Dylan and the woman moved away from the area a bit, and then he changed the frequency of his battle suit manually to match with hers. He couldn't see the point of it since he didn't know a single word in Russian, but the woman signaled him to do that.

  It was quite amazing that she could still move after being on for seven days on that planet with minimal access to life support. Maybe her battle suit had some functions that helped them that way. Still, Dylan could see through her green eyes that she was about to reach her limit.

  "Good, can you hear me?" The woman asked once the synchronization was finished. "My name is Anastasia, and you are from the American spaceship, the dreadnought, right?"

  "Yes…" Dylan frowned since the woman's English was perfect. "Did you know what the enemies were doing there?"

  "It was a trap… they found traces of your attacks and decided to lay a trap to lure you in once they realized that you aren't from my team," Anastasia replied and then sighed before sitting down on the trunk of a tree. "They did that to us as well when we got separated, and thanks to it, we lost four of our soldiers."

  "Do you mean…" Dylan frowned.

  "Yes, their tracking skills suck… so they just tried to bait you by using their acid on a trunk or something," Anastasia said with her head down.

  Those things sure were smart… Dylan didn't consider himself a tactical genius, but for him to fall for such a cheap trick… They could understand human behavior quite well since they managed to kill four members of the Russian team just like that. It wasn't hard to understand it… soldiers were trained to act in order not to regret or lose some good chances, after all.

  "Are you alone?" Anastasia raised her head and asked. "To be honest, I didn't expect that our commander would ask for help or that any other ship would send soldiers to rescue us. There is close to nothing to gain by helping us, after all."

  "Hm, I am not alone, there are ten of us, but some complications made us split up," Dylan replied while wondering how he should proceed.

  "I know, we heard the ether cannon fired by one of those giants, but we didn't find you guys, I came to investigate, but I was unable to move that much since I am almost out of fuel to use my cloak," Anastasia explained.

  Apparently, the Russian team could use a cloak to keep them invisible, it consumed a lot of ether, but it was a useful ability. That explained why she managed to surprise Dylan and the fact that they had avoided the enemies up until now.

  "Giants… you mean that there are oversized creatures that can fire large amounts of energy at once? Shit…" Dylan said and then began to think. "...We should secure a route for you guys to leave the area, but instead of looking to my pod, we should look for the other where the communications still can be done."

  "That will be difficult… we aren't in conditions to move," Anastasia said after a long sigh.

  "... I guess I should start by looking at your friends and then think of what else we can do," Dylan looked away, considering the possibility of looking for Shon.

  That will take too much time… Dylan could tell that only the possibility of escaping was keeping Anastasia conscious. Her friends must be in an even rougher shape.

  "I need some time to extract ether, and it will be hard for you to enter the hideout without revealing its location to the monsters," Anastasia explained, and then she got up.

  "... Is there an ether well nearby your base?" Dylan rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  "There are a few. Why?" Anastasia frowned.

  "Well, let me check the area first, and then I will decide what we can do," Dylan replied.

  Anastasia didn't like things as they were going, Dylan looked too young to have any real experience dealing with that kind of situation, but she saw the traces that he left behind, and he looked completely fine, so if anything, his combat abilities could be relied on. Besides, he and others came to help, so at the very least, she had to have some faith in them.

  They began to walk while avoiding all the enemies to gain time while heading Northwest… Dylan could tell that they had landed way off course, but he didn't think that he would end up walking that much in the wrong direction, almost completely wrong direction. In any case, Francis and his team landed on the East side of the area, so it seemed that everyone got unlucky, thanks to the ether cannon.

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  Dylan ignored that fact until now, but he couldn't anymore, so he asked about the giants that Anastasia had mentioned. Essentially, they were behemoth-like creatures that were controlled by some of those monsters that they had been facing until now… he was amazed that they could be controlled. Considering his experience until now, he would think that the small fries would be the spawns of the giants.

  In any case, the giants were like really fat worms that couldn't move that well because of their size and the fact that they didn't have legs or arms. Speaking of which, the giants were the ones that made the 'roads' that Dylan found before… they were sixty meters wide and almost two hundred meters long… They couldn't kill anything with their bodies unless their enemies are stupid slow, but their ether cannon can destroy a good part of a mountain.

