Chapter 461: Getting Back To The Living Room

Back at the simulation room, things were also getting intense with Neville in Ethan’s arms.

Colonel Vane fired again, plasma scored a line across the Insectoid’s flank, and the creature shrieked a horrible, wet, crackling sound.

But it didn’t go down.

Its carapace was too thick for that.

Julius dove sideways, repositioning, trying to find an angle that didn’t include Lilianna or Neville in its cone of fire.

But there wasn’t time because Ethan was already turning the creature.

"I almost forgot!" Ethan called out, voice gleeful.

From his hip pouch, he took out a small, palm-sized canister. He thumbed the cap off, raised it high, and shook it hard.

A fine, glittering, red-violet powder burst out into the air. It caught in the convection currents of the still-burning bomb crater. It swirled upward and drifted out across the room in a slow, lethal-looking cloud.

"What is—" Sarah uttered, but she didn’t get to finish when a low, thrumming, clicking sound rose from outside.

Beyond the now-shattered wall and beyond the barrier of the Seaside Estate. A few of the powder grains had drifted out into the wider air.

Somewhere far away, in the chittering masses of Insectoids that were being held off by the barrier, something was responding. The clicking became a chorus, then a crescendo, then—

—and then the second effect happened.

Inside.

In the corner of the simulation room, a small servicing panel along the floor, a soft, wet, popping sound was heard. The metal grate buckled, and then it ruptured.

A glistening, beetle-sized creature squirmed out, antennae flailing.

Then another, and then six more.

And more until Sarah couldn’t even begin to count anymore.

That mysterious powder made these creatures appear inside the barrier, inside the house.

Larval Insectoids were pale, soft-shelled, and were no bigger than house cats. It poured out of the broken hatch, attracted to the powder’s scent.

Within seconds, the floor near the wall was a writhing carpet of them.

"Sarah!" Julius roared. "Get back to the living room!"

Ethan smiled and sang out. "You’re welcome!"

The Insectoid mount reared, scrabbled backward through the smoking hole.

"NO!" Colonel Vane lunged, fired his rifle into the receding shape of the creature. But the bolts only sparked off armored plating. "Get back here, you—!"

Sarah didn’t see him give chase. She was on the floor, cradling Lilianna against her chest.

The writhing larval Insectoids were already starting to skitter across the polished floor toward them. It seemed that it was more drawn to the heat of living bodies.

Sarah raised her plasma pistol with one shaking hand and fired wildly. It scattered the closest few in a spray of pale blood.

"Lily, Lily, stay with me—"

"...Sarah?" Lilianna’s eyes were glassy and unfocused, pupils blown enormous. Her skin was burning to the touch. "Sarah, I feel— I feel weird, I—"

"Don’t, don’t talk, just—"

But Lilianna’s eyes had rolled back. Her body had gone slack with the next dizzying wave of heat.

There was not enough time.

"Colonel! Julius!" Sarah cried. "Help me!"

Colonel Vane was already running after Ethan. "Get everyone into safety, then come back!"

Julius quickly ran at Sarah’s side in two strides. Without ceremony, he snatched and scooped Lilianna up bridal-style, her head pillowed on his bicep.

"Run," Julius said. "I’ve got her. Run, Sarah!"

"No! Where are you going with her?!" Sarah asked in a panicked state.

"To the living room. We need to get out of here! Hurry!" Julius shouted.

"No! No! She needs immediate care! A life pod!"

Julius became frustrated at Sarah’s inflexible mind and hurriedly said, "Pete will surely know how to cure her when we get back to the living room. So let’s go!"

Sarah saw the larvae and insectoids that were coming after them and nodded. She couldn’t do anything about them, nor think of what to do either. So she just complied with Julius’s arrangements.

They burst back through the corridor. Sarah began firing wild, panicked plasma bursts behind them at the larvae that had begun to follow.

They shot down the room completely with the emergency doors. It was made so no insectoids or Lowborns could find their way in.

When they arrived at the living room, the entire estate was in complete chaos. The holographic displays on the table began flickering and glitching through camera feeds and battle data.

Julius carried the heat-glazed Lilianna and a sob-shaking Sarah at his heels.

***

Meanwhile, Keres had punched his way out of the house, but the estate had not stopped trembling despite the distance.

