The world flashed like a dying light bulb. Flickering, flickering. A tempestuous man banged on the drums, thum-thum-thum-thum, with his unceasing fury. Hot, aching flares of a carousel of lights burned into Vernon’s vision. His mouth opened, unable to utter a single word out of the sheer confusion beaten into him.

Thum-thum-thum-thum—! Thum-thum-thum-thum—!

He gasped and tried to squeak a noise out like a timid mouse but nothing came. Or rather, nothing was heard. All he could hear was the drums rattling the inside of the SMV built by the Journey of Machining, Yatsar, making his head spin and go dizzy and even sick to the stomach. Outside the borders of this magical boxcar was oblivion. Violent, destructive bursts of magic and light.

Vernon was laying against the canopy itself. The SMV sat on its left side, propped in the left lane of a road. Each impact rocked it closer to the curb, maybe tip the whole thing upside down if they were unlucky.

He reached out, grabbed one of the seats and used it to stand on his knees, shaking with the blasts, spotting the spastic panel up front. Multiple instruments were on the fritz. On the main console, he spotted a graphic depicting a hexagonal dome with a number below on the panicking screen.

64.3% and dropping.

A hand clawed out to the backseat of a chair, and black hair was seen first then wide, red eyes. Kaiya looked like she came straight out of that one horror movie. She said something to Vernon but he couldn’t hear a thing she said.

She realized this and threw herself closer to him, catching her arm on the same seat he was holding onto. The SMV bumbled over, almost turning upside down but righted itself, and Kaiya was seen desperately holding onto the seat for dear life.

“...SMV-2, can you respond?” said a third, faint voice. “SMV-2, come in.”

Kaiya opened the System and responded to the call. “SMV-2, we’re…" She said something in Japanese than continued in English: "We’re here! We’re alive!”

“Yeah…” Vernon, finally, looked around at the awful predicament they were in. He took a second or two—and a couple of missiles—to process exactly what had happened and what was happening. “...Holy crap, what’s going on?!”

Blackviper sighed in relief. “SMV-1 is in the same status as you are: grounded, pinned down by two rogue ‘structs while you have one. The only saving grace here is the barrier; if it was designed by anyone other Yatsar, you’d be dead right now.”

“What about you?” Vernon said before ducking as another missile struck.

“I would live but not without injury,” she replied with a hint of snark. “Until the three ‘structs—and by extension, the rogues—are neutralized, we’re stuck here. Or when the shield breaks. What’s your percentage?”

Vernon squinted at the console. “Sixty-two-point-seven percent.”

“You might just make it then. I’m below fifty.”

“Sheesh…”

“Oh no…”

“Whoever these rogues are, they have at least B-rank constructs.” Blackviper sighed, annoyed. “Reinforcements are coming within ten minutes. Hugo, Uprise; be prepared for the worst.”

Kaiya bit her lip. “Okay… How’s everyone else? How’s the battlefield looking?”

