Battle of Mephauric (Part 2)
Silberin side — Mephauric camp commercial district
I couldn't believe it at first when I heard the camp was under attack.
Three hours earlier — flashback
"Mike, you're serious? How could they possibly attack here?"
"I know it's hard to believe, but that's what they're saying. High command's ordering us to prepare for battle."
"The Minister didn't deny it, did he?"
"No. And he's not the type to joke about something like this. You think he'd say he's going to kill someone and we'd just laugh it off?"
"Of course not. Especially not now, with his father gone. He's not seeking comfort — he's giving it to everyone else. Where would he even find time for jokes?"
Back to the present
Exactly. If soldiers and civilians alike start dying in droves in this battle, all that blame will come crashing back on the Minister. And I don't want to lose this camp either. Sure, if it falls, the responsibility lands squarely on him — but that doesn't mean I can just sit on my hands.
That's why I was holed up inside a building, watching the brutal firefight raging on the camp's outskirts.
It's fierce out there. But it feels like it's getting closer... closer to here...
KABOOM!
"Wh-what?!"
RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE
A massive chain of explosions erupted — on a scale that defied belief.
Then Mike's voice crackled over the radio.
"Silberin! Get out of Get out of there NOW!!! They're firing main guns and smashing buildings to pieces!!!"
WHIIIIIINE
No sooner had he spoken than an enemy fighter, shot down, came plummeting toward my head.
"Damn it...!!!"
I hurled myself out the window in front of me.
WHOOSH
THUD
KABOOM!
"Hahhh...!"
The instant I jumped, the building went up in a massive fireball, completely obliterated.
"Arrrgh!!! Goddamn it...! Looks like I really have to throw all reason out the window."
With that, I tensed up, facing off against the enemy's armored units and air forces, and hurried to escape the area.
ZIP
ZIP
ZIP
"Gah!!!"
ZZZAP-CRACKLE
A railgun round grazed me lightly, but the shock sent electricity surging through my body.
"ARRRRGH!!!!"
My whole body burned; I couldn't even stand properly.
CRASH
"Ughhh... B-body... won't... move..."
WHOOSH
SSSSSSIZZLE
"Silberin!!"
THUD
THUD
THUD
THUD
ZIP
ZIP
ZIP
Mike lobbed a smoke grenade to obscure vision, then rushed to me, spraying plasma fire to suppress the enemies somewhat before trying to help me up. But...
THWACK
"Snap out of it! Touching someone who's electrified will shock you too!"
"Huh? But Commander..."
"If you were lucky, you might've survived — so play dead like you don't know if you're alive or dead! They're advancing too fast! Retreat behind the tanks NOW!"
"B-but..."
"That's an order! Did I tell you to die? Retreat!!"
KABOOM!
While Mike hesitated in panic, our armored unit fired its main gun.
"GRAAAAH!!!!"
Chunks of enemy flesh splattered toward me, my body still paralyzed.
VROOOM
Hover tanks — at least I won't get crushed under tracks. But my body still wouldn't obey.
Ughhh...
STAGGER
STAGGER
My fingers and wrists finally twitched. If only I knew psionics, I could've forced myself up — but in that chaos, staying sane enough to use it was impossible.
CREAK
"Aaaagh..."
As I tried to rise, agony shot through my spine like it was shattering. My foot slipped, and I pitched forward again.
"Argh!!!"
CRUNCH
"Agh... m-my... jawbone..."
Sensation was fading from my fingertips too.
"Ughhh..."
CRAWL
CRAWL
Pathetically crawling along, another massive laser cannon fired.
ZIIIIP
CRASH
"No...! Ughhhh..."
I might have to pray and pull myself together. A white star was shining right in front of my eyes.
The moment it flared, my thoughts froze.
ZZZZZING
"Huh?!"
BOOM
"ARRRRGH!!!!"
WHOOSH
White light engulfed my vision in an instant. And with that, my consciousness vanished completely.
Ansolrok side — same time
"Hahaha!!! How's that taste? I used psionics to superheat the molecules in their shells, triggering self-detonation!!"
KABOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
Countless buildings and enemy armored units exploded in unison.
"Aaaagh!!!"
THUD
ZZING
BOOM
THUD
ROAR
KABOOOOOM!
"Gah!!! What the hell?!"
"Block it!!!"
"Too late! Go ahead, fire all you want!"
But then —
ZZING
"Huh?"
Suddenly, hyperspace jumps occurred, and Strange Zombies poured out.
"Damn it!! Why the hell are those bastards..."
KABOOM!
SIZZLE
"Eh?"
In the blink of an eye, the Strange Zombies disintegrated into powder and vanished.
CRACKLE-CRACK
A massive rift tore open in reality with a deafening roar.
"Why... why is the Minister there..."
"Huh..?"
"Where he is..."
"No, he's right there! Can't you see?"
"I really can't see him..."
"What?"
Jeracle side — 30 minutes earlier, non-material realm
If any human could hear this, they'd call it a miracle. Strange Zombies can perform spacetime jumps and hyperspace leaps without constraint, appearing unpredictably. Their bodies, made of strange matter, let them routinely develop quantum tech. They detach parts of themselves, convert up and down quarks via X-particle mediation into leptons to form atoms, then molecules and matter. And that's not even necessary — they convert anything they touch into strange matter, then reassemble the universe's substance as they please.
But none of that holds before me.
ROOOOAR
"Pitiful."
My vacuum decay authority plunged the non-material realm's energy into true vacuum collapse.
STEP
BANG
BANG
BANG
BANG
My 120mm large-caliber APHE autocannon pistol flashed from my hand.
With each trigger pull, shells fired at near-lightspeed.
