COG: 9 : Lambent

The reavers fly off into the distance. Following Myrrah.

In my hands I grasp a scroll written in broken english, but I can translate it.

Basically all the areas of the hollow where lambent locust have taken control, she wants me to eliminate some of them and I could be freed or something.

Most likely not but its worth a shot atleast.

Jumbled coordinates and drawings of landmarks..

Guess I should start deciphering this shit.

A small drawing of some weird worm monolith thing, guess that's where I'm supposed to go.

Before Myrrah left she dropped a big crate of shit for me to use, locust armor and weapons etc.

I arm up and Grey follows suit, we grab all the shit we can carry and begin slowly making our way through the ravaged little settlement.

All the locust were evacuated or killed while I was escaping..

It is almost certain remnants of lambent remain so U have to stay on my toes..

Almost on queue 4 lambent drones pop out of the windows of a cathedral looking building.

Never a peaceful day on Sera..

---

---

[Surface world]

In a lowly meadow where few branches swing dozens of cog soldiers gather around.

Prescott stands infront of 100s of tombstones, facing them silently.

"Brothers, as is tradition on this day we weep for the fallen cog, on this day of remembrance we shall show weakness, not for our enemies, but for our brothers, and from that weakness, strength, anger, revenge will sprout and make us stronger, keep this in mind as the locust begin their next offensive, channel the spirit of your fallen comrades and we shall crush those beasts once and for all."

The soldiers salute and drop to one knee and lower their heads for the fallen of E-Day.

Prescott turns and faces his soldiers.

"Let us remember our heroes! Minh who bravely fell against Raam! Sebastian who fought Skorge so that 100s would survive on that day! Remember who has given your opportunity to make the enemy bleed! THERE WILL BE NO MORE GROUND LOST, THERE WILL BE NO SURRENDER AND THEIR SHALL BE NO COWARDICE!"

As Prescott raises his fist and finishes his speech the crowd screams in approval and begins chanting in unison.

Towards the back of the crowd a group of gears sit on a bench silently.

Baird, Sam, Sofia, Cole, Carmine..

Baird stares at the ground silently.

"Captured and tortured to death and we couldn't do anything about it."

Cole sighs heavily, his breath shaky.

Sam puts her hans on Baird and Coles shoulders.

"We can only live in the present, what happened that day. It was just war."

"War.."

The procession continues and Prescott leaves to sit among his onyx guard.

Anya stands on the stage, her usual cordial appearance dead instead she nows dawn armor and wears her hair down.

"The locust have ceased attacking for some reason, so we have formulated a plan.. We will make our remaining cities unbreakable fortresses, multiple anvil gates where we can hold them back to the last. From today all gears are being contracted to help in the building efforts."

She holds up a clipboard.

"Aproach me after the rest of the ceremony and all of you will be assigned."

She leaves the stage briskly.

"Man this shit blows."

A woman with short red hair kicks her legs up onto an empty seat.

Next to her 3 huge goliaths of men sit.

Marcus, Dom, and Tai..

Delta Squad.

"Brand put your goddamn feet down its remembrance day for gods sake!"

Marcus scolds her and she rolls her eyes and blows a tuft of hair out of her eyes.

"Have some respect for the dead."

Dom adds on.

"Oh?"

She rolls her eyes once more

"The dead? The dead that sent women off to farms? Made them have children before they were even teenagers? Respect my ass."

Marcus violently grips her shoulder.

"Minh and that onyx are heroes!"

His lips curl in an unpleasant manner.

Alex Brand stands up and forces the grip of her superior officer off her and stomps away.

"A grown woman acting like a kid, what's new?"

Dom calms Marcus down, but he is still fuming and his face red.

----

[MC]

OH SHITTT!!!

Yellow blobs of fiery death fly over and past my body.

It took a few hours but I think I found the lambent stronghold in this area if I'm going to be completely honest with ya.

Grey fires wildly without aiming from cover.

I arm a drag grenade and toss it at the dredge.

A dredge, a huge yellow tentacle hentai monster that can explode, turn into a snake, a flamethrower monster, and all kinds of other fun family friendly zoo animal.

The dredge explodes into nothin' but bits but the battle continues raging as reinforcements arrive.

The battle is taking place in a small former kantus hamlet of sorts, religous iconography covers all the gothic homes and massive cathedrals pierce into the roof of granite.

The drones begin their assault and I just used my last grenade unfortunately.

I take aim but before I can hover my sights to the enemy bullets flicker off my helmet and my head gets a little dizzy.

These goblins are never ending! 2 hours holding this position and the only thing that has piled are empty magazines.

My hammerburst clcks, I'm all out.

Well this is just shitty.

Grey shakes his head as his gun clicks aswell.

Well this ain't great.

My glorious polearm appears in my hand.

"RAAAAAGGHHHH"

A bear like roar comes from behind the drones, it sounds familiar some how.

Wait is that?

Heh nah that's impossible.

The lambent drones scream in agony as their bodies are ripped apart by.

Something horrifying.

Lambent berserker

"RUN!!!"

I turn tail and rush through the village past the intricate buildings and into the long tunneling abyss of the hollow, I hop into a burrow and hide, I slip a silver card into my pants pocket.

Stomping and growling reverberates throughout the whole tunnel so I cant pinpoint where the beast it but I hold my breath just in case.

The beasts quakes tremble the earth around me, I hold myself as still as possible, this is something no human or ghoul alike could fight, even the strongest locust would falter against a lambent berserker, a normal one is already enough problems.

The spikes and the acid on its body create a double whammy that I personally dont want to find out how dangerous they really are.

The shambling continues for minutes, this thing wants be bad, if it didnt look like a monster from hell I would be flattered. But it wants to flatten me.

I slink through the tunnels, hiding behind rocks as the labored breathing of the female lambent grows closer and closer but I carefully tip toe around and advance far from the little settlement, hours pass and the game of cat and mouse continues.

Currently I am behind a metal pillar that seems to have fallen from a cog settlement through an E hole

The jagged rust digs into my back but its better than the alternative.

I slowly make my way around the wreckage, the berserker shrieks and throws a blown up tank into the abyssal chasm. I think she's angry.

This is my chance!

The tank slams and knocks against the walls of the hollow, perfect for masking noise.

I make a break for it and start running like a madman.

The berserker behind me walks around slowly not knowing I'm gone af.

I run for miles on end.

---

I'm getting the fuck away from here.

---

[4 hours later]

Phew.

Huff huff.

I cant run anymore. But more exciting than that is what's in front of me.

An old oil rig, wich could bring me to the surface if I can get the lift operational.

The gates of the oil plant are blasted wide open, I know for sure their are lambent inside guarding it.

But I need to get out of this shithole and back to Ephyra..

In the main plaza of the oil rig dried up lambent stalks have grown and coursed throughout the metal building, rust and moss cover it like sometype of metro exodus steampunk looking house from hell.

Well..

Time to get to work.

[AN]

Still not fixed webnovel, and now sometimes it locks me out of the writers inbox and I have to restart the app.

And sometimes when I log into the damned thing it instantly crashes..

I AM GOING TO SNAP.

You know the drill at this point...

Chapterly song suggestion: Forgive and Forget - The Raven Age.