Assault on Glare
After securing the vital data from the palace and finishing the paperwork, we spent the remaining time fending off endless waves of hacker assaults. Before I knew it, the final day of the merger period had dawned.
Ordinarily this would have been a time for analyzing results and damages, then debating future policy. This time, however, things were different.
"Sorry to anyone who was hoping the commission would wrap up early," Yekaterina said, "but as I announced beforehand, we are going to strike Glare—the ones who hit us first on day one of the merger. And for the record, I will be joining the fight myself."
The people gathered in the virtual conference room immediately began murmuring among themselves.
Lady Yekaterina herself? Her official threat rating is only A-class, but everyone treats her like an S-class in all but name.
I heard she's stronger than most actual S-classes. The Russian government just slapped a lower rank on her to keep her from expanding her influence too freely...
Yekaterina was not only the supreme administrator of Leviathan; she had once ranked among the most notorious villains of her era. Rumors claimed she was over two hundred years old, and everyone who had ever faced her told the same story.
She was a blood-crazed demon.
A nightmare I never want to see again.
The survivors' vivid accounts of hell on earth had only elevated her legend. Then, at some point, she founded Leviathan and withdrew from the front lines. For years she had devoted herself solely to running the organization. The news that she was returning to the field now sent a genuine shock through everyone present.
"Save the chatter until after the briefing," she cut in. "First, the rundown on Glare."
Glare was one of the major underworld conglomerates based in the eastern United States, a fair distance from Vladivostok. It ranked just below the twin giants Leviathan and Behemoth, yet during the recent cyber war it had lost the bulk of its zombie PCs and thus wielded little real power in this merger. From what our rotating teams of hackers could tell, aside from swallowing one small dark-web network, Glare had spent the entire period simply trying to rebuild its bot numbers.
"Of course we haven't had enough time in less than a week to prepare a full-scale takedown of Glare itself," Yekaterina continued. "So we'll settle for smashing their Russian branches to pieces."
The exact location of Glare's headquarters remained unknown, but repeated cyber skirmishes had already pinpointed every Russian branch. All that remained was to mobilize the mercenaries and Leviathan's private troops and hit those sites hard.
"Organization will be four teams centered on me, one for each hired unit. Unit commanders keep their existing authority, but the villains answer directly to me. Any objections?"
"If Lady Yekaterina is taking field command, who handles rear command...?"
Her answer was the last thing anyone expected.
"Lucifer will take it. Not full authority—my staff will assist—but the role is his."
"What...?"
Even I had never heard of this arrangement. I had not been brought in as a commander, and history offered few precedents for handing operational control to an outsider. Hacking skill was one thing; command ability was something else entirely. Why entrust it to me?
"Don't look so burdened. I'll still handle the field. All you need to do is synthesize the data streaming in on the screens and feed it to us. No extra work beyond that—and when the commission ends I'll double your bonus. Sound fair?"
Double the bonus. An offer I could not refuse.
"Fine. But I can't stay past four in the morning. Will that be a problem?"
"The merger window closes at six a.m. It's ten p.m. right now. Six hours should be more than enough to settle things, don't you think?"
With that, the briefing ended. All that remained was to pulverize every Glare Russian branch and return to base before half a day was out.
"If we haven't crushed their branches within the next eight hours, we lose on time. You've seen what happens to people who overstay the agreed merger window—heroes turn them into paste. Let's wrap everything up by five at the latest and call it a night."
Yekaterina finished speaking, then led the mercenaries—already checking their weapons—toward Glare's Russian branches.
Bang! Kwa-kang—!
"Hold them! Just hold until six a.m. and they'll pull back on their own!"
"Switch the systems to manual! Leave them remote and they'll get hacked!"
"These lunatics! Who the hell did they recruit this year?!"
Leviathan's mercenaries and Glare's staff and hired guns faced each other across a reinforced steel door. Combined, the defenders numbered only around fifty, yet the ticking clock kept the advantage from tipping too far in our favor.
"Look at them fighting with pistols!"
"Grenades out! We're blowing the damn door!"
Every attempt to breach met fierce resistance—until a single figure stepped forward through the press of mercenaries.
"Move."
"Y-yes, Lady Yekaterina?"
She pushed to the front and simply stared at the steel door. Thanks to Lucifer most of the facility's systems were already under our control, but the sharper defenders had switched critical sections to manual, shielding them from the hack. A squad of roughly ten had barricaded themselves in the room holding the key data; cracking that nut would not be easy.
