"Brother Carver, some... thing is approaching."
Aya tried to make sense of what she was observing. The man was a bit on the heavy side, with unkempt dark-brown hair and a shaggy beard. A deep scar ran down the right side of his face, from his forehead to his cheek. He was waving his arms and shouting, but his hands appeared to be made of bones, with sharp claws. He wore ragged, torn clothes that did not look like anything produced in The Arc.
Running by his side was a skeleton clad in heavy, shredded, and dented plate armor, carrying a large blade like a knight that crawled out of the depths of hell itself. Behind them were two other skeletons, neither of which appeared to have ever been human. The empty eye sockets of the skeletons glowed with a sickly green light.
"Prepare for combat." Carver commanded after fixing his gaze at the approaching figures.
"Hello!" The man continued shouting while waving his arms.
"Brother Carver?" Aya had never questioned Carver's orders before, but while the approaching man had an odd appearance, he did not seem hostile.
"It's an abomination."
"A-abomination?!" All color drained from Jael's face.
Aya was not certain she agreed with Carver's assessment. Abominations were people who had squandered God's blessing and become mad with power, utterly corrupted and twisted. While she had never personally encountered such a being, the man in the distance did not appear to show any hostility. In fact, he seemed happy and excited.
"Slay the filthy abomination!" However, Carver had already made up his mind. He adjusted the holographic sight on his pulse rifle and pulled the trigger.
The muzzle flashed and roared as a high velocity slug was launched towards the center mass of the odd-looking man.
'Fast!'
The strange man dashed sideways so swiftly that to anyone not empowered by God's blessing, he would appear as a blur. Despite being tutored since childhood and serving in the field for eight years in Arcturus City's military and the Order, Aya had to acknowledge that she was not as fast.
If nothing else, that person possessed very dangerous abilities, and abominations were deranged, often unaware that they had been corrupted.
Carver and Jael opened fire as the man and the three skeletons darted and dodged.
"Stop! Why are you attacking!?"
The stranger pleaded while bolting for cover.
Aya unholstered her pistol. When the strange man dashed away from the incoming fire again, she utilized her own superhuman speed and sprinted after him. Raising her free arm, she clenched her fist, and clear, crystallized ice formed around the man's legs mid-motion.
'No... not a man. An abomination,' Aya thought, steeling herself for what was to come.
The abomination tumbled forward, crashing on the ground, groaning.
The three skeletons were charging at Aya's group, but that was fine. They were tied to the abomination's dark power and would surely cease to exist once he was defeated.
Aya swiftly closed the distance to the abomination and aimed her pistol at the corrupted entity's head.
The abomination was kneeling, with conjured ice still encasing his feet. He stared at Aya, all wide-eyed and seemingly startled by her suddenly being right next to him. When their gazes met, all Aya could see in his green eyes was fear and desperation.
'God, I pray that I am doing the right thing. If this man is innocent, please forgive me and embrace his soul into your eternal kingdom.'
Aya exhaled and then pulled the trigger.
***
'I'm dead.'
That was all Noah could think as he focused on the pistol aimed at his head. He recognized the weapon - a Nova NP-2 Pulse Pistol, the same model he was issued when he served in the army. From this range, the slug would barely even slow down when hitting a human, turning the brain into mush and leaving a fist-sized hole in the back of the head.
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Noah froze. It was as though time had crawled to a halt. He wanted to explain that it was all just a huge misunderstanding. However, the jarring shift from the elation of believing he was being rescued to the terror of being hunted was so unexpected that Noah was caught completely off guard.
Just as he parted his lips in order to plead the young woman to stop and listen, the muzzle pointed at Noah's head thundered.
"Ouch..."
'It's over… she killed me. Wait a second… ouch?'
Since his hands were clad in the clawed bone gauntlets, Noah rubbed his forearm against his brow, smearing it with a bit of blood.
'That was a 10mm caliber high-velocity slug, and it couldn't penetrate my skull...'
As Noah turned his gaze back to the woman who had just attacked him, he saw the same realization dawning upon her. Her expression shifted from steely resolve to fear.
Her reaction made sense. From his time in the army, Noah knew the procedures for dealing with monsters too tough for light weapons: either send in heavy ordnance or a squad of powerful, elite Touched. As far as he could tell, there were none of those around.
Noah's ears were ringing, accompanied by a throbbing headache from the impact, as though someone had smashed a sledgehammer into his forehead. His assailant's eyes were darting frantically between Steve and Claws, who were still charging forward. Noah wanted to deescalate the situation, but when the young woman turned her gaze back to him, all he could see was unwavering determination.
