Keron
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Chapter 162 - Engaging the Target
🕑 Added 2025-03-10 18:00:08 +0000 UTCAnticipation spreads through the two squads, their grips on their weapons tightening as greed lights up their eyes.
“Jackpot,” Force Bearer mutters, shifting impatiently.
Ice Petal is the only member of the group who seems confused by the sudden excitement, turning to whisper a question to Pretty Boy beside her.
“I get crystal veins are valuable, but why are you all so excited? We still have to return most of what we harvest to the company, right?”
“Partially, yes,” the handsome man whispers back, eager to educate his junior. “But the cut we get to keep when harvesting in no-man’s-land is much larger than normal. This will be one of the best payouts you’ll ever get from a job.”
The young mage’s eyes widen in surprise as she nods in understanding.
“Pay attention.” Emily’s calm voice cuts through the anticipation, her face back to a cold, emotionless mask. “We need to secure the vein first. From what I can currently see, there is a small contingent of mages harvesting the vein, but there are enough sleeping rolls in their camp to accommodate at least three times that many people. The interference from the crystal vein is ruining my detection, so I can’t tell where those other people are.”
The weight of their mission settles over the group, but no one wavers, leaning in and fixing Emily with confident gazes as they wait for her instructions. Even squad Vensec’s members turn to her for guidance, recognizing their place.
“We sweep the surrounding area first and clear out anyone keeping watch. We move fast and quiet. If all goes well, the miners won’t know what’s happening until we get the drop on them. Keep the magic to a minimum, and don’t use large explosives under any circumstances either. We don’t want to blow our payday sky-high. Understood?”
“Yes!” the squads acknowledge in a chorus of agreement.
“Good. Pair up,” she continues, gesturing quickly to her squad, indicating Sandman should pair with Pretty Boy, whilst Ice Petal and Whistler stay together, keeping one second circle mage with each first. “Force Bearer stick with me and split your team. You know them best.”
The hardened mercenary nods, turning to his four squad mates and quickly picking their pairs.
“We’ll head straight for the vein then. I’ll signal by raising a closed fist when a pair should split off from us, at which point that pair should turn and sweep clockwise around the mine. I’ll guide each of you with one of my birds but keep your eyes peeled and take out any enemy forces as quietly as possible. Is everyone ready?”
Everyone nods, so Emily disperses the sound barrier protecting them and leads them in the direction of her birds, calling two of them back as she does. After a few seconds, the two birds flutter down from the foliage overhead and Emily raises a fist.
The first pair from squad Vensec breaks away from them, heading off into the trees to the left. Force Breaker silently grits his teeth beside her as Emily advances again, clearly uncomfortable with his squad being so separated but unable to argue with her decision.
She doesn’t spare him a glance, recognising his bubbling discontent but not caring, raising her hand again and sending off the rest of his trusted allies.
Only a dozen steps after sending away the second pair, Emily spots movement through the eyes of the bird leading the first. Crouching in a small, dug-out pit, concealed beneath a plush green bush and only noticeable thanks to the heat pack fixed to the scout’s chest, are three humanoid heat signatures.
She has the bird pause before gliding over to circle above the enemies.
Luckily, the trained mercenaries quickly understand, and she watches as they slowly creep forward through the underbrush. Their targets don’t notice them until it’s too late, their heads spinning towards a snapping branch just as the two mercenaries spring forward, sliding under the bush and driving their blades into the chests of their opponents.
The third person still alive in the ditch struggles and tries to call for help, but a short sword slides through his throat, releasing a torrent of heat down his front before he can make a noise loud enough to reach Emily.
The action happening below her scout doesn’t cause Emily to break her stride as one of her cores manages the birds for her. As she’s walking, she casts infra-sight to watch out for hidden foes.
She sends off the first pair from her squad, Whistler and Ice Petal, before the advancing group runs into the first sign of resistance keeping them from getting closer to the mana vein. Her eyes catch a bright red hue among the branches above and, upon closer inspection, she picks out four individuals perched among the foliage.
Luckily, they’re far enough ahead that they don’t seem to have spotted them approaching. Emily ducks behind a tree trunk, gesturing for the others to copy her.
