Qianhe’s gaze grew piercing.
"If the mission fails because you’re fighting over control of the regions, there will be no reward. Furthermore, all of you will be blacklisted for five years and barred from accepting any internal missions assigned by the Warband."
"Is that clear?!"
"Understood!"
The twenty men responded in unison.
"Very good."
Qianhe nodded, satisfied. "Good. Now, move out!"
The instant he finished speaking, all twenty men present acted in perfect unison. With a single thought, they each donned their Power Armor.
KSHHH! KLANG! CHUNK!—
Accompanied by the grating hiss of depressurizing air valves and the roar of interlocking metal, twenty suits of heavy Power Armor materialized out of thin air. Filled with a Gothic aesthetic and a sense of brutal power, they completely encased their wearers.
The suits were menacing and heavy, with towering pauldrons. The power packs on their backs resembled miniature cathedral domes. Their surfaces were covered in engravings of Warband emblems and Purity Seals, symbols of honor and meritorious service.
The moment their faceplates sealed shut and the dim blue light of their HUDs flickered on, the twenty members of the Fearless Warband had become twenty cold, steel killing machines.
They wielded a variety of melee weapons, while others carried Spiritual Energy Bomb Guns they had acquired with their Contribution Points.
"Commencing teleport!"
At Qianhe’s command, five massive Teleportation Arrays lit up simultaneously on the ground beneath the squads’ feet, glowing with an eerie blue light.
In the next instant, space tore open.
The twenty figures, along with their steel Power Armor, vanished into a distortion of light and shadow.
-----------------
The vertigo from Subspace Teleportation was like a giant, invisible hand brutally seizing each person’s soul and dragging it into a grotesque ocean of chaotic, shifting colors.
This nauseating feeling lasted for less than a second.
The next moment, the solid, heavy sensation of firm ground beneath their feet pulled their souls back into their steel shells.
HUMMM—
The Power Armor’s systems completed their self-diagnostics and environmental adaptations in one-hundredth of a second. The view before their eyes instantly shifted from distorted light and shadow back to a clear reality.
The four of them found themselves standing upon a desolate landscape, dead silent and suffocatingly oppressive.
The sky was a hopeless, leaden gray. A thick layer of clouds, seemingly frozen solid, completely blocked the light of the local star.
There was no wind, no sound; even the flow of air was almost stagnant.
The earth was exposed, dark-red rock with a metallic sheen. Countless bizarre, sharply-angled crystal clusters erupted from the ground like menacing bone spurs, pointing toward the eternally gray sky.
A faint, acrid smell, like metallic dust, hung in the air.
This was the Y12393-a12 Mining Planet, a death world whose surface resources had long been bled dry by the Empire. The only thing of value left was a newly discovered Spiritual Energy Vein, still dormant deep beneath the ground.
Directly in front of them, several kilometers away, the earth looked as if it had been cleaved in two by a god’s great axe, leaving a massive, bottomless Rift Valley.
That was their destination: the Silent Deep Valley Ore Vein Area.
The edge of the Rift Valley had been terraformed, imbued with the cold, cruel, geometric aesthetic of the Mechanical Race.
The once-natural rock walls were now cut into perfect right angles. Massive black metal obelisks of unknown purpose stood like silent sentinels, flanking the entrance to the Rift Valley.
"According to the map data we saved before deploying, we’re at the southeastern entrance to the Ore Vein Area."
Qin Feng’s steady voice came through clearly to each member over the encrypted squad comms channel.
"When facing the Mechanical Race, everyone’s Subspace Intelligent Assistant must remain in sleep mode. We can only trust our own eyes and the most basic offline maps on our HUDs."
"Understood."
Shanyang He, Pang Chen, and Zou Yun replied in unison, their tones betraying no dissent.
Their Power Armor HUDs all displayed the same static, simplified topographical map, one plotted by an Imperial Reconnaissance Ship.
It couldn’t update in real time, but on this land tainted by the Mechanical Race, it was the only navigation tool they could rely on.
Without a moment’s hesitation, the four formed a tight, diamond-shaped combat formation. The heavy boots of their "Bastion"-class Power Armor thudded against the dark-red rock with a dull, rhythmic beat, like the first drums of war. They advanced steadily toward the entrance of the deep Rift Valley.
Zou Yun had already equipped a pair of menacing Power Claws that crackled with faint arcs of electricity. The joints emitted a grating CHK-CHK sound as they opened and closed, radiating an aura of violence and destruction.
Shanyang He gripped a heavy Long Saber taller than himself. Under the dim light of the sky, its blade reflected a cold, deadly sheen.
Pang Chen, meanwhile, appeared empty-handed. But they all knew that hidden within the plating of his Power Armor’s arms and legs were at least a hundred lethal throwing knives, each capable of piercing Alloy Armor.
And so, the four steel Gods of Slaughter stepped into the forbidden death zone known as the Silent Deep Valley.
The entrance to the Ore Vein Area was a massive, downward-sloping ramp.
The walls of the ramp were smooth as glass and engraved with countless complex patterns, incomprehensible to mortals, that glowed with an eerie green light. The whole effect resembled a gigantic circuit board.