Chapter 34: Cold Blood
The labyrinth is truly a work of the Gods.
It could indefinitely make something out of nothing.
Mana, space, time and life all harminously fit into a white pillar piercing into the sky.
Out of all the things it could produce, the monsters it creates is one mystery that people have not yet completely understood nor will they ever will.
Creating life itself and reproducing it once depleted is a mechanism that mortals would really crave to know.
However in this apocalypse, they are obstacles and the ultimate plague that will someday destroy and devour everything to oblivion.
One of those plagues are named monsters. A mob that has traits that makes it stand above the monsters in it's respective layer.
Although in my case, I would rather call them bossess and unfortunately for me, one of those bosses is trying to freeze all of us to death.
Fenrir or an offspring of it to be precise because there's no way Fenrir would only be an upper tier 4 monster.
Even with her class, she couldn't possibly tame such a high-leved monster found in the deep ends of the labyrinth.
Either way, an offspring of Fenrir is enough to wipe us out.
"[Reload Belt]" I fully loaded the cylinder.
After I had told Alice my improptu plan, I decided to pursue the sealer.
By taking her out, both the Space Canceller and Fenrir will be taken care of.
When it's master is in danger or worse, knocked down, it will have no choice but to focus on protecting her instead.
Activating my innate skill, I scanned the area as quickly as possible. The state of the battlefield urging me to hasten on finding her.
Seeing past Fenrir in the front, my eyes laid on a slight protusion on the outermost leftside of the tunnel.
A small shadowy figure was standing there as if it was looking down on the ensuing chaos.
"Found you"
Not wasting another second, I shot towards her direction from my spot. I didn't hold back as I knew how much powerful my opponent would be compared to me.
Emptying the cylinder, six bullets shot straight for it's mark and as it came before the target, pillars of ice intercepted it.
A beast's fierce eyes was directed at me and I flinched to such bloodlust.
'....Why did I need to do this type of shit again?' I regretted inside.
Realizing that I knew where her master was, Fenrir turned it's attention to me after making those ice pillars.
Howling in rage, it quickly sprinted in my direction. Ice was following it's every step.
Now that Fenrir's attention was turned to me. Sophia's party was able to find some ground after running away from the monster.
Sophia immediately took care of their two other members who had to deal with Fenrir in close range.
Their bodies were in a critical condition from all the freezing ice that's stuck to their bodies.
It was also puzzling to Sophia that they had not been transported out even when their conditions were like this.
Only after realizing this that she had noticed the uncanny mana in the layer although she had to focus on treating her party members first.
Amana on the other hand was trying hard to keep in touch with the spirits of wind due to the altering environment.
She was also exhausted from running away but another fight had caught her attention again.
"Ray Irisville?! What are you doing!?" Amana shouted in a panic as she saw the situation around her.
Surprised by the turn of events, Amana quickly aimed at the giant wolf once again.
-----
Looking at the beasts coming closer, I dashed to the side. Desperately trying to cut the distance away while also finding a route towards it's master.
Alas, Fenrir's speed is too much for me. With a giant swipe from his claws, I would be sliced into pieces.
That would be the case If I had no artillerist in sight that is.
"[Howitzer]!"
A huge explosion hit Fenrir's head, the blast radius much greater than before.
Fenrir got knocked away, it's howl sounding painful for the first time.
Unfortunately, it even blasted me away in the process.
"Gaah!" I rolled to the ground after the blast.
Standing up quickly, I saw Fenrir glancing at the artillerist.
"Sorry!" a shout came after from Alice.
Alice was drinking a mana potion that our party has been saving throughout the whole test.
We already decided that Alice should be the one to hold on to it since she was always depleting her mana.
Sweating and gasping for air after drinking a mana potion, Alice glared at the giant wolf while holding in her two hands her new weapon made by Delan.
It had a large barrel that took up 90% percent of the body. It had a handle from it's end while a trigger was also found at that part.
In the middle of the barrel, a round flask was designed into it as it blended well together with the golden shine it had.
Golden Rose. A magic cannon that could essentially handle all of Alice's overloaded mana all at once.
As if recovering quickly from that large impact , the giant wolf once again set it's eyes on me.
'.. Shit! So it wasn't enough. Alice is still charging the next shot! What should I-'
Before I could run away to get some distance, a green arrow wisped by and hit Fenrir in it's eye.
Bending her knees, Amana had accurately took one of Fenrir's eye out due to the slight gap that Alice and I had made.
Following up on Amana's attack, Sophia shot multiple fireballs at Fenrir's feet. It seemed that she had finished giving first aid.
