The day the universe's survival hung in the balance—what a grand yet extraordinarily distant phrase. It could be written so easily into a story, a play, or a bard's poem. When it appeared before people in the form of myths, legends, and heroic tales, hardly anyone would imagine that such a thing could truly happen in the real world, within their own lifetimes, right before their eyes.
Tanagrus—Sacred Spring Valley—new frontier settlement, spring of New Era Year 3, before dawn, windless.
Ulanov gripped the weapon issued just a few days earlier and stood atop the watchtower outside the frontier settlement. His gaze slowly swept over the winding giant vines growing in the distant jungle, while the cold night wind from the valley kept his mind exceptionally clear.
The weapon in his hands was a long-range precision firearm capable of firing magnetically accelerated crystal needles. A close-range secondary weapon that fired magnetically confined plasma hung from the weapon harness on his thigh. Neither weapon was a product of Zhuom civilization; both had come from the nearest drone factory supply station. Ever since the frontier settlements had achieved self-sufficiency in daily necessities, those stations had not been activated for a long time. Their most recent activation, however, had been to distribute weapons and equipment to the local residents—something many people had never expected.
The Zhuom civilization had only just achieved food self-sufficiency and still lacked the ability to manufacture modern weapons on its own. Therefore, these weapons capable of fighting Madness Derivatives had to be supplied by the factory stations.
Yet for the Zhuom people, who had endured the apocalypse of their home planet, the Virtual Ark, interstellar migration, and now the opening of new territory on a completely unfamiliar planet, facing challenges had become a survival instinct. The annihilation of the