Laer warriors.
Standing two meters tall, their grey-blue serpentine bodies coiled with lethal grace, each of their four arms gripping a different weapon.
The upper left hand bore an emerald energy gauntlet; the lower left, a crackling power sword.
The upper right hand leveled a long-barreled sniper rifle, while the lower right held a round buckler fashioned from some sort of biological carapace.
Their movement was unnatural. They didn't walk; they glided, their lower serpentine halves winding across the ground with lightning speed.
"Contact!" one of the guards barked.
Lasguns opened up.
Crimson beams lashed out at the Laer, only to be effortlessly deflected by the organic bucklers.
The shields rippled like living tissue, absorbing and dissipating the thermal energy.
A Laer warrior raised its upper right arm.
The sniper rifle fired. It made no sound, emitting only a razor-thin beam of green light.
A perfect hole materialized dead center in a guard's helmet.
He froze in place. Two seconds later, he crumpled to the deck.
Beneath his visor, his face was already melting. The green energy was aggressively corroding his flesh from the inside out.
"Energy weapons! Hard cover!" Vance roared, squeezing his own trigger.
The beam from his upgraded lasgun was thicker and burned significantly brighter than standard issue.
His first shot slammed into a Laer shield. This time, a patch of the carapace blasted apart into charred flakes. The organic material clearly couldn't absorb the increased output.
The Laer hissed, all four arms moving in deadly synchronization.
The energy gauntlet smashed into the ground, kicking up a storm of coral shrapnel, while the power sword swept in a wide arc, severing a structural support pillar.
The sniper rifle leveled again...
Crack!
Vance threw himself aside a split-second early. The deck where he had just been standing was instantly slagged into a molten crater by the green beam.
He rolled behind a pile of shattered coral rubble, his heart hammering against his ribs.
In that fraction of a second, his neural reflex enhancements had saved his life.
A mere zero-point-three seconds before the Laer pulled the trigger, his body had already engaged in an autonomous evasive dive.
These are the starter zone mobs?! he screamed internally.
But his hands never stopped moving.
Cycle power pack. Peak from cover. Aim.
The Laer were closing the distance, their four arms working in flawless tandem.
Buckler blocking, gauntlet smashing, power sword executing, and sniper rifle picking off stragglers.
A fireteam of just three Laer warriors was pinning down twelve human elites... well, ten now.
Darius was still hunkered down by the cogitator, but his hand hovered over the laspistol at his hip.
The veteran's eyes were ice-cold. He was waiting for his window.
Vance saw it too.
The moment a Laer warrior cleaved through a barricade with its power sword, leaving its torso exposed...
Now.
He squeezed the trigger.
The las-beam punched dead-center into the joint connecting the Laer's right shoulder.
It was the articulatory node for the power sword arm, a known weak point in their natural armor.
Hiss...
The xenos let out an agonized screech, the swing of its power sword visibly lagging.
Darius fired at the exact same moment.
His hand was steady as bedrock. The laspistol spat a three-round burst, all three bolts striking the exact same spot.
The Laer's right shoulder exploded in a shower of fluorescent green blood. The power sword slipped from its grasp, clattering to the deck.
"Focus fire!" Vance barked.
The remaining nine guards unloaded simultaneously.
Las-beams, solid slugs, and even a tossed frag grenade converged on the target.
Down an arm, the Laer's guard was broken. Its buckler couldn't cover the exposed angles.
It was drowned in a hail of fire. Its grey-blue carapace was ripped to shreds before it collapsed, serpentine tail still twitching mindlessly.
But the other two Laer had already closed within ten meters.
An energy gauntlet slammed forward. A guard caught out of position took the blow straight to the chest.
His flak armor caved in and melted away. He was thrown backward like a ragdoll, crumpling against the Thunderhawk's landing gear. He didn't get back up.
A power sword swept wide, bisecting another guard at the waist.
Casualties were mounting rapidly.
Vance grit his teeth and broke from cover.
He moved blindingly fast. His sixty-three percent physical enhancement granted him explosive momentum far beyond a normal human.
He cleared eight meters in three massive strides, crashing into the nearest Laer before it could even raise its sniper rifle.
He didn't bother shooting. He just dropped his shoulder and slammed his entire body weight straight into the Laer's organic buckler.
Thud!
A heavy, sickening impact reverberated through the air.
The Laer stumbled back two full steps, genuine shock registering in its four eyes. How did this pathetic little human possess so much kinetic force?
That split second of shock was the only opening he needed.
Vance jammed his lasgun directly under the Laer's chest plating.
It was the central cluster for their respiratory system. According to Magos Sion's autopsy reports, it was a critical vulnerability.
He pulled the trigger. The beam punched straight through.
The Laer shuddered violently, all four of its arms locking up.
It opened its maw to screech, but only managed to cough up a thick foam of green blood and ruptured organs.
It collapsed.
Seeing this, the final Laer warrior didn't press the attack. It whipped its tail around and slithered rapidly into one of the honeycomb vents in the shadowed street, vanishing from sight.
The firefight ended just as abruptly as it had begun.
All that remained was the sound of ragged breathing, crackling flames, and the relentless boom of artillery echoing from the wider warzone.
Vance stood perfectly still, his hands trembling slightly.
It wasn't out of fear, just the sheer physiological backlash of a massive adrenaline dump.
He glanced down at his kill feed.
[Assist: Laer Warrior kill x2. Awarded 0.001% Glory Points.]
[Solo Kill: Laer Warrior x1. Awarded 0.003% Glory Points.]
[Current Total Quest Glory Points: 0.004%]
Four thousandths of a percent.
It was a drop in the bucket.
But it was a start.
Darius walked over and clapped a hand on his shoulder.
"Good work, soldier."
Darius spoke with chilling composure, "But remember, this is just the beginning."
Vance looked up, his gaze sweeping into the depths of the floating city, past the twelve towering energy pillars, and toward the distant horizon...
Down there, hidden beneath the abyssal ocean depths, lay the central temple of the Laer. And within that temple, the Blade of the Laer—the weapon destined to corrupt the Emperor's Children—quietly awaited its master.
"I know," he said softly, tightening his grip on his lasgun.
Meanwhile, scattered across the sprawling warzone.
Both Loyalist and Chaos players...
...were quietly making their moves from the shadows, setting the stage for the impending banquet of corruption.