No Second Chances: The Beginning Of The End - Chapter 43

After sending Lawrence to complete the task of bringing Sinns back to Delcyt along with a special team, Yan received reports of a massive accumulation of viscous and dark substances on the surface of the scorched land of what used to be the Pandora forest. The report explained how the remains of the earth dragon were covered by the substance, disabling the team from being able to retrieve the corpse. Upon reading the report, Yan contacted Cristobal to make him assess the training of those who survived the operation with the dragon genes they were cultivating from DD’s corpse. This way Cristobal could eliminate any soldier who could suddenly mutate, as it was a possibility already seen in some half-breeds used as testing subjects before.

Lawrence, after making up the excuse of the dragon needing to eat, was allowed to make a limited amount of civilian casualties in order to feed it and prepare a public report of collateral damage to make up for it. As it was nearby the border, a small service station belonging to a family was chosen to become the place where the dragon would eat, to which it didn’t take long for Lawrence to break into the houses and quickly silence the brief screams produced by the terror of the half-breeds inside. A couple of hours later, Lawrence fed the dragon with the limbs of the corpses he had gathered around while the soldiers stationed in that zone were dispatched to the border to clear it from any inconvenience. It may be a coincidence, but these half-breeds happened to look similar to my dear Elvira. I might mention this small stop to her since she will enjoy herself knowing how welcoming her equals were to me and my new pet.” –Lawrence thought while throwing the last corpse upwards for the dragon to catch and eat it. After the place was cleared, a demolition team was called to take down the family houses in order to build a proper service station for military operations.

After leaving the empty service station behind, Lawrence led the team to the border to request information on the past events so he could confirm the information he already had of the target he is searching for. Several soldiers and a couple of mercenaries mentioned there was an incident about 2 months ago where a very developed robot exploded, causing heavy damage to the outpost and taking down a tower. The footage revealed exactly what Lawrence expected: Sinns and Elvira were sneaking away through the border along with another individual he didn’t give much importance at the moment. With this new information, Lawrence requested more Intel about the closest town or city to the border, and Casamira was mentioned to him. The soldiers in the outpost happened to witness a massive clean of a horde that recently broke from a cave nearby the town, so the personnel in the outpost didn’t approach it in case there was another horde. Now better informed about the situation, Lawrence set the departure to that place in a couple of days to ask for directions to the people in there. In the meantime, he would let the dragon get hungry enough to let it have fun in the town in case people refused to talk.

On Casamira, Ali already departed to another city after leaving the resources requested by Lorenz. This allowed Lorenz to manufacture really intricate pieces of the new project Ivan requested. However, Ivan happened to walk into the workshop, which was rather rare because whenever he had a new idea to create a device he would lock himself up in his personal workshop and design every detail of it properly. To Lorenz, seeing Ivan in the workshop instead of getting a call from him meant something was going to happen. “What’s wrong? Did you get a new vision?” –Lorenz asked looking quite worried due to the sudden visit.

“I’ve seen something horrible is going to happen, but the vision suddenly stopped at a certain point. There was a dragon looking like a snake, with scales that were as tough as diamond, maybe even more, eating everything on its path along with someone who uses a scythe looking like a reaper or something similar.” –Ivan explained the vision to Lorenz, trying to remember the details. “I also saw Charles, the guardian that helped us with the horde, but he was killed…” –He continued, stopping for a moment taking a glimpse of Lorenz’s face in horror.

“When is it going to happen? I need to know when everything will wreak havoc so we can prepare ourselves for it.” –Lorenz asked while thinking about all the damage something like that could make and searching for ways to prevent it.

“I don’t know, I can never predict when something in my visions is going to happen, I can just prepare myself for it. The best bet we have is to warn Charles about what could happen, and maybe this way we can stop a tragedy.” –Ivan answered while trying to remember more details of his vision.

The situation in Casamira turned quite tense as Lawrence was making his way there. Charles was soon to arrive there along with his team but wasn’t as prepared as last time given the light urgency in the distress message sent by Lorenz.

