The fortress's main mess hall was a study in grey.
Grey walls. Grey floors. Grey tables.
And the nutrient paste being slopped onto grey trays was, unsurprisingly, also grey. It looked like wet cement and probably tasted worse.
A Madakaros soldier, his tour of duty finally over, slumped into a seat. He stared at the quivering mound of grey paste on his tray with a look of profound despair.
"More of this stuff," he grumbled to his friend sitting opposite him. "I swear, I've forgotten what real food tastes like. I'd kill for a Zarganian space-weasel steak right now."
His friend grunted in agreement, already shoveling the paste into his mouth with grim determination. "Just eat it, Zorp. It's either this or the purple potatoes. And you know what happened to Gragnak last week after he ate the potatoes."
Zorp shuddered at the memory. "Fair point."
He picked up his spoon and began to eat. The paste was, as usual, bland, gritty, and filled with a vague sense of existential dread. But today, something was different. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. It tasted... exactly the same. But it felt... different.
He shrugged. Maybe the boredom was finally making him hallucinate flavors.
High above, nestled in a dark, forgotten ventilation shaft, Lin Ming watched them.
He was as still as the metal around him. A ghost in the machine. A patient predator.
He had a perfect view of the entire mess hall. Hundreds of Madakaros soldiers, ranging from low-level Foundation Establishment grunts to a few imposing Golden Core officers, were filing in for their evening meal.
They were completely oblivious.
They complained about their day. They argued about sports. They gossiped about a rumor that Gary the Gnasher had been seen wagging his tails at one of the supply trucks.
And they all ate the paste.
Lin Ming checked the chronometer on his HUD. He had been waiting for fifty-seven minutes. The laxative, according to Minerva's projections, had an activation time of approximately one hour, give or take five minutes depending on the subject's metabolism.
Any minute now.
He shifted his position slightly, his muscles coiled like springs. He had already planned his exit route. More importantly, he had prepared his signal.
In his hand, he held a small, perfectly spherical object. It was a concoction of his own design, a trick he had learned in his past life. He had gathered a large quantity of the glowing, unstable pollen from the "Instant Regret Frogs" in the jungle. He then used his Earth Qi to compress it, and his Water Qi to contain it within a thin, brittle shell.
The result was a non-lethal flashbang grenade with the added psychological bonus of causing temporary, vivid hallucinations. He called it the "Dragon's Pearl." It was a fitting name for the thing that would kick off his counter-attack.
He waited.
The mess hall was at its peak capacity now. Nearly a thousand soldiers were eating.
Then, it started.
It began with a single soldier in the corner. He suddenly stopped eating. A strange expression crossed his face—a mixture of confusion, alarm, and a sudden, dawning horror. He put a hand on his stomach.
A low, ominous gurgle echoed in the relative quiet of the hall. It sounded like a dying wookiee.
He wasn't the only one.
Across the room, another soldier dropped his spoon with a clatter. He stood up abruptly, his three eyes wide with panic. He started walking, then broke into a frantic, shuffling run towards the exit marked "Latrines."
He didn't make it.
A sound, somewhere between a thunderclap and a wet firework, erupted from his lower half. A wave of profound regret washed over his face as he froze mid-stride.
Then, like a domino, the rest of the hall began to fall.
A Golden Core officer, who had been boasting loudly about his martial prowess, suddenly went silent. His face turned a pale shade of green. He clutched the table, his knuckles white.
"Oh, ancestors," he whispered.
It was a full-blown gastrointestinal apocalypse.
The low gurgles turned into a roaring symphony of digestive distress. Soldiers were doubling over. Some were trying to stand, only to sit back down again with looks of sheer terror. The air became thick with a palpable sense of doom. The few who made a desperate run for the latrines created a panicked stampede.
The scene descended into pure, unadulterated chaos. A warrior race, capable of conquering worlds, had been brought to its knees by a kilogram of space-cow laxatives.
Lin Ming watched the beautiful, disgusting pandemonium unfold, a small, satisfied smile on his face. This was better than he had ever imagined.
It was time.
He stood up in the vent, his body crackling with power. He poured his Qi into the Dragon's Pearl in his hand. It began to glow with an intense, blue light.
He took a deep breath.
He kicked open the ventilation grate and leaped down into the center of the chaotic mess hall, landing on an empty table with a loud crash.
Every soldier who was still capable of looking up stared at him, their pained expressions a mixture of shock and confusion.
Lin Ming held the glowing sphere high above his head. He channeled his inner anime protagonist, a persona he had been practicing for just this occasion.
He took another deep breath, filled his lungs, and roared a word that would echo through the fortress and become a legend of terror for the Madakaros race.
"RASENGAN!!!"
He slammed the Dragon's Pearl onto the table.
It didn't explode with force. It detonated with light and sound. An overwhelming, blinding blue flash filled the entire hall, followed by a high-frequency sonic pulse that rattled everyone's teeth.
The soldiers screamed, clutching their eyes and ears. The ones still suffering from their... condition... found their situations escalating dramatically due to the shock.
Outside the fortress, five kilometers away, Quynh Nhu and Pham Tuan saw the sky above the mountain suddenly pulse with a brilliant, unmistakable blue light.
Quynh Nhu grinned, racking the bolt on her rifle. "That's the signal."
Pham Tuan cracked his knuckles, a terrifying smile spreading across his face. "It's party time."
Back in the mess hall, as the light faded, the second effect of the Dragon's Pearl kicked in. The hallucinogenic pollen took hold.
A Madakaros soldier looked at his hands and screamed. They had turned into writhing space-snakes. Another saw the nutrient paste on his tray rise up and form a small, grey, disapproving face that started scolding him for his life choices.
The chaos had reached its peak.
And in the center of it all, Lin Ming stood, completely unaffected. He looked at the screaming, hallucinating, and profoundly distressed soldiers.
He then raised his voice again, shouting over the din to be heard by a specific, imaginary audience.
"What 'Rasengan'?" a soldier near him shrieked, clutching his stomach as he watched the walls melt into a river of cheese. "WHAT THE HELL IS A RASENGAN?!"
Lin Ming smirked. The line had been delivered. His performance was complete.
Now, it was time to kill the director.