The Allbright System - A Sci-Fi Progression LitRPG Story

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By the time Thea slammed her third mag into the Gram, the counter-fire had become so heavy it felt like the air itself was tearing apart. Even with her precognition working on overtime, she could only manage one, maybe two shots every ten seconds before being forced back into cover.

Marie and Falks hadn't been so lucky—both had been clipped once more by ricochets that found their way into the outcrop. The wounds were shallow, nothing Chester couldn't patch with some basic first aid, but the message was clear enough: This position was finished.

"We should move further toward the center; this spot's burnt," Chester said, tightening the last bandage around Falks' arm before giving the Marine a reassuring pat.

"Agreed," Thea replied, already slinging her backpack into place and strapping her other two DMRs across her shoulder.

Marie and Falks didn't need convincing—they looked more than ready to leave, their nerves frayed raw after minutes of constant suppressive fire chewing at their cover.

'I wonder if they'd have had a better time if I hadn't been sitting right here with them,' Thea thought, adjusting her weapon straps as they prepared to move. 'There's a good chance the enemy already figured out this section of trench is better than most at killing their Duplicators. Not guaranteed, but… yeah, wouldn't surprise me.'

"Wellis Two, moving," Chester's voice came across the command-comms as they started moving.

'Ah. So that's what that meant,' Thea realized.

She'd heard that same kind of call—"squad-designation, moving" or "squad-designation, clear"—ringing over the comms since the fight had begun, but only now did she understand what that actually meant.

'Makes sense. Telling the rest of the platoon you're repositioning so they know why the fire's dipping for a bit. Last thing you'd want is half the squads shifting embrasures at once, leaving the enemy a gap to slam through and roll over the line.'

The run through the trench tunnels didn't take long, maybe a minute at most, but even that brief reprieve seemed to do wonders. By the time they reached the next reinforced outcrop closer to the center, Marie and Falks already looked steadier, the strain in their posture easing as they shook out their weapons and reset.

"Time for payback," Falks muttered as he tossed his backpack against the far-side wall and slid into position.

Thea similarly dumped her pack against the nearby trench wall with a thud and leaned her Ballistic and Laser Grams into the corner, in arms-reach.

'Time to give the Gauss variant a real test,' she decided, pulling the weapon up to inspect it.

She checked her weapon with quick, practiced motions: Capacitor-bank online, scope zeroing smooth, angled foregrip snug behind the bipod.

The setup felt right, and she knew better than to trust the luxury of a single firing position—the bipod would be nice if it held, but she'd definitely need the flexibility the foregrip would offer if things became even more hectic—which she had no doubts that they would.

Incoming fire was already raking the general area, but it was scattered and light, no more than the usual blanket suppression tossed at any fortified spot.

Nothing like the laser-focused storm they'd endured before.

Nodding once to herself after confirming that everything was in working order with her weapon, Thea eased into the furthest firing slit towards the east, snug with the trench wall.

It didn't take her long to pick out another Duplicator in the chaos, and she squeezed the trigger.

The ferromagnetic round screamed out of the barrel in less than a heartbeat, vanishing into the blood-red haze beyond the embrasure. Half an instant later, it punched clean through the Duplicator's visor, dropping the duplicate where it stood.

The aftermath was… underwhelming.

Unlike the Ballistic variant, the Gauss round didn't rip the helmet apart or blast through the back of it. The body crumpled, visor shattered, but the helmet's rear stayed intact.

'Hmm… recoil's way smoother than the Ballistic, no question,' Thea noted, working the rifle back into position with ease. 'But raw stopping power? Yeah, this thing's running light. Doubt it'd even scratch Heavy armour.'

To prove her point, she snapped the Gauss onto the first Heavy-type she spotted lumbering through the smoke. She didn't even hesitate—lined up, intended to fire, and felt the answer through her precognitive senses: The round would smack into the joint beneath the chestplate with a muted crack, piercing the weak point just barely.

The clone would stagger, but wouldn't go down.

She clicked her tongue, irritation creeping in. 'That's a big drop in power. This might not be the play for me after all…'

She shifted back to scanning for more lightly armoured Duplicators, keeping her breathing steady. 'Even a weak spot hit on a Heavy would just cripple, not disable or kill. That's not exactly what you want out of a DMR, is it?'

