Starting from now, the next chapter will be available for the 1$ tier on P@treon.
---------------------
"This way! It's a straight run!"
"KUSO! Doragonu… afteru us!"
"The Iron Maiden… it wants one last fight."
It wasn't the smooth retreat Adam had hoped for, but morale was high, and the Sacred Code of the Iron Maiden was giving them the best time as a fighting duo.
They ran out of the trenches towards where the artillery bombard was stationed and where Adam's troops kept spawning, but no matter what they did, the Dragon was increasingly aggressive, hunting down all the squads that were divided up to distract it at a terrifying speed, before targeting Adam and Kave with relentless fury.
BOOM!
BOOM!
On the other hand, the two tanks and the firebase bombard started to target the Dragon the best they could, but its agility midair was nothing to joke about. It descended at one of the tanks and tried to lift it up with its wings, but the Battlemaster proved an immovable object in its own right, causing the Dragon to try and assault it with its flame to cook the crew inside, yet they still kept firing all their anti-personnel weapon systems like crazy.
With no quick victory in sight, the impatient Dragon realized that Adam and Kave were already far away from it, and it left the molten pile of metal to its own, after ensuring it would be unable to fight again, then gave chase to the two humans relentlessly.
On their own front, Adam and Kave wanted to rush towards the exit bunker at the far distance past the long trench, but along the way, Satanists started spawning left and right.
"Yabai! Doragonu… kita… kita zooo!"
"I know it's coming!"
With the Dragon going for them directly, ignoring all the troops firing at it, Adam felt something unnatural about this whole thing and immediately doubled down on summoning his troops using his Puppeteer rune and mental orders to infinitely replicate troopers around him. Kave watched as Adam had a golden 3D construct hovering close to him, and suddenly, the space around them was filled with troopers of various levels and specializations.
"SORE NANI?" Kave asked, holding his gun close to himself as he looked around frantically.
"My rune summons," Adam replied and turned around, "They'll buy us time. We must run!"
Immediately, the Troopers started spreading around as if on cue, and all their blazers were pointed upwards toward the Dragon circling the sky. From up there, it must have become disorienting for the Dragon as its initial targets were now lost in the crowd, earning a wrathful roar as it descended randomly with a quaking WHOOOOMPH!
The ground shook from the powerful impact as dust rose from its direction and enveloped every part of the battlefield. Adam and Kave had enough time to run down the trench bunker that once belonged to the Satanist front, crossing it to reach the level Adam had fought through.
The noise from the Solarium Army fighting against the Dragon was filled with shouts, cries, blazer cracks, and tank bombardment. Adam and Kave didn't stop running until they were met by the last thing they needed at the moment.
"FUCK!"
It earned a curse from Adam as he saw the trench now surrounded by Satanists left and right. They were rushing towards the trench from no man's land, axes and blazers ready to shred Adam and Kave.
"Yari yari!" Kave started to make a creepy laugh, speaking in a low, menacing tone, "Hitsuji-tachi… saigo da yo!" (Little sheep… this is the end.)
Adam looked at Kave, a bit creeped by the sudden shift of tone, but he made his sawblade buzz faster in his right hand as he aimed forward with the Blazer in his left. Firmly, he rallied his intent as he stepped forward:
"We'll have to cut through them."
"IKU ZO!" (LET'S GO!)
Behind him, Kave shouted with a guttural roar, rushing past Adam as he fired blindly at the first three Satanists jumping into the straight trench.
What followed was an intense scene of raw, unfiltered violence, starring Kave the Brave and featuring Adam, who was barely keeping up. The Iron Maiden put them in a free-for-all match where some enemies dropped consumable items, but the rate of fire and attack meant that this round of the Iron Maiden simulation was simply a mindless hack and slash, the type of game that ruined mice and controllers more than any in the history of video games.
The two didn't stop for a heartbeat. Kave, firing his automatic blazer into the horde, scored no less than fifteen kills per magazine while taking anyone who got close with his blazer-powered blade, whereas Adam mixed a style of hitting with his primary blade and firing his secondary blazer at anyone who got past Kave or tried to flank him.
In the heat of the fray, the two didn't notice that the Dragon was almost done with the force Adam summoned and was now coming towards their trench, attacking anything in its path, whether a Solarium Trooper or a Satanist Cultist. Adam and Kave were likely indistinguishable in the massive crowd of ant-like creatures to the dragon, which had become too troubling to make a careful scan-through.
As for the dynamic duo, they still fought and advanced despite being surrounded. In this case, Adam found a squad of nine Satanists forming a group behind him and Kave, trying to advance in two files. He simply took a blazer cell off his side and threw it at them. The charged blast sent a big red glow and a crazy burst of sparks and heat, but Kave was quick enough to position a Satanist he had caught between himself and the explosion with Adam behind him, their meat shield taking the brunt of the explosion for them.
Adam didn't waste time and took the front, firing two shots at the nearest pair of Satanists while blocking a third's axe with his blade and delivering a sneaky shot from under his guard with the blazer. Almost overwhelmed by the number of Satanists that followed, Kave and Adam switched on instinct. Kave sprayed them with enough blazer bolts, killing twenty with a single cell.
Adam returned to guard the rear and flanks, whereas Kave loaded the grenade launcher beneath the muzzle of his rifle and fired a highly explosive shell into the distance, blasting Satanists left and right at the far end of the trench.
