The wolf hag landed on her feet, while Kaleb and Yuki tried to free Kate's leg. Meanwhile, Kostya rescued Tiny and another warrior from falling into a crack. Sly tried to staunch the flow of blood pouring from a Normie soldier's throat, which had been sliced by shrapnel. Alek and his team herded everyone into the vehicles and began an all-out retreat, obeying Ursico's commands.

"Scout Siri here." A request came from the south skyscraper. "Wolf Hag Olesya is not responding. Situation?"

"Olesya was badly injured," said Aranea, reaching her soldiers and breaking the ground holding Kate's leg trapped. "We are under attack and trying to withdraw. Forget about stalling the opposition and join us."

"Negative. Impossible to obey. I can see the enemy; she knows about us and is coming straight for my pack. The target is wielding an unknown field of destruction in the form of green fog. Anything touched by it falls apart. Do not try to engage in melee. Hurry up and retreat, Aranea." Siri paused and inhaled, softening her voice. "Tell Olesya and my… her pack that I am proud of them. Always was. Keep their hides safe. It's bad enough already that I won't get a rematch."

"Don't resign yourself; get out of there!" Aranea demanded. Siri's identification was on the fiftieth floor of the skyscraper. No enemy had reached them yet.

And then, her blood turned to ice. The skyscraper suddenly began to fall. The structure, despite having withstood the test of centuries, shook as swirling emerald fog licked its foundation, erasing it from existence. For a split second, the skyscraper didn't tilt; rather, it slipped into the green hell below as if being swallowed by an insatiable maw.

Yet, at last, the inevitable happened. With a series of thunderous tears and the wailing of bending metal beams, the skyscraper leaned north, arcing its tip and spewing the burst rooms and entire floors onto the streets below. Acting on instinct, Aranea tossed Kate to Kaleb, grabbed Alek and Ursico, and yelled for her pack to do the same.

Like a bolt sent by an ancient, wrathful deity, the pillar smashed into the city, soon darkening the icons of Siri and her team. A sea of smoke and dust rose into the air, blanketing the settlement. Rubble was flung everywhere, spearing through buildings here and there and filling Aranea with dread at the thought of civilian casualties. Ripples of destruction passed through the ground, opening long-closed caverns and swallowing entire streets. Several soldiers lost their footing and fell into the cracks. The alarm system in her helmet recommended immediate evacuation from the zone of seismic activity.

When the shaking subsided, Kostya, Tiny, and Sly dove into the open holes and resurfaced with their allies, using their claws to escape the closing edges in time. Aranea was about to join them when she heard yelling from the south. People fled through the dark cloud, some unharmed and some injured, often dressed in mere shreds of anti-heat suits. They all bore the same mindless, animalistic horror on their faces, their eyes wide with shock.

Tendrils of green mist rolled from behind them, enveloping those who were not quick enough. These tendrils lingered a little, eating through clothes before touching skin and destroying it, exposing naked meat and muscle. Men, women, young or old, no one received mercy. Before their screams of agony could leave their lips, holes appeared all over them. Tendons failed, lungs collapsed, hearts disappeared, and corpses dropped, disappearing in the devouring veil before touching the stone.

In their wake a figure walked, clad in a bulky model of power armor, with hands and legs too large for the person inside. Its helmet was crafted in the shape of a sphere, and through the faceplate of armored glass, a woman with short white hair looked out. Her enlarged pupils gave her a crazed appearance that contrasted with her otherwise serene demeanor, a bored expression, and the lips closed in a thin line. Fumes of green mist escaped through the holes in her pauldrons, hovering a little over the ground. Everything touched by it soon turned to ash, drifting away in the wind, while the newcomer remained unharmed by her poison.

"Fire! Eliminate her!" the lieutenant commanded, breaking free from Aranea's embrace. "Sergeant, why are you still here? Do you need a special invitation to get your ass into the vehicle? Move it, people! Those who can't fight, get the hell away from here!"

A tank advanced, the last combat vehicle left intact. It unleashed two shells at the target, and the mist peeled layers from them, swallowing the projectiles mid-flight. Next, the flamer spewed a stream, and it also vanished in the approaching clouds. The tank's machine guns opened fire, and the Wolfkins joined in with their shardguns, but not a single projectile passed through the accursed mist that devoured everything and didn't let even a speck touch the woman.

