Admiral Rodriguez reveals a glimmer of humanity's former glory as he deftly weaves through the gunfire bombarding his position. He ducks, dodges, and dives around, occasionally teleporting out of sight as he makes his way toward one of the five remaining autonomous drones.

These robots, each more than fifty feet tall, tower above the human like gods before a bug. With heavy armor plating covering every inch of their exo-frames, even the few minor gaps in their armor don't give the Terran any chances to deal critical damage. José fires several energized shotgun rounds at any exposed hull points he can pick out, but his attacks ricochet harmlessly into the distance.

Becoming more enraged by the second, José shoots a glance at Soren. She lays lifelessly on the floor, unconscious thanks to the sedatives flowing through her blood. Her armor system flash-freezes her wounds to staunch the bleeding while using nanites to temporarily repair ripped-apart blood vessels. However, after suffering from such a terrible shock, she can't disable the drones like José originally intended.

I have to beat these drones some other way, José thinks.

He taps a button on his shotgun, changing it into a liquid-metal form for a few seconds. The weapon rapidly shifts its shape until it becomes a razor-sharp kinetic blade, one with an explosive firing sequencer on its hilt. This special utility function allows its wielder to instantly unleash full-power slashes by discharging its ammo like rockets. By increasing the sword's forward momentum in an instant, the wielder can slice through most common alloys effortlessly!

The Terran nods. This had better work!

He rushes toward the nearest drone. Its iris module locks onto him and begins peppering his position with armor-piercing rounds, each one capable of splattering his entire body into meat-paste. Compared to the might of a mech-sized cannon, his pitiful infantry armor can't withstand even a single shot. Not once since his awakening has the Admiral faced such an imminent threat to his life.

As the gunfire rains down on José, his eyes dart around, calculating the attack vectors of the twin-barreled cannons locked onto his position. He uses their firing angles to form a series of predictive algorithms which detail the safest route to his targets, then executes a series of planned side-steps and detours to perform seemingly impossible feats of agility. Within five seconds, the Admiral instantly reverses his movement, side-flips, and even belly-flops to the floor, allowing bullets to whizz past his armor with only millimeters of clearance. They blast apart the floor and leave frighteningly large craters behind him, each bullet telling a story of an alternate timeline where he failed to dodge and met a gruesome end.

Nevertheless, the Terran prevails. Tens of centuries of real-world combat have turned him into a lethal killing machine, something the modern galactic citizens could never fully understand, not even in their worst nightmares. Having fought Demon Dukes and Emperors, the threat level of a few measly combat drones only gives the Terran a moment of adrenaline while making him pause to evaluate his most efficient killing strategy.

And then, just like that...

Whiff!

The Terran teleports to the nearest combat drone's shoulder and slashes his sword, pulling the trigger on its blade to enhance his decapitation strike's swing-speed.

An instant after swinging his sword, the Terran kicks the drone's still-glowing iris-module. He sends its head flying to the side, where it crashes into the floor. Then, he lifts the sword over his head and slashes down into its exposed 'neck' conduits.

KZZAT!

By the time the other four combat drones start to fire on his position, the Terran has already finished his task. He completely mutilates the drone's innards, rendering it inoperable. He teleports away and finishes off the other four drones one-by-one, using a similar technique to deal with each of them. Despite his predictable movements, the comparably 'dumb' AIs cannot even follow his repetitive attack patterns, leaving them unable to defend themselves. Were they to aim at each other's heads, they might be able to shoot him the instant he arrived. Fortunately, their AI cores are merely gamma-level.

They are nowhere near as intelligent as the AI used to control most starships.

By the time the Admiral finishes, ten minutes have passed since Soren's fall. He hurries to her side and grimaces, finally getting a good look at her condition.

"Soren! Soren, stay with me!" José says, dropping to his knees. He kneels down into a pool of her quickly-drying blood to scoop her into his arms. He leaves behind her severed arm and tail, given Umi can regrow her some new limbs on the Bloodbearer.

