The small blips Sage had picked up on the edge of the radar were just the warning flare.
By the time the base alarms started screaming, the sky was already gone. Nine massive dropships, each looking like a skyscraper tipped onto its side, broke through the heavy dust clouds. They descended with an eerie, unhurried precision, forming a massive gray wedge that blocked out the horizon. That was what made Adam's chest tighten, not the sheer size of the fleet, but their casual rhythm. They moved like conquerors who had done this a thousand times before and already knew exactly how the night would end.
Inside the command bunker, Holloway, the burly, ash-skinned base commander, was staring at a terminal as the worst-case scenario unfurled.
"It's everywhere," his comms officer muttered, pressing a hand against his earpiece, his face completely pale. "Every single front. The main offensive line, the crystal world, our sector, all hit at the same time. Ten minutes apart at most. Command says there's no backup. There's nobody left to send."
Adam stood near the doorway, his silver eyes catching the strobe of the warning lights. Of course there isn't, he thought bitterly. They timed it perfectly.
Before the soldiers could even process the panic, the automated perimeter defenses reacted on their own. Massive rail-spears, thick as tree trunks, hissed out of their siloes and punched straight into the sky. The lead dropship took a direct hit to its core, buckling violently before bursting into an orange fireball that illuminated the dusty basin.
But the enemy didn't care about casualties. Even as wreckage rained down, the remaining eight ships opened their massive lower bellies, and a dark tide of soldiers poured out into the open air.
Then, the fleet opened fire.
[ PERIMETER WARNING: MULTI-ANGLE SALVO INBOUND ]
It was a blinding wall of light. Dozens of tracking missiles, searing plasma beams, and heavy kinetic slugs roared downward, tearing the air apart. Sector 5's explorers scrambled along the parapet, throwing up every defensive quirk, energy barrier, and colored shield they had. But anyone who could do the sums could see the truth: the first wave alone would shatter the wall like glass, and there were seven more behind it.
Holloway was barking desperate orders into a dead comm line. Adam didn't wait around to listen. He stepped past the commander, walked right up to the base of the massive wall, and looked up at the descending apocalypse. A cold smile touched his face.
Let's see how much pressure I can take, Sage. Double!
He didn't just summon one or two clones. He opened the floodgates on the stolen quirk, pouring his stamina into the engine all at once. The air along the entire parapet tore open with a sharp, static pop. A hundred identical Adams stepped out of the empty air, standing shoulder-to-shoulder across the full length of the Sector 5 wall. No fancy gear, no weapons, just a quiet, unified front of identical dark coats.
The prime Adam stayed at the very center of the wall. He planted his boots, took a deep breath, and let his voice drop into a resonant, booming register that rattled the stone beneath him.
"NEW ORDER!" he commanded, his voice carrying the absolute weight of a universal law. "The air directly above this base, a dome one kilometer wide, becomes a solid barrier!"
The sky instantly rippled. A thousand meters out in every direction, the thin atmosphere locked up, freezing into a massive, clear crystalline shell that capped Sector 5 like a glass lid.
"NEW ORDER!" Adam spoke again, layering the second rule without a moment of hesitation. "That dome is completely indestructible. Nothing but pure light can pass through it!"
[ ALERT: Two conceptual rules established, Host. The entirety of New Order is now fully deployed and sustained. ]
The incoming barrage struck a fraction of a second later.
The impact was deafening, but entirely harmless. Heavy missiles flattened against the transparent curve and tumbled away as scrap. White plasma beams splashed harmlessly across the crystalline roof, burning themselves out like cheap fireworks. Massive metal slugs crumpled into jagged chunks, sliding down the slope of the dome onto the barren dirt below. A wave of absolute destruction had met a barrier that simply refused to budge. Inside the base, it felt as if the world had suddenly gone on pause.
Both rules locked up in the dome? Adam asked internally, his eyes tracking the smoke clearing above. Even with a hundred copies of me walking around?
[ Correct. The restriction is tied to your singular mind, not the number of bodies you manifest. One mind, one Order. Your doubles share the same pool, meaning you have no active slots left for the ground assault. ]
Fine, Adam thought, his gaze hardening as he looked out at the enemy army. The rest of the kit is more than enough.