She silently pulls the Whisper from her belt, flicking it into silent and raising the rifle to rest against her shoulder before stepping back, maintaining her cover. She raises the rifle and rests her cheek against the stock, peering through the scope straight into the tree.
Her eyes don’t see the tree though, instead showing the feed from another bird she releases from her belt. She sends it up to sit in the canopy above, narrowing in on the looming enemies and taking a deep breath.
Four rapid trigger pulls send out four bullets that punch holes through the trunk before her, continuing their flight on the other side, as if they haven’t met any resistance, until they cut through the enemy troops.
Emily waits until the bodies fall with four dull thuds before she slings her rifle over her shoulder. Ignoring Force Bearer’s horrified gaze as he stares at the four small holes in the tree, Emily stalks forward, waving her hand and reminding the others to follow her.
They do so, without question, and after a few more moments, Emily sends away the last of her squad, leaving just her and Force Bearer to close the final gap to the edge of the crystal vein. They progress closer until Emily can see the edge of the clearing’s treeline, at which point they turn to sweep clockwise as well.
Emily and Force Bearer run into three soldiers sitting around a small fire, lacking caution, and sneak up behind them to silence them with flashing blades. As the corpses fall to the ground, Emily clicks her tongue.
She watches through the first bird as the two furthest members of squad Vensec are spotted first by three soldiers walking towards them, despite the bird hovering above them. Without any audio transmission on her bird, Emily can’t hear the words she can see are being yelled by the enemy, but their gunshots ring out through the trees and reach everyone’s ears.
“Your men have been discovered,” Emily informs her temporary partner. “Time to abandon stealth.”
Force Bearer grits his teeth, glancing towards the gunshots with concern as he scrambles to keep up with Emily’s swift advance, each of her steps still barely making a sound.
One of the two Black Fang mercenaries spotted by the enemy takes a bullet to the head as the first shots ring out, slumping limp to the ground before she can defend herself. Her partner dives behind a tree, crying out in anger at his teammate’s death before swinging the rifle off his back and shouldering it, peeking from his cover and unloading several shots towards his opponents.
He catches one of them in the shoulder before ducking back as they return fire. He manages to hit another in the head on his second attack, moments before a bullet shatters his skull in return.
Emily doesn’t bother informing Force Breaker as they come across another group of soldiers, this time on high alert and searching their surroundings. She shoulders the Whisper, but only a single bullet leaves the chamber before the opposing group spots them and dives for cover.
Her shot finds its home in one of the soldier’s throats, and his teammates only manage to return a few stray shots before they meet the same fate. Emily and Force Bearer continue to advance, hearing more conflict in the distance, as they sweep through the scattered groups of unawakened soldiers circling the mana crystal vein.
Having covered half the circumference of the clearing, the remaining pair of Vensec mercenaries suffer a brutal ambush from the groups the outer pair were meant to be dealing with. One of them is ripped to shreds by several blades of wind and water, and the other falls to several gunshots whilst wrapped in a hastening spell, trying to run towards Pretty Boy and Sandman.
There are still mages among the defensive groups…
Seeing the spells tear through the unsuspecting mercenary, Emily comes to a quick decision and turns the birds still leading her squad mates towards herself. She slides to a halt and waits for her team to regroup.
“Why’d we-“ Force Bearer starts asking as he digs his heels in, but he is cut off as an invisible force cleaves his head from his shoulders.
Emily’s eyes widen in surprise, and her head snaps towards the spell’s source as a few trees cut by it tumble to the ground.
Fast! Do they have a third circle mage? Should I reset?
The dead mercenary falls to the floor, and the woods fall into unsettling silence as Emily waits for another attack with bated breath.
The extra hands aren’t worth the time for now.
A branch snaps behind her, but she doesn’t break her focus to look back, already knowing it’s her allies thanks to her eyes in the sky. Before Whistler and Ice Petal can say anything, they notice Force Bearer’s corpse and, a moment later, Emily leaps into action.
She feels the attack coming thanks to her acute magical perception, noticing it when she detects motion within the dense ambient mana ahead. Yet, despite the attack’s immense speed, she avoids it easily, twisting her chest sideways and leaning back as she takes a step forward.
The invisible blade of wind slides past her harmlessly, felling several trees caught in its wake.
Emily pulls the Whisper to her shoulder, angling it across her chest towards her attacker as a bird flies up into the sky.