"We have to keep moving," José says, more to himself than his unconscious First Officer. "I can't leave you here alone. The Buzor will eat you alive! You'll just have to come with me."

The Admiral princess-carries Soren, holding her in front of himself with both arms. However, instead of becoming utterly powerless to defend himself, José attaches his sword to his back and transmits a mental command to his Enforcer Armor.

Switch to Escort Mode.

A bland male voice speaks inside his suit's confines, the same one shared by Soren's suit.

"Orders received."

Unable to contact Umi or the Slipstream's synthmind, José can only rely on his suit's rudimentary gamma-class AI as he begins running toward the exit doors opposite of where he started. His sword fixes itself to a long, spindly 'arm' sticking out of José's back, one which swivels in tandem with the Terran's eye movements. The bladed-weapon transforms into a small-caliber rifle, weaker than the energized shotgun José has used up to this point, but also much more accurate.

A targeting reticule appears in the Terran's vision. As he reaches the exit, he pauses before a small side-door, one that has been sealed shut.

With the combat drones protecting this room, José could never take the time to break in so long as they were capable of firing on him. However, with the drones destroyed, he can finally spare a minute to break out a high-intensity blowtorch. The Admiral holds Soren with one arm while slicing through the door with his free hand. Three minutes later, he kicks the door in, letting it crash to the floor.

"I've got you," José mutters, as he picks up Soren again. He runs into the narrow hallway, where he finds an elevator shaft at the end leading deep into the facility's depths.

The Terran stops at the edge of the shaft. While somewhat cramped and narrow, it does offer a ladder for technicians to traverse between floors when the turbolifts stop functioning.

The Admiral glances up and down the maintenance shaft.

Good. I don't see any Buzor crawling around. Perhaps they don't know about these tunnels, or perhaps they think I don't. Either way, there's no chance I'm using the primary turbolifts. I might as well beg them to ambush me.

The Terran takes one last look down at the bottom of the shaft. A series of figures appears in his vision.

Estimated depth: 1,742 meters.

The Admiral snorts. "If I fall all the way to the bottom, I'll die. Good thing I only need to reach the thirty-first level."

With that momentary thought to comfort him, the Admiral shrugs and jumps. He leaps feet-first into the shaft, pulling Soren close to himself so she won't bang against the walls or the ladder.

In less than three seconds, the Admiral reaches terminal velocity. He plummets downward at frightening speeds, making his heart leap into his throat.

Scary!

However, the fear becomes more of a momentary thrill for the Terran, who has endured far more frightening events in his life. After less than thirty seconds, a set of booster rockets ignites on the back of his armor, slowing his free-fall to an abrupt stop. The fuel reserves on his suit might only last half a minute at most, but they still provide him with an excellent reason not to fear deep chasms and sky-high falls.

The moment the Admiral comes to a stop, he spots another entryway before him leading to one of the lower levels. Rather than clumsily trying to travel inside, he teleports forward, arriving smack in the maintenance hallway's confines. He deactivates his booster rockets, then cocks his head.

A door stands before him leading out of the tunnel. On the other side of it, the Admiral's enhanced hearing easily picks up the sounds of bug-legs clanking against the floor.

Great. They prepared a welcoming party.

Despite not knowing the number of hostiles awaiting his arrival, the Admiral doesn't flinch. He walks up to the door and gives it a hard kick.

"Hey, fuckos! Grandpa's home, and he brought his bug-beating-belt!"

Unlike the other maintenance door, which was locked to prevent easy access, the one on the 31st Level slides open automatically, revealing a horde of Buzor, all with their weapons trained onto the Admiral's position.

BLAMBLAMBLAM!

Forty-five shotguns, pistols, and carbines fire in unison. Were those shots to land, the Admiral and his First Officer would instantly perish.

Sadly for the Buzor, their plans immediately fail. The Terran teleports a hundred feet forward, straight into their back-lines. He turns his head around, which also causes his spinal-mounted rifle to follow his eye-movements.

BLAT! BLAT! BLAT!