In Delcyt, Cristobal prepared himself to be sent to another mission right after assessing some soldiers who went through the same surgery. The number of fatalities due to the surgery decreased 10% after they managed to study Cristobal’s body to achieve a similar outcome to the new volunteers. Once he finished his last meeting and training, Cristobal was called by Yan to be the leader of an operation out of the kingdom. He was supposed to follow behind Lawrence and kill him whenever it was needed in order to retrieve Sinns effectively, the only drawback being the collateral damage done in the kingdom where Sinns currently resides as it would be considered an incentive for war.

For this, Yan already communicated with the Ruler of the federation of Orst, Christina, who is known to be the most prepared one for war, having machinery prepared for combat ever since the last attempt of invasion failed against Falladis. Once I get VM01 I will be finally able to continue the negotiations, otherwise, I’ll have a hard time trying to convince Christina to go for a new invasion to Falladis. I prefer to not put too much of my time into this matter but since there is something unexpected happening, I will have to focus.” –Yan thought while remembering the report announcing a probable hive being created in the former location of the Pandora’s forest.

Several hours after Cristobal prepared his team, he got a document he requested days before the said mission. It happened to be the files detailing Lawrence’s and Sinns’ capabilities. As he entered the plane that was supposed to drop him, Cristobal carefully read about the most important aspects to keep in mind about Lawrence’s magic and Sinns limitations, which helped him create a better image of himself subjugating both of them in an ideal scenario. However, Cristobal knew it wouldn’t be as easy, so the timing on which the mission had to be executed was crucial for taking down Lawrence and retrieve Sinns.

Back in Falladis’ capital, Nat just woke up to get out of her room and meet a whole platoon of soldiers around Francois and Gree, who was dictating certain orders to follow. “Team A will clear the area by evacuating the people living around while Team B will keep guard around the perimeter of the wall. If you see anything bigger than a bus shoot and run away; no normal soldier will be able to survive if a dragon shows. The one who needs to be escorted out first is Ivan, the mayor of that place. Failing to achieve Ivan’s safety will most likely end up in Falladis being destroyed by war.” –Gree explained while presenting some emails she got from Ivan. The content of these emails detailed certain events that will happen in Casamira, including Charles and his own death.

After listening to this, Nat fully woke up and got shocked by the situation at hand. “Wait so, are you going to Casamira, Ivan is in danger? What- what??” –She began to question while Gree turned around to see her. Almost instantly, Elvira tapped Nat’s shoulder and shook her head holding her finger in front of her mouth, letting Nat know she had to be quiet at that moment.

Phil silently sat on a couch and heard the whole presentation while Gree continued explaining a plan she had in mind. “What are we going to do then? And what if the plan fails?” –He asked out loud once Gree took a pause.

“Then Falladis will lose a guardian, a dragon, the key piece to avoid a huge war and hundreds of civilians.” –Gree answered after drinking a bit of water. “If we hold to the detail that all visions Ivan had are guaranteed to happen, the mission will helplessly fail to save him and Charles. However, it is very important to save as many lives as possible, so even if we fail, we need to repel the threat or neutralize them if possible.” –She continued while Francois called an end to the meeting and sent the platoon to Casamira to aid Charles with this new information and plan.

“Where are Chronos and Sinns?” –Elvira mentioned to Gree while she was writing some notes. A loud explosion was heard coming from the training grounds, making both Phil and Nat look towards that side before actually going there.

In the training grounds, Sinns was trying out a new prototype weapon made in the laboratory of the facility. Gree was overseeing and making sure the creation of it went according to her instructions and the specifications were similar to the battle-ax Sinns used to wield. However, this time there was no hollow handle on which heavy ammunition could be shot from since it would take too much time for it to be ready before being useful in combat. Unaware of what the outcome of the situation would be, Gree traced a plan where Sinns would be involved as a supporter in case the situation would turn for the worse. Gree explained to Sinns how the weapon was not as complex and useful as her first ax, but it was sturdier and it would be enough to tear down abominations. However, as there was a lack of time, she couldn’t recreate the gloves for Elvira, who had to stick with Chronos daggers in case of contingencies. Knowing this, Elvira didn’t mind and just agreed on the temporary fix.

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