- Unknown Village, Avalon Empire’s territory–

- The Church of Light main prayer hall -

- 2240hrs, local time -

The luminescent blue light from the moon shone through the stained windows of the hall and the uneasy metallic smell of blood from the dead bodies that were pooling on the wooden floor. The two mercenaries were standing still, not even moving an inch. Yet, they have their firearms up and have their eyes through the low-light setting of the holographic sights equipped on their weapons onto the former nun who turned into something that’s not human.

“What do we do now??” Coyote asks, still aiming down his sight. His eyes looking at Jaeger, who isn’t trembling like he is. The monster in front of them kept changing glances between him and Jaeger, its extra arms were connected to one of the corpses and seemingly syphoning something as it was glowing in a faint coloured light which changed as it pierced another corpse.

Jaeger has his left hand press the button of his Push to talk on his earprotection. “Point, this is 1-1, you got eyes on the Unidentified inside the church?”

The sound was static for a moment, though, Point’s heavy Irish tone pierced through his headphones. “Which window?”

“First and second window, at the east side of the rows.”

It was silent for several seconds, and Coyote’s cold sweat started to pour down They were now in some sort of stare-down with the monster, it gave him some sort of feeling of anxiety. “I got no visual with thermals. Though, I could see something that looks like an elongated arm”, Point answered, grumbling about how his thermal scope couldn’t identify the main target.

“Hold fire until I say so”

“Aye sir”

Jaeger slowly took some steps forward after he held the handguard of his rifle firmly again. “Jaeger? What are you doing??!” cried Coyote with a low volume of his sound.

“Oi jack**s!” shouted the daredevil mercenary as he fired two shots. The monster turned her gaze towards him after it screeched in pain, he could see its eyes staring daggers at him. “Looks like this thing still understands speech”

“My a** it understands, you’re just taunting it!”

As he slowly took a step closer, someone suddenly startled Coyote from behind as he tapped his shoulder. It was one of the priests who were not part of this church since they already listed the members. His clothes were completely tattered and his left arm was heavily injured. “I don’t know who you are but tell your friend that he needs to get further away from it. From the looks of it, she tried to use the spell to make herself into a [fallen angel] which will drain one’s mana and soul”

“What? Fallen angel??”

“Yes, and it takes an insurmountable amount of mana to turn into one… which is why I came here from our headquarters to solve this mess they make. But it looks like another organization has the same mind and took several steps ahead of us”

“Well… we do plan this earlier than expected. regardless, who are you?”

The priest glanced back at the monster, “I’ll tell most of it later, but right now. We need to settle the matter in front of us first”. Though his eyes grew wide as the monster flared its jaws widely.

“EVERYONE! COVER YOUR EARS!!”

The priest did what he shouted while the two mercenaries didn’t as they were confused why. On the floor, a green-coloured magic circle manifested beneath the monster. It then let out the same high-pitched scream that shattered the glasses, but this time it was far more powerful that it blew the whole upper construction and the walls of the Church away. The two managed to maintain their footing since they used their thrust-vectoring side skirt jets to counter the force that the monster’s spell gave. All three of them managed to survive, but unfortunately, the monster was now agitated, flaring its main arms and extra arms which now turned into something razor sharp.

“Point! Now!”

BANG!

A soft thundering sound from the run-down clock tower was heard and the monster’s head was blown to pieces. The air cracked as the bullet whizzed through the exploded head and ricocheted the ground, flying elsewhere. “Is it dead?” asked Coyote, unsure as it looked like the monster was standing still without any movement. Though, his question was soon to be answered as the head that burst into pieces of flesh, regenerates starting from its neck.

The priest was quite surprised that they could deal that much damage to the monster, even though it regenerated its destroyed head quickly. “Fallen Angels could only be defeated if we drain out their mana supply, though, it looks like it has finished feeding itself. Fortunately for us, this one is a lesser fallen angel and-” The priest’s words were cut off as Coyote screamed at his squad leader who was now mere meters away from the creature that was flaring its arms and claws, preparing to attack.

“s**t! Jaeger!“

“I know! I’ll contact 60k! We need to retreat as soon as possible!” he pressed his PTT again, contacting Point first. “Point! Egress from your position as soon you run out of your ammo in your current mag! Meet us on the LZ! I’ll try to hold it as long as I can!”

