The previous generation of CBG had a clear weakness: the head.
That was why I kept targeting it.
But Phantom Forge had patched the flaw. Even a CBG whose head I’d split vertically could still regenerate.
While the CBG below flinched from the grenade blast, I dropped from level two and struck fast.
I decapitated another one that hadn’t fully reformed yet, then fired into the severed head until it became a pulped mess.
This generation was faster than the last—much faster. And smarter too.
The swarm I’d faced in the X Zone had been numerous but disorganized, each unit acting alone.
These were coordinating.
While I finished one target, multiple spinning blades and flashcutter blades were already slicing toward me.
I’d expected that. I dodged them all.
Lord Blin’s voice echoed in my memory: “Keep your eyes on the whole field. The attack that hurts you most is always the one you didn’t see.”
There were seven CBG now.
They spread out and extended the light-blades on their arms, charging from different angles.
For an instant, the bridge became the cliff in my dream again.
“Until every enemy is down, don’t stop moving,” Blin had said.
I kept my 2D Blade in one hand and a pistol in the other, weaving through obstacles and console islands to break their rhythm and keep myself from facing too many at once.
I numbered them as I moved—tracking position, distance, posture, timing—predicting their next step.
Number Five vaulted over a 3D star-map table and threw a flashcutter blade midair.
I dove under the table, left it a grenade as a parting gift, rose firing at Number Three—
And as I completed the motion, a spinning blade was already buried in the spot where I’d been standing.
I snapped shots at Number One while sidestepping. I knocked a second spinning blade away—then hurled my 2D Blade across the bridge.
That entire sequence was messy to describe, but it lasted only seconds.
And by the end of it, I understood their real intent.
They weren’t primarily hunting me.
They were hunting Dorian-2.
Whenever they saw an opening, they tried to break upward.
The staircase was destroyed. The only way to reach level two was to jump—at the right place, with the right momentum.
That was why I threw my 2D Blade.
Number Six launched toward the upper platform—and my blade passed through it without resistance, tearing out a spray of flesh.
The instant my weapon left my hand, I front-flipped low across the deck to avoid Number One’s swing.
I came up with both pistols in hand and emptied them into the exposed tissue of its head.
Apparently the two extremes of my energy weapons—laser heat and the impossible edge of the 2D Blade—were unusually effective against unarmored parts.
Number One took multiple hits, dropped to both knees, and collapsed.
At the same time, Number Four had managed to catch the lip of the upper platform.
I sprinted in and slammed it back down before it could pull itself up, reclaimed my 2D Blade, and hacked into its head until it stopped moving.
That’s when I noticed something I hadn’t seen before.
At the back of its neck, a metal scorpion was clamped tight.
Eight hooked legs were embedded into the skull. But the tail wasn’t a stinger—it had transformed into a fishbone-like spine that ran down into the vertebrae.
I didn’t understand it.
Did Phantom Forge really need something like that to control CBG?
Seven CBG—more than half of them were disabled now.
Temporarily.
But I’d stabilized the battlefield. I believed I could stretch time until Dorian-2 finished hijacking the Hope’s core systems.
“Thump.”
A heavy impact hit the bridge.
At first I thought it came from the upper hallway outside—Miller’s firefight had been quiet for a while, and I had no idea how it was going.
“Thump. Thump. Thump.”
The sound grew.
Then I realized where it was coming from.
From the bulkhead door I’d welded shut.
Something was pounding on it from the outside.
The CBG seemed to receive a cue. They attacked with fresh frenzy.
I couldn’t afford to look away.
“THUMP—!”
The final hit shook the entire island bridge.
The door bowed inward. A crack opened.
Two enormous hands shoved through the gap and began tearing.
The composite metal was more than ten centimeters thick. It ripped anyway.
Then a “meatball” squeezed through.
It was a giant—nearly four meters tall. One arm was thicker than my entire torso. Judging by its mass, it wouldn’t be short even lying down.
It wore no armor. It carried only a huge iron hammer.
And it had no head.
For a second I couldn’t even locate where its eyes could be—
But it knew exactly where I was.
It didn’t pause. Hammer raised, it rolled straight toward me.
It was massive. Each step made the deck shudder.
It wasn’t fast. Normally I could have kited it and chewed it down with ranged fire.
Normally.
Three CBG were pressing me like rabid dogs.
In the blink it took to evade them, the headless giant closed the distance.
I dodged a flurry of attacks and slashed at the giant with my 2D Blade.
It didn’t block. It didn’t dodge. It let me cut.
Something impossible happened.
The 2D Blade had never failed me. I’d cut open fighters with it.
But when it sank into the giant’s body, it felt like I’d struck wet clay.
The blade stuck around the torso. When I tried to wrench it free, it wouldn’t budge.
At the same moment, the giant swung its hammer in a brutal horizontal arc.
I had no choice.
I abandoned my blade and jumped back.
The hammer obliterated a console island into scrap. The giant didn’t care that my sword was still buried in it; it kept coming.
I retreated, dodging another flashcutter blade, and caught Number Two by the arm.
I twisted it behind its back, pressed my gun to its head, and fired twice.
The hammer came down again. I slipped aside.
Number Two was flattened into the deck.
Two seconds later, I used the same ugly method to finish another one.
It didn’t matter.
CBG numbers didn’t drop. The ones I’d terminated were already regenerating and rejoining the fight.
I tried to use the dense cluster of console islands as cover and keep moving.
The hammer turned cover into rubble.
They fought as a unit. I had no blade. I had a new giant I didn’t know how to kill.
The situation slid toward lethal.
I held on because I had to.
I just needed Dorian-2 to seize control of the Hope.
On the floor, I spotted something I’d missed earlier—one unused rocket round.
An idea formed immediately. It could kill the giant, but only if I could create the right conditions.
Half a minute later, I made those conditions.
I baited the giant to the edge of the elevator well, rolled, snatched up the rocket launcher, and fired the last rocket.
“BOOM—”
The rocket hit the giant’s abdomen and tore a hole straight through it.
The hammer and my lodged 2D Blade dropped to the deck beside it.
The giant staggered backward—
And stopped at the lip of the shaft.
So close.
I surged forward, trying to shove it down into the void.
I’d misjudged its strength.
Pushing it was like pushing an enormous sponge. My force bled away into its body, absorbed, dispersed. It didn’t move an inch.
When I realized the mistake, it was too late.
I managed to yank my left arm free.
My right arm was already caught in its grip—locked there like it was set in a vise.
It punched me in the head.
I hit the deck and nearly blacked out. I tried to crawl away, but my right arm was still trapped in its hand.
Through shaking vision, I saw the giant reach down with its free hand and pick up the hammer again.
Farther away—
The CBG were leaping toward level two, one after another.
And somewhere in the noise of my failing focus, Lord Blin’s voice returned, sharp and cruel:
“If you’ve been fighting a few enemies for ages and you still haven’t dropped a single one… don’t overthink it. That means the scrub is you. You’re going to lose.”