The two then started to advance without even speaking a word, Kave opening the way while Adam made sure that nothing could stop him, but it was then that Adam voiced his worry:
"The Dragon…"
"Nani daze?"
"It is coming!"
Far in the distance, the Dragon finally rested at the beginning of the trench, glaring at the two young men. Kave spared a second to look back, and the Dragon was opening its maw to breathe fire along the narrow trench while charging forward on land.
"Shimatta!"
Kave cursed and started running while shooting forward simply to open a path into the line of endless Satanists, but it seemed that two legs of medium-sized creatures like him and Adam wouldn't carry them far from the charge of a Dragon that came on all fours, carrying its gargantuan body in a straight rush after its daring prey.
Amidst the rush, Adam lost his grip on his sawblade and switched mainly to his pistol, rapid-firing at anything that came his way and trading jabs and kicks before axe strikes could chop his head or limbs off. He then seized control of an axe and chopped a few times with it, as his control over it suddenly became better.
≪ Your [Blade] has improved! (I → II) ≫
≪ Conditions met! Would you like to merge the skills Blade (II) and Firearms (II)? Y/N ≫
Seeing the unexpected reward, Adam couldn't and wouldn't hesitate, considering the situation he was in.
"YES!"
≪ You have gained a New Skill! (Gun-Fu) ≫
Adam didn't even spare the message a glance, but he felt it as he evaded the next axe swing and shot the Satanist wielding it swiftly in the head before rolling on the ground away from a bulk Satanist jumping down on him, and mid-roll, he fired twice at the brute before standing up and shooting him down with a third bolt.
The road was finally clear, and both Adam and Kave broke into a sprint, firing barely at the occasional Satanists that tried to block their way as their horde dwindled in numbers. However, they weren't halfway through the trench just yet, and the Dragon was now behind them.
"Shit!"
Adam winced as he ducked from an axe swing that almost lopped off his head and crashed into the trench's wall before pushing himself forward, lungs and muscles burning from the amount of running he had gone through.
"Hayaku!" (Hurry!) Kave shouted, turning back at him and aiming at the Dragon before firing a trail of red shots that barely phased the monster.
Adam moved himself past Kave before turning back, calling forth the Puppeteer rune over his left hand: "I need to summon more soldiers to distract him. But if I do, the Simulation will summon just as many Satanists."
"YOKERO!" (MOVE!)
But just as Adam was mumbling, Kave immediately jumped before him, pushing him out of the way as a large fireball went past where they had just been and exploded not thirty feet away from them.
The two shivered from the explosion as they fell on top of one another, but right as they stumbled to get away from the approaching Dragon, Kave's hand brushed past Adam's rune. Usually, this wouldn't prompt much reaction, as Adam found that the runes weren't tangible objects even in this place, and without his skill, Font of Magic, nothing could affect them.
However, when it came to Kave, a reaction occurred in a flash of white light, and by the following second, something jumped up off Adam's rune, charging towards the Dragon.
"The fuck…"
"Nanda…"
Adam and Kave had almost an identical reaction as whatever came out traveled toward the Dragon in a blur and struck it right in the neck, causing the titanic wyrm to roar with obvious agony.
The roar reverberated across the space and caused the two young men to pale from fright, just by how loud and harrowing it felt, but it seemed to have had a positive effect on their stamina as they immediately broke into a run.
"The actual fuck! You saw that?" Adam shouted, his eyes wide from surprise.
"You saw it too?" Kave replied, his language settings completely reset.
The two glanced at each other for a split second before revealing what they saw in the same breath:
"Unicorn!"
And as it was, Adam and Kave couldn't believe that the two of them were almost instantly on the same frequency at this moment.
Their hearts and minds had a moment of sync regarding the legendary beast that equaled a Dragon just in terms of how mythic it was, but as they reached the trench bunker at the end of the straight trench without encountering any more Satanists, the two stopped and looked back, only to see a glowing white horse with a bright aura and a single horn fighting against a Dragon, a scene from an epic fantasy, completely out of place for this trench battlefield, which was now lying dead silent in the middle of the scene.
Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring!
What woke the two up was the sound of a ringing telephone coming from deep inside the bunker. They didn't question themselves as they ran inside, only to see a single old telephone device lying atop a flat, unimpressive wooden table in the middle of the empty trench bunker.
The two nodded to each other and stepped ahead. Kave held the phone first and answered it before completely disappearing in a flash. Adam immediately returned the telephone's handset to the black device and waited for it to ring again before answering it himself.
Just as he had entered the simulation, he felt the world around him lighten up, and as he was on the edge of wakefulness, the world froze for a second, and a voice called to him.
'…Dear child of mine!…'
Adam opened his eyes, and for a second there, he found himself in a white room, nothing but whiteness: a unicorn standing before him, then flashes, memories, and then he woke up.
Memories failed him for a second. He tried to remember what had just happened in that white space, but as if it were made of water, it slipped through his fingers, and he even forgot the memory of it existing in the first place.
He opened his eyes and was greeted with the sight of Megan, Solana, and Biscuits. He heard Kave's voice from the other side of the room, probably joking about someone's "thunder thighs," probably Elena's, but it seemed the two were still in the drunken, lucid state caused by the Code Diving drug.
Adam turned his head towards Megan and smiled, trying to say something himself. Biscuits tried to check on him, but Megan stopped her and spoke to him:
"Get it out of your system."
Adam chuckled and said:
"I know Kung-Fu!"