“What!? Are you f**king stupid?! You’re going to get yourself killed! You don’t even know what that thing is capable of”

“I know that! But we’ve already planted the explosives! And we got 5 minutes left to get out of here before the whole cave and the village crumbled down!”. Point went silent for a moment, before answering with simple words. “Wilco, I’ll retreat to the LZ.”

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Jaeger glanced behind his shoulder, looking straight at Coyote and the Priest. “Coyote, escort this person to the transport, we might be able to cooperate with him. I’ll contact 60K. Now go!!”

Coyote nodded and requested the Priest to follow him. As he walked away, he saw more flesh blown away by Point’s sniper fire whilst Jaeger contacted 60K as he shot some part of the extra hands of the monster. The two then leapt above the wall, boosted by Coyote’s exoskeleton’s side skirt jets while Coyote himself held the priest as they jumped. On the other hand, 60k suddenly rushed out with a little girl in his hands and a boy who was following behind as he kept shooting his shotgun down the hidden stairwell. “S**t! S**t!!” he cursed as he shot 3 more.

Jaeger noticed that his other teammate was shooting frantically down the hidden stairs, pressing his Push To talk, he asked 60k’s condition. “I thought you managed to lead them all, where’s the other kids that were with you?”

“Something just attacked us right after you contacted me. I- I don’t know how but thermals aren’t picking it up and it… p-pulled the other kids and devoured them!” Jaeger could hear 60k’s voice slightly cracking as fear was the only thing that 60K felt right now.

“S**t!” Jaeger quickly turned around and lifted the boy with his left arm, while he had his right hand still holding onto the grip of his rifle. “what are you waiting for!? Let's bust outta here!”

Point’s sniper fire died out as he ran back to the transport craft slightly earlier than them. The two while carrying the children leapt the same way as Coyote did and ran through the dimly lit forest. As they kept running, Jaeger stopped for a moment as they met Point sitting on the tree aiming towards where they were coming from, letting down the boy. “Kid, follow the guy that led you the way out earlier, me and the guy there will cover your retreat. Whatever you do, just run, don’t look back, understood?”

The boy nodded and quickly held 60k’s hand and ran alongside him. As they were out of their sight, the two mercenaries now mounting a defence, slowly breathed to calm themselves down. “I thought you were going to stay there, did you piss off your pants there mate?” Point jokingly asks through the radio.

“Oh piss off ya bloody stale fish, we’re in the middle of a life and death here. Also, I’m a merc, I don’t want to waste my life this easily, I change strategies according to the flow of the battle”

Point could feel that Jaeger was rolling his eyes right now, and yet, his squad leader was right about the thing mentioning their job. “I guess you made a fair point there”. He agreed while slowly nodding. Their chat was interrupted as they heard some ruffling from the bushes in front of them. Both rapidly aimed at that certain bush, though what came out of it wasn’t what they expected…

“Huh, it’s just a rabbit with a horn,” Point said in relief, though, his relief soon faded as something bigger jumped out and devoured that said rabbit. It was the [Fallen angel], piercing its razor-sharp index claw through the abdomen of the horned rabbit, tearing its intestines and pulling out its mana stone, devouring it with its mouth of its grotesque head.

“Engage!!”

Jaeger shouted, followed by fully automatic fire from his rifle. All of his bullets pierced the monster’s skin, ripping its bones here and there and severing one of its legs. As Jaeger proceeded to reload, Point continued firing with his DMR covering his squad leader. The monster came to a stop in its movement to regenerate itself. As Jaeger started firing again with single shots this time, a mass of running corpses suddenly appeared behind the monster. rushing past the merc that tried to intercept them.

“crap! Some of them went through! Point, we need to fall back! There’s a hoard of those zombie-like things coming from the direction of the village!” Jaeger also informed 60K through his radio that fast-moving hostiles were moving toward him at inhuman speeds.

