The battle had turned into a meat grinder, grinding away in the southern district with neither side giving ground.
The Imperial forces hit hard and didn't let up. The Tival Defense Force's lines nearly broke more times than anyone could count. They held together only through sheer stubbornness and some decent tactical calls from the players, mostly veterans like User114514 who actually knew what they were doing.
User114514 and See You Tomorrow had fallen into a rhythm, battlefield vulture and his repair guy.
User114514 handled the shooting. His aim and positioning got sharper by the minute. He'd pick off Imperial Assault troops getting too close and suppress their gun emplacements.
See You Tomorrow stuck to his Engineer role, following right behind.
Whatever cover User114514 tagged as shot to hell, See You Tomorrow would hustle over and patch it up, his tools clanging away. When they captured a strongpoint that needed holding, he'd drop auto-turrets. When a laser burned a hole through User114514's armor, he'd break out the basic tools and patch it on the fly.
See You Tomorrow's performance wasn't anything special, but he wasn't dead weight either. His controls were a little clumsy, his reaction time wasn't great, but the kid stayed calm.
Laser fire zipped past his head. Explosions went off close enough to feel. AI soldiers screamed and dropped all around him. The kind of chaos that would send most newbies into a panic didn't seem to touch him.
He'd just follow User114514's straightforward orders and get the job done. That kind of composure in someone so young actually caught User114514 off guard.
"Kid's got nerves of steel," User114514 muttered over squad comms during a lull.
See You Tomorrow never responded.
The fighting was brutal, but it didn't hit See You Tomorrow the way his mother had hoped. It didn't break through that emptiness inside him. Sure, there was tension, adrenaline pumping, but it felt more like his body going through the motions.
It didn't reach that silent wasteland in his chest.
The game was good. Graphics were incredible, gameplay was unforgiving. But that was it. Get addicted and play every day? Not really.
Time dragged on. The Imperial forces bled for every inch, but eventually they squeezed the Tival Defense Force into their last holdout.
The Imperial troop counter had dropped below the threshold that triggered their final push.
That suffocating pressure descended again.
The commander's voice crackled through the half-busted broadcast system, nearly screaming: "They're throwing everything at us! For the Emperor! For the Golden Throne! Break them!"
The ground shook.
That Leman Russ Destroyer rolled out of the smoke like a mobile fortress, elite Cadian Assault troops flanking it. The thing looked like judgment day on treads, its cannon starting to charge up with an ominous glow.
"Shit!"
User114514 swore under his breath, ducking behind a half-collapsed wall and swapping energy mags. He'd burned through most of his points in the grind and barely had enough left for basic supplies.
He glanced at See You Tomorrow crouched beside him, the Engineer who'd been quietly following him around and seemed to have barely spent anything.
"Kid!" User114514 talked fast. "You got points left? Move it! Don't buy smoke, don't buy an artillery strike, that crap's useless here! Get promethium anti-tank charges! Buy a few! Or call in an airdrop missile! We gotta kill that iron turtle! If it gets right up on us with this few people, we're done!"
Worried the kid wouldn't get it, he emphasized: "Listen! Whatever you do, don't waste it on that expensive nuke option! That thing's got way too much delay, takes like four, five seconds to land, and the tank'll be long gone! Unless you can somehow predict exactly where it's gonna be, but that's basically impossible! Spend your points smart, get anti-tank gear you can use right now!"
See You Tomorrow listened.
His eyes flicked to the points display in the corner of his vision: 10,350. Between repairs, turrets, and assist kills, he'd racked up a decent chunk. Enough to call in one Tactical Nuke for ten thousand points.
"I'll just predict it then," he said, his voice completely flat, like he was talking about the weather.
User114514 was lining up harassment shots on the tank with his laser rifle, trying to draw fire from its coaxial gun. He almost laughed.
"Kid, quit messing around! You think predicting's that easy? That tank's not a sitting duck! It can move, turn, and the commander's gonna dodge any bombardment zones! You really think you can predict where it'll be? Unless you're riding inside the damn thing—"
He didn't get to finish.
