Global Awakening: Apocalypse Ender's Chronicle

Shane kicked aside a broken crate… At this point, his eyes were burning with frustration.

“I should’ve known. He was too calm… That wasn’t a prisoner… it was bait.”

He turned to the wounded, ordering medics and Gladiators to stabilize the survivors. The camp was rattled, but many of them still survived…

Then… Shane heard screams.

They came from inside the Silver Mine Camp. Not from the dead zone, but from the outer barracks where the wounded were being treated and the backup gear was stored.

Shane moved toward the sound.

“Cloud, report!”

[ Multiple distress signals. Unknown hostile presence detected inside the camp. ]

Shane’s eyes narrowed.

“Orlando’s not done yet.”

He drew his blade, activated Aura Sentinel, and sprinted toward the source of the screams.

It was a second strike from Orlando! This time, Shane was going to end it himself!

***

The screams grew louder as Shane sprinted through the inner gate.

It wasn’t just him rushing, the rest of the Survivors, even Minerva who was supposedly in the watchtower, had also gone down to assist…

Then he saw the enemies. They were the Stone Golems.

There were dozens of them.

They were small, barely waist-high, with stubby limbs and glowing cores embedded in their chests. But they were definitely annoying.

They were not particularly strong, but fast and relentless. They swarmed the barracks, crawling over crates, smashing through supply racks, and disrupting the medics tending to the wounded.

“Damn it… diversion,” Shane muttered.

He activated Aura Sentinel again, reinforcing the medics and downed soldiers nearby. Then he moved.

One Golem lunged at a medic and Shane intercepted with Quick Draw, slicing it cleanly in half. Another tried to leap onto a wounded Gladiator, but Shane used a simple kick, sending it tumbling back into a wall. He followed up with Vortex Spin, clearing a cluster of them in a single sweep.

“Keep the wounded behind the barricades!” he shouted. “Don’t let them scatter!”

The medics obeyed, dragging stretchers behind overturned tables and crates.

Shane dashed forward, using Armored Dash to slam through a trio of Golems trying to breach the medic’s tent. Their cores cracked on impact, and they collapsed into rubble.

He moved continuously as he needed to save as many as he could…

He would do something not use any of his skills and rely on his physical strength but from time to time, he would use his Skills for faster result…

“Haa!”

Shane used Double Thrust into a pair of Golems flanking a Super Soldier, Force Breaker to shatter a group trying to breach the ammo depot, and Phantasm Rush to reposition instantly between two squads of defenders.

Within minutes, the swarm was thinning.

But something felt off.

These Golems weren’t targeting the wounded. They weren’t even trying to destroy infrastructure. They were just… buying time.

Shane knew that something was off, but he had to deal with the problem at hand…

“Wait… Cloud. Status on Kara and Lesley.”

[ No response from Prisoner’s Anklet. Signal interference detected. ]

Shane’s heart dropped.

He turned and sprinted toward the holding bay, where the two prisoners had been kept under guard.

“I knew it…”

The path was littered with debris, and the air still carried the scent of scorched wood and metal… Orlando had surely forced himself to get here and save the two…

As he rounded the final corner, the scene confirmed his worry…

Two guards lay unconscious near the entrance, one slumped against the wall with a fractured helmet, the other bleeding from a gash across his temple. The door to the chamber was wide open, its locking mechanism disabled.

Inside, the restraints were empty.

Kara and Lesley were gone.

Shane stepped inside, scanning the room. There were no signs of a struggle beyond the disabled guards. Then, he turned to the two unmoving Stone Golems that Orlando had left behind as if to mock him…

These two were roughly human-sized, sitting against the far wall like discarded mannequins.

He approached cautiously, then drew his blade and cleaved the first one in half. The second twitched slightly, but Shane didn’t wait. He activated Force Breaker and shattered it with a single blow, reducing it to rubble.

As the dust settled, something caught his eye.

Embedded in the shattered ankles of both golems were blinking devices. They were metal bands with familiar markings.

Shane knelt beside the fragments and picked one up.

It was the Prisoner Anklet that was still active and supposedly suppressing both Kara and Lesley…

However, they were obviously no longer bound to Kara or Lesley anymore.

“Cloud… Confirm anklet status.”

[ Suppression active. Target vitals: null. Host signature: non-biological. ]

Shane stared at the device in his hand as he realized what Orlando had done to save the two…

Orlando had truly gone back for them, and he did it like a true Legendary Talent holder.

The golems had been a distraction. The explosion had been a cover. And the prisoners, Kara and Lesley, had been the true objective all along. Orlando had used some kind of substitution technique, a skill or Talent that allowed him to transfer the anklets from living targets to artificial constructs.

The system monitoring the anklets had been fooled since the suppression was still active, but the prisoners were gone.

Shane stood slowly, his grip tightened around the broken anklet.

“He saved the two, huh… Can I even chase the guy? Where is he even hiding?” Shane thought to himself, as he really wanted to capture the guy.

He then turned to the nearest Warden Unit, already scanning the area.

“Lock down every exit. I want every tunnel, every vent, every shadow scanned. If they’re still inside this camp, we find them.”

But deep down, Shane already knew the truth. They were most likely gone by now. With three Legendary Talent Holders working together, it would also be dangerous for others to capture them, except for him.

‘We’ve lost, huh…’ Shane thought as he also recalled how their Spirit Stone Vein was also destroyed.