Point nodded and activated his side skirt jets, boosting himself far enough above the treelines and away from their defensive positions, followed by Jaeger after he threw a frag grenade at the monster. As the explosion of the grenade resided, the two concentrated on balancing themselves during their short flight. Luckily enough they were supported by their onboard AI support. However, Ofnir earlier stated that he’s way superior to the AI support that’s installed on Jaeger’s subordinate’s exoskeletons.

Their retreat was halted as they suddenly heard continuous suppressed gunfire and a scream from a boy. The two looked at each other as they just hoped that their fears were not going to be true, diving back down to the dense forest below. But alas, right as they landed, they could see the bad feeling they had become a reality. The boy they saved was being eaten alive by the zombie-like creatures, while they saw from afar as 60K sprinted away with the girl crying in his arms while he kept raining down suppressing fire with his submachine gun onto the monsters who were chasing him. killing them in the process.

However, it can’t be said the same for the boy. Those things chewed his flesh and ripped one of his limbs with its abnormally strong upper limbs as if it were a knife through butter. Jaeger didn’t hesitate and shot the first two zombies in the chest and their head, followed by Point who shot the last one. The zombie creatures fall to a massive thud to the ground as they die from their shots. The two Mercs then get close to the boy, who has his condition they deem hopeless to be saved and quickly make their way to the transport. Along the way running back, they felt a subtle shake on the ground. The two know that the explosive they planted already detonated and increased their running speed back to the transport craft.

As they could hear a faint jet engine noise in front of them, all of a sudden, a hail of gunfire whizzed in between and above their heads, missing mere millimetres. “Hold fire!! Hold fire!!! Friendlies!!” exclaimed Point with all his lungs while waving.

The series of gunfire stopped as they finally saw a small open field with the aircraft sitting in the middle. Coyote is mounting its machine gun on a simple foxhole he did with some unused plastic rags filled with dirt as he lay low to the ground. “Move your a**es! Pilot’s about to take off!” he shouted as he continued firing towards the treelines behind them. The two then quickly went inside the aircraft from the ramp behind it while Coyote kept firing.

The aircraft’s engine spooled up rapidly and started ascending. The priest was rather panicked not only because it started hovering, but also because Coyote wasn’t with them. “Wait! What about your friend!? He’s still outside!”

“Relax, he’ll be with us”

Outside, the Fallen Angel, along with its army of manifested corpses. Stood on the edge of the field. It is tilting its head as if it was confused. With its deep yet gurgling voice, it asks the man who stopped firing his machine gun. “n̶̡̎o̴͔͌t̷͓̕ ̷͍́m̸͍͐á̴͜g̸͉͐ǐ̴͚c̸͎̈́.̵̏͜.̵̹͋.̵̢̈́ ̷̗̀w̷̏ͅh̴̗͑a̴̗͑t̷̲̀ ̸̛͕ḭ̷͗s̷̛̯ ̵̜͗t̶̝́ẖ̴̅a̵̹͋ț̷̏ ̸̪̚p̶̟̃o̴̗̐w̵̪͛e̸̯͊r̶̟̿!̵͈̐?̷̱̆!̷̝́”

“Oh, this? It’s what we call… jet wash~” The Condor’s cloaking system slowly dissipates, revealing its metallic aerodynamic body, its turret aimed at the Fallen angel who sneered at it. The pilots whistled right before the co-pilot pulled the trigger, “Get some!”

BRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTT

The sound of the rotary cannon fiercely raining down incendiary rounds echoed throughout the skies along with the violent screeches of pain that came out from the monster. As the turret kept firing, one of the blast doors was on one of the sides of the craft and Coyote boost jumped toward the said opened door. The turret died down as their target was reduced to chunks of flesh. “Alpha lead, this is Alpha flight, the unknown entity is neutralized. Proceeding to the next AO”

“Copy, that was a good work”

The transport aircraft slowly ascended to a higher altitude, closing the opened door and switching to conventional flight. As they quickly left, they could see the village. What was once the village now lies in ruins as it got swallowed as the supporting pillars of the catacombs underground were destroyed by the explosives that were planted by them. “Not even those creatures could survive that... " remarked Point, as he sighed in relief.

The merc agreed, “Yeah… that aside…” Jaeger glanced toward the priest who was being given a bottle of water by 60K. “All we have now is just questions on what was that…”