When False Becomes True, True Becomes False

"Run! Run for your lives!"

The Mang troops that had been charging at the Collectors began retreating in blind panic. Meanwhile, the Mang troops in the rear, unaware of what was happening, kept pressing forward, leaving the soldiers at the front unable to advance or retreat and forcing them into direct combat with the Collectors.

Yet Mang soldiers, even the undiluted elite troops from before their expansion, could not last a single exchange against the Collectors. Let alone these ordinary soldiers. Calling it a battle would have been generous; it was nothing more than a one-sided slaughter.

During the clash, some Mang warriors did think of attacking the Collectors by other means. One Mang commander, for instance, hurled a jar filled with fuel and burning on the outside.

If a Collector's scythe-limb cut the jar open, the fuel inside would spill out and immediately catch fire from the flames coating the jar. In an instant, the Collector would be engulfed in fire.

However, such jars could not escape the Collectors' information gathering. Their powerful dynamic vision and sensitive nerves created an effect akin to bullet time. Combined with their unobstructed view in all six directions—front, back, left, right, above, and below—nothing could slip past them. Their tentacles shot out, steadily caught the jars flying toward them in midair, then hurled them back.

When the jars landed among the Mang troops, another wave of casualties followed. Soldiers whose bodies had caught fire ran wildly about in panic, spreading the flames to other soldiers who had not yet been set alight.

From the front-line soldiers growing fearful and shouting as they fled, to the troops charging forward from the rear realizing what kind of killing machines the evil creatures they were attacking truly were, the thought of fleeing finally consumed the entire