"Then I'll just have to handle it myself."
This was exactly what unique abilities were for. She stretched out one hand, then slowly clenched it as though twisting something invisible. Instantly, screams erupted from the far side of the door.
"Gyaaaaah—!"
"Kehek! S-save me...!"
She waited a full ten seconds until the cries faded, then kicked the door open and strode inside. The moment the linked camera feed showed me the room, my breath caught.
A spear of blood had erupted from one man's heart, punched clean through his body, and impaled everyone else in the room.
In that instant I understood Yekaterina's power.
Blood manipulation—or more broadly, control over liquids. And if she could seize the blood still inside a living body, the ability was effectively an instant-kill technique.
"Where are the rest?"
"Barricaded in the underground armory and the third-floor archives."
"We split into two teams. I take Force Units One and Two to the armory. Everyone else follows Lucifer's orders and hits the archives."
I sent a confirmation through the chat.
"First... Mercenary Unit Three and the Gambler stay with me for the third-floor archives. All remaining personnel move to the second-floor computer room."
The third-floor archives lacked the heavy weapons of the armory, but they were packed with material perfect for barricades. Rather than a textbook assault, I planned to use the blueprints we had already hacked to craft a more elegant approach.
At that moment a villain festooned with bombs swaggered up to me.
"Hey. Lucifer, was it? Looks like getting command has you feeling pretty full of yourself. We'll handle things ourselves—you just sit there and watch the screens. I really hate it when weaker bastards sit in an office and bark orders."
What the hell is this guy's problem?
I was still staring at him when he suddenly clutched his throat and collapsed.
"Ghk...!"
"Right, almost forgot to mention," Yekaterina's voice cut in smoothly. "If anyone refuses your orders, tell me directly. I'll toss them a token penalty fee and kick them out. Anyone else have something to say?"
Watching a reasonably famous villain drop without the slightest resistance shut every mouth in the room.
"Then... we continue the mission. I'll reorganize the units now. Move the moment you receive orders."
Mercenaries are free spirits by nature. They pretend the employer's word is law, yet the second something feels off or unfair they will flip the table without hesitation. That is simply the nature of people who buy and sell their lives for cash—a tradition thousands of years old. So of course they had bristled at the idea of taking orders from a mere hacker.
That had been thirty minutes ago.
"Three, two, one. Detonate!"
Boom!
C-4 that Leviathan had smuggled in for its own use tore through the second-floor ceiling—the floor of the archives above.
"Possible toxic gas. Masks on tight before we enter."
"You heard the man! Anyone who takes the mask off because it's stuffy can kiss any promotion goodbye!"
Mercenary Unit Three ringed the collapsed ceiling and took firing positions while the third-floor team poured through the new hole into the archives. The moment they entered, enemy gunmen waiting on either side of the doorway squeezed their triggers—
"W-why won't the guns fire...?"
Bang—!
Whatever unexpected malfunction had struck, they never got off a single shot before they left this world.
"Tsk. That's why you maintain your weapons properly beforehand."
A man appeared behind them, casually flipping a coin in his right hand as he spoke in an easy murmur.
"You should have just fought with swords. Guns are so temperamental—the slightest malfunction and they're nothing but expensive scrap. There's a reason fewer than ten percent of heroes bother with firearms."
The Gambler—an A-class villain with a thoroughly unique ability—casually cleaned up most of the remaining resistance.
"Casualties?"
"Zero dead. Two wounded—one took a round in the thigh, the other tripped over his own feet while charging."
Even against poorly equipped opponents, they had still been men with guns. Completing the objective without a single fatality was an achievement in itself. Anyone who had doubted Lucifer's command ability quietly tucked their tails between their legs.
Only the armory left now.
Once we took the armory, Glare's entire Russian branch would fall into Leviathan's hands. With the remaining time so short, further fighting would be impossible, and the week-long commission would finally end. Then I could finally catch up on some sleep.
I was checking headcounts and hurrying the cleanup so we could reinforce Yekaterina's force when a massive explosion roared through the network.
That was—!
"Ambush! Ambush! Attacker numbers unknown!"
The mercenaries were still scrambling to grasp the situation when I hijacked the CCTV feeds of the nearby city and looked outside. Simultaneously I saw the transport trucks stamped with the GLARE logo—and the roughly five hundred troops riding them.
"Glare just brought in reinforcements! Tell Lady Yekaterina!"