  "The same attack that almost hit your pod was what prevented us from escaping this world," Anastasia added.

  Although their base was only one mountain away and around five kilometers, it took two hours since Anastasia was exhausted, and they had to avoid leaving a trace of bodies. That would give the enemies the chance to find their base. Just as Dylan had expected, they were hiding inside a cave… that mountain had many of those, but they avoided all enemies by using their cloak ability when the enemies checked the cave that they were using.

  Despite all that, Dylan still could see a large number of enemies walking around the mountain. They were annoyingly insistent… they probably didn't know what the Russian team would die if they were left alone, or they just had too much time to kill.

  In any case, Dylan and Anastasia looked for a good ether well nearby, and then once they found it, he explained his plan. Basically, they would use the same trick that they used against them to fool her friends.

  "You will need a lot of ether to share with your friends and activate your cloak, so I will give you the chance to do so," Dylan said while looking around. "At the same time, you will attract the enemies, and I will kill them to decrease the chances of them finding us."

  Anastasia wondered how Dylan had the audacity to call that a plan… much sooner than she can get a real amount of ether, the number of bodies will pile up, and that will make them even more cautious.

  "It seems that you don't know, but the ether on their bodies will be sucked by the ether well once they are put close to it, so you will get ether faster than you can imagine," Dylan explained.

  In the end, Anastasia was too tired to argue… They had been struggling for one week with no food and close to no water. Might as well let things end as soon as possible with that crazy plan.

  After she nodded, Anastasia assumed her position and then used the storage mode. Since the particles of ether were glowing, it didn't take long for some enemies to notice her, and they quickly began to run toward her. Still, they noticed that something was off since she wasn't moving and then slowed down to use their acid.

  That only helped Dylan… he had such an easy time aiming when they stopped moving that even while he was twenty meters away from them and revealed himself after leaving the shadow of a tree, he still killed two of the monsters before the final one could notice him.

  Dylan got cocky enough to put his bow away and grab his katana since he wanted to save his arrows since none of the enemies had bows. Thanks to it, he saw the expression of the creature changing to one of absolute anger. It got even red… which was quite creepy. Thanks to it, the beast decided to face Dylan with its spear as well.

  Still, in the last moment, Dylan walked to the side, and when the creature followed him, he charged again and kicked one of the enemy's spears on the ground and toward the beast. The spear flew toward the enemy, but the creature blocked it with its own weapon… only to suddenly see Dylan in front of itself and then swinging down his sword. Unable to react and block it, the monster had its head split in two.

  After sighing in relief, Dylan tried to pull the monsters toward the ether well, but they were too heavy… Even with the improved battle suit, he couldn't pull something that rough looking that weighed over five hundred kilograms.

  In any case, Dylan confirmed that for a few moments, the flow of ether coming from the ether well increased once he asked Anastasia. She looked surprised but not very pleased… that was because she didn't find any hesitation in his movements. Maybe that was why they were also extremely effective.

  While he waited for the next group to come, Dylan tested if he could use their spears as throwable weapons… it wasn't impossible, but his aim was a lot worse, and they didn't have that much piercing power. He tried to use them as long arrows, but it was even worse…

  Still, Dylan organized them to be kicked by him… as long as they make the enemies flinch for half a second, they will have served their purpose.

  In the end, Dylan soon confirmed that… the kicked spears, most often than not, didn't fly in a straight line and pierce the enemy's flesh, but they did what Dylan just wished for… they bought him five seconds in each battle. Thanks to that, Dylan didn’t have much of a hard time… until the enemies saw twenty corpses around and then decided to retreat instead of attacking.

  “How is your progress? I don’t think that we have that much time left here,” Dylan said while looking around and then confirming that the enemies weren’t showing up as much as before.

  “... I should have barely enough to let my friends leave the mountain, but soon we will have to stop to recharge again,” Anastasia replied.

  “Do you know any place with a large number of wells together?” Dylan asked. “We should be fine if we walk for half an hour at least.”

  “There isn’t,” Anastasia replied readily. “That being said, I don’t think that we will be able to keep walking nonstop, so we can take a break whenever we find one.”