There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 519 - 512. Cat has nine lives

Chapter 519: Chapter 512. Cat has nine lives

Leah clasped her mouth and closed her eyes, trying to coat her body in mana in an attempt at self-defense. The other reporters were starting to scream, but the others clamped those people’s mouths with their hands.

Get down and shut your mouth.

They remembered the scout’s words. Getting down to the floor, they closed their eyes and prayed to all the Celestial Beings they knew.

Whether it was because of their prayer, or because it wasn’t their time to die, they heard a loud clanking sound from the bridge. Leah opened her eyes and peeked from the back window. Her view, however, got blocked by two sleets of steel shields with black linings and array carving.

It was then did she realized the surrounding area was no longer as dark as before. She turned to look forward, to where the humvee was hastily going toward--the blinking beacon and shining purification device.

Again, dull and sharp clanking sounds could be heard from the bridge. The defender held the shields tightly as the fragment’s tail kept striking them, while its claws were occupied by Ron’s daggers.

The scout tried hard to parry the onslaught and pushed the fragment off the bridge, but it was already hard to avoid being thrown off himself. In the first place, it wasn’t a fight that could be won with only a four-star esper who wasn’t a pure damage dealer. The small injury he got was piling up and started to hinder his movement, and his stamina got sucked with every teleport he did.

But finally, he heard the screeching sound of a stopping vehicle across the bridge. Someone was shouting at the reporters to come out of the Humvee and duck behind the steel plate protecting the purification device.

"Go back!" Ron said to the defender holding the shield. "Fortify the post!"

"Yes, Sir!"

The defender took the shield, which was a part of the slate protecting the purification device, and ran back toward the outpost. He joined the other esper stationed there, who had been sending out an emergency signal to the main base.

Helios, after ditching the vehicle, took the other slate and slammed it to the ground in front of the bridge while shouting to the outpost’s defender. "Get that one over here!"

They joined the thick steel slate into a wall separating the bridge from the outpost, and he told the outpost defender to protect the reporters, who were huddling behind the purification device.

"Sir, I can’t get through," the other esper whispered to Helios, showing his communication device.

"There’s a lot of call going to the main base right now," Helios gritted his teeth as he looked at the struggling scout on the bridge. "Keep trying and give us supporting fire."

"Understood," the esper nodded and resend the emergency signal before taking out his mana riffle.

Helios jumped over the ’wall’ and ran toward the bridge. He took out his own shield and threw it toward the fragment, where it struck the tail that was about to sweep over Ron. The scout jumped back and landed behind Helios with bated breath; blood started to seep between his uniform.

"Have you...taken down a fragment before?" Ron asked, taking the chance to breathe while mana bullets rained down the fragment.

"Yeah, with a proper squad," Helios laughed wryly. "Though I don’t think we can expect one to come in assistance soon."

Ron chuckled and gripped his daggers harder. "Well, what can we do?" he glanced at the reporters in the back and took a deep breath. "Can we push this motherfucker to the river?"

"We can try," Helios shrugged. "It’s coming--I’ll take its attack."

Reaching out his hand, Helios called back his shield that got thrown to the side by the fragment’s tail earlier. He roused his mana and growled as his muscles bulged and he grew twice as big. Bright, golden manes sprouted from his shifting face and golden fur covered his whole growing body. Receiving the shield that was now as big as him, the shifter howled and pushed the shield against the fragment with his shoulder.

"Aimed the bullet to its face!" Ron shouted at the marksman before sinking into the shadow on the ground.

Thanks to Helios, the fragment became stationary enough for the marksman to aim better. Every time it tried to move, the werelion would push it back, away from the purified area. It had to use its clawed hands to defend its face from the hailing bullets, but it gave the chance for Ron to slash the fragment’s legs and tail, leaving gashing wounds that hindered its movement further.

Slowly, the fragment staggered as it lost its balance, and Helios growled through his gritted teeth before using all of his power to tackle the fragment over the railing. With a shrieking sound that made some reporters start praying again, the fragment toppled over and fell into the black water.

The marksman stopped firing his rifle for the first time, panting with widened eyes and agitated heart. Helios breathed heavily and grabbed the railing to regain balance. His glowing eyes flickered as his mana level dropped and his body gradually reverted back to the original human appearance.

