Re-Awakened :I Ascend as an SSS-Ranked Dragon Summoner-Chapter 340: Day 2 in hell (The continuation)

A mech board screamed across the crystalline terrain of Sirius Beta, its repulsors carving trenches through alien stone as Kelvin pushed the machine beyond its design limits. Behind him, eight feet of pure nightmare thundered in pursuit, each footfall sending tremors through the ground that threatened to knock him off course.

’Well, this is just peachy,’ Kelvin thought, banking hard around a spire of blue-white crystal that jutted from the planet’s surface like a frozen scream. ’Three one-horns dead, my entire team slaughtered, and now I’m playing chase with their big brother. Today just keeps getting better.’

The Harbinger behind him was missing both sets of claws—they lay somewhere back in the kill zone along with the shattered remains of his energy blade and the bodies of his teammates. But that hadn’t slowed the creature down. If anything, it seemed more enraged now, relying on brute force and those devastating shockwave punches that turned solid rock into flying shrapnel.

A massive fist slammed into the ground fifty meters behind him, and Kelvin felt the shock ripple through his suit’s systems as debris rained down around him. The beast core-enhanced servos responded smoothly, compensating for the impact with the kind of precision that had taken him months to perfect during pre-deployment.

’Thank God for past Kelvin and his paranoid obsession with alien technology,’ he mused, feeling the nanotechnology in his armor automatically seal micro-fractures and redistribute power where he needed it most. ’Future Kelvin owes past Kelvin so many drinks it’s not even funny.’

The real problem wasn’t the monster trying to pound him into a Kelvin-shaped crater. The real problem was what he’d figured out in the thirty seconds before everything went to hell.

’Noah, please tell me you’ve cracked it,’ he thought desperately, spotting a canyon system ahead. ’Please tell me you’ve figured out that every single human in this system is being puppeteered like some kind of biological remote control toy.’

The evidence had been staring them in the face from the beginning. Communication jamming that adapted in real-time. Civilian behavior patterns that screamed coordination rather than natural group dynamics. And then, two hours ago, they’d found the smoking gun.

[Two hours earlier]

"Contact," Kelvin had announced, his jury-rigged detection array finally locking onto the source of their communication problems. "Multiple jamming signals originating from the civilian population in our sector. Grid references... damn, they’re everywhere."

The readings were coming from at least six different sources scattered throughout the refugee camp they’d been protecting.

Pearl Adams had checked her scanner. "You’re certain?"

"Pearl, my dear and perpetually skeptical colleague, when have I ever been wrong about electronic signals?" Kelvin had replied, already packing his equipment. "The source is definitely human, definitely among our supposed refugees, and definitely not supposed to be there."

They’d approached as a full squad - fifteen soldiers moving in careful formation because Kelvin’s paranoid instincts, honed sharp after the nightmare on Nebular, were screaming danger. His suit’s enhanced systems - upgrades he’d personally installed after watching Harbingers tear through standard military equipment like tissue paper - hummed with readiness.

Dr. Rodriguez had been exactly where she should be, working alongside four other civilians at what appeared to be a supply distribution center. All of them moving with that same unnaturally coordinated efficiency they’d been noticing for days.

"Dr. Rodriguez," Adams had called out, weapon ready. "We need everyone to step back and empty your pockets. We’re detecting unauthorized electronic devices."

Rodriguez had looked up with five other civilians, and they’d all reached into their pockets simultaneously. Each one produced what looked like a small electronic cigarette pack - innocuous, unremarkable, the kind of thing that wouldn’t raise suspicions during standard equipment checks.

But Kelvin’s scanner was screaming about the sophisticated jamming technology packed into those tiny devices.

"Of course," Rodriguez had said, holding up the device with that same mild curiosity. "We’ve been waiting for you to discover these."

The other five civilians had turned in perfect synchronization, holding identical devices, wearing identical expressions, identical inhuman smiles.

"Ma’am," Kelvin had said, his hand moving to the custom energy blade he’d designed after Nebular, "we need you to shut down those devices. Now."

"I’m afraid that’s not possible," Rodriguez had replied, and all six devices began pulsing with increased activity. "The demonstration is about to begin."

The coordinated attack had come from eight directions simultaneously.

Three one-horns - eight feet of nightmare muscle and bone, each one capable of punching through tank armor with their bare fists. They’d materialized from concealment with battlefield intelligence, moving to cut off escape routes and establish killing fields with tactical precision that should have been impossible for individual hunters.

The first one had come straight at their center formation. Kelvin had met it head-on, his now enhanced suit servos screaming as he drove his energy blade through the creature’s chest before it could bring those devastating fists to bear. The weapon - his own design, built specifically for Harbinger anatomy - had carved through alien flesh and bone with lethal efficiency.

The second one had tried to flank their position. Williams and Martinez had opened fire with everything they had, but Harbinger hide was thick as armor plating. It had taken Kelvin’s plasma charges - three of them, placed with surgical precision thanks to his suit’s targeting systems - to bring the monster down in a spray of alien blood and shattered stone.

The third one had been the smart one. It had waited, watched, learned from its packmates’ deaths before making its move. When it came, it came fast and low, using the terrain to mask its approach until it was almost too close to counter.

Almost.

Kelvin’s enhanced reflexes, boosted by the combat stimulants his suit had been pumping into his system since the first contact, had given him the edge he needed. He’d rolled left, came up firing, and put his last plasma charge right through the creature’s skull.

Three one-horns dead. Three eight-foot monsters that could have demolished a small building reduced to smoking corpses.

