"Divide the remaining forty thousand troops into three exact strike forces," Oliver ordered. "Equip them with heavy incendiary grenades and Anchor-stabilized rifles. You will march into the dark forest. You will attack the three enemy camps at exactly 1400 hours.""March into the dark forest?" Ren asked. Her voice shook for a second. "Commander, the purple fog in the forest is very thick. We will not be able to see them until they are right on top of us.""You will not need to see them," Oliver said smoothly. "I will see them for you. I will guide every squad from this room using the Rift Network map.""Understood," Ren said. "We march in ten minutes."Oliver turned to Billy."Billy. The Overlord uses the Rift Network to share tactical data across dimensions," Oliver said. "If our soldiers use plasma rifles in the forest, the monsters will learn how to beat plasma rifles. We must stop the data from uploading.""How do we stop magical data, boss?" Billy asked, looking confused."We jam

"You must turn the armor power down to exactly four percent," Oliver calculated. "Four percent is enough to keep your oxygen flowing, but low enough to avoid the magical short-circuit. The moment your ships exit the portal on the other side, you will have exactly one point two seconds to turn your armor back to one hundred percent before you hit the ground."Jax rubbed his pale face. "One point two seconds. That is not a lot of time to press a button, Commander.""It is plenty of time if you do not panic," Oliver said smoothly.Oliver looked back at the giant blue map. He began to assign specific squads to specific ships. He worked faster than any human could possibly work. He was sorting forty thousand lives into perfect, neat little boxes."Squads One through Fifty will board Ships Alpha through Epsilon," Oliver dictated rapidly. Billy typed everything down as fast as he could. "Squads Fifty-One through One Hundred will board Ships Zeta through Kappa. We must balance the weight of t

The sky above the ruined city of Oakhaven was breaking apart.Commander Oliver stood in front of the giant, broken glass window of the city hall. He did not move. He did not blink. His cold, gray eyes stared straight up into the dark purple clouds.The massive, dead moon was falling toward the planet. But it was not a moon. It was an egg.A giant, jagged crack ran down the middle of the huge rock. Blinding, pure white light spilled out of the crack. The light was so bright it cast sharp, dark shadows across the destroyed streets below. The sound of the rock breaking echoed like a million thunderclaps. CRACK. BOOM. CRACK.Oliver’s mind was a perfect, cold machine. He did not feel fear. He only saw variables.Variable A: The object is a biological incubator. Size: Continental. Mass: Beyond standard measurement.Variable B: The object is hatching. Time to complete hatching: Unknown.Conclusion: I need more data.Oliver turned his back to the window. He walked to the heavy metal desk in

"It is a thought," Lira whispered. "It is a piece of the Overlord’s own mind, pushed into physical space. It is a localized avatar."The black pyramid floated lower and lower. It passed through the blue plasma shield protecting the city. The shield did not stop it. The blue energy simply parted around the black shape like smoke. The shield was designed to stop physical attacks, but the pyramid was not completely physical.The pyramid stopped moving exactly five hundred feet above the city hall. It hovered in the air directly over Oliver’s head.The coin in Oliver’s hand suddenly burned with the heat of a star.THUMP!The giant purple hologram inside the command room violently twisted. The map of the planet vanished.The purple light gathered in the center of the room. It formed a shape. It formed a perfect, three-dimensional face.It was a massive face made of glowing purple light. It had no eyes, no nose, no mouth. It was just smooth, shifting geometric planes. But it radiated an au

Ren pulled her trigger. Pew-pew! She shot a blue laser at the empty space at the end of a yellow line on the left wall.A split second later, an invisible monster leaped onto that exact spot. The blue laser hit the monster in the head. The monster flashed visible, screamed, and turned to ash."It works!" Ren smiled. "I hit it blindly!""Do not smile. Keep firing," Oliver ordered. "There are twenty more."Jax raised his heavy machine gun. He looked at a yellow line moving fast along the ceiling. Jax tracked the line with his gun barrel. But Jax waited. His human brain wanted to see the target before pulling the trigger. He hesitated for one single microsecond."Fire now, Captain Jax!" Oliver barked.Jax pulled the trigger. But he was too late.The invisible monster dropped from the ceiling. It dodged the plasma fire. The beast landed directly on Jax’s chest. The monster swung its sharp, purple energy blade.The blade slashed across Jax’s left shoulder."AGGGHHHH!" Jax screamed in pure