Cain laid back, his head sinking into the low-pressure cushion lining the tent's floor.
His eyelids fluttered once, while he looked at the time in his terminal.
[20:41]
The pain in his body had dulled just enough to be ignored, but the real exhaustion was deeper.
With a small push from his fatigue, his vision shut fully into sleep.
He wasn't a machine, nor a mythical soldier who could function on willpower alone.
Throughout the day, he had been — fighting, scheming, running, and surviving.
He had been drained hollow, but he only needed two hours — that was all he asked from the world.
Just two uninterrupted hours of stillness before everything possibly burned again.
If worst came to worst — they would all need to fight while evacuating.
'Every man... For... Him... Self...'
As his breath slowed, fading into the hush of synthetic insulation, the outside world kept moving.
Night guards climbed into position, silent, faces tight with practiced ritual.
Rifles, artifacts, and spell-tuned staffs scanned the tree line.
No tide tonight — but that never meant safety.
The world had changed.
Creatures that didn't belong to any taxonomy wandered the new earth.
These beings are both abhorrent and anomalous — once divine, or so it's whispered, but without their false idol to anchor them, they rotted from the inside out.
Some with a thousand limbs, while others with none.
Followers of both forgotten and fallen gods, drawn to sentient life like moths to warmth.
The only thing between them and Cain's sleeping body — were these men who risked their lives not for loyalty, but for profit.
His thoughts had long since crawled to sleep — muscles relaxed under the effects of the recovery herbs, and his breath found rhythm amidst the chaos.
Outside, the camp had settled in deathly stillness.
No one spoke unless necessary.
With a second scan, their optics adjusted to the ink-thick darkness, mapping trees, rocks, and every ripple of moving shadow.
They weren't looking for monsters — beast had their own rules.
At first it was the flicker of unnatural color bleeding through the mist — where shades of purples, greens, and cyan flickered in and out of existence.
Then came the first shape — a towering being, vaguely humanoid, its entire body shimmering like wet coral.
Its tentacles coiled around everything they touched, like a blind man feeling his way through the dark.
The men, beastmen, and demon didn't fire — it was not time yet.
Then the second creature arrived.
It moved with spider-like limbs — but looking closer it had no bones, only woven cords of flesh and hair.
Dozens of human faces were entangled in its filament-like hair, each frozen in a silent, endless scream.
They draped over a bulbous sack of flesh — the creature's true body, barely hidden beneath the web of suffering.
A figure like a funeral doll stood atop it, swaying as if dancing to a song only it could hear.
These weren't aberrant that obeyed hunger.
They were wrong in essence as their own god had locked them into an eternal prayer — still hoping one of these believers would bring them back to life.
"Tier-3 Anomaly..."
Despite the abominations getting closer and closer — the men only watched for now.
Outside, no one wore stripes, nor anyone giving orders.
But everyone knew who owned the patch of earth they were squatting on.
The bard.
He sat cross-legged on a foldable stool, half in shadow, pipe smoke curling above his battered hat.
As he plucked a low, deliberate twang from his banjo, the air became alive.
No, it wasn't just music.
It was a wide area magic casted through sound — symphonic wave of magicule tuned to attune the senses in the environment.
Every heartbeat in the camp synchronized, focus started sharpening, and hearing heightened.
The music flowed, and their eyes attuned to every flicker across the tree line — as if the melody itself peeled back the dark, revealing friend from foe in an instant.
The night had lost its edge — their silence felt useless now.
The defenders moved into position, some paid to get experience while others were part-time survivalists looking for a certain material.
Then the steel quadruped stalked forward.
Six tons of synthetic muscle and plasma-lined turrets, its legs hissed as it stomped into a firing angle.
Beside it, armored gunners knelt low in the brush.
The squatters camp wasn't a village — it was a perimeter of cold capitalism and meritocracy.
"Alright now, all you fine folks who paid for the Syndicate's horror ride... Line it on up!"
The bard announced with his outgoing voice, as if he was a carnival master.
With a quick glance, one could tell these were not mercenaries looking for quick pay or low-tier freelancers begging for a contract.
Rich kids, tossing fortunes for an experience of real war — as most came to train, while the rest just wanted a rush.
The bard didn't need to do much. A few idle strums here and there, and the rhythm was enough to keep them safe.
The first to deploy were the exo-division gunners, their mechs marching in perfect sync.
With each metallic footfall pounding out a steady war beat, their bases began conjuring massive spells one after another — turning the sky into a blaze of fire and ruin.
At the perimeter, the quadruped siege units shifted into firing stance. Their energy cores thrummed with charged plasma as they opened fire.
Most of the lot's occupants merely watched in silence, or forced themselves to sleep.
For Cain, the distant gunfire barely mattered.
He'd weathered months of shelling at Roosevelt Fortress, during raids on sect holy lands that now felt a world away.
"Huh? What are you saying, Aunt Roberta? I'm a man now, I don't need your milk."
Cain barely stirred, tossing around in his tent while mumbling words that were never meant to be heard.
"Look at y'all, dripping in gear so clean you done sucked the fun right out of it! But hey, least all your mamas still love ya, sending all these fancy toys!"
Behind the bard, the rapid-assault infantry moved, their armor glossy with hazard-reflective plating.
Further back, clad in twin-linked rotary cannons, a shock trooper walked with a presence more mechanical than human.
Then came the specialists.
One sat atop the cliff face — his gold filigreed plating gleaming like a saint of warfare.
Twin pistols rested in his palms, not raised, but ready.
There was elegance in his stillness, like a dancer before the music began.
Beside him, veiled by a chameleon suit, a sniper surveyed the scene.
His scope moved in slow, deliberate arcs — not to search, but to calculate every death required.
He didn't aim — he preselected where to give cover fire.
All these men took orders from just one person — the bard, of course.
It was his private army.
"This right here is service you paid for, baby!"
Cain slept through it all — undisturbed.
Peace came easy to those who'd already paid in full after all.