Everyone in the corridor saw it happen.

Bright's spatial foresight tracked every moment—the mandibles closing, the flesh tearing, the systematic dismantling of human body into component parts.

Duncan witnessed it peripherally while engaging his own threats, his expression hardening with horror he couldn't afford to process.

Mara saw it directly, her dual blades faltering mid-strike as she watched a squadmate—someone she'd fought beside—get consumed alive.

Bessia knelt beside Kora's remains, her hands glowing with useless plant energy, her healer's instinct screaming that she should have done something, should have saved her, should have—

There was nothing I could do, Bessia's rational mind insisted. The injuries were too severe. The attack too sudden. She was dead the moment the first ant grabbed her.

But I should have—

There was no time for grief. No time for processing. No time for the human response to witnessing a group member's horrific death.

Because the ants that had killed Kora were already targeting new prey.

And the Covenant specialists and Crownhold operatives—momentarily frozen by the sheer brutality of what they'd witnessed—were remembering that the same fate awaited them.

Death is coming for all of us, everyone understood simultaneously. The ants don't discriminate. Don't care about our factions or our politics or our reasons for fighting.

They just feed.

It would have been amusing to the surviving Covenant fanatics—watching their enemies face mortality, recognizing that divine purpose meant nothing to mindless hunger—

Except the ants were targeting them too.

A Covenant specialist died to mandibles that closed on his torso, bisecting him at the waist, his religious conviction providing zero defense against organic weaponry that operated on simple mechanical principles.

Another fanatic's head was crushed, skull popped like overripe fruit, brain matter spraying across stone.

The remaining Crownhold operatives—already depleted, already exhausted—faced the same mathematics: We're all going to die here. Killed by creatures that don't even understand what they're destroying.

This shit is terrible, he knew. Leading them here had always risked casualties—but he'd had to do it. He had to look out for himself first and foremost, Bright thought with bitter respect.

She died a terrible way. But she fought.

That's worth something. It has to be.

But there was no time to honor her death. No time to acknowledge that they'd just lost another squadmate.

Because their survival required immediate action, not some emotional reflection.

And the corridor was still full of things trying to kill them.

Kora's body—what remained of it—lay in spreading pool of blood and ichor, being processed by ants that had already moved on to seeking fresh prey.

She deserved better, everyone thought.

But "deserved" meant nothing in Vester.

-----

Then, suddenly —cutting through the chaos like a physical force—a presence flooded the outpost.

The sound of an ENGINE—powerful, grinding, impossibly loud. Like an industrial machinery given sentience, like combustion made manifest, like raw power channeled through human form.

The corridor's back wall exploded.

Not from any structural failure. From deliberate destruction.

A figure emerged through the debris—massive, three-hundred-pound bulk moving with speed that defied his size, each step accompanied by that grinding engine sound.

Adept Goba had arrived.

His Tank core was screaming—fully charged, overflowing with stored power, ready to burn through every reserve in devastating display.

His Electric Hand crackled with barely contained energy, electricity arcing between his fingers, the air itself ionizing around him.

And his presence—the sheer weight of an Adept-level soul-force manifested at combat readiness—made everyone in the corridor freeze instinctively.

Goba assessed the situation in microseconds: kids fighting for survival; figures in professional garb reeking of fanaticism, attacking everything in sight; hooded operatives engaging both sides; and ants—dozens of Initiate-tier variants—swarming through the confined space.

"Unacceptable," Goba rumbled.

Then he moved.

His technique wasn't subtle. Wasn't precise. Wasn't elegant.

It was overwhelming force applied with industrial efficiency.

His Electric Hand technique discharged—not targeted strikes, but area-effect devastation. Electricity flooded the corridor in branching lightning that sought conductive pathways, that found moisture in organic tissue, that cooked everything it touched from the inside out.

The ants died en masse—their nervous systems overloading, their chitin conducting electricity directly into vulnerable internal organs, their bodies seizing and collapsing as fundamental biological processes failed.

Ten ants. Twenty. Thirty. More.

All dead in seconds, their corpses smoking, their mandibles still clicking reflexively as dying nervous systems misfired.

Goba's Engine talent burned through stored fuel with wasteful efficiency, converting his accumulated power into raw output that cared nothing for conservation or sustainability.

Kill everything. Kill it fast. Worry about cost later.

His fist—enhanced by his Tank core's stored power, crackling with Electric Hand's energy—pulverized an ant soldier that tried to come close to him. It was a single strike. Complete destruction. The ant's body literally exploded from kinetic and electrical energy delivered simultaneously.

The corridor's floor cracked under his weight and power, stone fracturing, structural integrity compromising, but Goba didn't care.

