CBG and the Umbral barely had time to move before another arrow flashed overhead. It burst in midair, turning the street into daylight. Their stealth systems couldn’t re-calibrate in time. Both CBG and the Umbral were exposed in the harsh white glare.
In that light I finally saw her.
A small figure—girl-shaped, bio-human—stood on the roof of a railcar ahead, her signature longbow in hand.
CBG and the Umbral split at once, charging her from both sides.
My view shook so violently I could barely track anything. I only caught fragments: CBG sprinting, juking as arrows snapped past. Her rate of fire was absurd—no slower than a single-shot rifle. CBG fired back, and spent casings kept pinging off my head.
Two explosions boomed back to back. CBG didn’t climb onto the railcar. It circled to the front and finally stopped. The car’s metal skin was peppered with bullet holes, and the spot where the bio-human had stood was now occupied by the Umbral.
“Where is she?” CBG demanded.
The Umbral shook its head.
The roof was too rotten to bear the Umbral’s weight. The metal cracked beneath its feet and it dropped into the carriage—then the railcar detonated. Roof and car body lifted clean off the frame and went flying. The Umbral tumbled across the street, then pushed itself up as if the blast had barely scratched it.
My vision spun again. CBG was hunting.
When the Umbral came back into frame, an arrow was buried in its chest. The head popped, tearing open its armor plate. A second arrow followed, and the Umbral was swallowed by fire again.
“I see you,” CBG said.
It snapped its right arm up and launched a spinning disk. The moment it left the launcher, a ring of razor blades unfolded from its edge, doubling its size.
CBG took a few quick steps back. The bio-human girl had dropped in from above, twin blades already descending. The ambush failed—CBG’s reaction was too fast—but she didn’t let up. The twin blades became a storm of blue light, so fast my optics blurred.
Even with the energy shield on its left arm flaring and blocking nonstop, CBG still took several cuts.
After a few exchanges, both of them seemed to realize the same thing: her blades were nearly useless against CBG. CBG abandoned defense and counterattacked. Several flashcutter slashes—like blades made of light—whipped toward her.
She slipped them with unnerving agility, then flicked a throwing knife.
CBG instantly recognized the threat. The energy shield snapped up again and deflected it.
The girl retreated seven or eight meters, locked her twin blades together, and in the same smooth motion sent an explosive arrow screaming in. Before the smoke cleared, she was already drawing again.
CBG burst out of the blast and didn’t waste even half a second. The spinning disk was already on her, screaming through the air.
She twisted and fired an arrow to intercept—but CBG traced a shallow arc with its finger. The disk mirrored the gesture, curving around the arrow and continuing straight for her throat.
For the first time, she faltered.
The disk crossed the last meter in a blink. Just as it was about to slice across her neck—
Bang!
A rifle shot cracked the air. The disk spun away, flung off course.
Bang, bang, bang!
More shots followed. “CBG” raised its shield over my head and dove into the nearest building.
The sniper’s here, I thought—wildly, stupidly hopeful.
But my system was already warning me: power critical. My core was about to shut down.
CBG climbed to the top floor and tucked itself into a cramped attic. It braced by the window, covering both the street outside and the stairwell inside. Only then did I notice it had taken several hits.
At least two rounds had struck its helmet; the shell was cracked. A long, narrow slug was lodged in its chest. None of it had reached anything vital.
CBG pulled off the helmet and tossed it aside, revealing a corpse-pale face. It grinned.
“I’m getting more curious about you,” it said. “A standard Exiler… what secret is worth the Tower Clan sending two elites to rescue you?”
I didn’t answer.
CBG didn’t press. It hefted its AU-84 heavy assault rifle and started pulling attachments from the tactical case on its back. One by one it assembled the parts, converting the rifle into a long-range sniper platform.
Outside, the street went dead silent.
CBG didn’t wait. It switched to stealth, climbed through the roof hatch, and crawled onto the roof. The sightlines were excellent and the cover plentiful. It found a hidden position, set the rifle, and watched through a slit barely wide enough for a lens.
From here it could see almost every angle of the street. If the sniper and the bio-human searched outside, they would eventually cross its scope.
And they would, because they had no idea CBG now had a sniper rifle.
Panic spiked through my code—but I was helpless.
No. Wait.
My voice module wasn’t fully damaged. I could still shout.
I screamed with everything I had.
“Over he—! He has a—”
CBG reacted instantly. Before I could finish, it slammed a fist into my voice module and crushed it.
But the warning had done its job.
A clean shot rang out.
CBG dropped flat.
A few seconds later, it pushed itself up again—and started laughing.
“Ahahahaha!”
That shot still hadn’t killed it?
Then it turned toward me and I saw why: half its face was gone. On the ruined side, mangled flesh and an eyeball hung loose. It bared its teeth in a grotesque grin.
“Ha! Perfect aim!”
And then it did something that shattered the last of my assumptions about what CBG was.
From the torn half of its face, dozens of wormlike tendrils unfurled.
They wriggled, thickened, multiplied, and braided together—building a new half-face. But it overcorrected. The new side was twice as large as the original, with an extra eye and a mouth split almost to the ear.
I stared at that obscene, inhuman mask—and remembered the monster I’d seen in Zone X.
Then the world dimmed. My awareness began to blur as system text auto-generated across my vision.
[ALERT] Power depleted.
[ALERT] Attempting switch to backup power…
[ERROR] Backup power link failed.
[ALERT] System shutdown in 5 seconds…
4…
3…
2…
1…
…THE END…
(End of Volume One)