+++ Lieutenant Hans Hoffman +++

  Nomosian Countryside

  Ahead of them, the Calamity of Recklessness finally appeared.

  She seemed utterly pissed at the fact that her wolves were cut down so lightly by Hans’ assault force. Now, it would be her and the remnants of her force left. Hans loved every second of it—maybe this was it, where his victory would somehow occur.

  His mech began dodging the barrage of roses being sent to him, each one of them striking him close. He wasn’t exactly able to remain unmobile anymore, he had to keep moving while firing. His guns, trained at Recklessness, sang its tune. 90 mm rounds punctuated every successful ADI MG24 burst from his double coaxials.

  Each MPAT round struck and rattled Recklessness’ world, forcing her into constant movement as well. On the other hand, Valeria and the Viceroy soon clashed with her as well, with Adelyn closely behind to give consistent fire support.

  Hans watched as Valeria’s sword met Recklessness’ sword staff, their combined strength causing ripples in the air, sending debris and monsters flying. Valeria seemed to be screaming from the top of her lungs, her lust for revenge for her fallen comrades overcoming her.

  “Damn you!” the Virtus woman shouted, as she fell back from Recklessness’ higher strength, dust flying everywhere as her boots were dragged hard on the dirt. “You killed my friends!”

  Behind her, Emilia kept sending in spell after spell, to which the demon responded by sending both wooden spikes and flying roses. Except, the Viceroy already prepared her shield, which began tanking the attacks from the demon. Hans and Adelyn exploited the pressure being placed on the Calamity of Recklessness, their guns opening fire constantly to keep her on her toes.

  Each MPAT round that exploded drained and injured her, especially whenever Adelyn’s powerful enchanted rounds struck her, causing masterful explosions on the battlefield. The infernos charred and placed a more desperate expression on the woman’s face, as she tried to back off.

  “All you mortals are swine!” she shouted, raising her staff high. “To dare take up arms against me, when I’m merely doing my job to restore this world to its natural state, I am appalled!”

  She turned even more bloodshot, as she watched plants, trees, and the greeneries around them burn. Craters already filled the battlefield, and the incendiary munitions being used by Hans’ forces certainly made things worse. All her spells, which came from nature itself, seemed somewhat powerless in the face of the 1st Anti-Demon Unit’s firepower.

  Hans stopped his mech, watching as turned silent from a distance. A greenish glow intensified from her staff, as green vines appeared throughout the battlefield.

  It seemed like she was preparing another spell.

  “Why does everything that I hold dear have to burn?!” she shouted. “Why?! Why! You’re all parasites, a cancer to this land, that you fight so hard against those who cleanse you. You all need to be trimmed off this world at once!”

  “Everyone!” Hans shouted. “Dodge whatever the hell’s coming from the ground!”

  Like a panicked rout, they all retreated, as greenish spikes rose from the ground, sharp enough to destroy anything that would have been underneath it. Hans used his machine gun’s incendiary rounds to tear through the plant-based spikes, piercing and burning them to give him a path of escape.

  Soon, it all disappeared, creating large holes in the soil. Hans immediately rallied his team back on the fight, only to realize that another wall of wolves was ahead of them, now accompanied by the serpentine demon.

  “Damn it…”

  “Another wave?!” Adelyn asked. “My munitions are starting to run low.”

  “Same,” Hans said, wiping the sweat threatening to block his vision. “I’m now down to twelve main gun rounds left. Six MPAT, six APFSDS. I also only have six hundred rounds left on both of my coaxials. It’s my last reload…”

  “That’s not good. I’m down to a thousand two hundred rounds too…I’m chewing through them too fast.”

  “Yeah, because there’s so many of the bastards that this woman sends at us,” Hans scanned the monsters arrayed in front of him, before pressing the button for his speakers. “Alright, everyone, back to your assigned roles. Just a little more push. I know she’s at her breaking point now.”

  “We’ll have to cut that demon down,” Emilia shouted back. “It’s going to stand in our way while she recovers.”

  “I know,” Hans said. He briefly looked behind him. Dragoon Squadron still seemed to be fighting, countering the few stragglers of wolves that tried to assault their flanks. Their muskets however must be running out of available ammunition. Many were already down to their sabers, slicing and cutting through the wolves that were trying to bite their horses.

  They won’t be able to support us much in this last charge.

  He doubted it would even be the last charge. The numbers in front of them were massive, and with him already down with his munitions count and, same with Adelyn, it would be up to Valeria and Emilia now to do the dangerous melee with these monsters.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “They’re coming for us,” Valeria said, readying her sword. “I can’t wait to shed the blood of these beasts!”

  “Exactly,” Hans smiled. “Lady Viviani, Ms. Torre, you two focus on those wolves. I want you two to clear a path for me. I’ll target that snake demon. Adelyn, you get yourself ready—I want you to get the killing blow when I say so.”

  “Roger that!”

  “Alright,” Hans steeled himself as the monsters closed in on them. “Here it comes!”

  +++

  Hans charged forward, as Valeria and Emilia tried their best to reduce the wolves standing in his way. Bodies stacked high, as wolves either received wide slashes from Valeria’s sword, or massive holes from Emilia’s spells.