How can we stop this? Aranea thought feverishly and slapped the tank's hull. "Back! Head back for now!"

Her warning came too late. A tendril reached the caterpillar track, slicing a chunk out of it, and the machine came to a halt. Rather than waiting to see what would happen, the wolf hag punched her way through the emergency hatch and dragged the allies into the rear without any consideration for their bones. She succeeded just in time, as the mist dissolved the hull before her very eyes, and she jumped back, witnessing the tank changing into dust.

"I have an idea how to slow down the enemy!" Sly said. "Fifty-fifty, might work or not."

"Better odds than anything we have so far. On it, and remember that the cloud doesn't seem to touch the surface. She needs it to walk. Yuki, assist him," Aranea commanded. "The pack is to retreat. Sly, Kostya, Kaleb, Yuki, and I are the stalling pack."

"I'm staying too," Kate grunted in pain. Aranea wanted to reprimand her, but there was no longer any time to argue. She nodded as Kate leveled her rifle and fired. The laser ray reached the walking figure and splashed upon her helmet.

Energy is passing through!

"We need to get her to chase us!" Yuki screamed, racing to the west after Sly.

The rest of their forces headed north, alongside Ursico. Tiny volunteered to stay, and Yuki growled at her to shut up and rescue herself. Only Aranea and her troops remained at the square, with the green mist encroaching on their position. The remains of the skyscraper disappeared in it. Kaleb scooped Kate in his arms, and she ignored the familiarity, sinking the claws deep into her shoulder.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

"Kate, what are you doing?" Aranea demanded.

"Just trust her," Kaleb asked softly, holding the scout as she lacerated her own flesh.

The walking woman stumbled, falling on her hands when a stone under her feet gave way. She stood up without haste, jokingly removing dirt from her shoulders, the slits on her armor still spewing mist. Then she resumed her advance.

"I can't stop her," Kate said in desperation. "Not a single faulty organ, no illness to work with, not even any malfunction in the electronics. No matter what, she is simply way out of my league! Kaleb, cut open my belly; I need to pay more…"

"No," Kaleb responded kindly. "You said it yourself: no matter what. It's okay. No need to hurt yourself any longer. We'll figure out something."

Aranea narrowed her brows, suspecting the reason for the self-mutilation, and then noticed the silver rifle. It was a sheer miracle that the thing remained unharmed amidst the chaos. She leapt, grabbing it, and retreated from the green veil. The woman turned, watching the retreating convoy, attracted by the engines' noises. Aranea aimed at the moving calamity. And pressed the trigger.

The recoil resembled a sledgehammer striking her at full force on the paws and the shoulder, surprising even the wolf hag. A tiny gash opened on the oversized pauldron, joining a trickle of blood to the rising green streaks and leading to the woman glancing at Aranea.

Without panic, anger, or surprise.

She broke into a run toward the wolf hag.

"All set!" Sly reported on the communicator, sending them the coordinates of a street to the west. "Lead her to the ambush."

"You heard the man, people. Run." Aranea fired another shot that landed in the open palm instead of the helmet. The woman acted ahead of her, and the gauntlet cracked with a light scowl on the face behind the sphere.

She had planned to fire more shots, but the mist almost touched her feet. She joined her pack, escaping from the peril.

"Sly! The silver rifle lands shots at the murderous bitch. Explain!" Aranea shouted, picking up Kaleb, who still held Kate in his arms. She charged ahead with all her speed, sending the video recordings to the Wolfkin.

"I can't be sure about the specifics, but you've seen how this mist dissolves everything? It isn't instant. The rifle accelerates projectiles fast enough for a portion of them to pass through the acid field and strike the target," Sly guessed.

"Sadly, not hard enough," Aranea responded grimly, leaping toward the indicated location. She spotted several stones upturned and placed back in a hurry. A sloppy trap; she'll need to drill Yuki and Sly in the future. Right after kissing them for the idea.

The halfbreed dashed across the street, hearing buildings fall behind her. The larger chunks never landed, and the main source of sound came from the heavy stomping of the enemy catching up to them. Death. A single touch and I'm dead. And no more dreams, no more anything. The center of the city was becoming a desolate emptiness, and remembering the refugees she had met in the north, Aranea uttered a small prayer for their safety. Through Sly's cameras, she saw a figure step onto the killing field.

