Insomniac Player

The signal led away from the corn. Nova Corps followed it along an irrigation road while pesticide drones continued working behind them. Daria carried the altered spike inside a shell of compressed air, preventing its residue from touching anyone. Every thirty seconds, the symbols across the metal flashed red.

A pulse answered from the southeast.

The source waited somewhere beyond a line of grain elevators and seed-storage buildings.

Jeremy remained connected to Damien’s private channel.

"Security at our site has sealed the inner storage chambers," the Stock Agent reported. "The attackers have entered the administration building but not the grain vault."

"Casualties?"

"Two guards injured. None killed."

"Send the location to Martin."

Jeremy hesitated. "It is our nearest warehouse."

"I know."

"The stored corn is currently worth considerably more than we paid."

Damien watched a new swarm descend toward Greenfall’s public seed vault. The building contained next season’s crop, not merely this season’s profit.

"The army can protect our warehouse," he said. "We protect the farms."

Jeremy studied him through the projection, then nodded once. "Understood."

The call ended.

Naked Nun glanced at Damien. "You just trusted the government with millions of Gold."

"John trusted me with one hundred million."

"That is different. John is mentally unwell."

"Correct."

They reached the seed-storage district two minutes later.

The locusts remained outside the sealed buildings because nothing inside was alive or accessible. They covered the walls and roofs while searching for leaves. The real threat moved below them.

Six people in gray utility uniforms were fastening black transmitters to irrigation towers. Two more loaded sealed seed containers into an unmarked transport. None wore a Neva insignia.

They did not need one.

One of the men saw Nova Corps and drew a short blade.

"Maintenance zone," he called. "Military personnel are not authorized beyond this point."

Daria looked at the stolen containers. "Then you should stop stealing government property before maintenance complains."

The man’s expression changed.

All eight utility uniforms vanished into inventories. Dark combat armor replaced them. Weapons appeared.

The locusts continued eating weeds between the road stones.

The people attacked.

Naked Nun met the first two. Her fist struck a shield hard enough to fold the Player behind it over the metal. She caught the second attacker by the armor and threw him through the open door of his own transport.

Hamari fired into the ground beside a woman reaching for a red transmitter.

"Touch the evil bug remote," she said, "and the next one redecorates your knee."

The woman touched it.

Hamari shot her knee.

"Communication was clear."

Daria moved her staff once. Earth rose around three attackers’ feet, locking them in place without disturbing the storage foundations. A fourth released a chain of blue blades, but Daria turned them aside with a narrow current of water.

Doctor Smoke did not join the Player fight. She walked past it wearing her respirator, opened the controls of an abandoned agricultural sprayer, and redirected its nozzles toward the approaching swarm.

One Neva recruit noticed her and rushed forward.

Naked Nun’s hand closed around the back of his armor.

"She is doing science," she said, pulling him off the ground. "Do not interrupt."

Pesticide mist rolled across the road.

Locusts fell. People remained outside the marked chemical zone.

Damien went after the man who had spoken first.

The recruit was Level 34 and quick enough to avoid the dagger’s opening line. He used a movement skill to cross ten meters, struck at Damien’s injured ribs, and retreated before a counter could reach him.

"You’re the new one," the man said. "Sleepless."

Damien adjusted his grip. "You read the news."

"There wasn’t much to read. You disappeared."

"I was busy."

The recruit used his movement skill again.

Damien had already seen where his eyes went before each activation.

He stepped aside, caught the man’s wrist, and used the strength from the Nine-Forged Body-Strengthening Pill to drive him into the road. The short blade skidded away.

The recruit stared up at him.

"You’re Level 30."

"I know."

Damien placed the First Blood Dagger against the gap beneath his jaw.

"Where is the transmitter?"

The man smiled despite the pressure at his throat. "Ask Silas."

"Who is Silas?"

Fear passed through the man’s eyes before he hid it.

"Someone you shouldn’t meet."

The fight ended around them.

Seven Neva recruits remained alive. Hamari’s target swore loudly while Doctor Smoke tied a clean pressure bandage around her damaged knee. The woman seemed confused that the person treating her had also refused to stop the sniper.