An eerie silence fell over the battlefield. The wall guns spun down because there was nothing left to shoot through. On the parapets, the defenders stared open-mouthed at the glowing cage of light protecting them, then down at the hundred identical men who had built it. Out in the dust, the charging alien swarm slowed to a confused crawl.
Holloway stumbled out of the bunker, his jaw loose as he looked at the invincible roof. "What did you just do?"
"I took care of defense," Adam said cleanly, his senses already scanning the horizon.
His smile vanished. Past the edge of the dome, the lower-tier fodder troops were carrying heavy, pulsing things, wet, fleshy sacs the size of grown men, dragged through the center of the swarm like prized eggs.
An infestation strike, Adam realized, his High Specs quirk instantly mapping out the enemy's logic. They aren't trying to break the wall. They want to seed the base, let the rot spread up our logistics chain, and force a collapse from the inside. That's why every front was hit at the exact same hour, to lock us down so we can't reinforce each other.
[ Tactical analysis aligns with your conclusion, Host. This world was designed to be bait. ]
"They're preparing the ground for an invasion of Earth," Adam muttered aloud, turning his head as Ren and Lyra rushed up the stone steps behind him.
He looked up at his clones. "The dome will hold, and wont expire anytime soon. We aren't defending anymore. We're clearing the board." He pointed toward the shifting front line. "The dome locks us in just as much as it keeps them out, so we teleport. Ren, Lyra, you two take the center. Keep your eyes on the Tier 5s trying to flank the sides, and don't overextend."
Lyra looked at the sky, then glanced down the long line of ninety-nine identical Adams. "And what are all of them doing?"
"Hunting," Adam said.
[ Technopathy Channel Established. Energy signatures confirm six Level 6 variants at the perimeter. No Level 7 threats detected yet. I will update immediately if parameters shift. ]
"Six of them?" Lyra cracked her knuckles, a thick, pale aura of raw kinetic force settling over her fists. "First real deployment with the guild leader, and he hogs the entire heavy line. Selfish."
Adam didn't argue. He flicked his wrist, and a dozen black, swirling rifts tore open along the base of the wall. His Warp Gate quirk gave him a perfect view of the chaotic gray fields outside.
"Move out," he said.
The ninety-nine clones didn't hesitate. They stepped through the spatial rifts in perfect unison, dropping right into the teeth of the alien swarm.
[ COMBAT ENGAGEMENT: ACTIVE ]
What followed wasn't a standard skirmish; it was a meat grinder. Reinforced with the physical baseline of an apex predator, the clones moved at terrifying speeds, swatting lower-tier Xenomorphs aside like paper weights. Their bare fists tore straight through hardened carapaces, breaking the dark tide against a wall of relentless, unbothered men.
Then, the choreography of his quirks took over.
The Terrafounders: A dozen Adams slammed their palms into the rocky terrain. The Overhaul quirk rippled through the bedrock like an electric current, turning the solid earth into a living weapon. Jagged stone spikes shot upward, skewering whole columns of charging enemies. Pits opened like giant mouths, swallowing whole squads of Yhwcha before snapping shut and burying them alive.
The Ash-Walkers: Another group of clones advanced with an eerie, rhythmic stride, their hands glowing with a dull, gray haze. The awakened Decay quirk crept forward in wide, expanding rings. Everything it touched, beast, bio-armor, or the pulsing infestation sacs, softened, crumbled, and dissolved into fine gray ash within seconds.
The Vanguard: Where the enemy pack was too dense to navigate, bright blue flames roared out. Heavy torrents of Blue Fire incinerated entire lanes of the battlefield, turning the frontline into a scorched wasteland.
Up in the air, the dropships weren't safe either. Using Warp Gate, twenty Adams stepped through rifts suspended high above the ground, landing heavily on the metal hulls of the floating transports. Some tore the armor apart with Overhaul, while others pressed their palms to the thrusters, letting Decay rot the engines until the massive structures listed sideways and crashed into the dirt.
Hunting the Crown
While his clones turned the vanguard into an ash heap, the real Adam went looking for the true dangers on the field. The six Level 6 variants were acting as anchors for the swarm, pulling back to adapt to his sudden offensive.
Adam activated Shadowstep, vanishing into a nearby fold of darkness and reappearing directly in the center of their formation.
