Wooom!
A deafening cry reverberated through the desolate desert, sending shivers down the spines of everyone nearby.
“How dare you touch my base?! Know that none of you will survive!!”
Daron’s lightning-fast movements transformed him into a scorpion-like creature, effortlessly gliding across the sandy terrain with a searing heat emanating from his body. Each swing of his tail created explosive bursts of sand, propelling his monstrous form forward.
Upon recognizing the formidable threat, other freelancers frantically tapped into their mana, but Daron deftly weaved through the sand dunes, closing the gap with astonishing speed. With a swift motion, he brushed against a member of Squad 3 from behind.
Crack!
The unfortunate freelancer’s head burst like a balloon, blood spraying in all directions. Despite their mana shields, two members of Squad 3 had already met their untimely demise, leaving the rest in stunned silence.
Panicked and fear-stricken, everyone ran for their lives, their thoughts consumed by survival alone.
To their horror, a dozen figures emerged from the ruins of the base, riding creatures resembling camels, but armored with steel plates. These appeared to be the reserve forces that had set out with Daron to collect supplies.
Thud Thud Thud Thud!!!
The organization members on their steel-clad camels didn’t simply follow Daron; they strategically spread out, cutting off escape routes and encircling the fleeing freelancers.
Fatigue began to set in, and even if they managed to avoid Daron’s pursuit, the relentless steel camels would surely catch up.
Chen, leading the escape, contacted Dave through his earpiece, “Dave, can you buy some time with Squad 3? If things stay as they are now, reaching the truck won’t mean anything. We need to buy time to escape this area.”
“You’re telling me this now……!”
Dave grumbled with anger and fear, but a moment later, he changed his demeanor drastically.
“I surrender! I surrender!”
Dave dropped all his weapons and raised both hands.
“I’ll tell you where they’re headed, just spare me!! I’ll disclose all the information!!”
Chen let out a heavy sigh, taken aback by the swift and senseless act of betrayal, as Lennok merely shook his head.
While the thought of a mutiny had crossed his mind, he had never imagined such a rapid change of loyalty.
Though he knew the consequences could be severe, risking his standing in the bustling metropolis of Vulcan and even jeopardizing his livelihood as a freelancer, he was determined to avoid an untimely demise at this very moment.
His decision wasn’t without merit, considering that two of his team members were already sprawled lifeless in the desert, covered in blood.
“Hmph.”
Daron briefly glanced at Dave before turning his massive body. Dave looked back with a glimmer of hope, but before he could react…
Boom!
Daron’s enormous metal tail struck him, and his head exploded on impact.
“Who said you could surrender, you sons of bitches!!”
The freelancers of Squad 3 were left petrified as Daron roared in fury, disintegrating the rest of the squad before vanishing beneath the sand.
The anticlimactic betrayal offered no respite as the danger persisted.
Continuing through the shifting sands, Lennok placed a hand on his earpiece and addressed Hina.
“Hina, why wasn’t there any mention of Daron being such a monstrous war machine in the base commander’s profile? His devastating strength, steel armor, and that agile tail – it all makes no sense.”
Hina responded,
-As far as we know, such equipment didn’t exist until just before he left the base.
Realizing the gravity of the situation, Lennok let out a hollow laugh.
“So, they must have equipped him with new modifications after receiving the supplies.”
-It’s the only plausible explanation under the current circumstances.
“What rotten luck we have…”
“Is additional support possible?” Chen, still running alongside Lennok, inquired.
With Team 3 nearly wiped out, maintaining formation was futile. Desperate and running for their lives, the freelancers needed all the help they could get.
Teams 1 and 2 found themselves mixed together, dashing around desperately to evade Daron, who was relentlessly pursuing them.
-We only have three drivers within a 10km radius.
Chen exclaimed in frustration, “Damn it.”
Lennok understood Chen’s annoyance, but he also knew that Evelyn had already faced consequences for a similar incident in the past.
