The battlefield finally lay still. The last of the screeching Bug-Men had collapsed into twitching heaps, their chitinous bodies split and smoking from plasma burns and heated strikes. The trio stood amidst the ruin—panting, dripping with bile and fluids, and yet strangely at ease now that the storm had passed.
Not wasting a moment, Lio sits on the less disgusting spot on the ground ground, pulling the severed head of the Shellwalker he was carrying onto his lap to work on. His fingers trembled as he unfastened panels and slid out diagnostic prongs, sweat mixing with the acidic sting of the bile that still clung to his skin. Inside, the faintly glowing core pulsed with weak light, fragile yet stubbornly alive.
The masked stranger in black and yellow crouched at his side, her voice calm and steady as she guided him through the process. "Gently—don't force it. Check the stabilizer leads first. If the Atman Core shorts, the rest is useless." Her precision contrasted with Lio's clumsy urgency, his lack of confidence gnawing at him with every motion.
He swallowed hard. "I'm not—good at this. Most machineries, sure, repairs… but this? This is someone's "soul" I could mess up." His voice cracked with the weight of responsibility.
"Relax," she assured softly, her hands hovering just above his, as if ready to intervene but choosing not to. "The Somata is fragile, but the Atman is resilient, designed to withstand certain level of damage. If the light still pulses, they're alive. That means you've already done the most important thing—saving them...or what is left of them, at the very least."
Lio exhaled, tension leaving him in uneven bursts as he adjusted the wiring. Relief trickled through him when the diagnostic readings flickered green, however faint.
Meanwhile, a raucous laugh echoed behind them. The stranger in black and blue had buried himself waist-deep into a mound of resin-crusted junk, tossing aside bent metal frames and corroded scrap with childlike glee. "Hah! Jackpot's gotta be in here somewhere! You two keep baby-sitting robo-boy's head and caccoon girl—I'll do the important work!" He shook free a dripping shard of alien alloy and admired it as though it were treasure, oblivious to the acid slime running down his arm.
From deep inside the resin-crusted heap, the masked stranger in black and blue suddenly let out a triumphant whoop that echoed across the hollow chamber. He scrambled back out, slime dripping from his shoulders, clutching two dusty treasures like sacred relics.
"WHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" Cries with joy from the stranger in black and blue, earned the surprised gazes from Lio and the masked stranger in black and yellow.
"BEHOLD! Two-hundred years in the making!" he declared, holding the bottles aloft with gleeful reverence. One was a slender French-style bottle, its glass darkened and label nearly worn away, but still faintly marked with the sigil of a vineyard long since forgotten. Inside, the wine shimmered faintly crimson, brewed from the elusive Mandroga fruit—a grape-like xeno-fruit said to give off a sweet, dreamlike tone when sipped. The other was a stout Chinese herbal jar, sealed with crumbling wax, its body etched with faded runes. It was filled with Red Dragonroot wine, a tonic infamous for boosting vitality, stamina, and other less polite qualities.
=====<[ Item Content ]>=====
{< Rank-C (Ultra-Rare) -> Rank-B (Epic) > Red Dragonroot Wine (Aged)}
Encased in a traditional Chinese-style wine jar painted with fading brushstrokes of dragons, this artifact is more than just alcohol—it is a time-sealed legacy of Ming-Tian Herbs, the legendary apothecaries who married cultivation with viticulture. Brewed from the exotic Red Dragonroot, a plant said to draw vitality from leyline veins, the wine burns with a bittersweet herbal fire, imbuing its drinker with warmth, vigor, and an intoxicating sense of renewal. This aged variant, matured for two centuries, is considered priceless; its taste deepened to a smoky richness, its effects intensified until a single cup can restore stamina to the weary and bolster the life-flame of even the ailing. It is less a beverage and more an elixir disguised as indulgence, desired equally by connoisseurs, cultivators, and smugglers of relics.
{< Rank-C (Ultra-Rare) -> Rank-B (Epic) > Mandroga No.18 (Aged)}
At first glance, this appears to be a scuffed but preserved French-style wine bottle, its glass etched with the faded crest of LeRione Winery, a name once whispered across noble banquets and trade halls. Within lies Mandroga No.18, a rare vintage crafted from the Mandroga Grapes, an alien xenoflora whose cultivation required delicate symbiosis with human viticulture. Known for its semi-perfect balance of sweetness and alcohol, it was considered the pinnacle of civilized luxury. This aged variant, matured for two centuries, is considered priceless; transcended the drink into an artifact where its taste described as liquid velvet, its afterglow stirring euphoric clarity. A symbol of refinement amid ruin, Mandroga No.18 is as much currency as it is legacy, passed between collectors and warlords who drink history with every glass.