"Wait!"
She ignored him and adjusted her aim slightly.
'My eye?'
Since Noah's skull was impossible for her to penetrate, the young woman intended to bypass it by targeting his squishier eye. Her Touched abilities may not have been particularly outstanding, but her battle senses were well-honed and sharp. In a split second, she adjusted to the situation and devised a new strategy.
Noah rolled to the side just as the follower of the Blazing Path opened fire. The projectile grazed his temple, leaving a bloody gash. He continued rolling on the cold, barren ground, smashing the ice still encased around his feet. The young woman kept him in her sights, pulling the trigger again and again. One slug pierced Noah's shoulder, another hit his back. Although the projectiles couldn't puncture his internal organs, it still hurt like hell.
Noah lacked the battle sense honed by years of training and experience that the woman assaulting him possessed. However, in the span of merely a few weeks, he had faced more life-and-death predicaments and slain more monsters than most Touched would in years. His growth in power had been meteoric. What Noah now discovered he did possess was an almost primal fight-or-flight instinct.
Retreat was not an option. His opponent would continue turning him into a pincushion from range and had Touched abilities that could immobilize him. Before Noah was even aware of what he was doing, he used the momentum of his roll to leap onto his feet and lunge at the woman.
Seemingly expecting it, the Order's warrior leaped backwards to maintain a safe distance from Noah. She raised her free arm and attempted to conjure an ice wall between them, but Noah dashed forward far more swiftly than she had anticipated.
Reaching the wall as it was still forming, Noah swung with his bone gauntlet, striking the ice while advancing. The incomplete barrier shattered, sending crystallized shards flying everywhere and obscuring his view. When Noah emerged from the cloud of icy fragments, his eyes widened in shock.
The claws of Noah's gauntlet pierced through the young woman's armor, right through the Sacred Flame emblem, and plunged into her chest.
She gasped, her green eyes studying the claws that had stabbed her, before meeting Noah's gaze. The shock on her face mirrored Noah's. Her fingers loosened, and the pulse pistol slipped from her grasp, falling to the ground.
The young woman's knees buckled, and Noah quickly moved to support her with his free arm, gently easing her to the ground.
"Oh... oh no... why? Why did you attack me?" Noah's voice quivered.
"I... I'm scared. I want to go home." A tear trickled down the woman's pale face. "M... mommy... I want to..." A sickening gurgling sound cut her off before she spat blood and coughed.
Noah heard the battle raging around him and sensed what was happening through his connection to his minions, but he was too overwhelmed to make any decisions, focusing instead on the injured woman.
Claws charged at the older, scarred man, only to be struck by an explosive blast. The younger warrior of the Order, appearing no older than a boy, emptied his pulse rifle's magazine at Steve, but the undead guardian continued to advance.
The boy seemed to have lost all semblance of discipline, tossing his rifle aside as he fled. In his panic, he tripped on a rock and crashed to the ground. Steve marched forward while the young one crawled backwards, pleading for help until the fallen warrior thrust his Greatsword into the boy's chest.
At the same time, Claws recovered from the explosion and renewed its charge at the veteran warrior, zigzagging to evade the hail of gunfire. The skeletal reptile leaped into the air and slashed at its opponent's throat, slicing it open. Despite bleeding profusely, the old warrior continued firing at Claws from point-blank range, chipping away at the undead reptile's bones.
Claws slashed again, this time severing the old veteran's head, sending it rolling across the ground, leaving a crimson trail. The warrior's body collapsed on its back, blood gushing from its neck, slowly seeping into the barren earth.
Noah was aware of it all, but too distracted in his desperate attempt to save the woman he had mortally wounded. He barely noticed the two tiny wisps of essence hovering from the slain men and absorbing into him.
The woman's breaths were shallow and labored. Her complexion was ghostly pale, and each time she inhaled, a horrific wet noise escaped her lips, as though she was choking on her own blood.
The skeletal ape stood helplessly by Noah's side, unsure how to help.
"First aid! There has to be a first aid kit around!"
For the first time since this whole mess began, Noah commanded his minions, ordering them to search through the belongings of the people he had unwillingly vanquished, for a first aid kit.
"Just hold on for a bit longer! I'll patch you right up... please."
However, when Noah turned his gaze back to the woman, her eyes were already glazed and vacant.
"No, no, no!"
Noah began tearing off her chest armor, hoping to resuscitate the young woman. Yet, a sickly green, shimmering cloud emerged from her body and absorbed into Noah's.