock hit 4:10 AM, the Portal started to show similar activities to the one Lord Ar’Taz used. The Colonel shouted into the radio: “Prepare yourselves, lads! Here it comes.”

Everyone started gripping their weapons tighter but still kept their fingers away from the triggers to avoid misfiring. Trigger discipline at its finest.

At 4:20 AM, the Portal expanded, then exploded as we had anticipated. The explosion was much bigger than this time. The shockwave was so strong that it traveled across the entire city. Thanks to their distances, all of the helicopters managed to stay in the air.

Something massive crashed into the sea and splashed water in all direction while being covered in the thick smoke created from the explosion.

When the smoke dissipated, none of us was prepared for what we witnessed that night. There it was, an otherworldly colossal entity stood right in the middle of the Harbor area.

The entity known as “Halg–Eithgras” rose up and gave us a full scope of its size which was humongous. Even in the dark of night, we could still see that it even dwarfed the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It had exoskeleton and crustacean like structure all over its body. It had four arms, the lower half was like an amalgamation of spider, crab and octopus, sprouting six carapace legs and five giant tentacles.

The hard shell at the top opened revealing the monster’s head. Standing straight up, the Titan was close to 130 meters tall. It opened its six eyes, along with its mouth which was full of razor sharp teeth. Its roar was so ear–splitting and thunderous, we had to cover our ears.

“Hold your fire, humans.” Gaina spoke into the radio. “It hasn’t identified you as target yet.”

In response, the Colonel ordered everyone with his radio: “Hold your fire, everyone! DO NOT FIRE. I repeat, DO NOT FIRE. Wait for my mark.”

The Degloka turned its head to the Bridge and seemed to glare at something. We remembered that position was where Lord Ar’Taz was standing, so we used the goggles to have a closer look. We saw Lord Ar’Taz pulling something out of the armor from His back.

When the Giant acknowledged what it was looking at, it promptly raised one of its right arm, preparing to crush him. Its hand had four fingers which ended with sharp claws.

Suddenly, there was a deafening explosion on the Degloka’s face. It reeled back in pain as one of its right eyes was destroyed. Lord Ar’Taz was holding an ornate silver handgun with smoldering barrel.

He fired again, the blast could be heard even from here. The Giant shielded with its right arm. It swung at Him again in retaliation. Lord Ar’Taz jumped 100 meters into the air with a single leap to dodge its massive hand which demolished the steel–arch structure of the bridge.

As He was falling, the Giant extended two of its tentacles in an attempt to catch Him in midair. Lord Ar’Taz roundhouse kicked one of the tentacles away and punched the other one simultaneously, while still holding His gun. His movement was insanely fast, our eyes could barely keep up.

Lord Ar’Taz landed on the Giant’s right shoulder carapace. Before it could even react, He fired His gun. This time, He destroyed another of its right eye. Within mere seconds of confrontation, Lord Ar’Taz had blinded two of the behemoth’s eyes.

At closer inspection, we saw a tear on the two tentacles which Lord Ar’Taz made contact with, causing it to drip black liquid. The monster howled in pain. It tried to swipe at Lord Ar’Taz again with its remaining tentacles.

Lord Ar’Taz swiftly exchanged His handgun with a glowing sword. Even though the diameter of those tentacles were stupidly massive, Lord Ar’Taz cut them effortlessly.

With such a fight unfolding in front of our eyes, some of us, including myself, would no doubt, question our sanity.

But what shocked us the most was Lord Ar’Taz Himself. From His demeanor to movement, the way He fought the monster indicated how much accustomed He was in dealing with such enemies. As if all of this was just daily routine for Him.

“Prepare yourselves.” A voice from the radio pulled us back into reality. It was Gaina. “It is going to launch the drones.”

Like she said, the Degloka was acting strange after its tentacles were chopped off. The carapace on its back pulled back and shadows started pouring out. We could see roughly 200 of them coming out the monster’s body. Among those shadows, some of them spread their wings and flew up, while the rest dropped into the water.

“They are coming for you.” Gaina shouted. “400 of them in total, 200 Aerial and 200 Ground Drones.”

The Colonel wasted no time giving his order: “All aircrafts, weapons free. Shoot anything that moves. Ground unit, ready your weapons.”

Above us, the ARH Tigers started blasting their chin-mounted 30 mm cannons at the incoming hostiles, killing a number of them.

As they fell into the sea, I could make out their outline. They looked like giant featherless birds with bat–like wings, three eyes and long stinger–like tails. Instead of beaks, they had long mandibles which ended with sharp teeth.

Each of these flying monsters was around 1.5 meters in height, 2.2 meters with the tail length added. Their wingspan was almost 3 meters.

Overlooking the rain of bullets and flying monsters, Lord Ar’Taz was effortlessly cutting down dozens of these smaller monsters with His sword, while evading the Degloka’s continuous strikes at the same time.

Under the water surface, hundreds of shadows moved as fast as a dolphin toward our formation. We all gripped our guns with fingers at the trigger and prepared for battle.

I wiped away the fog on my mask to have better vision and cocked the heavy machine gun on my turret.

The shadows broke water surface and jumped onto land, giving us full view of their hideous forms.

They were much different from what I had imagined after revealing those files.

The Ground Drones were huge quadruped creatures. They reached 2.4 meters in height when standing on their hind legs. Instead of having skin, they had greenish reptilian scales all over their bodies. There were horns on their heads along of crocodile–like dorsal blades from the back of their heads to the tip of their tails. Both their hands and feet had 4 fingers with sharp claws.

However, it was their face that stood out the most, which looked like that of a mutated bear. They lacked any visible respiratory organs. Their eyes had no pupil and glowed yellow in the dark. They had razor sharp teeth and mandibles like the aerial ones. Everything on these creatures was designed for the sole purpose of slaughtering weaker organisms.

“Do not let them bite you.” Gaina warned us: “Focus your fire on their heads and upper chests. Their protective scales are thinner in those spots.”

The Colonel ordered us: “All units, focus your fire on their heads and chests.”

After a few seconds of intense standoff, one of them let out a loud roar and started charging at us, followed by the rest.