After eliminating the giant centipedes, Admiral Rodriguez jumps out of his Colossus. He plummets forty feet to the ground below, then lands in a roll before jumping up to assume a defensive stance. The Terran holds out his hand while transmitting a mental command to the Colossus. A small bay opens on its chest, and with a quick hissing of air, the Colossus shoots out a pair of energy pistols.

Without looking, the Admiral snatches the guns out of midair and starts running toward the frontlines. He spares a brief glance at the weapons' charge levels, then focuses his mind on the scene of carnage taking place before him.

One hundred and thirteen Kraktol work alongside two hundred and twelve Kessu. The sizable attack force, just one of several diving into the underground caverns around the Emerald Peaks, works together exactly like they've practiced over the past several months. Like a well-oiled killing machine, the front-facing Kraktol drop to their knees periodically to allow their backline comrades to gun down enemies as needed, then they jump up and charge forward, resuming their attack.

Lele's father, Ruuki, fights among the Admiral's platoon. Equipped with his Thunder Gauntlets, he roars like a tiger while splattering the bodies of his foes as if they were made of tofu. A miniaturized Survival Suit coats his body with an energy barrier, protecting him from even the strongest of the Buzor and demonic monsters.

"Up ahead!" A random Kraktol warrior shouts. "More Buzor! By the Thulvik... it looks like even the Rocharocks have shown their faces!"

The Admiral, still running toward the frontlines, pauses mid-gallop to shiver in disgust as three-meter-tall insects come pouring out of a side tunnel. "Divine Emperor! Augh, are those cockroaches?! Disgusting! Why did I have to wake up in such an awful, wretched future?!"

José Rodriguez, clearly not a fan of huge, nasty bugs, forces himself to soldier forward. His face contorts into all sorts of hilarious expressions as he dual-wields his pistols, blasting any roaches that get in his way.

"Gods! This is the worst! Once I kill Yama, I am never going to go anywhere near these Buzor for the rest of my life!"

The Admiral's accuracy, boosted significantly by his cybernetic enhancements, makes him far more lethal than any three Kraktol combined. Every shot fired finds its mark as both of his eyes swivel independently of each other, automatically guiding his pistols to their marks.

Blat! Blat! Blat!

Limbs rip from bodies. Holes erupt in the cockroaches' carapaces. Several head vanish.

Astoundingly, even with their heads gone, many of the cockroaches continue fighting. Their bodies move and attack as if on autopilot, dumbly rushing at the nearest vibration-causing entity, sometimes even their own kind.

The Admiral clicks his tongue. He keeps firing shot after shot, slaughtering enemies like a reaper from Hell.

Minutes pass.

The firefight intensifies. More types of Buzor begin to emerge, diversifying their forces in a seemingly never-ending flood of bugs. Not only spiders, cockroaches, and centipedes, but also an incredible number of termites and wasps join the fray.

Sapphire, not far from the Admiral, stays by his side protectively. She acts as a backline sniper, picking off the deadliest enemies before they can kill her friends. Even so, eventually, one Kraktol suffers a serious injury as a humongous wasp divebombs him and plunges its stinger into his back, tearing through his Survival Suit's barrier with frightening ease. Half a gallon of poison floods into his body, paralyzing him so he can't scream. José doesn't miss this moment, however, and quickly kills the buzzing attacker.

"We need a medic!" The Admiral shouts. "Kessu, get on it!"

The Kraktol warrior shivers and trembles as an acid-like substance rapidly spread throughout his veins. Those trembles turn into convulsions. By the time three Kessu medics reach him, his heart beats one last time. He stops trembling and freezes in place, his eyes stuck open for the rest of eternity.

"Oh no!" The nearest Kessu cries. "Q-quick, get me some anti-venom! Ah! He's not moving! What do we do?"

José, a few dozen feet away, glances at the Kraktol. Umi's algorithms scan his corpse in an instant, giving the Admiral the information he needs.

"Leave him. He's dead," José says, his voice monotone. "When we return, we'll pick him up and any others who've fallen. For now, return to the backline, where it's safe!"

"Y-yes, Great Precursor..." The Kessu mumbles.

All three of them recoil and slink away, dodging the fallen bodies of countless Buzor as they make their way back to the safety of the rearguard.

José continues unloading plasma bullets into the Buzor's ranks. His eyes harden in anger, despite his attempts to control himself.

One Kraktol dead. I suppose we're lucky we've only lost one soldier so far, but still... I never like losing a comrade, especially when I'm assuming a leader role. Feels like I killed him myself.

"Megla!" José barks, transmitting his voice to her electronically. "Casualty report!"

