His son's other abilities were far more controlled.
Blackhole sat at nearly fifty percent mastery.
A fitting name for a grotesquely efficient ability.
Cason could generate a dense plasma phenomenon that behaved like an artificial gravitational singularity. Anything caught within its effective range was dragged toward the center before being torn apart and disintegrated.
Blackhole had extraordinary destructive potential.
It was also comparatively predictable.
Reaper was different.
Gareth's eyes narrowed.
That ability required contact.
Direct physical contact.
Using a weapon as the medium, Cason could channel Reaper through the weapon and terminate a living target almost instantly.
One strike.
One touch.
One dead opponent.
That was why Cason carried a scythe.
People often assumed the weapon was some theatrical expression of his personality.
They were wrong.
It was a necessity.
Reaper had made the scythe into his trademark weapon because the weapon gave him reach, control, and a safer medium through which to channel the ability.
It was also the reason Gareth had insisted on sealing Reaper.
Cason had an unfortunate habit of fighting people stronger than himself.
Usually because he thought it was fun.
Gareth had once asked him why.
Cason had shrugged and said, Because weaker opponents are boring.
Gareth had wanted to strangle him.
Instead, he had signed another limiter authorization.
Berserker, however, remained the most dangerous of the three.
Not because it was the strongest.
It wasn't.
Blackhole could obliterate entire clusters of enemies.
Reaper could end a powerful opponent with a single successful strike.
Berserker had none of that immediate, overwhelming lethality.
Its danger was more intimate.
It consumed its user.
And Cason's thirty-percent mastery meant he could barely keep the beast on a leash.
Gareth watched the crimson aura around his son intensify.
"Activation complete," an analyst reported.
Cason disappeared from the center of the formation.
A Vorax lunged.
Too slow.
Cason's fist slammed into its skull.
The creature's body folded around the impact.
Another came from behind.
Cason twisted.
His elbow struck its jaw.
Chitin exploded.
The third never reached him.
He grabbed its forelimb, swung the creature over his shoulder, and hurled it directly into the swarm.
The impact knocked several others from their feet.
The command room fell quiet.
Gareth's jaw tightened.
That was not fighting anymore.
That was slaughter.
Cason's movements became increasingly violent as the Berserker state intensified.
He did not dodge when he could simply endure the attack.
He did not retreat when he could advance.
Every movement carried the same brutal logic.
Close the distance.
Break the target.
Move.
Repeat.
A Vorax claw pierced his shoulder.
Cason looked down at it.
For a heartbeat, he simply stared.
Then he grabbed the limb.
"Keep coming."
His voice carried through the battlefield feed, distorted by static.
"Come on."
He ripped the creature toward him and drove his forehead into its face.
"Who's the Reaper now, huh?"
The analyst nearest Gareth swallowed.
"Captain Cason appears to be experiencing elevated aggression."
Gareth gave him a flat look.
"You noticed?"
The officer immediately returned his attention to the screen.
Gareth almost smiled.
Almost.
Then another warning appeared.
[PHYSIOLOGICAL STRESS: CRITICAL]
His smile vanished.
"Monitor his vitals."
"We are."
"Every thirty seconds."
"Yes, sir."
"And if his heart rate reaches the redline?"
The officer hesitated.
"Then we recommend forced disengagement."
Gareth's expression hardened.
"Recommend?"
The officer went pale.
"We initiate emergency intervention, sir."
"Good."
Gareth turned back toward the battlefield.
Twenty-five minutes.
That was the Berserker window.
Twenty-five minutes before the ability's limiter entered cooldown.
It sounded generous.
It wasn't.
The Vorax swarm was too large.
The mission objective was still incomplete.
And the Stargem barrier had already been destroyed.
Blackhole would have given Cason ten minutes.
Reaper, five.
Berserker gave him twenty-five.
That was the reason Cason had chosen it.
Not because it was the strongest.
Because it was the only ability with enough duration to survive the swarm.
Gareth knew that.
Which meant his son had made the correct tactical decision.
Gareth hated that.
He hated it because sometimes the correct decision was still a terrible one.
"Twenty-four minutes, thirty-eight seconds remaining," the tactical officer reported.
Gareth's eyes remained fixed on the screen.
Cason punched another Vorax into the ground.
The battlefield shook.
The captain threw his head back and roared.
"Damn you, filthy bugs!"
His crimson aura flared.
"Taste the wrath of the God of Death!"
He charged.
"ARGHHHH!"
Gareth closed his eyes for half a second.
"Idiot."
There was no anger behind the word.
Only worry.
Cason had always been a proud young man.
Whenever fear crept in, he buried it beneath humor.
Whenever pain became unbearable, he laughed.
Whenever he was terrified, he became louder.
It was his way of refusing to show weakness.
Gareth understood his son too well.
Perhaps that was why watching him now felt worse than watching any battlefield casualty report.
Gareth looked away from his son's battlefield feed.
He needed a broader picture.
The mission depended on more than Cason.
There were dozens of squads deployed throughout the Tower's training sector.
Every one of them had an assigned objective.
Every one of them was being monitored.
But something had been bothering Gareth since the mission began.
One particular feed had never updated.
He turned toward the wall of monitors.
Most displayed clean tactical information.
Squad positions.
Enemy density.
Energy consumption.
Vital signs.
Objective progress.
One screen was different.
Static.
Gareth's eyes narrowed.
The monitor had been like that for several minutes.
"What's that?"
The communications officer looked over.
"Sir?"
"That screen."
The officer followed his gaze.
"Oh. That is the Technomancer's feed."
"Why is it remaining static?"
"We lost the external visual signal shortly after he entered the sector. We're actively trying to resume connection, but it was futile sir."
Gareth's expression hardened.
"And you didn't think that was worth mentioning?"
"We assumed it was environmental interference. The sector has unusually high electromagnetic distortion."
"Assumed?"
The officer swallowed.
"Yes, sir."
Gareth stood.
The movement alone was enough to make several nearby personnel straighten.
"Where's the report on the Technomancer?"
"Currently compiling, sir. We're awaiting the complete analysis."
"How long?"
"Approximately five minutes."
"Make it three."
"Yes, sir."
Gareth looked back at the static screen.
A C-Rank Technomancer.
Solo.
That alone was unusual.
Support types were rarely deployed alone during Tower operations. Their combat potential could vary wildly depending on equipment, preparation, and technical specialization.
A C-Rank should not have been sent into that sector by himself since the mission is an S-rank level.
Unless someone had made a mistake.
Gareth disliked mistakes.
Especially during Tower missions.
"Give me a complete report on the area he's currently operating in."
The officer began typing.
"Environmental hazards?"
"Everything."
"Enemy activity?"
"Everything."
"Possible interference?"
"Everything."
Gareth's eyes remained on the static screen.
"Make it succinct."
"Yes, sir. The report will be ready in three minutes."
"Good."
The officer returned to his station.
Gareth did not sit.
Something about that screen bothered him.
He could not explain why.
Maybe it was simply the static.
Maybe it was the fact that every other squad was screaming across the command network while the Technomancer's channel remained eerily silent.
Or perhaps it was something else.
A memory.
A name.
A classification.
Technomancer.
Gareth frowned.
Where had he heard that before?
Not the class itself.
The word.
The particular weight of it.
His gaze drifted back toward Cason's feed.
His son was still fighting.
Still advancing.
Still laughing.
His Berserker aura pulsed around him like a living furnace.
"That reckless idiot," Gareth muttered, a trace of exasperated affection beneath his breath.