The Rikens stationed on Raze felt deeply uneasy.


    Their location meant that in the event of an unfavorable battle situation, evacuation would be nearly impossible.


    In other words, if the Riken forces were defeated, they would be abandoned. The Rikens would prioritize preserving their warships and other critical assets rather than risking them to retrieve those left behind.


    Thankfully, while listening to the radio broadcasts, the soothing voice of the announcer continued to deliver encouraging news.


    The alien Swarm’sbat units were being countered effectively by the Rikens’ new weapons. The tide of the battle was turning in their favor, and if things continued on this trajectory, the war would soon end. They would sessfullyplete their tasks in safety.


    If the alien Swarm wanted tounch another war of this magnitude, it would likely take them another ten or even several dozen years to rebuild. By then, these Rikens imagined they’d have been promoted and received pay raises. Even if another war broke out, they’d at least be stationed aboard warships or in rear positions, far away from such dangerous and nerve-wracking posts.


    However, at that moment, the detector suddenly sounded an rm. Everyone’s hearts sank. Why now, of all times? The timing was far too coincidental.


    It was difficult for them to believe it was just a fluke.


    “Captain Ryder, what’s going on? Is it an earthquake?” one of the engineers asked hopefully.Of the Rikens present, only Captain Ryder and two security team members could interpret the instrument readings. The others were engineers tasked with maintaining the nuclear power nt.


    The engineers stared at Captain Ryder with hopeful eyes.


    Captain Ryder furrowed his brows deeply, studying the data with a grim expression. He nced up at the group, aware of what they wanted to hear. But this wasn’t something that could be resolved through self-delusion.


    He hesitated, not because he wanted to shatter their hopes, but because even he couldn’t fully understand what was happening.


    “Just tell us, Captain Ryder. Everyone here knows the nature of this job; we wrote our wills long ago,” one of the engineers said in a somber tone, seemingly interpreting Ryder’s expression as a bad sign.


    “It’s not an earthquake, but I’m not exactly sure what it is,” Ryder replied hastily upon noticing the group’s misunderstanding.


    “What do you mean?” the group asked in confusion.


    “An earthquake’s data readings don’t look like this.”


    “Then… does that mean the enemy is here?”


    “This data trend is extremely strange; I’ve never seen anything like it before,” Captain Ryder said gravely, shaking his head.


    He had an excellent memory and had retained nearly all the data patterns he had studied during his training—whether caused by excavation tools, animals, machinery, explosives, weapons, or even various magnitudes of earthquakes.


    It was his exceptional test scores that had earned him the position of team leader for this three-person squad. Yet the data in front of him sparked no recollection whatsoever.


    Ryder handed the data readout to the other two team members for their input, but they both shook their heads. This deepened Ryder’s concern, adding ayer of confusion.


    The data pattern was unnaturally smooth, as though something was moving through the soil without encountering any resistance.


    Of course, none of them had seen anything like this before—the Burrowing Worms were making their debut, and their excavation methods were fundamentally unlike anything previously known.


    “Don’t worry,” one of the security team members reassured the group. “We’re wrapped in 20 meters of reinforced barriers. Even if there’s an enemy, it’ll be incredibly difficult for them to break through.”


    Before his words had fully left his mouth, the chamber shook. The tremors were minor but unmistakable, and dust from the ceiling rained down on everyone’s heads.


    “What’s happening?”@@novelbin@@


    “Not good—something’s struck the outer barrier! Sound the rm immediately!” Ryder reacted swiftly, shouting even as he leapt toward the rm system.


    “Captain, we still don’t know what’s out there. What if this is a false rm?” one team member cautioned.


    “Damn it, at this point, even if it’s a false rm, I’ll dly ept punishmentter!” Ryder roared as he reached the rm and pulled the lever without hesitation.


    The piercing sound of rms echoed through the underground base. At the same time, news of the nuclear power nt under attack was transmitted to the Riken space fleet.


    As the rms red, the group collectively exhaled in silent relief. No one cared about potential reprimands when their lives were at stake.


    “General, multiple underground bases on Raze are reporting attacks.”


    “Is it the Swarm?” General Hamis asked, frowning at his adjutant’s report.


    “That’s not confirmed yet.”


    “Hmph. It must be. I’ve said before—there’s no way the Swarm would attack Raze without a specific objective,” said Alcer, one of the three fleetmanders, who had been in continuous videomunication with the others to facilitate coordinated battle strategies. He had just received the same report and was visibly agitated.


    “But how did they breach our defenses and infiltrate Raze?” Novaul, anothermander, asked in puzzlement.


    “Why infiltrate? I think they’re leftovers from thest invasion,” Alcer suggested, his temper momentarily yielding to insight.


    “I agree,” Hamis said. “Our defenses around Raze are airtight; it’s imusible for the Swarm to approach undetected. It’s far more likely these are remnants we failed to eliminate. Send a special operations team to deal with it immediately.”


    The threemanders had long suspected something was amiss on Raze. The Swarm’s prolonged concealment had left them uneasy—the unknown was always the greatest threat.


    Now that the Swarm’s hidden forces had revealed themselves as mere “escaped prey,” themanders felt reassured. Although there was no direct evidence, the sheer number of Space Octopuses that had descended upon Raze during the previous invasion made it reasonable to assume some had escaped.


    Even though they had conducted sweeps of various areas, Raze was enormous, and the Swarm was highly adept at hiding. Overlooking a few survivors was unsurprising.


    Still, themanders believed these survivors could do little more than harass energy facilities with minor attacks. The scale of their operations seemed too small to influence the oue of the war.


    This, they assumed, was merely the Swarm’s final struggle. The war was nearing its end, and the Rikens would emerge victorious.


    Their confidence, however, was dangerously inted.


    Their understanding of the Swarm’s technological capabilities remained fragmentary at best, yet they boldly dered these “escaped prey” incapable of posing a serious threat.


    The 20-meter-thick reinforced barriers barely slowed the Burrowing Worms. The dense, hardened structure was no match for their terrifying, spiral-arrayed teeth.


    Concrete, steel, and debris were chewed apart and swallowed, their remnants processed and transported through the worms’ bodies. Unstoppably, the worms carved a three-meter-wide tunnel from the depths of the earth straight to the nuclear power nt.


    Behind the Burrowing Worms came a dense swarm ofrval bodies. These had been lurking underground since their hatching, subsisting on radiation-rich minerals to grow and develop. Now, the time hade for them to reemerge.


    Even with their mechanical instincts, it was easy to imagine that they, too, longed for the starlit skies and the vastness of the universe.