Way to...

"Hey, did you fall asleep?" The soldier brought a couple of hot drinks and pushed his drowsy partner.

"Ahhh!" Clutching his head, his partner groaned for a moment, and then it turned into a shout, "It's so boring."

"Of course, it would be." He gave one of the drinks to his partner before taking a sip of his own, "What were you expecting? There won't be much action if we watch satellite images every day."

"Even if there is some action, we won't be able to see much of it." frowned his partner.

"But we can't be careless." He took the seat beside him and stared at the tens of screens in front of him. They were constantly changing, as they were showing surface scans from hundreds of satellites.

Previously, they didn't tend to pay much attention to these. However, after a few large scale attacks, they couldn't ignore it anymore.

The screens on the extreme left were the live views of strongholds. Most of the screens in the middle displayed all the movement that was taking place outside the strongholds.

And the column of screens on the extreme left displayed images of dense layers of grey cloud. Even with the most sophisticated technologies, they couldn't peer through the thick curtain of cloud.

These screens had the least amount of activity, but one screen from this column soon attracted their attention.

"Is the cloud clearing up?" Jack directed the feeds to their tabletop screen.

"What the heck is that? I've seen nothing like that before." His partner gazed at the screen in amusement.

"That!" Jack could guess what it was, and he became more excited, "It's the stronghold #13."

"13? Isn't the first stronghold to fall? Wasn't that stronghold turned into a block of ice?" asked his partner.

Yet Jack couldn't dare to waste any more time. He directly dialed for General Leroy's office and explained, but...

"What? The general isn't here!" Jack frowned as he listened, "He is at the research stronghold #9! Okay, I will do that?"

As soon as he disconnected, he ordered, "Quick, send the feed to the Research stronghold #9." And he dialed for the research stronghold #9.

"Good." Jack smacked the table in excitement. "Then send the feed directly to them."

"Yes, I understand he's in the meeting with the generals and the other directors, but this is important." But the response from the other side made his face darker.

"Okay, do as you wish, but if we lose another stronghold because of you, I am warning you it's not just your job you are going to lose."

Understanding that his threat was working, he added, "Heck yeah. You should have done this from the start. Don't waste my time."

He ended the connection with a triumphed smile, but his partner soon directed his vision towards the screen.

"What's going on? Wasn't it blue a moment ago?" he mumbled as his partner nodded, "Why did it turn red?"

He couldn't solve the mystery, yet his partner tapped his shoulder and pointed at the array of screens.

"That!" No matter how he looked at it, he couldn't explain what was creating bright blue lines on the snow-covered land.

"Send everything to the research stronghold #09," he yelled and continued to input command to the system.

With his chain of command, all the screens shuffled their location. Now the entire array was displaying the screens that had odd bright blue markings in them.

"What the hell are these?" It also puzzled his partner, "Look, some lines have passed through the outpost. There's another one. Oh! there are even a few strongholds, too."

The more he looked, the more wrinkles he had created on his forehead. "Don't skip a single screen, send everything to them." Jack inserted another set of command in the system as the reshuffling of the screens occurred again.

They both worked non-stop as it took a few minutes to reassemble. When the shuffling ended, a semi-circle formed with the bright blue lines of the screen.

"This is... Do you know what is this?" Jack, when asked by his partner, could only shake his head. They both see it was a circle, but Jack knew there were some secrets behind it. It's an unexplained secret.

"I have assembled them by their co-ordinates. It looks like that circle has passed through 16 outposts, research posts, and five strongholds."

"But..." As his partner counted, Jack shook his head, "even if you can't see them, there are a few hidden under the grey cloud. However, I am sure that it passed through them, and that stronghold no #13 is in its center."

"That!" Fear veiled his face as his eyes fell on the screen. "That is our military stronghold #11. This stronghold is also part of the circle?"

It would be far-fetched to say that he wasn't afraid, but all Jack could do was nod. He took another look to make sure it wasn't a mistake.