He knew exactly what he was dealing with. Physically, these bioweapons were larger, denser, and far faster than him. In a pure contest of muscle, they could break him. But they didn't have his versatility, they didn't have a tactical super-computer running simulations in their heads, and they couldn't rewrite the rules of engagement.
The first Level 6, a towering Yhwcha elite, flickered into his vision, swinging a massive blade of hardened bone while a shoulder-mounted plasma cannon whined as it charged.
Adam didn't try to dodge the shot. Using his Decryption overlay, he tracked the weapon's trajectory and reached out with Theft from thirty meters away.
Mine.
With a sudden distortion of space, the entire plasma cannon vanished from the creature's shoulder, snapping instantly into Adam's personal pocket dimension. The elite stumbled, its simple brain stalling for a crucial second.
Hehe, first yoink of the battle.
The bone blade still came down, heavy enough to split a boulder. Adam angled his shoulder, letting the Quiet Coat take the brunt of the impact. The suit's defensive weave absorbed the kinetic shock, turning a lethal cleave into a heavy shove.
Adam closed the distance, his hands clad in the Twin-Blow Knuckles. He drove a short, brutal hook directly into the beast's ribcage. The weapon did its work, delivering a dual shockwave that shattered the physical carapace while tearing through the creature's spiritual core. He struck again, layering four rapid-fire blows into the exact same fracture point until the massive creature collapsed into the dirt, its lifeforce completely extinguished.
"One," Adam muttered, Shadowstepping before the blood could even hit his coat.
The next few minutes were a blur of absolute violence.
A massive Xenomorph Praetorian, dripping high-grade acid that hissed against the stone, tried to corner him. Without New Order available to bind it, Adam used Air Step to jump over a sweeping tail strike, extending a hand as he came down. He unleashed a concentrated stream of Decay, holding the grey rot steady against the creature's dense hide until it dissolved into a puddle of smoking sludge.
Numbers eventually became the real enemy. A combined wave of two Level 6s and a dozen heavy Level 5s swarmed his position, their claws managing to bypass his suit's dispersion layers. A jagged blade caught him across the flank, drawing a sharp line of crimson.
Adam didn't panic. His Super Regeneration quirk immediately went to work, stitching the muscle tissue back together as he moved. He used Overhaul to twist the rock around them into fissures and jagged formations, pinning the attackers in place. It couldn't hold them long, but a few seconds was enough. A final, sweeping wave of Decay finished them off while they were trapped in the rock.
By the time he cleared the bottleneck, his clones had secured the perimeter.
Across the center of the field, Ren and Lyra were working in perfect sync. Lyra was an immovable wall, her kinetic gauntlets shattering anything that got within arm's reach. Ren moved like a ghost, her specialized spear neutralizing energy shields and armors with terrifying ease.
The final two Level 6 shepherds, the ones driving the infestation sacs, realized the front line had evaporated and immediately bolted for the dark edge of the battlefield.
Adam didn't give them the chance.
He slammed his palms onto the ground, sending a violent surge of Overhaul rippling through the bedrock. The stone beneath the fleeing monsters buckled and violently surged upward, creating a jagged wall of broken earth that completely derailed their momentum. Before the dust from the collapsing terrain could even settle, Adam used Shadowstep, instantly blinking into the darkness right in front of their path.
But these creatures weren't standard fodder; they possessed engineered combat instincts of their own.
The leading Xenomorph hybrid anticipated the spatial drop. The exact moment Adam materialized from the shadows, a jagged, spear-like bone blade was already thrusting forward in a blinding blur. The strike punched cleanly through his Quiet Coat, piercing his chest and pinning him brutally to the rocky ground.
Adam gasped, a rare flash of shock hitting his mind before his baseline predator senses took over. Gritting his teeth through the impact, he brought his boot up in a sharp, explosive kick against the creature's main joint. The force of the strike sent the heavy Xenomorph rolling backward, wrenching the blade free from Adam's torso.
Then, the real nightmare started.
The blade had been heavily coated in high-grade bio-acid, and the burning venom was already pumping directly into his thoracic cavity, rapidly liquefying muscle and bone from the inside out. The agony was so sudden and blindingly intense that a raw, guttural scream tore from his throat.