This wasn’t the first time things hadn’t gone according to plan. It was almost expected that some operations would encounter unforeseen obstacles.
The strongest enemy, who had left his post, was now on their tail, well-equipped for the chase. Daron’s pursuit was wearing them down gradually.
“Arghhhhhhhhh!!” cries of pain echoed as one member of Team 1 fell with a pierced chest, and Gehan of Team 2 remained emotionless despite heavily bleeding from his missing left arm.
The members of both teams were sustaining injuries while trying to protect themselves from Daron’s relentless attacks.
Dududududududududududud!!
Daron’s machine gun added to the pressure, firing every time he emerged from the sand.
The scorching heat made it difficult to breathe, and despite their magical abilities, even these superhumans found it challenging to cope with such harsh conditions.
Among the chaos, Chen and Lennok, who were the quickest thinkers, locked eyes and nodded at each other.
“I’ll sacrifice half of my success fee. So-” Chen started,
“Do you want me to buy some time?”
“It’s not enough. To put it bluntly…”
“You want me to destroy that tail.”
Although they hadn’t seen the tail’s exact shape, they knew it was nearly 2 meters long and was the core of Daron’s impressive maneuverability in the desert.
Without needing to elaborate further, they understood each other’s plan.
Ssswack!!
Chen, who pulled out two daggers from his waist, muttered.
“I’ll kill that camel and break through the encirclement. Let’s split the power in half.”
“We have to finish this before they discover the truck’s location.”
“Of course.”
In an instant, the two negotiators, who had bargained and compromised, abruptly changed their course in near-perfect synchrony.
The swirling sand that had been relentlessly pushing against Lennok abruptly ceased and reversed its direction.
Several members of Team 2, who had been attentively listening to Chen and Lennok’s conversation, along with a few injured members from Teams 1 and 3, halted in their tracks as well.
“Can we really endure this…?” the young man with the chloride ability stammered, his voice trembling.
“We’ve made the best decision under these circumstances,” Gehan said, clutching his bleeding left arm.
Realizing that continuing to run in their current condition would only lead to further blood loss and hasten their demise, their only option was to wait for Chen to bring the truck while Lennok fended off Daron.
The woman, who had remained emotionless throughout the operation, now displayed a faint trembling in her expression.
“Perhaps it would have been better to die and follow Chen…”
“Doesn’t this feel like betrayal?” questioned some of the other freelancers, attempting to pass it off as a joke, but their eyes betrayed their unease.
Lennok, however, quashed that anxiety with a snort. “If I weren’t content with buying time, I wouldn’t have agreed to the proposition.”
“Really?” someone asked in surprise.
With a metallic clank, Lennok checked the number of bullets in his revolver and shotgun before responding while holstering his weapons.
“Need to kill.”
Upon leaving the temporary base, he had chosen the escape route without fully comprehending the true strength of their pursuers. However, upon seeing Daron’s formidable presence and assessing all the energy signatures he had been tracking, the situation had changed.
Confirming through mana detection that there were no more enemy soldiers within a 3-kilometer radius, Lennok knew that if they managed to defeat the current pursuers, there would be no more obstacles ahead.
Despite Lennok’s indifferent words, the freelancers remained tight-lipped, knowing better than to complain about the difficulty of the situation.
“Do we have any ammo left?”
“My arm’s injured, but I can still run and distract them while you use your magic.”
“With my cloaking ability, I can slightly blur their vision. Let’s devise a strategy that incorporates this.”
Irrespective of their minor or severe injuries, everyone checked their weapons, hoping they would be of use in the impending battle.
None of them wanted to be mere burdens; they were all eager to contribute.
Lennok didn’t bother to dissuade them. Even though taking Daron’s combat prowess into account, their assistance might not change much, but at the very least, it wouldn’t hinder the battle.
As he brushed off the sand sticking to his coat, Lennok found himself lost in thought.
‘Is there about half of the mana remaining?’
His magic worked well with the desert sand, allowing him to escape without losing his mobility so far. However, a considerable amount of mana had been inevitably consumed.