But the real threat hadn’t been the Harbingers.

While Kelvin had been fighting for his life, the controlled civilians had been systematically executing his teammates. Not with alien weapons or superhuman strength - with human equipment, human tactics, and the kind of coordination that came from shared consciousness channeled through those innocent-looking devices.

Crossfire that caught Williams in the open. Shaped charges that brought down Martinez and Chen when they tried to reach better positions. Sniper fire from Thompson, who’d been positioned as overwatch and had turned his weapon on his own team.

By the time Kelvin had finished with the third one-horn, eleven soldiers were dead and six civilians were standing in the middle of the carnage, still holding their small jamming devices, wearing identical satisfied expressions.

"Fascinating," Rodriguez had said, studying Kelvin with clinical interest. "Survival probability calculations indicated a 23% chance you would eliminate all three Harbingers. The brain will find this data quite valuable."

Kelvin had run then, his suit’s enhanced mobility systems carrying him away from the kill zone at speeds that would have been impossible with standard equipment. He’d survived because the Cannadah expedition had taught him that sometimes the only winning move was to live long enough to warn others.

---

*Present...*

The mech board’s power indicator flashed yellow, which meant he had maybe eight minutes before he’d be traveling on foot. The Harbinger behind him showed no signs of fatigue, which was unfortunate because Kelvin was definitely starting to feel the effects of the last two hours.

’Time for some creative problem-solving,’ he decided, angling toward the canyon entrance at maximum velocity. ’Also known as "running away while hoping physics doesn’t kill me before the monster does."’

He pushed the board into a controlled dive toward the canyon’s mouth, feeling the alien beast core in his suit surge with power as the enhanced systems compensated for the increased stress. Behind him, the Harbinger leaped, its massive form sailing through the air with grace that violated several laws of physics.

’Of course it can jump like that,’ Kelvin noted, banking hard into the canyon’s shadows just as the creature’s fists hammered into the rock wall where he’d been moments before. ’Because why would anything about this mission make sense?’

The impact sent a cascade of stone debris tumbling into the canyon, and he heard the satisfying sound of something large and angry having to dig itself out of a small avalanche. It wouldn’t slow the creature down much, but every second counted when you were trying to save the galaxy with a broken communication array and three cracked ribs.

Five minutes later, crouched in a small cave system with his suit powered down to minimal signatures, Kelvin finally allowed himself to assess the damage. The diagnostic readouts painted a picture that was technically classified as "alive" but could more accurately be described as "held together by advanced medical technology and sheer bloody-mindedness."

Three cracked ribs, which explained why breathing felt like a recreational activity for masochists. Severe contusions across his back and left shoulder from the initial attack. Deep lacerations on his right arm from shrapnel that had gotten too close during one of those shockwave attacks. And something that was probably a concussion, judging by the way the cave walls occasionally decided to practice synchronized swimming.

’Well,’ he thought, manually adjusting the suit’s medical systems to pump him full of combat stimulants and tissue repair nanobots, ’this should make for an interesting after-action report. "So, Kelvin, how exactly did you manage to survive when your entire team got slaughtered?" "Funny story, sir. Turns out being the nerd has its advantages when everyone else is busy being heroic."’

The humor was getting darker, which meant his situation was getting worse. But dark humor was better than panic, and panic was better than despair, and despair wasn’t an option when Noah and the others were walking into the same trap that had killed his team.

He pulled up the communication array on his suit’s internal display, studying the interference patterns with fresh understanding of what they were really dealing with. With the woman who’d been carrying the primary jamming device presumably dead back in the combat zone, there was a chance—just a chance—that he could punch through the remaining interference.

’Halloween came early this year,’ he thought grimly, beginning the delicate process of recalibrating his equipment to work around the residual jamming. ’And we’re all invited to the scary hours party.’

The jamming hadn’t just been preventing communication. It had been facilitating control. Someone or something was using the human population as a distributed surveillance network, seeing through their eyes, coordinating their actions, turning them into perfect bait for military rescue operations.

’Which means Noah’s walking into a trap. Lucas is walking into a trap. Sophie’s walking into a trap. And they have no idea that the people they’re trying to save are the ones who are going to get them killed.’

Kelvin’s fingers moved across the interfaces with renewed purpose, ignoring the pain in his ribs and the way his vision occasionally decided to take unauthorized breaks. The communication protocols were still scrambled, layers of interference that would take time to unravel, but at least now he had a fighting chance.

The real question was whether he could crack the remaining jamming before the Harbingers found his hiding spot, or before his friends walked into the same kill zone that had claimed his team.

’Come on, Kelvin,’ he told himself, watching power levels fluctuate as he pushed his equipment to find clear channels through the electronic chaos. ’Time to prove that being the smartest guy in the room actually means something when the room is full of controlled humans and eight-foot murder machines.’

Outside his cave, something roared in the distance. It sounded like it had friends.

’And they’re bringing the whole family to the reunion,’ he thought, his fingers never stopping their work on the communication array. ’How absolutely delightful.’

The interference patterns were starting to make sense now, revealing the underlying structure of whatever was controlling the human population. It was elegant in its simplicity and terrifying in its implications.

’Noah, Lucas, Sophie,’ he thought desperately, ’please figure this out before it’s too late. Because if you don’t, we’re all going to die in the most embarrassingly preventable way possible.’

The communication array flickered, showing the first signs of breakthrough. But it would take time—time he might not have, time his friends definitely didn’t have.

’Well,’ Kelvin thought, settling in for what might be his last stand, ’at least the next few hours won’t be boring.’

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