Some time earlier...
Commander Levinian watched Kyle leave his base quietly.
Then, he sent orders to one of his Area Commanders to support him, while sending orders to two other Area Commanders to support as soon as the Aura Expander was activated.
Commander Levinian watched Kyle activate his Aura Expander.
Afterward, he gave an order to all of his other Area Commanders within the vicinity of Kyle's aura.
"Order: Hold positions!"
At the same time, he sent messages to the Commanders of the other Forts.
"Request for aid! Aura Expander has been activated with unexpected intensity!"
Naturally, this intensity wasn't unexpected at all. After all, it was launched at minimum intensity.
Commander Levinian watched hundreds of teams from the other Forts rushing towards Kyle, but that didn't matter. They wouldn't arrive in time.
He had only sent that message to keep his identity as a human.
He had infiltrated Humanity by killing the previous Levinian, who had just been a squad leader on the frontlines near Fort X-355. After killing him, he consumed him and copied his aura and mannerisms, giving him access to his Emblem, which contained enough information about Levinian to create a profile.
Then, he had simply continued acting like a human and continued climbing the ranks.
His mission was to stay undercover and silently sabotage Humanity.
To protect his identity, he commanded his Fort as if he were actually trying to protect Humanity. This resulted in an average performance for a Fort. After all, even if he tried his best, there were still far better Commanders out there.
Yet, every century or millennium, whenever he saw an especially talented individual, he would find a way to kill them. The number of deaths under his command was average, but the deaths of talented individuals were very high in number.
When he saw Kyle's Emblem, he immediately knew that he had to get rid of him.
His Battle-Strength had been rated as very high, and on top of that, he had a True Sin Aura. Even more, the advised number of killed mission targets was 50 times higher than normal.
So, he sent Kyle to the frontlines with a minimum Aura Expander setting of 10%.
However, this was not what he wrote in the records. According to the records, the setting went from 1% to 15%. 15% was already insanely high, but it would seem appropriate when one considered Kyle's file.
According to his plan, Kyle and everyone around him would be run over and killed by the horde of Demons. Of course, his Emblem also wouldn't survive the battle, which meant all the evidence and witnesses were gone.
If any inquiry happened as to why Commander Levinian hadn't sent aid, he would just say that he didn't believe Kyle would survive. If he sent people, the frontlines would collapse. He had to keep the bigger picture in mind.
This would just be one of several incidents.
Yet, when Commander Levinian saw a team of five Sect Members leaving Fort S-878, he became suspicious. Usually, the Fort of the Magnet was supposed to send such a team as support, but only if the intensity of the Aura Expander was set at 5% or more.
The fact that Commander Meristo of Fort S-878 sent a team was highly suspicious.
Commander Levinian realized that he was already being suspected of being a double agent as soon as he saw the team leaving Fort S-878.
He decided to play it safe for a while after the incident passed.
As expected, the Demons started attacking rapidly, and it looked like Kyle was about to die.
But then, Kyle activated his Domain, and Commander Levinian narrowed his eyes.
No matter, he would die anyway.
And then...
He survived.
The team of Sect Members arrived and created their defenses as over a thousand teams of Shields joined as well.
The defenses had been solidified.
Commander Levinian became a bit nervous. If Kyle and the people survived, they could prove that it had been Commander Levinian who had set the minimum intensity to 10%.
If they survived, there was no way Commander Levinian would be able to keep his identity secret.
He had to take a risk. His next actions would still be extremely suspicious, but he might still be able to argue his way out of an execution. In the worst case, he would just be sent to the frontlines to defend against Demons for the remainder of his life. At that point, he could also flee to the Abyss and survive.
First, he gave an order for everyone to cancel the operation and return. The point of this order was to give him more negotiation power. After all, if Humanity decided that he was an enemy, he would have plenty of hostages.
In the best-case scenario, all of them retreated, and Commander Levinian could secretly kill Kyle and the Sect Members. In the worst-case scenario, nobody listened to him, and he didn't gain any more hostages.
Commander Levinian contacted his own team of Sect Members and gave them an emergency order. They were ordered to launch Fort U-878's primary support weapon at the battle.
The Sect Members became horrified, but they followed the order anyway. Within just a couple of seconds, the primary support weapon was ready to fire.
Commander Levinian aimed at Kyle and fired.
A humongous blue laser shot out of Fort U-878 and flew right towards Kyle.
The primary support weapon was an ingenious Formation Array that could get rid of a vast number of Demons. If used correctly, it could level tens of thousands of kilometers without endangering a single human.
If there were no humans present, the primary support weapon could be fired like an area attack. It would explode, and everything in the surroundings would be destroyed.
However, if there were humans present, it would be shot in a stable form. It would just be a regular, albeit very big, laser.
Yet, as long as a complementary Formation Array was set in its path, the laser would simply be absorbed by it, and the complementary Formation Array would redirect its power towards the surrounding enemies. These Formation Arrays took a while to construct and were extremely expensive. Without explicit orders, no one was allowed to set them up.
And, well...
The team of Sect Members from Fort S-878 didn't receive these orders.
Commander Levinian didn't know a lot about Formation Arrays, but he was sure that nobody had given any orders to the Sect Members to build it.
The laser would kill everyone, and Commander Levinian would be labeled as an idiot at best and a traitor at worst. Yet, even if he were labeled as a traitor, he might be able to survive by taking everyone inside the Fort hostage and exchanging their lives for his.
The laser hit, and then...
Almost all of the Demons died, but all of the humans survived.
That was when Commander Levinian knew that there was no way out anymore. He would be deemed a traitor with 100% certainty.
On the surface, it looked like a successful operation. The Fort had fired, but the corresponding Formation Array had also been activated, making it seem like both sides had agreed to this course of action.
Almost nobody in Fort U-878 suspected that their Commander had just tried to kill thousands of soldiers several times.
Yet, as soon as the people returned, everything would be unveiled.
Commander Levinian looked at all the people inside the Fort.
There were over 2,000 Sages.
Fewer than expected.
However, there were over 6,000 Sages around Kyle. If he could capture them, he would have 8,000 hostages. Even more, the frontlines wouldn't be able to defend against the swarm of Demons without sacrificing important resources.
Commander Levinian decided to take everyone hostage and flee towards the east.
Well, almost everyone.
Black Sin Hammer 37 was too talented and dangerous.
He would just kill him before fleeing with everyone else.
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