She easily spots the robed woman surrounded by a large glowing, green magic circle through the gap in the foliage above the clearing. Two mages are standing on either side of her, channelling their mana into a large brown magic circle below them that’s raising the surrounding earth into protective walls, but Emily quickly narrows her focus on the main threat, running through dozens of calculations in an instant to adjust her aim using the secondary viewing angle.
She flicks her rifle into full and lets over four hundred points worth of machina pour into its sleek body, charging her next shot with a deadly hum.
The trigger clicks home, and a blistering white line cuts through the trees, releasing a burst of air that can only be felt as the bullet smashes through the sound barrier without so much as a peep.
The enemy mages don’t even have time to blink as a fist-sized hole is punched through the half-formed wall in front of them, and the chest of the wind mage preparing her next spell bursts, covering the wall behind her in gore.
Emily racks the bolt of the Whisper without flinching as her shot connects, but her brow creases in irritation as she hears the faint, unpleasant sound of metal scraping against metal.
A spark of machina tells her that the last shot managed to dislodge one of the internal fixings in the weapon, an unlucky side effect of using Overdrive. She sends the Whisper back into her bag and draws out the Stream instead, chambering a round and flicking it into automatic as she turns to face her squad mates.
Her gaze scans over the four of them as Sandman and Pretty Boy arrive, and she finds no signs of struggle other than a few scratches on the two first circle mages’ faces.
“Ugh,” Pretty Boy grunts with an exaggerated flinch as his foot knocks against Force Bearer’s severed head lying among the roots at his feet. “What a shame…”
“The rest of his squad has fallen too,” Emily says to nobody’s surprise. “They made too much noise, so we’re changing tactics. They still have us outnumbered, and there are several mages heading our way, so we’ll divide their attention. You four head back along my path and make a bit of noise. Draw the attention of the scattered defence forces and pick them off carefully while I take out the mages gathered by the crystal vein. I’ll join you afterwards.”
She waves them off, guiding a bird down to catch their attention and lead them as she turns back the way she was heading and takes off, drawing her mana into her magic circles and wrapping them with a film of machina. Emily silently sprints through the trees, stepping between roots and patches of packed dirt as she propels herself onward with each step, quickly creating distance from her squad.
After a few seconds, the harsh, unsuppressed crack of Whistler’s cannon rings out in the distance, sending several startled birds into the open air above the trees.
Taking the shot as a signal, Emily pivots towards the long clearing and approaches, scanning her surroundings constantly. She spots several groups of soldiers, mostly unawakened but a few of them first circle, but none of them spot her as she deftly weaves between the trees, placing them in the way every time prying eyes sweep past her.
She reaches the edge of the clearing without being seen and drops to the floor behind a thick bush covered in thorns. Lying flat on her belly, Emily slowly crawls forward, pushing through the bush without flinching as the small thorns harmlessly slide off her, unable to pierce even her exposed skin.
With her body completely concealed, and her mana signature obscured, she pokes the Stream from the shrubbery and leans her cheek against its stock, staring at the unsuspecting mages setting up countless defensive walls around a few of their comrades who are pouring their mana into the array for a wide area attack.
With the amount of mana they’re gathering in that thing, I wouldn’t be surprised if they wiped out all of their soldiers too. Brutal.
Six of the surviving mages are devoting their mana pools to the blue and green array carved into the air, sweat dripping from their brows as they chant in unison to maintain the large ritual spell. The five remaining mages are split into two groups, with three of them touching the ground and pouring mana into a large magic circle forming countless large hexagonal rocks, while the other two have their hands outstretched, touching a twisting green magic circle forming of vortex of unstable winds.
The rushing winds draw the rocks into their orbit, causing them to slide over each other and interlock at random intervals to create a formidable defence.
The only way I’m shooting normal bullets through that would be if I used Overdrive with enough machina to blow up the Stream.
Emily removes the magazine from the gun in her grasp, slowly reaching down to pull a fresh one from her belt.
Claiming this vein will pay well: I can afford to splurge a little on ammo.
The new magazine clicks into place, and the brown runes covering it pulse, drawing a substantial amount of mana from the two earth crystals mounted to its sides. Emily pours machina into the weapon and squeezes the trigger, unleashing a torrent of magic and metal from the barrel.
