Her bright eyes sized him up, like a hungry wolf eyeing a delicious little rabbit.
Cloudhawk felt a trickle of sweat drip down his spine. “Nah!”
That hammer had to be a hundred pounds or heavier, too much for your typical person to handle. Heavy was an understatement and her shield probably wasn’t much lighter. There was no way he’d been able to use them effectively in a fight. Meanwhile, Artemis wielded the hammer like a bamboo stick. Despite their combined weight, after walking fifty kilometers, she didn’t seem at all winded.
This woman was a monster, but when he thought about it, she was typical at the same time. Among the Bloodsoaked Queen and the seven other elite fighters, she was one of the leaders. That meant she was at least twice as strong as any of her subordinates.
As for her, the kid was only proving to be more and more amusing.
She was about to continue their banter when suddenly, the sound of a heavy gun firing in the distance interrupted her. Everyone’s face stiffened – had the fight already started?
But there were no sweepers to be seen!
The Outpost didn’t have a chain gun. The only group they knew who did was the sweepers. The deadly weapon was affixed to their airship. But why would the airship be using it? Had their plans already been ruined?
Snaketooth was still nowhere to be found.
“God fuckin’ damnit, why is there fighting?!” Artemis seemed to have trouble deciding what to do next. She turned to the others. “Should we go see?”
No one gave an opinion.
Cloudhawk suddenly felt an unsettling sensation, like needles digging into his flesh. Overcome with a sense of danger, he ducked and instinctively looked towards the ruins. A flash of light – like sunlight reflecting off a mirror – glinted back at him.
“Down!”
Snipers were hiding in the ruins with their sights set on Cloudhawk and the Bloodsoaked Queen. Half a second later, they started firing. Only one of the snipers was aiming at Cloudhawk. The others were focused on the demon hunter. It was clear who their main target was.
Whoosh! Crack!
The Queen had been warned and could hear the bullets tearing through the air. Although she couldn’t see them, she was skilled enough to track them by sound. She instinctively dodged out of danger.
Bullets bombarded the spot she’d just occupied, missing her and instead burrowing into one of the fighters’ heads. They struck with so much force that they blew the top of his skull off. Bits of bone and brain burst in all directions like gruesome fireworks.
Hot blood splattered over Artemis’s face. She gaped at the body of her comrade as he slumped to the ground. What the fuck was going on?!
The snipers were Outpost soldiers, there to assist the operation. So why were they turning their guns on them? Now wasn’t the time to wonder, though. Who knew how many more snipers were hiding nearby!
The crack of gunfire rang out again.
Artemis instinctively lifted her shield to cover her head. She shuffled backwards to try and find cover in the ruins as a bullet smashed into her shield. It hit with such force that the vibration caused her arm to go numb.
“What the actual fuck!” Artemis’s screeching voice called to the others. “Take cover!”
Outpost sniper rifles were specialized weapons of death, manufactured to fire a bullet at near supersonic speed. The soldiers who traveled with them were her outstanding fighters, but were no match for the likes of the Bloodsoaked Queen. They couldn’t track the bullets, much less dodge them. If these snipers had them in their sights, the threat to their life was critical.
Everyone scattered, all but Panther whose face adopted a stony expression. He pulled out his daggers and lunged at one of his companions, stabbing him twice in the chest before opening his throat.
“You…”
The one Panther attacked was not inferior to the small man, but he hadn’t expected the treachery. He’d been too busy trying to avoid the snipers to keep an eye on his back, leaving Panther an opening.
Panther wasn’t alone, either.
The two others from Snaketooth’s team lashed out at their brethren. The last member of Artemis’s team was killed before he could fight back.
Even stunned, the wastelander woman knew what had befallen them. “Snaketooth betrayed us, that rancid piece of dog shit!”
It all happened so fast, they barely had time to think. But the proof was there; all three of Snaketooth’s team were attacking them and the snipers had been arranged by Hydra’s brother. No question, Snaketooth had sold them out.
