Hundreds of rocks of various shapes broke away from the floating rock cloud, tearing through the air with a shrieking howl as they fell from the sky.
They sealed off all angles of evasion, compressing every inch of living space.
This natural colosseum had transford into a deadly trap being violently dismantled.
Faced with this devastating attack aid at crushing everything, the team's objective changed instantly.
The core mission degenerated from "how to defeat the enemy" to the more primitive and difficult "how to survive one hundred and twenty seconds".
One hundred and twenty seconds.
In the peaceful daily routine, it was rely two ticks of the clock.
In this valley at this mont, it was a chasm ford of life and death.
"On ! Tighten the defense!"
Klaus's roar beca the most solid cornerstone amidst the chaos.
His temporarily disabled left arm couldn't move, yet he still held on, supported by the powerful will ingrained in his Prussian soldier's blood.
He planted his burly fra like a human pillbox in front of Gretchen.
The energy barrier of his [Unyielding Wall] had long since shattered, but the shield body itself, forged from unknown alloy, remained sturdy.
Using his remaining right hand and shoulder, he shielded the circular shield remnant, engraved with the scars of battle, over Gretchen's "battlefield laboratory" where she was performing precise operations.
This action blocked most of the debris and shockwaves assaulting from the flanks for her.
Every impact from a piece of rubble made his body tremble violently, more cold sweat seeping from his resolute face.
But he didn't retreat a single step, his feet as if rooted in the ground.
He built a city wall with his own flesh and blood.
William took over his original position when Klaus gave the order, becoming the team's new primary defense.
This old soldier abandoned all thoughts of attacking the UMA itself at this mont.
His eyes held no enemy, only those "death trajectories" falling from the sky, threatening his comrades' lives.
His fighting style underwent a fundantal transformation.
It was no longer a hunter's pursuit, but a warrior's protection.
His Winchester no longer sought pinpoint accuracy, but transford into an anti-aircraft gun calculating lead and blast radius.
His eyes calmly calculated the falling speed, angle, and potential threat level of every boulder within the sky full of stone rain.
"Bang!"
A high-powered bullet struck the side of a small rock plumting directly towards Julian's head.
The bullet's kinetic energy altered its descent trajectory, causing it to finally scrape past Julian's body and smash into the snow at his feet, sending a spray of ice crystals into the air.
"Bang! Bang!"
Two more shots in quick succession, a fire net of explosive rounds detonated a massive, irregular boulder threatening Gretchen's workstation mid-air, breaking it into less threatening rubble.
William's figure continuously moved, dodged, and fired within this curtain of death and destruction.
Every movent displayed a soldier's simplicity and efficiency, with no wasted motion.
Like a gray shadow, he used the old lever-action rifle in his hands to forcefully carve out a precarious yet precious safe space for the team within this destructive stone rain.
However, the worm's attack wasn't purely physical bombardnt.
Julian soon discovered a deeper horror.
He saw a boulder beginning to secrete a gray-green petrification mucus on its surface even during its descent.
This ant the UMA was attaching its "petrification law" to these projectiles.
If grazed by these cursed boulders, what awaited them wouldn't be just broken bones, but irreversible full-body petrification starting from the wound.
"William! Watch out for those 'sweating' rocks!" Julian issued an urgent warning.
At this mont, this French scholar who always considered himself a "theorist" finally found his unique role to play in this violent siege warfare.
His frontal combat ability was weak;
he couldn't tank hits with his body like Klaus, nor could he intercept with firepower like William.
But he could interfere with this war in a more subtle way.
Julian gripped his [Withered Thorns] tightly.
His eyes locked onto a "cursed boulder" stained with petrification mucus, the rock plumting with thunderous force towards a direction William couldn't dodge in ti.
He gave no warning, only abruptly stamping his cane on the ground while reciting an ancient incantation in Old Celtic.
"Ordo Ab Chao!"
With his chant, an invisible [Order Attenuation] force field, moving faster than the projectile, enveloped the descent path the boulder was about to traverse.
The boulder showed no external change as it passed through the field.
But William, through the keen perception of [Zulu's Gaze], saw the spiritual concepts constituting the boulder experience a faint loosening in that instant.
Its speed was reduced by roughly half, its kinetic energy weakened by about one-third.
Its descent trajectory consequently shifted by three degrees.
In this life-or-death race asured in milliseconds, it was precisely this "weakening" and "delay" that created a precious window for William's last-ditch dodge.
The boulder ultimately scraped past his back and smashed heavily into the ground, the resulting shockwave throwing him to the ground.
But he survived.
Fine beads of sweat appeared on Julian's face;
releasing this kind of force field that directly interfered with laws consud his ntal energy greatly.
