Sigma/Star

Chapter 137: When Mahari Strike

"We're losing our connection with Porter for the next little while," Ardwen explained to the rest of the team. They were all engaged with the Bahari in some capacity, with him staying in the backline with Riya and Nami so he could direct the flow of battle. They had already partnered up with Carion and his team, supposedly keeping them safe from anyone who might recognize them. Carion was staying slightly off to the side of the main forces, and the increasing waves of Bahari were slowly separating them from everyone else. It hadn't taken long before they were almost completely surrounded by the monsters, cut off along with a few Artisan fighters, and one Goliath from the Eastern United States, its body a living mass of rock.

"So he really went into the hole?" Raul pondered aloud over the network. He had joined the frontline for this fight, something he was never normally used for, but with Porter gone, they were down a person to consistently defend Nami and Riya, and nobody trusted Rex alone to maintain that job. Even if he didn't end up running off on his own, he was enough of an idiot that it was tough to leave him entirely alone with a command.

"Then we just have to catch up with him," Nami grunted, squeezing the trigger on her weapon, a bullet piercing through the skull of an approaching Bahari, one that looked a bit larger and nastier than its compatriots.

Ardwen smiled. "You heard the lady, it's time to chase after him." Ardwen surveyed the battlefield unfolding in front of him. The massive armies of the Enians and Artisans were intertwined now, and the armies of the Eastern United States on the other side of the Breach were wrapping around and starting to merge with the edges as well. It had originally formed a giant circle to contain the Breach and push back the Jahari. But it was fracturing. Groups were being split apart, and most of it was due to overzealous pushes at the beginning of the day. It seemed there had been some major breakthroughs here and there, and groups had pushed forwards, thinking there were shoving the Jahari back. Instead, they realized they had only pushed the Jahari in front of them, while the ones beside them had kept going past, creating an isolated pocket that could be collapsed on and consumed.

For a group of seemingly wild monsters, the Jahari were well organized. They had tactics, and even though they all relied on a swarm mentality, they were real tactics. But this was to be expected from any of the research that had been pulled on the Jahari. While most of the top scholars surmised that there was some sort of hive network or universal controller, especially after what Christian did to control a group, it was also made clear that each Jahari was similar to a normal human, as they had been people at one point, and could function alone as one. Major Orellian had shown that; he had achieved the level of Goliath pilot undercover.

More important than if there was a hive mind was where it would be sourced, and if it could move. Most researchers concluded it was an immobile being that controlled everything, as indicated by the few Jahari attacks occurring across Dalarcya. The invasions there had been sparse and disorganized. Jahari would burst forth from the ground but not in the organized waves that the Enians and Artisans saw, instead surging outwards and spreading out into chaos. They scrambled and fought with everything that moved, in entirely random patterns. For some, this was much better, as their lack of coordination made it easier to fight them with the military. But for others it was even worse against population centres, as lone Jahari roamed everywhere and were impossible to eradicate in one sweep. They scattered like cockroaches and were just as difficult to exterminate, feasting on death and destruction.

It was theorized that Dalarcya, being on the opposite side of the Earth, was further away from the Jahari control node, and caused those who appeared in Dalarcya to be as chaotic as they were. Meanwhile the Jahari attacks on the Federation and Confederate were precisely controlled, and the monsters would use shock tactics, flying out in a flurry before retreating back underground, before they could suffer further losses.