The living grimaced at the sight that greeted them when they finally escaped the darkness of the unending tunnels into the light. Helios, in his physical manifestation as the glorious sun shined upon the fields where it seemed an artist high on psychedelics had an art drawn with uneven brushes of red and green, melding both colours into an unfettered parchment of insanity.

  The result was the final work on display for those who wished to marvel at its chaotic depravity. An indescribable scene of carnage was all that was left of the terrorists’ rampage. How ironic for the soldiers graduating to meet their end with the weapons they meant to employ against the Drazen Empire.

  Help had arrived at last, but it was too late. The slaughter show had reached its climax, and the commanders, whose task involved safeguarding their recruits discarded the responsibilities they had sworn to uphold. They committed a cowardly act worthy of court-martial trials by deserting without looking back as their recruits called out to them in vain. Unfortunately, little did the commanders know, that the terrorists had anticipated this cowardly act.

  “Team, incoming movement to point SSS01-03. Intercept.”

  One of the teams on standby noticed their prey entering another zone.

  “Roger. Move on to point SSS01-03.”

  With seething rage, one of the gunners readied the GPMG, a general-purpose machine gun. Loading the barrel with what appears to be an infinite roll of rounds, he aimed at the honorless officers through the crosshair, with his hand on the trigger. He muttered softly as the section leader beside him gave a thumbs up.

  “Burn in hell, cowards.”

  The cold steel fireworks show that heralded the commanders’ end had begun.

  Gleeful ecstasy filled the commanders' faces as they approached the exit, moments away from leaving this dreaded hellscape where their recruits had perished. Justifying their shameless act, they conspired to paint this event in a new light once they were safe. But today’s events sang a different tune. They were not meant to leave the crime scene alive, too.

  “...Wait, what?”

  “Why are they here?!”

  Panic started to set in. The terrorists had blockaded the path toward their exit.

  “N-no way, run. Run!”

  "What's happening–"

  “They got our escape route on lockdown!”

  "What?!"

  It was too late. The machine gun operator stood ready with his hand clutched on the trigger. With a prolonged press, the sound of steel zipped past the gun chamber and rattled through the air.

  Bodies flew to the skies, with each metal shard ripping through the husk of every weak, measly human vessel. As the brutal pieces of metal pierced the flesh, the subsequent rounds of precisely engineered bullets brutalised and pulverised the bodies beyond recognition, where the only fate for the slaughtered would only be a chimeric monument of remembrance.

  The final screams faded into background noise as the machine guns started firing again. There was complete and utter silence except for the sounds of steel piercing the newly-christened graveyard to ensure nobody survived. The terrorists knew no mercy, having chugged away their morality back home, for they needed not of it.

  “Isn't that?"

  “Nim–”

  When the terrorists least expected, the sound of heavens slammed down, faster than the metal shards' trajectory, as white-hot lightning engulfed their surroundings, followed by the smell of quick winds carrying the scent of blood from one end to the next. The blue-on-blue had surprised them as their helmets registered the Artifact as a friendly element.

  Next, the smell of burning cinder plunged the fields into a chemist’s wildest dream as the quick bolts of flashing lightning struck the grass beneath. The heavenly smite first encircled the terrorists before crashing down, leaving them crisped and charred. The white energy bolts bounced around the crimson-dyed grass fields, from one rod to the next, creating an illuminating effect of mysticism. The dance of light encapsulated by the streaky bolt of thin lightning zoomed past each living individual, not marked as a hostile element, entrancing them in an ecstatic, euphoric high and coating them in a blanket of warmth when the sparks flew at an inhumane speed only one who possessed the blood of a first Atlantean could ever command.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  In mainstream science, many refer to it as physics. But to him, he knew it was not. This researcher, who had seen these supernatural powers during his tenure, immediately knew who the wielder was.

  Acknowledging his survival meant everything the Federation had sold him to this point was lies. The horrors of questioning the status quo would only brew dissent amongst their ranks, further fragmenting the shaky trust their command structure barely held on since that disaster. Caught in his thoughts, Ivan seemed in a daze, unaware that a team of surviving hostile elements had crept up behind him.

  “Sir, watch out!”

  His team narrowly spotted the team of terrorists and fired on sight.

  “Perfect cover, team.” Ivan could not believe how close he was to knocking on death's door. One second where he lapsed in focus could have ended it all. "Let's move."

  If his intel team had not come with him, he would have swapped places with the terrorists on the bloodied fields–becoming part of those who would join the inevitable unmarked grave.

  “No problem, sir.”

  “Sir, look around.”

  Ivan took in this sombre atmosphere, where nothing within his scholarly scientific mind could ever label.

  “We’re too late.”

  The terrorists had succeeded in their mission, slaughtering the lives of the innocent and the guilty alike. Their lifeless bodies were indistinguishable from one another–just like how they entered naked and left similarly into this realm. In the grand scheme of things, history would talk about this day as a nameless tragedy, with the identities of those who perished bearing no significance.

  Ivan’s gaze lingered in one particular direction, where the only thing on his mind was his former ally, who had miraculously survived that dreadful day.

  “We need to go, now.”

  As the backup surged from the front, he strutted slowly like a diva into the field as though he had arrived to greet the graduating recruits as the guest of honour, only to see them unmoving, with their bodies stacked up like a Jenga block.

  "Young Smith, we need to go."

  "Sir."

  He knew no urgency, only pride in himself for embracing his role in deciding the fate of those who lived and died. As his mentor walked cautiously in the bloodied fields to avoid stepping on the dead, he did otherwise. Neptune deliberately smashed the fallen watermelons on his path forward, with each step forcefully squashing the exposed flesh. One step at a time, he felt a light, airy feeling of walking on cloud nine as juices started splurting onto his boots, covering them in a new shade of red. He could hear soft whimpers from the squashed fruits which would only make up a rounding error on the final death count’s statistic.

  “...Someone. Please.”

  “...Help……………. Help.”

  The fruits varied in different sizes, like those sold at the farmers market on weekends, but he never looked down upon them to acknowledge their existence. For someone who would become remembered as a legend, there was no room for empathy, especially for these nobodies.

  Then, from the corner of his peripheral vision, Neptune saw a flash of luminescent brilliance from beyond his imagination ripping through the fields.

  “…!”

  Turning his head, he saw his mentor, stunned after he survived a terrible fate by a thin margin as bodies dropped to the ground. But his face did not convey shock from the terrorist’s attempt to assassinate him. Instead, it derived from witnessing the unnatural phenomenon blitz through the fields.

  “Sir, what was that earlier?”

  It was rare to see his mentor mentally preoccupied for so long. “...We need to head over to where the lightning came from..”

  “Where did the lightning come from?” Neptune, with his photographic memory, traced the lightning from the endpoint to the origin. “It came from the middle!’ Neptune bellowed, recalling the lightning bouncing from one rod to the next, where it acted as a conductor of electricity. The place where the lightning originated from came from the middle of the fields, bouncing from the source to the right, then to the left, creating a six-point vortex where everyone caught in it, carrying metal without appropriate insulated gear, absorbed the electricity, roasting them into cooked meat.

  “...How sure are you?”

  “That’s a prediction, sir.”

  Without hesitation, Ivan faced the intel team and issued his next order.

  “We are following Recruit Smith’s lead. Let’s move out.”

  “““Yes, sir!”””

  “Let’s go–”

  “Don’t move.”

  As they were about to move, two distinct footsteps stumbled upon them. His mind immediately filtered away that insignificant fool in black to stare at a mirror image, albeit a younger version of himself carrying similar genetic traits.

  Just as he thought he could proceed with the next step in his ascension, another roadblock hooked him to the past.