CRUNCH
"ARRRGH!!!"
Hit flesh exploded into chunks — eyeballs, teeth spraying like fountains. Bodies split at impact points, shockwaves pulverizing surroundings.
The recoil was immense, shredding attackers behind me: flesh stripped, muscles torn, bones cracking and shattering into unrecognizable fragments.
My follow-up shots popped remaining veins, tissues, organs like popcorn in a gruesome demise. Then antimatter-matter reactions chained into explosions.
KABOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
"I need not even move against vermin like you. If you cannot touch the outer shell of Phineas Maxwell Angelique, how dare you think you can lay a hand on me? There is no need for discourse with you. You hold no value to me, and thus beholding my visage becomes valueless to you as well."
Some dimension-jumped toward me, but none escaped my foresight. As they closed in, I deleted their spacetime entirely — even the process of my next actions. Light shells I'd planted in them detonated the instant deletion lifted, oxidizing them.
KABOOM!
"Guh?!"
"Even if you struck me squarely with that assault, the outcome would be thus, fools."
I halted time perfectly, sealing their movements, and spoke.
"Perish by your own hands."
STEP
CRUNCH
I thrust my right hand forward and clenched. Spacetime crumpled like a black hole, crushing their bodies together.
SCRAAAAAPE
"In your final moments, prattle on about what actions were essential to mimic even the merest fraction of my power. There shall be ears aplenty to indulge you."
CRACKLE-CRACKLE
As my words ended, lightning arced between them, vaporizing them wholesale. I released time stop deliberately, drawing in reinforcements, then accelerated their local time while reversing the non-material realm's — erasing them via time paradox black holes and wormholes.
"WAAAAAAGH!!!!!"
Their flesh centrifugally shredded across timelines, quantum fluctuations igniting spacetime into explosions.
"Now I can return to the moment Mephauric came under assault. By now, our psionics are overloading enemy weapons. The imposed condition was elite few defending the camp to assert strategic superiority — tactical losses are irrelevant. Per Lanchester's laws, prolonged uncorrected damage on the perimeter fools them into thinking we've reached our offensive endpoint.
Above all, they lack full commitment without achieving goals like camp destruction, occupation, or my neutralization — probability of total force deployment is nil. This battle's core emphasizes our qualitative superiority over numbers, forcing them into passive stances: Lanchester-favoring quality over quantity, minimizing our losses. It compels efficiency obsession.
"In essence, exclude brute numerical rushes accepting attrition for momentum. Push minimal-loss maximal-gain only. They'll subconsciously prioritize efficiency — hesitate at the first attrition demand, even once. That's when I cease covert ops, feigning our side's deception, and strike full force. So, employ your intellect: match my memory, comprehension, inference, cognition, insight, calculation. If you perish thereby, I shall grant respect."
With that, I opened a portal from the non-material realm to Mephauric's spacetime.
Mike side
"Silberin!!!"
KABOOOOOM!
"Noooooooooo!!!"
White light flashed once; buildings superheated and detonated massively. Silberin was gone.
"This... this...!!!"
Rage boiling over, I unleashed plasma cannon and heat ray at meltdown levels on the enemy.
PEW
PEW
PEW
PEW
PEW
PEW
PEW
ZZZZZZZZZING
"RAAAAAARGH!!! You fucking scum-sucking bastards!!!"
Buildings and ground exploded indiscriminately wherever my plasma and heat rays grazed.
BOOM
KABOOM
KABOOM
KABOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
BANG
BANG
BANG
BANG
BANG
Invisible shots from the dark behind pulverized enemies. To my fury-blinded eyes, they were just more targets.
SWOOSH
I forgot, in the wind-up, that hypersonic incoming could trigger blasts on buildings and ground.
"Shit..."
KABOOOOOM!
Ansolrok side — same time
WHOOSH
KABOOM
I'd glimpsed the Minister briefly and reeled, but other mercs missed it — no time to dwell.
Our ground psionics had molecularly heated shells, boosting firepower; enemies stupidly smashing buildings got wiped out.
Only air forces left — no navy since they portaled from near-orbit. Just shoot them down.
"They're really panicking. Or more precisely, rattled by an unrelated portal opening — can't gauge reinforcements."
"Yeah. They acted on intel; unexpected variables make them think we're counter-ambushing."
"No escape routes. Time to use the nanocripplers in their corpses."
"Aye. As bodies decompose, nanocripplers infiltrate, induce heart attacks. Seeing corpse piles floating in orbit? Not mere debris — they'll mistake for ambushes, hesitate clearing them, stay vigilant... then infect and die en masse."
"Precisely."
We telekinetically lifted enemy corpses, hurling them toward near-orbit.
VROOOOM
WHOOSH
Corpses streamed before enemy air forces; they panicked, unable to sweep them casually.
"Ambush!!!"
"Eyes everywhere!!!"
"Stay together!!!"
STEP
STEP
STEP
"Hm?"
"Guhhh..."
"Kek!!!"
"Wh-what is this...!!!"
"Ughhhh..."
POOF
As nanocripplers from corpses infected them, disorienting, we teleported into their ships.
"Gotta fight, right? Yeah, steel yourself. Though you've already lost."
"Wh-what!!!"
"Gahk!!!"
"Cough!!!"
"ARRRGH!!!"
THUD
THUD
THUD
THUD
"Heh heh heh... Fools. Instead of fleeing for survival, you stood guard. Your comrades' corpses dragged you to the same fate."
Thus, the Russian nationalists were annihilated. The Battle of Mephauric ended in our decisive victory.
"This? I can feel confident now. Seems I alone saw the Minister's brief appearance. Won't feel ashamed facing the aide anymore."