Major Kai stared in a daze as the lifeless body of the D Rank Cyber Gladiator of the Federation Army plumted from the sky.
Unlike on the first day of the war that Ren Nora led them to assassinate the D Rank NetRunner of the Federation Army, there was no cara this ti.
No one saw their struggle, and no one saw their crazy feat but Major Kai felt like he could hear the world itself applauding their effort.
’We really did it’. He thought in a daze.
12 days ago, when the war started, just like Ren Nora he was optimistic. This was even after learning that a C Rank Ascended was the Commander leading the opposition.
He remained optimistic because of Ren Nora’s plan for the war to leverage the sheer numbers of rebel soldiers and rcenaries who hated the Omnicore Federation all over the world.
Then, he believed in their ability to win the war through sheer numbers.
But as the war progressed and as General Sylvari Charr countered every single one of their plans, from cutting off their reinforcent to slowly developing a way to dominate inside Purgatory, Major Kai finally began to experience doubts.
Whereas every other Lieutenant of the rebel army believed that Ren Nora had a plan for everything, as the closest to the General, he knew that the General was just like every other soldier.
The General worried too, he got anxious too, he feared for the worst too, it was just that Ren Nora was good at hiding his emotions than others.
He learned to hide his emotions to lead effectively.
So while others blindly believed in him, chard by his endless charisma, Major Kai also worried and was anxious.
He beca paranoid.
This was why when the rcenary, a stranger suddenly ca up to them a few days ago with a plan to trap General Sylvari Charr, he flared up, thinking it was a plot concocted by General Sylvari himself to fool them and annihilate them in one fell swoop.
After the rcenary left, he personally took his ti to dissuade the General, stressing just how sketchy the coincidence was.
He was a firm believer in the philosophy that nothing ca for free.
If the rcenary was truly that capable, then why had no one ever heard of him? Why had the world been oblivious to the genius E Rank chanist for so long unless he was a soldier secretly grood by the Federation Army?
Leon Ardent’s sudden appearance to help them in their desperate mont was just too good to be true, it felt scripted.
But maybe that was why Ren Nora was the General and he was not.
During the long months since he t Ren Nora, Major Kai knew him as a competent Ascended and a no-nonsense leader.
Ren Nora was cynical and distrustful, a habit born from growing up under the oppressive tentacles of the Omnicore Federation.
He was a true street boy.
He believed in doing it himself rather than seeking help.
And yet, Major Kai saw Ren Nora go against all of the core principles that had led him this far, accepting the help from the stranger at the heat of the war.
Then, Major Kai felt like Ren Nora finally lost the script.
He didn’t know if the General’s acceptance was necessitated by desperation and overthinking or if he saw sothing that he couldn’t see, but in the end, they ca to an agreent with the E Rank chanist.
Sohow, inconceivably, an E Rank chanist was supposed to help them trap a C Rank Ascended!
The irony and ridiculousness of the situation left him doubting Ren Nora’s judgent for the first ti.
If D Rank Ascended are so helpless before C Rank Ascended, how in the world was an E Rank Ascended supposed to trap one?
For days, Major Kai agonized, flirting with the idea of assassinating the chanist himself to kill the object of the General’s sudden delusion but in the end, his experiences for the past few months since knowing and following Ren Nora made him stay put.
In all the ti since he t Ren Nora, he had never seen him make a wrong judgent and so he decided to trust him one final ti.
It was the most reckless gamble of his life, and yet here he was.
With a slightly dazed look on his face, floating in the sky with his anti-gravity gear, Major Kai looked at the battlefield around him.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Both armies were still embroiled in an intense battle to the death and for the first ti in a long ti, the rebel army was winning!
The chanist actually managed to pull it off, General Sylvari Charr was still trapped despite the fact that over an hour already passed!
Of the 4 D Rank Ascended that originally ca to Iron Reef, apart from the D Rank NetRunner that they assassinated on the first day of the war, they already killed 2 of them just this night, leaving just the 1 D Rank Quantum Shaper.
The sacrifice for this? None. There were no D Rank casualties on their side.
Of the 5 D Rank Lieutenants that followed Ren Nora, only Major Garfield was still heavily damaged and weakened from having his mind and soul being subjugated by the enemy General.
Apart from him, the rest of them were still in fighting condition.
’I feel like I’m dreaming’. Major Kai thought incredulously.
The current situation felt too good to be true, but despite his emotions, Major Kai knew that he couldn’t stop to celebrate now.
There was still a war to fight and there was still an army to annihilate.
He looked at the ti.
[03:17am]
His stone-cold face instinctively broke into a smile.
’It’s been more than 5 hours already since the General started the Trial’. He exhaled and looked up. ’I wonder how much longer it’s going to take’.
He didn’t even entertain the thought of Ren Nora failing the Trial despite the fact that there were only 7 C Rank Ascended in the entire world.
He firmly believed that if there was any Ascended who was equipped to complete the C Rank Ascended Trial, then Ren Nora was the one.
If others could do it and beco C Rank Ascended, Ren Nora could do it too.
Major Kai took a deep breath, then his eyes beca focused again, burning with murderous intent.
Neural Projection!
He led his comrades to rejoin the ongoing battle.
...
Minutes later...
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Led by Major Kai, the 3 free D Rank Ascended of the rebel army went on a rampage as they slaughtered their way through the ranks of the Federation Army.
Major Lawrence and Major ndez destroyed everything in their path with horrifying power, while Major Kai moved with pinpoint accuracy and precision like a cyber-assassin, moving everywhere.
Together, they caused a massacre.
They proved exactly why it was never advisable to let D Rank Ascended loose in a large-scale battlefield like this one.
At so point, even Major Garfield finally joined the battle as despite still being weak from the earlier attack by General Sylvari Charr, he was eager to add his own input to the battle.
The rebel army was winning as they pushed the Federation Army back again and again, slaughtering over 20,000 soldiers already!
As he led the rebel soldiers and slaughtered the enemy soldiers, Major Kai felt like he was in dreamland.
He rembered the first day that he t Ren Nora about 8 months ago.
When he heard the young man speak passionately about freedom fighting and the possibility of actually attaining freedom, at first, he thought it was just so youth talking big till he saw Ren Nora fight.
Ren Nora didn’t just talk big, he had the power and the talent to match up his words though then he was still just an E Rank Ascended.
Within this short period of ti, he saw Ren Nora rise from an E Rank NetRunner to beco the strongest D Rank NetRunner that he had ever t, eventually pooling together rebels from different regions of the world to form the Freegrid Collective.
Then, he fully bought into the dream.
He decided to also fully join the hype train called Ren Nora and the Freegrid Collective.
Over the months, there’s been bumps here and there and despite it all, here he was, perhaps living the night that the Freegrid Collective would truly rise to power.
Major Kai felt like he was swimming yet he didn’t stop.
Neural Projection!
He hopped towards another warship, slaughtering enemy soldiers indiscriminately inside and that was when he suddenly felt it.
The presence suddenly engulfed the city like a thick suffocating cloud!
BZZZZZZZZZZZ!
Major Kai’s heart skipped a beat as he looked up, his eyes widened. ’A-another C Rank Ascended???’
...
[Special Appreciation to Yatekudastop for the Golden Tickets, thanks for the support!]
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