Soon enough, Dylan and Francis saw some of the enemies heading in the same direction they were in, and now and then, they began to hear the sound of guns being fired. That was too risky… Shon wasn’t the type to take such risks unless he was forced to, so they could tell that the second team was in a bind.

  “We will ambush the enemies from behind and cause havoc among their lines,” Francis declared while looking at Dylan. “We aren’t that close to either of their bases, so their numbers must be limited. Don’t hold back and just kill them all.”

  Dylan nodded. He had some leeway with ammo now since he got some extra fuel from the others. Once they readied themselves, they dashed ahead, only to see a few groups of enemies marching. Without wasting time, Dylan began to aim at the archers, and when their allies saw their friends falling dead on the ground, they turned around, only to find Dylan attacking by himself…

  They quickly dashed toward him, but they lost three more allies in the process. Five enemies got close enough to attack Dylan, but once they raised their weapons, Francis left the tall grass to attack them. In two quick motions, one vertical and another horizontal, he claimed the head of two enemies and gave Dylan enough time to change to his katana and join the fray. Things ended easily after that…

  “They might be big, and they hit hard, but they aren’t skilled enough,” Francis declared as he got rid of the blood on his weapon with a side swing.

  Dylan ignored that and just focused on getting the quiver of one of the enemies before moving on. They found several groups on the way, but since they were smaller, they didn’t cause any problems for them. At the same time, they began to find corpses of monsters on the way…

  “This is the wound caused by a Blazing Pistol; they must be close…” Francis said while looking around.

  Dylan could tell that, but he didn’t feel that they were that close to the second pod, which meant that Shon and the others were running away since they were being overwhelmed. Now that he thought about it… the area where they landed was pretty close to the territory of one of the giant worms, but as soon as they landed, they headed in the opposite direction… They were lucky.

  Slowly but surely, the number of encounters and corpses that they found along the way increased. While they had one member of the assault team with them, it was clear that it wouldn’t be enough if dozens of enemies were chasing them.

  “Did you guys find ether wells to gather energy?” Francis asked.

  “Not for that long…” Dylan replied while showing a concerned expression.

  “... We need to hurry,” Francis declared and increased his pace.

  Francis didn’t try to hide and surprise the enemies anymore. He kept dashing and swinging his sword wildly, and Dylan offered some fire support. Thanks to that, it didn’t take long until they found a large number of the monsters ahead and not moving at all. Some of them were using their bows, and others were using arrows… They stopped for a moment to analyze the situation and then saw the moment that one of the monsters was impaled by dozens of wood spears when it got too close to a tree.

  “That is Shon’s work…” Francis said. “They are being careful of his traps, but he could have only made a few of them. We can’t risk letting the enemies know that he is running out of traps. Let’s use our guns and make them realize that we are here.”

  Dylan nodded and recharged both of his weapons a bit. Once he was ready, he nodded, and Francis did the same before pointing their weapons at the enemies. Francis didn’t like the idea of using guns, but it would be nearly impossible for him to miss with so many enemies ahead.

  A massive barrage began to hit the monsters from behind, and several of them began to be killed. When they turned around, they saw only two enemies, but then the number of enemies began to decrease even faster since the other team joined the fray without holding back.

  Thanks to being attacked from both sides, the monsters didn’t have anywhere to run, and almost eighty of them were killed in a matter of minutes.

  Once the battle was over, Dylan looked for more arrows, and then Shon showed up. The others and he also looked like they had seen better days.

  “It seems that you guys are alright…” Francis said while he put away his guns.

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  “Dylan found you, huh… I must be getting old, or maybe I am just blaming my incompetence on something unrelated,” Shon said and then sighed.

  They didn’t have time for chit-chat, so Francis explained the situation. Shon and the others were tired, but they knew that destroying the giant worms would be a better option than resting for a few hours. Since they had achieved their mission to an extent, they had no other choice but to do the last push.

  “Now that you all are aware of the situation, we need to address the elephant in the room,” Felix said. “The giants might be able to use the ether cannon several times like the other creatures on planet W1, so they also might be able to sense our attack coming. You guys might also have to get closer to finish the creature off. However… We can only use the solar cannon once every three days at full capacity, and I can’t imagine the dreadnought being able to do anything without using the full output of the weapon.”

