Merged Soul: Reincarnated in a Dark World

Chapter 4: Arrival of the rescue team

WHOOSH!, black mist flashed and Derek appeared. He staggered for a moment and stopped. Before him was a huge wall.

Just like the first wall, it was made with metal, but this one was smaller and its current state was horrible, huge claw marks and Spike was everywhere.

Derek squinted his eyes and walked closer. When he crossed the gates, he saw different military vehicles and soldiers armed in Exo suits impaled with spikes; It was a massacre, some soldiers were split into different parts while a few had missing heads.

Derek's brows furrowed, he continued moving and soon he began to see luxurious buildings, most of them were destroyed but there were few dead people, causing his heart to thump loudly, quaking his entire ribcage.

His suspicions were right. A frown appeared on his face and he threw his dagger forwards. WHOOSH!, He appeared tens of meters ahead; he didn't wait for a second and threw his second dagger. WHOOSH! WHOOSH!!! He kept teleporting constantly and finally stopped when he reached the vicinity of the major people in the stronghold.

When he saw their buildings, anger built up in him. His eyes shone with deep coldness, his arms trembled, and his daggers began to vibrate.

His eyes flashed with bright silver light and the lines he saw in his gray vision began to move with great speed. Derek ran straight towards the mansion of the mayor of the stronghold, and he threw both his daggers simultaneously.

WHOOSH! his pupils dilated and so did his brows raise when appeared inside the mansion; he looked back, but the door was still closed. His eyes contracted for he was confused, but he was not in a state to bother about the strange situation.

Derek searched the house and, as he expected, no one was there. In fact, from the dust gathered, they must have gone for more than a week.

His thoughts began to run at supersonic speed while he thought of every possibility of what this meant. "We were a sacrifice! They fooled us! All the scientists are gone! All the top figures are gone. They left us! They knew about the attack of the nightmares!!, Arrgghh!!!" His body trembled in rage. He lost his family because of these wicked, selfish bastards.

Derek gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. Slowly exhaling, he turned and walked back. Loosening his grip. Both daggers fell, making metallic sounds as they hit the hard surface, and Derek scowled. "You came late, I've lost everything". The joy of awakening disappeared, and he came back to reality. He had lost the most precious thing he desired in two worlds.

He looked at the sky and was surprised that his vision had returned to normal. His shoulders dropped, and he slowly moved back to his home.

His foot got wounded by the broken glass littered on the ground, but his expression never changed. He left the gate and disappeared into the darkness. Back where his daggers lay, they glowed softly for a while and stopped.

Derek went back to his family's house and took his family's remains. He took a shovel from the basement, which was surprisingly not touched, and began to dig into the ground.

When he dug a hole huge enough for each of them, he took their body parts and buried them.

He wrote their names on wooden parts he got from the broken parts of the house; he impaled the wood on each grave, he powerlessly walked towards the couch or what remained of it and laid on it, tears streamed down his eyes and a few hours later he slept off.

The loud sounds of vehicles moving on the wet road rang loudly in the dead stronghold. After moving for a while, the vehicles stopped. They were military vehicles painted with dark camouflage colors and their windows and windshield were stronger than normal bulletproof glass.

The military vehicles were modified to use tires made with advanced materials, for the hover vehicles were no match for the nightmares. Besides, nightmares were more sensitive to light than sounds.

There were about four armored military trucks and other smaller vehicles. The doors opened and soldiers armed with dark silver exo-suits and huge guns came down and assembled.

They stopped using plasma guns because their powers were almost useless in nightmares. The loud sounds of metal colliding with the road echoed as the soldiers assembled in rows.

Their V-shaped visor glowed with subtle red light with various analyses appearing on their screens within their helmets.

"You've received the information from the AI, so no questions are needed," a deep voice echoed.

The lights of the vehicles were bright and illuminated their surroundings. A middle-aged man clad in an Exo suit came down from the second car. He pressed a button and his helmet disconnected. With smooth movements, the helmet came off.

He squinted his eyes while he gazed at his men. They numbered 25 and though he brought only a few of his men; they were all battle-hardened soldiers with the weakest of them being at the elite rank.

"Spread out, remember! Never leave your partner's sight, move now!", He ordered solemnly.

"Yes, sir!!" they shouted with a slightly robotic voice and marched in different directions; only five remained.

They surrounded their convoy and prepared for any unforeseen circumstances. Round, ball-like metallic objects flew out from the military vehicles into the sky and began scanning the entire stronghold.

Two Exo soldiers marched towards the direction of Derek's house, they activated their light which shone from the sides of their helmets "It's been a long time since we had such great loss", the one with the number 4 on his chest said with a low tone, their helmets made their voice sound robotic.

The other one with the number of 2 nodded, but did not reply. 4 knew 2 was like this so he continued "I don't understand why those smart brains haven't made any progress at all, we are constantly losing but they keep saying they need more time and we've finally lost 10 maybe it's until we're all dead that a progress will be made," he grumbled softly.

2 slowed down and glanced at him, 4 shut his mouth, he had touched 2 soft spot by mistake, 10 was her 'boyfriend' and it has been five months since he died, since then 2 had turned quiet and that made 1 angry.

He never expected 10 to still be in her heart long after his death.

1 also had feelings for 2 but she chose 10, they were twenty-six top soldiers in the captain's company before, and the commander hadn't replaced 10 since then, 10 was a really great soldier, his only rival in capabilities were 1 and his girlfriend 2.

The captain was angry at losing a quasi-beta soldier and they all knew that the teleporter who went on the mission with them could save him but the idiot was too scared to risk his life to save 10 and they had to bear 10 screams as he was divided by nightmares while they ran.

"I'm sorry", 4 said to 2.

They closed Derek's house and two lifted her arms and activated a screen. It blinked with yellow light for a moment and showed red.

2 turned to 4, "no survivors," she muttered while shaking her head. 4 shrugged, "I never expected one. These people can't survive a nightmare attack. Why were we sent here in the first place?"

2 knitted her brows inside the helm. Since 10's death, 4 had always been talking so stupidly, she felt like punching his head.

Suddenly the screen glowed with blue light, and she was shocked. "there's a survivor," she said to 4 and darted towards Derek's home.

This was where the life signal was located. 4 was stunned. He never expected a survivor. 'he must be lucky', he said inwardly.

When they reached Derek's home, they saw a man with dirty black hair, no top, and torn pants, his body was dirty and his muscles were well-defined but the main thing was his cold gaze which was directed at 4, 4 felt like his body was being pricked by thousand needles

They were well-trained soldiers, so they could feel the thick, murderous intent the man had.

2 was confused, had this man seen 4 before, she didn't know the problem but they had to get Derek to the convoy for a medical check-up "We are here to help, please don't misunderstand, we can get you out of here" she said slowly.

"The man's brows raised, and he chuckled "Here to help, I don't think so, you don't even want to be here, this stronghold means nothing to you, all these life's gone!!! And you don't even care!!" He shouted with a deep voice.

4 and 2 were shocked. How did this man hear their conversation? They had radars so they would know if someone was a few meters around them and even though we were talking; they kept their vigilance and their radar picked up no one, so this man was strange and his danger level had risen.

"You are going to pay for what you said", Derek's emotions were unstable, so he was acting on impulse, he stood up from the couch and staggered towards them, 2 frowned but 4 had already aimed their gun at Derek when 2 saw it she shouted, "No!!!".

But it was too late, BOOM!!.