With a sharp twist of her hips, she hurled both spheres forward.

The orbs collided with the stunned Howler, their gravitational fields compressing instantly.

A localized implosion followed—

—the beast's body contorted, twisted inward upon itself, bones snapping, flesh crumpling into a dense, unnatural spiral of shattered wings and shriveled remains.

The attack left nothing behind but a warped, mangled husk that dropped like a stone onto the battlefield below.

Ethel barely had time to breathe before a Skulker leapt at her from the side, its razor-like limbs scything toward her exposed flank.

She twisted her upper body sharply, just enough to avoid being gutted, then lashed out with her left hand, catching the creature's elongated forelimb in midair.

Its momentum was still carrying it forward—but Ethel turned that against it.

Using its own speed against it, she whipped her entire body into a controlled pivot, yanking the Skulker over her shoulder in one fluid motion.

The creature's body flipped violently—

—and slammed into the ground spine-first, the impact leaving a visible dent in the steel flooring.

The Skulker twitched, momentarily dazed.

Ethel wasted no time.

She lifted her boot, kinetic energy pulsing through the reinforced plating.

Then she stomped down.

The force sent a concussive shockwave outward, the ground cracking beneath her boot.

The Skulker's skull caved in instantly, a wet, sickening crunch echoing through the battlefield as its body went still, its limbs twitching in final spasms.

The moment the creature's lifeless form sagged, Ethel was already moving again, pivoting to the side, her gauntlet flaring with energy as she launched a repulsion blast, sending a lunging Ravager hurtling backward before it could close the distance.

She could feel the battlefield shifting beneath her feet, the enemy adapting, pressing harder.

They were still holding their ground—but for how long?

For a moment, the battle was controlled.

Lucy and Ethel's forces held the line, fighting with ruthless precision, their tactics honed from countless battles against the horrors that sought to consume them.

Sharpshooters perched on the outer barricades, their high-powered plasma rifles humming as they fired precision rounds into the weak points of the Skulkers' semi-translucent bodies, causing the creatures to shriek in agony before their distorted frames collapsed into smoldering heaps.

Heavy gunners held their positions atop makeshift bunkers, pouring relentless streams of explosive rounds into the charging Ravagers. Their armor cracked under the sustained fire, exposing vital weak points that allowed Lucy or Ethel to land the final, decisive blows.

Close-combat specialists darted in and out of the fray, their electrified blades humming as they executed lightning-fast hit-and-run tactics. They never stayed in one place for too long, dodging, rolling, and weaving between the Ravagers' deadly tail swipes and crushing claws.

Engineers worked frantically behind the frontlines, their exosuit-enhanced bodies hauling reinforced plating into place, welding new fortifications even as enemy forces threatened to breach the perimeter. Automated combat drones hovered above, firing suppressive bursts to keep the monsters at bay.

It was brutal. It was relentless. But they were winning.

Until everything changed.

It started with a low, guttural hum, like the vibration of a thousand engines awakening at once.

Then, the sky tore open.

A massive rift of sickly green energy split through the storm-choked clouds above, pulsing, writhing, expanding outward like a festering wound in reality itself.

And from within it, they came.

At first, they were shadows, flickering within the pulsing void. Then, they stepped through, their forms shimmering with an unnatural, eerie distortion—as if they existed half in this world and half in something far worse.

The Revenants.

Their elongated, skeletal bodies were wrapped in tattered, darkened carapace, their faces hidden beneath warped, bone-like masks that twisted and shifted as if alive. Glowing, ember-like veins pulsed beneath their semi-transparent flesh, a horrifying mix of the organic and the spectral.

Where the Ravagers, Howlers, and Skulkers were creatures of brute force and feral instinct, the Revenants were something else entirely.

They were silent. Methodical. Intelligent.

And they moved with unnatural grace, their bodies phasing in and out of reality as they advanced, untouched by the carnage around them.

The first Revenant materialized right in front of a close-combat specialist, the soldier barely having time to register its presence before the creature plunged a clawed hand straight into his chest—phasing through his armor as if it wasn't even there.

For a brief, horrifying moment, the soldier's eyes went wide—then his body convulsed violently, a glowing energy siphoning from his very being into the Revenant's grasp.

