NOVEL NEXT 726. The Sharpshooter Behind the Haze
“It’s easy to forget where we came from. Do you remember the moments that led up to you becoming a Moon? Hahaha!” His laughter trailed behind him.
Anpu could not lift his legs. He was suddenly like a deer in headlights, which should not have been possible for a Moon of his caliber. Rather, it was the effect of the Red Barron who had finally used another one of his powers, which did not allow one to avoid his attack.
He took Anpu’s body – a man larger than most men – and crushed him in both arms like a doll. His protective barrier prevented him from taking substantial damage, but with the cracking of his glyphs and the intensity of the heat, it was clear that it would not last.
“Even if you don’t answer, Colors know what makes a Moon a Moon! Turmoil! Despair! A moment where nothing matters until suddenly, you find it!”
He carried Anpu, charging into the spears of statues and thick walls like a battering ram. Eventually, he clapsed onto the throat of Anpu and dragged him along the floors, tearing a chasm into the ground before hurling him high into the air.
“It crystalizes in your hands, and it all suddenly makes sense!”
With a great leap, he clashed with Anpu’s protective barrier. At the same time, several dark magical circles appeared around the Moon to reinforce his defense. The Red Barron’s arm was tugged back midway through a swing, and Anpu used this to land another ineffective strike that sent him flying downwards towards a vibrant winery.
Anpu landed gracefully, unlike the seismic impact of the Red Barron. Parts of Anpu’s suit was burned, but he was still relatively fine. The Color on the other hand…
Still not a single scratch.
“The Seal of Commands became my power at the tail end of my life, and I was reborn as the Red Barron! It’s our right as the strong to trample on the weak! We were like them too! We played by their rules and came out on top! Is it fair that we have to make things better for the weak when we weren’t spared an ounce of pity!?”
“Are you not afraid that someone you’ve wronged will come to claim your life?”
“Haha! Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work!? Maybe you’re not dominating them enough! I like you, Moon. Those robes, that tie, your suit and the way you conduct yourself – I can’t stand that we cannot get along! Clothing is like strength. It’s a status. A symbol of our right to stand where we are! People should know who we are at a single glance!”
The flames of the mantle were bolstered again. It seemed to resonate with his wrath. But more than that, Anpu recognized that they were now in the presence of an Isolation Sphere, no doubt set up by the Amalgam.
“The Astral Blaze is a mantle fit only for a king of man! A Corrupted that understands that we are what we wear! A Corrupted with the divine knowledge of the wing bearers and my good friend Iscario!”
… Could it be resonating with the Isolation Sphere itself?
He had no means of confirming this, other than that the sun began to glow red instead of orange as it started to set. One of the major risks of an Isolation Sphere was it becoming a vessel to propagate an entity’s Corrupted Zone.
While Anpu had not experienced it himself, he had never heard of it occurring instantaneously. The Arbiter’s Trumpet had still not announced the presence of the Corrupted either, so Anpu could not draw an immediate conclusion.
However, this was not the first time it had occurred.
Kingdoms tend to have this problem. But not to this extent. It only occurred in places closest to their palace or most sacred grounds. The presence of a Gift can interfere with it.
Indeed, Gifts tended to interfere with certain information being received from the Nexus, namely the Arbiter’s Trumpet. The reasoning was never known, as the Arbiter’s Trumpet was still a relatively recent system. It also did not help that the Arbiter was unwilling to leave her Floor until now.
The longest 30 seconds of Anpu’s life ticked down, and with it, the surrounding ruins were filled with a sudden red mist. The skylines of the city were replaced by the silhouettes of looming towers similar in scale to the palace.
Suddenly, the crack of thunder reverberated through his bones. A bullet from an unknown origin struck Anpu in the shoulder. In the split second that he watched blood sputter from his wound, he watched the trajectory and followed it to one of the distant silhouettes.