"You ignored a warning," Doctor Smoke said. "That is not a medical condition."

Daria collected the transmitters. Each contained the same red resin and a list of coordinates. Greenfall’s most valuable fields were marked first. Government depots came second. Private warehouses appeared at the bottom beside estimated security levels.

One of Damien and John’s sites was highlighted.

The operation was not improvised looting. Someone had mapped the targets before the patch began.

Whoever drew this map didn’t need our warning to know where to look.

Martin opened a secured interrogation channel. Imran joined him. The recruit beneath Damien’s dagger tried to remain silent until Imran displayed the System-certified arrest orders attached to every person present.

Their criminal records filled the air.

Kidnapping. Extortion. Illegal potion distribution. Two had participated in contract killings. Three had joined the Neva Order less than a month earlier.

"Entry Cell Forty-Four," Imran read. "You are recruits."

The man said nothing.

Hamari leaned into view. "Imagine being arrested during your criminal internship."

"We’re not recruits," the wounded woman snapped.

Her leader closed his eyes.

Imran looked at her. "Then correct the record."

Pride did what threats had not.

"We passed entry selection," she said. "This is our field confirmation mission."

"Who commands it?"

The woman realized her mistake too late.

Damien’s captive answered for her. "Silas Vane."

Imran requested the name through a military database.

A profile appeared.

➤[Name: Silas Vane]

➤[Level: 61]

➤[Class: Sword of Swiftness (Rare)]

➤[Known Title: Player Murderer]

➤[Affiliation: Neva Order (suspected)]

Player Murderer was a marked title. Only the first hundred players from the tutorial had received the legendary Player Killer title, which carried a passive buff against Player Murderers. Every profile and name belonging to a Player Murderer displayed in red.

The image showed a lean man in his early thirties with pale blond hair cut close at the sides. A thin scar crossed his lower lip. His eyes held the disinterest of someone who had stopped expecting consequences.

"A Level 61 Player leads new members?" Daria asked.

The wounded recruit laughed once. "Level doesn’t make you important in Neva."

That silenced the road.

Martin’s gaze remained on the profile. "Are any senior members deployed?"

The captive shook his head. "Why would they be? The insects don’t even fight back. We redirect the swarms, acquire stock, and leave. Silas supervises. That’s all."

"Acquire," Naked Nun repeated. "You mean steal."

"Ownership changes during disasters."

"So do facial structures."

Doctor Smoke finished the bandage and stood. "Not until I move away."

Imran enlarged the coordinate list. One marker pulsed beneath Greenfall’s central cultivation district.

"What is here?"

No one answered.

Damien looked at the altered Conductors still circling above the district. They all returned toward the same point after completing their routes.

"The Queen," he said.

The first captive’s face confirmed it.

The Neva recruits had found the organism controlling reproduction. Instead of killing it, they had protected it and used its Conductors to direct the disaster.

They didn’t create the disaster. They just made sure it paid the right people.

Martin ordered the prisoners transferred and reinforcements sent to the warehouses. Then he looked at Damien.

"A Level 61 hostile Player is beyond the threat rating assigned to Nova Corps."

"The Queen is eating the threat rating," Damien said.

Greenfall’s local preservation number dropped.

➤[Greenfall Agricultural Belt preserved: 76.9%.]

More than four percent had disappeared during one conversation.

Daria readied her staff. "Reinforcements will take twelve minutes."

"The Queen needs less."

Martin did not like it. Damien could see that clearly.

"Locate the Queen," the Field Marshal said at last. "Do not engage Vane alone."

John’s warning returned to Damien.

Call if anything looks at you with ambition.

Damien closed the private channel before temptation became stupidity.

The coordinates led toward the center of Greenfall, where a living black dome had formed over the fields.

As Nova Corps approached, one final record appeared inside a captured transmitter.

➤[Operation: Summer Collection]

➤[Assigned Division: Entry]

➤[Senior Operative Deployment: Not Required]

They didn’t even send someone who mattered.

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