"Since you've come all this way, why not step out and say hello?"
The Rebel Soldier who had been hauling Perlman along the whole way suddenly turned his gaze to the wall behind him — or, more precisely, to Geno and the others standing behind it.
"The hell?! He's got wallhacks!" Geno's eyes, already wide with Ether Sight active, went wider still — and then he watched the Rebel Soldier lift a hand and point one finger straight at them.
"If you won't come over to me, then I suppose I'll have to come to you."
With that, the Rebel Soldier started walking, the rifle in his hands locked on Geno's head without so much as a tremor.
Seeing that the enemy had already busted out the Great Wasteland Heaven-Caging Finger, Geno didn't waste any more breath. He yanked out his greatsword and vaulted into the open, the rest of them scrambling after him.
"Eat this!"
Geno hoisted the blade overhead in both hands and launched himself high, bringing it down with every ounce of weight and strength he had, aiming to smash the Rebel Soldier flat.
But the Rebel Soldier wasn't about to stand there and watch. The rifle snapped up to eye level, and he put a clean, precise shot straight at Geno's head.
One bullet, one kill.
That was what the soldier expected. The shot cracked, the round tore free — and what answered him wasn't the thud of Geno hitting the ground, nor a wounded scream. It was a bright ding as that greatsword split the bullet in two.
Then came a wet, tearing sound.
The blade swept through the Rebel Soldier's body and sheared him diagonally in half.
Geno watched the man's upper half topple away, clean as you please. The others behind him froze where they stood.
"Th-that brutal? Geno really is getting scarier by the day."
Eous blurted it out, then started forward to check on Perlman's condition — only for Anby and Twiggy to block him together.
"Wait, Proxy. Something's off."
Anby's brows drew tight. It looked like a one-sided slaughter, but it was nowhere near safe.
Because the Rebel Soldier cut in half hadn't leaked a single drop of blood. He lay stiff and straight on the ground like a figure molded out of clay.
Geno wasn't surprised in the least. This was hardly his first time up against something like that.
"Quit playing dead! Let's get this over with!"
The soldier in front of them was no ordinary Rebel Soldier. He was one of the Sacrifice soldiers Geno's group had run into before.
And everybody knew a Sacrifice had monstrous vitality. A cut like that barely tickled.
So Geno wound up again, Ether Sight sweeping the body for its core, ready to end it in one blow.
"Found it!"
The instant he pinpointed the Sacrifice's core, Geno drove his sword down without hesitation.
A heartbeat before it landed, a bullet clipped the blade and knocked it off course.
"There's another one? No — that's not right!"
Geno realized there were more of them and whipped his gaze toward where the shot had come from. What filled his vision was a field of crimson.
Not one, not two — a whole crowd of Sacrifice Rebel Soldiers, far more than anything they had ever seen before.
"This is bad! Twiggy! Get everyone out, now!"
Geno rushed to send Twiggy and the rest into retreat, then turned his head and found another mass of Sacrifice soldiers behind them as well.
"Looks like we're not walking out of this one." Twiggy's mouth twitched, cold sweat beading at her temple. Boxed into terrain this cramped and ringed in by that horde, she couldn't find a laugh anywhere in her.
Meanwhile, the Sacrifice Geno had cut down was struggling upright. Out of the split in its torso crawled a huge, pale hand, a golden eye set in the center of the palm.
"May the Progenitor forge me anew!"
The hand hurled itself at Geno with no regard for anything else. He had no time for anything but to bring his sword up crosswise and take the blow. Hand and blade met with a shrill screech of metal.
On raw strength alone Geno drove it back, then turned to carve a way out through the encirclement behind them.
But the other Sacrifice soldiers weren't scenery. The whole formation opened up on them at once, disciplined and coordinated, guns roaring in unison.
With no other option, Geno threw up an Ether crystal shield and herded everyone into a corner.
It wasn't for lack of trying that they stayed pinned. Anby and Twiggy went for the breakout more than once, but every charge ran headlong into a dense, sky-blotting curtain of gunfire.
As good as the two of them were, even with Billy and Nicole laying down covering fire, there were simply too many barrels out there.
One line of fire they could dodge. Two, three, sure. But what do you do about several dozen?
Worse, the terrain was so tight there was no room to spread out and pull the enemy apart.
Nicole and Billy could at least steal a few shots between volleys. Anby and Twiggy had it far worse — neither carried a ranged weapon, so all they could do was huddle inside Geno's turtle shell.
"Otherdimensional Slash!"
Defending with one hand and watching for openings with the other, Geno lashed out with sword energy and cut down a few Sacrifice soldiers. But against an enemy that came back from the dead, their situation didn't ease at all — it got harder.
Each soldier he put down meant one less rifle, true. But the giant hand that burst out of the corpse would come probing Geno's turtle shell from every angle imaginable.
The more soldiers Geno killed, the more hands there were, and the heavier the defensive load on everyone else.
"We can't keep this up! Geno, use that invincible combat power of yours and think of something!"
"I've got nothing! The second I drop the barrier, all of you turn into honeycomb briquettes — the kind you can shovel straight into a stove and light!"
What was he supposed to do? Geno was every bit as desperate as they were.
And Perlman, who had somehow wormed his way in under their protection, was curled up on the ground, shaking.
"Aaaah! Please! I'm begging you! You have to get me out of here! Once I'm out, I'll say whatever you want me to say! I — I've got proof that Sarah Floren and the rest of them are in league with The Exaltists!!"
Perlman had lost his head entirely and was babbling whatever came to him.
Honestly, with Perlman carrying on like that, Geno seriously considered chucking him out there to soak up a few lines of fire.
In the end, he couldn't quite bring himself to do it.
The standoff ground on. Billy's and Nicole's ammunition was nearly spent, and Geno's shield broke and got repaired, got repaired and broke, for almost half an hour straight.
"Are these guys firing rifles or artillery? How do they still have bullets?" Nicole glared at the pack of merciless ammunition dispensers and bit down on her lower lip, fuming.
And right then, a bullet blew a gap in Geno's shield, and a Sacrifice that had transformed into one of those giant hands seized the chance and came barreling toward the breach.
A heartbeat before Geno could seal it, the hand was inside the shield, driving straight for Nicole.
"Look out!"
"Nicole!"
"Boss Nicole!"
Geno's shout tore out of him, and the others caught the sudden turn just as fast.
____
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