A familiar figure landed beside him, and a voice crackled over his comms.
"Hey, it's nice to be with you again."
Naryssa.
Li felt something stir—this was the first time he'd truly had a friend. The loyalty in her voice hit him hard, and he felt tears sting his eyes.
The reinforcement team burned through the insectoids. New weapons had been dropped while Li was underground—massive, overcharged laser cannons that tore through the enemy lines with precision and power.
Naryssa returned to help him, assisting with more first aid. The Guardians pushed ahead until the field was silent, bodies scattered across the ground. Then the commander's voice returned:
"Triage! Triage! REINFORCEMENTS MOVE FORWARD!"
The Guardians surged into the passage where the hive mind had emerged. A specialized medical unit tended to the wounded. Naryssa was asking for Li to be lifted out, but the medics refused. Higher command had given orders—they had to continue. Progress, they said. But if this was what progress felt like, Li finally understood the cost—the suffering that earned the T88 squad their reputation.
The battlefield had quieted. Only medics, the wounded, and Naryssa remained.
Li groaned. The commander barked at him to move. With Naryssa at his side, he limped forward. Eventually, the pain dulled enough to walk. A few other Guardians joined them, though most had already advanced. Of the group, Naryssa seemed the least injured.
The corridors ahead felt different—darker, more ominous than before. Li wondered how long the Drill Team could hold the beasts back before they redirected their attention.
A Guardian passed them, then a voice filled the comms:
"Form ranks. I'm the temporary squad leader."
They fell into line. Li, still limping, brought up the rear. The leader's voice shifted, quieter:
"You might've stirred something. Command's changed the mission. You were supposed to find the missing veterans, right? Now they want us to—"
A red glare flared from the corridor ahead. It grew—slowly, steadily—until it overwhelmed everything. A wave of pain surged through them all. Li's senses shattered. The ground rocked like an earthquake; he was thrown up, down, and slammed again. Blood blurred his vision, mixing with the red light. He couldn't tell where the glow ended and the bleeding began.
A shriek tore through the comms, shredding his ears. They'd ring for days. His bones cracked, but the pain had dulled—his system couldn't register it anymore. Naryssa was screaming, her voice broken. The comms turned to static, drowning everything in a buzzing howl.
The corridor behind them collapsed. Cracks split the walls.
Li didn't want to think about the arena.
The rumbling behind them stirred images of suffering and collapse in Li's mind—images he didn't want but couldn't stop. And then, as suddenly as it had begun, everything went silent.
One last tremor hit, and they were thrown to the ground. This time, they didn't get back up.
Naryssa's faceplate was smeared with blood. Her eyes—visible through the cracked visor—were leaking dark red. The sight was unreal, like something from a nightmare. Li shook his head, disoriented, and felt warmth flooding his helmet. He was bleeding too. The heat of it soothed him in a twisted way, like a signal that he was still alive.
His arm was broken. Ribs, too. He could feel it with every breath.
It was cruel—asking Guardians like him to keep pushing. But whatever they had stumbled into, whatever secret lay beneath Atramenth, Command seemed to believe it was worth the cost.
Naryssa didn't move. Her hands stayed at her sides. She wouldn't take off her mask—not with the risk of gas returning in the air. Blood tracked down her face, untouched, painting her like some haunted figure from a horror reel.
Li reached out, a shaky hand toward her.
No response.
She wasn't unconscious, just gone. Frozen in shock. The first true horror of her Guardian life had come fast, and kept coming.
The squad leader shifted nearby, rolling onto his back. A flicker lit his visor—a new display forced open by System Command.
Red. Flashing. Loud in its silence.
"'Blood Rifts' have opened on Atramenth.
Emergency evacuation for all squadrons.
Survival rating has dropped significantly.
All squadrons: Immediately evacuate."