See You Tomorrow's character suddenly stood up, completely ignoring the stray rounds screaming overhead and the tank's cannon swiveling their way. The kid tapped through his tactical tablet a few times.
[See You Tomorrow has called in: Tactical Nuke]
[Target area marked]
[Strike inbound in 4.7 seconds]
"What the—! You...!" User114514's eyes went wide, half shocked, half dismayed. "That's ten thousand points! You just threw it away! We're screwed, we're actually gonna lose this round! Where'd you even mark it? Quick, cancel... wait, you can't cancel!"
He watched helplessly as the red targeting circle appeared on the battlefield, still a good distance from the Leman Russ, which was slowly turning to find its next target. At its current speed and heading, in 4.7 seconds the nuke would clip its rear end at best.
Or... miss completely.
"Jesus..." User114514 sighed.
He wasn't actually mad, it was just a game. But still, what a waste. The kid seemed so level-headed and then pulled this at the worst possible moment.
On the battlefield, 4.7 seconds flew by.
The Leman Russ finished its turret rotation, the massive main gun aimed at a defensive position in the rebel core. The commander seemed completely oblivious to the death about to rain down from above.
3 seconds.
2 seconds.
1 second.
A split second before the nuclear strike came down, the Leman Russ suddenly jerked into a sharp pivot combined with a slight reverse. Maybe it got new orders. Maybe the commander had a sudden impulse. Maybe a stray round screwed with its sensors.
The massive vehicle was probably adjusting for a better firing angle.
That tiny, seemingly random tactical adjustment moved its thick turret and the front half of its hull dead center into the red targeting circle.
BOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!
The world went white.
Pure light and heat consumed everything. A massive mushroom cloud of dust and ionized air punched into the sky.
Inside the blast radius, the swaggering Cadian Assault troops and the struggling Tival remnants nearby were vaporized instantly.
At ground zero, the Leman Russ Destroyer didn't even have time to react. It just disintegrated into molten droplets and shrapnel.
[See You Tomorrow has destroyed Leman Russ Destroyer (Final Offensive)!]
[See You Tomorrow has killed... (a string of Imperial player and AI names)]
User114514 got knocked on his ass by the shockwave. His screen shook like crazy, his headphones blasting with deafening noise and the system frantically spamming kill notifications.
He sat there stunned, jaw hanging open.
"What?!" The word came out strangled and disbelieving.
That... that actually worked?!
Dumb luck? Insane RNG? Or...
He whipped around to look at See You Tomorrow.
But See You Tomorrow wasn't looking at him. The kid's character stood quietly behind cover, the explosion's glare lighting up one side of his helmet. His gaze seemed to look through the nuclear dust still hanging in the air, staring at something beyond.
Because in the center of his vision, that familiar special interface had appeared again. Deep blue geometric lines edged toward purple, flickering runes. That piercing raven's eye gazed at him, and this time it seemed to carry something almost like... satisfaction.
Below the interface, new text unfurled line by line, threaded with light like strands of fate:
[The threads of fate trembled from the tug of a single "coincidence"...]
[The Lord of Change, in the river of endless possibilities, has noticed you... perhaps with appreciation, perhaps with amusement... a smile.]
[Legendary Task Activated:]
[Task Name: Nine Changes]
[Task Objective: In your next nine separate matches, use Battlefield Support abilities (orbital bombardment, tactical nukes, strategic artillery, airdropped heavy weapons, etc.) to successfully destroy or eliminate the enemy faction's highest-value strategic unit in that match (final offensive vehicles, faction special heroes, greater daemons, Titans, etc.).]
[Task Progress: 1/9]
[Task Reward: Upon completing Nine Changes, you will receive... "Hellstorm," and a trace of... "blessing" from the Lord of Change, the Weaver of Fate (effect unknown)]
[Note: Change is the only constant. Go weave your own... destiny.]
See You Tomorrow stared at the words.
And in the depths of those eyes that had been hollow and calm for so long, for the first time, there appeared something so faint even he didn't notice it...
A ripple.