Ch.142142. Charge! The Academy Raid Operation That Summons a Storm!

The seven Hive Commanders who appeared after breaking through the wall each held different weapons.

A greatsword with plasma crackling and jumping across its surface, a one-handed sword with a blade made of light paired with a kite shield, a massive warhammer with a mouth on its head, and a gauntlet reminiscent of a demon’s hand with its veins and sharp claws.

A twin battle axe perfectly sized for one-handed wielding, a halberd with a psychic crystal spearhead attached to its tip, and finally, a bizarre staff that appeared to have the upper body of a monster attached to it.

Wielding these diverse weapons and leading hundreds of soldier-type monsters under their command, the first thing the Hive Commanders did was, naturally—

RATATATATATATATA!!!!

KWAGAGGANG! KWAGANG! KWAGAGAGAGANG!!!

WOOOOOONG—PUBUBUBUBUBUBUBUBUK!!!!

Ordering their subordinates, who were heavily armed with heavy weapons, to slaughter the hateful humans before them.

Every time the multi-barreled rapid-fire weapons—reminiscent of Vulcan cannons or Gatling guns—that fired monster-metal bullets spewed fire, and plasma blasters discharged plasma, dozens of cadets were reduced to ashes.

Additionally, dozens of bio-grenades fired from high-speed grenade launchers integrated into their bodies exploded at their impact points, scattering hundreds of fragments that turned any cadet caught in their path into rags.

Some monsters carried large egg-like pouches on their backs like backpacks, with connected muzzles fitted to both hands—weapons that poured stored psychic energy like flamethrowers.

The cadets, who met the admission requirement of being level 8-9 psychic users, tried to protect themselves with psychic barriers or telekinesis, but the hundreds of walking heavy weapons were simply too powerful.

Psychic barriers deployed by dozens of combined cadets shattered with a single plasma cannon shot, and occasionally, some cadets experienced psychic meltdowns from excessive psychic usage, causing psychic explosions.

As a result, in this auditorium, over 9,000 cadets had been killed in just a few dozen seconds, even without the Hive Commanders directly engaging.

“UOOOOOOOOOOH!!!”

Of course, Instructor Batman and the professors couldn’t stand by and watch this horrific situation where the students—the future of the Human Federation—were being massacred.

He immediately activated his ceremonial but serviceable plasma sword and charged toward the soldier-type monsters slaughtering the cadets, but…

“…Huh?!!!”

The Hive Commanders began to move in earnest against him.

The moment the Hive Commander wielding the rather absurd weapon—a staff with a monster’s upper body attached—extended his hand, psychic energy emitted from the monster’s upper body flowed through vein-like conduits into his body, then traveled to his opposite hand, causing a psychic phenomenon.

Hundreds to thousands of irregularly shaped psychic construct needles flew through the air, but for Instructor Batman, this was nothing special.

“HAAP!!!”

With a shout infused with psychic energy, he shattered all the psychic constructs, then immediately thrust his ceremonial single-edged plasma sword with all his might.

CHAENG—CHIJIJIJIJIJIJIK…!!!

But his attack was not only blocked by a Hive Commander with a greatsword who appeared from the side, but the Commander’s strength was superior to Batman’s, allowing him to barely escape the subsequent close-quarters struggle.

However, he had no time to rest as he immediately had to defend against the next attack.

A shield attempted to smash his face, a gaping-mouthed hammer grazed his body, and spearheads and axe blades left several cuts on his body.

Batman tried his best to fend off these attacks with his mere one-handed sword—a weapon focused on appearance rather than performance—but even he had his limits.

Actually, the fact that he, who had retired due to severe injuries, was holding his own against seven enemies of equal caliber was enough to qualify him as a hero.

Of course, that resistance was reaching its limit.

“Kuhp!”

Perhaps due to overexertion, his previous wounds reopened, causing him to cough blood. At that moment, the Hive Commander wearing the gauntlet suddenly swung its sharp claws toward his abdomen.

—SLASH!

PUSH!

Blood gushed from ten lines where flesh had been cut away, and the red barrier that seeped into the wounds ate away at his cells, preventing recovery.

The terrible pain from his cells being devoured overwhelmed him, and at that moment when Instructor Batman staggered—

The Hive Commander with the greatsword, who had been waiting for this opportunity, charged forward and swung his sword horizontally, separating Batman’s upper chest from his body, silencing him forever.

Of course, the fate of the cadets who lost their protector was obvious.

The cadets, who had already been slaughtered by just a few hundred soldier-type monsters, evaporated like melting cotton candy when seven high-ranking monsters—the Hive Commanders—joined the fray.

Only chunks of flesh proved they had existed, but even those were completely cleaned up by swarms of Hive Rats, making “evaporation” an apt description.

※ ※ ※

The attack on the Federation Army Academy on Titan’s surface was, in fact, carried out according to a very meticulous plan.

And the full story went like this:

[Lately, it seems humans are becoming too powerful…]

It all began when such a casual remark from the Hive Mind reached the ears of the diligent Theo.

Theo, who was excessively diligent and rigid to the point of being notorious among monsters for not understanding jokes, took this not as a mere musing but responded to it with utmost seriousness.

“The Hive Mind has stated that humanity has grown too powerful lately!”

“Commander Theo has issued orders to diminish human power!”

“The Hive Commander has ordered the creation of an offensive plan against humanity!”

“The Chief of Staff has ordered an offensive plan to reduce human power—”

Following this chain of events, what emerged was a direct attack plan on the Solar System, and when Theo, after grinding his staff to develop the plan, presented it directly to the Hive Mind:

[Um, I never ordered such a plan.]

“…What?”

Theo was ultimately reprimanded for his critical mistake of overinterpreting a casual remark and exceeding his authority, but regardless, the plan itself was approved.

After all, since it was created by grinding the minds of numerous autonomous-thinking monsters, its quality was quite high, and even if it failed, there wouldn’t be any significant problems.

Thus, after the plan was officially adopted, the Hive Mind first began mass-producing Warp Markers.

Warp Markers—devices commonly used to transmit coordinates of specific locations to transport troops and such. With human or alien technology, they could at best be used for travel within a single planetary system.

But while most civilizations used psychic dimensions for spatial movement, Warp Markers specialized in interfering with space itself—similar to the spatial jumps that monsters used.

Therefore, if they could somehow insert Warp Markers into Titan, Saturn’s moon which was the target of invasion, they could directly transport monster troops to the planetary surface. The Hive Mind’s chosen method was to disguise the markers as construction materials and hide them throughout the moon.

With just a little use of perversely advanced nanomachines, the markers—which maintained their functionality regardless of how they were processed—became rebar, bricks, cement, and were mixed into various parts of the moon.

Although it involved considerable financial loss to infiltrate the construction business through a completely controlled subsidiary of Nano-Tech Corporation, the Hive Mind had no regrets.

Money could always be made through stock manipulation if needed, and if this operation succeeded, the gains would far outweigh the costs.

Anyway, after Warp Markers were installed throughout the moon, the next step was organizing the troops to be sent to the planet.

Calculating what could be sent through one Warp Marker, they could transport about 800,000 troops, but this would be insufficient to completely conquer Titan.

The instructors were high-level psychic users who could only be taken down by swarms of at least mid-level monsters, and as a precaution, approximately 2 million mechanized troops were stationed across the planet.

Additionally, by their graduation year, cadets gained combat experience and their average abilities surpassed those of typical lieutenants—there were about 100,000 to 200,000 such elite cadets, with a total cadet population of around 640,000.

Therefore, the Hive Mind’s decision was to—drastically increase the quality of the troops being sent.