He took out a cigarette and a lighter from his pocket and lit it.
Simultaneously, he raised his mana and erected a sand wall in front of him.
Kaah!
The sound of Daron’s body hitting the other side reverberated as the barrier distorted significantly.
As he felt the strong wind shaking his hair, he deeply inhaled from his cigarette.
With the strange sensation of his body feeling as if it were floating, he noticed an overall lightness.
While the cigarettes had previously enhanced his physical abilities to a normal level, this time he could sense a different kind of energy coursing through him.
Of course, the side effects that came with it were something that only Lennok would have to endure.
Meanwhile, the sand barrier erected by Lennok collapsed, revealing Daron’s ferocious face.
“Hey, Sand wizard.”
Up close, his face was a sight to behold.
His uneven teeth had all been replaced with sharp metal teeth, and his jaw was completely overlaid with a metal plate that extended his lower jaw.
One eye shone oddly with a red artificial eyeball, and even the nerve fiber bundles hanging from his strangely braided hair were visible.
‘He’s far beyond human.’
Lennok wondered if Daron could breathe and move smoothly even in the desert sand with that face.
It would be more fitting to call him a robot.
“So it was you who covered my base with this fucking sand mound,” Daron said with a smirk. “Good. If I take your head and spine as they are, the boss will turn a blind eye-!!”
Grrrr!
As Daron swung his tail fiercely, creating a strong wind pressure, a machine gun in his left hand began to rotate loudly, spewing fire at the same time.
Tutututu!
In response, Lennok instantly slid sideways, raising the sand beneath his feet.
Shh!
Normally, such rapid maneuvers would strain the body enough to interfere with combat, but it was different now when his body felt light due to the drug’s effect.
Even if he had to use a somewhat rough method, as long as he could change his position like this, Lennok’s options would endlessly expand.
Clank……!!
Thoughtfully, he unholstered his shotgun, released the shrinking spell, and cocked it.
At the same time, he stacked up three types of shooting support magic.
[Stack Shooting]
[Recoil Control]
[Overheat Shot]
Taah!!!
A shooting combo designed to maximize the firepower of a single shot burst into flames.
And for a moment, it hit Daron’s tail, which had lost track of Lennok’s movements.
Boom!!
If Lennok did not focus on recoil control, the high firepower could even cause injury to him.
If hit properly, it could possibly pierce through even steel.
Kwajik
Part of Daron’s tail, which seemed to be protecting his body, broke off.
Although it was the thinnest part, Lennok, who had cut off a length corresponding to 1/3 of the tail, backed off and inwardly nodded.
‘The shotgun works. That’s worth remembering.’
Unlike magic whose power varies according to the surrounding environment and conditions, the power of a shotgun enhanced by shooting support magic is fixed.
Daron’s tail’s durability could potentially serve as a critical benchmark, providing enough aid in combat.
However, Lennok’s face contorted in distaste as he threw a surreptitious glance at Daron’s back.
“Hey, what the? Did you just hit me?”
This was because the tip of Daron’s tail, previously shattered by the shotgun bullet, began to regenerate with a mysterious squirming sound.
“Just a bullet like this won’t hurt my tail, you little desert rat!!”
Regenerative alloy. Even if parts of the equipment were entirely torn away, it was a top-tier product that could still regenerate.
It was sturdy enough not to break from reasonable shocks or firepower.
In the end, the answer was to yank out the entire metal skeletal spine that supported the tail.
‘Anyway, I was planning on killing him, so it doesn’t matter much.’
Chen might have thought it was easier to damage Daron’s metal tail than to kill him, but Lennok had a completely different viewpoint.
A wizard who could bombard a wide area as easily as breathing.
Rather than accurately targeting and cutting off the tail, it was easier and neater to oxidize the massive body in one go.
Having finished the calculation in his head, Lennok quickly moved his fingers.
He had already decided on the first spell to use.
(To be Continued)
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