“I did some remote surveillance. Here’s what was relayed...”

~~~

Althea did her best to remain composed at the insane fucking situation right now—like seriously, what the fuck was happening? Moving on that, now she had to deal with fucking rogues and Apocalyptics.

Lucky them, though. When the ambush popped off, they managed to get out of their humvee and dash into the nearest building. Most of the vehicles got toppled over or rendered nonfunctional, with some being outright obliterated.

“Here!” Victor plastered his System’s [Map] against the wall and made it visible for everyone to see, including a Sergeant with his unit in the other room maintaining fire.

The street that the convoy was attacked on was zoomed in. Two gray dots were marked at the front: SMV-1 and SMV-2, where Blackviper, Vernon, and Kaiya were pinned down and unable to move.

Finally, two green dots: Baptist-1—Althea, Victor, and Chunhua; and Baptist-2—Alexander and Leona. The latter moved but they hadn’t updated Blackviper on their status yet.

Then, surrounding the convoy were nine red dots named Rogue-1 to Rogue-9, with the first starting at the groups suppressing the SMVs. They were scattered to the north and south of the convoy within the surrounding buildings. The south (where Baptist-1 was) had: 2, 4, 6, and 9. North (with Baptist-2) had: 1, 3, 5, 7, and 8.

Rogue-1 and 3 were focusing its fire on SMV-1 while Rogue-2 was focusing its fire on SMV-2.

Blackviper had attained this information shortly after SMV-1 was shot down using a skill of hers: [Night Assassin's Vision] acting as a third eye. As for the rest of the forces in the convoy, including Alexander and Leona, were currently unknown.

Alexander hadn’t responded yet but he wasn’t incapacitated or killed, otherwise the System would have notified them.

“We’re locked between Rogue-4 and 6, with 5 firing on us across the street,” Victor explained just as something shook the building. When it felt like the ceiling wouldn’t collapse, Victor started again, “Okay—! Holy shit, man, this is fucked.”

“Focus!” Chunhua yelled.

“I know, I know! Look, these are the known locations of the constructs and not the rogues themselves. Assume that they’re autos and won’t go down until we break ‘em, and the fuckers won’t let us do that so easily. Got it?”

The Sergeant nodded and gestured to Rogue-6. “My team will go and take out Rogue-6. Are you gonna take care of 4 and 2?”

“Fucking, we got no other choice! The SMVs are Yatsar’s but even they aren’t indestructible. And remember! relay all info to BV. She has access to your comms and the only one who has a clear view here. She’ll guide us through this!”

“Alright, let’s get to work then!” the Sergeant gripped his standard-issued rifle and yelled into the other room. “Boys, get a move on and chamber your spells! We’re hunting us some Apocs!”

Victor took a second to stand there dumbly, then everything hit him and he loudly cursed, gesturing to Althea and Chunhua to follow him. He called into the System, “Hey BV, we’re gonna take out 4 and 2! Callsign Pickaxe got 6!”

Blackviper replied, “I hear you, Victor.”

The team turned the corner and ran down the hall. Althea shouted a good “Shit!” as she realized that, as an E-Rank, she was naturally slow against B’s.

“Alex here—me and Leo are alright. I got your intel, BV.” It was great hearing this asshole’s voice again. “We’ll take care of R8 with a few Duskheads and see where it goes from there.”

“Hunt ‘em down, Baptist-2,” encouraged Blackviper. “I’ll provide an eye using [Night Assassin’s Vision] and alert you if necessary.”

Alexander chuckled. “You’re a lifesaver, BV.”

“The opposite, really. Do the job, Baptists.”

Althea caught up to the two B-Ranks when they found an exit, stopping at a closed exit. She couldn’t wait to be their rank so she could have their stamina and speed. “Quick question," she asked them, "are either of you trained in taking out rogues?”

Chunhua and Victor looked at each other.

“I’m afraid not,” answered Chunhua, manifesting her thorny spear. “We had spars but this is the first time for both of us.”

“Let’s not think ‘bout that. These fuckers hit us hard so we’re gonna hit ‘em back, got it?” Victor held [Talonstrider] close to his chest, [Little Gungnir] at the ready. “On the count of three. One, two, three—!”

Brass hinges snapped and the door crashed onto the dark, oily asphalt. That was the first and only thing Althea saw. Visibility was non-existent here. The power was out in this area which meant no lights, no way to see what they were heading into, no way that this would be easy.