Kilometers, at the very least. This bullet couldn’t have been fired out from a Talon. Is this a denizen from the fathoms of this Corrupted’s mind?
The unfamiliar shapes were reminiscent of what used to exist in the Floor of Civilization, yet surrounding him were the familiar, universal ruins of war. He clasped at his wound as the bodies of faceless soldiers and citizens crawled into tunnels and trenches lined with barbed wire.
A burning library could be seen in the backdrop, and Anpu suddenly realized where he was; or a least he believed.
“Is this supposed to be the battle for the First Advent?”
These entities did not belong to the Librarians, as they were just as shocked to find them as they were mercilessly caught in the crossfire. Regular bullets barely fazed Anpu, but there, somewhere in the distance, was a sharpshooter capable of ending a Moon’s life with a single shot.
War. It’s just war. I can see Insectids. Humans. Demons… but firearms were not used in our war. Could this be of a different time or world? The City of Spades Massacre?
The winds shifted again, and Anpu was struck by Lucy’s healing bullet to mend his wounds. He spotted a sudden glint at the top of the distant towers, and immediately dodged. However, the bullet was far too fast, and the shooter was unimaginably proficient.
My chest this time. Inches away from my heart… Who could this be, and why is it not the main body of the Corrupted? What… does that mantle represent?
The only other shooter comparable was the Hired Arm and the Amalgam themselves. Their accuracy was impeccable, to the point where Anpu realized that dodging was futile.
Anpu was on the verge of being shot again. His primal instincts screamed at him, but there was nothing he could do. The bullets easily penetrated his defensive magic, and the Tear Retrievers were undoubtedly under heavy fire by soldiers in distinctive uniforms of all manners of colors.
But they all bled the same way, their clothes stained in the same red, and died same crimson pools.
Yet the bullet that came did not strike his vitals yet again. He was struck in another shoulder, the impact forcing him to turn in the direction of the Red Barron. It was confusing no doubt, and he speculated that it was a way to keep him in the fight for longer.
“All you had to do was hand that woman to me, and everything would’ve been fine. All of my secrets could have spilled out without unnecessary bloodshed. Stand still for me, Moon. I will make this as painless as possible! Haha!”
But Anpu no longer needed to wait. As the Red Barron smashed his metal fists together; the tips spinning like a drill, he was suddenly launched aside by an unstoppable force. A being in black appeared, drowning out the red as it hurled though the bullets.
Anpu could not comprehend how that being – the Amalgam – was able to weave through the hailstorm of bullets. He breathed a sigh of relief, his ears folding downwards as yet another crack of thunder roared through the crimson battlefield.
This time, that bullet was aimed at someone else.
“… Now we can focus on surviving. How is the princess?”
“Injured but recovering rapidly. Master. You should get down! The denizens of this Corrupted Zone all have firearms, and they’re unloading bullets faster than what a Talon is capable of!”
“Much faster than the magic bullets of Justica Arms as well… this is not a war from our world.”
Anpu contemplated the misery of a war fought without magic. People tended to one another with bandages taken from red boxes with white crosses. The weapons they wielded were nothing of this world either. They were longer, thicker, and made primarily out of wood with a steel barrel.
Additionally, metal cylinders flew out whenever a bullet was fired. Monsters roamed the battlefields, taking the forms of mutated beasts of burden, giant insects, or heavily disfigured people.
Some of which vaguely resembled people who had Corrupted.
“Leave it all to the Amalgam now. Focus on survival. We’ll be following the Amalgam into the Palace. So long as the princess is alive, then the tower is under our control.”
Anpu could not revel in his relief. He needed to return to his team. As he left, he spotted exactly seven people dropping dead, all of which were either a Demon or a Corrupted-like entity. None of them were humans.
It was all done by a single bullet, and on the other end of the Amalgam’s CognitO Transmitter, he heard her shout:
“Seven at one blow!? Isn’t that a line from a fairytale!?”
