NoveLight ™
"...This feels as nerve-wracking as last year’s final championship."
"That’s understandable. I’m also feeling as nervous as I was during last year’s partner streamer competition."
Task Force 1, Squad Leader Dice.
Task Force 2, Squad Leader Harmony.
The two task forces, each consisting of 10 members, moved through the sun-drenched streets of Manhattan. Flowers sprouted from the cracks in the brick and concrete, crushed recklessly beneath military boots, while the bodies of rioters and escaped convicts, pierced by bullets, slowly disappeared into the ground.
Amidst this chaos, Harmony, the squad leader of Task Force 2, crossed between avenues with her team, scanning the surroundings. Beyond the blocks, there was nothing but indistinguishable shapes, AI or human, it was hard to tell.
Harmony, surveying the area, turned to ask Dice, who was likely searching in a different direction.
"Did you find anything?"
"Unfortunately not. If there were bodies left, maybe, but the Aesthetic Zone is just like any other mission mechanism. I’m sure you’d know more about this than me. Right?"
"Oh, come on, I haven’t been here in over a year myself."
Even so, the memories didn’t fade.
When she first set foot in this place, everything was different. Yet, the memories were still vivid. The biting cold winter winds that flowed between the buildings, the snowflakes drifting like powder, it was all still so clear.
But now it was daytime, and there was no snow.
Harmony had played the Dark Zone before, but the reason why users, who had become pro gamers, still followed her orders as a squad leader instead of a squad member was because she was the first to explore this area of Lower Manhattan. She had walked these streets, alongside Eugene, in the Aesthetic Zone.
Although viewers were currently having a good laugh at her expense, teasing her about ammo issues, it didn’t bother her.
The conversation continued from the side.
"Wouldn’t it have been better to bring a grenade launcher?"
"Talking about grenade launchers when you can see grenades with your own eyes and fire 40mm shells to explode them? That’s a joke."
Harmony responded with a question of her own, but she was confident in her reasoning.
She had seen Eugene shoot down mortar rounds with a gun back in Los Angeles, and she knew that bringing a grenade launcher in this situation would’ve been disastrous. If she had, they would’ve been the ones getting taken down.
Wary of the possibility of enemies patrolling the area, Harmony hid behind a car and quickly instructed two of her team members to activate the signal relay in a nearby building while continuing to scan the area through her scope.
It wouldn’t be long before several battles, along with active enemy AI and users, would appear within an 800-meter radius.
As she leaned against the back of a rusty, nearly demolished taxi, Harmony continued her thoughts.
A grenade launcher. Come to think of it, it was the day Eugene first handed her one. While weapons usually had restrictions in PVP, PVE allowed her to use it freely. She hadn’t used it much recently, but Eugene had told her that a new incursion would be coming soon, one that would feature Jin and Lane again, and maybe she would get another chance to use it then.
The signal relay powered up.
Countless data points appeared on the screen.
The map of Lower Manhattan, centered on the signal relay, unfurled, with dozens of colored dots and lines appearing. Red dots indicated enemy corpses, yellow lines and dots showed firing positions and bullet trajectories, among other things.
But despite the chaotic appearance of the data, there was one thing that was immediately apparent.
An area with no data at all—no signals from CCTV. An empty stretch of road between the avenues that had been marked as a movement route, completely blank.
When Harmony saw that, two conclusions immediately formed in her mind.
The first was that she had found Eugene, and the second was...
Piiing!
"Enemy ambush, enemy ambush!"
"Analyze the bullet traces and check the trajectory! Where are they?"
"Activate pulse—grenade! Woah!"
The enemy was closer than expected.
Even after activating the pulse, nothing appeared. Harmony’s mind was working at full speed. With a pulse’s maximum detection radius being only 150m, that meant the shots had come from farther away. Someone had warned about the grenades, but she wasn’t going to be fooled by that.
How far could an EM-grade user throw a grenade weighing about 600 grams? That alone told her everything she needed to know.
Her heartbeat sped up as everyone began moving according to their pre-established protocols. This wasn’t a close-quarters battle with little room to maneuver. The engagement was at least 200 meters away, which meant they had enough time to respond. Harmony quickly requested support from Dice, who was still off doing his search.
Though she couldn’t guarantee a win—given the weight of the term "EM-grade"—they had studied Eugene more than anyone else and had the firepower advantage.
They kept their distance, continuing to wear down the enemy. As long as they—
"Position confirmed! Two of them! Eugene and Olivia!"
"They’re approaching quickly! Unbelievable speed!"
"Shit, I thought this might happen. Block the route! Set up bombs and retreat in stages! Conserve energy as much as possible!"
Damn.
It was inevitable. To counter the option of attacking from a distance and wearing them down with firepower, the only choice was to charge head-on. But in close-quarters combat, it was hard to believe that they would just charge straight into danger.
Harmony’s movements sped up. She pulled a detonator from her multi-purpose pouch on her right thigh and started planting explosives. Not just her, but everyone else around her was doing the same. These people were specialists in IEDs.
Meanwhile, three of her team members were busy buying time to finish installing the bombs. The sound of ricocheting bullets grew louder, putting pressure on them.
One by one, they signaled that the bombs were ready. Despite having been the first to set up the explosives, Harmony waited for her teammates to finish before starting to back off when the engagement range closed to about 50 meters.
She tried to pull back, but—
A series of grenades flew in arcs towards them.
Explosions erupted all around.
However, the number of grenades thrown was too small to cause significant damage to the attackers. There were only five or six grenades, and although it seemed like a lot, the wide avenue with plenty of cover meant that they couldn’t do much damage with just that.
If Eugene, who loved hoarding grenades, had been there, maybe there would have been enough to make a difference. But due to the explosions, Harmony and her team were stuck in place.
Was Eugene planning something with these grenades? Even as she wondered, the team holding the ballistic shields against Eugene and Olivia’s fire began to retreat, and before the chaos of the explosions cleared, they quickly withdrew.
As they reached the position near the vehicles where they had planted the bombs earlier, Harmony felt something strange.
Boom!
In the chaos of the fight, a small metal shard flew from Harmony’s opposite side, striking a user who had been covering their team with suppressive fire.
The bullet didn’t cause much of a physical impact, but with the explosions and debris flying, the user’s Icarus Gear malfunctioned. It was remote hacking.
If Harmony had seen that, she might have realized the small metal shard looked remarkably similar to the remote hacking tools Eugene had used to target Artemis UGV back in Washington. But she didn’t notice it.
It didn’t take long for the situation to spiral out of control.
The remote-hacked detonator was still lodged in the explosives, which were placed in the vehicle they were using for cover.
Eugene had showered the area with grenades and trapped her team, and Olivia had successfully hit the target with a remote hacking tool.
The control of the big red button was now in Olivia’s hands.
The next moment, a deafening sound erupted.
BANG!
"AAAH!"
"What the hell?!"
"This is insane!"
As the 1kg C4 planted in the vehicle exploded, time seemed to stretch. The car, long past its use as a functional vehicle, shook violently. The shockwave from the C4 explosion spread in every direction, shattering the already weakened vehicle.
The explosion didn’t stop there. The pieces of the broken car accelerated faster than the blink of an eye and swept across the area faster than bullets, indiscriminately cutting down friend and foe alike. The closest teammates were ripped apart.
Within a second, three lives were extinguished.
However, the most painful truth was that, including Harmony, no one knew how exactly this outcome had happened.
Despite the chaos, Harmony’s instinct kicked in.
She immediately ordered the team to move away from the IED installation point.
The battle was far from over.