Ceres Chaos [Exosuit Progression]

Paska peered into the horizon towards the metal barricade that surrounded the expedition camp. “Has it been the third day today?” He asked a warrior next to him as he himself sat on his tamed mawsie.

“Erm, yes? Or maybe it’s only been a day.” The warrior replied in confusion before Paska whacked him on the head with a shaman staff.

“Idiot, go consult the atomic clock - what did we even buy that thing for?” Paska yelled as the warrior scampered away. It was notoriously hard to tell the time when underground, seeing as there was no night sky nor sunrise to estimate the rotation of the planet. The rotation of the planet also did not exactly match the Council’s time, so an atomic clock was required to keep proper track of time.

“Sir, it’s 00 minutes and four seconds left!” The warrior ran back to Paska and held up the small atomic clock like it was a treasure. If the ‘Chosen’ knew they had been ripped off for an old bedside red LED alarm clock and understood its true worth, they might have unilaterally attacked their sponsor on their own.

“Hmm, I was told this thing could only tell in hours and minutes. How can you tell the seconds, you idiot? It says here it’s 00:04, which means it’s four minutes PAST the third day. We’re on the fourth day now!” Paska shouted.

“No sir, we’re in the cavern where the ancient temple is.” The warrior replied dumbly, causing Paska to sigh loudly as he gave up arguing. Despite the strength in numbers, Paska was acutely aware that he may very well be the only smart person among the large number of ‘Chosens’.

However, Paska wasn’t flustered about that. What he wanted to know was whether the despicable expedition would agree to his conditions.

Though he very much wanted to kill and eat every single heretic expedition member, it goes without saying that he could not harm the one responsible for the opening of the ancient temple, or else he won’t be able to control the temple.

He ordered the warriors to enter a firing stance, aiming at the metal barricade with their rifles. Paska had paid a dear price to trade with his sponsor for them, but so far, he has been more than happy with their performance. It was tough getting the sponsor to agree to the deal, but now they were the true rulers of the underground.

“Sir, look! There’s no one at the barricade!” One of the warriors peeked down his rifle scope, noticing that there was not a single soul defending the barricade.

“Haha, they actually did it!” Paska shouted in joy as he still could see the large 10-meter drill in position, though not much else.

That drill alone would be enough to elevate him into an unassailable leadership position. He grinned as he calculated in his head how much could he sell it for in order to get new enhancements and modifications to his body.

Of course, he wasn’t thinking about how to benefit his followers – strength was the only factor in survival in the subterranean world. Making himself stronger was the optimal choice.

However, Paska remained cautious of the entire situation. “Move forward slowly, watch your footing for any booby traps. Be wary of the devil who will try to prevent us from entering the temple.” He was cognizant of the fact that the expedition could very well be luring him into a close-quarter scenario, in which they would have the upper hand. More numbers were not necessarily a good thing in such a scenario.

The warriors gleefully ran forward despite the order, abandoning all caution as they rushed towards the supplies.

They had already been eating through their dwindling supply of human captives and grodaws for the last three days, so the warriors were excited to plunder their rewards. They ran towards the barricade from different directions, like ant swarms running up an ant hill.

Just as the first warrior managed to climb over the barricade, a metal spear suddenly pierced through his skull! His body immediately fell backwards over the barricade in a ragdoll fashion to the cries of the other warriors.

“HERETIC AMBUSH - CLEAR THE BARRICADE!” Paska roared as he and his tamed mawsie rushed forward as well. “DO NOT ENTER THE CAMP WITHOUT CLEARING THE BARRICADE!”

However, it was already too late. With no proper communication equipment, the command hierarchy and effectiveness of Paska’s shouts were extremely diminished.

The warriors were suddenly entangled in ambushes by Ren’s expedition soldiers, who were adept at melee combat. The soldiers easily chopped off the limbs and heads of the warriors who were confused and caught off-guard.

“STALL THEM!” Ren ordered as he raised his spear, and the soldiers replied with a warcry. He and the twenty soldiers were responsible for buying time.

Paska cursed, but still rushed towards the barricade. His mawsie easily fended off the spears that tried to stab him, allowing him to easily climb over the barricade.

“How dare you trick us? Your treachery and trickery will be known throughout the underground - face judgement!” Paska roared as he jumped off his tamed mawsie and utilized his shaman staff to fend off multiple spears.

The shaman staff was made out of stone, with the same undecipherable glyphs on them. They glowed with a deep blue colour as Paska swung the staff around, parrying the incoming attacks with ease.

His tamed mawsie began to wreak havoc amongst the soldiers, crushing them easily with its sturdy claws, its abnormal body the size of a car. The soldiers began to retreat from the metal barricade, grouping up in squads of four in order to fend off the mawsie and other warriors!

Paska himself was no slouch either, easily fighting against three soldiers and knocking two of them out cold with his shaman staff.