Three high-powered rounds travel with unerring accuracy into the brains of multiple Mentii and Mitteras elites who José has determined to be the leaders of his hastily-assembled welcome party. The Buzor elites crumple like paper, never even sensing their approaching deaths. By the time the Buzor have trained their guns on José's position, he has teleported again, but this time, to one of the walls.

His feet adhere to the metallic corridor siding, momentarily turning him into a flesh-based bio-turret. His head swivels robotically, picking out the Buzor with the most dangerous armaments. His rifle fires according to his thoughts, blasting apart the heads of one Mitteras and Mentii soldier after another.

Each time the Buzor manage to spot him, he teleports again. Within just three minutes, he slaughters every last Buzor in the vicinity, then chuckles dryly.

"Look, Nick. No hands! Hah... I bet he'd love that joke."

The Admiral continues running. As he makes his way toward the core of the underground facility, he encounters heavy resistance. Several times, he stumbles into slapped-together ambushes, likely placed there by one of Yama's Shades to slow the Terran's progress. With the Admiral having taken a very different path to reach the Rip-Gate facility than expected, the Buzor have to scramble to meet up with their target before he reaches his final destination.

A heads-up-display in José's iris implants shows him the layout of the facility. Even without it, the Admiral could navigate anywhere with his eyes closed, having spent entire chunks of his long-lived existence traversing these corridors.

"Almost there..." José growls.

He rounds one of the last few corners, only to immediately jump backward as a powerful explosion rocks the floor where he just stood.

"Fucking hell!" José bellows. "The bug bastards saved the best for last."

Unlike the broken drones José faced earlier, a pair of pristine-condition Beta-core mechs awaits him just around the corner. Equipped with equally sturdy shells protecting their insides, the two mechs come equipped with shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, spiraling Rotator Cannons on both of their arms, and heavily armored legs that grant them slow but steady mobility.

Even after retreating from their line of sight, José's heart skips a beat when he hears the two mechs slowly begin stomping toward him.

Thump! Thump!

"Shit. Shit." José hisses. "Can I slip past them? Maybe, but I don't want to barrel into another ambush with two fully-mobile Fire-Shellers riding my ass. I'll have to play it safe and take them out first."

He glances at Soren, then bites his lip.

"No way. I can't fight two mechs with Soren slowing me down. But if I leave her here, even for only a moment..."

As the two mechs continue stomping toward him, José contemplates several dozen possible plans of action. A moment later, he carefully drops Soren at his feet, then climbs out of his protective suit, which remains standing.

"Enforcer, switch to Sentry Mode. Protect First Officer Mudrose."

His suit beeps an affirmation. "Order acknowledged."

It closes up its shell and becomes a half-robot autonomous defense platform. The Enforcer armor takes on a life of its own as it stands over Soren protectively, its head swiveling from side to side to sweep the area for threats.

José sighs. "Great. That takes care of Soren. Now I only have to worry about myself."

Without his Enforcer battlesuit, the Terran loses a great deal of his combat efficiency and power. Thankfully, he now possesses a specially-designed set of Dermal Armor that is much thinner and weaker than his original set, yet which also allows him to keep his cloaking systems active. While not nearly as durable as his original armor, it does increase his agility and grants a decent level of protection against shrapnel and low-caliber weaponry.

The Admiral shoots one last look at his Enforcer suit. "You'd better goddamn well protect her. If you fuck up, I'll eradicate every last bit of your neural-network."

The Enforcer doesn't respond, given its inability to comprehend fear. Even so, the Terran gets at least a moment of personal relief at his outburst.

Before the two Fire-Shellers reach the corner where Admiral Rodriguez has taken shelter, the Terran leaps out of his cover and races toward them, activating his Dermal Armor to prevent incidental damage. Despite its complete uselessness in shielding him from any point-blank mech-grade attack, it still provides ample protection against random shrapnel and potshots from any nearby Buzor.

