Chapter 133: Descent 2
Frank crouched low over the carcass of a massive, horned beast whose scaly hide shimmered faintly with residual mana. Frost laced the edges of its wounds, blood steaming against the glacial soil. The storm had killed it mid-charge, freezing its roar into a silent snarl. Its amber core pulsed weakly beneath the bone and sinew, like a dying star clinging to the last breath of magic.
With practiced precision, Frank slid his reinforced dagger into the beast's chest, the blade parting bone like parchment. He twisted, and with a wet snap, the core came loose.
"Another one," he muttered, sliding it into a storage pouch reinforced with temporal stasis magic. His breath fogged the air in front of him, despite the cloaks designed to regulate body temperature. He stood, scanning the terrain around him. The valley, once vibrant and alive, had become a graveyard littered with twisted corpses of winged lizards, six-legged elk, and mana-fed serpents. Most had died mid-motion, locked in confusion and terror as the sky itself shattered around them.
His instincts buzzed at the base of his spine old instincts, honed beside Philip in places where reality thinned and consequences sharpened.
He approached the next body, this one longer, more serpentine, with translucent wings and crystalline fangs. But before he could reach it, he felt it.
A subtle pull. Not physical, but deeper like a ripple in a still lake calling him to the center.
His fingers hovered near the weapon on his hip as he turned slowly.
"Squads Two and Three," Frank said, tapping the communicator embedded into his collar, "halt collection and move to defensive formation. No more wandering."
There was a pause. "Copy that, Captain," came several voices, tinged with confusion. But they didn't argue.
He didn't explain. Some truths didn't need words only survival. His gut was screaming now. Not fear. Knowing.
Returning to the shuttle perimeter, he found Squad One busy packing the condensed mana-ice they had collected forty tonnes of glowing frost loaded into rune-locked crates. It shimmered faintly, pulsing with ambient magic. Their breath came fast, eyes wide, the pressure of UR beginning to take its toll.
"Wrap it up," Frank ordered. "We store the rest once the ship is charged."
Commander Jega, his most experienced officer, looked up. "Something's off?"
Frank nodded slowly, eyes scanning the horizon. "This place isn't as abandoned as it looks."
A gust of wind rolled past them too cold, too sharp and with it came a sound just barely audible. A kind of whisper, distant yet intrusive, curling around their thoughts like fog through cracked glass.
Frank's hand was already on his blade. "Everyone, back into the shuttle. Now."
"Sir?" Jega questioned, but Frank was already moving.
Then came the quake.
It was subtle at first gentle vibrations in the soles of their boots. Then the land groaned like it was breathing.
"That's not natural," Jega whispered, stepping beside him.
" "Should we retreat?"
Frank didn't answer. Not immediately. He closed his eyes, inhaled deep, and remembered Philip's face. His calm, always calm even when reality itself tried to tear them apart.
They had a mission.
He rushed to the shuttle and slid into the engine room. The core crystal was barely charged ambient mana too slow. He gritted his teeth, pulled out the high-grade mana stone Philip had given him the "battery."
Without hesitation, he jammed it into the primary reactor.
There was a thunderous hum as the ship drank the power. Lights flickered, shields flared, and the internal systems surged with renewed vigor. The shuttle came to life like a sleeping beast roused.
Frank yanked the mana stone out and shoved it back into his spatial ring. Outside, a deep, gluttonous roar echoed across the land. From behind the hills came a creature that should not have existed.
It was vast. A thing of frozen tendrils and twisting jaws, it moved like smoke and glacier combined. It crashed into the valley and sucked literally inhaled the ambient mana and the remaining mana-ice, pulling it into its impossible form like a star collapsing into itself.
It stopped.
Turned.
For a moment, Frank felt its attention like the planet itself had looked at him.
Then, just as suddenly, it turned away and continued feasting on the ice.
The shuttle lifted silently into the sky, all aboard holding their breath.
Nobody spoke until they were far away.
A Few Hours Later...
The shuttle descended through a pocket of thick clouds, UR's twin suns casting gold and crimson hues across the endless forest canopy below.
The new landing zone came into view: a wide plateau of blackened volcanic stone surrounded by dense iridescent forest. Colossal vines crept over the treetops like snakes seeking warmth, and the very air shimmered with oppressive mana radiation. Everything here was too alive.
A cave mouth opened at the far edge of the plateau seamlessly, as if the land itself had peeled back. Only those who knew where to look would see it.
The ship entered and landed within the cavern. It sealed itself again behind them.
As the team disembarked, weapons drawn and senses sharp, Frank walked forward flanked by his two lieutenants, both Commander-ranked. His boots echoed against ancient stone, his breath thick in his lungs.
Some Adepts were already struggling breathing in heavy, laborious gasps. UR's pressure bore down on them. Their bodies, even enhanced, were still foreign to this plane.
Frank opened his comm channel.
"Welcome to UR," he said, voice even. "This isn't Earth. This isn't a battlefield. This is survival. We move in squads. We rest every seven hours. No wandering. No glory-hunting. No egos. Your only mission is to live long enough."
A chorus of affirmation buzzed back, more serious now.
Then came the impact. With a thunderous crash, orbital supply pods dropped into the cavern. Reinforced and warded against detection, they opened automatically to reveal everything they would need: mana-forged weapons, pressure-regulated cloaks, resistance pills, food rations, and scrolls for emergencies.
Frank reviewed the updated extraction quotas. Still harsh but nowhere near the insanity of the last mission. Three-month windows. Fifty percent yield. The Okoli family had relented.