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The machine gun fire stopped in ten seconds as the barrel began to overheat, but the carnage had already been wrought. Hundreds of bodies were now piled up on one another, with survivors desperately trying to claw their way out of the pile. Others were suffocating under the immense weight, unable to move as their last vision was only a glimmer of the bright sky, their vision murked by the streams of blood that flowed freely from the top.

Some stumbled away, unaware of their own impending death as they tried to plug the holes from which chunks of organs began to seep out. One man carried his wife in his arms, trying to flee while dragging his shot left leg, limping. “We’re almost out, we’re almost out!” he whispered to himself, unaware that his back was already riddled with pellet holes while his wife’s head lay limp, a gaping hole on her forehead with her eyes locked in a shocked expression.

The sight burned itself into the minds of the soldiers, with many of the local garrison’s soldiers having only heard about the first war but not fighting in it. Some of them retched out their meals on the sidewalk, while others began to tremble violently, unable to cope with the horrors in front of them.

“Arrest them. Shoot all who resist.” Officer Gabriel ordered, but none of the soldiers moved. Not even the sergeant dared to move.

“Sergeant, execute the order NOW! Or should I consider this as insubordination?!”

The sergeant quickly snapped out of his hesitation; the years of blindly following orders from above drilled into him. “Arrest them now! Move!”

A good chunk of the soldiers complied, moving on instinct as they stepped over the barrier, their boots squishing against the strewn corpses that hugged the street, fresh blood streaming. However, there were three soldiers who refused to move, instead aiming their arctech guns towards Gabriel.

Without hesitation, Gabriel immediately pulled out his handgun, executing all three of them in a swift motion. “Insubordination is punishable by death.” He muttered, holstering his smoking handgun back into its holder.

“Sergeant, contact the wall guards and have them reorganise under me. We’ll take back the garrison barracks now!”

***

The old Nest informant was tossed screaming into the bottom of a shaft, landing in a tight vertical tunnel on piles upon piles of mortars, machine guns and repeaters. He quickly ripped apart his shirt, glancing down at the Nest engraving that was carved onto his flesh on his chest. The engraving glowed dimly before dissipating into nothing. A slight pain and contraction could be felt. Why is the engraving not activating?

“You’re not going to die.” Kyle remarked as he dropped down next to him.

The old Nest informant turned his attention to Kyle. “You, you look like him, but not the same…”

Kyle knew the Nest informant would have recognised him as Kris Greyborn, but after his transformation into the Arcian race, his facial and body structure had changed slightly, his features sharpened and better looking. He was slightly irked as it meant he was a tad bit ugly in the past, but he threw it to the back of his mind. I didn’t choose my body either way.

“You know what I want, no?”

“You want to overtake the entire town here.” The old Nest informant was not dumb. After seeing Kyle use the mineral ants to clear out and steal all the weapons before detonating half of the ammunition dump, the informant was extremely clear on the plan moving forward.

“So, I can offer you freedom from Nest – in exchange; you must work for me and provide false information to Nest.”

“Providing false information would get me killed even faster! The leaders of the Versian branch won’t let me go! She’s cruel! Even if you can defend against her, you can hardly defend against the other two.”

“Oh, Lady Yona and Nox? I got them covered.”

The old Nest informant’s eyes widened, realising it was truly Kris Greyborn in the flesh. He was aware of the raid on the catacombs, where it was reported that Kris Greyborn had gone missing, not dead. This man can fight toe to toe with Yona and Nox and still survive?! How!?

“And if you’re referring to your transcendent leader, I know who he is. I’ve already fought him.”

At this point, the old Nest informant’s head was already reeling. But he quickly snapped back to reality, his calculative mind whirring into action as he considered his position. “I don’t think freedom is enough for me – I’ll need a bit more than that.” A small grin appeared on his face, knowing he held the upper hand in the negotiations.

It was necessary for the old Nest informant to provide information to the Nest headquarters regularly. Any lapses in check-in would result in the headquarters dispatching members to investigate what happened. Of course, he knew that Kris Greyborn would not want the entirety of Nest to come down on his head. I hold all the cards here!

“Well then.” Kyle grabbed a knife from the stolen weapon pile that they were lying on, reaching out and aiming the tip right at the old Nest informant’s chest.

“Wait, wait, what are you doing?”

“I’m going to remove the Nest engraving.”

At first, the old Nest informant was overjoyed, but he suddenly stiffened up, realising the implications of having his engraving removed. It meant that he would be completely cut off from the Nest network – they would hunt him down and have him killed in order to make sure he didn’t spill any of their organisational secrets.

He did not cry out yet in panic, simply holding a happy expression as though Kyle was doing something he exactly wanted. He hoped that Kyle would eventually back off, but soon he felt the cold metal tip begin to pierce his flesh, causing him to shake violently.