Immediately, the Fire-Shellers spin up their chain-guns, unloading a torrent of bullets upon the Admiral. Unlike their comparatively idiotic Gamma-class cousins, these Beta-class synthminds possess excellent targeting vectors capable of counter-predicting the Admiral's own predictions. He tries to dodge to the left, only to see their weapons train onto that position. Then he tries to leap toward the wall, only to falter mid-dodge as their bullets again follow his movements.

Still, the Admiral remains undeterred. Lacking any ranged weaponry after leaving his Enforcer suit behind, he opts for a slow but steady approach, carefully weaving back and forth while occasionally teleporting to seemingly random coordinates, all in an attempt to slither his way toward the Fire-Shellers.

"ATTENTION, INTRUDER. IMMEDIATELY CEASE ALL EVASIVE MOVEMENTS." One of the synthminds speaks. "THIS FACILITY IS PROPERTY OF THE UNITED TERRAN COALITION. ALL HERETICS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT. YOU WILL REMAIN IN PLACE AND AWAIT YOUR SCHEDULED TERMINATION."

José snorts. "The hell I will."

Just as the Terran teleports to a new position, an imminent sense of danger seizes his sixth sense! He awkwardly trips over his feet and falls flat on his face, while a powerful shadow-spike impales his left leg. The attack, previously aimed at his chest, instead tears into his fleshy left calf, making him cry out in pain. "Aaaugh!"

Voluptuous, along with several dozen other Shades, appears in the darkness, grinning wickedly.

"You made it here quite effortlessly, José Rodriguez, Admiral of the UTC Bloodbearer. But... didn't you think we had gone a little too easy on you?"

This ambush, unlike the seemingly feeble ones launched by the Buzor before, catches the Terran by surprise. The meter-long spear of darkness dissolves after impaling his leg, allowing blood to spurt from the fresh wound. Not even José's Dermal Armor protects him from the violent strength of Yama's elite Shades.

The Fire-Shellers swing their guns at José's new position, while he lays on the ground, gritting his teeth in pain.

BRRRT! BRRRT!

The Terran hurriedly activates his teleportation device again, ignoring its ten-second cooldown. He disappears and reappears atop the foot of one of the Fire-Shellers, then grabs onto a thin gap in its shin-plating. A moment later, a burst of neural feedback strikes the Terran's mind, making him howl in pain.

His teleportation augment, while perfectly safe if given time to cool down, suffers from temporal feedback if used too often and without giving it enough time to adjusts its safety limiters. The agony momentarily cripples the Terran, leaving him exposed to enemy attacks!

Fifty shadow-spears fly out of the darkness. They rush at José from his flanks, only for something completely unexpected to occur.

The Fire-Sheller José attached himself to suddenly turns its leg aside, causing the Shade's attacks to crash harmlessly against its durable armor.

Voluptuous blinks. "Huh? You... you stupid idiot robot! Don't move! You just blocked our entire attack, you nimrod! This is why fleshbag technology is the worst! It's so unreliable!"

She rears back to summon another shadow-spear, but at that moment, the Fire-Sheller speaks, its voice booming through the corridor.

"SPECIAL AUTHORIZATION CODE 'GAMMA EPSILON ONE-ONE-THREE' ACCEPTED. WELCOME, SUPREME COMMANDER RODRIGUEZ. ADJUSTING TARGETING PRIORITIES."

Not only the first Fire-Sheller, but the second one as well, inexplicably changes sides. Their iris-targeting modules swivel to face the Shades, causing all of Yama's harem-members to freeze up in fear.

"What?!" Voluptuous cries. "How did the human take them over?! Don't tell me he can just touch the devil-damned robots and turn them against us!"

Another Shade squeaks in fright. "H-how should I know? Fleshbag technology might as well be alien to me!"

As the Shades float backward, the Fire-Shellers turn their weapons on them.

BRRRT! BRRRT!

Their bullets glow white-hot in the darkness as they blast apart more than three dozen of Yama's whores. The fallen Shades explode into smoke, unable to handle the reversal of their fortunes. A moment later, the rest flee in a panic.