The only ones left were Artemis, Cloudhawk, the Queen, and Mantis, wherever he was. Panther and the other three were enemies. The Bloodsoaked Queen was still recovering from the surprise attack, but she was still more than a match for them.
There were at least ten deadly snipers in the ruins nearby, however. Even the Queen had to take care, for if she got tangled up, that would be all the chance they needed to riddle her with bullets.
Cloudhawk had managed to avoid a shot and rolled behind a dilapidated wall for cover. But no sooner had he ducked behind it did he feel a gust of wind on his head. One of the traitors was standing over him with a battleax aimed right for his scalp.
He was done for!
Cloudhawk lifted his exorcist rod to block the strike but could tell immediately that this fighter was a strength metahuman, and a dominant one at that. He couldn’t defend himself with his strength alone.
The grating sound of metal on metal rang out.
Just as Cloudhawk was about to be cleaved in half, a petite and agile figure dashed in front of him like a leopardess. Her shadow fell over him, shield held high, and as the ax struck her with thunderous force, Cloudhawk could see the stone path beneath her feet shatter.
One could imagine how much force was behind the strike.
“Burn in hell!”
Thick veins bulged as Artemis thrust back, her pretty face twisting into a fierce sneer as she jumped straight at her attacker. She used her shield to knock his ax away and brought her melon hammer around in a sweeping arc. The ax-wielding betrayer, eyes wide, leapt out of the way and her hammer struck ground instead of bone. It crashed into rock with an explosive boom and turned stone to dust. The impact shook Cloudhawk and muddled his head.
Holy shit! Was she even human?! Her strength was nothing short of spectacular!
Cloudhawk had run into many impressive people lately, and of all of them, the only one who surpassed her in pure power was the two-horned mutant. Even the Bloodsoaked Queen couldn’t meet her blow for blow.
Artemis’s weapon was cumbersome and unwieldy, making her attacks slow. Strong as each attack was, that was also her weakness.
The Bloodsoaked Queen was still the snipers’ main target and their guns were trained on her. Still, she raced across the ruins like a phantom, dodging each shot as it came and switching directions on a dime. Using sound alone, she avoided them and remained unscathed.
Panther, his daggers bared, suddenly leapt at her.
She knocked his weapons away easily and whipped her powerful leg once, then twice. Each kick struck one of Panther’s wrists and sent his daggers flying. A third kick caught him right in the center of his chest and the small man was hammered into the air. She snatched one of Panther’s daggers before it hit the ground and swung back to bury it in him.
Another soldier made his move. He pulled out a handgun, swung his arm towards her and fired. Judging by his finesse and precision, he was as skilled a shot as Slyfox! A marksman like him was lethal.
Until now, the Queen had been too fast for him to take his shot, but he saw his opportunity. It was now or never. If she killed Panther, he was next.
The Bloodsoaked Queen was forced to change targets. She rotated the dagger and blocked two bullets aimed at her. She was so fast it seemed nothing could touch her. Her skills were simply fantastical.
“What?!”
Just like Slyfox had once done to a sweeper’s bullet,
the Queen knocked away a shot she couldn’t avoid with nothing but a dagger. Her lightning speed was complemented with exact precision. The shooter could hardly believe his eyes.
However, there was more than one enemy the Queen had to worry about.
A host of guns were leveled at her. While she was defending herself from the close-range gunfire, the snipers nearby were taking aim. Even the Bloodsoaked Queen couldn’t protect herself from every direction at once.
Then, the unexpected happened.
Sweepers began to appear all around them. There weren’t many – maybe a couple dozen – but they were skilled and savage. A winged mutant led the charge.
Things had gone from bad to worse!
The Bloodsoaked Queen’s heart sank. Suddenly, she was caught between the frying pan and the fire. Now, it seemed that in addition to the snipers, they had to survive the mutant lieutenants and their army!
A short distance away, Cloudhawk spotted a narrow slit among the ruins. It was somewhere the snipers couldn’t get them. He turned and shouted at the Queen. “Don’t fight them! Let’s get out of here!”
