Chapter 126: The Culling

The first Aegis Phalanx strike team hit the ground three miles outside what had once been a small town. Hundreds of Kytinn and Thalassari warriors jumped out of their ships. The four-armed humanoid bugs led the teams as they checked the terrain.The Kytinn were an insectoid humanoid race with carapaces that formed segmented armor plates. They had armor on top of that for extra protection, which was engraved with service records that reported the decades of combat experience each single one of this mysterious race had.

The squad leader raised his arms in a halt gesture. Not all of them. A pair was currently working, making some gestures. The creature was weaving spells, most likely summoning ones. The summoned creatures were frequently coming and going, likely reporting the situation to him.

His mandibles clicked twice.

"Threat identified," he said. "There is a monster concentration point seven kilometers northeast. Classification: Corrupted wildlife. Estimated count: forty-three hostiles. Threat level: minimal."

His squad slipped through the jungle toward the town’s overgrown outskirts like ghosts.

Behind the Kytinn advance, a Thalassari named Vel’shara recorded everything. Vel’shara kept to the rear, her blue-pigmented skin glistening with the moisture retention membrane that allowed her kind to function on dry land.

They found the monster quickly, inside the ruins of a building. Their bodies were warped, big, and weird. It didn’t help that for the Thalassari, the animals from Earth were weird to begin with.

They were corrupted monsters, meaning they were animals born from this planet, driven by the same feral hunger that turned everything in this zone into prey.

"Fascinating," she said into her recording device. "The corrupted here show weird survival patterns. Rather than acting individually, they tend to cluster in large groups of monsters. The efficiency is remarkable, but their levels are lower because of that."

The Kytinn soldiers didn’t hesitate and started exterminating the creatures.

Fire lit up the street. The squad leader’s sword moved three times in a second; each swing cut a monster. His warriors followed suit.

Thirty seconds after the battle started, silence returned. Forty-three corrupted monsters lay dead or dying. Not a single Kytinn had gotten an injury.

"Threat eliminated," the squad leader said. "Proceeding deeper into the city."

Vel’shara approached the kill zone. "The corruption levels in these creatures are minimal, and so is their threat level, since they are between Level 60 and Level 100 at most. They show basic mutations." Her tentacles quivered as they detected residual mana traces. "But the density of monsters in this sector is concerning. The local human population must have been decimated."

"Right." The Kytinn leader’s four eyes locked onto her. "Scouts found signs of a survivor settlement here, but they’re gone now. Twenty klicks east, there’s another group, maybe two hundred people. They’ve thrown up some basic defenses, but they can’t handle the threats closing in. We’ll set up a perimeter and give them some breathing room."

Vel’shara noted, still recording. "Tell me, Captain, how many situations like this have you found?"

"Seventy-three just within a 50 kilometer radius." The Kytinn’s mandibles clicked with something that might have been pride. He paused.

"By sunset, I hope we will have cleared corridors to every major survivor town. The natives will have safe zones whether or not they realize it."

The squad moved out, leaving Vel’shara to her analysis. She knelt beside one of the corpses. She was fascinated by monsters. She joined the Aegis Phalanx because that would allow her to study them more and to possibly find a cure to mana mutation, although countless people were working on it already, and none had been able to do so in centuries.

Five kilometers south, another scene played out in a similar way. A Kytinn assault squad engaged a Level 120 monster.

It died in under a minute.

The squad reduced the creature to steaming chunks before it could close half the distance to their position. One of their officers listed the kill data, marking the location for follow-up patrols.

"There is an anomalous presence of World-walkers," the officer said to his communication device. "This specimen couldn’t have gotten to level 120 this quickly as things stand now on the planet, and this leads me to believe a portal is in the area."

Of course, the system also marked the creature as a world walker.

"It’s weird, though. I detected huge mana levels in the environment."

"Noted," came the response from the citadel. "Continue the suppression operations. Priority targets are anything Level 150 or above within fifteen kilometers of known settlements."

By late afternoon, the pattern had replicated across hundreds of locations. The various strike teams appeared, assessed, eliminated, and moved on. Monster populations that had terrorized human survivors for months found themselves prey instead of predators. Corrupted wildlife that had grown fat on simple kills found out what actual military force looked like.

The culling was systematic, brutal, and completely one-sided.

In what remained of many cities and towns, the Thalassari and the Kytinn worked to help the survivors.

A healer was currently studying a human.

"Fascinating physiology," he said. "So remarkably resilient. This one has survived for three days with a fractured leg and minimal water."

"Will he live?" The Kytinn warrior’s question was genuinely concerned. The more survivors there were, the stronger the allied worlds would be.

"Yes," The healer said as he used a skill to heal the patient’s injuries. "Though they’ll need some recovery. The local safe zone should suffice."

"Then we transport them immediately." The Kytinn’s mandibles clicked. "Legate Lyra’xis has ordered all recovered survivors moved to fortified positions for integration into training protocols, not the local survivor towns."

The human, a middle-aged woman, stared at her alien rescuers with a mixture of terror and desperate hope. She tried to speak, but her voice emerged as a croak.

"Peace," the healer said, a translator rendering the words into English. "You are safe now. The Allied Worlds have arrived. We will help you."

The woman’s eyes filled with tears. Behind her, other survivors emerged from hiding. They were gaunt and exhausted since they had been fighting for survival with inadequate tools and no understanding of the calamities that had reshaped their world.

They stared at the armored Kytinn warriors and the blue-skinned Thalassari with expressions caught between relief and disbelief.

"How many?" one survivor said. "How many of you came?"

"Enough." The Kytinn squad leader’s voice rang. "Those creatures you were escaping from are being hunted down as we speak. We’re setting up safe zones, and we’ll give you the tools and training to protect yourselves. That’s how the Aegis Doctrine works."

"But why?" another survivor asked. "Why now? Where were you months ago when—"

"When the Cataclysm struck?" He had a sort of regretful expression on his face, but the human couldn’t tell. In "We came as quickly as regulations allowed. Your world was flagged for intervention the moment the anomaly emerged. But bureaucracy, even in crisis, takes time."

"An anomaly?" The human didn’t know what an anomaly was but could understand it was nothing good, and fear crept into the survivor’s voice.

The Kytinn’s four eyes fixed on the woman. "A monster among monsters."

"What is the anomaly you are talking about?" The woman asked.

"A human monster."

Then it was like the woman understood, something that the Kytinn warrior noticed.


"Have you seen it?"

The woman paused.

"Not me personally, but..." The survivor gestured northeast. "There are rumors. People disappearing into the wilds to join some kind of church. They discuss a progenitor, someone who apparently broke the system’s shackles."

The Kytinn warrior’s mandibles clicked. "The system is no prison." He looked at the healer.

"This information is valuable," he said. "You will repeat everything you know to our officers. In exchange, you have my word; the Aegis Phalanx will do the best they can to ensure you are strong enough to survive."

...

...

...

As the survivors climbed into the transports bound for the safe zone, Vel’shara stood apart, silently observing and recording everything.

"This will be... informative."