Voluptuous, caught off-guard by the human's cunning, perishes along with her sisters.

Admiral Rodriguez staggers and flops off the Fire-Sheller's foot. He lands on his ass, then gingerly leans against the mech's leg while trying not to put too much weight on his injured limb.

However, contrary to the Shade's expectations, the Human merely raises his eyes to look at the mechs in confusion.

"...What? You recognize my orders? But how? I didn't even do anything!"

The first Fire-Sheller beeps in affirmation. "AUTONOMOUS COMMAND HAS BEEN RESTORED TO SUPREME COMMANDER RODRIGUEZ. AWAITING ORDERS."

"That doesn't answer my- never mind! I have to stop Yama now! I've wasted too much time dealing with his bullshit."

The Admiral repeatedly teleports and staggers back to Soren's position. He climbs inside his Enforcer battlesuit, which seals up his wounds and applies combat stimulants to help him recover. Unlike Soren, who lost an entire limb, José can quickly heal thanks to his body's abundant nanites.

The Terran picks Soren up once again. He runs past the two Fire-Shellers, still confused by their abrupt and somewhat nonsensical change of programming.

"Hey! You two, come with me! Move to the Rip-Gate facility!"

"ORDER ACKNOWLEDGED, SUPREME COMMANDER."

José gives one last look at the mech before continuing forward.

"Maybe Ramma is still with me, after all this time. That must be the reason. It sometimes feels as if some higher existence is protecting me. Perhaps she has lived on in spirit. That is the sort of thing a Titan could do."

The Terran glances around the darkness. However, without his psionic abilities, he can no longer detect the existence of spiritual and magical manifestations.

"Ramma. If you helped me just now... then, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I won't let you down. I will stop Yama!"

Admiral Rodriguez rushes forward. The Fire-Shellers fail to keep up with him, but still, they follow his commands, slowly moving toward the Rip-Gate facility.

Within less than a minute, José arrives at a pair of giant double-doors. Contrary to his expectations, they sit wide-open, as if beckoning him to come inside.

A blood-red glow emanates from the facility's interior, illuminating the darkness. José's heart drops into his shoes.

"Oh my god. I'm... I'm too late."

Dozens of blank-faced Kessu stand idly around a huge circular platform. In its center, a blood-red disc hums quietly. Like a giant mirror, opaque, preventing observers from peering through its surface, it levitates in the air, perfectly stable. No irregularities crackle around its edges, showing that the Kessu have succeeded in eliminating all possible feedback and temporal tears.

Yama, the Demon Emperor of Shadows, lazily floats beside the portal, along with hundreds of his Shades.

"Kukuku..." Yama chuckles. "So. You have finally caught up to us, fleshbag. We tried our best but failed to stop you. Ah, but alas... you could not stop us either. We succeeded in opening the Rip-Gate."

He gestures toward the blood-red disc behind himself.

"We did not want to do this, you know. We liked it here. A galaxy full of maturing species, all unaware of our existence. What fun we would have. What joy we would feel as we snatched away the most suitable females for our harem. But then you came along and ruined it for us. A devil-damned cockroach. A monster who will regenerate even if we kill you a hundred times."

José slowly sets Soren down, then stands before her protectively while holding his shotgun in front of his chest.

"What now, Yama? Are you going to run away? You don't think you can defeat me? I'm only one measly human. You already killed me once. You can probably do it again."

Yama eyes the Terran with contempt.

"Do not attempt wordplay with the likes of us, fleshbag. We have lived for eons. We are ageless, timeless, enduring. It matters not where we go, so long as nobody knows we exist. This galaxy. Some other galaxy. Some other universe or time. Those distinctions do not matter to us. If we fight you here, perhaps we may win, or perhaps we may die. Why take the risk? Better to start a new life in another place, one where the likes of you cannot follow us."

José narrows his eyes. "Haha. Oh, yeah? Sounds like you've got it all planned out. And yet you haven't left yet. What's the matter, oh, mighty Emperor? Feeling some regret? Can't help but stick around to taunt me?"