“NO NO NO WAIT I AGREE! I AGREE!” The old Nest informant tried to stop Kyle, his arms flailing and attempting to hit Kyle off.

Kyle immediately delivered a straight punch to his face, knocking out the weak informant in a single hit with a concussion. “Stay still; who knows where the knife would go.”

Unlike the time limit he had with Lady Yona, this time, the Nest engraving was a bit weaker, allowing Kyle some extra time to inspect the engraving carefully.

The engraving was made up of three sections that were all interlinked to form an overarching engraving. Removing one of the sections would cause a spiralling effect, draining the body of arcia energy and converting it into flames and burning the holder immediately.

Lucky for him, the old Nest informant’s body was weak and did not have much arcia energy, to begin with. Combined with his Negation field, the Nest engraving barely had any energy to start the self-consuming loop.

Section 1 here seems to trigger based on intention. So the holder would trigger this section immediately the moment he believes he had been captured by someone who was not Nest.

Section 2 seems to be a sort of engraving I have never seen before. The functionality seems to be unknown. I should memorise this.

Section 3 looks just like a slave engraving. No doubt, the Nest leader holds the master pair in order to enable direct control or direct punishment without initiating self-immolation.

All three sections line up to form the self-immolation engraving. Breaking the connection of any single section would trigger it.

Kyle was no stranger to slave engravings – he had designed a collar for Guang Hwa, and engraved one himself onto Makoa’s chest. The Nest’s version was a bit more complicated, but Kyle gleaned some insights as to how to improve his own slave engravings.

There’s a portion here where I can modify it to match my master-slave engraving. Kyle still retained the engraving that could control Makoa as a metal plate in his pockets, so he began to carve away on the old Nest informant’s chest, altering the engraving with great care to make sure he did not trigger the self-immolation too much, lest the body started to suffer from arcia exhaustion.

The pain from the carving woke the old man up once again, shooting straight up as he nearly yelled out loud. Kyle immediately punched him again, aiming for maximum concussion by sending a direct jolt to his brain through the chin. The old man was knocked out again in a coma, with Kyle continuing his work.

An hour passed in near silence, with Kyle finally finishing his work. Time to do a short test. He activated the master plate engraving he had, triggering the slave engraving on the body. The wracking pain felt like needles erupting all over the old Nest informant’s body, causing him to writhe and convulse violently, jolting right awake again in screams. “ARGGGHHH! I AGREE! I AGREE TO THE DEAL!”

“Good. Pleasure working with you.” Kyle dragged him through the tunnel away from the garrison barracks, which were now linked to the slums, barely only a few hundred meters long. As he exited the slums, he noticed that there were fights and shots being fired all across the city as the soldiers chased down the fleeing rioters who slunked back into the slums.

He walked past a few who had suffered multiple wounds, all evidently shot by an arctech gun as they limped. No one recognised him, all of them too preoccupied with the harrowing experience they had just witnessed at the riot.

Kyle brought the old Nest Informant to meet Diya, tossing him onto the floor of her office.

Diya was solemn; her hands clasped as she rested her arms on the table, glaring at Kyle. “You sacrificed the people for your benefit.”

“I did not anticipate the military to act so brazenly, but this is good for us.”

“Good? For US? Seems like it’s only good for you! Don’t lump me in with –“

Kyle suddenly lunged and grabbed Diya off her chair by the neck, slamming her down onto the floor and pinning her down. “Do not shout at me. I’m starting to reconsider our working relationship here. Surely the future Queen of Desham cannot be this hung up over such a small incident.”

“Small incident?” Diya spat through her constricted throat. “Hundreds died today!”

“Which is nothing compared to the thousands of slaves you trafficked every day for the last ten years. The path to power is paved on blood – nothing more, nothing less. Tiptoeing around insignificant morals won’t get you to the top. If you don’t want to be in charge, I can find someone else with more guts.”

Diya remained silent, unable to retort. She had definitely done plenty of shady crimes over the years. It would not be a stretch to say that she had exploited the people as well to her own benefit, accruing wealth at the expense of suffering.

However, today’s event was an eye-opening experience for her. Never before had she seen such a large-scale massacre happen right before her eyes, making her doubt her own path. Just because she did not see the suffering of the slaves she trafficked did not mean it did not exist, and now she was confronted with it face to face.

“Which is better, slow starvation to death under the heels of oppressors or enduring small sacrifices to reach the top to ensure that this tragedy never happens again? With you in power, you can ensure no one under your rule would repeat the same massacre.” Kyle let go of Diya, who gingerly rubbed her throat, aware of the power hierarchy now.

Kyle motioned to the old Nest informant. “This man will be your second advisor. He will handle the Nest side of things. I will require you to ensure that the news of your rise to power is noticed more than my involvement. Is that clear?”

Diya and the old Nest Informant nodded reluctantly at Kyle, who smiled. “Good. Then, Queen of Desham, it’s time to distribute some weapons.”