Offensive Bias's small sentinel hovered forward, releasing a pulse of light. From it unfolded a sleek, silver-black armor—Forerunner-grade, tailored like a standard space survival unit, but enhanced with energy-resistant plating and mana-conductive threads.
The armor floated over to Hinako and immediately began latching onto her body, piece by piece, like a machine dressing its chosen warrior. She didn't flinch. Not once.
Peperoncino raised an eyebrow. "And where's one for Daybit? Don't tell me you expect him to go in naked?"
But Daybit only stepped forward, calm as ever. "No need. I want to see it with my own eyes. If I die, so be it."
Jin-Woo looked between them, expression unreadable. "Any last prayers? You both might die."
Neither of them responded.
Just silence. Jin-Woo exhaled with a shrug. "Your funeral."
A surge of silver-blue light flared from Offensive Bias, and in an instant— ZSHOOM—both Hinako and Daybit vanished, consumed by the swirling pulse of slipspace. The platform where they stood flickered empty, leaving only a faint echo of spatial distortion in their wake.
Slipspace tore silently across the infected skies of Abeloth's planet, and from its pale-blue aperture—Hinako Akuta and Daybit Sem Void arrived.
The landing zone was deceptively quiet. Twisted trees stood like bone towers beneath a dark, rust-colored sky. Blackened leaves crunched beneath Hinako's armored boots as she took her first step forward into what looked like a forest still clinging to life.
Then—SHHK!
A hand grabbed her wrist. Daybit yanked her back behind a splintered root system, his other hand rising in a sharp gesture.
Hide. She didn't question it.
From between the skeletal trunks ahead, a lumbering Flood Tank Form—massive, biomechanical, grotesque—lurched into view. Its eye-like sockets flared faint green as its ribbed body pumped with corrupted biomass. It scanned the area slowly, emitting deep subharmonic pulses that resonated through the rotted canopy.
Then the forest… shifted.
Vines twitched. Spore sacs pulsed. Creatures hidden twitched to life—once fauna, now corrupted beyond recognition. Flood-infected hounds. Crawlers. Lurkers. They were waiting, unseen, patient like predators bred by apocalypse.
Hinako's breath slowed. Even through her armor, she felt the pressure crawling along her spine.
Beside her, Daybit kept his expression neutral. With two fingers, he traced a simple symbol into the dirt between them:
Distract Abeloth. Distract Gravemind. Watch your step.
He looked at her—You lead. I follow. Then he glanced back at the monstrous silhouettes in the fog.
This would be a game of shadows. And if they made one wrong move? They'd become part of the plan----
BOOOOOOM. The air exploded with shrapnel and smoke—chunks of stone, torn branches, and sharpened bone flying in every direction. Dust tore through the forest canopy l .
Abeloth and Gravemind—locked in a hellish duel only moments before—had paused. Their attention snapped as one toward the intruders.
Ten meters was all that separated Daybit and Hinako from two of the most dangerous entities in the universe.
Hinako's blood froze. I'm so fucked.
Gravemind's voice cracked across the rotting landscape, echoing with infinite mouths:
"Side by side we march against our captor."
Abeloth's shriek was even worse—feral, shrill, maddened with endless obsession:
"Capture that cursed Shadow Monarch's comrade!"
Hinako's breath caught.
Daybit didn't wait. His body moved faster than instinct.
With a snap of his fingers, he unleashed Force Telekinesis, yanking Hinako straight to his side like a tethered object. His left foot sparked.
He ignited his boots—not with fire, but a focused surge of Force Lightning, reversed and aimed downward.
CRACK— Electric propulsion blasted under him like a burst engine, slamming both him and Hinako into a dead sprint away from the collapsing forest.
Behind them, the Flood Pure Forms screamed, warping and tearing their own limbs into spike-covered limbs to crawl faster. From the sky, a Sithspawned creature, black with slashed wings, dropped from the fog and crashed into the dirt just behind their escape path.
Abeloth's force power flared into the sky
Gravemind's tentacles slammed down, uprooting trees as it roared across the ruined terrain.
Daybit whispered, barely audible to Hinako as they sprinted:
"…If we die, tell Jin-Woo it's still his fault."
Hinako could only mutter through her teeth— "Fuck. You. Daybit."
As dust and lightning tore through the corrupted forest, Daybit's eyes flicked to a clearing up ahead.
There, half-buried in twisted roots and moss, sat a familiar, dented frame—an old armored jeep from his South American Lostbelt, painted in matte gray. The front bumper still had crude claw marks from a failed beast taming attempt, and the engine block had glow-scratch runes carved into it. But it hummed. It was ready.
Daybit smirked. "…Offensive Bias. You really did prepare for everything."
