Port District (3)
｢Goddammit! Why is a Mountaincrawler doing down here?!｣
"It's just a whelp, so don't worry about it. Its legs and belly are weak—aim for those."
Jade looked down over the battlefield from atop the container crane.
Specialized goggles sat on his head. Sniper equipment, loaded with everything from thermal detection to long-range target magnification. He'd sunk a fortune into the gear specifically to tighten coordination with his squad.
｢Hey, tin can! I've got your cover, so go for its legs!｣
｢You sure about that?｣
｢I'll keep an eye on the big one.｣
｢Frost, I'll support you with sniper fire.｣
Just as Jade had planned, the team adapted to the young Mountaincrawler in no time. Frost charged in and hammered its legs; whenever it tried to counterattack, Dewayne shot out its eyes and blinded it. And when Frost pulled back in the gap, Hope rained grenades down on the beast.
｢Krrrrrrr….｣
The Mountaincrawler was nothing more than a wild animal, and it was utterly helpless against their teamwork. Its cry, thick with rage and indignation, carried all the way to where Jade stood, far from the fight.
'But where did he go?'
At some point, Jade realized he could no longer see the man. He'd been so focused on the Mountaincrawler that he'd lost track of its movements.
'He can't have gone far.'
Jade adjusted his goggles, hunting for the most dangerous monster Jennet had warned them about.
When Dewayne had first spotted those creatures alongside the Gallagon, Jade had ordered the unknown man killed first. The order hadn't come from any careful deliberation. The most dangerous enemies they'd ever hunted had never been monsters—they'd been humans.
But Jennet had objected to his order. The truly dangerous one, she argued, wasn't the man but the monster that carried a Gallagon around on its head.
As a Cultist, Jennet said she could feel a current of psychic power flowing off him unlike anything she'd ever sensed. In her own words, it was the most savage yet regal current she had witnessed in her entire life.
She had never said anything like that before, and it made Jade hesitate for a moment. If they delivered that creature's genes as tribute to Sihyeon Yujin, the Lady would grow far stronger than ever before.
'Capturing him alive would serve the Lady well, but….'
Still, Jade knew all too well how dangerous an unidentified psychic power could be. If the operation failed because they'd tried to take him alive, that would defeat its own purpose. So he had ordered Dewayne to target the creature first.
'The ambush unfortunately failed, but he can't escape our sight…hmm?'
A strange sound reached Jade's ears as he searched for the creature. It sounded like wind, or perhaps the hum of a mag-lev car lifting off its pad.
'Where is that coming from?'
He swept the area beneath the crane, but nothing stood out. Jade called for Dewayne, who wore the same goggles he did.
"Dewayne, check around the cra—"
｢New contacts!｣
｢They're reinforcing the Mountaincrawler.｣
｢Isn't that the same bunch from before? The ones traveling with the Gallagon.｣
Hearing his teammates' voices, Jade hurriedly swept the battlefield again. Just as Hope had said, a Blue Gallagon was in view, a balloon-like creature the size of a person's thigh bobbing along behind it. A little apart from the pair, a scrawny man was hiding behind a container.
Having found the Gallagon he'd been looking for, Jade snatched up his comm.
"Do not attack the Gallagon! If it gets hurt, the operation is a failure!"
｢Then what are we supposed to do? We agreed to save the others for later because of the Gallagon.｣
The Gallagon being injured wasn't a real problem. So long as it didn't die, it could be treated one way or another.
'The problem is that a Blue Gallagon can call its own kind.'
These Gallagons weren't native to this city, but he'd heard that capturing another Blue Gallagon once had cost them dearly. Back then, two White Gallagons and a Black Gallagon had appeared to rescue it, and the losses were so severe that ten warships went down.
'Whether it's luck or not, the one we brought along is being unusually docile.'
As if the heavens were helping him, the creature still hadn't called for its kin. But there was no telling how long its patience would hold. They needed to knock it out and get it into the freezer as fast as possible.
'…I'll have to take the risk here.'
Mind made up, Jade issued his orders over the comm.
"The plan was to strike once the area was cleared, but we have no choice. Eliminate everything except the Gallagon."
