"Your next objective is your first true baptism in fire. It is our first footprint in the Myriad Realms."
General Marcus Zhang pointed toward the ten-meter-tall Gateway. Its purple light pulsed like a dying star, casting long, flickering shadows across the hangar. "Behind that veil is a world choked by the Necro-Virus—a wasteland of bloodthirsty entities and unknown variables."
"The mission is Armed Reconnaissance," Marcus emphasized, his voice steel. "You are not there for a war of attrition. You are our eyes. Test the gear. Map the terrain. Establish a foothold. If, and only if, High-Tier threats emerge, you are cleared for hot engagement and self-detonation protocols. Bring back the data. Understood?"
"ROAR!"
Five hundred armored Zombies slammed their rifle-arms against their chest plates in a hollow, metallic thud. Ethan stepped forward, his gaze sweeping the line. He said only two words:
"Move out."
Clack. Clack. Clack.
The rhythmic, heavy footfalls of the Vanguard Recon Unit echoed as they marched toward the vortex. The Company Commander at the point clicked on his tactical spotlight, two searing white beams piercing the purple mist of the portal. Without a second's hesitation, he racked the bolt on his arm-mounted rifle and stepped through.
The light swallowed him. One by one, the unit vanished. When the last soldier, carrying a heavy-duty radio relay, stepped across the threshold, the massive monitors in the Command Hall didn't flicker to life. Instead, they exploded into a blizzard of grey static.
Crackle. Ssssss.
"Status!" Marcus barked, spinning toward the Technical Director. "Where's the feed?"
The Director was a mask of sweat, his fingers blurred across his keyboard. He shook his head in a panic. "It's no use, General! The Dimensional Membrane is too dense. Our signal waves are being sheared at the event horizon. Standard radio can't penetrate a separate reality. Our tech is useless over there!"
The air in the room turned frigid. Just as the panic began to peak, Ethan—who had been watching silently from the command chair—slowly stood up.
"Don't waste your breath on the hardware," Ethan said calmly, his voice cutting through the noise. "This is dimensional isolation. Modern Earth technology doesn't have the bandwidth for Trans-Planar Telemetry."
"Then what?" Marcus looked at him, desperate. "Ethan, tell me you have a workaround."
"I am the Architect of that world," Ethan said, a confident, sharp curve forming at the corner of his mouth as he tapped his temple. "Every soldier crossed that threshold via my consciousness. Their Neural Tethers are anchored to me. I am the signal tower."
Ethan turned to the black screen and reached into the empty air, closing his fist as if catching a thread. "Synchronize."
HUM.
Without a single cable or server, the screen ignited. It didn't just show a feed; it fractured into hundreds of high-definition tactical windows, centered around a massive, overarching God's Eye View.
The hall erupted in cheers. The scientists stared at Ethan in shock—this "mental visualization" was more efficient than any black-box tech they had ever dreamed of.
The image on the screen was bleak.
The sky was a bruised, leaden grey, thick with suspended ash. Below, five hundred Zombie Special Forces stood in a tight Defensive Circle in the middle of a skeletal, ruined street.
"Command, this is Vanguard Lead," the Company Commander's voice rang out, clearer than any terrestrial radio Ethan had ever heard. "Landing successful. All personnel accounted for. We are green across the board."
"This is Astra Base, General Marcus Zhang speaking," Marcus grabbed the comms, his voice steadying. "Report environmental data."
On screen, the Commander's first-person perspective scanned the ruins with professional lethality. "Visual confirms a ruined modern metropolis. Gravity is approximately 1.2G. Movement feels heavy, but these hulls have the torque to compensate. We feel as light as shadows. There is a heavy scent of—wait."
The camera snapped to a dark alley at the corner of the street. The square rifle on the Commander's arm whipped up, the tactical light locking onto a cluster of shadows.
"Target spotted. Fifty meters. Hostile entities detected."
The camera zoomed. Thousands of people in the Command Hall held their breath.
Out of the rot-choked shadows, several ragged, festering humanoid shapes stumbled into the light. Their eyes were bulging, milky orbs. They were Feral Ghouls. Even though the Task Force inhabited zombie bodies, the Ghouls sensed a foreign spark—a living soul behind the green skin—and let out blood-curling screeches.
"Are those the locals?" Marcus whispered, staring at the screen.
"Maintain formation," the Commander's voice was hauntingly cold. "Hold fire. Observe for mutation markers."
But the Ghouls didn't wait. Enraged by the tactical lights or the scent of the "invaders," they suddenly accelerated, charging like rabid dogs. Their speed was terrifying, far exceeding the shuffling corpses of cinema.
"Kill zone: twenty meters," the Commander noted, his voice flat. "Open fire!"
TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
Five hundred rifles spat synchronized tongues of orange flame. The barrage wasn't a spray; it was a woven net of lead.
The air filled with the sharp scent of cordite and the wet thwip of high-caliber rounds hitting soft tissue. The street became a slaughterhouse. With a final, precise burst, the last Ghoul—attempting to crawl forward with its lower half missing—took a headshot that painted the grey concrete in dark, viscous fluid.
This wasn't a game. There were no experience bars. No glowing loot. There was only the brutal, rhythmic reality of a professional hit.
"Sector clear," the Commander's voice crackled through, devoid of emotion. "Proceeding to next waypoint."