Olivia and her team investigated the area. They still had no idea how specimen 731 had met its demise, but they were fairly certain that Silas had fought against what was likely the enthralled horde controlled by the terror.

  'He regained more power than I thought he would at this point...' Olivia furrowed her brow as she studied the mounds of rotting corpses. 'But it's not like him to raise skeletons to fight in his stead.'

  Silas had seemingly fought with his back against the cliff wall, slaying numerous monsters.

  Back at specimen 731's corpse, the team found tracks imprinted in the dry mud. Utilizing a scouting extension on her omni device, Olivia highlighted the tracks, revealing that a human male had been lying in the mud, before being approached and carried by various figures—some skeletal, and two in shoes or armor. By following their tracks to another section of the cliff wall, they discovered the remains of a makeshift camp.

  "Looks like they stayed here for at least a couple of days," Alwin stated, using his longsword to poke at the ashes of a campfire.

  "It doesn't make sense," Conrad protested. "Even Stormbinder had to retreat when fighting the brain monster, but the traitor defeated it while still in a weakened state?!"

  "We don't know what happened here," Olivia reassured her team. "But it's safe to assume Silas got hurt in the fight and needed a few days to recover."

  Using the scouting extension, Olivia and her team followed the tracks leaving the campsite. Silas was descending the mountain slopes, moving north, likely towards Arcturus City.

  After returning to the shuttle, Olivia used an encrypted channel to report to The Vanguard HQ.

  Despite her protests, Olivia was ordered to harvest specimen 731 and leave the task of tracking Silas to Stormbinder.

  "Eh, I hate this part," Conrad groaned as the team gathered around the massive, rotting corpse of the terror after retrieving a stack of large metal containers from the shuttle.

  Attempting to pierce the carcass's exterior with their weapons had proven impossible, so Olivia, as the most powerful Touched in the group, positioned herself partially inside the terror's maw and used all of her might to cut through the side of its mouth with her Dark Steel alloy short sword.

  Once the flesh gave in to the steel, Olivia began carving along the corpse's length, exerting all of her strength. In the process, a cloud of putrid stench was released from specimen 731.

  "Oh, God..." Luna stepped back, dry heaving. Even the masks they wore offered no relief.

  "It's fine, we'll handle it, Lun," Olivia comforted her friend while carving.

  "Sorry, Oli..." Luna apologized softly, retching again as she glanced at the corpse. Alwin and Conrad were forcefully lifting the upper half of the cut, exposing specimen 731's interior.

  Despite the gruesome nature of the work, the trio operated like a well-oiled machine, with Luna offering moral support.

  Everything from the terror's oversized brain, down to tissue and blood samples, was being thoroughly harvested, placed, and sealed inside the metal containers, then meticulously cataloged by Luna as she carefully averted her gaze from the corpse.

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  "Ewww! What even is that thing?" Conrad complained while wading through the innards of specimen 731.

  "Looks like some kind of gland," Alwin stated after glancing at the sack-like mass, covered in membrane. "Take it."

  "Giving me orders... up to my neck in..." Conrad mumbled mostly to himself, after cutting free the fleshy mass with his daggers.

  Once they were done, the team carried the sealed containers back to the shuttle and secured them.

  "Blah... I'm gonna shower for an entire day when I get back..." Conrad again muttered mostly to himself as he took a seat and put on his seatbelt, despite looking perfectly fine. Luna, however, sitting in the opposite row, looked somewhat blue at the gills.

  This time, Olivia followed Alwin to the cockpit and sat next to him in the co-pilot seat. She observed as the young man thoroughly prepared the shuttle for takeoff, the blue light from the displays reflecting off his face as the engines began to gently hum.

  She waited until they were en route back to The Arc before speaking to him. "I just wanted to let you know you're doing a great job and ask how are things."

  While Olivia's heart weighed heavy over the events of Silas' betrayal and her desperate desire to settle the score and make things right, she refused to shirk her duties as a Vanguard leader. Alwin, the youngest at 24 and the latest addition to her team, was the son of two senior members of The Vanguard, and Olivia was certain that he was under a lot of pressure to prove himself.

  "I'm doing fine, no need to worry about me."

  However, Alwin was not much of a talker when it came to anything not pertaining to missions. Instead, he kept his gaze focused on the large screen displaying the untamed wilderness, as Olivia coaxed tactful responses from him.

  Eventually, The Arc came into view. Olivia always found the sight breathtaking and horrifying—a bastion of civilization surrounded by untold horrors, and she took it upon herself to be its protector.

  When looking at Arcturus City, the closer you got to the city center, the taller the buildings soared, piercing even the clouds. Neon lights blazed from the structures, while vibrant commercials projected across the sky itself, acting as a shining beacon.

  All of this was packaged within four massive steel walls, bristling with gun emplacements, automated weapons, sensors, and optics.

  Olivia pressed the comms. "Arc control, this is Vanguard shuttle 74, requesting permission to land."

  After receiving the all-clear, the shuttle glided over the outer southern wall. In the event it was ever breached, a smaller inner wall had been erected, and the space between the two was used for vital installations, servicing the soldiers and workers stationed on the walls, as well as shuttle docks.

  As a prominent organization in The Arc, The Vanguard has private dock facilities at each of the four walls. Upon landing in the garage, Olivia and her team carried the sealed containers and passed through the decontamination field, ensuring they weren't unleashing any nasty hitchhikers from beyond the walls, into the city. On the other side, members of The Vanguard, assigned to the docks, awaited them.

  "We'll take the containers, Voidstrider." The junior members of The Vanguard spoke deferentially to the elite team, though mostly to Olivia, who was renowned throughout The Arc.

  "Thank you," Olivia acknowledged the dock workers as they began carrying the containers, before addressing her team. "Alright, you can take a quick shower, get a change of uniforms, and let's meet at the entrance in fifteen minutes."

  "Finally, I reek like I died two weeks ago..." Conrad shared with Alwin as they headed to the men's showers together.

  "Come on, Oli, let's go." Luna gently urged Olivia, eager to rid herself of any traces left from harvesting specimen 731.

  Olivia allowed herself a few minutes under the flow of steaming water, closing her eyes as she let the heat soothe her weary frame. Her pale, athletic body was marked by several scars, suffered over the last month, which she hadn't had the chance to get fixed yet.

  After donning a fresh suit and her gear, and tying her raven-black hair into a tight ponytail, Olivia joined her team for a late lunch at an eatery catering to the wall troops and workers.

  Occasionally picking at her lab-grown chicken salad, with a faint smile on her face, Olivia watched Conrad's boisterous antics as he annoyed Alwin and made Luna chuckle—until her omni device suddenly beeped.

  "Yes?" Olivia answered the holo-call.

  The voice on the other end responded, "Noah Orvel's omni device just activated."