The ice beneath it's feet melted as clouds of evaporated air spreaded.
Even after all those attacks the large wolf was still fine. Fenrir's tough hide probably protected it from those attacks.
However it was enough as it's eyes weren't even looking at me anymore.
"Now!"
Running ahead, I didn't look back and just ran towards the one keeping us prisoners in this place.
After making some distance away from the large wolf, I reloaded my gun once again and shot all of it out.
Now that her pet is out of the way, she had no choice but to dodge my shot or so I would have liked that to happen but the master is also a monster on her own.
*Clang
All of my bullet got deflected to the side as claws made of ice appeared out of the shrouded little figure.
The ice claws floated from her tiny hands, it's size was a large as Fenrir's actual claws.
"...How futile. You may be a smart individual for figuring our plan out but you only came here to die"
The little girl said as her black hair infused with bits of blue flowed. Her dark eyes held no emotions for me nor everything that was happening around her.
No anger nor agitation towards the enemy in front of her. I felt that I wasn't even looking at an actual child.
Looking once again, I gritted my teeth as the realization hit me that I was about to fight a kid who was less than Delan's age.
Although I knew I had no choice in the matter, fighting a little kid isn't something I'd be ok with easily.
This was also the same dilemma tha Jun had to face when he encountered her for the first time in the story.
Marie Wester. A child that was recruited by the order at a very young age. It was never specified where she came from since Jun and the gang had never caught her before.
They did defeat her once but she always got away.
In her days in the Order, she was trained to become one of their combatants and also one of their subjects for a fallen's experiment on forced awakening.
She alone succeeded and she alone survived among her numerous fellow guinea pigs.
From there, one could imagine her strength based not on her age but on the time she had spent strengthening her mystic tier and class on an earlier starting point.
Her class is also something that the Order hit the jackpot on, a powerful class that makes named monsters submit to her.
Although limited to one subordinate to what I'm aware of, her pet can grow and she could also harness that growth for herself.
Such are the powers of a {Dominator}.
So much strength at such a young age but so many things lost in the process.
As I looked into her eyes, I couldn't help but feel sorry for her.
'.....Being deprived of your childhood, can't say I don't know how that's like..though you have it worse than me...' such thought ran through my head.
I didn't exactly know why but even when I knew she had come here to kill all of us, I can't bring myself to truly harbor hate for her.
"....Die"
As she stated my death sentence, another pair of ice claws were formed from behind her.
In an instance, four ice claws tried to tore me in half. Two from the front and the other two from my two separate sides.
I quickly activated my innate skill, bringing my senses to their limits.
As I saw each claw from every direction, I reloaded my gun while sliding through the attack from the front.
Rolling and then leaping shortly to gain balance, I quickly aimed at my targets.
I then let out two shots each in midair for the two attacks from my side to deflect it. Landing on the ground, I quickly shot my last two ammos.
In those short seconds of sequences, I was able to find a gap for my attack to slip from her guard.
Hoping that my two shots would hit the orb she was keeping in between her feet.
*Ting, Ting
It was deflected once again but this time, she ducked as she used her own two hands that had grown long sharp nails.
I also noticed in that brief moment that her eyes had transformed into that of a wolf.
"Shit!"
Failing to disable the orb, her ice claws once again assualted me in a frenzy of patterns.
Relying on my glowing pink eyes, I was able to find myself out of her attack range but with some damage.
Cuts were made from my shoulder and my thighs. The blood had also frozen solid from those cold swipes.
It also didn't help that my head was once again becoming heavy from using my eyes too much from that short exchange.
'....It's no use..I'm going to die if I don't at least make her unable to defend and that leaves.....' I mused in desperation as my hands clenched my gun.
Her eyes were cold and unfeeling as she readied to claw me apart.
'...I don't give you enough credit Jun, this shit is messed up..' I laughed inside.
"...I can't afford to die here and I can't keep this in check for that bastard either"
After I let out my sorry excuse, her four ice claws then flew trying to end my life.
'[Penetrating Gaze]'
The sound of ice cracking and shattering resounded in the area.
Her brows then furrowed when two of her claws were riddled with four holes which shattered it to pieces.
In addition, her last two claws got shot down to the ground by two bullet marks.
"[Reload Belt]"
Two revolving belts appeared around my two wrist. Sparks light up, loading ammo to Sixth on my left hand and also another to my right hand.
With my remaining mana and state of my eyes, I once again aimed at my enemy.
My trump card and surprise attack for the Mad Berseker would be instead used to bring down the Master of Fenrir.
In my right hand which held a similar semi automatic revolver with silver linings, my finger awaited on {Silver's} trigger.