"We have a few injured on my side," Megla replies, "but they're receiving treatment. No dead, not yet, anyway. These Buzor are stronger than we expected! Some of them are able to break past the Survival Suit barriers!"

"Good. Attention, all platoon leaders! Do we have any dead among any groups?"

Every officer reports back, making José's expression turn unpleasant.

Great. So it's only my group that lost someone. Fuck! I've seen so many men die, but it's different when they're cute little crocodiles I trained myself. I can't let any others fall here today!

"I'm taking point!" José says, as he holsters both his guns and gestures to a nearby Kraktol. "Give me your rifle. Return to the backline to get a new weapon."

The Kraktol blinks in surprise. "Admiral? With all due respect, we can't risk your life! Graugh! You're too important-"

"I'm in charge, and I'm taking point. That's final!" José snaps. He grabs the Kraktol's rifle, and without another word, starts stomping forward with a purpose.

Ignoring the Kraktol warrior's protests, José marches fearlessly into the thick of battle. All around him, the cries of bloodlust on both sides intensifies. He uses his high-powered Sonic Rifle to pierce even the thickest Rocharock carapace, striking his enemies with explosive sound-waves that rupture their innards and leave them keeling over while vomiting acrid green blood.

As José moves deeper into his enemy's midst, a warning signal tingles in the back of his brain. Not created by his implants or any other artificial device installed into his body, this feeling comes purely from several millennia of life-and-death combat fought against the harshest, meanest, baddest soldiers Terrankind once had to offer. José's killer instincts, finely honed over that seemingly endless period, ring in his ear as clearly as any supper bell.

It seems something big is about to happen, José thinks. Let's see if Umi successfully repaired all of my former body's combat implants.

José pauses for a split-second. He inhales deeply, closes his eyes, and sends an electrical signal into his brain. This signal instantly transmits throughout his entire body to activate countless nanites swimming within his bloodstream.

Like magic, a silvery, metallic sheen spreads across José's skin. His Dermal Armor, previously ruined when Umi had to forcefully extract its control module during his life-and-death surgery, once again silently comes to life, shrouding his figure in a dense, nearly impenetrable metal shell.

At that moment, the ringing sense of danger disappears from José's mind. He opens his eyes just in time to see a giant centipede lunging at him, its carnivorous mandibles aiming to bite him in half.

"Admiral!" Sapphire cries, as she gazes in horror at the motionless human.

José smiles.

I almost forgot how amazing dermal armor is.

TINK!

As if biting onto a metallic statue, the centipede chomps onto José with all its strength, only for both of its mandibles to awkwardly bend outward, then snap, flying off in opposite directions.

[Aaaargh!] The centipede shrieks, its words transmitting directly into José's brain. [Hurts hurts hurts hurts!!]

"Aww, you poor thing," The Admiral replies, as he drops his rifle and lunges his hands out to grab the blood-covered spots where the mandibles broke. "If you're hungry, let me feed you some pain."

The Admiral's iron-covered fingers grab hold of the centipede's maw. Its inner mouth wriggles and writhes, while the huge bug quickly starts to back away, using all of its legs to try and break free of the Admiral's vice-grip.

José's eyes flash with insight. He uses his superhuman strength, capable of tearing through the hull of an empire-class battleship, and forcibly spreads his arms out. The centipede's fleshy head offers no resistance as the Admiral splits it open like a pumpkin. Its brains, what little there are, spill out of the gap in its head as its body stops moving. Without any fanfare, the Admiral drops his prey and leaves it to flop on the ground.

"Mmm. Feels good to be back in my prime..." José murmurs, flexing his biceps.

...

Thirty minutes pass.

José, now a walking tank, shrugs off anything the Buzor throw at him. Orcs join the fight, often trying to crush the Admiral's skull with metal clubs. They fail, and José retorts with simple punches and kicks, shattering their bones without much fanfare.

After plenty of time spent slaughtering his enemies, the Admiral checks once again, smiling when he sees there aren't any other casualties among his soldiers.

"I knew this was the right move. Never doubt your instincts, Jojo-boy. That's what Nick would say."

The Admiral resumes fighting. As he does, an audio call pings him over his comms.

"Admiral," Megla says, "I've just joined up with Soren and Drall's groups. We ran into Kilgore's group, too, so, since he's with you, that must mean we've all converged on the main tunnel system."

"Good, good," José replies, casually chatting while ripping the Buzor apart. "Have you seen any Shades yet? Yama?"

"No..." Megla replies, a hint of worry in her voice. "Not at all. We've kept our eyes peeled for that 'demonic miasma' you mentioned, but so far, we don't have any reason to think the initial missile volleys hurt or killed any of Yama's servants, let alone the Shadow Emperor himself. Kyargh! Mysterious!"