"Can’t...breath..." he panted, choking on the toxic fume the fragment shot at him while he was pushing it before.

Ron grabbed the defender and dragged their exhausted body to the purified zone. "We need to take those people out," the scout said with bated breath. He glanced at the churning river. "This won’t obstruct it long."

"Ugh--I know..." Helios took a deep breath now that they entered the purified zone. He rummaged through his pocket and took out an antidote, drinking it in one gulp. "I left the engine on, so we better go qui--"

"Look ou--!"

Before the warning could reach Helios, three sets of dark purple energy blasts struck him, throwing him against the steel wall. The shields shook, pushed back slightly by the combined weight of the defender and the force of the energy blast.

"Sir!"

Helios coughed as his cracking ribs pushed the air off his lungs, along with the blood pooling in his mouth. Through his blurry vision, he saw the fragment climb the ravine with another set of claws sprouting from its back. The increased size, double tail, and hot black fume swirling around it told him how careless they were--forgetting about these creatures’ berserking stage.

As he tried to stand up, he could feel that he had broken ribs, a broken arm, and at least a fractured skull. But at least his legs were fine, so he pushed himself to move forward and began transforming again, since Ron was getting the brunt of the berserking claws. His golden transformation successfully brought the fragment’s attention--and the double tails swept at him faster than his body could transform.

Once again, he heard a cracking sound from somewhere, but was too out of it to pinpoint which part of him was broken this time. He registered the scream of the reporters next, and the outpost defender trying to drag his body behind the protective wall.

Fuck. "Focus on--cough--defe..."

The rest of his words were drowned by his own cough, the clashing and clanking sound from the bridge, as well as the barrage of the mana gun. When the shields were struck once again, he knew they were in deep, deep trouble.

"Sir Ron!"

Yeah. They were in deep, deep trouble.

Helios grabbed the other defender’s collar. "Get...the shields...around the civi...lians..." he spoke through his heavy chest, praying that the man heard him through his wheezing. "Use your b..rrier..."

Ah, fuck--it hurts. Circulating his mana to wring out any energy he still had, Helios grabbed a vial from his pocket and smashed it against his chest since he didn’t think he could swallow. As the pain lessened just a tiny bit, he reached out his hand and created a barrier around Ron, just in time before four sets of claws struck the rolling scout.

The barrier shattered, but the daggers in Ron’s hands were now lodged deep in the fragment’s hooded face--if it had any. Black blood fled out of its glowing eyes as a shrill shriek filled the space.

But they were wrong if they assumed it was a good thing. No--that kind of sound spelled fury, and it was reflected through a pair of tails lashing out toward the scout, who was still midair.

Helios couldn’t even shout in warning with his ribs pressing on his lungs, but the reporters sure had quite strong lungs. Not that it helped with anything, though. He gritted his teeth as he watched the tail stab through the scout’s scattering body.

Someone screamed behind him, but Helios let out a short breath of relief. A short one, since they still had this shrieking fragment to think of. Ron’s dagger definitely struck its core, but it wasn’t enough to destroy the material body. They needed to pour mana into it, but no one had enough left to finish the job.

For some reason though, he did not despair. Perhaps because the marksman shouted that the emergency signal went through, and just two seconds later, the shrieking head of the fragment got separated from its body. A scaled hand stabbed the shrieking mouth and pulled out a hissing dark purple fragment.

"Haa...you’re kind of late...Commander..." Helios chuckled and coughed again.

He was meant to say it as a joke, but Bassena nodded grimly. "I’m sorry," the Saint class said briefly while shoving the fragment inside a reinforced tube. The curtness in his voice told Helios how agitated the man was--that, and how he instantly injected a vial of high-quality serum into Helios’s chest.

"Commander! S-Sir Ron is..."

The marksman scrambled toward them with shaking eyes, only for Bassena to look up and follow the trace of mana with his eyes. On an empty field between them and the crouching, shivering reporters, a shadow sprouted from the ground and Ron gasped as he materialized.

The first thing that came out of his resurrected mouth was a curse.

"Fucking twice!"

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