[Skill Activation: Minor Channel - Lightning]

A warm lightning engulfed the [Manasteel Chain] that tightly wound over her left arm, emitting a small but comforting light.

Victor activated [Channeling Enchantment - Lighting Lash] to turn his spear into a torch but without the fire. He led the team as the toughest one there, heading right. Deeper into a parking lot as it turned out, with Althea discovering cars with broken windows and open gas caps. Rogue-4 was two buildings down manned by an unknown number of rogues.

Althea gritted her teeth, her right palm getting scratched by the hilt of her dagger, the [Lesser Dragonfang Snarl]. A week ago she probably would’ve freaked out after getting ambushed by Apocs, but now she was sick and tired of running into surprises and wanted to stab something. These bastards weren’t considered human anyway, no one would miss ‘em.

Chunhua’s hand bloomed open and manifested leaves. They were carried further into the lot. [Sacred Nature Vitality], a technique that used manifested leaves as scouts, being connected to their master's senses.

They disappeared into the dark.

Victor huffed as they hurried through the center lane, trying not to slip on trash littering the ground. “Find anything yet, FM?”

“Not yet, no. I—”

Fifty meters ahead, moving white dots.

They stopped in their place. Althea sensed the caution in their breaths, uncertainty. She didn’t know how many dots were ahead of them exactly, nor did she know if these were the rogues or civilians unluckily caught in the crossfire. All she could do was stand there—perhaps a terrible decision—and investigate further as the dots grew and grew and grew—

Something was in the air. A bubbling green ball no bigger than a toy, bright like the sun. But it came down like a rock. It missed five meters ahead and blew a gray hatchback off its tires, rose one foot in the air and tumbled, crashing onto its side and blowing the passenger door wide open.

Althea shrieked, “Ah shit!” Standing around was definitely a terrible decision!

Voices screamed across the lot, howling like a pack of hyenas spotting a kill, hooting and hollering like the monsters they were. Baptist-1 took the nearest cover, scattered. Victor and Althea huddled behind a red sedan and Chunhua was across from them, shielded by a navy minivan.

The lot shone green and a ball clipped against a wall, blew a hole and rained small bits of whatever-it-was everywhere.

“Do they even know how to use the fuckin’ gear they have?” Victor growled and stuck his head out from the back—

A sand-colored bolt shot the sedan’s passenger windows out clean through. The [Brooch] protected Althea from the glass shards, and Victor had to eat his words as their positions were suppressed by automatic magical fire. Rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat—the bolts bounced off the asphalt, went through car doors, banged into the engine blocks. Intermittently, green balls exploded around them like artillery, taking out walls and knocking cars over, causing oil to leak and giving the air an awful mechanic's scent.

One last sand-bolt managed to pierce through the sedan Victor and Althea was hiding behind, going through the doors and right between them, missing them by a few inches in both direction. Chunhua wasn’t hit either but she was stuck like them, unable to tell where the enemy were due to their obscuring light.

“We got awful cover here, y’know that?!” Althea shouted at Victor. “Think you can tank their shots?!”

“Maybe, but I don’t wanna risk it! They got ‘structs that knocked down our cars! Who knows what other firepower they have?” he shouted back, ducking as a green ball struck the parking space a far bit behind them.

“Fuck! What to do, what to do…” Althea ran through her mental list of skills and things, going through each item. Immediately, she had a solution.

She picked out a [Blank Runestone] from her [Inventory]. She used these babies during the bombing spree, and it was mighty useful in gathering enemies and projectiles.

[Skill Activation: Runecraft - Gravity]

She handed the [Runestone] to him. “Throw it at ‘em!”

Victor looked down at the glowing [Runestone] and smirked. “Right on!” He stood from cover and hurled the glorified rock towards the rogues’ direction.

Upon impact, it activated.

[Increase Gravitational Pull]

Like turning off a sink, a few sand-bolts leaked through before stopping altogether. Althea looked out of the shot-out passenger windows and saw that, about thirty meters away, a bubble was barely visible. In that bubble was a violent cluster of sand-bolts. Well, they weren’t bolts anymore. Just an ugly, creepy mass of magic.

