The Lambent Brumak was destroyed. The group known as Delta or, by their faction, the Cogs, had escaped from the hole created by the explosion. As the hole was made, the sea from the surface entered the Hollow. Many locusts were washed and killed by the impact of the water, but a few fortunate locusts were not struck by the water yet and had time to escape.

In a bar-like room made by the side of the tunnels, a small group of locusts drank some of the beer they had stolen from the surface. A drone there was the bartender as he served a Grenadier, a Boomer, and a Kantus. The grenadier was laughing with the boomer.

"That was some good shit you pulled back there, Gorfe!" The grenadier told the boomer named Gorfe.

"Yeah, the OOmans never saw me!" Gorfe laughed but then choked on his drink.

As they were settled in, the drone looked around, and he felt something starting to shake everything. "Uh... do you guys feel that?"

Right on cue, a Theron guard barges through the door and shuts it behind himself, screaming. "EVERYONE LOCK THIS FUCKING DOOR!"

This startled everyone as the drone followed the Theron's order. "Yes, Nhiul!" he went to grab a barrel as he tried to carry it.

The Kantus scoffs as he gets up. "I have more faith than you do, Nhiul. There's nothing to worry about."

"Don't you fucking test me, Bakil. THIS IS NO TIME TO FUCK AROUND!" Nhiul screamed as he stared at the Kantus exiting the bar.

Bakil immediately regretted walking outside as he saw the water from the far distance. He ran back inside. "BARRICADE THE ENTRANCE!"

Then, everyone started panicking as they tried to hold the door shut. They grabbed everything that they could to enforce the door's strength. Everything was placed on the door, and they pushed the objects against it. Then the water hits. It took a lot of power, but then the water stopped flowing—the whole Hollow sunken as the group had survived for now.

Nhiul sighed in relief as he looked at the entrance. Some water was leaking, so he needed to be quick. "Alright... we must get out of here as soon as possible."

"No shit, Sherlock. Any other bright ideas?" the grenadier asked.

"Hey, drone. What is your name?" Nhiul asked.

"My name is Konin." The drone answered.

"Konin, does this bar have more rooms?" He gave him a different question.

"Yes, but unfortunately, it's connected to a barracks... and that barracks is connected to an Imulsion cave," Konin answered as he was nervous about the result.

"Damn... seems like we'll need to kill some Lambent. Everyone has their weapons?" Nhiul asked everyone.

"Yeah, me and Ghian have guns," Gorfe answered. Bakil took out his submachine gun as Konin took out his Hammerburst.

"Ok... time to kill some glowing freaks," Nhiul said as he kicked the door down. On the other side of the door, there were five lambent drones. Due to the kick, they instantly got their attention. Everyone got to cover as they fired. Nhiul killed one unlucky Lambent Drone before he got to cover.

One of the lambent drones screeched. Unfortunately, Ghian had a gnasher on him as he pointed it in the lambent drone's face and fired, blowing the head off of the lambent drone. It drops to the ground. "How is that for my gift?" Ghian taunted. While Ghian was focused on the lambent drone he killed, the other got ready to shoot. However, he was met with bullets by Konin's Hammerburst. Ghian looked at the dead lambent drone that tried to kill him and back at Konin to give him a thumbs up before returning to cover.

"Boom!" Gorfe shouted before he fired his Boomshot at one of the lambent drones as it exploded to many pieces. The Boomshot knocked the last lambent drone, but before the lambent drone had a chance to get up, he was shot to death by Konin.

"Double kill!" Konin cheered as Ghian scoffed.

"We can wait for final scores because here comes more!" Nhiul warned as more entered the room. Nhuil was quick as he got rid of two. One was screaming in pain, but it soon died. Nhiul then got suspicious. However, before he could act, one of the lambent drones snuck behind and tried to attack Bakil. He dodged the melee attack, so Bakil hooked it in the face, kicked the leg, and aimed his submachine gun into the lambent drone's face before pulling the trigger.

Nhiul then realized that the lambent drones were not blowing up for some reason like they always did. While he thinks, Ghian is landing headshot after headshot with his gnasher. Bakil threw an ink grenade, making five lambent drones gag and die from the poison. One of the lambent drone's arms was blown off by a Boomshot, but instead of exploding, it screamed and bled out to death. At this moment, there were only three lambent drones left.