José's expression turns grim. "There's no mystery here. I already suspected Yama may have left. If he's not down here, then our trip will have wasted lives in vain."

"Perhaps..." Megla replies. "However, I'm not so certain. Admiral, don't you think there are many more Buzor down here than we anticipated? There's no way Tarus II is housing some random, isolated colony. Think, too, of the fact that we've already encountered a half-dozen species all working together. I can't remember the last time I saw Mitteras and Wuspa in the same room. They hate each other!"

The Admiral frowns. Wuspa? Mitteras?

Umi replies via his telepathic link. [Admiral. The Wuspa are roughly equivalent to wasps, while the Mitteras are essentially giant termites.]

...Right.

José rolls his eyes. "I don't know much about the Buzor and their relationships, so if you think something fishy's going on down here, then we'll just keep pushing forward. I haven't a clue what these overgrown pests are building under Tarus II's bedrock, but if they're hiding something, by goddamn, we'll find it."

"Kyargh! It is as you say, Admiral," Megla responds.

The line goes silent as Megla cuts it off at her end. Having never stopped his onslaught for even a second, José continues ripping and tearing his way through the enemy hordes, focusing down the most dangerous enemies that Umi can identify.

Even more time passes. Soon, the Admiral spots Kilgore wading through a horde of termites, with Lord Drall and Megla not far away. The Admiral pauses for half a breath to double check his surroundings, noting that the tunnels ahead appear to be widening, allowing more and more of his comrades to fight beside each other, but also for more of the Buzor and monsters to fit as well.

"Admiral," Soren says, speaking from a Titan's cockpit. "I've detected a pair of trolls heading this way."

"I'm on it," José replies. A red dot appears in his vision, placed there by Umi to guide him through the hordes of giant bugs. The Admiral coils strength into his legs, then pounces skyward, leaping over the writhing throng of enemies to hurtle toward two lumbering giants.

"Bad luck for you!" José laughs, as he falls toward the first giant. "Your pitiful lives end here!"

Suddenly, for the second time since his arrival, a warning sensation springs to life in the back of José's mind. Like a sixth sense attuned to danger, his heart skips a beat as he seemingly senses a multitude of dangerous presences locking onto his position.

What? Who?! Is it Yama?!

At that moment, a hail of gunfire erupts from the Buzor's battle lines. The Admiral finds himself caught offguard as bursts of electricity and sonar pulses smash against him mid-fall, screwing up his flight path and sending him careening into a horde of screeching termites.

Thump!!

The Admiral crashes face-first into his enemies, killing two of them in the impact, but leaving plenty of others alive to pounce on him.

"Aaargh!" José cries. He quickly starts fighting back, tearing apart heads and bodies without restraint, but bursts of pain continuously flare up in his chest and groin, where enemy gunfire struck him. "Shit! You fucking sneaky bastards!"

During the entire mission, not once have the Buzor used anything but their bodies and whatever weapons nature evolved for them. Right after José and his platoons grew used to possessing a supreme edge in firepower, the Buzor launched a sneak attack, catching the Admiral unawares.

As if planned from the very beginning, the entire frontline of Buzor starts pulling back, allowing a second wave to rush forward. These new Buzor, armed with strange but powerful ranged weapons, quickly turn the tides against the invading forces.

[Inferior Mallali! Traitorous Rodaks! You have fallen for our trap!] The Buzor cry.

A hail of gunfire falls upon the frontline Kraktol, making many of them shriek in pain. Their survival suits, almost indestructible in melee combat, barely put up any resistance against the Buzor's high-tech weapons.

"Fall back!" Soren calls, as she moves her Titan to the front. "Get behind me! Where's the Admiral?!"

She and the other nine Titan pilots quickly take point, turning their armored mecha into makeshift walls of steel to protect the backlines. However, with such a gigantic hallway, they can't effectively shield the entire invasion force, leaving some to scream one last time before their voices cut off forever.

Admiral Rodriguez leaps to his feet. The distant cries of dying Kraktol and Kessu boil his blood, making him explode with rage. "Umi! Activate my Psionic Enhancer! Level one, now!"

Umi replies immediately. "I cannot do that, Admiral. When I revived you, you lost access to Ramma's powers. You no longer possess any psionic abilities."

The Admiral pauses mid-dash, his body stiffening as if someone just dumped a bucket of ice water on him. Having used his psionic abilities in countless heated battles, he hasn't yet grown used to no longer possessing them.

"F-fuck. Fuck! I... never mind! I'll just- I'll do something else, then!"

The Admiral forces himself not to look in the direction of his dying troops. Instead, he grabs hold of a wrist-mounted gadget on his left arm and keys in five numbers. Then, he raises his limb protectively while the wrist-device summons a curved force-field, thrice his body's width and a little more than twice his height.

