Keon adjusted the Bck Sun's drones' visual and thermal sensors, refocusing on the intermediate space… the critical, one-meter gap between the Green Veil and the Blue Veil where the three tanks had briefly rested before their final charge. The live thermal feed pulsed red-hot from the residual heat of the tanks, but deeper beneath the surface, the sand showed subtle, cooler anomalies.
And there, the premonition confirmed itself with brutal crity.
Three massive, fresh craters, deep enough to fully conceal a human figure in the high-gravity sand, scarred the ground in the narrow safe zone. The sand dispcement was evident… a clear sign of a rapid, forceful burrowing. Faint, quickly fading thermal shadows of bodies were visible at the bottom of the makeshift pits, a testament to the speed of their escape. The surface sand around the craters was violently mounded and unsettled, a clear sign of desperate, high-force movement.
‘Evasion confirmed. He ordered the occupants to exit the tank and dig into the sand while the vehicle was still within the Green Veil’s effective distance, using the final charge as a distraction,’
Keon concluded, a flicker of grudging acknowledgement in his core. ‘A low-risk pn, quick thinking with absolute timing. This guy is not as bad as I thought he would be. Anyway, the moment he dove into the sand, he already lost this battle.’
Keon then decided to ignore the Kai for a while and shifted its focus back to the ongoing invasion wave. The serpentine worms, having already passed the Yellow Veil, were executing the same tactical plunge, instantly diving into the soft sand to escape the Green Veil above. Dozens of rger creatures followed their lead, their armored carapaces disappearing beneath the surface, transforming the ground in front of the psma array into a dynamic, hostile environment.
‘They are adapting rapidly to defensive geometry. The Green and Blue Veils, while effective sterilizers, have created a safe zone between them,’ Keon analyzed. ‘The surface of my world is now being colonized by the enemy beneath the very sand I control. Anyway, even if they try, they can't dig through the two hundred kilometer prison bubble I built for them.’
A new, cold resolve settled in Keon’s core; the decision had escated from defense to imprisonment.
‘First, the connection between Kai and his surface forces must be severed. He must be isoted and trapped on this pnet with his resources cut off. The two hundred kilometer bubble will become his prison; he will become my test experiment subject.’
Keon thought, his internal thoughts devised a new pn.
[Target: Eliminate safe zone between yers 1, 2, and 3.]
The energy signature across the entire ten-kilometer filter array spiked instantly.
The intricate ttice of Tier 1 and Tier 2 emitters began to contract and move. The Yellow Veil, Green Veil, and Blue Veil, previously separated by a meter distance, began to compress, the distance shrinking by millimeters per second.
The psma yers were being physically pushed together, eliminating the gap.
‘Once the veils merge, the psma fields will combine and homogenize. The resulting energy field will span from the portal face to the final Blue Veil, a continuous, three-meter wall of escating, annihiting heat and corrosion,’
Keon calcuted with supreme confidence. ‘There will be no space for evasion. Any incoming creature will be forced to choose between instantaneous vaporization or remaining in the constant, sterilizing psma long enough to be boiled alive. They will not be able to dig, because if they stop or slow down they will be cooked.’
The fabrication system within the base instantly acknowledged and began executing the complex geometric shift, physically moving the one thousand emitters to erase the weakness in the defense. The silence of the base now contained the faint, deep thrum of massive, subterranean mechanisms adjusting their final defense.
…
The massive, subterranean mechanisms, designed for the quiet engineering of a mechanical apocalypse, began their geometric work. The thousand-plus psma emitters moved with an impossible precision, their foundational anchors sliding along pre-set magnetic tracks, drawing the defense yers into a single, terrifying volume.
Keon watched the energy signature on his dispy; the three distinct yers... yellow, green, and blue... were dissolving their separate identities, their psma fields bleeding into one another. The combined energy field pulsed with a continuous, escating intensity, a lethal, sterilizing wall of annihiting heat. The subtle, cold logic of the machine had just eliminated the st tactical retreat for the invading forces.
