"You have a new mission."

The words landed before the dust from Bastion Four’s arrival could even settle.

Hans stepped down from the APC with Callum following behind him. The DASF did not stand beside his Commander this time. Instead, he took several steps away and positioned himself near the ramp, far enough to leave the conversation between Hans and the two Scout Team leaders.

Dmitri and Adrian straightened at once.

"Point us where we’re needed, Commander," Dmitri said.

Hans did not answer. His eyes moved past them.

The abandoned observation post stood in the dark like a place cut loose before it could drag its owners down with it.

It was not the safehouse Cell 7 had just evacuated.

That one was farther east, still surrounded by red markers that refused to disperse.

This was the old observation post Dmitri and Adrian’s squads had secured earlier. The half-sunken maintenance block near the old service road.

The quiet place that pulled Hans toward Cell 7’s shadow.

Rusted pipes pierced through broken concrete. Cargo frames leaned against one another in uneven rows. The ground had already been disturbed by his soldiers, but a trained eye could still notice where movement had happened too often. Dust had been scraped thin near one wall. Old drag marks hid beneath newer bootprints. Certain corners looked too clean for an abandoned structure.

Cell 7 had existed here.

Hans was unsure whether they had truly remained undetected, but their continued presence answered enough. They had trusted this place and used it to an extent.

"Inside first," he said.

Dmitri nodded. Adrian said nothing. The two led him into the observation post.

The interior had already been secured by Hans’s troops. Portable lamps had been set up along the walls. A collapsible table stood near the center of the room, with several chairs arranged around it. Most of Cell 7’s equipment had been removed during their withdrawal, but traces of the previous owners still lingered in the shape of the room.

Hans closed his eyes and let his Perceptual sense spread through the room, while his Cognitive powers quietly arranged every detail it caught. It was nowhere near Kimmy’s spatial vision, but it was better than nothing.

A few details were too deliberate to be ordinary. The angle of a cabinet that had once hidden something. The marks around the floor where equipment had moved at least once.

Cell 7 tried to clean their traces from this place.

They did not expect Hans’s soldiers to preserve what remained. Nor had they expected those soldiers to follow the abandoned routes far enough.

Hans stopped near the table, then opened his eyes.

If Cell 7 had not been posted here, he might have already started his first raiding operation into Grefort’s northwestern blocks.

He had planned to lure the infected away from the streets and into open space. Squads of infantry would cut them down until nothing remained standing.

It was simple, clean, and efficient—so long as the infected behaved like scattered mobs.

At first, that plan felt wasted the moment Dmitri and Adrian found this observation post.

Cell 7’s presence complicated the routes. Their hidden fallback paths, unknown numbers, and possible hostility made a straightforward clearing operation too risky.

Hans thought the problem was political. A hidden SAS Cell in the middle of his planned battlefield.

Now, staring at the room they had abandoned, he realized the problem might have been worse.

It would not have worked, Hans thought as he walked around the table and sat down. Not the way I wrote it on my notes.

If a hive had truly been lurking near these routes, then a lure operation would not have pulled away a few manageable groups.

It would have been Grefort City’s hive alarm bell.

The infected might have followed the sound at first. Then the nearby hive would have noticed the pattern. It would have gathered the stragglers, pushed specials through blind corners, and turned Hans’s neat little test into a street-wide convergence.

Infantry firing lines could kill a crowd.

They could not survive being swallowed from every side because the thing behind the crowd learned faster than he expected.

Not even Guardian APCs could evacuate scattered squads quickly enough. The Vanguard MBTs might cover a retreat, but they could not guarantee everyone left the area unharmed.

Hans tapped one finger against the table.

Cell 7 may have delayed him, but it also saved him from making a grave mistake.

The thought of a hive irritated him greatly.

He looked up.

"Dmitri."

"Yes, Commander."

"In your earlier report, you mentioned hive traces near this area."

Dmitri’s expression sharpened at once.

"A speculation, Commander."

"Then we’ll speculate properly." Hans turned toward the window. "If a previous hive network existed this close, why did it not attack Cell 7 earlier?"

Silence.

Hans’s mind returned to the report where Dmitri and Adrian had chanced upon a dead hive network.

He ignored it at first. After all, what could a dead hive network possibly do to him?

Now, that thought looked dangerously arrogant.

Dead did not always mean irrelevant. Sometimes, dead things were footprints. Sometimes, they were shed skin. Sometimes, they were historical traces left by something that had already moved elsewhere.

Hans looked at Dmitri and found no answer on his face.

"Tell me about the traces you’ve found."

Dmitri stepped closer to the table and unfolded a rough route sketch. Several lines marked the drainage path, the pipe sections, and the tunnel routes Echo One and Echo Two had inspected earlier.