=====<[ Item Content ]>=====
The stranger threw his head back and laughed, his voice reverberating with pure joy. "One bottle to make kings weep… and one jar to make dead men rise! Ha! Jackpot doesn't even begin to cover this!"
The stranger in black and yellow, who had been crouched beside Lio just moments ago, crossed her arms with a sharp scoff. Her voice was dry, tinged with sarcasm. "We get manhandled by a brood queen the size of a building, nearly drown in acid bile, and what do you celebrate? Booze." She shook her head, the faintest smile tugging at her lips despite herself. "Men."
The black-and-blue stranger, undeterred, spun the bottles in his hands as though juggling the fate of the galaxy. "Ah, but here lies the great dilemma! Do we… a) pop one open right here, savoring sweet victory amidst the guts of our enemy? Or—" he grinned beneath his mask, voice dripping with mock gravitas, "—b) do we cash them in, selling to those snotty rich pricks in their Megacorpo towers and socialite palaces for more G-Cred than we could ever drink away in ten lifetimes?"
Lio, still hunched over the Shellwalker's head as diagnostic lines flickered across his visor, let out a weary chuckle. "You sound like the real monster here. Even the bugs weren't this greedy."
That broke the tension. Laughter rippled between them, absurd and cathartic in the cavern still reeking of death. For a moment, there was no hive queen, no swarm, no weight of survival—just three fighters, dripping with slime and guts, joking about wine older than most people's grandparents.
Before the stranger in black and blue could commit to either glory or greed, the stranger in black and yellow rolled her eyes, snapped her fingers—and with a shimmer of hard-light projection, three glassy bottles materialized in her hands.
The familiar neon-blue glow of Nova-Cola fizzed inside each container, the caps misting faintly with condensation as though they had been plucked fresh from a vending unit seconds ago.
=====<[ Item Content ]>=====
{
One of the most popular soda in the New Frontier, produced by the NovaFood MegaCorp are the series of fizzing caramelized fruit soda that was stated to made from 30+ fruits with natural sugar and their corporation's "secret recipe", creating a simple yet refreshingly delicious beverage that can be enjoyed by both humans and aliens. Whether its canned or bottled, its has not only has LED animated element that display the product's logo and simple animation, but also has a small self-refrigeration module that kept the drink cool regardless of the environmental temperature (except when the drink was popped open, they the self-refrigeration only last for 48 hours).
=====<[ Item Content ]>=====
"Here," she said simply, handing one to Lio, then another to her partner in black and blue. "Dilemma solved. No need to waste two-hundred-year-old relics just because someone wants to play sommelier in a stinking bug hive."
Lio blinked, staring at the cold bottle in his hands as though it had appeared from thin air—which, in fact, it had. "Wait—where did you…? How did you—?"
"Don't worry about it." The woman's tone was flat, almost playful, but her expression beneath the mask betrayed nothing.
The black-and-blue stranger, however, practically cackled, slapping his bottle against hers with a ringing clink. "Hah! Practicality wins! But mark my words, those vintages are mine when we hit the surface."
Lio, still bewildered but too exhausted to press the issue, let out a shaky laugh. Slowly, he raised his bottle as well. "Fine. Guess this works too."
The three of them stood in the ruins of the hive chamber—bodies aching, armor shredded, slime dripping from every inch—yet for once, they could breathe. As the hiss of opened bottles filled the air, they tapped them together in a quiet, unspoken pact.
"To triumph over queens and swarms," the black-and-blue stranger declared with theatrical flair.
"To survival," the black-and-yellow added firmly.
"…To one hell of a fight," Lio finished softly, a faint smile tugging at his lips.
As their bottles clinked and the fizz of Nova-Cola lingered in the air, they drank, the fizz burning pleasantly against their throats. For a fleeting heartbeat in the aftermath of carnage, victory tasted like soda.
The stranger in black and yellow tilted her head ever so slightly toward Lio. Her voice, calm but edged with curiosity, cut through the momentary levity.
"You held yourself incredibly well back there—for a so-called Strength Level 3 Marauder."
Lio blinked, caught off guard. His first instinct was to brush it off, but her tone made it clear she wasn't just being polite. "…Thanks," he muttered, managing a faint smile.
But she wasn't done. "How strong are you really, Rookie? And what exactly is the nature of those… feats you pulled off? I've seen veterans with cybernetic overhauls crumble under that kind of swarm. Yet you punched, kicked, and jumped like it was nothing."
Lio's grip tightened around the cold bottle. A lump formed in his throat. Part of him don't want to tell both of them everything—about his unidentified metahuman abilities, about the fear of what he might become if he lost control—but something in her piercing stare warned him to be careful.
