For the next several days, Arthur followed only one rhythm, advance, destroy, liberate, and repeat it.

After the annihilation of the nine Champions and the collapse of an entire Chimerian fleet in a single moment, the three major fronts that had once been bleeding humanity dry were suddenly cornered like a rat with nowhere to go. 

They tried to put up their best defence along with the remaining Champions, but once Arthur punched the hole through their strongest defence, the enhanced ECHOs tore through the remaining ground forces with brutal efficiency.

It was a systematic reclamation. A cleansing, a reminder that humanity, though pushed back, had never given up.

But it was not quick. Even with Arthur’s overwhelming power, taking back three entire warfronts was a monumental task. Star system after star system had to be secured, Chimerian outposts had to be demolished. Human civilians had to be located, evacuated, accounted for. Fleet reassignments needed coordinating, supply lines needed to be rebuilt, but that would take months to be completed.

Arthur wasn’t just a weapon now, he was a stabilizing force for humanity. Everywhere he appeared, morale surged. Every time he crushed an enemy battleship with a flick of his hand, victory followed.

And within a week, the UFE finally reclaimed every single piece of territory they had lost in the last six months.

…

News spread like wildfire.

The Demon.

The Savior of humanity had returned.

Depending on who was talking, Arthur was either humanity’s greatest hope… or the Chimerian’s greatest existential nightmare.

Some higher-ranking officials, bureaucrats who had never stepped foot on a battlefield, reacted exactly as Arthur expected greedy politicians to react.

They wanted to control him, to “negotiate” to “collaborate strategically.”

They made their calls, but when they saw the footage. They saw him crush an entire fleet into a single metal sphere with the flick of his hand. Saw him obliterate Champions like they were made of soft clay. Saw him burning mountains of Chimerian corpses with a flick of his fingers.

And after that, not a single message came through again.

Greed, it turned out, had limits. Especially when the object of that greed could erase your entire existence without moving a single inch.

…

Planet by planet, the story was the same.

Chimerian forces had become entrenched in multiple human cities in the three fronts. Prison camps were filled with starving men and women, and children were left without care.

Arthur burned every Chimerian stronghold he found. He melted entire fortresses into slag, and telekinetically uprooted bunker networks and crushed them into balls of debris.

The ECHOs followed behind him, mopping up anything that still moved.

After clearing a militarized moon, Kael walked up beside him with a grin.

“Hey… you know the stories about you are insane, right?”

Arthur wiped Chimerian blood off his gauntlet and said. “Good insane or bad insane?”

“Both,” Kael replied honestly. “I heard a crewman call you the ‘Celestial Hand’ or something.”

Arthur snorted. “Better than ‘Demon,’ honestly.”

Lira landed beside them, her armor appearing scratched and smoking from the recent fight. “We are targeting the ‘Lab’ next.”

Arthur nodded, getting serious. “Alright, tell everyone to prepare to depart.”

“Yes,” Kael and Lira replied in perfect sync.

…

The reclamation of the first two fronts felt like peeling back layers of rot. But nothing prepared Arthur for the carnage of the third front.

Nothing prepared him for G-117. The moment the fleet arrived, the atmosphere felt wrong, the planet below was too silent.

And Arthur descended with Selene, Kael, and Lira, along with platoons of ECHOs towards the planet. 

Selene whispered, “…Something terrible happened here.”

Arthur nodded stiffly, he could feel it too.

They landed near a massive Chimerian fortress. What should have been a city, what used to be a thriving human settlement had been twisted into a web of alien structures and blackened towers. The air smelled like chemicals and death.

Arthur clenched his fists. “Let’s move.”

The first building they entered was a prison.

Inside, there were hundreds no, thousands of humans packed behind transparent energy barriers. Their bodies were gaunt, their eyes sunken, their clothing little more than rags. Food dispensers blinked red, meaning they had run out at least a day ago, they were kept there like cattle for the last six months.

The moment Arthur and the others stepped in, silence fell.

Every starving face turned toward them. Some recognized the armor and were relieved, some whispered prayers and some even started to cry. Others simply stared with empty eyes, unable to comprehend the sight of another human being after so long in this god forsaken place.

