Limitless The Strongest Revenant

[We interrupt our regular programming to bring you…]

[An Azure Airways airliner suddenly crashed into the ocean…]

[…a cement mixer veered off course on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and collided with a luxury supercar…]

[Breaking news from Nairobi—an armed group of terrorists has opened fire inside one of the city's most luxurious shopping malls…]

The news stations all across Africa were having a field day. Accidents and terrorism began acting all at once, as if the continent itself had lost its mind. That was, of course, not counting the less conspicuous events.

[Target 204: Jabulani Zulu, human, deranged warmonger. Location: A fortress in the Rwenzori Mountains, on the Uganda-Congo border. The target is hosting a birthday celebration for his 10-year-old son. Twenty-five Wraiths are present.]

"I see, Henry, Sabel. Use {Bestow} ammunition as necessary. Leave no survivors."

[Got it, Aunt Lilly.] [Yep! Yep! Mangusta inbound, Aunt Lilly!]

A large number of MAARs entered the Gate of Irkalla. These contraptions that looked like assault dishwashers were terrifying. They weren't as flashy in Hellsgate, but when up against humans? They would make anyone shit their pants from fear.

If that was not enough, a Mangusta attack helicopter dove from above into the doorways as well. With such firepower, even Wraiths would not be able to escape.

Throughout the short time Phase One began, we watched massacre after massacre. To ensure that the Reapers are not alerted immediately, everyone with the target was summarily executed.

Those flying had the entire airplanes fall from the sky. Those in theaters or celebrations had their entire families butchered without mercy. If they were in public, depending on whether they were indoors or outdoors, the wolves or the Awakened would visit them.

Nothing survived. They cried. They begged. They raged. But they all still died.

The African elders started to vomit as they witnessed the unfolding tragedies. But with every attack, Onye's human sympathizers died. Like the Deryck family, these people also enjoyed the benefits of working with Reapers. They gained while the rest of the country bled and died.

"Exa, how many of the targets have been eliminated?" I asked as I forced my fears down.

[There are over 400 targets marked for Operation Shattered Silence. Targets 200-426 are all human sympathizers. Targets 80-199 are Reapers who can be quickly assassinated. Targets 9-79 are the princes and their loved ones.]

My trusty AI hasn't even answered my question, but I already knew the answer. In the last eight hours, our forces attacked targets numbered between 200 and 300. The rate was roughly one target every 5 minutes.

That was already insane. But if you added the fact that each attack unit had little to no rest in between, it then reached the level of fantasy. Yet even with such ridiculous numbers, that still had yet to factor in travel time.

I looked at the contraption that began to fuck Africa from the inside. It was the first of the Artificial Soulgears we created. Supposedly, Lilly asked Addison for this on her first night as my {Kindred}. That was even before my seeker war.

"My request to Addison was simple. I wanted a way to allow me to pre-set {Portals} and rapidly deploy them. He understood me right away. But he said it would be expensive and take a lot of time to develop," Lilly said yesterday as we cuddled.

The Gate of Irkalla did one thing; it opened a fuck ton of subspace doorways. The biggest restrictions to Lilly's {fates} were visualization, stamina, and the number of portals. Originally, the girls created [Beacon] just to circumvent that restriction.

But this revolving doorway in front of us was on a whole other level.

[In the past 8 hours, 96, or roughly 50%, of the human targets have been destroyed. We are on schedule to finish by the time Phase two begins.]

96 targets. Excluding the ones that were killed by Exa, that was still a whole lot of people. And it wasn't like they were all in the same country. No. They were all across the continent.

The true horror of the Gate of Irkalla was allowing Hellsend to be nearly omnipresent. My army was abusing the shit out of our {Fates}. They would go into the door, kill a target, and {Rewind}. Like ghosts, they would vanish and be completely untraceable.

Even the soulless could somehow join in that tactic. My children's weapon platforms were divided between the Sirens. My girls were using {Rewind} to summon them all back to the theater after each mission. As a way of invasion, the current style we used was nearly flawless.

'How the fuck would you even defend against something like this?'

With the sight and reach of modern tech, Lilly's power to bend space made her a terrifying enemy. My brain began to overheat as I tried to think of how I would stop such an assault. I gave up and just parked the idea.

"Exa, how is the Gate of Irkalla even doing its thing? Are you the one making the target visualizations?" I asked to pass the time.

Visualizing just a single doorway was hard. The main problem with {Portal} and {Gate} was you needed to "see" where you wanted to go before you could open a door. It was easy for places you knew by heart or those you had memories of.

But for foreign places, you needed something tangible to bind your visualization to. How it looked, what scents were there, the sound, even the feeling of the ground. Without such things, it was impossible to open a doorway.

Yet this overpowered contraption was doing that by dozens at the same time. There was practically a door opening every second. The five-minute delay was due to the squads preparing, not the doors being calibrated.

[The bulk of the processing is being offloaded. The Wizards are using [Parallel] and [Share Vision] to "see" for Lady Lilly's personal squad. Thus, the Ishtar's bloodline only needs open it. The Kitchen is supporting them to not collapse.]

Hearing the words of Exa, I grew impressed. So even the three Siren squads not present were all helping our campaign. The scope and range of Hellsend were practically unmatched at this point.

[Alert: Target 120 has begun to request assistance from the African Graveyard. They are now scrambling the military and police to control the situation.]

"Tsk. That's two hours earlier than anticipated. I guess that's as much as we can squeeze in," Lilly clicked her tongue in irritation.

Bella grimaced but quickly recovered. "We all knew it would eventually respond. All teams, prepare for Phase Two. Lilly will stay here to operate the Gate of Irkalla. Sirens, leave the Soulless to me. Exa, begin the data smokescreen."

[I understand. Data smokescreen operation commencing. AI-generated fake reports about suspicious individuals will now flood all human communication channels. Lady Bella, please note that I will be unable to assist with anything else.]

"That is fine. I will take over. Alpha, prepare to deploy!"

Liv, Aki, Jo, Robyn, and Jas all got off their seats and began to fix their armaments. I quickly ran up to them and tried to help. They all welcomed me with a smile. I invoked {Day by Day} and had an avatar assist each Siren.

Earlier they were all sitting in a trance, so I left them alone. Bella and Lilly were not any better. Bella was surrounded by a cyclone of window screens and seemed really busy. Lilly, who operated the gate, also had a lot on her plate.

I didn't want them to make mistakes all because I was too lonely.