"I, uh…" He looked away, scratching his cheek with his free hand. "…I only recently awakened my Riftborn power. You know, the mutation thing that happens when the anomalous wave hits people? Like a… weird form of puberty. Except instead of voice cracks and pimples, you get superpowers."
He tried to laugh it off, but it sounded hollow even to his own ears.
For a brief second, silence hung between them. The masked woman's gaze lingered on him, longer than necessary, and though her expression was hidden, he could feel the weight of her scrutiny. It was subtle, but undeniable—she suspected he wasn't telling the full story.
"…Right." Her voice was even, almost too even. Then she leaned back, tilting her bottle toward her lips as if dropping the subject.
Lio took a quick swig of his own drink, trying to ignore the unease crawling under his skin.
Before the unease could settle too deeply, the masked stranger in black and blue leaned against a heap of resin-coated scrap, swirling his unopened Nova-Cola like it was a fine wine. His voice came lazy and mocking, but there was a sharpness under it that Lio couldn't quite ignore.
"Well, well… our little Rookie's got a few secrets tucked away, huh?" He chuckled, the sound dripping with sarcasm as he tapped the bottle against his mask in thought. "Tell you what—if fate's cruel or kind enough to let us bump into each other again, how about a spar? Just a friendly one. You know… to see how really strong you are."
Lio stiffened at the words. Sparring with someone who had just torn through an army of Cave Bugs and smashed a Hive Queen's arm like it was nothing wasn't exactly comforting. His chest tightened with a nervous dread, but he forced himself to nod, his voice barely above a murmur.
"…Sure. I'd… I'd like that."
The stranger's laughter rang out again, light and mocking but oddly warm at its core. "Ha! That's the spirit. Don't worry, Rookie—if you survive long enough, maybe I'll even go easy on you."
For some reason, Lio couldn't tell if that was a joke or a promise.
=====
While Lio crouched beside the salvaged head of the Shellwalker, running his fingers carefully across the charred plating to assess the damage, his attention remained split. He checked the diagnostic feed flickering faintly on its cracked lens, searching for any sign that the Atman Core was intact. At the same time, his eyes wandered to the Ex-Med Sarcophagus strapped firmly to his back, where Lynx rested in stasis. The hard fabric-like casing gave no sign of fragility, but still he caught himself adjusting its position again and again, as though ensuring her safety was the only thing keeping him grounded.
Meanwhile, a silence crept over the two masked strangers. Their playful banter and sharp quips dulled to uneasy murmurs, their postures stiffening as they glanced at the shifting walls of the hive chamber. By now, there should have been signs—the telltale spasms of a collapsing Breachspace Dungeon: reality quivering at the seams, resin walls warping into translucent haze, and the faint but steady tremors of an artificial world beginning to dissolve without its anchor. But here, there was nothing. The ground remained solid, the walls grotesquely intact.
The stranger in black and blue tilted his head, his jovial tone fading as his voice dropped into a sharp, humorless register. "...This isn't right. Even with the death of the Breacher and its 3-days countdown, the whole bubble should be slowly unraveling by now." His mask's multi-spectrum HUD flickered as he scanned again, restless. At the same time, he was harvesting the Cave Bug's hive of its pungent yet valuable resource that was cultivated and collected by these insectoids as their form of nourishment, collected into glass bottles and ready to be sold to some traditional medicine stores or medicinal-related corporations; the Royal Nectar.
=====<[ Item Content ]>=====
{< Rank-A (Epic / Exotic) > Hive Queen's Royal Nectar}
Viscous, golden-black, and pungent as fermented Durian fruit, the Royal Nectar is harvested from the cavernous brood-chambers of a hostile eusocial insectoid species known for its colossal Hive Queens. Dangerous to acquire, it is revered as both delicacy and panacea. Its taste, once braved, is said to be otherworldly sweet, balancing its nauseating aroma with ecstasy upon the tongue. More than flavor, its properties are extraordinary: it possesses anti-inflammatory, regenerative, and strengthening capabilities, capable of healing cuts and infections with miraculous speed, and when consumed in cultivation, it enriches the body as if feeding the very marrow. Smugglers speak of it as "liquid immortality," though its harvest inevitably costs lives, for Hive Queens guard their nectar as divine tribute. Among Marauder circles, a single vial is worth more than armories, sought equally by healers, assassins, corporations, and royalties.
=====<[ Item Content ]>=====
His partner in black and yellow crossed her arms, her tone calm but edged with unease. "Which means that queen… wasn't the Breacher."
