The blizzard raged, freezing rain and hail whipping across the battlefield.

In the distance, the mortars stopped firing in relentless blasts, the volleys of shrapnel shells having done their part razing Immanu to the ground. The crystal wood houses were torn, the gardens were burned and the rivers were evaporated into cold steam. Since daybreak, General Wanuy had marched three thousand ant soldiers up the slope, and of those three thousand, a third of them had their bodies crushed beyond repair during the ascent. The Worm Mages had the right idea holding the slope as a chokepoint, but his bullet ant soldiers broke through, and now…

General Wanu sent the remaining two thousand undead soldiers marching into the caves at the end of the village, where the Worm Mages voluntarily backed themselves up against the blackrock mountain.

And, hour by hour, while he sat on the mound of rubble that was the village’s bell tower overlooking the mouth of the cave, he listened as his undead soldiers became unresponsive one by one.

The first to go out was Kuraku, leading the invading army, when she tried to leap across the chasm and was shot down by one of the Worm Mages. Then he switched to M1N-K1, lost her too, and decided he didn’t quite need to manually take control of any one of his undead anymore. He’d already drained himself a fair amount controlling the three bullet ant soldiers at once, and then Kuraku, and then M1N-K1—but there were still two thousand undead soldiers streaming into the caves, and if his knife had hit its mark, there should only be one little boy remaining on the enemy side. Letting his soldiers run on their base instincts would be more than enough… or at least, it should be more than enough.

But he’d seen miracles on the battlefield.

The Spore Knights, blessed with mutations from the Empress, were nigh-immortal ant-class killing machines who could regenerate any wound mid-battle. The Plagueplain Doctors in the western north carried mosquito venom in their claws, potent enough to petrify a giant bug with a single prick. The Pioneers in the far east piloted giant suits of armour made of insect chitin, the Igniscale Warriors in the eastern north lived eternally burning, and the Nocturna in the southern east were all but invisible to the naked eye. The Tamera could tame giant bugs and work them like hounds, and he’d even seen Cicada Mages in battle before; that group of reinforcements didn’t last long covering his battalion’s retreat, but he remembered how their voices twisted the air with spells, just a mere five of them holding back an entire horde of a hundred Mutants for five hours straight.

Miracles, in this world, existed in the form of insect power—mutations and abilities so outlandish they could only be described as ‘magic’.

But, by accepting that indistinction as a law of reality, humanity could never hope to harness that ‘magic’, and humanity could never hope to defeat the Swarm.

General Wanuy would never call an insect ability ‘magic’.

No matter how outlandish, miracles were not something to wait upon. Humans must grasp it for themselves, and tightly with both hands—only then could they hope to unmake the ‘magic’ and turn it into a weapon every common man, woman, and child could pick up and use.

He would give every human being a weapon until the Swarm was eradicated, and for that reason alone…

For that reason alone, General Wanuy continued to live even after his death.

His soldiers—his weapons of the Hagi’Shar Forward Army—were surely just as devoted to the cause as he was. Knowing that was how he could keep his composure. A thousand ‘dead’ weapons is the same as a thousand ‘living’ weapons; as long as they were maintained and kept in good form, they could still be used, and they could still fight.

So when he lost pheromone connection with his final undead soldier, he looked up from the rubble where he sat, staring tiredly ahead at the mouth of the cave.

The boy that emerged from the cave, holding a bundle of heads in his bloody fist, had broken all of General Wanuy’s weapons.

…

The General sighed and looked up at the starry night sky as the boy tossed the heads away, limping towards him in the centre of the village. It’d been twelve hours since daybreak—since he’d marched up to Immanu—and he’d been sitting on the rubble of the bell tower ever since. He’d looked around at the blackrock mountains, peeked up at the dense swirls of clouds, and he’d seen everything the village had to offer three thousand metres above sea level. The sky up here, above the sea of clouds, really was something else. The air was always so fresh. The cold was biting, but he could get used to it. Up here, he could see the sun rising on one horizon before dipping below the other side, and now he could see the Brightmoon hanging directly overhead.

Such bright and chilling moonlight was practically nonexistent anywhere else in the world, and it was a privilege only those residing in Immanu could enjoy.

He could understand why people could come here and not want to leave.

It was almost like another world, one so quiet and peaceful and tranquil, but at the same time… it was still the world he knew down on the surface. It was a world that could be without the Swarm.

It was in-between the world he knew and the world he wished he knew.