The Queen dashed towards him in retreat. Artemis followed using her shield for cover. Their group fled towards the fissure.
Hidden in the ruins, a sniper’s muzzle moved. He peered through his sights, tracking Artemis as she desperately ran for safety. He had a good angle on her, positioned on the side where her shield didn’t reach. The woman’s head was right in his line of sight.
Cloudhawk was clearly the weakest of them, but he had a keen sense. He seemed to instinctively know when a muzzle was pointed at him. Hitting him was harder than the sharpshooters had expected. The Queen’s capabilities were also too high for them to overcome, and since she could hear the bullets coming, it was too difficult to hit her so long as she was alert.
That just left Artemis. There was no way she could escape this shot.
The sniper waited until he lined the shot up just right, and pulled the trigger. The muzzle of his rifle belched fire and a bullet whistled through the air.
72 The Desert Titan
Just as the gun fired, the soft blue light of a digger glinted. It slipped into the base of the sniper’s skull, severing his spine from his brain stem. The strike was perfectly clean, and in an instant, his body’s systems shut down. His heart, breathing, digestion – everything that kept him alive was turned off like flipping a switch. An angel from heaven couldn’t save him.
The bullet’s trajectory was off as a result of the blow. The bullet cut through her hair before burying itself bloodlessly in the ground. The boiling heat of its passage scorched Artemis’ cheek, contrasting with the cold sweat that suddenly covered her. She yelped in surprise.
Cloudhawk watched from the safety of cover, and when he saw the bullet kick up dust, an idea hit him. “Sand! Use the sand for cover!”
Right! Why didn’t she think of that?
After her brush with death, Artemis’s mind snapped back to the present. She raised her melon hammer high, and like a furious tempest, the sound of her weapon striking the ground rumbled through the air. The ground shook from the tremendous force, causing debris from the ruins around them to collapse and belch plumes of dirt into the air.
Cloudhawk couldn’t help but be pleased.
The sweepers brought by Longhorn and Stranger Black caught up to Panther and the three others and together, they chased after the survivors. A few snipers also rose from nests hidden in the ruins to try and find better vantage points.
Through the clouds of dust, the Bloodsoaked Queen could see a few sweepers approaching, leading the pack of hunters. She glared with eyes cold as death. Time and again she, a noble demon hunter, had been foiled by these filthy freaks.
Her pride was injured. Despite the obvious dangers, a need to charge into the fray and deal with the three lieutenants then and there welled up in her. But Cloudhawk was by her side and shouted through the haze of anger. “Gotta look at the big picture. Let’s go!”
Her fist tightened into a white-knuckle grip. She thought about her mission, her final goal, and grit her teeth against the rage inside her.
The three of them ran.
Bang!
One of the snipers toppled from the ruins, felled by a bullet to the chest. The shot had come from a few hundred meters away. Clearly, Mantis had skill with a gun, too. He was no less accomplished than these outpost snipers.
Bang! Crack!
Each shot punctuated the death of another sniper.
Mantis hadn’t come to their aid right away, not before finding where each of the snipers had been hiding. Now was the time to clear out these dangerous stalkers. If not now, Cloudhawk and the others would be unable to escape.
Mantis couldn’t avoid detection, not after taking out three of them. The rest of the snipers dropped into cover. One of them was caught in the open in the center of the ruins and flung himself to the ground, half-buried in the sand. He covered the rest of himself in a tan cloak to blend in with the surroundings. He peered through goggles protecting his eyes and searched through his sights for Mantis.
Bang!
Just as the sniper was ready to pull the trigger, a crisp snap rang in his ears. A bullet shattered the glass of his scope, tore through his goggles and left eye, and exploded from the back of his skull, leaving a jagged tunnel through his brain. The bullet was flattened by the impact and ripped out chunks of brain matter in its passage.
Just half a second late! That was all, but in the end, that half a second had been what killed him. In a battle of snipers, time determined the victor.