｢Just don't hit the Gallagon, right? Okay.｣
｢Understood.｣
"Hope, watch those grenades."
｢Got it, Mom.｣
｢Wait—that pink balloon is doing something weird!｣
"What?"
At Jennet's urgent transmission, Jade's gaze snapped to the balloon-shaped creature. It looked different from moments before. Fins had sprouted beneath its round body, and six long, slender tentacles now rose from its flesh.
The moment the monster waved its tentacles, Frost—who had been squared off against the Mountaincrawler—froze solid in place.
｢Sweet hell! That's psychic power!｣
｢Oh, you have got to be kidding me! That thing's a psychic monster too?!｣
｢Frost! Fall back now!｣
Paralyzed by the psychic power, Frost took the Mountaincrawler's charge head-on and went flying.
"Don't worry! Frost had his whole skeleton replaced with Blacksilver—he'll be fine!"
｢Yeah! That tin-can bastard's solid bone to the core, he'll be all right!｣
｢Hope! Activate your shield right now! I'll reinforce it!｣
｢Switching to AP (Anti-Psychic) rounds.｣
｢Hey! The Gallagon's attacking too!｣
"Nobody touches the Gallagon! I say again! Do NOT attack the Gallagon!"
｢Oh, shit!｣
The comms channel turned frantic with the new arrivals. Everyone had their hands full with the psychic balloon, and Jade was no exception.
Which was why he failed to notice. Above his head, a massive beast was beating its wings.
'No. 26 is fighting well.'
I looked down from the sky, watching them battle. No. 26 was coordinating with the Mountaincrawler, turning back the enemies' attacks. Maybe it was all the experience of hunting at my side, but even against a monster she'd never seen before, she was supporting it smoothly.
Adhai, being a Gallagon by blood, was doing an excellent job keeping the enemies in check with psychic impacts.
Of course, the enemy had a Cultist among them, and so they'd come prepared for psychic attacks. Of every opponent I'd faced, their defenses against psychic power were arguably the best.
'Shields and AP rounds, huh.'
Unlike the cheap gear the armed police had carried before, what these people wore was the real thing—shields built into High-Grade Powered Armor. If it weren't for those, No. 26 would have turned this into a slaughterhouse. A shame, really.
'The cyborg must be modded with Blacksilver.'
Blacksilver was a metal that weakened psychic effects, one of the core materials in those shields. Any other cyborg would have been torn in half by No. 26's psychic assault, but thanks to his Blacksilver reinforcement, the man could resist it—he just couldn't move.
'Normally, the Blacksilver would have nullified the Soul Link too, but….'
The enemy clearly knew that as well, and had prepared yet another countermeasure. The lone female Cultist wore not goggles but a tiara on her head.
The Tiara of Amplification. A relic that boosted a Cultist's psychic abilities. That tiara was how she'd managed to keep a Soul Link running even on a cyborg with Blacksilver implanted in his body.
'They really did bring everything but the kitchen sink.'
It looked like something a veteran player had recommended to a newbie: wear this exact loadout.
'No way. Couldn't be.'
I pushed the stray thought aside and glided down slowly, settling in behind my target.
The enemy's attention was fixed entirely on the battlefield in front of him.
I crept up behind his back and clamped my combat arm over his mouth.
"!"
With his mouth sealed, I seized his right arm with my other hand and crushed it. He trembled violently from the pain, but I wasn't finished.
My plan had no use for his limbs.
"Mmmph!"
With all four limbs shattered in an instant, the man bit down on his own foam. He seemed desperate to scream, to somehow alert his comrades—but it was useless.
I was holding his head fixed in exactly the position it had occupied before the ambush.
Thanks to that, the enemies merely assumed his view had shifted. It never even crossed their minds that he was under attack.
'A Soul Link dissolves when its host loses consciousness or leaves its range of effect.'
In other words, so long as I avoided those conditions, I could turn the Soul Link against the very enemies bound by it.
Keeping my grip on him, I lowered myself slowly down the crane—mimicking the motion of a man gripping the ladder and climbing down normally. An impossible movement for an ordinary human, but possible for an Amorph's body, with its abundance of arms and transcendent senses.
