Jax stood by the truck, eyeing the man in front of him.

“Heh.”

The man frowned. Even though Jax’s smile seemed bright enough, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being insulted.

In the distance, the flamboyant woman finally stepped out of the lead vehicle. She had drawn the long blade at her waist and was dragging it slowly across the sand as she walked, the metal tip carving a groove in the dirt.

Watching her theatrics, Jax muttered under his breath, “Her outfit is exaggerated, but her behavior is even worse. Minus ten points.”

Finch, standing nervously beside Jax, overheard the whisper. “What do you mean? What points? Are we supposed to be scoring these people?”

Jax glanced at him sideways. “Yeah, everyone gets a score. But don’t worry about it. You? You’re a solid zero.”

Finch’s face paled, an ominous feeling settling in his gut. He stammered, “W-why? Why don’t I have any points? Does that mean I’m dying next? What do you know? Please, brother, just tell me!”

Jax shook his head, offering a bitter, lopsided smile. “Relax. Only women qualify for the scoring system. Men are automatically disqualified.”

He looked past Finch toward Captain Sterling, who was standing with his rifle slung over his shoulder, radiating authority. “That guy, though… he’s got that rugged, tough-guy look. If this were my old era, he’d probably have a legion of fangirls screaming his name.”

Jax lost interest in the conversation and turned back to the transport truck, hopping onto the bed.

The Vanguard was only permitted to clean up the bodies of their own fallen comrades. As for the corpses of the Rodent-Maw Creepers, they weren’t allowed anywhere near them.

The heads of those creatures contained Tier 2 Cores. There was no way the soldiers would let such valuable loot fall into the hands of cannon fodder.

Jax knew that sooner or later, the Rifle Team would conduct a body search. He had no interest in hoarding the Cores right now. His performance during the battle had been too conspicuous; Sterling and his cronies were definitely watching him.

If they found even one Core on him, they’d likely frame him for stealing ten. Right now, Jax was the fish on the chopping block, and they held the knife. There was no point in antagonizing them over pocket change.

His priority was to complete the mission and get back to Sector 33.

Once night fell, the insectoids would emerge in force. Sector 33 was currently unguarded, and Jax worried about the safety of his territory.

Every time he added Energy Shards to the Defense Tower, he did it in secret. The only other person who knew about the tower’s maintenance was Barnaby.

The thought made Jax anxious. Barnaby wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed; would he remember to refill the energy? Or would his brain short-circuit?

His thoughts were interrupted by a sharp, piercing scream from the direction of the Hive Spires.

BANG! BANG!

Gunshots followed immediately. The soldiers and recruits swarmed toward the source of the commotion.

Jax remained seated in the truck bed, watching the gathering crowd with detached interest. He couldn’t see what was happening, but plenty of his truck-mates had run over to gawk.

A few minutes later, the crowd dispersed. The Vanguard members were shouted back to the trucks. Before anyone could board, the soldiers conducted a rigorous pat-down to ensure no one had pocketed a Rodent-Maw Creeper Core.

One unlucky soul was caught red-handed.

Three members of the Rifle Team tackled him to the ground. They didn’t just restrain him; they beat him into a bloody pulp. Boots slammed into ribs and faces until the man was unrecognizable. Only then did they drag his limp body and toss him onto the truck bed like a sack of garbage.

Jax watched the brutality without a flicker of sympathy.

This was the wasteland. Empathy was a luxury that got you killed. No one cared about you. Everyone was drowning in their own struggle for survival. If someone treated you well, they usually wanted something. The only exception was family—or the people you chose to call family.

The convoy roared to life, leaving the Hive Spires behind. No one spoke about what had happened inside the rock formations.

The beaten man groaned, coughing up a glob of dark blood. Then, unexpectedly, a grin split his swollen face.

Jax, sitting directly across from him, watched as the man reached into his mouth and fished something out.

A Tier 2 Core.

The man wiped the saliva and blood off the crystal with his ragged shirt, his expression triumphant. One of his eyes was swollen shut, a purple bruise darkening the skin, but his good eye sparkled with smug satisfaction.

“Heh… those bastards,” he wheezed, spitting another mouthful of bloody phlegm onto the floorboards. “Hit like girls. Tickled more than it hurt. Guess they spent all their energy trying to impress that broad earlier!”

The atmosphere in the truck shifted instantly. The tension broke, replaced by laughter and low whistles of appreciation. The other recruits leaned in, congratulating the man on his score.

A Tier 2 Core was worth a hundred Tier 1s. It was enough wealth to live like a king—booze, food, and women—for a solid year in the Redrock Bastion outer districts.

Jax just shook his head.

The adrenaline of the theft loosened tongues, and the recruits began to gossip. Jax leaned back against the rusted guardrail, eyes closed, pretending to doze off. In reality, his ears were pricked, filtering every word.

“Did you guys see what they dug out of that Hive Spire?” one man whispered.

Jax’s body went rigid for a split second before he forced himself to relax. He focused his attention, waiting for the intel.

But the Vanguard recruits had the attention span of gnats.

“Heh, to be honest, I was looking at something else,” another man leered. “When that woman got scared and screamed? Did you see her chest heave? Damn near bounced right out of her top! I saw everything!”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk! Truly weapons of mass destruction!”

The conversation instantly veered off the cliff into locker-room filth.

Jax opened one eye, glaring at the speaker. He cursed silently.

Damn it. When you asked the first question, I thought you were actually using your brain for survival! You just jerked the steering wheel straight into the gutter! This ride definitely isn’t going to kindergarten anymore!

Helpless against the tide of hormones, Jax leaned back and endured the commentary.

The mention of the woman seemed to spike the testosterone levels in the truck by several hundred percent. Faces flushed, necks bulged with veins, and eyes practically burned holes through the dust cloud trailing the lead off-road vehicle.

They couldn’t see a thing through the grime, but that didn’t stop their imaginations.

Eventually, the tension became too much for one of them.

“Alright, knock it off! Stop talking about it! If you keep going, I’m gonna explode right here! If we make it back alive, we can find real women then!”

The outburst acted as a release valve. The heavy, lust-filled atmosphere dissipated slightly, and the conversation drifted back to reality.

“Right… back to the Spire. Did anyone actually see what was inside?”

“I saw it,” a quieter voice chimed in. “Didn’t get a good look, but it was white. Slimy. Wrapped in mucus. Looked like a giant insect egg.”

“What? An insect egg? Stop talking shit. Have you ever seen an egg that big?”

“I saw it too. The thing was at least a foot long.”

“Pfft. Sandworms grow to over six feet. What’s so strange about a one-foot egg?”

“Right. I heard the soldiers talking. They mentioned something about a parasite… or a carrier.”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard that too. They said ‘Mother Insect.’ And something about an ‘Insect Swarm.’ Is a swarm coming?”

“…”

The speculation ran wild. Jax remained motionless, feigning sleep, but his mind was racing, connecting the disparate threads of information.

Parasite. Mother Insect. Swarm.

It seemed disjointed, but a picture was forming.

Could it be that the Hive Spires aren’t natural rock formations at all? What if they’re incubators? Eggs laid by a Mother Insect?

It made terrifying sense. The Rodent-Maw Creepers were formidable diggers. They likely encased the eggs in these stone pillars to protect them until they hatched.

Jax opened his eyes, looking back toward the receding valley where the spires stood like jagged teeth.

If every Spire contains an egg… and there were thousands of Spires in that valley…

A chill that had nothing to do with the desert night ran down his spine.

Is the next Insect Swarm going to come from there?