The hivemind is conquering for me?

After twenty minutes of flight, I had started to lose my head start advantage. The fucker chasing me was seriously fast and terrain was not stopping him.

I could hear him barging through trees and all sorts, but I didn’t have time to look back, but I was almost at my target location. Just over the ridge. Ahead. My body was sweating heavily, I’ve never pushed myself to go this speed before, but fortunately I made it without disturbance.

Diving into the hole, I now had to travel even further, even faster in order to not die.

...

Vrakul paused his chase after proceeding above the ridgeline. He couldn’t spot the cowardly slanderer. With his shoulders heaving up and down in rage, he scanned the area. Looking for anything out of place.

There was nothing of note on the horizon, he could see for miles and it was open plains for miles on the other side of the ridge.

As he narrowed his search closer towards him. Vrakul spotted it. A hole. Not naturally made. About half the width of his body.

”Think you can escape me underground? How wrong you are.” Vrakul growled and began to walk over to the hole, reading his war hammer the entire time. Once he was at the perimeter of the hole, he looked down at it.

Below he could see a cavern and yelled. ”You think you can hide from me down there? Think again Purple reaper!”

He then proceeded to raise his weapon high and slammed down with his full force.

The ground shook violently at the impact. Then he struck again. And again. Each time it was like an explosion erupted up until the moment the ground beneath Vrakul gave in and he found himself plummeting into the cavern below.

Dropping a good hundred meters or so, Vrakul landed on his claws and looked around, unbothered by the height he fell. His enemy was not present. He was about to issue a taunt before spotting a blinking light nearby. Blipping away obnoxiously in the dark.

Vrakul walked over confidently and arrived in front of the blinking light. As he did so he noticed about a dozen of them all over the cavern.

Having an inkling of what this was, Vrakul scoffed and yelled into the cavern. ”Is this your plan? To blow me up with these bizarre explosives? Please. When will you humans learn that-”

Vrakul’s hand made contact with the orb that had been floating slightly off the wall. As his finger connected the world suddenly turned white. In that same instance a towering explosion of plasma burst throughout the cavern soaring into the atmosphere of the planet.

Shockwaves for miles around were then felt, subterranean systems collapsed and after the explosion finished, all that was left was a gigantic mushroom cloud from the Antimatter bombs detonation.

...

Serena looked over at the horizon as a massive mushroom cloud was visible. The shockwave was felt moments ago, but was survivable.

’What has he done?’ She thought, as she knew only one person stupid or brave enough to possibly blow up a nuke danger close. The question was how did he get it?

Questions for later. Serena turned back to the battlefield from her vantage point atop the fort.

She couldn’t afford to get in the thick of it right now, her tactical brilliance was needed in the deployment of her troops. Honestly, it was sheer luck that the Warlord mech had not charged in yet and was just firing its weapons. Once up close that thing would strip her strategic units as she would be forced to...

Serena let out a quiet sigh as the mech suddenly unsheathed a large blade from its arm and began charging ahead, crushing through the first lines of trenches with triviality.

”Praetorians, attack that monster, all heavy weapons fi-”

*BUOOOOM*

Behind the fort, the last Castellan suddenly fired its arm cannon at full capacity and began to stomp around the fort as it finally began firing everything it had towards the Drakoshi mech that killed her brother in arms. Her fellow Castellan. Nothing would be held back against this abomination of life.

The action caused the Drakoshi mech to halt as it pulled up an energy shield to withstand the blow, but what the Warlord didn’t know was that firing the arm laser at 100% power redlined the Castellan. Making it so the pilot felt all that pain due to overheating.

So far during the war the cannons had only been firing at 50%. So as the laser hit the shield, it blasted right through, dealing significant damage to the chassis before the Warlord evaded.

It then aimed its own laser back at the castellan, but before it had a chance to fire, it had to evade again. Only this time it was a beam of pure blackness.

