CLANG!
The massive war hammer that had been strapped to Idehali's back was wrenched free in an instant, and brought crashing down with full force onto the exact spot where [No Beef] had been standing just a heartbeat before.
With the hammerhead barely three inches from his groin, [No Beef] scrambled and rolled desperately backward, every fiber of his being screaming to put as much distance as possible between himself and that terrifying instrument.
"Are you insane?! What about my commission fee?!"
"My, my — you actually dodged?" Idehali's expression had gone frost-cold. She hefted the hammer again, advancing toward him with an unhurried, measured calm. "I could have sworn those eyes of yours could only see what they wanted to see."
"You — don't come any closer! I'm warning you! My brothers are all around us — one shout from me and they'll swarm out and take you down in seconds!"
"You mean those brothers?"
A steady, composed male voice came from nearby. It was, of course, Geno — and dangling from his hands, like so many sacks of grain, were half a dozen unconscious Congregation thugs.
Alice and Lucia stepped out alongside him, each dragging a few more limp bodies of their own, matching smirks of amusement playing on their lips.
"I'm afraid they won't be much help to you, Mr. [No Beef]."
Idehali had only dared to make her move because she had already confirmed that Geno and the others had dealt with the ambushers. Now, at long last, she could let the storm of fury inside her chest run loose.
"D-Don't come any closer!!!!!!"
[No Beef] stared up at the looming monstrosity bearing down on him — that being the war hammer — and in an instant his face had gone white with pure, animal terror. The hammerhead plummeted.
And stopped. A hairsbreadth from his face.
The shockwave of displaced air washed over him. A warm, murky something seeped from between his legs. Snot poured freely from his nose; tears streamed uncontrollably down his cheeks. He had never in his life felt a humiliation so complete.
"Don't go dirtying my hammer."
With a faint look of distaste, Idehali reined in the blow. In one fluid motion, she pulled the hammerhead back — then redirected it squarely into his chest.
[No Beef] was launched into the air.
"BWUGH!!"
The strike hit like a freight train. [No Beef] had the vivid, horrifying sensation that he was about to vomit up his entire dinner. His body, completely beyond his control, spun a full three-hundred-and-sixty degrees in midair — and then he slammed into the wall of a nearby ruin.
And then, in a turn of events that no one had anticipated, the wall — long neglected and well past its structural prime — gave a thunderous groan and collapsed entirely, taking him with it as the whole thing toppled backward.
What followed was a length of rebar — vintage unknown — jutting straight up from the rubble. It skewered him clean through the lower half of his body. There was a single, strangled shriek.
And then silence.
Ssss...
Geno sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth at the sight of [No Beef]'s sorry state. Not out of any sympathy, mind you — but as a fellow man, witnessing that particular outcome triggered something deep and involuntary in his physiology.
Humans really are visual creatures.
"Phew~ Now that feels good."
Idehali gave the hammer a few casual spins and planted it in the ground, then leaned into the handle in a long, luxurious stretch — her silhouette cutting a breathtaking figure, all four tentacles behind her unfurling and coiling in their own languid, contented dance.
"Wow, Hali, you're incredible!"
"Truly — even my family's personal bodyguards might not match that kind of strength."
The moment Idehali had dispatched her target, the other two girls were on her in an instant, a warm tangle of admiration and excitement.
From the side, Geno watched the scene and found a smile creeping onto his face despite himself.
But before he could fully relax, a cold prickle shot up his spine without warning — every single hair on his body standing on end.
His body moved on pure instinct, throwing himself sideways. A sharp crack split the air, and where he had been standing a fraction of a second ago, a fresh bullet hole had appeared in the ground.
"Take cover — there are more enemies!"
Geno barked the warning to the other three while summoning his cross-blade, eyes sweeping the high ground in every direction with razor focus.
Bullet velocity, stopping power — that's a sniper rifle. The most likely vantage point would be...
"There!"
He seized the greatsword in both hands, swung his arm back in a wide arc, and hurled it. The blade screamed through the air with a sound like tearing sky, streaking dead-on toward the rooftop in the distance.
Through her scope, the sniper on the other end watched this unfold — and her face went absolutely slack with disbelief.
"What?!"
BOOM!
Debris exploded outward across the rooftop, and the sniper was sent plummeting from the building.
As the air rushed past her ears in free fall, she felt none of the panic one might expect. Her mind was entirely occupied with a single looping replay of what had just happened.
He found me that fast.
One shot, no kill — relocate immediately. That was the rule. The moment her first shot had missed, she had already broken position and moved. And yet Geno had still found her, and taken her out in a manner she could only describe as outright absurd.
Fortunately, she hadn't come alone.
Thud~
"Soft landing~ I honestly didn't expect you to miss, Trigger~"
The sniper named Trigger executed a perfect landing roll onto the back of the machine known as [Old Sid], and from Old Sid's comm unit came the voice of a young girl.
"That guy is a dangerous target," Trigger said, her voice tight. "We need to move fast and reinforce the Captain and the others. Let's go, Sid."
"Copy~ Old Sid, full speed ahead~"
Jets of flame erupted from his feet, and [Old Sid] surged forward at a blistering pace toward Geno and the others' position.
They arrived in moments. But the scene that greeted them wasn't quite what the two of them had expected.
"Captain Hellfire! Orpheus! Number 11! Are you all okay?"
Old Sid touched down. Trigger leapt from his back before he had fully stopped. What she saw: her teammates — Orpheus, Hellfire, and Number 11 — locked in a standoff with one man and three women, who were currently in possession of the objective.
"Stand down, Trigger. We've made a mistake."
"A mistake?"
Her Captain's words gave her pause, but Trigger did not lower her weapon — the military-grade electromagnetic sniper rifle known as the [Pyriphlegethon]. Because from her perspective, it wasn't a group of four people standing across from her.
It was three people — and an Ethereal.
"Captain, what's with that Ethereal?"
"An Ethereal? There's no Ethereal here. Lower your weapon."
The voice that answered came from behind the red-haired girl with the devil-like horns. From a gun, no less. A talking handgun.
This was their squad leader — [Hellfire] — and her symbiont and fellow squad member, Orpheus.
"But—"
"That is an order. They are not the enemy."
Despite her doubts, Trigger lowered her weapon.
What she did not know was that the moment she had said the word Ethereal, the back of Geno's shirt had been drenched through with cold sweat.
This person... knows I'm an Ethereal?
Having just survived a brush with death, Geno stared at the eye-patched sniper with an intensity he couldn't mask. His heart was hammering harder than it ever had before.
This was the first time — since he had entered human society — that someone had seen through what he was. And it was someone from the military.
Had he been exposed?!
____
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