Konin slaughtered the first one, the second one was shot to death by Ghian, and the last one was down. Before anybody could finish it off, Nhiul shouted. "Hold your fire!"

"What do you mean, it's an enemy!" Ghian told him.

Nhiul walked up to the downed lambent drone. He kicked it as he used his lancer to saw down the throat of the lambent drone's neck. The lambent drone, as expected, did not blow up. "Something is wrong here."

"Why do you think that?" Ghian asked.

"They're not exploding and not as strong as before. Something is wrong here, and I'm not sure what it is. Something is changing these lambent drones." Nhiul answered.

"Maybe because of evolution?" Konin assumed.

"Or more like someone is trying to play god... We'll have to find out more about this." Nhiul said as he began to walk towards one of the other rooms. "How big are these barracks?"

"I'm not sure. They only told me what it is, not the whole layout." Konin answered.

"I guess we'll have to go blindly and hope we don't fall into something too dangerous." Nhiul started to lead the way as everyone followed.

They found other lambent locusts but were just as easy as the others. However, upon each encounter, Nhiul discovered something new. The lambent locusts' bodies were mutated and zombified, but the uniforms looked clean apart from some dirt. It was as if they got infected and then dressed afterward. He also saw that they acted more stupid than before, like standing out in the open, missing plenty of shots, and going into melee even though they had a shotgun.

They then saw the exit. "We're almost there. Don't mess up," Nhiul warned them as they looked around for any lambent. It seemed fine until they spotted a single lambent locust. However, this one was the strangest of the other lambent drones. This one wore armor they had never made before. It wore a helmet that looked similar to a skull. The arms had a symbol with a lightning bolt surrounded by a circle and three lines on the left and right of the ring. Lastly, they had a chest plate with three letters printed on the front, "U.I.R." are the letters.

The group looked as they realized what it was. "That's a green Ooman," Gorfe said.

"What are the U.I.R. doing here?" Ghian was clueless.

Nhiul gazed at the U.I.R. lambent drone as he looked at everyone else. "The U.I.R. must be behind this. They have something planned. They're messing with dangerous things, and we need to stop them before they do something that could end everything."

"You're being too dramatic. I mean, look. We've killed many before. What's the difference between this one?" He pointed his gun as he pulled the trigger at the U.I.R. lambent drone. However, it moved out of the way. This one was not like the others.

It moved down as it summoned a giant horde of them. "Oh, shit! It's like a hundred of them!" Konin screamed as everyone started to shoot at the minions. They were coming in many different directions as the group fired. It was moments before they got overwhelmed by the constant backup.

Ghian looked at the opening as he took advantage of it. "Hey! What the hell are you doing?!" Nhiul demanded an answer, but all he got was watching Ghian running straight to the leader.

He took out his knife and slashed a few lambent drones, splitting them in half as he kept charging. The leader aimed but was shot by Nhiul, wounding it. The leader then started to retreat to the exit as Ghian chased after it. A few lambent drones went in the way, but Ghian knew they weren't a big deal, so he quickly slaughtered them. They both reached the surface as Ghian cornered the leader. The leader gets out their pistol and aims, only to be met with a knife, severing the hand clean off. The leader screams, but Ghain slashes at the leg, making it fall as the blade enters the gut. As a finishing move, he slits the leader's throat before he drops the body and cleans his knife.

He meets back with the group who were just done killing the rest of the lambent drones. Nhiul gave Ghian a disappointed look. "Why did you run over there?"

"I was killing the leader." He answered.

"You could have been killed!" Nhiul shouted as he folded his arms.

"Hey, at least I didn't die! It also looked like it was the reason why there were so many drones in the first place, too." Ghian defended his actions.

"Look... you may be lucky here but shouldn't keep testing your luck. Don't keep making reckless decisions. Sometimes, we'll need to make reckless decisions, but we shouldn't keep doing that constantly unless there is no other way." Nhiul scolded.

"Will you shut up? There's an exit. It's open. Let's escape." Ghian pointed as he started heading towards the exit. Nhiul sighs as he soon escapes, as well as everyone else.

"So... now that we escaped... game over, right?" Konin asked.

Nhiul sighed as he looked at Konin. "No... this is just the first chapter."