In the distance behind José, the sounds of the approaching Fire-Shellers draw near. Yama flicks his eyes in their direction, then shakes his head.

"No. We feel no regret about leaving. The Rip-Gate was always a contingency plan. We only wished to gaze upon your face one last time... and to savor your emotions. You have not won, fleshbag. This Emperor is undefeatable. All the rest of my kind have perished, yet we have lived. Why do you suppose that is? We will tell you. It is because we are... shameless. We do not care about glory or honor. We will run away if it means saving our own hide."

Yama cocks his head.

"But... what about you, we wonder? Do you possess the same shameless cowardice? Or are you a fool who would even fight to save a galaxy which does not care about him in the slightest?"

The back of José's mind begins to tingle.

"What do you mean? What are you talking about?"

Yama chuckles. "Kukuku. We always have the last laugh, fleshbag. Consider our words, for your reckoning has arrived."

José stands, unmoving, as Yama turns around and leaps through the portal. His shadowy, liquid-like body easily slips through the Rip-Gate, while his harem follows after him a moment later. All of them jump through at the same time, leaving José alone.

A moment later, one of the braindead Kessu screams in pain.

"MREEEAAAW!!"

SPLAT!

The Kessu's head explodes like a watermelon, as do those of the rest. Unable to salvage the situation, José can only watch as, within a span of seconds, Yama and his Shades vanish, the Rip-Gate collapses, and all of the Kessu's heads explode due to time-bombs planted inside their skulls.

The room falls eerily silent. Darkness takes over as the Rip-Gate's light vanishes.

The Admiral stares ahead blankly, a sensation of defeat welling up in his chest.

"I failed. I couldn't make it here in time."

Knowing Yama's speed, the Terran could never hope to intercept and kill him. With the Rip-Gate already opened, the Shadow Emperor's escape was guaranteed long before José's arrival.

The Terran picks up Soren and slowly walks over to the Rip-Gate's control terminal. He sets Soren down beside it, then presses several buttons, but fails to obtain a response from its system.

"Sabotaged..." José mutters. "Yama planned everything out. He did all this just to fuck with me."

The Admiral slams his fist on the terminal.

"SHIT! Goddamn it! Worthless shadow-bastard!"

As the Terran hurls obscenities, the Fire-Shellers arrive outside the room.

Suddenly, one of them blares an alarm.

"WARNING. UNIDENTIFIED INTRUDER DETECTED!"

José's heart skips a beat. He turns just in time to see the mech raising its gun to aim at him.

"No!"

Before the mech can fire, the floor in front of José explodes! The metal-paneling blasts upward as an unseen assailant rushes away from the Terran toward the two Fire-Shellers. Momentarily caught off-guard, José can barely follow the human-sized biped's movements as it moves with lightning speed toward the mecha.

BRRRT! BRRRT!

The robots rain fire and fury over the attacker, but it easily bobs and weaves, evading their gunfire.

Then, something even more unbelievable happens.

The biped leaps at the first Fire-Sheller's chest. It crashes against the exotic alloys protecting the drone to tear through them like a knife impaling a wet piece of paper. The first Fire-Sheller shudders as the biped easily penetrates its chest and explodes through its back. The second one tries to gun down the attacker, but its bullets only hit afterimages as it fails to account for its adversary's uncannily swift speed.

José immediately connects the dots.

Yama! This must be his final plan! He brought back a Demon Emperor to stop me, since he's too cowardly to do so himself!

The Terran quickly levels his gun. He fires precision rounds at the biped, its body moving far too quickly for him to identify. Not once does it speak or utter a sound, preventing him from identifying it through even the most roundabout means. His bullets mostly miss, but two or three actually land! However, to the Admiral's alarm, they seemingly deal no damage as the monstrously powerful enemy rips apart the second Fire-Sheller and lands behind it.

