As we stepped into the gate and erged from the other side, a tingling sensation washed over my body in an instant. It probably didn’t even last as long as an instant would, because everything was over before a single step completed.
Hard ground beneath my feet. Then my eyes registered the rest: a vast and seemingly endless highland adow stretching beneath a perpetually overcast sky. The grass was yellow and brittle, and the sll of it filled the air while the wind carried distant bellowing.
’Ah...’
This was a nice change of perspective. Being the recipient of that strong wind, I found myself suddenly longing for a picnic.
Everyone stood still for a mont, all of them doing exactly what I was doing, savoring the freshness of the air within this fragnt of the spiritual realm.
But all it took was a second. Just a second, and everyone imdiately began to move forward. The excavator team pushed their tal carts down the adow, letting the slope of the land dictate their speed and fearlessly flowing with it.
"Yaahhoooo."
"We shall et soon!"
"Away we goooo."
Their excitent was infectious. I hadn’t seen the excavation team during the first gate raid, so I didn’t know what they possibly looked like. But sothing told they weren’t as lively as these ones.
These ones seed genuinely satisfied with the mundanity of their jobs.
I glanced at Milo, who stood in front and watched them go.
He was scanning the plains through his glasses, thodical and unhurried. Then after he was done, he stepped back and turned to Cressida.
"Cress, cover them, on your three o’ clock... towards twelve too."
"Yes, finally!"
She shouted and imdiately hauled out her big box, dropping it on the ground and swinging it open with barely contained excitent.
When she did, my jaw nearly broke from how fast my mouth fell open.
Inside the box was a long and heavy abomination, built more like a tool than a weapon. Its body was matte black, angular, and dense, with no wasted space. Everything on it had a purpose. A thick barrel ran almost the entire length, ending in a blunt muzzle designed to ta imnse power.
The scope sat high and solid, not elegant but dependable, as if it had been bolted on to endure punishnt rather than look refined. A sturdy grip and forward handle gave it balance, though nothing could hide the fact that this was not ant for quick movent.
It was the kind of rifle made to fire once and make that single shot count.
Slow, deliberate, and unforgiving. It looked less like sothing you carried into battle and more like sothing you set down, aid carefully, and trusted with decisive work.
And I was actually right to think like that. The mont she pulled it from the box, she set it on the ground and began performing a series of rituals on the body parts, the kind of practiced motions I usually only saw in movies. In that instant, Cressida stopped being a young teen and beca sothing else entirely. A vicious slaughterer. Her focus and speed were frightening.
At once she was flat on the ground, one eye locked into the optical scope.
In that mont, I felt sothing shift around her. She was drawing in energy, a lot of it, and the only reason I could tell so quickly was because even now, I was still consciously using Enhanced Movent. That was, after all, how I was efficiently managing the weight bracelets.
’I wonder how that works.’
It felt like Cressida had just used her essence to do sothing, or summon sothing, but there was no visible spirit around us.
Instead, I focused on the gun.
’It has to be there...’
Milo turned to with a polite smile playing at the corner of his lips.
"You might want to step back for this... and cover your ears."
He was stepping back as he spoke, and so were the others. They had placed their hands over their ears the mont they gave Cressida all the space she needed. I obeyed too.
Barely a second after I covered my ears, a terrible thundering sound tore through my eardrums anyway. The ground vibrated viciously and the winds themselves seed to shatter, torn apart by the sheer force of the recoil.
But that was just the close effect.
As Cressida fired her agent of destruction, a vicious thin cantaloupe line pierced through the vast open air, straight towards the northeastern area of the gate.
What followed was an even greater explosion that rattled the gate to its very bones.
The place she had targeted was turned inside out by just one shot. Trees wrenched from the ground with the ferocious power of the shockwave. The earth itself exploded and tore apart for over a hundred ters in every direction.
I didn’t need confirmation. Anything that had been alive in that area would not live to see another day.
The mont the damage settled, Milo slapped his palm against his face.
"Goodness Cress, I didn’t ask you to blow up the whole gate!"
She rose to her knee and scratched the side of her face, a guilty smile tugging at her lips.
"I got a little bit too excited. Pochu didn’t listen." She looked more sorry now.
Milo stared at her for a few seconds. One could tell he’d had enough of her already. He sighed and turned away.
"Don’t worry, I will take care of twelve."
My gaze lingered on Cress for a mont. I certainly saw her in a better and more ferocious light now.
But more than that, I looked forward to Milo too.
I turned my head toward him, expectant. A book appeared out of thin air, more like a grimoire, with eyes and a mouth on the front cover. Its pages were flying while the expression on the book was grinning. The wind rose, forming a vortex around Milo, and with ti the vortex kept increasing.
I could tell... sothing really bad was coming.
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