Ch.180180. Order Unmatched

Recently, Order 444, one of the Triple Number departments of the Order that had been annihilated during the process of securing weapons from the New Species Monster Fleet, had already been rebuilt through a dedicated training institution by this point.

The agents of the Order, which could be considered the Intelligence Department of the Human Federation, are typically cultivated in this dedicated training institution. This facility is one of the countless space stations within the solar system, a kind of special school that gathers orphans and trains them to become agents.

This special school approaches young orphans around the age of 10 who display high psychic abilities, offering them various rewards and scouting them as agent candidates.

Most of these children, having virtually no prospects for their future, generally end up enrolling. This tendency is largely because, in their position with limited opportunities, this is as good as it gets.

In exchange for 10 years of active service, they receive various benefits such as retirement funds beyond imagination or taking responsibility for younger siblings. Upon hearing these offers, most enroll with their own consent.

Anyway, due to the vast population of the Human Federation, these prospective agents appear in surprisingly large numbers. Especially recently, the manifestation rate of psychic abilities has been increasing exponentially.

Therefore, while not all reach the condition of being “high-level psychic users” required for deployment to Triple Single Number departments, those with potential as psychic users frequently appear, which is sufficient.

They can either use the Psychic Knight awakening drug—though extremely expensive—to forcibly awaken them as high-level psychic users, or induce awakening through special brain stimulation.

However, even after becoming or being made high-level, additional bioengineering procedures, body modifications, and training are essential…

Naturally, with all the Triple Number departments having been wiped out, there was no need to be so particular about these conditions. In the end, though significantly inferior to previous agents… exceptions were made given the circumstances.

Selecting promising candidates with potential, forcibly awakening them as high-level psychic users with Psychic Knight awakening drugs, and hastily completing only the necessary procedures—these were makeshift agents.

This was the label attached to the new agents of the Triple Single Number departments whenever the higher-ups looked at them—and it was indeed accurate.

The oldest was 21 years old, with an average age of 16.6 years.

Having field experience was considered unusual at this stage, and in the special education institution, unless one was a once-in-a-millennium genius, the minimum age would normally be 25… they were truly mass-produced agents created in haste.

But the Order’s agents paid no attention to such criticism and realistic assessments. Instead, to make up for their insufficient training, they headed to battlefields where previous Order agents would never have been deployed to gain experience—

And this mission to annihilate the Hive Cult on the eighth planet of the Talisman Sector 77 planetary system was also a form of training to gain experience.

And so, 20 inexperienced high-level agents wearing Adamantium-Mithril stealth suits resembling bodysuits issued to Order field agents began preparing for their assault.

They equipped themselves with weapons partially reverse-engineered from that monster technology of the past, and attached various auxiliary equipment to their bodies, arming themselves so thoroughly that they looked almost like mechanized cyborgs.

As training for the frequently encountered battlefield environment of massacring many with few, these 20 agents boarded a bus-like shuttle and arrived at the intact factory area of Talisman 77-8.

※ ※ ※

“…W-what is that?”

“Looks like a container? Fell from somewhere…”

Meanwhile, at the same time.

The cult workers, who had been busily working in the parts factory, were now surrounding and observing a container-like structure that had suddenly appeared and fallen from the sky.

Since one of the production facilities had been damaged by the container’s fall, causing the conveyor belt to stop working, they were curiously examining this unidentified object—when suddenly.

—BOOM!

With a thunderous sound, one side of the metal box was torn off, and black figures emerged from inside—

“…Huh?”

The moment they recognized the existence of what had come out of the metal box, the cult workers belatedly realized that their vision was spinning.

Not understanding why, the workers could also feel their line of sight rapidly lowering.

In a situation where one second seemed to be divided into 100 pieces, those cult workers—

‘Ah.’

Only after seeing their own bodies still in the process of falling, with blood fountaining out, did they finally realize their death.

And in the midst of hundreds of workers being instantly beheaded, one agent deactivated the transparency-stealth function of their suit and revealed themselves.

Despite having beheaded so many Hive Cult workers, the agent had not a single drop of blood on them, appearing almost like a professional cyborg with more than half of their body mechanized.

They wore various thin mechanical gauntlets painted silver and gray over a latex-like bodysuit made of Adamantium, and on their head was a helmet connected to the body’s machinery by what looked like wires.

Whirrrr…

In their hand was a one-handed sword about 40-50 centimeters long—made with the technology of the new species monsters—surrounded by blue energy. With a gesture from this agent,

The other agents, similarly revealing themselves with various armaments, immediately scattered throughout the factory according to the mental instructions given by 444-1, the first agent to reveal himself.

And these scattered agents—

Thud!

Thud!

Leaving only the sound of falling bodies, they began to clean up the planet’s Hive Cult.

Each one of them was like violence solidified into human form—violent yet overwhelming, and simultaneously executing the cult’s massacre in an extremely efficient manner.

A casual swing of an arm equipped with shock wave-emitting gear would reduce dozens of psychic-inhabited walkers to scrap metal, and the shock waves generated by stomping the ground would reduce Hive Cult followers to bloody pulp.

Dozens of IK tanks covered in additional armor were instantly flattened as if crushed by the crude release of telekinetic force, and if necessary, they could even collapse an entire sector of the Engineer World.

Despite being hastily assembled, these field agents of the Order’s Triple Number department, rightfully treated as strategic weapons, reduced everything in their path to nothing.

On one side, an agent specialized in heat emission was moving while discharging heat and light from his body at full power, relying on the specialized equipment attached to him.

Even for a high-level psychic user with outstanding flame resistance who primarily uses heat, the temperature he maintained was unbearable without equipment, making his surroundings appear as if the sun had descended to the ground.

Cult followers who rushed toward him evaporated like moths flying into the sun, and old-model IK tanks hundreds of meters away melted and rolled on the ground.

Therefore, wherever he passed, there was only a sea of melted metal and thick metal vapor rising above it.

Meanwhile, in another area, a bare-bodied agent covered in blood was personally slaughtering the cult’s infantry.

Crack! Slash! Slice! Boom! Crunch! Whoosh! Slash! Slash!

Dozens of mutated cult followers who looked like monsters charged at him, only to have their heads blown off with bare hands, while heavy infantry in thick powered suits had their insides shaken by shock waves generated from air strikes.

Clearly, fighting by directly enhancing one’s body like this is inevitably less efficient compared to other psychic massacres, but he still managed to slaughter the cult at a rate comparable to the others.

This was the result of using a thought assistance device comparable to a weather control supercomputer, accelerating his thinking 10 times faster than others during normal times, and up to 50 times faster during combat.

He could instantly devise the fastest and most efficient way to slaughter each type of enemy, and the result of being able to immediately execute these methods, no matter how absurd they might seem, was such efficient movement.

And while 19 agents like these were cleaning up the planet in their own ways.

Step, step, step.

Agent 444-1, who could be considered the field commander of Order 444, was heading alone toward the building that was once used by the governor but now served as the headquarters of the cult leader.