Chapter 184: Full-Scale Invasion
Chapter 184: Full-Scale Invasion
The crimson longsword cleaved through the blue plasma net. A blinding flash swallowed the entire storm of lightning.
"Defense grid power dropping below sixty percent!" Inside the fire control room, an operator's voice cracked.
A second later, the blue energy curtain split open. The tear ripped outward in both directions as dark red thermal waves poured through, and the energy net collapsed in cascading sections.
David shot through the breach and slammed into the fortress's top deck.
The alloy plating — several meters thick — buckled on impact. Fractures detonated outward in every direction.
He dropped to one knee at the bottom of the crater. The outer layer of his jump suit had burned away almost entirely. He raised a hand and ripped off his visor.
The blast had carved a wide ring of scorched silence around him.
Hatch doors blew open across the deck. Hardened guards and combat droids surged out. The PA system crackled: "Maximum-level breach alert. Target: David. Authorization: terminate on sight."
The droids opened fire. David stood still. The air around him warped into a barrier, and the volley hung suspended half a meter away.
The guard commander bellowed: "High-explosive grenades!" David looked up. The grenades froze in midair. He closed his hand into a fist. The blasts reversed — the front row of guards and droids vanished inside the implosion.
David launched out of the crater. The longsword swept in a horizontal arc, and the lead droid separated cleanly at the waist.
A guard on the right raised a pulse cannon. The muzzle had barely lit up when David was already in his face — the sword hilt drove through his visor. The blade came down. The second guard tried to fall back. An invisible force caught him and hammered him into the gun emplacement.
"Fall back — create distance!" someone shouted. The voice cut off.
David snatched a broken armor plate out of the air and flung it backhand.
The deck's defense turrets activated. He pressed down with telekinesis. The gun barrels bent in unison, and the emplacements detonated in place, each one becoming a fireball.
"Elevator shaft — forward left," Mia said.
David walked toward it.
Droids converged on him along the way. He drove straight through them. Sword-light flashed; chassis split. A telekinetic sweep sent three more units crashing into scrap.
The last one vaulted from behind. David reversed his grip and drove the blade back. The droid ended up pinned on the steel.
At the elevator shaft entrance, the blast door was sliding shut. David kicked it. The entire door rocketed into the shaft.
Gun ports opened along the shaft walls. David advanced with the longsword raised, his telekinetic aura cutting a path forward, splitting the barrels as he moved.
At the entrance to the inner combat zone, three heavy mechs blocked the way.
"David. Stand down."
David looked up at the security camera. "Tell Liam to say his prayers."
"Fire." All three mechs moved in at once.
The first swung its heavy shield down. David slipped inside the arc, drove the longsword into the gap at the shield's edge, and the mechanical arm spun away.
He snapped his knee up into the mech's midsection. Telekinesis detonated outward. The mech flew backward and punched through the wall.
The second mech swept with its chainsaw cannon. David caught the barrel with his left hand, wrenched it toward the third unit, and brought the sword back one-handed — the head came off.
The third tried to retreat. David's telekinesis locked onto both mechanical legs and tore them in opposite directions. The mech went down on its knees. The longsword drove through the chest reactor. Dark red thermal energy poured in. The core detonated.
"You still have three floors," Mia said.
---
Second floor. Biochemical research wing.
Researchers clutched their files and ran. Armed personnel erupted from behind lab stations.
David's expression went flat. He reached out with telekinesis, sent the lab tables airborne, and drove them forward.
Across the room, a modified creature smashed out of its containment tank. David swung the longsword. The blade passed through its chest. The creature came apart in two halves.
David moved through the far end of the research wing and stopped at the labels mounted on the wall:
[PROJECT: ASCENSION]
[COMPOUND K — ORIGINAL SAMPLE: RESTART]
His stride broke for just a moment. "Mia — pull everything. Copy it all, then burn it."
---
Once the cleanup was done, David reached the third floor: the core defense sector.
