Samal noticed a glow coming from the wall on the right side of the hallway, pointing his rifle to it. One of those monsters was in full view, familiar but yet completely different. It’s size was what threw the familiarity off.
‘The wall! Right side!!!’ He yelled.
Ethan quickly took a look and started firing but the magic coming from the others was making it difficult; it didn’t have time to shoot back the squad because it couldn’t stay still for long as Ethan was shooting at it just in time.
‘Caleb hit it with an explosive round.’ Ethan raised his voice.
‘Oran, give me one explosive.’ The young soldier got the rail cannon that was on his back.
He quickly put his backpack on the floor, opened it, and got one explosive round, trowing to Caleb in the sequence. After that, he stood up and took a shot at another creature that was approaching their position, hitting it but it didn’t kill it; he just made it take cover behind one of the piles of rubble.
Caleb put the round on the cannon and, with confidence in his eyes, aimed at the now multiple creatures on the wall trying to flank the squad on the right side and fired. The explosion echoed and it felt like someone gave a punch to the soldiers chests due to the proximity but the creatures were engulfed in flames. The explosion made some of their limbs fly toward the soldiers positions.
Egor looked around and saw that the number of creatures coming their way from the darkness was increasing; the fact that they needed two shots to put one down was starting to show its advantage.
‘Fallback!!! Use the grenades; they are bunching up together.’ Egor threw a grenade at the approaching monsters.
‘Command, this is 3-3; we encountered heavy resistance, retreating now,over.’ Kurt spoke on the radio.
As they all go back, Caleb, using his rail cannon, fires against the monsters coming on the wall to the left. The explosion illuminated again a large area. Ethan used this opportunity to see how many there still were; he was shocked to see that still there were a lot of creatures on the back and there he found where he would throw his grenade.
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The other soldiers of the squad weren’t behind and showered the creatures with the explosives; there was no reaction from them. As soon as the grenades started to explode one after the other, flashes of light illuminated the darkness around the creatures, showing their faces of pain as their limbs exploded and their attempt to find cover explosed them to the blue shots coming from Egor squad rifles.
Not everything was so good; some squadmembers were behind cover being treated by Asher, his arm burned by a fireball, and Asher was cutting the vest of another because of the blood getting off their back. He was so highly concentrated on treating the soldier that he didn’t notice Ethan pulling him by the collar from the back.
‘Let’s go! We need to move Asher, Now!!!.’ Ethan shouted.
‘Ah, ok…’ He looked at Ethan disoriented.
Asher helped the soldier with the back exposed get up with the help of the other burned soldier and moved back, being coved by Ethan that landed a shot right on the head of another creature. The light show continued with projectiles coming in both directions.
‘They are different but behave just like orks and goblins.’ Egor thought to himself.
Even though the creatures were advancing and pressing his squad, their numbers were dwindling fast, but it wasn’t enough, as attacks came from complete darkness beyond the reach of their flashlights; there were injured men on his squad and they were cornered.
His only concern now was that the cover they were using as they retreated was getting less and more spacious between one another. With that in mind, he looked behind him, using his flashlight to illuminate the last debris they could use as cover.
‘Command want us to retreat back to the gate, sir.' Kurt looked Egor while having his radio next to his ear.
‘Negative, we can't; we will be in the open.’ Egor pointed his rifle to the open hallway.
‘Negative command, there is no cover from here to the gate, over.’ Kurt sholted with the radio next to his mouth because of the noise of the battle.
The battle raged. As Ethan was moving between covers, trying to reinforce where he thought it was needed, he saw Oran run away behind a broken pillar and get hit by an ice lance right in the chest, making him flee back and hit the fallen piece of a wall.
‘I’m not dead? Argh!’ Oran touched his chest in desperation, feeling pain in his back.
Ethan pulled Oran behind cover and looked at his chest. He then smiled at the young soldier and slapped his cheek gently two times, leaving him completely lost in words for a moment.
‘The rest of the platoon is entering now, sir; command said we just need to hold.’ Kurt covered his head for a moment as an ice lance knocked some rocks on his helmet.
‘This is it, boys.’ Egor shouted as he looked to the sides, ‘Give everything you got; we need to wait for reinforcements.’ He took a shot at one creature that was trying to advance.
Caleb was tired because he was having to carry the rounds on the backpack Oran left behind and the rail cannon but that didn’t make him fail to prevent the creatures from using the walls to flank his cornered squad with another shot to the left before retreating further back, evading the numerous magic projectiles focused at him.
‘It almost got me.’ Caleb hid behind a rock.
He was feeling more and more tired, leaning his head against the rock and there was a familiar worm running on his arm. There was no need for him to look at his injury; with all of his strength left, he just shoulted.
‘Medic!!!’ He breathed heavily.