Beyond the crimson barrier, the desert was still moving.
The Vorax hadn't retreated.
They were simply waiting.
Thousands of crimson bodies shifted across the Mars-like wasteland, their chittering and clicking merging into one immense, restless roar. Some crawled over the corpses of their fallen brethren. Others dug their claws into the red soil and remained perfectly still, as though instinctively aware that the barrier was temporary.
They were waiting for the light to disappear.
Cason's HUD flickered.
STARGEM REMAINING: 03:07
His expression hardened.
"We have three minutes."
Trevor stared at the timer.
"Three minutes?"
"The Stargem has already been active for seven."
Conrad's face tightened.
"Captain... that's not enough time."
Cason glanced at the soldiers around him.
They were barely standing.
Several of them were bleeding beneath their suits. Their breathing was heavy enough to be audible through the squad channel.
He knew exactly what they were thinking.
Three minutes isn't enough.
And they were right.
Normally, it wouldn't be.
Cason looked at the countdown again.
02:51
His eyes moved to the sealed warning hovering over his HUD.
RESTRICTED COMBAT AUTHORIZATION PENDING
Trevor's voice came through.
"MOD base is responding."
Cason straightened.
"Put them through."
Static.
Then a woman's voice.
"Captain Cason. Authorization request received."
"Unseal it."
A pause.
"You are requesting removal of your combat limiter."
"Yes."
"Your current physiological condition is below recommended thresholds."
"I noticed."
"Removal carries a severe risk of systemic collapse."
"I know."
"Authorization confirmed. One combat limiter may be unsealed. Please designate the limiter to be removed."
Cason's fingers tightened around his weapon.
He knew exactly what that meant.
The combat limiter existed because there was something inside him that shouldn't be allowed to run freely.
Something powerful enough that MOD's engineers had decided the safest way to use him was to deliberately keep part of him asleep.
Sealed.
Contained.
It was dangerous enough that three different powers had been sealed behind combat limiters, each one deemed too hazardous to use without authorization.
After several tense seconds of consideration, he already knew which limiter he needed to unseal.
His father had called it dangerous.
His instructors had called it unstable.
Cason had always called it unfair.
Now he had a choice.
Stay safe and die slowly with everyone else.
Or become dangerous.
He smiled.
"Berserker."
There was a brief pause.
"Captain, you understand that this is not a standard battlefield enhancement. Once released, the limiter will not automatically re-engage. The Berserker state will continuously drain your energy reserves and may—"
"I know."
Cason cut her off before the warning could finish. His voice was calm, almost dismissive.
"I'm well aware of the risks. Remove it."
"Captain—"
"Remove. It."
Silence.
AUTHORIZATION GRANTED.
Cason felt something click inside him.
Not physically.
Something deeper.
A restriction he'd grown accustomed to carrying suddenly vanished.
His HUD went black.
For one second, his entire body went numb.
Then power slammed through him.
Cason's knees buckled.
Conrad caught his shoulder.
"Captain!"
Cason shoved him away.
"I've got it."
His voice sounded different.
Lower.
Calmer.
The exhaustion remained.
But underneath it—
Something had awakened.
His muscles tightened.
The burning in his limbs sharpened into clarity.
His heartbeat accelerated.
Energy flooded through his nervous system, every nerve suddenly illuminated from within.
Warnings erupted across his vision.
LIMITER REMOVED
DURATION: 25 MINUTES
PHYSIOLOGICAL OUTPUT: INCREASING
SYSTEM STRESS: CRITICAL
RECOMMENDED ACTION: ABORT
Cason laughed.
"Too late."
Conrad stared at him.
"You're smiling."
"Am I?" He tilted his head. "You can see my expression through this armor?"
"No." Conrad paused. "But we can all tell from your behavior that you look completely insane."
Cason rolled his shoulders.
Something cracked.
"Probably."
A Vorax slammed against the Stargem barrier.
Disintegrated.
Another followed.
Gone.
Minutes turned into seconds. And just when his limiter was released, the Stargem barrier flickered before fading.
His squad watched him.
He stopped rolling his shoulders. His weapon, the trademark deadly Scythe immediately materializes in his hand.
"Listen carefully, squad."
The humor disappeared from his voice.
"We have at least twenty minutes with the Beserker window."
He pointed toward the swarming vorax ahead.
"We're not wasting a second."
Conrad tightened his grip on his weapon.
He could feel the Berserker roaring somewhere deep inside him.
His eyes burned red with a fury too violent to put into words. His throat felt dry. His body screamed for blood. Hunger gnawed at his gut—not for food, but for violence.