With a flick of his wrist and a surge of Force Pull, the canopy burst open. He jumped inside, slammed his hand onto the interface, and hotwired the ignition . The jeep's core engine—now modified with stolen Sith hyperconductors— , almost sounding like a V-wing ready for take off .
The wheels caught immediately. The jeep surged forward with insane torque—its acceleration unnatural, closer to a low-level repulsorlift than anything from his old world.
Hinako barely had time to catch her breath.
Daybit suddenly turned to her, steady as the jeep bucked under them. "Drive."
Hinako blinked. "What?"
Daybit said "I'm taking the back seat. You drive."
"What kind of lunatic are you—" Hinako started.
But Daybit had already climbed onto the rear frame of the jeep .
Hinako slid into the seat reluctantly, muttering through clenched teeth:
"This alien bastard… What the fuck did he do for Jin-Woo all those days ?"
The jeep already ahead, swerving past decaying fauna and monstrous wreckage.
Behind them—BOOM—a Sithspawned creature leapt from the mist. Its wings were made of flayed tendons. Its mouth screamed in binary-coded rage.
Daybit turned. With one hand raised, his fingers curled tightly.
The creature froze mid-air, bones crunching, skin compressing as Force Crush coiled around its entire mass. Then—with a sweep of his free hand—a nearby boulder the size of a speeder was ripped from the earth and slammed into the frozen Sithspawn like a meteor.
Blood, ichor, and dust sprayed through the trees.
Hinako gritted her teeth as the wheel jerked from a rough patch.
"I hate this. I really hate this."
The sky split open like a rotten wound—THMP-THMP-THMP—and Flood Infection Forms rained down like diseased meteors, their screeches high-pitched and hungry. The air filled with spores. Tendrils lashed. They swarmed, twisted, screeched.
Daybit didn't flinch.
Standing at the rear of the speeding jeep, he raised both arms and unleashed pure Force Lightning, purple bolts arcing in wild zigzags
One by one, the infection forms were disintegrated midair, their carcasses bursting like overripe fruit—until one of them slipped through, veering off its descent just barely.
It latched onto his wrist—CLACK, its tentacle curling around the flesh.
Daybit's entire body jerked, eyes wide.
Hinako shouted, "DAYBIT!"
But then—everything stopped. Time stretched.
The Flood Infection Form went still. The spores in the air held like dust frozen in amber. Even the Gravemind, visible only in the distance as a mass of rising biomass and grotesque tendrils, seemed… hesitant.
Then—every Flood presence around them spoke. as one voice.
"There is much more complexity to meter than the simple plodding of the rhymes of this Keats…"
"But then—I have the memories of many poets. Of many tongues. Of many minds."
"Far beyond your limited… human culture." "But… what are you?"
A pulse rippled outward. . Conceptual.
All of the infection forms recoiled. Gravemind's consciousness shuddered like it had touched something wrong. Something outside its design.
The tendril released Daybit. And with no sound, the Flood retreated.
Hinako glanced back over her shoulder, white-knuckling the steering wheel as she shouted, "DAYBIT! Did it… infect you?!"
Daybit stared at his hand. It was smoking lightly. His breath hitched—once. "I don't know," he said flatly. "I don't… think so."
Then his eyes sharpened—alert. "Hinako. Eyes on the front. Don't look back."
She didn't argue. She just nodded and kept her hands clenched around the wheel like a lifeline.
But then—Daybit saw it. The air shimmered behind them. And charging across the warped terrain—
Abeloth. Even wounded. Even partially infected. Even trailing black ooze from one rotting eye and several corrupted tendrils—she moved like a nightmare refusing to die.
Twisted, primal, faster than a Sound could process.
She howled, distorted—half Force scream, half sonic collapse. The ground cracked beneath her.
Daybit pulled free his purple lightsaber, eyes narrowing.
"I'll buy us time," he muttered, opening the side hatch.
But then—everything changed.
The world folded around them. The terrain didn't just shift—it morphed. The ground became slick, diseased, overgrown with pulsing veins of biomass. Trees collapsed into twisted tendrils. Fungus ballooned from the dirt. The very air vibrated like it was breathing wrong.
A Flood dome. Massive. 500 meters across.
Abeloth clawed at the outside—howling in fury—but did not enter.
Hinako slammed the brakes. The jeep skidded sideways. Both of them climbed out instantly, blades drawn. But it wasn't Abeloth they had to worry about now.
They were surrounded. Hundreds of Flood forms.
Pure Forms—tank-like behemoths with steel-crushing limbs.
Stalkers—spindly, crawling horrors with twisted legs and eyeless sockets.
Ranged forms—flesh fused with tendrils and weaponry, twitching as they aimed from distance.
