054. The Decisive Push

Bayu sighed, realizing the slim possibility of finding a middle ground that would end well with the arrogant king. Nevertheless, the EPCU protocol had to be followed.
"If you wish to coexist with humans, we would gladly assist," Bayu offered.
Hearing the man's offer, the skull king immediately scoffed and laughed mockingly. "Why live alongside humans who have seized our territory when annihilating them is an easy task for us?" The creature laughed again.
He then rose from his throne and pointed his metallic skeletal finger at Bayu. "You will soon die, Human! Your frail body is being corroded by poison!" he shouted. "And every human who comes next will suffer the same fate as you!"
"If you are so confident about your power, why don't you come out at night and attack the surface instead of sending a girl to do all the work alone?" Bayu challenged.
“Insolent fool!” the king snapped, his voice slicing through the air like a blade. “My daughter is merely the beginning—a bridge for the glorious march of the Vorshks! No one can halt the Vorshkony from reclaiming its rightful land! Not you! Not your comrades! Not anyone else!”
"That didn't answer the question." Bayu sighed in despair.
He looked around and found out that all the vorshks had surrounded him, reducing even the smallest gap to none. The man's mind promptly worked hard to find his way out. He could kill eight to nine vorshks and go back to the place where he first landed from the fall. He could activate telepathy links to both Andrei and Oswald to request assistance. And, surely, the OCK could neutralize the poison inside his body afterward. But he wouldn't do all that.
Bayu harbored a greater plan, one that extended beyond his son and the remaining members of the Indonesian EPCU task force. His vision encompassed all task forces, a blueprint crafted through countless reviews and revisions. Yet it required a decisive push, a catalyst to set the intricate pieces in motion like a perfectly aligned row of dominoes, each one waiting to fall.
He had foreseen the potential outcome of the mission and understood that this was his moment to act. With a steady hand, he pulled out the black capsule from his pocket. The cool surface felt solid against his skin as he pressed both ends with his thumb and forefinger. Instantly, a blinking red light flared to life on the object, pulsing like a heartbeat, signaling that his plan was finally set into motion.
"I will show you something interesting," Bayu said, raising the object. "Unless I press this again, your entire civilization will be obliterated without a trace. Do you have any last words?"
Bayu, despite facing scorn and accusations from the skeletal king and his subjects, remained firm. The creatures in the underground civilization, confident in the advancement of their technology, refused to believe that their weaponry could be surpassed by humans. He didn’t know that humans believed in the principle that peace could only be secured through preparedness for war.
"Obliterate him!" The king commanded.
In an instant, the whole population of living metal skeletons surrounding Bayu made their moves. The man calmly swallowed the Black Capsule before launching himself into the fray. A suicidal act. But Bayu wouldn't just stand still facing an all-out attack even though he knew that within five minutes the whole area would be reduced to ashes. Like his father, and like his son. Bayu also loved a good fight.
Despite being at the edge of his physical endurance, the man moved swiftly and agile. His blades slashed the enemy's neck within his range with outstanding precision. However, an army of hundreds was too many even for a mutant like Bayu. He started to receive hits and slashes. Yet pain only awakened the savagery within him. Like a whirlwind of doom, Bayu's raging continued to grow more and more ferocious.
Amid the chaos, Bayu's vision caught a skeletal figure holding a spear. An idea suddenly formed in his head. He wanted to make a great impact before everything came to an end. The man rushes toward the figure, kicking and slashing his way through. When the spear finally got in his hand, he lunged with all his might, running on the scattered corpses of his enemies, and threw the spear toward the king.
His throw was so powerful that the king violently sent flying when the spear accurately pierced his facial skull. The previously raging crowd instantly froze watching their king fall lifeless. The silence made the sound of his metal body colliding with the metal floor loud and clear. The crown that adorned his head earlier even rolled on the floor for a while, creating a sound that brought a smile to Bayu's blood-smeared face.
The vorshks broke the silence by releasing a desperate and angry cry. They turned their mourning into enraged bloodlust, and all eyes were fixed upon Bayu who laughed despite his shortness of breath. The man was bathed in the enemies' liquid and his own blood, clothes torn by countless slashes and scratches he couldn't dodge.
"Halt!"
A loud heavy voice stopped every vorshks in their place. Davorko walked toward Bayu. His glorious form split the lines of living metal skeletons to make a way for him. The pale blue eyes in the middle of the wrinkled black membrane inside his eye sockets locked into Bayu's eyes, sharp and resolute. Despite the millennia that separated them, those who had experienced war possessed an instinct to evaluate one another.
At the same moment, dozens of kilometers above where Bayu and Davorko stood face to face, Andrei, Sergei, and Oswald were fervently evacuating workers and civilians away from the vicinity of the bald mountain. Along the entrance towards the mining area, Anna directed FSB members and military personnel to move civilians as far away as possible. Panic was vividly painted on the faces of workers and residents as they boarded military trucks, swiftly carrying them away.
Just as the final truck sped away, a thunderous explosion echoed accompanied by a violent shaking of the earth. Oswald and all OCK members, FSB operatives, and soldiers immediately dropped to the ground. Andrei shouted, directing them to crawl beneath the massive vehicles. A burst of white, resembling lightning mixed with soaring white flames, erupted high into the sky, parting the clouds that veiled the plains from the cosmos.
In an instant, all the horror came to a sudden halt. The sound of gravel hitting car windows shattered the silence. Once. Twice. Suddenly, like a torrential downpour, soil and stones fell from the sky, striking anything below. Fortunately, everyone was far from the vicinity of Lysaya Gora. In that area, it wasn't just soil and gravel falling; massive boulders the size of buffaloes came crashing down!
Andrei and Oswald were the first two to emerge from beneath the vehicle. They immediately sprinted towards the mountain slope without a hint of hesitation. Tension was evident on their faces. As they continued running, the sharp focus of their eyes swept across every corner of the mountains shrouded in dust and smoke. Almost simultaneously, Oswald and Andrei came to a stop at the peak of the hill that marked the boundary between industrial districts and the wilderness.
Several kilometers ahead of the two men, an abyss of unimaginable depth materialized, tearing the earth asunder. The once unyielding ground bore the poignant scars of a cataclysmic event, its surface marred by sunken land that snaked irregularly in every direction, serving as a silent witness to the obliteration of the Vorshkony underground kingdom and all its inhabitants. The threat to human civilization had once again been vanquished, leaving behind a landscape forever altered by the forces of destruction.