An uncontrollable urge surged through him.
Kill.
Kill the thing standing before him.
The bugs.
Cason stared excitedly ahead.
Behind him, the crimson barrier pulsed in the darkness, its afterimages flickering like the dying sounds of a warning.
His father's voice echoed somewhere in the back of his mind.
Prove that you're worthy.
Cason grinned.
He roared and charged forward recklessly into the swarm, plunging headfirst into a mad killing spree.
"Damn you, filthy bugs!" Cason's voice tore through the battlefield. "Taste the wrath of the God of Death!"
"ARGHHHH!"
The squad rose.
Not because they weren't exhausted.
Because Cason had given them something exhaustion couldn't.
A reason to keep moving.
*********
"Commander, sir. Captain Cason chose Berserker."
Gareth's mouth curved into a faint, humorless smirk.
Of course he did.
He could have chosen Blackhole. He could have chosen Reaper. Either would have been safer in the hands of a man with Cason's combat instincts.
But his son had never been particularly fond of safe choices.
Gareth leaned back in his command chair, arms folded across his chest as the tactical display washed the command room in layers of cold blue light. Hundreds of data streams crawled across the transparent screens. Biometrics. Combat projections. Atmospheric density. Tower parameters. Vorax swarm density.
And, at the center of it all, the live feed from the battlefield.
Cason's squad was surrounded.
Not merely surrounded.
Buried.
The Vorax had poured into the combat zone like an ocean of chitin and teeth, their bodies colliding against one another as they swarmed toward the remaining soldiers. The creatures moved with horrifying coordination, their segmented limbs skittering over the fractured terrain while countless mandibles snapped at anything still alive.
Then the Stargem barrier collapsed.
The tactical display flashed crimson.
[STARGEM BARRIER: DESTROYED]
For half a second, the battlefield went silent.
Then Cason moved.
"Release Berserker."
Gareth exhaled through his nose.
There it was.
The crimson energy erupted around his son.
The command room's analysts immediately began shouting over one another.
"Energy spike!"
"His heart rate is climbing!"
"Neural activity is exceeding the projected threshold!"
"Captain Cason's limiter is disengaging!"
Gareth ignored them.
His eyes remained fixed on the screen.
He knew that body.
He had watched Cason grow into it.
He had watched him break training records, fracture reinforced combat equipment, and come home bleeding because some idiot had told him that a stronger opponent was standing on the other side of the arena.
Cason had always been like this.
Reckless.
Proud.
And terrifyingly talented.
He had been born with an extraordinary constitution on top of his S-Rank potential, and when his Awakening came, GAIA had revealed something even more troublesome.
Cason had not awakened one innate ability.
He had awakened several.
Blackhole.
Reaper.
Berserker.
Three abilities that would have been enough to define an ordinary Awakener's entire career.
Cason had all three.
And Gareth had sealed every one of them.
The only exception was his son's Unique-class Plasmancer ability, which remained accessible under controlled conditions.
The decision had not been made lightly.
Under GAIA regulations, an Awakener's abilities could be temporarily sealed within a limiter if the power was deemed sufficiently unstable to endanger the user or those around them.
Cason had qualified for that restriction several times over.
Berserker alone had nearly killed him.
Not metaphorically.
Not in some dramatic training simulation.
Nearly killed him.
The ability pushed the body beyond its natural thresholds, forcing every biological system into an accelerated state. Strength. Reflexes. Endurance. Pain tolerance. Neural response.
Everything climbed.
And everything had a price.
The stronger the Berserker state became, the more violently it consumed the body supporting it.
If Cason lost control, the ability would continue demanding more until there was nothing left to give.
Muscle fibers could rupture.
Organs could fail.
Neural pathways could burn out.
And if the user remained inside the state beyond his physical limit—
Death.
The word had appeared in Cason's medical reports more than once.
Gareth still remembered the first time he had seen it.
He had nearly ordered the ability permanently removed.
But GAIA did not permit permanent removal simply because a parent was afraid.
The limiter was temporary.
A safeguard.
The ability could be released for a limited period, but only with authorization from the MOD. Once activated, the limiter would not automatically restore itself until the ability's active window expired and its cooldown completed.
Permanent release was possible only when the Awakener demonstrated sufficient mastery to control the ability without external restraint.
Cason currently possessed roughly thirty percent mastery over Berserker.
Thirty.
Gareth considered that number for a moment.
Then he looked back at the battlefield.
"Thirty percent," he muttered.
The officer beside him glanced over.
"Sir?"
"Nothing."