  He was impressed by how well the two Virtus Imperial Mages performed.

  But Hans was more focused on the snake ahead of him. The monster snarled, exposing its mouth and fangs at him, and sending a spurt of violet acid at his mech.

  With a quick push and pull of his control sticks, Hans quickly managed to do a detour that avoided the trajectory of the snake’s attack, which landed instead on the wolves behind him.

  Quickly, Hans pushed hard on his pedal, as the snake tried to attack him with its tails. It began moving rapidly, trying to bite his mech as he drove to its right flank. His turret, turning to meet the snake’s head, opened fire when he managed to see a good opening.

  An MPAT round found its way to the snake’s mouth, exploding and sending a rain of gore and flesh as a result. It was followed up by three bursts of his incendiary rounds straight into its eyes, disorienting the beast.

  “Adelyn! Put it down now!” Hans ordered, and Adelyn responded.

  A quick MPAT round struck the back of the monster’s head, causing it to tumble hard on the ground with a resounding crack. Hans pulled his mech into a hard break, before aiming the hull of his mech on the demon’s head.

  Placing the power of his engines into a jump, the Peacemaker pounced on the demon’s head, the blades of his mech’s forward legs already engaged. He sliced it through the head of the demon, dragging it hard through its back and causing severe bleeding, before disengaging.

  A pack of wolves quickly descended on him, attempting to cut him down with their claws and teeth, but two wide slashes removed two wolves, and a barrage of spells perforated through the bodies of the last two. Hans pushed his mech forward, passing by Emilia and Valeria as they charged into the demon instead.

  You won’t get a chance, dipshit.

  Hans pulled the trigger, his main gun opening fire on the Calamity of Recklessness, who was closing in on them. He deduced that she must have been attempting to support her downed demon buddy, but unfortunately, an MPAT round from Hans denied her, exploding hard on her body instead.

  She was sent flying away, while Valeria sliced the snake’s flesh while supported by Emilia. Hans then gave the signal to Adelyn to prepare the takedown shot, before warning Valeria and Emilia.

  “You two,” he said over his speakers. “Retreat now. Captain Wittfield will take care of this.”

  The two, satisfied with reducing the demonic snake into a bleeding and wounded mess, immediately peeled back at Hans’ command. Hans did the same, waiting as Adelyn prepared her new round for this occasion.

  It was a special round, straight out of her recent upgrade for her mech. ‘Wrath Against Sinner III’ offered quite expensive rounds, which cost a staggering two hundred ten AP each, but Hans and Adelyn hoped that it was worth it as a finishing weapon.

  Let’s see how it works.

  “Anti-Demon Plasma, APFSDS loaded!” Adelyn shouted over their comms. “I’m opening fire.”

  “Take the shot!” Hans replied, backing out further.

  A flash of light blue light was sent hurling from Adelyn’s mech, piercing through the skull of the demonic entity before them. It burned, and the flash of light quite literally flew through the skies, penetrating the monster’s head cleanly.

  No roar or hiss came from the demon, not even a dollop of blood came out of the massive hole on its head, the wound cleanly cauterized by Adelyn’s round. All that happened was its body falling in a hard splat on the ground, lifeless.

  Hans laughed.

  “That was so damned cool!” he shouted, quite childishly.

  “I…I did it? Just like that?”

  “No time for that,” Hans declared over his speakers. “Let’s kill that vixen now. Everyone, onwards!”

  The work quickly began. Dragoon Squadron joined in on the fun, their blades and muskets cutting down the confused and disorganized wolves. Valeria and Emilia, already racking up kills in the hundreds, joined in, the bloodbath only growing.

  Hans watched from the distance as the Calamity of Recklessness stood up, her body still badly injured by Hans’ previous attack. The glare from her eyes was so intense, that it would have given a weaker man goosebumps and might have sent him fleeing.

  But Hans was different. The smell of victory in the air was thick. One of her demons had already fallen in battle, hundreds of her wolf horde were already bloodied, and the remaining demons in her force were already badly injured. She was on her wits end, that he could see clearly in her fatigued but defiant eyes.

  Yet you still want to keep fighting.

  He couldn’t judge the woman for that. He was no different; she had already beaten him many times. Yet Hans never surrendered, until this day came. Until the day when he would win came.

  He was now down in munitions, down in fuel and structural integrity, but this was the closest he had reached to a victory against the Calamity of Recklessness.

  I won’t squander it now.

  His mech charged forward, as another thin wave of wolves came head-on to stop him, only to be met with the spells and gunfire of his allies behind him. Wooden spikes began raining in his direction, which he nimbly dodged before it was replaced with roses.

  “This is the end, Ms. Recklessness!” Hans taunted using his speakers. “It’s soon over!”

  “Die, die you mutt!” she screamed, the full fury in her voice clear. “Damn you, Grey Knight!”

  “Yeah,” Hans laughed, as he dodged another barrage of roses from her. “Curse me all you want, you’ll still feel what the victims you ‘trimmed’ felt too!”

  His mech stopped, as his main gun aimed at her.

  With an APFSDS loaded, he tried his best to stabilize his mech’s main gun.

  Then, with a clear shot available, Hans pulled the trigger.

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