But he didn't stop, like a musician in a symphony orchestra responsible for striking the triangle.
Though his sound was faint, each strike could bring a crucial rhythmic correction to the entire violent war symphony.
Protection, interception, weakening.
Klaus, William, Julian—these three guardians representing "bedrock," "sword," and "wisdom" respectively—now ford a solid trinity defense with perfect synergy.
Within this war storm woven from steel, rock, and will.
Gretchen was the quietest and deadliest eye of the storm.
Her world could no longer hear the external roars.
Her eyes no longer saw the death threats falling from the sky.
Her entire soul was imrsed in the precise operations within the small space before her.
Her hands were fast and steady, without a single tremor.
As if connected to her body wasn't flesh and nerve, but part of a difference engine composed of precision gears and levers.
Collect.
She selected the least deford casing from the pile of steaming hot brass shells near William's feet.
Expand.
She used the tip of an engineer's knife to slightly scrape and enlarge the inside of the casing, creating space for the filler.
Fill.
Using tweezers, she carefully pinched and placed consecrated salt into the casing, the amount precisely reaching the optimal purification concentration.
Pour.
She unscrewed a tal tube containing military fast-drying "Spiritual Resin" and slowly poured the amber-like viscous liquid into the casing's gaps, ensuring every salt grain was encapsulated.
Shape.
In the few seconds before the resin fully solidified, she used nimble fingers to swiftly pinch its head into an aerodynamic, streamlined bullet shape.
Collect, expand, fill, pour, shape.
Each action was simple and efficient, with no unnecessary embellishnt.
She was forging the five bullets that could end this war.
Ti ticked away second by second.
Ninety seconds... one hundred seconds... one hundred and ten seconds...
The team's defense line was nearing its limit.
A pool of blood had ford beneath Klaus;
sensation in half his body was slowly fading.
William's rifle barrel was scorching hot;
his arm began to tremble uncontrollably from over-firing.
Julian's face was as pale as paper;
each incantation caused a trickle of blood to seep from the corner of his mouth.
In the final few seconds of the countdown.
A millstone-sized boulder, whose trajectory William had altered with all his might, ultimately breached the final defense line.
It scraped past the shattered remnants of Klaus's shield and slamd hard into his right shoulder.
"Ugh—!"
Klaus let out a pained grunt;
his mountainous fra could no longer hold, his entire right shoulder pinned firmly between the ground and rubble by the massive rock.
Seeing this, William prepared to use his own physical strength to lift the rock crushing his comrade.
"Don't—anyone—move—!"
It was Klaus, the soldier pinned beneath the boulder yet still maintaining a commander's composure.
He used his intact left arm to desperately brace against the ground, lifting his head stained with blood and sweat with difficulty.
"William! Hold your position! Protect them!!"
"I'm not dead yet! But if you co over now..."
"Then we're truly done for!"
William took one deep look at the man pinned beneath the boulder, saying not another word.
He turned around, firmly shielding both the engineer rushing to finish her work and the commander buying ti with his life behind him.
And at that very mont.
Gretchen's slender fingers, stained with grease and blood, finally completed the final shaping of the fifth "Salt-Core Bullet."
She didn't look back at Klaus's dire state, her face showing no sorrow or wavering.
It was still far too early for grief.
With the utmost speed, she precisely loaded the five special bullets, still warm and carrying the entire team's hopes, into a spare Webley Revolver cylinder.
Then, using the last of her strength, she hurled the cylinder that held everyone's fate towards the direction of Lin Jie, who had been firing to harass the worm since the battle began.
"Lin!!"
She shouted.
"This is all our hope!"
"Don't waste a single one!!"
Lin Jie steadily caught the cylinder tracing a graceful arc through the air.
Within those five small bullets lay not just the purifying power of consecrated salt.
There was Gretchen's genius intellect.
There was Julian's self-sacrificing assistance.
There was William's blood-soaked battle.
And most of all, there was Klaus's bedrock-like will to protect.
There was the one hundred and twenty seconds the entire team had bought with their lives and blood.
With movents of extre speed, he ejected the empty cylinder from [Serene Heart].
Then he pushed this new cylinder into the chamber with a crisp "click."
He slowly rose from behind the ruined cover.
On the cliff wall, the petrification worm, having exhausted all its patience, seed to sense the aura emanating from the five bullets.
It ceased its manipulation of the rock cloud.
It frantically gathered all its power within its body, its gray-brown form beginning to emit a dark red glow from the excessive energy concentration.
It opened its abyssal maw capable of devouring everything, preparing to unleash its final ultimate breath.
This was the final confrontation between will and destruction.
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