The leader of such a brutal tribe had to possess some combat skills at least. Suddenly Paska reacted quickly to the glint of a sword slash from Ren, blocking it with his shaman staff.

“Great to meet you again, stinky cannibal. Today you get what you deserve!” Ren grinned as he swung furiously at Paska.

“What I deserve? Be careful what you wish for!” Paska smirked as he whistled, signalling the tamed mawsie to attack Ren, forcing Ren to block lest he was crushed by the claws. “I deserve the ancient temple and all its glory – you, on the other hand, don’t deserve anything!”

“What if I was the one who opened the ancient temple?” Ren weakly smiled as he fended off the mawsie attacks.

“Then it’s too bad, we will simply have to wait till the next opening. But I’ll make sure your town never interferes again!” Paska roared as he attacked with his shaman staff too, pincering Ren in tandem with the tamed mawsie.

Ren gritted his teeth as he fought to his absolute best. There was no way that he, an unenhanced human, could beat a mawsie and another human alone. He could not figure out why Paska was so strong as well despite his lean stature. Before the mawsie dealt what seem like the finishing blow to Ren, a huge heatwave suddenly surged through the cavern.

All the warriors and soldiers were blown off their feet by the subsequent shockwave, causing many to suffer from blast shock. However, the soldiers and Ren were well prepared in advance, having worn earplugs and mouthguards to prevent concussions.

“Retreat to the door!” Ren ordered as the soldiers began to move back.

Paska struggled to get up, while his more sensitive mawsie was completely unconscious.

“These weak idiots, what did they blow up now?” His eyes looked towards the ancient temple, and the sight horrified him and the warriors that could see.

“BROTHERS OF THE ‘CHOSEN’!” Paska roared, not caring if everyone heard him. “THEY HAVE DESCREATED THE HOLY TEMPLE WITH THEIR VILE EXPLOSIVES! CHARGE NOW! KILL THEM ALL!”

The warriors nearby roared as well, though they had yet to recover fully. Their zealousness showed in their determined eyes as they echoed the message to the other groups of warriors, resulting in a tumultuous charge towards the ancient temple.

The logistic leader Lin quickly motioned for the trucks to enter the newly opened crevice on the ancient temple’s door. The ancient temple door managed to be blown apart by the mining charges.

“Quick go now!” The other expedition members quickly headed towards the ancient temple’s door.

[Ren, retreat now. Full retreat!] Misa barked into the radio channel.

“Roger that, Misa. FULL RETREAT!” Instead of stopping to stall the warriors, Ren immediately led his soldiers to run directly to the temple.

Paska cursed as he left his tamed mawsie behind, pushing his legs to the limit as he tried to chase after the soldiers who got a headstart. “Shoot them down!”

Some of the brighter warriors stopped running and began taking potshots at the retreating soldiers, nailing a few of them as the soldiers tried to escape towards the temple.

“Don’t stop running!” Ren screamed as he turned around to support a soldier who was hit in the leg.

“Captain Ren, leave me behind – else you’re going to get killed too!” The soldier cried as he tried to run, but could only limp due to his leg injury.

“No one gets left behind on my watch!” Ren roared as he threw his spear towards an approaching warrior like a javelin, catching him off guard and piercing his heart. “Get over here!” He supported the limping soldier with his arm.

But it was too late as an energy shot scorched the soldier’s heart, burning right through his entire body.

Ren cursed as he had no choice but to drop the dead soldier’s body immediately, sprinting towards the door as a few energy beams barely missed him.

Soon, the original twenty soldiers dwindled to just five including Ren, heading towards the door. The other expedition members had already set up a makeshift barricade made out of rocks and empty containers near the new hole in the door.

The energy beams flew over the soldiers as they tried to juke by running in a zigzag fashion, allowing them to reach the door in time.

“Close off the hole!” Misa ordered as soon as Ren and the remaining soldiers retreated into the hole. A truck began to offload a ton of rock to block off the entrance, ensuring that the warriors could not enter. Two medics immediately ran towards the soldiers who collapsed on the floor.

“Quickly, we can’t guarantee they won’t break in through the barricade as well. Collapse the hole!” The remaining expedition members moved far away from the hole before detonating an explosive, causing rubble to collapse and fill the hole.

“Everybody double-check all equipment and personnel. We’ll wait here for a while in order for the soldiers to recover their strength. No one is allowed to explore the ancient temple alone.” Misa ordered again before she helped out in moving the collapsed soldiers nearer the medical supplies.

Yan heaved a sigh of relief, before finally taking a look around here. It felt like they were in some massive grand hall, albeit completely made out of stone.

Not a single speck of metal was seen to be used. The air within was much cooler than outside, which was usually hot and stuffy.

The grand hall had stone braziers lined up, though it was not wood nor fire that gave off light, instead it was a glowing blue sphere-like stone similar to the radioactive stones that provided light in the underground.