The Praetorians had pushed towards the frontlines and began fighting the forty foot mech with everything they had.

...

Two hours later.

”Fuck me, how much rock was above us?” I couldn’t help murmur as I could finally begin to see light through all the cracks in the rocks.

”We played it safe, Apollo. As we should when it comes to your safety.” Onyx declared as she helped me, or rather I was helping her, remove all the debris.

A few rocks cleared from our tunnel later and I could see the sky. Considering we were underground, that was odd. However, after wriggling out of the last of the rocks, My eyes went wide.

We weren’t in a cavern anymore. We were inside a massive crater. What was left was burnt horrifically black. Sure enough, the antimatter bomb worked. As I looked around, I was in awe. This was more powerful than anything I had ever seen from an instant attack. The sheer destruction of it left me humbled by its magnitude.

While I continued to scan the surroundings, I suddenly felt a tap on my chest as Sithrik Pointed.

”Apollo, look. Over there.”

Looking at where Sithrik pointed. My jaw hit the floor. What should have been a pile of dust, was instead a warlord. Mostly. It was struggling to stand up, but its grey skin was still attached to its body. And worse, it was moving.

”What the fuck?” I expressed my shock and as I did so, the Warlord turned to me violently. At which point I noticed that half of its face was missing. No eye in the socket and its skull was visible.

It must have gotten a boost of strength seeing me as it proceeded to push itself to its feet.

More of its body was just bone. Though a lot of it was still muscles and skin. This meant either one of two things. Either it just tanked the blast outright. Which did not seem possible. Or that the Warlord had used the lot of its regeneration to keep itself alive and had now ran out.

Now if that was to do with the initial blast of radiation from the explosion or not I didn’t know, but what I did know was it was time to switch to plan B. I had to fight the fucker.

Turning to Onyx, who had not revealed herself yet. I muttered. ”Plan B.” And began to walk forward towards the Warlord.

The Warlord also began to slowly walk towards me, but I frowned as I got closer. It was very slow, but I could see the very edges of its skin and muscles actually still regenerating. It was much slower than it had shown it was capable of, but it also meant that if I was on my own, I would have been on a time crunch.

’Damn, warlords are fucking scary.’ I admitted before stopping. As I stopped, so did the warlord.

”You live.” I spoke.

I watched as the Warlord spat out some blood before wiping its lips. ”You think that was enough to kill me?” It boasted, but it sounded much weaker than I heard it previously.

”Um, well yeah? Dude, you just face tanked an antimatter explosion. Like what the fuck?” I said honestly. Because seriously, what the fuck?

The warlord must have found my reaction funny as it began to laugh wheezily.

”I will admit, it was close. I think I was down to just a few thousand atoms at one point. That weak newborn wouldn’t have survived. By the queens. Most warlords wouldn’t. But I am not like most warlords. You see I have a-”

”-Are you just stalling so you can regenerate slowly but surely? Quite cowardly if I do say so, Warlord.” I spoke in the Drakoshi’s high language. I could see the rage in its eye, but it remained calm.

”You speak of cowardice? What you just did was-”

”-Evening the playing field. I’d say right now, you still have a good fight in you. I’d wager, without my power flaring up and sending you hurdling, the odds are now 80-20 in your favour.”

The warlord chuckled and stood up straight. ”So what? You and that blue thing are going to fight me head on? A duel of sorts? I will admit, I didn’t know you were still capable of honourable combat after months of hiding like a rodent.”

It was then my turn to chuckle at the warlord’s words, something he didn’t appreciate as he asked. ”And what do you find funny about your certain death?”

I laughed a few more seconds, rubbing it in, before replying.

”Oh nothing. Just the fact you think I have any intentions of ’duelling’ you. You see, you called me a rodent. But I’m not that. I’m more like a bug. An insect. You can try and kill me, but I’ll keep coming for you... Speaking of insects though. Have you met my wife? She is right behind you.”