A sinking weight pressed into the air around them. Their victory, once hard-earned and bloody, now felt hollow. If the Hive Queen had only been a broodmother and not the true anchor of this twisted space, then the real Breacher was still here—hidden, waiting, or perhaps even watching.
The stranger in black and blue exhaled through his mask, the sound strained but laced with grim certainty. "Which begs the question… if that big momma monster wasn't the heart of this dungeon, then... where the hell is the real one?"
The chamber felt colder with every passing second.
When the dust finally began to settle, Lio trudged across the slimy floor toward the two masked strangers. The weight on his back felt heavier than ever, yet he straightened himself as best as he could. He bowed his head slightly, voice steady but tired. "...Thank you. If it weren't for you, neither Lynx nor the Shellwalker would've made it out of that fight."
The stranger in black and yellow tilted her mask toward him, the faint hum of her jetpack subsiding. Her tone, though level, carried a quiet firmness. "The rescue wasn't part of our mission. But we're not the sort to turn a blind eye when someone's being dragged to their death."
Lio gave a faint, almost sheepish smile. "Still… I'm grateful."
Her partner in black and blue, however, let out a sharp chuckle that carried no malice, twirling his bo-staff against the resin floor with a crack of irritation. "Don't mistake me for a saint, rookie. We didn't dive into this hive just to play saviors." He tilted his head toward the pile of resin-encrusted rubble he'd been picking through. "Truth is, I came here chasing something very particular. An artifact—a coin-like artifact embedded in a marble statue. It was supposed to be my prize." He jabbed the staff against the ground with a grunt. "But some punk swiped it before I could. Now it's gone."
Lio froze. His chest tightened, and for a moment the echoes of memory whispered back—the smooth, marble-like surface he had dug for Auralite crystals with his Marauder party, the coin-shaped artifact resting within it, and then the sudden, disorienting blackout that swallowed him whole. The fragments of memory ended there, leaving him in the dark about what happened afterward besides getting swarmed by Cave Bugs.
He clenched his jaw, lowering his gaze to hide the tension in his expression. He said nothing, choosing instead to adjust the Ex-Med Sarcophagus on his back as though the motion demanded his full attention. Silence was safer. He wasn't ready to admit what he remembered—not when he didn't even understand what had happened to the artifact himself.
======
Lio sheepishly pulled himself up and prepare to leave.
"Alright, guys. I have to get going, to my... other Marauder party that I'm worried about. So, thank you very much, enjoy your looting, and see you guys so-"
Just as Lio shifted his stance, ready to leave the two masked Marauders to their looting, the air split with a sharp hiss—like compressed steel being torn open. His instincts screamed at him a heartbeat before his mind could register the sound. Something small and fast had been launched, cutting through the atmosphere with lethal precision.
It landed at their feet with a dull clink.
A tiny, ominous shape—no bigger than three thumbs lined together—rested on the resin floor. The crimson sheen of its casing caught what little light remained in the chamber, an ominous beeping noise, and the markings on its surface made Lio's stomach drop.
RedWar G-13 Micro-Grenade. Pocket size, yet packed a punch.
For a split second, no one moved. Time slowed, suffocating them in the crushing silence between impact and detonation. Lio's heart pounded against his ribs as the truth clawed through him—by the time the device ticked, it would already be too late.
"GRENADE!!!"
The three launched themselves in opposite directions, muscles exploding with adrenaline. Their boots cracked the slime-coated ground as they pushed off, and the chamber lit up behind them.
The micro-grenade went off with a shrill, violent burst—far louder than its size should have allowed. Fire and shockwave tore through the hive chamber, shredding resin walls and blasting fragments into the air. Smoke and dust swallowed everything in choking curtains, plunging their surroundings into a haze of shifting shadows and deafening echoes.
Lio hit the ground hard, rolling as he tightened his hold on Lynx's Ex-Med Sarcophagus. His ears rang, his vision blurred, and yet through the haze he could see the other two silhouettes landing with equal urgency, both weapons already raised.
They had been blindsided. Not by the swarm. Not by the dungeon itself.
Possibly... someone else.
As the smoke and grit began to thin, a blur of movement cut across their vision. Lio felt the weight on his arm vanish—the Ex-Med Sarcophagus wrenched clean from his grip as if by a phantom.
When the haze peeled away, the phantom had a face.
Angstrom Matias.
The Shellwaker stood there, scarred and looming, his weaponized Somata twitching across his frame like a second skin. Lio's eyes widened—Angstrom should have been dead, crushed beneath the tons of rock and shattered scaffolds that collapsed into the abyss. Yet here he was, standing in the flesh, defiance and ruin etched into every motion.
