The dark smoke rushed forward.
Consuming the forest.
Consuming everything.
Until there was nothing but darkness.
Light had nowhere to go.
Soldiers stood watching it.
Gripping their weapons.
Sweat slowly moving through the gaps in their armor.
Eyes intense.
Watching.
Waiting.
Then a voice.
A command cutting through the noise.
Several giant drones fired off simultaneously.
Missiles screaming through the air.
Exploding all across the mountain face.
The vibration of it rolled through the earth like something alive—like a monster screaming, like something sinister pushing everything away from its direction.
A gust of wind hit the soldiers.
Powerful.
Brutal.
They shielded their faces.
Slowly steadied themselves.
---
The G9 missile.
A project born in Europe under the Olympus program.
Division: Hephaestus.
A branch of international scientists, engineers, and designers.
Their mandate: research and development in dungeons, mana, and everything in between.
Their discovery: mana crystals broken down in a chemical bath, placed on a specific frequency, created a perfect explosion.
They built small grenades first.
Then larger missiles.
Small petroleum cores added to the chemical compound.
To increase destructive yield.
Their research confirmed: monsters sustained real damage, and in some cases death, from these explosions.
Mana meeting chemical reaction.
Destruction meeting destruction.
---
The smoke began to thin where the missiles had hit.
Fire chewed through the darkness.
The soldiers moved forward.
Some cheered.
Victory rising in their voices.
Relief spreading through the ranks like warmth.
But through the smoke—
Through the fire—
Through the ruin of everything the missiles had delivered—
The ants pressed on.
Like a tsunami that had never heard of obstacles.
Like something that didn't understand stopping.
Their bodies burned in places.
Carapaces cracked.
Limbs missing.
But they moved.
Forward.
Always forward.
The cheering died.
One soldier first.
Then another.
Then silence moving through the ranks like a disease.
The ants emerged from the smoke in numbers that made the missiles feel like rain against an ocean.
The darkness behind them was absolute.
Not natural.
Not the darkness of night or shadow.
The darkness of something ancient and hungry that had decided this mountain belonged to it now.
The soldiers gripped their weapons tighter.
Teeth grinding.
Breath shallow.
Watching the wave come.
And knowing.
Somewhere deep in the body where knowledge lives before the mind catches up—
Knowing that the missiles had bought them seconds.
Not victory.
Just seconds.
The ants pressed on.
The darkness followed.
And the mountain held its breath.