No ordinary guards here. Twelve augmented operatives stood waiting, each one wearing silver exoskeletal armor. Faint blue tracery pulsed across their skin — all of them dosed with something enhanced.
The man at the front removed his helmet, revealing a shaved head covered in scar tissue. "Liam said we'd find you here."
David advanced, longsword in hand. "Move."
"Our purpose is to hold you for three minutes."
"You won't last that long."
All twelve charged at once.
David raised the sword to block the first punch. The metal bracer struck the blade and shattered on contact.
The second operative grabbed him from the side, arms locked around his waist. David drove his elbow down. Cervical vertebrae snapped.
The third threw a full-force haymaker. David caught it with his left hand, fingers closing tight. Bones gave way. He wrenched the arm free from the shoulder socket, used the body as a projectile, and knocked down the two operatives behind him.
The remaining nine didn't retreat. The blue tracery crawled up their necks. Their bodies began to swell.
The man at the front threw himself at David, both hands clamping down on the flat of the longsword, holding against the heat with a raw snarl: "For the new life!"
David looked at him. "To me, you're all just disposable parts."
He let the telekinesis go.
All nine operatives left the floor simultaneously. Bone, armor, and organ tissue compressed together. The screaming lasted two seconds. Then blood mist and shrapnel painted the walls.
The man's hands, still gripping the blade, had burned down to char.
David planted his foot in the man's chest. He blew through the sector's blast door, slid across the floor on his back, and came to rest outside the central control room. David walked over. The blade came down.
---
The central control room door stood ahead. Half a meter of titanium alloy. Three layers of energy locks. Self-destruct charges lining the frame.
Mia's voice came sharp in his earpiece: "Don't force that door. It's wired to the main hull charges — brute force triggers a full-ship lockdown."
David raised his foot.
Mia paused. "...Right. Forget I said anything."
He kicked it through. The entire titanium door tore from its frame and punched deep into the control room.
No guards. No defense droids.
The vast central control room was unsettlingly quiet. Curved holographic screens floated in an arc around the perimeter — global maps, GDC encrypted channels, archived Black Island prison files, and footage of David spanning from adolescence to the day he walked out of Black Island. Every frame. Every year.
At the center of the room, a chair hung suspended in the air. Liam sat in it, his back to the entrance.
His body was threaded with luminous energy conduits. A metal umbilical ran along his spine. A half-ring of silver interfaces curved around the base of his skull. The lines fed down through the floor and up into the massive meteorite core chamber overhead. Dark blue light moved beneath his skin like something alive.
A low laugh escaped him. "David. You finally made it."
David stepped into the control room. The longsword dragged behind him. A trail of fire scored the floor in his wake.
"Who was giving Douglas his orders."
Liam didn't turn. The laughter softened. "And that's your opening line. Not even a greeting. Disappointing."
The hovering chair rotated slowly to face him.
The face still carried the composed structure of a man who had once commanded boardrooms and press conferences — but the skin had gone translucent. What moved through his veins wasn't blood. It was dark blue liquid light. His eyes had no irises, no pupils. Just two deep points of blue luminescence. He raised a hand. The fingertips fractured into threads of fine metallic fiber.
"Douglas was just my dog. The prison was a cage I built for experiments. The K compound, Lon, what happened to your parents — every piece of it was on a board much bigger than you've been able to see."
David's expression went cold all the way through.
Liam watched him with something like delight. "Don't rush, son. You think you fought your way in here for revenge?"
The meteorite core chamber overhead began to rotate. Dense networks of glowing runes lit up across every surface of the control room. Liam spread his arms wide. Every energy conduit blazed. Dark blue light saturated his body.
"Wrong. You are the key I have been waiting years to obtain."
David's grip tightened on the sword hilt.
The floor split beneath his feet. Six black anchor columns rose from the perimeter of the control room, each one locking onto the center of his chest simultaneously.
Liam's smile opened completely.
"Welcome back to the experiment table, David."