“... In another life, I would have envied the children of Immanu for having been born so far away from the Crawling Seas,” he said, putting his chin in his hands as he continued staring up at the Brightmoon. The boy who’d limped out of the cave stopped before his mound of rubble, looking slowly up as well to see what he was so entranced by. “You cannot even see the borders of the continent up here, with the sea of clouds being as thick as it is. You cannot hear their legs skittering across a mass of obsidian carapaces, and you cannot hear their mandibles snapping at each other like an incessant flood. I can understand why you wish to protect this little ‘peace’ of the world. I truly do.”

“...”

For the boy’s part, he didn’t respond. His rifle dangled loosely in his hand, and his head was tilted at a weary, listless angle. The General had to tear himself away from the Brightmoon before he could look down; he was quite sure his own eyes were just as sunken and worn-out as well.

“Contrary to what you may believe, apart from my four arms, I have no mutations that allow me to properly defend myself in the event that all of my undead soldiers are destroyed,” he said, giving the boy a slow, acknowledging nod. “By myself, I am relatively weak. A corpse cannot be raised without hefty conditions being met: depending on the strength and quality of the corpse, it can only be raised for between three days and three months, and if I ‘lose focus’ even once, the corpse will disconnect and I will never be able to raise it again. It is a one-time ability. If all of you had simply survived for three days, the vast majority of the Forward Army’s corpses would have expired.”

“...”

“The Empress puts a lot of effort into keeping us Forward Army Generals’ insect class a secret. Even Kuraku had no idea until I brought her back with but a sliver of her own consciousness remaining,” he continued. “Activating this ability… is meant to be a trump card. Something I was supposed to save until the very last possible moment, when I am surrounded by the Swarm on all sides, thousands of corpses buried in the snow beneath me. After all, while the Swarm may be good at adapting inside their nests, they are quite terrible at adapting to sudden shifts in the midst of battle. Me raising an entire army from the dead would have taken them off guard incredibly so, allowing me to march the army recklessly forward and exterminate them all before they even have the chance to retreat and adapt. That was the initial plan for the Hagi’Shar Forward Army.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“...”

“We are all living weapons. We are not human, and our lives do not matter. It does not matter if every soldier in a Forward Army dies on a campaign, and it does not matter what our survival rate is. Cost-efficiency is not the Empress’ concern as long as we, the Forward Army Generals, succeed in our mission,” he finished. “With that said, this is only the third time I have activated my ability, and the first time and only time I have used it on this Forward Army. I had thought I could kill all of you within five or so hours, but actively controlling three thousand undead soldiers for twelve hours straight has severely strained my body—if we were to fight right now, I believe we would be an even match for each other.”

Then he leaned forward where he sat, extending one of his arms down for the boy to shake.

One of them would have to meet the other at their level in order to shake hands.

“Return to the Attini Empire, Sparrow,” he said plainly. “The Boreus Mutant is slain. Immanu is destroyed. The Worm Mages are dead. There is nothing left for you to protect, and there is no point in us fighting anymore. Any loss in human strength from here on out is less human strength pitted against the Swarm, and I, for one, believe your strength is better utilised alive than dead.”

“...”

Without a word, Sparrow stabbed his bayonet into the ground and cracked his knuckles.

The General eyed the boy for a few moments longer before shaking his head in disappointment, retracting his hand and standing up straight.

“... But this, too, is an acceptable outcome,” he said, cracking his neck, flexing his wrists. “After this, I will retrieve the worm systems from all of their corpses and dismantle them for research. I am certain I will be able to extract important data from them. From one former bullet ant soldier to another, you have my gratitude for discovering this place all on your own.”

With that said, he stumbled a few steps down the mound of rubble.

Sparrow limped a few steps up.

And they met each other halfway, in the blizzard, bringing their fists to bear with the other’s chin.

Jaws cracked like glass and both of their heads rocked back, but the General was the first to roll down the mound of rubble. He’d forgotten the bullet ant soldiers’ style of gripping their fists—punching like they were cutting with a knife—and so the impact hurt more than he’d expected. No matter. He scrambled onto his feet and dodged Sparrow’s jumping elbow with a quick half-step, sending two fists flying at the same time; these ones were blocked, but the boy slid back in the snow, evidently stung by the force in his attack.

The General rushed at Sparrow with his four arms reared back. Sparrow kicked up a wave of snow and blinded him, slipping between his arms to strike his chin again. He toughened up. He rammed his forehead into Sparrow’s nose, but the two of them recoiled in pain at the same time, clutching their heads.

His body is even more durable than M1N-K1’s body.

