Cosmic

Arc 1 Epilogue: The Stars Collide

[Ret]

I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration as I felt a sigh escape my parched lips. Quickly moisturising them with my tongue, I continued to type out the rest of my report on my tablet. 

The disaster that had occurred the day before was a result of the arrogance of the Administrators, as well as the unpredictability of the Shadow. We were doomed to lose the moment the higher-ups thought they could guess what those scum were thinking. 

In order to understand the inner workings of a madman's mind, one would have to drag themselves down to their level—something that wasn't possible when dealing with those that had no regard for anything other than the God they worshipped. 

The cult of the Shadow should've been destroyed when their master had been killed all those years back, and yet, they were still following their leader's fading ambitions. It was a type of devotion that was almost admirable, but in this case, what I felt towards the group was all but admiration. 

They had destroyed the world.

Millions of people had been killed by that man—that demon of a being whom I had called a friend. To make sure he never came back to finish off whatever sick mission he had been trying to accomplish, we had sealed him away for good...

Quickly clearing my thoughts, I shifted my focus back onto the task at hand. 

My job was to file a report on everything that had happened, including as much information on the attackers I could find from survivors. 

Being nowhere close to done, I was beyond annoyed at what I had to do. I merely stared at the screen, my mind refusing to function. 

For what felt like the hundredth time, I cleared up my throat with a cough and reread what I had written previously. 

Incident at Premier Gazer Academy

29/11/0020

At 1605 hours, the winner of the Second Decennial Gazer Tournament entered the Starmaker to receive his second power. After running for two minutes, facility-wide power suddenly ceased to operate (speculated sabotage from the inciters). The lights turned off immediately, and after running some checks, it was discovered that the backup generators were also shut down. At that point, Operation Zealot was going according to plan (albeit the arrival was earlier than expected).

However, when trying to forcefully turn off the Starmaker, it became apparent that it would not work. Repeated attempts to do this were unresponsive and failed. It was decided to let the trainee absorb the power rather than risk damaging the machine. 

Following the instructions, I told the two facility personnel assigned to me to secure the modified cleaning closet or the 'Administrator Room'. 

Acting out of my own initiative earlier, I had called the second-place tournament participant James Hill as a contingency measure. That meant only two people (James and I) were stationed at the Starmaker. 

At around 1620, the target arrived at the planned area outside the Starmaker room. Due to the low lighting, I was unable to identify the face of the attacker at the time. However, I have written a rough estimate of his characteristics by using intel from during and after the attack. 

The attacker was a bulky man that was somewhere around two metres tall. Throughout the incident, he referred to himself as 'Dagger' (most likely a code name). He seems to have some sort of shock-absorption or negation power and can punch with an incredible force. This strength most likely has to do with reflecting damage or anything along those lines. Proposed countermeasures: overflow of energy.