This projected force-field, with its glowing blue appearance, catches the attention of several Buzor. They unload a rain of bullets upon him, all of which fizzle out upon coming into contact with the mobile defense platform.

The two trolls, still unhurt from José whiffing his earlier attack, rush the Terran during his moment of preparation. He retorts by ignoring them and activating a teleportation module embedded inside his cerebral cortex.

Foop!

The Admiral appears amidst a dense cluster of gun-wielding termites. His optical sensors lock onto their weapons, allowing him to snap a hundred images for Umi's databases. He follows-up by charging them while screaming like a madman, using his body like a living weapon.

Over and over, José teleports to the densest clusters of enemies, slaughtering them while using his force-field to protect himself from their gunfire. Far more durable than his survival suit, the projected barrier doesn't shield his backside, but he takes care not to expose his flank to gunfire. Smartly, José uses the energized aegis as a weapon by occasionally teleporting into the air and falling on top of his enemies, splattering them into meat-paste beneath his barrier.

"Die! Die, you goddamned bugs!" José roars. "Don't you dare fuck with this Terran!"

...

Not far away, at the backlines of José's army, dozens of medics rush from one injured person to another. The Kessu, mostly ignorant of technology, fumble awkwardly with various medical tools as they try to mend the worst wounds among the fallen. However, unlike the Kessu, one specific Kraktol makes her way through the injured, tending to them with a steady hand.

Kisa, the Malvik, stabs a coagulation stimulator into Megla's neck. José's First Officer moans in pain, having taken a bolt of energized plasma to her gut. "Ohh... it burns..."

"Don't worry!" Kisa says, tensing her jaw. "I've got you! I won't let anyone die!"

She quickly presses a medical patch against Megla's wound, then darts over to another injured Kraktol, followed by a pair of Kessu. Like a bolt of lightning hellbent on preventing any deaths, Kisa heals the wounded with ten times the efficiency of the assigned Kessu doctors. At one point, she stops for a moment when she finds herself standing before Lord Drall.

"F-father? You're hurt too?"

Lord Drall clutches a gaping wound on his right arm. "Graugh! It's just a flesh wound. Took off a chunk of my muscle, but it isn't life threatening."

"That doesn't matter. Here, let me tend to it."

Drall pulls his hand away, causing a river of blood to spew forth. Despite Kisa's previous squeamishness around fighting and death, Lord Drall finds himself astonished when his daughter doesn't bat an eye at his mangled and bloody limb.

"Graugh. Kisa, are you faring well? I did not know you were so adept in the ways of medicine."

The Malvik presses a medical patch onto Drall's arm, sealing the wound and flooding it with tissue restoration nanites. "I... I am fine, father. This is all I can do, so I have to do it well. After all, I'm useless otherwise."

She turns to another nearby Kraktol, someone gurgling blood while he clutches a shallow wound on his throat. As she gets to work mending her injured brother's wound, Lord Drall watches in fascination.

"...I see. All this time, I thought... never mind. Perhaps it is better this way. Perhaps I was too strict on you. I've always tried to mold you into your mother's image, but in the end, this might be your calling."

Kisa finishes with her brother's throat, then turns to Lord Drall. "Father?"

Lord Drall smiles. "I don't recall the last time I said this to you, Kisa, but... you're doing a good job. Keep making me proud, daughter. You're saving many lives here. That is an accomplishment worth praising."

Kisa halts in place, astonished by her father's words. Before she can ask if he's only messing with her, Lord Drall rises to his feet. He squeezes Kisa's shoulder, smiles, and heads back to the frontlines.

The Malvik gazes at his back for a few moments, then shakes her head and returns to work.

He must have been joking. Neither mother nor father have ever praised me in all my life. They've always hated me. How could he possibly think anything good about such a worthless daughter?

As Kisa starts dressing another patient's wounds, her claws tremble. A smile, unbidden, spreads across her face.

Is this how it feels... to experience a father's love?

...I like it. I like it a lot.

Maybe if I work hard, father will praise me more!

Nodding excitedly, Kisa resumes work with a feverish passion, her eyes burning with energy.

I'll save everyone! Nobody will die, not while Kisa's on the job!

...

Meanwhile, the battle against the Buzor intensifies. As Admiral Rodriguez continues rampaging, his recovered soldiers return to the frontlines, this time assuming more cautionary defensive formations. Having learned not to underestimate their opponents, they deploy one-way forcefields, allowing them to shoot through the barriers where their enemies cannot.

"Let's kill these creepy-crawlies!" Lord Drall shouts. "Show them the power of the Kraktol Empire!"