  The group went silent after that. Getting closer to an alien lifeform even while it was wounded was dangerous, and now they had to kill two of them… one without any assistance whatsoever. That will be more than a bit tough.

  “What are our options?” Francis asked.

  “Honestly, I can’t come up with anything good with the data that I have,” Felix replied. “I can only run some simulations based on your ideas and see what will have the best chances of working.”

  Francis let out a sigh, and Shon showed a fed-up expression. Their lives were on the line there, and the second in command couldn’t even come up with a decent plan to keep their heads on their necks. Dylan could understand the reason, though. Whichever plan he might come up with, it won’t be free of chances of failure… the soldiers on the field had to come up with their strategy in order to feel confident about it.

  “What about we use the solar cannon to stun one enemy and give us the chance to escape and then kill the other directly?” Dylan asked.

  “That is probably our only option, but exactly how can we do that?” Francis asked while furrowing his eyebrows. “We will be in a position of getting hit by the ether cannon at point-blank range. Nothing will be left behind if that were to happen.”

  “It should consume a large amount of ether and time to prepare such an attack… I think we will be fine,” Dylan said while rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “It isn’t like we have any better option… or maybe we have.”

  Dylan began to grab the shields of the enemies… they should offer them some extra protection since they could even endure the power of several blazing bullets.

  “Some of us should use the shields to block the attacks, while one of us will attack the same spot of the enemy’s body while alternating between the blazing and freezing pistol. That should ignore some of its defense while it destroys the flesh of the target.”

  “... Is that possible, second in command?” Francis asked after a few moments of consideration in silence.

  “In theory, yes,” Felix replied. “I can’t say for certain how many shots of that combination will be necessary for that to happen, though. According to my analysis, the creature that had the core that we got would need at least thirty hits of each bullet for the core to be hit and damaged. I suspect that this will be even more difficult since the giant worms seem tougher by sacrificing their mobility. Still, the person in question will have to fire pretty much every second and hit the same spot over and over again.”

  Dylan was naturally the best candidate for the job. The question was if the others could give him the chance to perform that well… there was only one way to find out, and until they came up with a better plan, they had to move with that one in mind.

  Without wasting time, the group began to gather the shields that hadn’t been damaged in the last battle. They weren’t heavy at all, so they could carry three or four of those with ease.

  Dylan Ulrich - Sprint Mode

  Health: 100%

  Attack Power: 12

  Armor: 05

  Adaptability: 07

  Movement Speed: 25 (Speed core: + 02)

  Ether Stored: 1027 g

  Weapon: Dual Daggers (100%), Katana (100%)

  Sub Weapon: Blazing Pistol (0), Freezing Pistol (0)

  Dylan checked his battle suit and confirmed that he had more than enough fuel to fire sixty bullets. Still, it was hard to imagine that he could fire sixty times and not miss even a single time. That being said, he had a bit of confidence in his aim… he could hit the same spot twice out of three times, which would increase the error margin a bit, and he could consume nine hundred grams of concentrated ether. That will leave him with two hours of use with his armor… it will be better to look for an ether well nearby.

  “We are going to check the target destination and then check if we have better alternatives or not,” Francis declared once the group finished their preparations. “We must be relatively close, so keep your guard up.”

  Francis was right… They were relatively close to the base of the enemies in the south. Felix confirmed them that much, which only puzzled them since they made a lot of noise, and yet, help didn’t come to the guys that they defeated. That was convenient, but it couldn’t be a good sign.

  After walking for a while, the group noticed that the environment was changing more quickly… They found several paths created by the giant worms around, and eventually, they found the base of the mountain where the target was. They also found the giant worm had smashed all the vegetation around and even knocked down the trees to clear the area.

  All of that could be ignored… but the area had been cleared for a reason, to create an open field for the monsters around to defend it easily. They saw hundreds of them in the area ahead…

  Francis decided to check the other areas, but unfortunately, the other available paths were rather difficult to climb. While that could be ignored thanks to the battle suit, it was a fact that the monsters would get in the way once they noticed that they were fighting. Moreover, they will also get in the way of their retreat…

  “We might as well kill all of them here,” Francis said, but he couldn’t come up with a battle plan to make that possible.