The huge barrier shimmered like a soap bubble stretched too thin. It was rippling each time another Insectoid hurled itself against the invisible wall.

From the outside, the noise must have been deafening—chitin scraping against energy, mandibles clicking in a hungry chorus, the wet splat of bodies bursting against the field.

A massive jagged hole gaped in the wall where the mecha simulation room connected to the open-plan ballroom. Splinters of polysteel still clattered down from the upper edge.

tink, tink, tinkle

And beyond the breach, the floor was streaked with greenish blood and the deep gouges of insectoid claws.

Thiago crouched behind, breathing through his teeth. A spray of yellow fluid had stained his shirt from collar to cuff. The smell was so sour it made his molars ache.

"Move left,"

Ciel hissed beside him, voice cracking on the second word. His hair was plastered to his forehead, and his face had gone pale.

"He’s coming around—"

KRRRRSCH.

A blade of chitin sliced clean in their direction, missing Thiago’s ear by a hair’s breadth.

"Down, down, down—" Thiago rolled and snagged Ciel by the collar.

He dragged him into the side, and the grass began to overturn around them.

Bang, crack, hiss.

"Damn it, it’s trying to pull us out into the open," Ciel gasped with a grass and dirt-smeared cheek and a pulse rifle held in a death grip.

"That’s because he could move his huge body in an open space." Thiago wiped blood from below his eye with the back of his wrist.

Keres lifted its head. The long, jointed forelimbs of his true form clicked together with an almost human gesture of fastidious annoyance.

BANG!

Keres looked to the side, and Ciel too. They saw another huge creature appear in that huge hole in the wall, and Colonel Vane was seen going after it.

"Damn it," Thiago didn’t look at where they were looking, but he knew it was bad news. So he said while reading the angle of those legs. "Ciel, cover for me."

***

Sarah, who barely calmed down, looked around and only saw Pete, Iris, and Bryan in the living room.

She said mid-sob, "Where’s everyone?"

Iris hurriedly came over and tucked her in to comfort, "What happened to you guys?"

Julius saw that Iris already had Sarah in safety and didn’t move an inch closer to them.

Sarah was sobbing as she tried to explain, "N-neville. He- he...huhuhuhu..."

Bryan asked, pressing for details, "What about Neville?"

Sarah took a deep breath and said, "He-Neville was taken away by a masked man."

As soon as he heard that, Bryan knew there was an incoming headache.

Grayson wouldn’t like to hear this news.

Bryan peered at Julius’s expression and saw that Colonel Vane wasn’t here.

Meaning that Colonel Vane was after the one who took Neville.

Sarah continued, "But I— I think it was Ethan. I think it was Ethan Goelet."

Bryan and Iris’s attention turned to Sarah with a serious expression.

Iris thought, him again? What does he need from Neville, really?

Meanwhile, Bryan thought, this is bad. Ethan seemed to be more of a dangerous person than they thought. Did Grayson already know that? But if Grayson knew, surely he wouldn’t have had Neville do all of what happened this evening.

Sarah continued, "He used Lily as a shield. He knew that she was my sister. No one apart from the people in the company knew about that. Also, his eyes were similar to Ethan’s."

The more Sarah described, the more they were certain that it was Ethan. Because Sarah was once a coworker of Ethan in the company. They knew them for longer than they needed to.

"He had this device and put it on Neville. Neville couldn’t wake up."

Shit, he did what now? Where did he get that from? Bryan felt his heart pounding in his head.

"And he— he set off a bomb in the wall and rode an Insectoid out of the room, and he threw powder, the powder is making more of them inside, they’re hatching out of the maintenance panels—"

Bryan took a deep breath, unable to make heads of tails of this situation.

"Shhh, ssshhh, it’s okay, it’s okay," Iris repeatedly whispered to Sarah, trying to calm him down.

Then, just as Sarah was calming down, she shot up as if she finally remembered something very important.

"Ri-right! He also fed something to Lily..."

Everyone’s eyes narrowed, and their expressions turned grave. Sarah saw it and grabbed onto Pete, gripping tightly at his shirt.

"What did he feed her?! What is it?!" Sarah began to panic, filled with terror. "Please tell me!"