Chapter 533: So Far So Good
(Planet Koral, Zone Twelve Military Base, Supply Storage Warehouse)
*Drop*
Brandon landed soundlessly inside the dim warehouse, slipping through a narrow ventilation hole in the terrace plating.
As a transcendent-level warrior and one of the Cult’s finest infiltration specialists, Brandon was among the few operatives lucky enough to have been extracted from righteous faction territory before the purge of undercover agents had begun.
But today, he was back on righteous soil, deep behind enemy lines, to carry out a mission that could very well be the most important operation of his life.
"I can’t screw this up," he muttered under his breath, eyes darting across the storage crates stacked three rows deep. "Not today."
He moved to the center aisle, where the weekly shipment of shield core crystals had just been delivered.
The patrol guards inside the warehouse weren’t looking, and there were no surveillance cameras in this particular section of the storage wing.
It was the perfect hole in their defense, and Brandon had scouted this place well over the past few days.
*Open*
*Shuffle*
Brandon opened the nearest two crates and casually slipped the real cores into his storage ring.
Then, from a separate storage ring strapped on his other hand, he pulled out identical-looking replacements.
These were the highly powerful bombs designed by Master Argo and his team that were disguised with enough detail to pass every visual inspection.
Only high-level diagnostic equipment could tell the difference. But the Cult already knew that no such scans would be run.
Not here. Not on a resupply routine.
*Close*
*Run*
After replacing everything, Brandon quickly closed the boxes, re-sealed the lids, and quietly floated back up to the terrace hole.
With practiced fingers, he pulled out a thin plastic sheet, gently covered the opening, and brushed a layer of dust over it to hide any trace of tampering.
Then, like a gust of smoke, he was gone.
His mission was completed.
If everything went according to plan, in two to five hours, the shield protecting all of planet Koral would collapse in one beautiful, devastating bang.
—--------------
(Three Hours Later, Underground, secret Mana Shield Core Facility)
The workers buzzed faintly as another supply crate slid into the core facility’s loading dock, arriving exactly on time.
Major Garry, arms folded behind his back, oversaw the delivery with a bored frown plastered on his face.
"Start the replacement cycle," he barked. "Shift the core to backup power."
Four workers and two engineers quickly got to work, guided by Chief Engineer Dayton.
First, they began by removing the depleted crystal cores from the shield’s primary grid, tossing them into a black spatial pouch that was meant to be destroyed and deposed after use.
Then, once all the depleted cores were removed, they began slotting in the freshly delivered ones without delay.
"Those damn Cult bastards..." Garry muttered as he paced the room, glancing occasionally at the ongoing process but not really watching.
"They’ve finally lost it, haven’t they, Dayton? Going after Planet Nemo like this?"
Dayton, hunched over a console, nodded. "They want our mana mines. What else? Nemo’s resources are some of the most profitable in this quadrant of the universe. And the Cult doesn’t believe in fair trade. They take what they want."
"Despicable mongrels..." Garry spat. "I hope our fleets wipe them clean off the starmap."
Meanwhile, the replacement continued.
Forty of the forty eight boxes had been replaced.
"Don’t slack off," Garry snapped. "We’ve only got a two-minute shutdown window. We’re at ninety seconds already."
The workers scrambled to complete the restocking, unaware of what they had just loaded into the core reactor, as at the one hundred and twentieth second, just as the restocking was complete, Dayton shifted the power from backup to primary core, as the system began drawing power from the freshly inserted cores.
However, unfortunately for the workers, this was the trigger that Argo’s bombs had been waiting for, as the moment mana was absorbed from their surface.... The bomb mechanism triggered.
*KABOOOOOM*
The explosion erupted with a sickening roar, but it wasn’t just a burst, it was a pressure wave, a concussive force that expanded outward at blinding speed.
The fake cores detonated from the inside of the containment matrix, sending a chain reaction through every line and conduit they were connected to.
The blast engulfed the entire core chamber in less than a second.
Dayton didn’t even get a chance to scream. He was vaporized along with the nearest three engineers. The four soldiers who had been working the controls were launched backward into reinforced walls, bones shattering on impact, only to be swallowed moments later by the secondary wave of fire and collapsing metal.
The internal plating crumpled like paper. Fire surged through the maintenance tunnels, melting support beams and fusing circuits into slag. One of the ceiling girders tore free and collapsed onto the secondary generator, causing an even greater eruption of sparks and kinetic discharge.
The entire chamber caved inward from the force, and every reinforced emergency barrier failed to deploy.
On the base’s surface, guards heard it a moment later.
The ground rumbled beneath their feet as a deep, guttural roar echoed out from below.
At first, they thought it might have been an earthquake. But then came the fire.
A jet of compressed flame burst from the underground exhaust vents, lighting up the mid-afternoon sky like a sudden sunrise.
The shield tower that had stood proud and humming just moments ago flickered violently, then went dark, as one after the other, the power lines connected to it lost voltage.
Panic was immediate.
Alarms blared across the base. Red floodlights lit the hallways. Soldiers and engineers rushed out of buildings, their eyes locked on the smoke rising from the shield core facility.
"What the hell was that?"
"Is there a problem at the electrical center?"
"Was Major Garry inside?!"
Lieutenants tried to reestablish order, shouting commands, pulling up holographic feeds, but nothing was working.
The facility that had just exploded was secretive and off limits to common soldiers, as apart from Lieutenants, nobody else even knew what that building really was.
Chaos grew by the minute. Evac protocols were considered but never launched. Too many questions. Too little time.
In the command tower, Lieutenant Rachel slammed her fist on the table. "Shit, shit, shit, the whole planetary mana shield is going down.... With one of the seven cores destroyed the whole system will no longer work."
"Commander! Someone contact the Commander! This is a serious issue..... half of our fleet is enroute to Planet Nemo.
And our planetary shield is down.
If the Cult turns their eyes to planet Koral now, then we would prove to be sitting ducks against their assault.
This is bad.... This is very, very bad! We might be fucked!" Rachel said in panic, as unknowingly, she became the first military leader on Planet Koral, who realized the Cult’s schemes for what they truly were.
War could be coming to Koral.
And if it did, they were less prepared than ever to face it.
Their mana shield was down. Half their fleet was gone.
This wasn’t just a bad hand.
This... was a nightmare scenario in motion.
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