Still, she couldn't deny the Gauss had its own upsides: The lighter ammo meant she could carry more of it, and the reduced recoil made rapid follow-up shots easy—no risk of throwing rounds wide when chaining hits.

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For cutting down Duplicators that weren't wearing Heavy or Super Heavy armour, it was efficient; downright comfortable even.

"Wellis Two, clear," Chester's voice crackled over the command channel, clipped and professional. A heartbeat later another voice came through—gruffer, belonging to one of the other squad leaders—"Alcaz, moving."

Marie and Falks were already firing from their slits, rounds from their rifles stitching across the no-man's-land. Chester joined in seconds later, his shots adding to the steady rhythm of fire echoing across the trench.

Thea, however, paid only enough attention to mentally tag their positions and actions, her mind still buried in her weapon testing. Shot after shot, she worked the trigger of her Gram's Gauss variant, each round finding a Duplicator.

As she fired, she catalogued everything that stood out—subtle details, quirks of performance, strengths, flaws.

'The silence is its own weapon,' she thought, focusing on the faint sound it did make.

The low whine of magnets charging and disengaging lasted barely a fraction of a second, and then—nothing.

The projectile's release was utterly silent, disappearing without a trace.

'That's practically impossible to catch mid-battle unless someone's right beside me, straining their ears. Far quieter even than the Ballistic with a suppressor...'

Her mental notes were already starting to form a clear picture of the weapon hierarchy she had suspected all along.

The patterns were too consistent to ignore.

Laser-types: The "loudest", fastest, and most reliable.

They could fire endlessly so long as the cell was given time to recharge, and while the actual auditory report of the weapon wasn't bad, the bright plasma streaks lit up the air like a flare, making stealth nearly impossible. Overcharging was an option to give them even more teeth—enough to punch through heavier armor—but it came at a substantial increase in cost both rapid-fire capabilities and ammunition preservation.

Ballistic-types: The bruisers, versatile above all else.

A wide range of ammunition, even System Material-infused rounds, made them adaptable to quite literally any fight. Suppressors put them somewhere in the middle for stealth, but they were limited by recoil and weight. Strongest penetration and sheer damage per round, but sluggish when high rates of fire were needed due to the recoil.

And then the Gauss-types, like the one in her hands now: The ghosts. Silent, traceless, feather-light ammo that let her carry far more into the field.

They excelled at infiltration, vanishing kills, movement without weight dragging her down. But their drawbacks were obvious. Limited power, limited penetration.

There was no trick, no mod, that could truly change that.

'So, mostly what I figured back at Bullseye's Rifles,' she admitted inwardly. 'But now I've got real data, and that's worth more than my initial short tests back then and the theories that came with it. If I mix two of these right—Laser for all-round goodness, Gauss for stealth, Ballistic for versatility and power—there's no way I can't build something nasty, right…?'

Her hands moved on their own, sliding a fresh mag into her Gram.

She had been burning through ammo faster than she liked—by the time she'd swapped into her second Ballistic mag earlier, she'd already abandoned the idea of lining up perfect one-shot kills.

There were simply too many targets flooding the field to waste time chasing that kind of needless precision. If it came down to landing two or three quick hits to drop one enemy or risking them slipping through entirely, she'd take the kill every time.

The reload barely even registered in her mind; her body was already moving, twisting low and sharp to the side as instinct took over. An instant later, another Stellar Republic round screamed past, slicing through the air where her skull had been an instant ago.

"What the—Thea!" Chester's voice cut sharp through the chaos, snapping her out of her thoughts.

"What's up?" she asked, not looking away from the smoke-choked battlefield.

"What the fuck was that just now?! How the fuck are you not getting hit at all! You just somehow dodged another one! That's not fucking normal. You running an Ability this whole time?" His voice had a hard edge under the gunfire. "Check your Resources. Make sure you're not bleeding your Focus dry. You should've been taught about that already, yeah?"

"I was starting to wonder about that too, actually," Falks chimed in from the left, his voice carrying a strained chuckle even as he ducked lower behind the cover of the slit. "I've been getting lit up over here, but she's still walking away spotless. What's the Ability called? 'Cause I could use some of that right about now, not gonna lie."

'Gig's up, huh?' Thea thought, letting the idea hang in her head for half a second.

She squeezed the trigger twice more, the Gram kicking lightly against her shoulder as another pair of rounds cut through the storm of red-lit chaos outside, dropping yet another Duplicator where it stood.