When she went to speak, there was a green ball.

This time it was the biggest explosion yet. The sedan teetered. Victor pushed the [Talonstrider] against the car in a reactionary attempt to keep it from falling on them. Car horns blared all over the lot.

When the dust settled and the air was relatively calm, Baptist-1 emerged from their positions and converged onto the contact point carefully, Victor at front with [Talonstrider] raised, and they found them. The rogues. Two of them.

Two magical firearms laid by their sides shattered, one bulky and heavy and the other resembling a semi-automatic rifle. One rogue sat against the wall, his right arm torn off, head and neck limp; the other laid on his belly in a pool of his own blood, making coarse, uneven breaths like a dying patient on a hospital bed.

Althea sighed, disappointed. They looked like Pseudos. Untrained and inexperienced civilians trying to be badasses. If she had to guess, the green-ball guy must’ve lobbed one into the gravitational sphere and it interacted with the projectiles. For his efforts he blew himself and his buddy up.

Chunhua’s lips tightened. She flipped her spear around her hand and impaled the dying rogue through the chest. His eyes widened, he croaked, and he passed.

“We need to hurry,” she told them after pulling out.

Luckily for them, finding the target building was made easy when they spotted a door with a cinderblock propping it open as if waiting for them. And they heard the respective construct firing like mad into the convoy.

“On me,” Victor ordered coldly, bracing himself knowing the fight ahead.

Althea summoned the relevant combat knowledge she gained over the past week, and the lessons that Alexander imparted to her. There were times when you needed to show mercy, show restraint, as with Jonathan Nam. Then there were times when you needed to be ruthless, completely committed to extermination. Like now. She wasn't nearly as good in close-quarters combat as her brother but she could more than hold her own.

Especially against Pseudos on a power trip.

It’s what you said, Alex. It’s time to destroy ‘em. Apocalyptics aren't the ones you cry for. In terms of fucking around, they're about to find out.

Baptist-1 entered the building like a storm, thundering and powerful, motivated by vengeance and duty alike. The floor above them rattled and shook like a rave. Loud as one too. They found the staircase leading upwards, where there would be the rogues who had idiotically decided to test Ordo's patience. First in the stack was Victor, then Althea, and finally Chunhua, all with their skills and equipment at the ready.

Althea held onto the outside railing as Victor stomped over the first few steps before a voice faintly exclaimed at the top of the stairs—a rogue, three steps down, with a sash of magical bombs around him and a crossbow on his back.

The rogue cursed, slammed himself against the railing to avoid a swing from Victor’s [Lightning Lash]. Althea kicked the railing and bent it dangling out from the staircase but it did not break. Victor finished the job and the legs snapped off. The railing cascaded down. Because the rogue was leaning on it for support, it only meant he fell too, painfully onto his back.

“I have him!” yelled Chunhua, leaping off the stairs and seizing the rogue.

“Cat’s outta the bag now!” Victor told Althea, charging up the stairs like a mad bull seeing red and she followed, having nothing but red on her mind.

A rogue unluckily popped out at the top of the staircase and she couldn’t be faster than the B-Rank here. None of the rogues were, probably. [Talonstrider] crashed into her, carried off her feet until she was crushed between the overpowering Victor and the wall ahead like a hydraulic press.

Althea leapt after him, instinctively flinched as a bullet whizzed past her head. Loud, tearing air. Not too different than everything else that almost hit her: bullets, arrows, magic. Instincts flashed, her mind buzzing like a machine. The environment was an office space lit up by battery-powered lanterns. Rogue-4 was visible at the far end, operating automatically.

Three rogues. Furthest back was a man holding a heavy rifle almost as big as him to the window left of the construct; the middle was a woman who had just shot at Althea with a pistol, standing between two desks; and the closest was a man holding an axe, running up to Victor.

Good thing she anticipated this.

[Increase Gravitational Pull]

