Urbs stared blankly at Odina in rubble. The city he designed and commissioned was in flames. He could not afford any more casualty. The battle needed to end as quickly as possible.

“Urbs, this is Husker, do you copy?”

The radio cackled.

Urbs picked up the receiver and replied, “this is Urbs.”

“Are you going to…”

The line went silent. Urbs was pondering. Finally, he spoke into the receiver, “no. Not yet. If we can hold out for a while longer…”

“Okay. Then we’ll hold out till then. Husker to Urbs, over.”

The two commanding officers were in agreement. Urbs put down the receiver and commanded, “no change of plans! We’ll squeeze the enemy out of this city. We’ll show them the true power of the City Hunters!”

These City Hunters definitely lived up to their reputation. Specialising in urban combat, they were experts in urban camouflage and urban tactics.

Phantasm soldiers streamed into the city through the narrow gaps. Bullets flew across the battlefield. The Delta Hunters squadron spread out, each team taking cover behind various rubble and returned fire.

These grey soldiers had excellent aim and cover. Each shot was spot on. They had chosen to take cover at areas where their blind spots were all covered. They were truly remarkable urban fighters.

Phantasm soldiers had only one way to take them out. The point man loaded a bazooka and took aim. However, within a second, a single distinct, sharp shot was heard. The point man dropped backwards to the cracked road and the Rocket-propelled Grenade (RPG) launcher slipped out of his hands. Blood splattered all over his mangled face as one 7.82mm calibre bullet drilled through his forehead.

“Daedalus Four, take one.”

The whisper coming from the headset clipped on the soldiers’ left ears was followed by the sound of the bolt being pulled and released.

As the second-in-command bent down to pick up the grenade launcher, another shot fired out.

“Daedalus Four, take two.”

Delta Squad Four seized the chance to advance, aggressively emptying their ammunition from their rifles till the last enemy went down.

“Clear!” The point man of Squad Four declared.

When they claimed to have their blind spots all covered, they really did mean it. Each squad was designated a sniper to their team, in position and always ready for the kill.

For the bogey soldiers abseiling down from the transport helicopters and buildings, the Gamma Hunters took care of them. The third squadron of the City Hunters, Gamma Hunters, were waiting to ambush them. Automatic guns rapidly fired at the copters, eventually lighting up the fuel tanks. One transport copter burst into flames. The next helicopter went down from a short-range surface-to-air missile. The remnants of soldiers who successfully dropped from the transport copters were easily swept clean by grenades flung in by the Beta Hunters.

A wide grin formed on the bony face of Slandarma’an. He sat on a large wooden chair, his one hand resting on human skulls carved on the arm-rests. His other elbow rested on the other arm rest and rested his cheek lazily on his palm. He crossed his left leg over his right, making his frame look smaller than it already was.

Slandarma’an was viewing the battle from the top of the ivory tower in the small town from the south. He spoke in a ghostly, coarse tone, “send in the Destro’ver.”

“Yes, my lord,” his right-hand man acknowledged. Unlike the overlord, who had a tattoo of an unfinished inverted pentacle on his neck, his right-hand man had a tattoo of a cross in a circle, which was two strokes fewer than his lord’s.

“Kakamada… How long more?” Slandarma’an asked.

“My lord, once the Destro’ver is released, another four hours to total annihilation,” the right-hand man replied confidently.

“Good… Now, begone. Don’t disturb my show,” the overlord waved his hand to shoo his man away.

Its engines revved up, giving a monstrous roar. The caterpillar tracks started to rotate. The gigantic machine lighted up from the bottom to the top in sequence.

“Activation sequence initiated. Commencing auto-boot and pre-battle preparations,” the artificial intelligence spoke in a manly, monotonous tone in the cockpit as three Phantasm soldiers climbed into the tank.

“All weapons loaded.”

“Nero-links stable.”

“Fuel pump locked. Power chambers active.”

“Channel with main command established. All systems normal.”

The three soldiers announced.

“Destro’ver zero-one, launch,” main command ordered.

The main driver responded, “command acknowledged. Zero-one, launch!”

The killing machine roared once more and started to move out of the outpost, heading its way straight for the city. After it gained enough acceleration, two turbojet attached to the rear of the gigantic tank fired up, rocketing this enormous lump of mass forward.

Back in the city, Urbs knew that the fight was far from over, as the radar and infra-red signature identified a large mobile object speeding its way to them.

What he did not know, was that this unit approaching them was the one that took out the Evergreen Forest, the very technology which could deliver and contain the entire payload of a nuclear-equivalent explosion…