Yan looked further up as she tried to peer into the darkness of the grand hall. The ceiling and beams along the walls seemed to stretch forever upwards, while she could not see the end of the grand hall.

The blue light given off by the braziers was far too dim, so the expedition had set up floodlights to illuminate the surroundings.

She walked over to Mo, the lead scientist, who was investigating a stone brazier in the middle of the trucks with a handheld sensor. “Interesting, it does not seem to be radioactive at all. In fact, it seems to be purely emitting that light spectrum. That’s impossible.” He exclaimed, quickly beckoning to a few members of his science team to come forward.

“It’s good that the blue sphere isn’t killing us with harmful radiation, but why do you say that it is impossible?”

“Because every object radiates in more than one frequency almost throughout the entire universe! A normal light would give off both light, heat and various other frequencies, but this blue sphere only gives off one frequency and absorbs every other frequency.” Mo hurriedly explained.

Another scientist brought forward a temperature sensor on a stick, pressing it towards the blue sphere. “All temperature readings nominally. No sudden dip detected from 30 cm to the surface.”

“Strange…” Mo pondered, but Yan did not really care that much. If that blue sphere wasn’t killing anyone, that was good enough for her. Enough people have died today.

“Yan, come here!” Misa suddenly yelled from across the small camp, prompting Yan to quickly run over. Misa, Lin and Cuo were all sitting in a circle around a small heat radiator, discussing when Yan joined them.

They did not have the luxury of grieving over the deaths of their expedition members over the last few days, instead throwing all their energy into making sure they could survive right now.

With all the expeditions every town had done in the past century, such a mindset had been engraved into everyone. They could grieve all they want when they were safely back in town.

“We can’t stay here for long, if the tribes break in right now, we’ll be caught unprepared! Because the first stage of explosives worked, we never got to use the 10-meter drill. If they figure out how to use it…” Lin said with fear.

Cuo scoffed. “No way those idiots can run that 10-meter drill. It took us three months to even learn how to properly use it!”

“Don’t underestimate them this time. We thought they would never be able to obtain rifles, but it is obvious someone else is behind them supporting them. If they figure out how to operate the drill, they can break through in an instant.” Misa agreed with Lin. “Either way, we must start exploring the ancient temple. Another exit must exist, or else we’ll blow one up ourselves.”

Cuo laid down a multi-terminal to project the known map from previous scanners, showing half of the outline of the temple but not the inside. “It’s impossible from our current location to blow through to a known tunnel. We’ve never gone this far before, and we don’t know how large the ancient temple is. We could try scanning it again, but the last time we scanned the door our scanners could not penetrate the door at all.”

Yan suddenly lit up with understanding. “According to Mo, apparently the blue sphere absorbs all types of frequencies and converts them to blue light. Maybe that’s why our scanners can’t get any signal back!”

Misa quickly called Mo over, who had to be dragged away from his blue sphere. “I was in the middle of an important experiment, don’t disturb me! If I’m right, these blue spheres may very well be our next bestseller. Integrating this into combat armour and armour plates might maybe make the perfect stealth armour.”

Lin grabbed him by his protective suit’s collar, shaking hiForty-fivefive of us have already died because of your selfish science experiments - Ren almost died out there as well! Focus on our damn survival!”

Mo pushed her arms away. “Of course, I’m focused on our damn survival! You know that even if we return to the town now, it will still be deemed as a huge failure. Most of our mined exotic metals have been left out there because we could not fit them in here. Without something of increased value, the town would starve even more when we return. Have you forgotten our original objective?”

Lin raised her hand to slap Mo, but Misa grabbed her wrist. “ENOUGH! Stop blaming each other and focus on the present. Both of you have a point, so right now we need to form an exploration team. This team must be self-sufficient and willing to face potential dangers.”

“The team will be focused on finding the next best place to set up camp. Once it’s secured we will shift over, and we will continue doing it until we find the exit. That’s final!” Misa ordered with an air of authority.

The others stood up and bowed before leaving, but Yan was stopped by Misa. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to prepare my stuff for the exploration team,” Yan replied with a determined face.

“You’re not going. If you die, it will be a huge blow to us!”

“You mean a huge blow to you. No one else in the engineering team apart from Cuo is better than me, and if you send him the leadership of the engineering team would collapse. You know I’m the best option.” Yan tried to leave, but Misa held onto her shoulders.

“No, I won’t allow it.” The previous confident Misa had been deflated, instead, she wore a scared and fearful expression. “I won’t let you die in this stupid temple! Already half of our friends have died, I can’t lose you as well.”

“Misa, being a leader means making the hard decisions. You can’t twist the odds because of friendship. If you don’t let me go right now, you might get more of us killed. I want to do my part to help you too, so I’m coming with you. We’ll survive this damn temple together.”