CHAPTER 808: REAPERS (IV)

The creatures, who had relentlessly pursued the retreating Exilon soldiers, butchering them without a shred of mercy, abruptly halted. Then, without hesitation, without so much as a sound or a signal—without any visible form of communication—every single one of them turned in perfect unison and began to retreat.

But they did not simply leave. As they withdrew, they consumed everything in their path. Their maws opened wide, tearing through bones, muscle, and sinew, devouring broken armor and discarded weapons alike. Tentacles emerged from the depths of their throats, slithering across the blood-soaked ground and sucking up every last drop of spilled blood, every fragment of biological matter. Not even the ashes of the fallen were spared.

All of it—every scrap of material—was funneled into their bodies, absorbed into what could only be described as a biological furnace. There was no waste. Every consumed object was converted into energy, fueling the infernal engines within them that made their rampages seemingly endless. Their bodies radiated waves of heat with every step, as though they were not made of flesh and bone, but forged from the very concept of destruction itself.

Behind them, they left not merely a battlefield, but a barren wasteland. Not a trace of blood remained. Not a single corpse. Not even broken steel. It was as if the Exilon soldiers had never existed at all.

Those who survived to witness the sight could hardly believe it. They stood in stunned silence, utterly speechless. What kind of enemy left behind nothing but silence and scorched earth? These creatures were not just brutal—they were completely emotionless. They felt no fear. But neither did they feel joy, or pain, or satisfaction. There was no malice in their actions, and somehow, that made them even more terrifying. Every movement, every attack, was executed with the cold, unerring precision of a machine.

"Reapers..." one Exilon soldier whispered, the word escaping his lips like a death sentence. It was the only name that felt appropriate—harvesters of life, harbingers of extinction. They were the embodiment of the end itself. Absolute. Inevitable.

Though the creatures were far out of sight by then, they heard the whispered word, carried through the air by supernatural auditory sensitivity. They did not react. They did not slow down. But something did shift—deep within them.

Each Reaper had a device embedded within the neural core of its brain—a tiny black shard, no larger than a fingernail, yet integral to their hive-mind function.

These creatures were clearly part of the Thimatos race, the new name given to the Leviathan Race that once also consumed all of Terra. Though they were created using the Obelisk that was an extension of the True Depravita of Envy, their true design had originated not from him, but from another—a mind even more dangerous.

The template for the Reapers had been created by the Xaos Kingdom’s highest geneticist, and one for which the concepts mercy and pity were non-existent, one that only care about result.

"Reapers...?" Overlord’s eyes opened slowly as the word echoed through his command network.

A grin crept across his face. "I suppose that is a good name for my greatest creations."

Closing his eyes once more, he extended his will through the control systems of the tower he occupied—a structure that mimicked the Obelisk and that served as the nerve center for the entire Reaper command chain in Exilon. Through it, he directed the next phase of the assault. The Reapers were not finished. Not yet.

As a battalion retreated, others resurfaced across the continent, continuing the offensive against Exilon’s elite units. Some of them showed greater skills than their comrades. Their tactics were sharper, their defenses more robust. Some even managed to slow the Reapers, drawing out the battle and inflicting casualties.

But even the best of Exilon’s elite proved insufficient.

The Reapers—emotionless, tireless, endlessly adaptive—were too much. Their sheer efficiency, combined with hive-mind coordination, made them unstoppable. One by one, the elite legions fell. Those who survived had no choice but to retreat, just as their comrades had before them.

...

"DAMN IT!" roared Augustus, slamming his fist onto the war table. The mighty warlord, a master of tactics and veteran of countless campaigns, now stood surrounded by reports of loss after loss. His anger was raw, his voice hoarse from shouting. Pure hatred and frustration burned in his eyes.

Even his elite soldiers couldn’t establish a foothold on the Asaris continent. Despite all the planning, all the sacrifice, they were no closer to discovering the enemy’s headquarters. Worse still, strange teleportation signals were detected every few days—evidence that more enemy forces were arriving from somewhere unknown.

And he had no way to stop them.

It was painfully clear that standard forces would never break through the Reapers. If he deployed a Legend, the enemy would respond in kind. The last time he had tried, the Lightning Legend had barely survived. He now lay in a coma, his life hanging by a thread. To send another without first securing the area would be foolish.