[ CRITICAL WARNING: Severe internal tissue degradation. Super Regeneration timeline insufficient to prevent organ collapse. Activating Rewind. ]
His silver eyes flared with a brilliant light as the fragment of the authority of Time gripped his body. The spreading acid vanished into nothingness, the melted tissue knit itself back together in a reverse blur, and his fractured ribs snapped back into perfect alignment. He was back in peak condition in a heartbeat, just in time to duck as the second shepherd's tail whipped through the air where his neck had been a second prior.
The first monster scrambled back to its feet, unhinging its massive jaw to unleash a wide, sweeping spray of acid across the lane. Adam tried to twist away, but the corrosive mist caught his arm and shoulder, instantly sizzling through his dark coat and melting the engineered flesh right down to the stark white of his bone.
The pain was white-hot, but his parallel thinking remained entirely clinical. He needed to take away their primary edge. Relying on a sudden, desperate experiment, he reached out with his Desecrator-tier Theft, targeting the biological concept behind their venom production.
Give me that, he thought fiercely.
Space warped subtly, and a cold, stolen sensation settled in his palm as the internal acid glands of both Level 6 variants suddenly went completely inert.
The monsters hissed in sudden confusion, realizing their primary weapon had been torn away. They lashed out frantically, snapping their heavy tails at him in tandem. Adam kicked off the ground, manifesting solid platforms in mid-air with Air Step to vault cleanly over the sweeping strikes. He came down hard right between them, dropping low and slamming an open palm onto each of their chests.
Decay.
The gray ash of slow unmaking erupted from his hands. The shepherds shrieked, throwing themselves backward to break the contact, but the gray rot had already bitten deep, leaving cavernous, smoking craters in their torsos. Through his Superior Observation, Adam caught the rhythm of their biologies. They possessed a form of regeneration, but it was sluggish and shallow compared to his own Nomu-engine baseline. They were out of options, and they were running out of time.
Finish them, Sage.
[ Combat simulation overlay active. Optimal kill paths mapped. ]
Moving with simulated perfection, Adam closed the distance before the wounded creatures could stabilize. He brought his right hand down in a brutal arc, the Twin-Blow Knuckles connecting with the first shepherd's skull and completely shattering its spiritual form straight through its physical armor. Simultaneously, his left hand gripped the face of the second, forcing a localized surge of Overhaul directly through its carapace, instantly twisting its brain into absolute mush.
The remaining 2 dropships pulled back into the upper atmosphere, their engines sputtering but burning hot as they retreated into the gray haze. They had spent thousands of lives just for this attempt, and every second of Adam's defense had been meticulously recorded by the androids watching from above.
It was a victory, but it didn't taste like one. His spiritual reserves were dangerously low after the battle. New Order used up more than everything else combined.
Adam stood in the center of the scarred field, exhaling slowly as he released the Double quirk. One by one, the ninety-nine clones faded into mist, leaving him alone under the clearing sky. Behind him, the massive light dome dissolved, restoring the natural gloom of Sector 5.
Ren was the first to reach him, her spear resting against her shoulder, her eyes lingering briefly on the freshly healed fabric of his coat. She didn't ask if he was alright. She knew better.
Lyra arrived a moment later, wiping green ichor off her heavy gauntlets, her expression grim. "That wasn't a standard patrol raid, Leader."
"No," Adam agreed, looking up at the empty sky.
"Six Level 6 threats thrown at a low-tier outpost while every other frontline gets hit at the same time?" Lyra shook her head. "This is probably orchestrated right? Or do we keep calling this bad luck?"
Adam looked at his team, giving them the brutal, unvarnished truth.
"It wasn't an attempt to break us," he said quietly. "It was a stress test. They wanted to see exactly what it takes to make us deploy everything we have on every front at the same time. They wanted to see our limits. And now, they have the metrics. If they had broken us, the infestation would have spread and bought them an easy way into Earth."
He rolled his shoulders, ensuring his body was fully aligned, before turning back toward the fortress gates.
"We have twenty-seven days left on this rotation," Adam said, his voice steady. "Let's make sure the next attempt costs them a lot more."
AN: If we get to 300 power stones, I will release an extra chapter on 500, another one. If you wish to support the story and read ahead, visit [email protected]/skeri123