"I'm a Psyker," she said offhandedly, like she was commenting on the weather. "It's precognition. Power's called [Glimpse] on the Short-Term Precognition Path."

Another short burst followed, her eyes never leaving the blood-red carnage beyond the trench. "Don't know if you can get it easy though, sorry."

"Huh?!" Marie's voice carried from the far-left, her fire pausing as the words registered and she ducked into cover to stare in her direction. "W–what? A Psyker?!"

Falks let out a short, bitter laugh, half disbelief, half resignation. "Of fucking course… The one thing that'd actually keep me from getting lit up by these freaks, and it's something I can't have. Figures…"

"Wait, wait, wait—this doesn't make any fucking sense!" Chester's voice cracked under the strain, every word edged with disbelief. "Isn't… Isn't this your first DM? I thought you were one of the new Recruits…?"

"Sure am," Thea replied easily, ducking back into cover for the first time in what felt like ages. She looked at the rest of the mini-squad, just as a laser seared through the firing slit, turning the space where her head had been into a haze of molten air. "Doesn't mean I can't be a Psyker though. I'm an Awakened Wielder, to be specific. So… not a lot of juice to work with, but it's enough for this here at least."

'Speaking of juice…' she realized she hadn't checked her Focus in a while.

Clicking her tongue at the steady decline, she turned her attention inward and cracked her Gate open a little wider, letting more of that flow steady itself.

'Need to stay on top of that. Last thing I want is to run bone-dry mid-fight…'

"Why the fuck didn't you say anything about this earlier…? Like during the damn squad rundown?!" Chester pressed, his voice strained to the edge of shouting but just holding back.

"Because there was no point," Thea answered flatly, slamming a fresh mag into her Gram—the last one still had rounds, but if they were going to burn time talking, she might as well top off. "Like I said, I'm not a real Psyker. Any extra resources shoved my way wouldn't make me better right now—I think. Haven't done much experimenting yet, so it's not like a full squad of supports around me would suddenly change anything."

Her eyes flicked back to the red-tinged battlefield, tracking the chaos with an increasing amount of anxiety—despite her best efforts, things weren't looking too great for the UHF defenders. "My precognition lets me pick out Duplicators cleanly. I can tell when a shot will chain into killing their copies too—so pretty much everyone I hit is a guaranteed Duplicator. Think I'm somewhere around forty, maybe fifty kills by now. But compared to an Offensive Heavy with a rotary grenade launcher or a portable machine gun chewing up the line? I don't clear the field's firepower the same way. So yeah, no real point in making a fuss. Resources are better spent elsewhere until I figure out how to use this stuff more… directly."

Falks barked out a disbelieving laugh, shaking his head hard enough that his helmet rattled. "Bull-fucking-shit. Forty or fifty Duplicators already…? You're telling me that like half the freaks dropping in our sector are thanks to you?"

Marie peeked briefly over the edge of her cover and then ducked back down, staring at Thea like she'd just sprouted horns. "N—No way. That's… That's not possible—is it? I… I mean, you're probably not lying, but… I've maybe dropped like five confirmed, and I've been firing nonstop. How—?"

Thea didn't bother replying, just shouldered her rifle again and peaked out at one of the Duplicators she had seen earlier, half-hiding behind one of the white-foam barriers at an angle from her, firing off a few rounds.

The Duplicator crumpled in the distance, his clones dropping alongside him.

Chester exhaled through his teeth, long and loud, like he was bleeding out whatever argument he'd been holding onto. "Guess you've got a point. Can't argue with results—kinda hard when you've got the kill-count to back it up, I guess..."

He adjusted his grip on his weapon, still frowning. "Still. Would've been good to know ahead of time. Not necessarily so we could throw you resources, but so I could keep an eye on your Focus levels without calling you out in the middle of the fight. Last thing we need is you bricking yourself mid-firefight 'cause you ran dry. There's no reason to make a Medic's job harder than it already is, Recruit."

Thea blinked.

'Shit. That actually makes a ton of sense… I fucked up.'

Then gave a quick, sharp nod.

"Fair. That one's on me. Should've said something. My bad."

She ducked low as another round hissed overhead, then added, "That being said—we should probably shift closer to center. Fire's still manageable here, but the freaks are closing fast. We'll need to pull back to the second line soon, and if we're too far out on the flank, we'll be screwed getting back in with the rest of Wellis' squad."

