"Die."
Sylvia's voice was calm, almost detached, yet it carried a sharp finality that marked the beginning of the slaughter. The moment the word left her lips, both she and Ethan moved.
Ethan plunged straight into the writhing sea of khaerix without hesitation. He wore no armor, carried no proper weapon—only a long, jagged object he had picked up along the way, something crude that barely qualified as a sword. And yet, the moment he entered their midst, the battlefield shifted.
The effect was immediate.
Before the alien lifeforms could even process his presence, he was already past them. His movements blurred into streaks of motion, faster than their perception, faster than their instincts. Limbs were severed, bodies split, cores crushed before they could even react. He tore through them like a phantom, leaving nothing but torn flesh and splattered blood in his wake.
Where Ethan became a storm within the swarm, Sylvia became death from afar.
Standing at a distance, she observed everything through the scope of her gun, her breathing steady, her gaze unwavering. Every slight twitch, every exposed core, every vulnerable movement was captured and analyzed in an instant. Then she pulled the trigger.
Each shot was precise.
Each shot was fatal.
Unlike their superior counterparts, these weaker khaerix lacked the intelligence or instinct to conceal their cores effectively. To Sylvia and Ethan, they were nothing more than moving targets—predictable, exposed, and utterly defenseless.
Still, something about them caught Sylvia's attention.
'For artificial beings, their behaviour is oddly natural.'
They weren't mindless. Not entirely. While their fear of death was muted, dulled as though suppressed by design, it wasn't completely gone. There was hesitation. There was instinct. There was something almost… alive about the way they reacted.
And that was enough.
A plan began forming in her mind.
"Ethan," she called out, her voice cutting cleanly through the chaos.
"I'm going to herd them into a corner. A little help?"
Ethan didn't respond verbally. He never did in situations like this. But she didn't need words.
The shift in his movement was answer enough.
From the way his trajectory changed, from the subtle redirection of his attacks, Sylvia knew he understood.
Without wasting another second, she began working.
Her eyes swept across the battlefield, mapping everything—the positions of the living, the scattered corpses, the terrain, the density of the swarm. At the same time, she moved Jonas's unconscious body further back, dragging him across the ground to create distance between him and the ongoing fight.
The gun in her hands was far from ordinary.
From what Jonas had told her, it was an energy weapon, one whose output depended entirely on the user's own power. The stronger the user, the stronger the shot.
Sylvia didn't possess a combat suit like Jonas. She wasn't meant to wield such a weapon.
But she had improvised.
After tinkering with its internal systems, she had managed to make it usable—at the cost of certain side effects. The strain it placed on her body was immense, and pushing it too far could easily backfire.
Still, she didn't hesitate.
'There… there… and there.'
In her mind, a path formed—perfect, efficient, inevitable. Points connected, angles calculated, outcomes predicted. All that remained was execution.
"Ethan, attack at those locations."
The moment the thought was transmitted, Ethan adjusted without pause. His movements aligned perfectly with her design, cutting off escape routes, driving the khaerix exactly where she wanted them.
Sylvia, meanwhile, shifted her focus entirely to her weapon.
With practiced precision, she reconfigured it into sniper mode. The transformation was quick but noticeable, the compact frame extending into a long, meter-sized rifle. Its weight nearly threw her off balance, but she steadied herself, planting her feet firmly against the ground.
Then she began drawing out its power.
A display flickered to life along the weapon's surface.
0%.
The number began to climb.
Five.
Ten.
Fifteen.
Twenty-five.
Each increment brought with it a growing pressure, a strain that pressed against her body from the inside out. Her arms trembled slightly, her breathing tightening as the weapon demanded more from her than she was naturally capable of giving.
When it reached thirty percent, she stopped.
That was her limit.
Pushing further would risk everything.
She exhaled slowly and brought her eye to the scope once more.
The battlefield had changed.
Ethan had done his part flawlessly. The khaerix were no longer scattered—they were compressed, herded into a tight cluster with no clear escape. All that remained was for him to leave.
As if sensing her readiness, Ethan didn't linger.
He broke away immediately, retreating from the kill zone without hesitation.
The moment he cleared the area, Sylvia pulled the trigger.
"Shoot."
A blinding beam of energy erupted from the rifle, tearing through the battlefield in an instant. Light swallowed everything in its path, erasing the khaerix completely—no bodies, no remnants, nothing but scorched ground where they once stood.
Silence followed.
…
When Jonas opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the night sky.
For a moment, he simply stared at it, his thoughts sluggish, his body heavy. Then awareness returned, piece by piece.
The pain.
The exhaustion.
The memory of collapsing.
Turning his head slightly, he saw them.
Sylvia and Ethan sat nearby, a small fire crackling between them as they warmed themselves. Their silhouettes flickered in the firelight, calm and unbothered, as though the battle had been nothing more than a trivial exercise.
"Ah, you're awake."
Sylvia noticed him first.
"What happened?" Jonas asked, his voice rough.
His memory cut off at the moment he collapsed. Everything after that was a blank.
Ethan grinned, punching his fist lightly into his palm as he spoke.
"Well, we kicked some ass, roasted some, and managed to escape without any major injuries."
Sylvia added quietly, "We did try to fix you up, but…"
Her voice trailed off.
Jonas understood immediately.
Since their evolution, the twins' bodies handled most injuries on their own. Regeneration, adaptation—whatever they needed, their bodies provided. As a result, they had little practical experience with actual medical treatment.
And Jonas himself had never been injured around them before.
"I see."
The realization settled in.
This was his oversight.
Pushing himself upright, he began assessing his condition. His body was battered—bones misaligned, wounds still open—but not beyond recovery. His natural healing was far superior to that of ordinary humans, and the process had already begun.
All he needed to do was set things right.
"The sewing kit," he said.
Without a word, a box floated into his hands.
He began removing the upper portion of his suit, pausing briefly as he noticed the twins watching him.
He gestured for them to give him space.
"Why?" Ethan asked, his expression genuinely puzzled.
Jonas opened his mouth, then stopped.
They were just kids.
And more importantly, they needed to learn.
With a small sigh, he let his hand drop.
"Okay, kids," he said, clapping his hands lightly, forcing a cheerful tone. "Time for your lesson on sewing your wounds."
He sat down, fully exposing the injuries across his torso.
"It's always best to have a medical professional handle this," he continued, threading the needle, "but if you don't, the most important thing is knowing how not to do it wrong."
He placed a piece of cloth between his teeth, biting down hard.
Then, without hesitation, he pushed his hands into the open gashes in his body.
The pain was immediate.
Sharp. Blinding. Relentless.
A few seconds later, he finished adjusting the bones, though the process had worsened the wounds in the process. Blood coated his hands as he pulled them free, the sight enough to make him grimace.
Still, he didn't stop.
Gripping the needle firmly, he began stitching.
Each motion sent waves of agony through his body. Every pull of the thread felt like fire tearing through his flesh. His muscles tensed, his breathing grew uneven, but he forced himself to continue.
There was no shortcut.
No easy way out.
By the time he was done, one thing was certain.
He was in an ungodly amount of pain.