A young girl stepped forward, barely thirteen. “P-Please… help us…”

Arthur swallowed hard and lifted his hand. With a single thought, the energy barriers flickered and turned off.

The ECHOs started to guide the people as they flooded out of their cells, some collapsing in exhaustion, and some sobbing into one another due to being freed after so long.

Selene knelt to support an elderly man who could barely stand. Kael and Lira immediately contacted medical teams to beam down.

Arthur just stood there with his jaw clenched, and silently raging. But this was nothing compared to what he found next.

…

The lab was deeper underground. An entire Chimerian research complex hidden beneath the surface.

The doors opened with a hiss as Arthur hacked the locking mechanism. The lights flickered weakly, illuminating long hallways lined with glass tanks.

And inside those tanks were… people. Or what used to be people.

Arthur froze at the sight.

Every receptacle contained a human suspended in thick green fluid, hooked into dozens of invasive tubes. Their bodies were warped, and their flesh twisting into Chimerian features. With bones protruding unnaturally from parts of their bodies, their eyes dull and lifeless. Some had extra limbs, and some had half-formed chitin plating growing from their skin.

Worst of all, their brainwaves signified they were barely alive. They had become mindless beings, like a manufactured army.

Arthur’s mind went cold. “…They were turning them into mindless soldiers,” he whispered. “An army of puppets.”

Selene placed a gentle hand on his arm, but Arthur didn’t move.

He walked toward one tank. A young man, maybe twenty, floated inside. His face was still partly human, just enough for him to see the agony frozen in his expression.

Arthur pressed his palm against the glass.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Selene comforted him from behind. “Arthur…”

“This is evil,” he muttered as he furrowed his brows. “This is just… pure evil.”

Data screens next to each tank displayed vital signs, neural readouts, and mutation progress. All of it painted a horrifying picture.

Arthur scanned the system. There were hundreds of thousands of tanks, that means hundreds of thousands of victims and that too just on a single planet. Who knows how many such labs were built by the Chimerians.

His eyes were glowing purple, with Aether.

“I should kill them,” he whispered. “And end their suffering.”

At first he wanted to kill them and rid them from their pain, but he felt he couldn’t, he didn’t have the courage to take so many innocent lives.

He murmured. “I… I can’t do it. I don’t have the right.”

Selene and the others just remained silent, without uttering a word.

Arthur’s jaw tightened. “I don’t know if we can save them.” He sighed and suppressed his anger feeling he couldn’t change what was already done. He just hoped the change was reversible, as he could see the pain these humans were going through. 

He turned back toward the tanks. “If there’s even a one percent chance this can be reversed… that’s enough.”

“What do you want to do?” Selene asked quietly.

Arthur reached toward the console and accessed the medical interface. With a wave of his hand, he seized control of the entire lab’s system, thousands of interconnected networks were within his grasp.

Instantly, the neural sedation module activated. And all across the lab, hundreds of thousands of humans drifted into peaceful unconsciousness, at least they wouldn’t feel the pain anymore.

Arthur sagged slightly, it was a small mercy. But mercy nonetheless.

…

They found a few Chimerian scientists deeper inside the lab. These scientists were mostly the attendants and low priority for evacuation, maybe that was why they were left behind.

They didn’t even get the chance to run, but Arthur didn’t kill them quickly.

He made sure they understood every piece of agony they had inflicted on these humans and every life they had mutilated.

When he finally finished, he let their bodies crumble into ash but he didn’t forget to store their heads to extract their memories as even if they were not that important, they might have knowledge about the mutation process.

He stood there for a long moment, breathing heavily.

Selene slowly approached, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Arthur… it’s ok.”

He closed his eyes and exhaled.

Selene pulled him gently. “Let’s go. There’s nothing more you can do here.”

Arthur looked back once, at the endless rows of unconscious victims, and swore he would find a way to reverse the mutation.

…

Outside, the sky was beginning to lighten. Arthur and Selene stood atop the Chimerian fortress, looking down at the world the Chimerians had desecrated.

Evacuation ships were already landing, with medical teams rushing towards the prison. And soldiers prepared to secure the area.

After that they left the planet scarred by horror… finally freed from the Chimerians, but it was only one of such planets.

And with that, the war began to shift with the presence of Arthur.

***

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