Chapter 190: Use It On Him

Inside the bunker was dead silent. Every eye was locked on the main holographic screen as Recon Probe Delta-One punched through the purple event horizon.

The camera feed buzzed with violet static for three long seconds. Then, the picture cleared.

A collective gasp echoed across the room.

From the outside, looking up from the city streets, the Sky Rift appeared to be about ninety feet across. But the view from inside was completely different.

The probe’s wide-angle lens showed an enormous, cavernous abyss stretching out into the dark. Swirling clouds of deep purple cosmic dust drifted across giant floating rock plateaus, and jagged spatial cracks flickered like distant purple lightning.

The radar display in the corner of the screen spun wildly, unable to find any walls or boundaries.

"What are we looking at?" Silas Drake muttered. "Where is the other side?"

The Chief Technical Officer tapped rapidly on his console, his forehead dripping with sweat. "General Kincaid, the spatial metrics are off the charts. This isn’t a simple tunnel or corridor. It’s an unstable non-Euclidean pocket dimension. The internal volume is at least thirty miles deep and expanding."

"Thirty miles?" Walter frowned deeply, stepping closer to the table. "You’re saying that little ninety-foot hole in the sky opens up into a space the size of a whole county?"

"Yes, sir," the technician replied. "And because of the dense void fog and gravitational pockets, Probe Delta-One’s sensors are getting choked out. Its radar can barely scan a one-mile radius. It’s like shining a penlight inside a giant dark warehouse."

"Can you find the beasts?" Kincaid asked. "Where did the swarm go?"

The technician adjusted the sensor gain, but the screen showed only fuzzy thermal signatures scattered deep inside the purple clouds, miles beyond the drone’s scanning range.

"We can’t get a clean lock, General," the technician admitted. "A single probe is completely useless in a space this massive. If we want a reliable map of the interior and an accurate count of hostile forces, we need to deploy a full twelve-unit multi-probe cluster array with quantum relay buoys to triangulate the whole sector."

"How long will that take to prep and launch?" Kincaid asked.

"Building the relay network and calibrating the telemetry will take four to six hours, sir," the technician answered. "Until then, we are flying blind past the first mile."

Silas Drake tapped his chin. "Four to six hours is a dangerous blind spot. If an interior space that large just recalled hundreds of beasts, they aren’t resting. They’re consolidating. And if we spend six hours setting up sensor buoys while sitting on our hands, we could be giving them time to fortify an incursion beachhead."

"So what are you suggesting?"

"I suggest if the military is committing to a drone sweep, we need to rotate our frontline guilds off the field and reinforce the city’s ground mana barriers immediately before the next surge drops."

Evren nodded in agreement. "Drake is right on this. If this lull is just the calm before the storm, we need to regroup and prepare harder. Every available healer should be deployed and all defense array should be online before those probes even finish calibrating."

"The high-grade defense alert remains at Level Four," Kincaid confirmed with a firm nod. "All combat units are authorized a mandatory four-hour tactical rotation to resupply and treat the wounded. Tech division, begin assembly of the twelve-probe cluster immediately."

While the officers continued debating tactical logistics around the table, Walter gave Evren a quiet nod and stepped back from the console.

"I need to check on my men," Walter muttered quietly. "A dozen of my shield-bearers took a beating holding the frontline."

"I’ll come with you," Evren said.

Evren signaled to Amber and Zephyra, and the three of them followed Walter out of the bunker and back up to the Citadel surface.

Just outside the main hangar gates, a series of green canvas field hospital tents had been set up on the paved courtyard. The smell of antiseptic, blood, and burnt mana hung thick in the air.

Inside the largest tent, Walter’s forty-nine veteran shield-bearers were resting on military cots.

Several men had thick bandages wrapped around their forearms, and two hunters were lying unconscious with severe plasma burns across their chests. Field medics were moving between the beds, but they were clearly stretched thin.

Walter stopped beside the bed of a burly, middle-aged hunter whose right arm was covered in dark purple blisters.

"How is he doing, Doc?" Walter asked.

"He took a direct spit-blast from a Void Spitter while bracing his shield," the field medic replied, wiping his brow. "We stopped the spread, but standard military ointment won’t clear this kind of necrosis quickly. He needs Grade-Four neutralizing salve, and our supplies are running low until the next supply convoy arrives tomorrow."

Evren stepped forward, looking at the wounded hunter. He remembered this manh... he was one of the front-line shield-bearers who had held the line in the street without giving up an inch of ground.

Evren tapped his spatial storage ring.

With a faint shimmer of mana, a slender glass vial containing glowing, pale-gold liquid appeared in his palm.

"Will this work?" Evren asked, holding the vial out to the doctor.

The field medic took the bottle, glancing at the label and the pure alchemical glow inside. His eyes nearly popped out of his head. "Is this... Grade-Five Pure Celestial Neutralizing Elixir?! This is sovereign-tier medicine! Even the High Council’s private dispensary only gets a handful of these a year!"

"Use it on him," Evren said.

The medic didn’t waste a second. He uncorked the vial and carefully poured several drops directly onto the hunter’s blistered arm.

The dark purple necrosis hissed instantly. Wisps of foul black smoke evaporated into the air as the blisters dissolved, replaced by clean, healthy pink skin in under thirty seconds.

The burly hunter let out a long breath of relief, the burning agony fading from his face. "The pain... it’s gone."

Evren reached back into his spatial ring. With a soft hum of mana, he brought out an entire crystalline case containing twenty vials of the glowing elixir, setting it down firmly on the medical tray.

"Use these for anyone else showing signs of void poisoning, burns, or necrosis," Evren told the doctor. "Treat every man in this tent."

The doctor stared at the case of legendary medicine, his hands shaking as he nodded repeatedly. "Y-Yes, sir! Immediately!"

Evren turned back to Walter.

Walter took a deep, shaky breath, looking at his cured hunter and then back at Evren with intense gratitude. "Evren... those Grade-Five elixirs are worth a fortune. You didn’t have to use them on my men."

"Your men held the line so this city didn’t burn, Walter," Evren replied, clapping a firm hand on the older man’s shoulder. "In Apex, we take care of the people who bleed beside us. We just need to stay strong and close this rift for good. But for now, get your men patched up and rested."

The wounded hunters on the nearby cots looked at Evren, several of them saluting him from their beds. Walter gave a sharp, formal nod, his weathered face filled with profound respect.

"Thank you, Chairman," Walter said. "Iron-Thistle won’t ever forget this."

Evren gave him a nod, then checked the time on his phone. It was just past nine-thirty in the morning.

He turned back toward the bunker entrance, where technicians were busy wheeling out crates of drone components to prep the multi-probe cluster.

"The military won’t have that probe cluster deployed for another five hours," Evren said quietly to Amber and Zephyra. "The city is under a calm lull, and Kincaid has the perimeter secured with heavy artillery."

Amber looked at him, catching his meaning right away. A soft, knowing smile touched her lips. "You want to go back to Meridian Tower."

"Every hour Calista sits in that chair is an hour too long," Evren said softly. He tapped the spatial ring on his finger. "I have the Level 80 Star-Diamond Void Core. It’s time to bring it home."

Zephyra’s eyes brightened. "Let’s go. She must be worried sick."