"Moonlit Sword Style…"
Jonas breathed out slowly as his muscles began to vibrate. The motion was subtle at first, but the tension in his body built rapidly, generating a faint force that made the surrounding air hum. The sound was low and sharp, like a blade being drawn from its sheath.
"…Moonfall Descent, hand-chop version."
He raised his hand and formed a knife-hand. Then, with blinding speed, he brought it down toward Ethan's head.
'What?'
The thought barely formed in Ethan's mind before the strike landed. Pain exploded through his skull and his vision burst with dancing stars. His knees buckled as the impact rattled his entire body.
'What was that?'
Sylvia didn't even have time to fully process what had happened to her brother before Jonas moved again.
"Moonlit Sword Style: Silver Horizon, punishing little girls version."
Jonas vanished.
At least, that was what it looked like to Sylvia. One moment he was standing across the room, the next he appeared beside her as if he had stepped through space itself.
Before she could react, his hand struck her stomach in a sharp chop.
The force lifted her off her feet and sent her sprawling across the room. She hit the ground hard and slid several meters before coming to a stop.
"Yay, I win."
Jonas pumped his fist into the air in celebration.
Outwardly he looked triumphant, but inside he was sweating bullets.
'Jeez! I almost lost!'
He forced himself to maintain a relaxed posture, but his mind was racing.
'What are they made of?'
He had deliberately reduced the strength behind his attacks. Even so, those strikes should have been more than enough to knock out most grown adults instantly.
And yet, the twins were still conscious.
They were clearly in pain, but neither of them had passed out.
"What… was that?" Ethan managed to squeeze out through clenched teeth as he struggled to push himself back onto his feet.
Jonas scratched the back of his head and thought about the question for a moment before answering.
"Moonlit Sword Style," he said simply. "It's a technique most soldiers use. Although it isn't the official one."
…
Moonlit Sword Style had been invented around eighty years after the war began.
At the time, humanity had been desperately searching for ways to survive against the khaerix, and conventional combat methods had proven insufficient. The style originally started as a specialized hand-to-hand combat system designed to help soldiers fight more efficiently when weapons failed or were unavailable.
However, things changed after the discovery and development of Kairos.
Once Kairos technology began improving and spreading through the military, Moonlit Sword Style evolved alongside it. What had once been a practical close-combat system gradually developed into a powerful combat discipline that synchronized extremely well with Kairos-enhanced soldiers.
Over time, it became something of a must-learn technique within the army.
"At least, that's how my teacher explained it to us," Jonas finished.
The three of them were now sitting on the floor of the room.
Jonas had positioned the twins against the wall while he examined them. As the least injured person present, he had taken on the role of tending to their wounds.
'Although there isn't much to tend to,' he thought.
Ethan and Sylvia's regeneration was borderline inhuman.
The bruises and swelling that should have taken hours or even days to recover from were already fading at a visible rate.
All Jonas really needed to do was ensure that the injuries healed properly.
At the same time, he was secretly carrying out a more thorough checkup.
The twins had already told him about eating khaerix meat.
The moment they mentioned it, Jonas had been completely stunned.
After all, khaerix were alien organisms with completely unknown biology. Consuming their flesh should have been incredibly dangerous.
Yet the twins had insisted that it was true.
When they demonstrated their abilities to him, he had no choice but to believe them.
'There's no way two kids could eat alien meat and survive without consequences,' Jonas had thought at the time.
That was the main reason he was monitoring them so closely.
But to his surprise, he hadn't found anything abnormal.
Well… almost nothing.
Besides their telepathy, their superhuman strength, and their accelerated regeneration, everything else about their bodies appeared stable.
'But we get cases like that once in a while,' he reasoned internally.
Abilities were rare among humans, but they were not unheard of. During his time in the military, Jonas had encountered several individuals who possessed unusual powers.
"And there we go," Jonas said after finishing his inspection. "No problem with your body."
He gave them a cheerful thumbs-up as he spoke.
"Thanks," Ethan replied dryly. "Although you're the one who caused it."
The twins were well aware that Jonas had been examining them carefully.
They could feel the subtle probing movements he made while checking their muscles and bones.
But they didn't really mind.
They could tell that he wasn't doing it out of suspicion.
He was simply worried about them.
BANG!
The sound exploded through the base without warning.
All three of them flinched instinctively as the entire structure shuddered violently. Dust rained down from the ceiling as the walls trembled under the impact.
"A khaerix?" Jonas muttered under his breath. "What class?"
He closed his eyes for a brief moment and quickly recalled the information he had discovered earlier while searching through the base's stored documents.
'According to the files, this facility should be able to withstand the full force of a Devastator-class khaerix without much trouble,' he remembered.
Another thunderous impact shook the building.
"Jonas! What should we do?" Sylvia's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.
Without hesitation, he jumped to his feet and sprinted toward one of the storage rooms.
"We run."
…
Less than two minutes later, they had gathered everything they needed.
Each of them carried a backpack filled with essential supplies. Their weapons were strapped securely across their backs as well.
Once they were ready, the three of them headed straight toward the hidden emergency exit built into the base.
The moment they reached it, they broke into a full sprint.
Behind them, the sound of the pounding continued relentlessly.
With every passing second, the impacts grew louder and more violent.
It felt as if the entire base could collapse at any moment.
"Can we take it?" Ethan asked while running beside Jonas.
Jonas immediately shook his head.
The khaerix threat classification system consisted of ten levels.
At the very bottom were Scout-class khaerix, the weakest of the species. Those could usually be eliminated by trained soldiers even without Kairos support.
At the very top were the Colossi.
Those monstrous entities were capable of surviving nuclear weapons and wiping entire regions off the map in less than a day.
A Devastator ranked sixth from the bottom in the hierarchy.
But that didn't mean it was weak.
Far from it.
A single attack from a Devastator-class khaerix was powerful enough to destroy skyscrapers and erase entire city blocks.
"Nope," Jonas answered bluntly. "Unless we all plan on dying."
"Why?" Ethan pressed.
Jonas sighed but kept running as he explained.
"First of all, none of us have a Kairos. Sure, we may be strong, but that's still only human level. Standing against living weapons like that when we don't have to is the height of stupidity."
"So what you're saying is," Sylvia said, cutting into the conversation, "if we had a Kairos, we could beat it?"
Jonas abruptly turned his head toward her while running.
A suspicious look appeared on his face.
"You two…" he said slowly. "What exactly are you hiding from me?"
He could practically see the gears turning inside their heads.
They were clearly thinking about something—some kind of plan that he wasn't aware of.
The twins exchanged a brief glance with each other.
Then Ethan spoke.
"Let's just say," he said calmly, "we found one."
Jonas frowned.
"A fully functioning Kairos."