He was ENGINE. He was POWER. He was Adept-level capability deployed without reservation or mercy.

More ants died. More corridors filled with electrical discharge. More enemy combatants—Covenant and Crownhold alike—stared in shock at the raw destructive capacity that made their own combat capabilities seem pathetic by comparison.

The four-way battle paused.

Everyone—Academy candidates, Covenant fanatics, Crownhold operatives, even the surviving ants—just… stopped.

Staring at the absurd scene before them.

At the fat man who moved like an industrial equipment, who killed with casual efficiency that made the night-long desperate combat seem like children playing at war.

Even the Initiate-tier ants, creatures that operated on instinct and hive-mind directives, seemed to hesitate—their simple intelligence recognizing threat so overwhelming that even programmed aggression faltered.

What is he? everyone thought simultaneously.

The answer was simple: Adept.

Real display of Adept power.

Someone who'd earned that title through raw capability and willingness to pay whatever costs the talent demanded.

Goba surveyed the corridor with calculating assessment, his Engine talent still rumbling, his Tank core still overflowing with power.

"Where," he said, his voice carrying casual authority, "are the people in charge of this clusterfuck?"

-----

Goba's enhanced perception—not quite spatial foresight like Bright's, but comprehensive awareness that came from decades of combat experience—registered the corridor's occupants with ease.

The kids were—injured, exhausted, barely functional. The cultists were—depleted, fanatic, unreliable. The hooded operatives—he couldn't care less what shit they had going on—but it looked like they were calculating an escape.

And—

His awareness found a new presence. A Female. Adept-level. Positioned in convoy compound approximately three hundred meters away.

Four Adepts in Vester, Goba calculated. Atheon and Vaelith I knew about. Rowan Kadesh too. But fourth is—

His perception focused, identified the spiritual signature.

House Aurin.

Recognition crystallized immediately. It was not a specific identity—he'd never met this particular Aurin Adept—but the distinctive soul-force pattern that marked their House's cultivation techniques.

Dogs of House Aurin, Goba thought without particular malice. Just observation. Merchant house Adepts were known quantities—competent, professional, motivated primarily by profit rather than duty or honor.

Convoy commander, he understood. Here to transport Academy candidates—standard procedure for all outposts, even his own. They're probably secured in a compound, holding a defensive position, waiting for the crisis to resolve before extraction.

That explains the four Adepts requiring help, his tactical mind processed.

Standard House Aurin behavior. Can't fault them—they're hired to transport candidates, not defend Vester. But also can't rely on them for anything beyond their contracted obligations.

He filed the information away, and returned attention to the immediate situation.

The corridor was still frozen—everyone staring at him, processing the implications of an Adept-level reinforcement arriving exactly when they were all going to die.

"Status report!" Goba demanded. "Someone tell me what's happening before I start killing everything indiscriminately."

Bright stepped forward—exhausted, injured, but still functional. Still thinking.

"Private Bright Morgan, Academy candidate. Cultist assault,ant colony emergence, political complications. We're evacuating the wounded and protecting the rest. There has been multiple casualties. The defensive situation has been untenable for a while now."

Concise. Professional. Exactly what Goba needed.

"Acceptable." Goba's attention shifted to surviving Covenant specialists and Crownhold operatives. "You—fanatics and hooded weirdos—you have three seconds to surrender or die. Choose."

-----

The corridor remained frozen—everyone processing Goba's arrival, everyone calculating whether fighting an Adept was suicide or merely extremely inadvisable.

In that moment of collective awe and hesitation, Silas moved.

His Sense Fade was perfect—layered over the distraction of Goba's presence, enhanced by everyone's attention being focused elsewhere, making him more forgettable than ever.

His Speed Enhancement carried him across the corridor in eyeblink transition, his dagger already positioned, his target selected with cold calculation.

The remaining lead Crownhold operative—the one who'd backstabbed Bright, who'd coordinated assassination attempts, who represented everything corrupt about Vaelith's orchestration.

Silas's blade found his throat from behind. Clean. Efficient. Professional.

The operative died before he could register the threat—windpipe severed, carotid opened, death inevitable within seconds.

Silas was gone before the body started falling—his Sense Fade making witnesses forget they'd seen anything, his Speed Enhancement carrying him back to shadows.

No one noticed, Silas calculated with satisfaction. Too distracted by that adept. Perfect moment for an elimination that won't be attributed to me.

The operative's body collapsed—sudden, inexplicable, drawing startled attention from nearby combatants.

"What—" someone started.

But there was no obvious killer. No visible attack. Just… death, appearing from nowhere, unexplainable except as a combat casualty in the chaotic environment.

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