The closest rogue ducked, turned his head to watch a stone break open into a gravitational sphere behind him. Where the middle woman was.

She died instantly, horribly, as everything around her was sucked in and smashed her into organs and sinews. That was a kill.

“What the fuck?!” shouted the closest rogue before yelping.

Althea whipped the [Manasteel Chain] around, channeled with [Lightning], and struck the rogue over the shoulder, burned him good. The rogue switched targets and ran after her instead, blocking the next two lashes with the axe’s shaft and came roaring.

You had to be aggressive then, executing the most amount of violence in the shortest time.

Alexander had taught her that, when dealing with monsters.

These were Pseudos. Of course, Alexander had said that the same advice applied for people. And it was effective against glorified bullies who had no real predator.

The rogue, of course, underestimated Althea’s speed and her anger. As he raised his axe over his head ignoring his shoulder injury, she had already arrived, digging her [Lesser Dragonfang Snarl] into his chest. She felt ribs scratching her dagger’s edges, and there was not a thing that this motherfucker could do.

The axe was useless at this close of a range. It was her advantage.

He gasped and tried to struggle back, but she slammed her left arm into his stomach, which wrapped with the lightning-channeled [Manasteel Chain], acting as a taser. With a kick to the legs and a shove, the rogue fell over.

Althea mounted him and slashed his neck, having done this at least a hundred times before with monsters with similar anatomy.

The gravitational sphere exploded, sending random shit flying everywhere, hitting Althea and activating her [Red Barrier Brooch]. Some blood and guts splattered onto her, having belonged to the spaghetti’d rogue.

Something appeared in front of Althea.

A deafening crash sent her to the floor. Victor was on his knees with a pained expression, smoke rising from an impact mark center of the [Talonstrider]. They looked at each other, acknowledged that they were fine, and turned to the threat.

The last rogue holding the heavy rifle.

A shadow leapt over the two Baptists and soared across the room like an eagle spotting a fish in the river.

The rogue couldn’t charge another shot before an ivy spear impaled him to the wall. Chunhua grimaced and pulled out. The man dropped onto his belly, grabbing at his wound, crawling. Like the first man she killed, Chunhua ended him swiftly.

“Take out the ‘struct, FM!” ordered Victor as he helped Althea to his feet.

The pair searched with their eyes and ears for any additional rogues that may pop out from the woodworks. Chunhua, meanwhile, struck the construct with her palm over and over until it stopped firing. Simple as that.

“I think we’re clear,” Althea said, looking around the office space. She spotted the woman that Victor shield-tackled, sitting flattened against a wall with her skull caved in. That’d do it.

“That was easier than I thought.” Victor called it in: “BV, this is Vic. Consider Rogue-4 baptized.”

“That’s awful,” commented Althea.

Blackviper responded, ignoring the last part, “So I see. You’re clear to neutralize Rogue-2. Once you do that, let’s see if you can pull SMV-2 out and then rescue me.”

“Roger, see you then.” Victor rolled his shoulders around. “Let’s go and do this again. Ready?”

Chunhua stepped away from the windows, sharing a steeled, determined expression with the others. “Yes.”

Althea took one good look around the swift battle that’d taken place. A pungent smell had taken over the office, reeking of blood and acid. A smell she had gotten used to. This was the life of a Slayer. Wasn’t the worst thing.

“Yup-yup.” She pressed the flat of her [Lesser Dragonfang Snarl] against her jacket, wiping the blood off both sides. “Let’s go rogue-hunting.”

~

[QUEST UPDATE]

DISTORTION INVESTIGATION - DAWNS ONCE MORE

Seraph has assigned you the task of investigating a series of anomalous distortions in Dawns once again, this time collaborating with members of Martial Guild, including the Vice Guild Master, the Righteous Jin Tiehan.

A coordinated bombing attack ruptured the permanent night, caused by the same anomalous distortions you have discussed with Alma, the Journey of Scholars. Discover the Sungrazer behind this attack and slay them rightfully.

As it turns out, the collaborators of this scheme is not a monster but the very own people of Ordo. Or if you could call them that. They are now Apocalyptics according to the doctrine of the Global Guards. As such, they are to be shown no mercy.