Sly pressed a button, and concealed explosives erupted, engulfing the woman in a pillar of flames. The figure rose a little, then plunged into the gaping hole leading underground. Aranea noticed the sheer surprise on her face through the faceplate as she disappeared in the torrent of stone, blasts, and earth.

"Yes!" screamed Sly. "There used to be a subway line around here. It's no longer in use, but it makes for a pretty deep cavern. With luck, she's either dead or crippled, or she'll be trapped long enough for us to…"

"ENOUGH!" A voice boomed from the hole, amplified by the suit's dynamics, and the surroundings around the pack began sinking. Buildings slid toward the gaping hole, long canyons opened on the roads, swallowing entire districts, and everything around them crumbled, destroyed by the unnatural green steam seeping from the openings. A stone slammed the wolf hag in the head, then another one, and then twenty more, and she lost consciousness.

She regained her senses mere seconds later, confirming the extent of her blackout on the helmet's display. Aranea tried to move and found herself pinned by an immense weight composed of several broken buildings mashed together. Worried, she checked for life signs and confirmed that her pack's hearts kept beating. Kostya's legs stuck out from a hole a little further ahead. Kaleb lay to her right, trying to claw his way out from under a building's wing. The rest were behind her. The bright sunlight shone from above.

A brown boot landed near her. She looked up at the woman in the unusual power armor. The spherical helmet parted, revealing the foe's face. The murderer took a breath, sucking in oxygen with a hiss worthy of a snake.

"Bitch," said the monster, sounding bored. "I hate overextending myself." The corners of her skin were torn. She lifted a hand, touched the lips, and licked away a bit of blood from the crack in her gauntlet. "Blasted rebound. I'll enjoy squeezing apologies out of you for it." The foot crashed into the wolf hag, smashing a small recess with her head. "What comes next is your own damn fault. You could've gotten off easily, puff, and that's it. But no, you just had to incur a blood debt and be a bother."

"Mistress Blaguna." Aranea first heard Chort's voice coming from above and then from next to her without any sound of landing. Then she heard the thuds of two more people dropping down. "Our opponents are on the run. King expected you to…"

"He'll understand, mercenary," the woman responded. "I know his tastes far better than you can ever hope to." The metal of Aranea's helmet bent inward under the pressure, stabbing the back of her head. "I have a debt to collect."

"Mistress Nokto! The city, the entire city, was…" the female silver mask cried, choking on the words. "People, so many had…"

"Acceptable losses. I always hated this stinking place. Now we no longer have any need to protect it," Blaguna sang, pressing harder on the wolf hag's head.

"But… it isn't heroic to abandon or involve the innocent, to deprive children of homes and shelter…"

"Ah, relax, my dear," Yasen laughed. "Heroes are the ones who survive to write history. Don't worry. If you want, we can mark you as a saint in the annals for future generations to venerate."

"We surrendered," Aranea said, hating herself for admitting defeat to this scum. "We can't fight anymore."

The foot left her head and then crashed onto her shoulder. Its sharp heel penetrated the metal and injured the wolf hag.

"And you think I'll simply accept your surrender? Maybe offer you a drink and a smoke to boot? After you dared to make me bleed?" mocked Blaguna.

"Mistress Nokto!" The silver mask's voice trembled with fear and concern. "They accepted my surrender, treated me like a proper prisoner, and even took care of my wounds. They are worthy of being taken captive in exchange for prisoners or to push our demands. The Reclamation Army may be evil incarnate, but they adhere to the code of…" She stopped at the laughter of the cruel woman.

"You're Geldi, right? The healer? Nissi's girlfriend?" Blaguna asked, rumbling with chuckles. "My, I have never expected you to be so wicked. Adorable."

"Wicked?" Geldi asked. "What's so wicked about accepting a surrender? We ought to be better than the invading savages…"

"No matter." Blaguna interrupted her. "I'll allow you to indulge in this impulse. If it is a show you wish, then a show you'll get. I do have a blood debt to settle with the trash-eating doggie right here. Chort, create servants. I need hands to drag the organ bags back to the fortress." The leg stomped on Aranea's head, knocking her out.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.