While checking on the screens, he mumbled. "what the hell?" He enlarged the video on his table-top screen, only to realize that he hadn't mistaken. There was a red dot that was forming above this stronghold.

"It is getting bigger." His partner, who was peeking from his back, claimed, "It is above us, right?"

Jack looked again to find that all the outposts, research posts, and stronghold had one just above them. Some were big while some were small. However, the important feature was all of them were growing.

Jack was about to swear, but something stuck his hand. When he touched, it felt sticky. As soon as he smelled it, his face lost its color. He looked at his hand, muttering, "Blood!"

He didn't know if it was because of fear, but he felt like his body was losing heat, and someone was squeezing his heart. Yet he could not contain his curiosity and looked up to see the red patches on the ceiling.

"Jack!" His partner's unexpected scream terrified him more. He turned to him, only to find that he was pointing to the floor.

He noticed that the ground was wet with blood when he looked. Yet, none of these made any sense to him.

That didn't solve his problem. His body continued to lose heat. Even in pain, his heart continued to beat rapidly. And a drop of blood drifted up from the floor.

For a moment, he thought he was hallucinating because of his paranoia. Alas! It was real. Drops of blood were growing on the floor and hitting the ceiling until they got absorbed in the ceiling.

Jack glanced at his partner in horror, only to find that his eyes were already leaking blood. It wasn't his eyes, his nose, his mouth, even his ears were leaking blood, and all the blood was going towards the ceiling.

He squeezed his eyes shut, covered his mouth with his hand. Alas! None of it helped. Blood continued to squeeze out of all his pores and floated upwards.

And it wasn't just him. All those present in this stronghold, or any other strongholds and outposts on the circle, had their blood squeezed out of their bodies.

Scream, wail, and cries filled the air around all these posts as the giant blood ball above these places continued to grow. Yet the people, in the meeting room of the research stronghold #09, couldn't hear any of it.

The bright blue circle on the snow, the pulsing red ball over the strongholds and the outposts, and the giant deep red ice at the center of the circle; They could see it all. But, whether a researcher or a general, none of them could understand anything.

The silence lasted for a few minutes, followed by a brilliant blue light that shot from all five strongholds. Soon two bright blue lines linked every stronghold to two others.

When they saw the complete picture, they noticed that there was a five-pointed star in the middle of the circles that stretched for hundreds of miles.

It didn't shock any of them when they saw that there were five research posts on the five points of the pentagon that lay in the heart of the five-pointed star.

Soon, another set of bright blue rays slithered out of these five outposts to Stronghold #13 in the center of the circle. As soon as the bright blue line hit the giant red ice crystal, the world shook.

It wasn't just a simple earthquake, rather it felt like someone had shaken the entire planet. The air vibrated so violently that their ears began to ring.

Those with their helmet just fell to the floor, but those without it collapsed to the floor and vomited. Some weak ones bled out of their nose and ears.

A thick pillar of light shot out of the red ice crystal of stronghold #13 and hit the satellite right above it. The screen in the middle blacked. And every screen blackened in a blink of an eye.

It wasn't just the screens, starting from the lighting of the room to their communicator, from their air purification system of the giant headquarter to a simple water dispenser, everything stopped working.

"What the hell?" In the darkness, nobody knew who shouted first, but soon it turned into absolute chaos. After a few futile struggles and failed attempts, Leroy found the door.

The meeting room was on the top floor of the building. It was also one of the tallest buildings of the stronghold #09. And with bright daylight, they could see again. When they looked outside, their heart skipped a beat.

Nobody knew who ran first, but soon every one of them followed him to the roof.

Today, the sky was incredibly bright, and it was full of shooting stars. It was only when the researcher screamed that they understood that these were the failed mana generators and satellites.

Yet, it wasn't the most shocking thing. There was a thick pillar of light pierced the space, into the horizon. Despite the vast distance, it was quite thick.

However, soon they realized that it wasn't a light pillar, rather a crack between the gates. From the other side, someone was opening the giant gates. Compared to the bright sky outside, there was a dark blue sky was peeking from the other side of the giant gate.