Mantis had taken out four snipers, but he knew there were at least three more lurking in the ruins. He couldn’t stay put. The assassin turned and dropped to the sandy floor below, only to disappear once again into the rubble.
Now that they had seen what became of their comrades, the other snipers carefully picked through the area, sticking to cover. A rash decision, a quick movement, could be the only things between them and doom.
Cloudhawk and the two women slipped into the crevice without further incident, finally escaping the deadly outpost snipers. However, that didn’t necessarily mean their situation was any better. There were still the demon’s lieutenants, three elite outpost assassins, and at least a dozen crack sweeper warriors on their tail. These forces far outstripped what the Queen could handle. If they caught up, there was no chance she and the others would survive.
Even weighed down by her bulky equipment, Artemis kept up with Cloudhawk just fine. “What in the name of a rotwolf’s hairy asshole is going on? Did Hydra sell us out?”
Hydra couldn’t have given them up to the demon! Whatever the case, they were facing a disastrous situation.
Whatever led to this, Hydra’s company was likely mulch after facing the sweeper’s chain gun. That could only mean there would be even more sweepers coming at any moment, and Hydra’s support wasn’t something they could count on.
“Watch your heads!”
Vulture had picked them out from the air and was firing at them with a gun in each hand. Artemis lifted her shield for cover, while the Queen and Cloudhawk ducked and weaved. Luckily, he was not an expert marksman. Otherwise, with his speed and high vantage point, the three of them would be done for.
“This fuckin’ bird brain is tryin’ to slow us down. We can’t let him!” Cloudhawk knew what the mutant was planning. “Queen, maybe one of the fire birds can deal with him!”
Their only choice was to rely on their relics. The phoenix gourd Cloudhawk had given her had proved to be a powerful tool.
The Bloodsoaked Queen reached out with her psychic power, filling the relic with it. A wave of energy pulsed out around her and a column of fire belched into the sky. Fire roared and roiled, billowing out until it gathered into the shape of a fiery bird slightly over two meters long. Its crisp cries resonated through the area, calling for blood as if it had an intelligence of its own, before charging at the winged mutant.
“What is this?!”
Vulture gawked, dropping his guns and pulling his swords free of their sheaths. He flung his dual machetes, cutting a fine arc through the sky like a pair of cyclones, aiming for the phoenix. When they struck the bird, it was cut clean in half.
Pa!
Vulture’s machetes returned to him like boomerangs and he snatched them out of the air. They were so hot, he almost had to let them go, giving credence to the amount of energy that had been contained in the phoenix. But what shocked him most was that the two halves of the bird melded seamlessly back together and resumed its course, like nothing had happened!
What normal soldier could destroy an immortal bird summoned by a demon hunter? Vulture was forced to break off his attack. The phoenix circled the area, chasing off Vulture before dissolving into a cylinder of fire and crashing back to earth.
“Move!”
Stranger Black sprang out of the way, but two of the sweepers were too slow. The phoenix struck the ground between them, releasing a blast of fire and energy so intense it swallowed up everything in a three meter radius. The sweepers were enveloped in flame and rolled on the ground, screaming in agony. A short time later, they had become blackened husks.
Stranger Black’s voice betrayed his fright. “So she’s recovered to this point?”
Longhorn shouted. “Third brother – don’t risk it!”
Although Vulture was livid with anger, he didn’t dare rush in again after seeing what the demon hunter was capable of. But it didn’t matter, they had nowhere to run!
Cloudhawk knew it too.
The Bloodsoaked Queen was strong, but even she had her limits. The enemy was too numerous and had many capable fighters. The Queen couldn’t take them alone, and though she also had Cloudhawk and Artemis at her side, they weren’t enough to make up the difference.
“Wait!” Artemis suddenly shouted at them. “We can’t go on. The area ahead is uncharted territory. Any further and we’re asking to die!”
The Greenland Outpost regularly sent scouts into the surrounding areas to map their surroundings, but there were some places no one ventured. These sections of the ruins were home to terrible mutant beasts that made them too dangerous to chart.
The Wastelander Page 53