Chester leaned just enough to glance down the trench, then back at her.

"Yeah… was just about to say the same thing."

His gaze lingered a second longer than usual, something measuring in his eyes, like he was recalculating everything he thought he knew about her.

Finally, he gave a curt nod. "Alright. Let's move."

They packed fast, scooping up ammo, supplies, and half-spent mags, then started down the trench toward their new marker.

"Wellis Two, moving," Chester's voice came over the command comms.

Passing other squads on the way, Thea's gut tightened.

Practically every squad they passed had at least one, usually two Marines down already—some slumped in the mud with a Medic at their side, others clearly dead; missing a head or a large chunk of their upper torso wasn't difficult to diagnose even at their rapid pace of movement.

The pit in her chest grew heavier with each step.

The Stellar Republic's first push was absolutely brutal.

Thea had pushed herself to kill as many as she possibly could, hardly letting her weapons rest since the mission began, yet the endless stream of enemies just kept coming.

No matter how many she cut down, the flow never seemed to slow.

'It takes me a few seconds to identify a Duplicator, that's… just not good enough for this…!'

That was the biggest weakness of her current [Glimpse] use.

In less intense situations, like the Nova Tertius infiltration, she could afford the second or two it took to mark a priority target. But here—hundreds of freaks surging toward her position in waves, spraying gunfire at her squadmates—every wasted heartbeat felt like a death sentence.

'But how do I fix this…?'

Her passive [Glimpse] behaved the same as always.

Even after forcing her Gate wider, nothing shifted—it stayed fixed at its current strength, unmoved by her effort.

No matter the weapon she used—Laser, Ballistic, or Gauss—her kill rate only changed in small ways. Ballistic dragged the slowest, Laser sped things up slightly, Gauss sat in the middle.

None of them solved the problem.

If she wanted to push [Glimpse] further, she'd need more raw Perception, somehow.

Higher values definitely meant quicker identification, and it felt like the only lever she had left.

Whether it all scaled directly, or it was just her own mind sharpening enough to spot Duplicators on instinct, she couldn't tell yet.

'I could burn [Sensory Overdrive]... but I'd bleed Focus faster than anything else. Maybe if things collapse, it'd be worth tagging a cluster in one sweep, but for long-term use? No way...'

Resources were the real choke point.

Without access to her Psychic pool, both [Glimpse] and [Sensory Overdrive] leaned on Focus alone, and [Glimpse] bled her dry just by staying active. No matter how carefully she tuned her Gate, equilibrium was starting to seem downright impossible at her current level.

It was already at around 90% open by now, and she really didn't want to have it go all the way; still somewhat wary of opening it fully.

Still, it was the Power she depended on most.

[Glimpse] wasn't an extra like the rest of her Abilities—it was the literal centerpiece of her entire combat style.

"Wellis Two, clear." Chester's voice broke through her comm, snapping her back to the present. They had reached their new firing position.

Thea swung her backpack down and leaned her rifles against the trench wall.

'I need to clear out as much as I can, as fast as I can,' she thought, her eyes narrowing as she looked out over the battlefield through the firing slit.

The hill below was pure chaos.

Piles of Stellar Republic corpses stacked into cover for the clones and Duplicators pressing forward. Each wave crawled over the fallen, clawing and firing blindly as they pushed closer to the trenches. Explosions rocked the slope, tracer rounds painted the night in burning arcs, and the occasional flares continued to split the darkness with their harsh white and red glares.

It was carnage layered on desperation, the enemy hurling bodies into the grinder with no sign of stopping.

White foam barricades sporadically sparked into place in scattered bursts, offering fleeting cover for Stellar Republic positions. HMG nests rattled without pause, chewing through lines of freaks and carving swathes into their ranks.

But two of those nests had already gone silent, blown apart by enemy anti-tank fire.

Every lost emplacement pulled their chances of holding lower and lower.

Thea ran a quick check over her Gauss rifle—sights, mag, balance—making sure nothing had shifted after all the frantic moving and swapping between weapons.

It should have been fine, but she trusted nothing to chance.

Then she slid into her familiar firing spot against the far-eastern wall and started firing at the first Duplicators she could get her eyes on.

'Let's figure out if the current Gate level is enough or if I need to go even wider…'