Augustus gritted his teeth, the muscles in his jaw twitching. He didn’t need more Legends. He needed a miracle.

"If you allow me, my Lord," a voice suddenly spoke from the shadows, "I believe I have a way forward."

The entire war chamber fell silent. No one else had dared speak, paralyzed by the fury of their commander. All eyes turned to the speaker—a young man stepping forward with calm confidence.

Augustus turned to face him, his expression dark and skeptical. The young man had a slender build and an unnaturally handsome face, framed by golden hair and icy blue eyes. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old.

A child, by Augustus’s standards. Yet, something about him radiated self-assured brilliance.

"Who are you?" Augustus asked, voice low.

The young man gave a respectful bow. "My name is Orfry, my Lord. I am part of the Zanis Research and Development Department. And I believe brute strength is not the path to victory."

Augustus narrowed his eyes. Normally, he would have dismissed someone so young—surely lacking the experience to be of any real use. But desperation had a way of changing perspective.

"Speak."

Orfry smiled faintly, and even the High Legends in the room shifted uncomfortably. There was something chilling in that smile—too calm, too knowing.

"My Lord," he said softly, "those creatures—the Reapers—kill everything in their path without distinction. That is their nature. But perhaps... we can use that very nature against them."

The room remained silent, the weight of his words sinking in. Augustus leaned in slightly, his curiosity piqued despite himself.

And as Orfry continued to speak, a plan began to form—one that would not rely on strength, but on cunning.

...

Overlord continued to dominate the battlefield across the Asaris Continent, orchestrating devastation with mechanical precision. His Reapers, flawless instruments of annihilation, were deployed again and again to intercept and destroy every battalion the Zanis Command dared to send.

Though the elite units of Zanis offered greater resistance after learning the battle style and skills of the Reapers, they were no match for the Overlord’s enhanced coordination and tactical prowess.

Within the command tower, Overlord’s mind interfaced directly with the battlefield. Through the tower, his mental capabilities were amplified beyond his limits, allowing him to perceive troop movements across entire regions in real time. He adjusted formations, redeployed units, and issued commands with machine-like speed. There was no pause, no hesitation. Each decision was made with cold, ruthless efficiency.

The Reapers’ advanced sensory organs picked up the movement of a new battalion sweeping across the southern plains. Overlord’s awareness immediately latched onto the disturbance. He zoomed in on the feed, accessing live data from multiple Reaper nodes. The imagery stabilized—and his frown deepened.

The soldiers advancing were not elites. They weren’t even specialized in any visible way. They were standard infantry. Ordinary, unenhanced, armored men and women at the Champion Rank—the same type that had been massacred en masse during the early stages of the war. There were no signs of experimental weapons or abnormal movement patterns. No hidden teleportation signals. Nothing. Yet there they were, five hundred thousand strong, marching steadily toward death.

"Madness?"

That thought, strangely organic, echoed within the mind of Overlord’s A.I. Chip Clone. To send in a force that had already failed countless times before... it defied logic. Was Zanis Command delusional? Desperate? Or was something else at play?

Still, the A.I. did not act on speculation. It followed data, not instinct. A comprehensive scan of the battlefield revealed nothing abnormal. No traces of hidden explosives, just countless foot soldiers carrying steel and prayer.

Overlord gave the command.

A Reaper battalion emerged from the earth like locusts, tunneling up from the underground hives and spreading out with calculated grace. Their advance was silent, their coordination flawless. And when the order to attack came, they descended upon the enemy lines with horrifying speed.

Screams split the air. Blood painted the grasslands. Limbs were torn apart, torsos crushed under the weight of unnatural claws. The Reapers moved like a symphony of death, each one part of a larger design, playing out a dance of butchery that had become all too familiar. It seemed, for a moment, like it would be yet another overwhelming victory.

Until something changed.

Amidst the sea of bodies and shattered shields, the blood that had been spilled began to glow.

At first, it was faint—a soft red shimmer, pulsing along the cracks in the soil. But it grew rapidly, intensifying into a blinding crimson light that bathed the field.