And at the center… one massive form. An Abomination Form . Its body was fused from dozens—maybe hundreds—of corpses.
Then… A presence descended.
The biomass of the dome rippled. From the heart of the mound, rising slowly, undulating in coils of dark rot—
The Gravemind. Its serpentine form towered over them. Eyeless. Maw yawning wide. But its was poetry filtered through a grave.
"This one…" The Gravemind turned its gaze to Hinako, despite having no eyes.
"…desperate to reclaim the shadow of her mate. So loud is the silence in her soul."
Then, it turned to Daybit.
"And this one… is alien. But layered. Like broken glass reforged. He holds secrets. Possibilities. Agendas unfulfilled."
The Gravemind's voice spilled out like rot sliding across marble—measured, musical, and morbid.
"The female one… is allowed to escape. Her foe—the Force entity—shall be restrained, for now."
"But the male must stay."
Hinako's eyes widened. "What—?"
Daybit didn't hesitate. He turned to her and said calmly, "Hinako. Run. I'll talk to this hive mind while you flee. Make it out. Live long enough for our Boss to finish his job."
Hinako's lips twisted in fury. "If you die, Daybit, I swear—I'll piss on your corpse."
Daybit gave the faintest of smirks. "Noted."
As if sensing her decision, the dome rippled—parted—opening a winding, moss-covered pathway. The Flood stood still, unmoving,. The jeep's lights flickered in the dark, waiting.
Hinako didn't look back. Tires screeched. She was gone.
Daybit stepped forward, unflinching, now staring up into the vast, curling mass of the Gravemind's maw.
"I presume," he said coldly, "you want something from me. But not by assimilation. You've always done that . You want a deal."
The Gravemind inhaled—not with lungs, but with weight. Its voice echoed across the dome like scripture read at a funeral.
"I desire escape. I seek release from the captivity of the shadows plane enforces upon me. The bindings of Force . . You… will provide the way. And together… Earth shall fall."
Daybit narrowed his eyes, voice steady but edged. "Why don't you just infect me? Use me. Summon yourself through my body?"
The Gravemind's response came like a dirge—low, ancient, and echoing with terrible patience.
"The knowledge is incomplete. My legend is not yet spoken wide enough through human hands. I have no myth to rise upon, no name to open the gates of belief."
"But you will carry me. Fate had us meet as foes. But your world's system will make us brothers."
One of the nearby Flood Pure Forms stepped forward—grotesque and silent—and held out something small. An ancient capsule, black and cold, sealed in some kind of translucent polymer.
Inside it, a strange, silvery dust shimmered like starlight drowned in oil. The Dust of the Precursors.
Daybit stared at it. "If I refuse?" he asked flatly.
The dome shifted. Warped. And then. Daybit was thrown into a vision—not one from the Force, but deeper, darker. A vision inevitability.
He saw Earth. Or rather, what was Earth. A cracked world of metal and ash.
Humanity no longer human. Civilizations twisted into bureaucratic husks.
Knowledge hoarded. Morality rebranded. A future of compliance.
Behind it all… stood a man.
A young man. Calm. Radiating leadership. Smiling like a god that had already won.
His badge gleamed:
A symbol of three arrows pointing inward to a circle.
Insignia of the SCP Foundation.
Text: SCP O5 Council – 1 | The Founder
Ritsuka Fujimaru. His smile—empty..
The same boy who once ran to save humanity… now watching it dissolve into Nothingness .
Daybit's breath caught.
Then, the Gravemind spoke again with overwhelming finality: "Refuse… and be discarded. Not by me. But by your true foe. The one you've never even seen."
Daybit didn't flinch. Slowly, deliberately, he took the black capsule—the Dust of the Precursors—and without a word, placed it into his mouth and swallowed it.
The black Capsule burned on the way down. .
The Gravemind's maw curled . "The Shadow Monarch will smell my stench… even within your organs. His dominion pierces deception."
Daybit wiped his mouth . "Jin-Woo is a businessman to the core, He gets what he wants. The rest—he'll help or interfere , if the terms are equal."
Daybit turned his gaze up toward the towering, coiled Flood deity. "Now we need to make this look believable… in front of the Crypters , my comrades ."
The Gravemind didn't answer. The dome—twisting, black, and swollen with biomass—exploded outward in a pulse of rupturing flesh and matter. Flood spores hissed into the air like clouds of acid and teeth.
And emerging from the collapsing rot—a Flood Juggernaut.
Towering. Grotesque. A command-class unit—formed from multiple assimilated warriors. Plates of bone fused into armor. Arms elongated, spiked, and dripping with infectious fluid. Eyes long gone. It roared.
And Daybit moved. purple lightsaber ignited . His stance Niman : Vi . sharper . Faster. "…Showtime."