｢Boss?｣
｢What? Why are you coming down all of a sudden?｣
Bewildered voices came through the comm. The owner of that comm, the one who should have answered, was in no condition to answer.
From the moment I'd taken that first shot, there was a very high chance the enemy had already completed their dossier on our group.
'They'd have logged us as one human, one Gallagon, and two unidentified monsters.'
If there had been another human among us—or even if I myself had been a sentient being of reason—the enemy might have questioned what was happening now. A human could threaten a captive and force him to move.
But the only human in our group was over there, hiding beside the Gallagon, shaking like a leaf.
And so they could only assume their comrade was acting erratically on his own. It would never occur to them that a monster was carrying him without killing him.
Of course, unless they were fools, they'd eventually realize something had happened to their teammate and try to respond.
And forcing them into a reasonable response was exactly what I wanted.
｢Jade! Answer me!｣
｢Dewayne! Jade's headed your way!｣
｢He's out of my sight. I'll confirm it directly.｣
"Nngh…."
The man in my grasp was almost certainly the one who'd smuggled Adhai into this city—Jade Russell. If our eyes met, my cover would be blown, so I still hadn't gotten a clear look at his face.
'I had a feeling it might be him. Guess I was right.'
"Nnnngh…."
The man—no, Jade—with all four limbs crushed, struggled desperately to somehow tell his comrades what had happened, even while held fast in my grip.
'Can't have that.'
I bit into his shoulder. The neurotoxin carried in my fluids bored rapidly into his body.
"……."
Jade went stiff as a startled goat, and with that, he fell silent.
Carrying him like a limp, loosely swaying doll, I moved toward my next target.
'Next, the sniper.'
I hadn't known the man's position when he'd shot at me earlier. I knew it now.
The sniper had to be inside Soul Link range while simultaneously positioned to fire into Jade's current field of view. Cross-referencing those constraints narrowed the search area dramatically.
'If I get close enough, he'll show himself to check on his comrade.'
Once I'd entered the range where the sniper was likely hiding, I laid Jade down on the ground beside a container. From outside Jade's line of sight, I waited for the enemy to react.
'About time they started moving.'
The sniper would be sharing vision with Jade, so he'd quickly figure out roughly where Jade was now. I focused on my auxiliary organs, keeping continuous watch over the area.
After a few minutes, movement registered on my auxiliary senses. It was quick and light enough to be mistaken for a rat, or a cockroach.
'There he is.'
I slipped quietly around, careful never to enter the agile sniper's line of sight. Odds were he wore vision-assisting gear much like Jade's, so I had to stay clear of where he'd be looking.
'This distance should do it.'
Having put enough space between us, I waited with my body hidden in shadow. The sniper was approaching with a rat's caution, eyes fixed on a sliver of cheese sitting in a trap.
He was close enough now that he should have been visible to the naked eye, yet I couldn't see him at all. My auxiliary organs felt him, though—he was wearing optical cloaking armor.
'Doesn't matter. A hit to the head kills him all the same.'
The moment he stopped moving to check on Jade's condition—that would be my chance.
｢The Mountaincrawler's down! We'll clear the rest shortly!｣
Bad news crackled through Jade's comm. If the Mountaincrawler was dead, then No. 26 and Adhai wouldn't hold out much longer.
'…No. I have to trust them.'
The dark thought surfaced, and I shook my head. Going by everything I'd seen, No. 26 was not weak. She could hold out plenty long enough for me to come and help.
I waited with patience. More bad news kept pouring through the comm, and I gritted my teeth and bore it.
And then, at last, my auxiliary organs brought me good news.
The sniper was standing on the roof of a container just ahead.
I aimed the Barbed Bone Launching Organ at his position. The target: his heart.
Invisible to the eye, but my auxiliary senses were more than sharp enough to catch the quiet rhythm of the sniper's heart.
"This is Dewayne. I've confirmed Jade's positi—"
As he transmitted in the faintest of voices, a barbed bone fired from my fingertips.
Needless to say, Amorph's senses did not betray me.
The sniper never finished his sentence, tumbling off the container and down into the dark below.