He had no time to mull on the errant thought. Sparrow dashed at him, bringing a fist that he moved to catch, but then the boy feinted the punch into a kick—that he caught nevertheless with his other arms. He landed a straight blow into Sparrow’s face. Sparrow jerked to the side and bit off one of his thumbs in the process, alabaster teeth razor sharp and glinting in the moonlight. Up in each other’s faces as so, they traded a flurry of blows, their attacks surging forward at speeds neither of their eyes could follow; they were too tired to care about defence, and it wasn’t like wars could be won by only being on the receiving end.

He had to fight back.

“The teachings of the bullet ant soldiers mandate you only fight when you are certain you can win,” he said, spitting a ball of blood to the side as he struck with all four arms in sequence, attacking where Sparrow couldn’t possibly defend with only two arms. “You must have a trump card up your sleeve if you are engaging me in a battle like this. What is it, Sparrow? It cannot be simple tenacity. It cannot be brute force. I am your elder, and I have fought more wars than you have. What do you have that belongs only to you?”

Acting entirely on reflexes, Sparrow raised a knee and blocked the fifth punch, but it still sent him flying back into the mound of rubble.

The General tried to pounce on the opportunity, but instead his knees buckled for a short second and he stumbled, losing his momentum.

Tch.

Twelve hours and three thousand soldiers seem to be my current limit, huh?

The brief misstep gave Sparrow enough time to get up and close the distance between them. The boy yanked out his bayonet mid-charge, so he didn’t bother with his fists, either. He unsheathed four obsidian knives from his back and lunged in himself, clashing blades, sparking embers around them—even he was surprised at the amount of strength he still had left in him.

He was even more surprised at the strength Sparrow still had left.

This is troublesome.

Sparrow pushed forward, ramming the bayonet through a gap between his knives and into his chest. He was caught off-guard, but the stab didn’t really hurt as much as it should—it was numbingly cold up here—so he chortled as he glared down the barrel of the rifle, towering over the boy with a nasty scowl on his face.

There was no way Sparrow could have any bullets left. Twelve hours of intense firefights must’ve exhausted all of the reserves, and he hadn’t heard a single gunshot coming from the caves in the past hour. In that case, the bayonet stuck in his chest wouldn’t do more damage than it’d already done; he had Sparrow right where he wanted, within his melee range.

“You forget that one touch is all I need,” he rasped, cutting his palms open with his nails and reaching forward to grab the boy’s face. The very last zombie ants he’d been keeping under his skin crawled out, ready to invade and puppet any body, living or dead. “I permit you to speak your last words while you are designated ‘Sparrow’ of the Eighth Bullet Ant Battalion. What is it that you wish to say? What is it you keep in your heart, and what is it you show on your face–”

Sparrow pulled the trigger, and something slammed into his chest with the force of a cannon, sending him flying and crashing into the side of the blackrock mountain with a gasp of pain.

What was that?

A… worm?

He shot a tiny worm at me?

Thirty metres above ground, above the mouth of the cave, and fifty metres away from where Sparrow stood by the rubble of the bell tower—he watched, he gritted his teeth, and struggled to peel himself out of the crater he’d made in the side of the mountain.

It was like an invisible weight was keeping him crushed to the mountain, refusing to let go of his limbs.

And that rifle… that is no normal bullet ant rifle.

Where did you get that?

How does that weapon exist?

Sparrow didn’t seem interested to see if he was capable of tearing himself away from the mountain. The boy executed, with single-minded focus, a reload using the diamond flower ornament in his hair.

The General watched as he crushed the hair ornament into a ball and stuffed it into the chamber of his rifle.

He pushed the bolt forward, locked it in place, and raised the barrel.

Then he carved a dozen wormholes into existence in front of the barrel like miniature scopes, half of the wormholes connected to a void of dark, empty space—and the General froze, realising those wormholes were connected to some sort of vacuum.

Between two spaces of low and high pressure, everything in the high pressure space would be sucked into the low pressure space at extremely high speed.

Alternating wormholes with ‘push’ and ‘pull’ effects to speed up the projectile like magnetic coils…

Where?

How?

Who did you learn that from, Sparrow?

The wormholes hummed with power, and for the first time, Sparrow opened his mouth to speak.

“... ‘Sparrow’ perished in battle,” he said plainly. “I am Enki, child of Immanu.”

And when he pulled the trigger, the bullet that exploded out the barrel was unlike any mortar or cannonball developed by the ingenuities of man. The bullet warped through space, then back to reality, then back through space again—over and over and over in the span of a single second, before rocketing forward like a silver streak of lightning.

The flower bullet eviscerated the General before it even came in contact with his body, and the entire blackrock mountain shattered behind him with a thunderous roar.

It was the bullet heard across the world.