"Who are you?!" José bellows. He fires several more rounds at the enemy, but this time, it doesn't move at all. The biped stands in the distance, allowing the bullets to impact its body without flinching.

José's question goes unanswered. His shadowy enemy stands with its back to the Admiral, as if staring into the darkness ahead with unseeing eyes. He fires dozens more bullets, but they, too, strike the creature's body without causing any injuries.

Eventually, it turns to face José. The creature begins striding toward him slowly, its movements oddly uncoordinated and clumsy. It shuffles like a zombie, approaching the Admiral without a shred of fear.

"Which Emperor are you?! Bael? No! You don't look like him at all! Belial? Agares? WHO ARE YOU?!"

José continues to shout. However, once the biped draws within a certain distance, his iris modules finally become capable of picking out specific details about its appearance.

Neither male nor female. No face. No clothes. A mossy-green body covered in fungus. Indistinct features, as if the creature were being viewed through a distorted lens.

The moment José finally perceives the creature's full appearance, his skin loses its color. He stops firing and gazes in complete, abject horror.

In all his years, never has the Admiral felt as terrified as at this moment. No matter how many Emperors and aliens he's fought, none of them have caused him as much alarm as the monster approaching him now.

José's legs begin to shake. He takes a step back, causing his knees to knock together. All of his will to fight drains away as his pupils shrink to pinpricks.

"No. No... no..."

The creature slowly shambles toward José, its featureless head lacking eyes, ears, a mouth, or even a nose. Utterly nebulous, the thing looks more like a sentient tree poorly mimicking a human's general figure than any living creature the galaxy has ever witnessed.

The Terran continues to retreat. He nearly trips over Soren, yet doesn't even notice her figure, so focused are his eyes on the approaching monster.

"We... we wiped... w-wiped you out... killed you all... every timeline... every galaxy..."

Inside the Terran's retina, several warnings appear.

Multiverse fungal life-form, 'Bio-Plague,' identified. Threat Classification: Alpha-Omega. Request backup. Do not engage alone. Do not linger in the vicinity. Retreat immediately.

Tears well up in the Admiral's eyes. His full-body terror mixes together with a sense of twisted admiration in Yama's final scheme.

"You heretic... YOU'VE DOOMED US ALL! AHHHHH!!"

The Admiral fires at the monster's head, but his bullets splash harmlessly against its skin. The monster seemingly 'swallows' the bullets into its skull, leaving it completely unharmed.

An instant later, it lunges toward him. The Admiral gets no time to react as a club-shaped fist rockets toward his chest.

THUNK.

His vision blanks out. He receives a distant impression of metal rushing at him before waking up an instant later buried under a pile of steel wall-panels and wires. Blood stains his vision, and a dull ringing echoes in his ears. The Admiral's chest cries out for mercy. So vicious was the monster's attack that he feels as if every single one of his ribs was crushed into pulp.

"Guh... guk..."

The Terran coughs two wads of blood onto the floor. He dizzily swivels his head around, only to receive a terrible fright when he spots a pair of moss-covered legs standing to his right!

"AAAHHH!"

He jerks his head upward, where he sees the faceless creature with its head tilted toward his, as if trying to look into his eyes. José throws himself off the floor and tosses aside the rubble, feeling momentarily relieved as he realizes his ribs are only horribly bruised and not totally broken. His Enforcer armor, though, appears far worse for the wear.

An instant later, the creature's leg crashes into José's side, taking him completely by surprise. Once again, he awakens inside a pile of rubble, his brain groggily trying to follow the events that just transpired.

José weeps tears of defeat. Even as one of humanity's pinnacle warriors, a member of Ramma's Chosen, someone who has slain gods, he has never felt as helpless in his entire life as he does at this very moment.

"Yama... cough... you goddamned... heretic..."

José lifts his eyes to see the creature shuffling toward him, with one leg moving normally while half-dragging the other along for the ride.

"How could you... conjure... a monster from the Timeline Wars...?"

The Terran struggles to his feet.

"How could you doom us... by summoning... a goddamned KOLVAXIAN?"