"The residue was found along these pipe sections," Dmitri said. "Thin layers of withered flesh. They were dry and brittle."

"No response?"

"None detected, Commander."

"How about infected remains?"

"We did not find anything of that either."

Hans straightened from his seat. "And Cell 7 remained operational despite being near a threatening hive network. Give me your thoughts."

"Cell 7 may have encountered the hive network, Commander. However..."

"...the hive must have lost?" Hans continued.

Dmitri nodded slowly. "If Cell 7 truly had an agent proficient in earth-based Elemental powers, the hive may have been unable to expand freely near them."

Hans remained silent. Adrian’s expression turned thoughtful.

"That," Hans spoke with doubt. "Or it was already dead before they settled here."

Hans felt that logic did not fully hold. Cell 7 had established this place before the apocalypse. The hive was the intruder, not them.

Adrian studied the sketch for a moment before speaking.

"It may have been connected to the hive network destroyed near the base, Commander."

"Do you think it has enough power to span that long?"

The distance between this place and the base was at least five kilometers. If a hive could stretch itself that far in such a limited amount of time, Hans would need to revise every assumption he had about fighting one.

Adrian scratched his head.

"Unlikely," Dmitri replied. "The previous hive near the base showed concentrated growth. Dense structures. Centralized flesh mass. Localized expansion. It did not spread itself thinly across multiple districts. At least, not from what we observed."

Hans looked at the route sketch again. "Then this was not connected to the hive we destroyed."

"Most likely not, Commander."

Hans’s brows furrowed. That answer should have reassured him, yet for some reason, it did not.

One large hive stretching too far was bad. Two separate hive networks were worse in a different way.

And he was unsure whether the local network was truly dead, or whether it had simply moved somewhere else.

"Did you feel any psychic residue nearby? Anything similar to the pressure from the meteorite shards?" Hans asked.

From the previous battles, Hans had noticed an uncomfortable pattern. Hives seemed drawn to meteorite shards, as if the psychic residue clinging to them acted like fuel, catalyst, or signal for their growth

Hans was unsure why the hives reacted that way. He only knew that every mature hive he had encountered seemed tied to that same lingering pressure.

"We have no experience of that for this hive, Commander," Dmitri said. "Without getting close to its core, it is impossible to confirm it."

Dmitri’s reply did not confirm Hans’s suspicion, but it failed to kill it either.

Hans stared at the Radar map for several seconds longer.

"Assuming it’s not dead, where do you think it could be now?"

That was the question nobody had a clear answer to.

This local hive may have shed its skin, Hans thought. And the only convenient relocation it pointed toward was already glowing on the Radar map.

His eyes landed back on Cell 7’s compromised safehouse where the infected remained, unwilling to disperse.

He was not sure whether it was the same hive. He also knew the answer would not come easily.

However, one thing was certain. It led a large group of infected to attack it when five members of Cell 7—Genevieve included—left their safehouse.

That was enough.

"I have said earlier that I will assign new missions to you two."

Dmitri and Adrian’s posture sharpened. This was what they had been waiting for.

Hans could also feel their temperament changing. The previous conversation was to confirm his suspicions and doubts.

What term was that again in the previous life? he mused. Aladeen news?

In a way, it confirmed many things at once.

Aladeen news—his doubts were Aladeened.

Aladeen news—his suspicions Aladeened.

"Echo Two."

"Yes, Commander."

"You will investigate Cell 7’s compromised sector."

Dmitri glanced toward Adrian, but did not interrupt. Hans marked the south and southwestern approaches near the safehouse through the Radar map.

His units would receive the marker anyway. No need to waste words drawing routes they could already see.

"Start here. Trace infected activity around the safehouse sector. Confirm whether a hive exists, and if it does, mark its approximate location."

Adrian nodded.

Hans’s eyes sharpened. "I cannot send a DASF squad with you on this mission. I have suspicions that something near here may be very sensitive to superhuman presence."

It remained to be found whether Genevieve’s absence led to the attack, but Hans wasn’t willing to gamble with the life of his troops.

Adrian’s expression turned solemn. "Understood, Commander."

Hans turned toward Dmitri.

"Echo One."

Dmitri straightened. "Yes, Commander."

"You will continue northeast and locate the Northern Ashington Nuclear Power Station."

A marker flashed near the edge of the Radar’s reliable coverage.

"Confirm road condition, radiation signs, survivor markers, infected density, and the plant’s structural status."

"Yes, Commander."

Hans looked at both Scout Team leaders.

"Results are secondary. Return with what you can verify."

Both Scouts saluted.

"Yes, Commander."