Finally, it was time for the Third Mission.
There was something different in the air this time—not just the ozone-rich tang of the warp gates or the distant hum of orbital drones, but the unmistakable weight of expectation. Tension floated through the academy halls like a very polite ghost that no one wanted to acknowledge, but everyone was painfully aware of.
Unlike the previous missions, where students picked their own poison, this time the poison picked us. We were being sent directly to the frontier zones.
This was the real thing. Well, as real as anything could be in a world where most conflicts were settled through carefully orchestrated shows of force rather than actual bloodshed. The age of total war was behind humanity, thankfully, but that didn't mean the borders between controlled territory and miasmic zones were anything resembling safe.
And that was enough to make even the more arrogant students double-check their insurance nanobots.