Then—his body collapsed into a lifeless husk.

And the Revenant turned its head—toward the next soldier.

Panic rippled through the ranks.

Another Revenant appeared behind an engineer, slipping through solid metal like a ghost, its long, bony fingers curling around his throat before lifting him into the air.

The engineer choked, struggling, his body withering as the creature fed on his life force, his skin turning gaunt and gray before he crumbled into dust.

The line began to collapse.

The automated defense drones, sensing the anomaly, opened fire, their energy rounds blasting through the Revenants' forms—but the creatures barely reacted, their bodies phasing between solid and ethereal states, dodging each attack with inhuman precision.

Lucy and Ethel knew instantly—this changed everything.

The horde had been overwhelming before—but now, with the Revenants added to the battle, their forces were rapidly being pushed back.

Lucy landed next to Ethel, her breath ragged, her armor scorched from battle.

"We're losing ground," Lucy gritted out, her grip tightening around her glaive as her eyes flicked toward the Revenants.

Ethel's mind raced. They weren't just another type of monster—they were different.

They couldn't be fought the same way.

"We need a new strategy," Ethel said sharply, dodging a Ravager's crushing tail swipe before blasting it backward with a focused repulsion burst.

Lucy exhaled sharply. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

Ethel nodded. "We need to separate them from the main horde. The Revenants aren't like the others—they're feeding off us."

Lucy's eyes flashed. "So we starve them."

Ethel didn't hesitate.

She slammed her gauntlets together, the energy flaring to life, and with a single, powerful thrust, she fired a massive concussive blast straight into the battlefield.

The force wasn't meant to kill—but to scatter.

The blast detonated like a seismic shockwave, hurling Skulkers, Howlers, and Ravagers outward, clearing a massive gap in the battlefield—

—separating the Revenants from the rest of the horde.

Lucy didn't waste a second.

She launched forward, thruster boots igniting, her glaive spinning in a whirlwind of superheated plasma as she led the charge straight into the Revenants.

They flickered, twisted, phased in and out of existence—

—but Lucy was already adapting.

Ethel followed at her side.

The battle had just entered a new phase.

The battlefield had already been a chaotic swirl of battle—Ravagers, Skulkers, Howlers, and the ever-present Leviathan. But just when they thought they were starting to gain ground, something shifted, something unnatural.

A low, deep tremor rippled through the ground, setting every soldier's nerves on edge. It wasn't the familiar quake of the Leviathan's steps, nor the crashing force of the beastly horde. No, this was different.

Lucy and Ethel's heads snapped up instinctively, their bodies tensing as the air itself seemed to warp, bend, and shudder in response to some force they couldn't comprehend.

Then—it happened.

The atmosphere buckled under the pressure, warping like a distorted mirror. The light itself bent, causing the horizon to ripple like water disturbed by a stone.

And then they came.

From the distorted rift, shadowy figures began to emerge, their forms towering and unnaturally elongated. Their limbs stretched unnervingly long, like liquid shadow, their black bodies nearly formless, shifting and writhing, as though their very existence was not meant for this world.

Each of the creatures was humanoid—but only barely. Their bodies were sleek, unnaturally thin, almost as if their bones and sinew were nothing more than an afterthought. They moved with a disconcerting grace, gliding across the battlefield as though reality itself was their playground, their feet never quite touching the ground.

Their faces were voids, featureless except for a single vertical slit of glowing red, a line of pure malevolence that burned in place of eyes.

And when they moved—the world seemed to bend around them.

Before anyone could fully process what was happening, the first of the shadowy creatures appeared in front of a soldier with inhuman speed. One moment, the soldier was in place, firing into the chaos of the battlefield—his weapon crackling with energy, his focus on the immediate threats.

The next moment, the creature was right in front of him.

There was no time for the soldier to react. He barely registered the slender fingers of the creature reaching out—no, phasing through reality itself, as if the laws of physics meant nothing to it.

The creature's fingers brushed his armor.

Then—the soldier disintegrated.

Not in a flash of light—not in a typical explosion of gore or fire. The soldier's entire body simply evaporated. Dust. Ash. Gone.

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