The three of us rejoined the rest of the group and I found we lost another Merc from their attempt at clearing the corridor.

Looking at the corridor, I found at least twenty or so thugs lying dead on the ground so I guess this wasn't that bad of a conclusion.

Under that guy's lead, we moved past the heavy metal door and the last guy pulled it shut behind him.

Just as I was thinking that it was a little wasted to leave behind the loot dropped by the dead thugs, Amber joined my side and started checking on me.

"Are you hurt, Tera?! Where does it hurt?"

I raised an eyebrow at her, "Since when did you become my mother? I'm fine, Amber, as you can clearly see."

"Nggghhh! I wanted to go help you instead! Why did I have to be stuck helping them clear the tunnel?"

Lea appeared beside her, "Didn't I already say that you are helping Captain as well by clearing out the enemies as fast as possible?"

"Mggghh… That is true…"

"Heads up people! We're not in the clear yet!"

I looked up to see that we had reached the bottom of a stairwell and there were at least several dozen flights of stairs leading up to our destination.

Oh god… This is going to be quite a climb…

A loud metallic groan came from behind us and we turned to see the door slowly being pulled outwards.

"Move it!" The leader yelled, already running up the stairs ahead of us.

The rest of us followed behind him while the client was being half pushed and half dragged by the other bodyguards up the stairs.

As we reached the second landing of the stairs, several bullets ricocheted off the steps and we quickly took cover while raising our weapons to point above us.

A few thugs were trying to shoot at us from the stairs above but they could not get a good enough angle to land hits on us.

Some of us fired back which made the thugs take cover behind the railing but no one managed to land hit.

We did take advantage of the brief lull in shooting to climb even higher up the stairs.

By the fourth landing, I could see that some of us were quite winded and the client did not seem to be in that great of a shape either.

I expected myself to at least feel a dull ache in my legs but surprisingly, I felt fine.

Amber and Lea also did not seem that worn out either so I guess these guys must not work out very often.

The thugs above us started firing again and this time one of the bodyguards got hit in the shoulder. He had a shield on him so that prevented him from the shot and he reacted instantly by shooting his pistol back at the one who fired at him.

There was a cry coming from above followed by several loud clangs before a dead body dropped down from above to smash into the railing on our level, continuing its fall until it landed on the bottom floor.

Oof… The fall actually split open that guy's skull… Eww…

We climbed a few more flights of stairs and a few of the Mercs were actually panting and struggling now.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

I was covering our advance by firing my shotgun up at the thugs and I managed to hit two or three of them with my pellets though I wasn't sure if that killed or only wounded them.

That was when we heard shouting coming from below and we realised that the thugs from the outside had caught up to us.

"Move! Move! Don't let ourselves get pincered!"

The other Mercs hauled their asses and started climbing again, most of them using the railing handholds to pull themselves forward.

Amber, Lea and I ended up being the vanguard as we ascended the steps in front of the group, covering our group's advance up the stairs.

As we reached the next flight of stairs and I was about to start climbing, three thugs suddenly appeared on the landing above ours and brandished their rifles.

Amber immediately pulled me back right before several bullets whizzed past my face.

She then spun around and covered me with her body while using her free hand to fire her pistol three times.

Two thugs fell and rolled down the stairs while the third thug managed to dive out of the way and avoided getting shot.

I spun in Amber's arms and our position switched, allowing me to thrust my shotgun in the direction of the thug right before I pulled the trigger.

The blast sent the thug flying back to crash into the railing, his feet flipping over before he fell towards the ground floor, screaming the entire way down.

Guess the people at the top got impatient and thought they could get a few of us by coming to us instead.

We continued forward, this time a bit more cautiously as we expected more of those thugs to appear to stop us.

We could not take our time either since the thugs on the ground floor were still trying to catch up to us.

Chancing a peek behind, I found most of our party exhausted from the climb and a few of them practically crawling up the steps at the back.

The good news was that the thugs did not fare any better and were in almost the same state as them.

More thugs came rushing down from the stairs above but we were prepared this time, all three of us shooting our guns almost as quickly as they appeared before we stepped over their corpses to advance.

We were an entire flight of stairs ahead of our group and the thugs seemed to be getting a bit more desperate to stop us now. One of them even tried to lunge at me from the top of the stairs to tackle me to the ground.

The only thing he got was a shotgun blast to the face before his faceless body crashed onto the ground below.

Geez, just what the hell did our client do to this gang that they were willing to literally throw their lives away to try and stop us from leaving?

I didn't get to think much before the sound of something revving up came from below.

I peeked over the railing to see their power armour guy pointing his minigun straight up at the bottom of the stairs.

A storm of bullets came from his minigun and I only just managed to duck away from the railing before I got eviscerated by them.

Another Merc wasn't as lucky as the minigun literally blew his head off and his headless body rolled down the steps at the back.

A few of the thugs managed to catch up to us from below but Lea seemed to have spotted them before they reached us so she was already crouching down with her rifle charging up her shot just as they appeared.

They only had time to widen their eyes before Lea's coil rifle fired, the bullet piercing the first guy's chest before coming out from his back to pierce the second guy in the neck.

Then it exited his spine to find its way through the third thug's eye before finally leaving through the back of his skull.

The three thugs fell like dominoes and the last of them flipped over the railing to fall towards the ground floor.

We had to stay away from the railing as the guy with the power armour was still shooting at us with the minigun, aiming to catch anyone unfortunate enough to get into his killzone.

Looking up, we were only a few more flights of stairs away from the top but there were even more thugs waiting for us up there, all of them seemingly content to hunker down and wait for us now.

I took a moment to switch the rounds inside my shotgun to slug rounds before continuing forward with Amber.

Just as we reached the second last flight of stairs, someone leapt out from the group of thugs above and started running towards us.

I thought it was just another idiot trying his luck at catching us off guard and brought up my shotgun in preparation to shoot him down as well.

But just as he reached the landing above us, his figure disappeared and reappeared above me, a pistol in his hand and pointed straight at me.

Shit, he has the same mod as the guy I killed outside?!

I was stuck staring at the barrel of the gun pointed at my face when the thug was suddenly flung away to crash into the railing.

He only had time to let out a scream before his head got blasted off by the hail of bullets from the minigun coming from below.

As his body slumped back to the ground, I realised that he had several other bullet holes in his body, a few of them belonging to small calibre rounds while one of them was a large calibre one.

Turning behind me, I found Amber's pistols still smoking while a little bit behind her was Lea who was crouched in her sniping position with her rifle aimed towards were the thug had been moments ago.

Oh wow, they actually managed to track his movements and shoot him despite him moving like that? I need to ask them how they do it later.