‘Gap elimination confirmed. The Multi-Layer Mirror Psma Filter is now a cohesive, continuous field. Any unauthorized mass will be instantly vaporized upon entry. Ground-level infiltration is now impossible,’ Keon finalized, a cold, analytical confidence stabilizing his core.
…
Meanwhile, a few hundred meters away from the portal, the deceptively quiet desert surface exploded.
A geyser of soft, orange sand spttered outward as the ground convulsed. First, a few serpentine heads, followed by massive, irregur segments of armored bodies, violently emerged from the sand. These were the rgest, toughest worms and mutated earth-crawlers that had executed the initial burrowing evasion. Now, they served a new purpose: a living shield and a distraction.
The colossal, writhing figures receded, nding back into the sand on command, revealing a small cluster of figures standing rigidly on the surface. Kai and his remaining five evolved subordinates, cd in their heavy, custom-made tactical suits and corrosive-resistant masks, stood exposed in the harsh, high-gravity environment.
The suits, which had barely protected them from the baking heat inside the sandpits and the brief, terrifying exposure to the Yellow Veil’s heat, now helped manage the hostile atmosphere of UHS1.
Immediately, hundreds of smaller, armored creatures, the remnants of the invasion wave that had successfully burrowed, began to emerge around them, moving silently and precisely on the soft sand. Giant, chitinous mice, rge scorpions, and armored, segmented earthworms formed a protective, defensive perimeter around their master. The creatures were damaged, their carapaces scored by psma, but their movements were unified, dictated by Kai’s presence.
"Sigh! We have lost Reeves."
Lilith was the first to speak with a sigh, her voice filtered and tinny through the suit's comms, a note of heaviness in her tone as she surveyed the remaining teammates and the orange, barren ndscape of UHS1.
"Probably, he couldn't make it through the underground pressure." she said, her head slowly turning from the massive portal to the endless dunes. "No corrosion, no spores. Just heavy gravity. If it weren't for our second stage evolver strength, we also would have been crushed by it."
Another subordinate, a heavily built man named Rexus, grunted through his mask. "Definitely, the pressure here feels like wearing a suit of lead. It’s a dead world, nothing here but sand and this oppressive weight. No wonder he couldn't make it with his first grade evolver strength, he was a good technical expert though."
"Wait…" Vera, another subordinate voice cut in, edged with sudden arm. "Where is civilization on this side? Except the portal… I can't see any sign. Why is it quiet?"
Kai did not answer; he stood motionless, his back to the portal. Not showing any sign of emotion over the loss of his subordinate, his unnervingly bck eyes scanning the far horizon for any sign of a defensive instaltion or hostile drone. The high-gravity environment pressed on his top-grade-level two evolved physique, a physical viotion that fueled his anger.
A low, cold, guttural sound, filled with a searing, desperate frustration, fell on their ears through the comms channel.
"Useless," Kai spat the word, the anger in his voice thick and palpable. He cursed under his breath, a single, violent word in their pre-apocalypse nguage, before turning his head with terrifying slowness toward Lilith. His bck eyes, magnified by the helmet's gss, fixed on her.
"No more creatures will be able to pass the portal. Not even the spores," Kai stated, his voice now cold and utterly devoid of warmth. "The enemy changed their strategy. I can no longer feel the connection. Any creature invading the portal is instantly vaporized."
He paused, and the air around them seemed to drop even more despite the cold temperature of the desert. "I've lost the link to my army on the other side. My connection… it's broken at the portal. Every creature, every organism I controlled on our world... they are all cut off from my will."
Lilith and the others froze, horrified. The absolute control, the single foundation of their power and survival, had been severed.
"Cut off?" Lilith whispered, her usual ferocity utterly extinguished. "But… but your link can control each and every undead! It’s absolute! If the portal can block your will from this side, and that heat prevents invading creatures, what… What do we do now? We’re stranded, Kai."
...