Ducking behind a collapsed tree, Thomel narrowly avoided a stone-tipped javelin.

Hearing the sound of gunfire, he popped out of cover and joined his colleagues in suppressing the brutes.

The Casco bullets drilled into the hideous ogre band, spilling their thick, viscous blood onto the grassy floor.

Not a single one of the deadly trio fell down or so much as stumbled back though; their leather-like skin and makeshift armour wouldn’t have been an issue by itself, but their defences had been boosted tremendously by some boon or gift.

Still, they had to protect their eyes. Besides, Thomel and his teammates weren’t meant to kill them anyway, just keep them busy.

Blindly reaching up for one of the javelins on his back, one of the ogres threw it wildly towards Thomel’s general direction.

Guided by pure luck or by the system's will, it flew right past his neck, missing him only by a few inches.

That was all the encouragement he needed to hurriedly fire the last few bullets in his magazine, then duck back behind cover to reload. He even backed up a few inches just in case the javelins had enough penetration power to burst through the tree.

It seemed like his comrades had the same idea, as the volley of bullets halved in a matter of seconds.

But that didn’t mean their firepower had decreased in the slightest. In fact, it had just significantly picked up, as a loud boom signalled the firing of the anti-material cannon.

Thomel smiled faintly but that's when he felt a slight vibration in the ground. Instantly he began hurriedly scurrying away from the collapsed tree and into a nearby thorny bush.

The vibrations picked up in intensity, and Thomel turned around in time to see one of the miniature giants trip over the collapsed tree, falling over it like how someone would fall over a stick.

Instinctually, he put his hands out in front of himself and opened his eyes, landing on the ground and seeing exactly where Thomel was.

Thomel brought his gun up and sprayed a burst sideways, over the fiend’s eyes.

Permanently blinded but with rage still burning white-hot, the ogre snarled and began to pick himself up. Thomel kept firing, but he had neither the bullets nor the stopping power to deal with this threat. Then everything got worse when his rifle, inevitably, ran empty.

Before he could reload or attempt to flee, the ogre’s head exploded.

Toppling to the ground, the corpse slammed down with a large thunk while Thomel stared wide-eyed at it.

Snapping out of his daze, he ejected his spent magazine and jammed in a new one, cautiously standing upright to help suppress the last ogre.

The final ogre's skin was covered in dozens of puncture wounds. The tarry blood that they all had coated his entire body.

Just before Thomel could open fire on him, the ogre’s neck was obliterated, and his thick head tumbled to the ground.

A multitude of cheers rang out in response to his death. all things considered, this had gone rather well.

The four-strong party of ogres had been wiped out without a single casualty; the thought brought a smile to Thomel’s face.

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A smile that was promptly wiped out when one of the cheers morphed into a scream.

Looking behind himself, he saw Nax impaled on a tree, an arrow as thick as an average man's forearm holding him in place.

Chaos erupted as the bushes and trees from where the arrow had come were shredded by a rapid influx of bullets.

He quickly looked over towards the source of the attack, but since he couldn’t spot anything, he chose to rush towards the rest of his team rather than blindly firing.

Darting behind thin trees and sidestepping mossy stones, he returned to the fold just in time to see another one of his teammates get picked off by an arrow.

The sheer force behind the projectile made it spear through the elderly woman, turning her into a shish kebab.

A loud boom sounded out moments later and was answered by a wrathful cry. The heavy weapons must have scored a glancing hit.

“Oh.” A voice muttered beside Thomel. He glanced over to see Cale camouflaged and hidden thanks to his Ghillie suit, lying prone on the foliage-covered ground.

“Retreat!” Cale yelled out, as he sprung to his feet.

Thomel didn’t ask any questions, he just followed close behind as Cale began to madly dash away.

They weren’t the only ones either; other members of their team were shouting out expletives and crying out variations of “fall back!.”

His fear only grew when he realised just how much faster his boon was making him.

Hunted Hunter had been activated, and it was going into overtime with how much energy it was pumping into him.

This had only happened one other time so far, and that had resulted in the near destruction of the entire contingent he was a part of.

With his improved physical abilities, he overtook Cale and began to lead while the gaunt man followed him.

A sudden cloud of smoke erupted in front of him, and the man-made fog quickly expanded as other people threw their smoke grenades forwards.

Thomel joined them and unhooked the two on his belt, hurling one forward and holding onto the second for half a minute longer before also throwing it forward.

No more shots rang out; it was just a pure, desperate sprint to get away. Thankfully the smoke seemed to work, as what he suspected was an aggarten lost their trail.

That didn’t stop him or Cale from running as hard as they could. From the corners of his eyes he could see other members of his cohort doing the same.

“'ll be peaceful, she says. Hang out in a base for a week or two, she says." He panted in-between breaths.

He only relaxed his pace when his boon faded. The others were still going strong though. After a momentary decrease in speed, he pulled out one of the stims and injected himself, negating any sense of fatigue he had so that he could keep up with his colleagues.

He was going to wake up in the morning in horrendous pain, but there was no way he could get everyone to lay off the speed, so it was just something he’d had to do.

When the environment finally transitioned from pale-yellow greenery to burnt trees and ashy bushes, it was a source of great relief to everyone.

It also made it easier to figure out where other people were since the Ghillie suits stuck out like a sore thumb here.

Naturally drifting together, the depleted team arrived at the Treey outpost together.

It’d been named that back when this whole thing was all a joke and not some minor war.

Seeing their sorry state and noticing they hadn’t come back with the same number of people they left with, the gate guards opened the frontal blast doors and ushered them inside with uncharacteristic kindness.

“Incoming?” One of them asked Hery with a concerned tone.

“Don’t know.” their team leader replied curtly.

The guard grunted, then gestured at them to get further inside the complex. No one needed to be told twice.

“Acceptable losses for such an intriguing situation?” Cale murmured just behind Thomel.

“What?” Thomel said, turning around in equal measure shock and disgust.

“Contemplating out loud, apologies.” Was Cale’s calm response.

Thomel just let it be, he was too exhausted to bother starting up an argument or pressing Cale.

He didn’t doubt that while he would see poor Nax impaled on that tree in his dreams, Cale would be dreaming of some arcane formulas and cold greatness. That is, if Cale dreamt at all.