Clutched in his iron grip was the Ex-Med cocoon. Lynx lay unconscious within, suspended in pale stasis light, while his cybernetic right arm angled forward—the micro-grenade launcher already primed, the chamber glowing red.
"Try anything," Angstrom rasped, his voice warped, almost metallic. "And she dies."
The cavern air went heavy, silence broken only by the ticking debris still settling around them.
Angstrom's ruined somata head twitched as he hauled the cocooned Lynx closer, his cyberarm's launcher locked squarely behind Lynx's cocoon while gripping on it. The pale stasis light from the Ex-Med Sarcophagus reflected in his fractured visor, making his hunger plain.
"This dungeon's spoils are mine," he growled, his voice cracking into a rasp. With his free left hand, he clawed at the slime-slick loot mound, shoving whatever relics and valuables he could grasp into his armor's compartments. His greed was feral, unrestrained, as if survival alone wasn't enough—he wanted it all.
Lio's jaw tightened. He'd seen Angstrom fall, crushed beneath stone and steel. "You should be dead."
Angstrom let out a low, bitter chuckle. "Ya should have known its not easy to kill a Shellwalker. I woke up in the rubble. The scaffolds, the cave-in—thought it was my tomb. But it wasn't. It was a door... of opportunity." His voice rose, ragged with fervor. "A cavern below, crawling with Cave Bugs, and at its heart—a Breachpoint. The same one you rats used to slither in here."
He shifted his grip on the cocoon, almost savoring Lio's frustration. "I knew what this place was the moment I saw it. A Breachspace Dungeon. Priceless. Infinite. But why risk my skin against the swarm, the Bug-Men, that Hive Queen? No—better to wait. Let you three to clear the filth, burn the path. And when the way was open…" His damaged head tilted and frits, the grin in his tone unmistakable. "…I take the prize."
The stranger in black and blue let out a short, dismissive laugh as he spun his bo-staff in one hand. His stance was casual, but his tone dripped with venom.
"Please. I could break you before you even cycles a charge through that arm of yours. You lived live long enough as a severed head when I'm done with you."
The words cut through the thick cavern air, sharp as a blade.
"Don't."
The stranger in black and yellow stepped forward, his voice like a hand pressed against the flames. Lio joined him in an urgent tone.
"This isn't the time to egg him on. He's got a hostage. One wrong move and that girl would takes the blast, even with the Ex-Med Sarcophagus durability."
The stranger in blue clicked his tongue but didn't lower his weapon, his narrowed eyes locked on Angstrom.
Lio's gaze flicked toward the Shellwaker and his stomach churned. It wasn't just Angstrom's greed making him dangerous—it was his condition. The man's head was battered, the once-solid plates now dented inward from the fall. Faint rivulets of bioconductor fluid—the eerie blue "blood" that ran through Shellwaker veins—oozed steadily down the side of his skull. Worse still, his left cybernetic eye had been knocked loose, dangling from frayed optic cords, its lens swinging like a broken pendulum with every jerking movement of his head.
Angstrom's breathing was uneven. His words came out slurred, jittering between rage and triumph. To Lio, it was obvious: the fall and the rubble had cracked more than just his helmet. His whole mind was hanging by threads. Even if the Atman Core was intact, its most likely its syntbio brain was damaged.
He's unstable… Lio thought, every muscle tensing. If we provoke him too far, if we push him even a little more, he might snap—and if he does, Lynx won't survive it.
=====
But unbeknownst to Lio, the two masked strangers, and even the erratic Angstrom Matias himself, something was stirring where none of them dared to look.
Behind Angstrom, past the cocoon clutched in his cybernetic arm and the slimy mound of half-dissolved loot, the massive corpse of the Hive Queen gave a faint tremor. It was subtle at first—like a trick of the eye, a shadow shifting in the gloom—but the mountain of flesh was too large, too heavy, to be mistaken for anything else.
The glossy carapace shuddered once, then twice, before a sickening ripple coursed across its abdomen. A wet, muffled crack followed, like bones splitting under the weight of something pressing outward from inside.
The strangers didn't notice. Angstrom, too focused on his ransom of treasure and hostage, was deaf to it. Lio was too tense, too locked on the micro-grenade launcher aimed at Lynx to sense anything beyond the immediate danger.
But the truth loomed just behind their field of vision.
Something alive.
Something massive.
Something that was not finished.
The Hive Queen's bloated shell pulsed again, as if a monstrous heart still beat within her hollow body, desperate to break free. The air seemed to grow heavier with every tremor, carrying with it the promise that their battle—the one they thought was already won—was far from over.
<<<[ Arc 01, Ch 10 - END ]>>>