The military base of the State was settled at the northwest corner of the city, some distance away from civilians. It had a dozen buildings at the center, three meters in height, each one of them could house dozens of people and still have room for a little more; there was a dark-green crate to the side of every yellow colored building, storing whatever equipment was needed; surrounding the buildings in the center were containers forming small mounts all over the edge of the base, keeping the construction materials for further construction of the base and stood right next to reinforced walls capable of stopping rifle bullets.

The night would have made the task of infiltrating the under-construction complex a bit easier, were it not for the numerous spotlights illuminating every corner of the place and making every single moving thing inside easy to spot. Good thing that Nicolas, who followed a random military vehicle all the way over here was the perfect stealth machine that had the necessary cheats to sneak into this place without any problems.

The Queen Cells that he had dispatched earlier already returned to him, but instead of re-entering his body, they, along with another cluster of clouds formed from Nicolas' body - which made him look like a dwarf -, infiltrated the base from every direction possible, floating above the concrete walls, through the dust-covered street while they took cover behind helicopters, cars, and containers; there was absolutely no chance of any of the guards that came and went through the base to notice the presence of the small clouds made out of millions of micro machines that decided to sneak into their base.

The spotlights were also useless, although their light managed to reach almost every corner of the base, the swarms were far too small to be noticed by the few cameras and soldiers assigned to patrol the base. With incredible ease, they entered the buildings in the center of the military base and searched through tables and bed for pen drives and disks, along with computers to use them.

The bunk beds of the resting area hid nothing but a few card games and family photos, none of these were of any use to Nicolas who kept a direct link with the Queen Cells and focused on the buildings dedicated to intelligence. Laptops and Notebooks shared space in dozens of tables with internet modems, of which less than a third was currently in use.

Just like the soldiers that patrolled the streets and guarded the base, they used a light gray tone that bordered white, the color mixed well with the city streets at daylight and made little contrast with the rubble of fallen buildings that could be found everywhere these days.

Of the few people using the computers, fewer were working with the keyboard. Most of them were reading a text on the screen, watching satellite views of a city under bombardment by the Nations' drones or simply spacing out in front of the screen; again, no one noticed the cell's entering the place and connecting to a random computer's USB, acquiring access to all of the computer's programs.

They searched through the entirety of the memory, from the software to the internet browser, and copied it into the Queen Cell's memory, which took the next step of the mission.

It severed its USB connection and remade it so that it matched to that of the modem, this process was imitated to a certain extent by the other Cell's that infiltrated, some of which managed to read the random disks discovered around the building - in the drawer of the tables, more specifically - but found nothing of interest in them.

The surfing through the internet was another thing, though. Nicolas received the report from one of his Queen Cells and took direct control over the 'browser' plugged into the modem. He instantly searched and found news of the Nations' war declaration against The Religious State of Airis and confirmed one of his minor curiosities, after that he took control of a satellite's camera - with the help of the unsuspecting soldiers in the building - and searched throughout the sea at the coast of Airis, he soon found the position of a small fleet of what looked like an aircraft carriers - escorted by other ships -, that was obviously his next target after this place.

"Mission accomplished. Sigh." Nicolas sighed after he entered the military base; normally, even with his current dwarf size and the cover of darkness, it would be next to impossible to infiltrate a place with this kind of security, but his unbelievable ability easily changed such reality. Not only could his cells travel at 90 m/s while detached from his body and use their small size to go anywhere unsuspected, when unmoving, they could also reflect all light colliding on their bodies to become semi-invisible, impossible to notice at a certain distance.

Thus, it was natural that when all of his cells returned to him, no one could notice their movement and gave Nicolas the preemptive strike - not that it would make a difference if it were any different. The suitcase that rested in his hands until now turned to dust metal and the Queen Cell assigned to it returned to him; the rifles kept inside the case took their original shape at that instant and obediently awaited Nicolas' usage, one at his hands and the other sort of floating around, not clear if it should keep its weapon design or turn back into particles, constantly changing between them.

*BANG BANG BANG*

Now fully equipped for battle, Nicolas shot on single fire, accurately hitting vital and unprotected places that would certainly kill with one shot, that is why every soldier on patrol was hit by a single bullet - mostly on the head - and effectively put out of battle, by death or by injury.

The sound of the bullet entering and subsequently leaving the skull and brain of the first man was completely drowned by that of the subsequent shots, the same happened to another 2 people that were also on patrol.

3 soldiers died before anyone could have reacted, jumping to cover and protect themselves from the origin of the shots, another 2 lost their lives before someone started barking orders to surround the hostile forces while looking for more cover, but then the soldiers were - once more - at a loss when whoever took the command under the chaos died during the very next shot fired by the enemy, the fact that whatever they were facing could instantly change positions without anyone noticing also didn't help their situation.

*TATATATA* *BANG BANG BANG*

The alarms ringing from every single military base could not be heard by the terrified soldiers fighting against their own shadow, their morale plummeted every time their colleagues standing right beside them had their heads were blown open or their necks pierced by rifle bullets, a small puddle of blood forming around the bodies after they fell.

While someone was shooting to the north - where the last flash of the hostile's gun was seen -, a bullet originating from the east killed him, another accurate hit to the face. The walls, doors, containers and stationed vehicles were not enough to hide the terrorized soldiers from omnipresent bullets that - like a cursed arrow - never missed their target, ending them in a single shot.

There were hundreds of soldiers inside that single base and it would have even more if all facilities were completed, not only this but every few minutes a unit of a few cars would come with dozens of soldiers to give back-up, they were not the main force but they could buy time until the true reinforcement came.

Those soldiers were also the first people to see the person beyond the shadowy and blurred silhouette of Nicolas, but they soon lost sight of the reaper that disappeared like smoke and shot them from behind. No mercy nor second wind were given to these poor sheep who strayed from the shepherd and met with the starved wolf.

Blood was the water that wet the ground; gunshots and cries were the crickets and birds of the forest; the dead were the prey and the reaper was the predator.

...

Almost an hour had passed before war tanks reached the battlefield with proper anti-infantry equipment, only to find corpses dropped on the ground like useless plastic bags and a few hundred terrified soldiers holding tightly to their weapons while shivering behind cover.

Only after checking the entire base the next day, the State's military would realize the absence of kilograms of explosives, probably stolen during the chaos.