Chapter 68: 67. Eighth Legion (III, 5k)
Acid rain poured down, and Anrek Barbatos could swear by Terra that this was the most hallucinatory cityscape he had ever seen in his life.
Neon lights sliced through the heavy dark-purple clouds. Gloomy spires layered over one another and stretched into the distance, while beneath his feet came frenzied shouts and terrifying cries. Mixed with gunfire, the two sounds made the world seem bizarre and mad, like the tolling of bells before destruction descended.
He let out a grunt from deep in his throat.
"What are your orders?" someone asked behind him. "Captain Anrek?"
Anrek did not need to turn around to know who it was—Richter Nair, once the company's finest duelist. Yet, to be honest, Anrek did not particularly want to see him right now, much less speak with him.
Richter was serious, persistent, rigid, and stern. He was unlike most members of the Eighth Legion, but that stern personality was not why Anrek did not want to see him. It was simply because he did not want to talk at all right now.
But he had to answer.
"Nothing," Anrek said over the comm channel. "Just thinking."
"I see."
Richter gave a brief reply, then fell silent.
He had always been like that—when he was not fighting or in a situation that required him to speak, he could be as sparing with words as any warrior of the Eighth Legion.
Staring down at the living hell below, Anrek could not help asking himself a question.
What kind of world is this? he thought. Why can people fall this far, for no reason at all?
After the brief orbital descent ended, the twenty thousand warriors of the Eighth Legion scattered and began their "feast." They were no strangers to this. In