The Sounds of railguns blasting at gigantic animals were all over the place.
Mayu was using her shotgun to stop the tide of tiny snakes slithering towards the front lines. It had unlimited ammo and shot glowing yellow projectiles.
Only for the ground to start catching fire.
"The toads started an oil fire!"
One of her squadmates wearing a gas mask and covered head to toe with fire resistant technic armor with a large tank on their back started spraying everywhere with a large hose
Mayu was covered in a liquid that cause all the oil to slide right off. Her Technic armor would do the rest of the heat protection.
"I've cleared out the snakes! Advance!"
Mayu yelled at her group and started running forwards.
They stopped behind a corpse of a giant snake and they brought out their combat knives.
Mayu herself had cybernetic chain arms that she shot up. Segmenting into various angular sections like a whip sword, connected with a metal chain. Instantly pulling herself to the top.
Her sqaud started stabbing into the corpse of the giant snake to climb up it as if they were ice climbing.
When they reached the top they took all out sniper rail cannons. And started shooting, adding to the chorus of firepower surrounding them.
The snakes were a priority target due to them usually eating other soldiers destroying their equipment and augments.
They did this for roughly 10 minutes taking down 3 giant snakes with well aimed headshots.
Suddenly the snake that they were standing upon started moving.
"Shit it's still alive! Get off of it!"
It was too late. The snake woke up to sharp pain on its belly left from the stab wounds from when Mayu's squad climbed up it.
It immediately lashed out, moving to swallow them whole.
Mayu pushed her squad away and jumped straight into the serpents mouth as it tried to swallow them.
In the span of a single second Mayu stabbed into the floor of its mouth with her chain arm anchoring her and overcharged her sniper railcannon. Shooting it straight up through the serpents brain. Instantly killing it.
The snake collapsed crushing Mayu under the weight of its head. Mayu was forced to crawl around its disgusting mouth and out the gory hole she made through its head.
"Anyone near me!" She immediately looked around but her technic armor identified none of her squadmates in the area.
Of in the distance she saw one of the giant toads. It was probably the one that started the fire earlier.
Deciding her next target Mayu started using her chain arms to swing towards the Toad.
(Think Omni-Directional Mobility Gear from Attack On Titan type movement.)
Mayu kept close to the ground. Sliding with her feet to quickly change directions. She eventually snuck behind the toad. Cutting its back along with the clothes it was wearing with a strike of her chain arm, right before it was going to shoot mud balls out of its mouth at the various soldiers surrounding it.
The giant toad turned around and shot a gigantic mud ball at Mayu instead of the doomed soldiers. Mayu tried pulling herself out of the way but it grazed her, causing her left chain arm to get blown off.
"This must be one of the stronger ones."
Mayu decided that retreat was the best option. Her combat capability was severely hampered by her destroyed arm. Railcannon focus fire was simply the best option against such large opponents, no matter how strong.
Mayu immediately started retreating. But before she could do anything, the giant toad immediately charged at her.
Mayu was instantly crushed to death by a giant toads fist and died at the age of 32, she would forever be remembered in the digital archives as a brave and skilled elite soldier.
~
Mitsuo was sitting in a luxurious bedroom. The floor was covered in a velvet red carpet. The walls were made out of special rare metals that could resist sage energies. His bed was a simple full sized bed at the corner of the room that was magnetically floating from the ground.
He was sittin on a chair looking upon a window. And through that window was a view of the entire planet.
Mitsuo was sitting in his private room in the former personal space station of Mikitaka. Known as the Inventory.
It was the location where Mikitaka kept his most esoteric technologies. It even had portal technology that Mitsuo had never managed to recreate that allowed him to enter and leave the Inventory at nearly any location.
However Mitsuo was not casually looking upon the planet in awe of its majesty. No, his cybernetic eyes were advanced enough to observe the conflicts happening down on the surface, despite the massive distance.
And as Mitsuo saw it, the war against the Sages was fucked.
The truth was that Mount Myoboku and Ryuchi Cave were not fighting them of their own accord.
In fact before the war started they were on friendly terms with all 3 of the sage lands.
But after the ai planetary systems created by Mikitaka randomly decided to nuke two thermal signatures in space everything had gone to shit.
'Why did teachers systems decide to target two random heat signitures? Why did two of the 3 sage lands start attacking the land of Kagaku with no warning? What would Mikitaka sensei do in this situation?'
'Why did the human sages within the land of Kagaku all start killing everyone?'
Questions swirled in Mitsuo's mind with no answer.
'Should I activate project Sanabi? No sensei said it was risky and should be done under controlled conditions.'
"I can't believe it's been 200 years since he died."
Mitsuo leaned back in his chair. He put his hands together and put them on his face.
Mitsuo sighed.
An average of over 40,000 soldiers were dying every day since the Sage War started. That wasn't even counting the loss of highly skilled elite augmented soldiers easily worth tens or even hundreds of soldiers lost.
The Toads and Snakes seemed dead set on total extermination. They were targeting essential locations. Mines and farms, the roots of society.
"This is madness"
The only good thing in recent times had been the discovery of a human sage that hadn't gone mad. Kaguya Otsutsuki and her children.
They needed to be studied. So that a cure to the sage madness would be found.
Otherwise he would be forced to go nuclear.