Amber's crew made it here in no ti, but the situation in Sector Seven was... dramatic. No, that was an understatent.
Flas engulfed the area, with the sounds of explosions and gunfire piercing through the air.
Smoke billowed from several points, clouding the sky and casting a heavy pall over the environnt.
Buildings bore the scars of battle. So buildings had partially collapsed. The ground was littered with debris, making navigation treacherous and slow, and a building bore what appeared to be a giant blade scar.
"Blackguards."
"Yeah..." Amber had a somber look in her eyes. Whatever happened here had been big.
Based on what she got told by the command center. She learned from the command center that almost all the squads in Sector 7 had been killed.
Noah must have thought that the best thing to do was to send the support squads to close the breach through their lines.
The issue was that whoever caused so much destruction was likely present in the area, and if even Erik's clones couldn't stop them, it was doubtful they could do so either.
"I don't want to fight a blackguard," Floyd said.
"Neither do I," Amber said.
The air around Amber's group was thick with tension, every breath heavy with the weight of danger.
Shadows seed to stretch longer with each passing mont, casting a pall over the group.
The re ntion of the Blackguard had set their nerves on edge, knowing that a confrontation could erupt into violence at any turn.
Eyes darted, hands rested on weapon hilts.
"What do we do?" Mikey asked.
"Our orders are to reinforce the sector."
"But there is no one here." The place was devoid of people, or better, of living ones.
Martha looked around. There were bodies everywhere. Under the rubble, pierced by brain crystal rifle bullets.
Most were Erik's clones. To see people who so closely resembled their friend, dead on the ground, was unsettling.
However, Erik created them to save his father, and, albeit cruel, death was almost given to them.
The problem was that, among the clones, there were people from the Nexthorn Vanguard guild. Erik's n and won.
These people were trained. They knew what they were doing; they got paid.
Their ability in combat was honed by years of hunting thaids. These guys weren't weak. "Do you think sector six will-"
The sound of an explosion echoed from sector six, jarring the relative calm.
This particular area served as a crucial link, connecting a secondary entrance of the prison to the city.
They made Sector 7 to prevent the blackguards from reaching it. It was a shield, but that shield got destroyed.
The Blackguards attacked sector seven, and consequentially sector six, to reach this entrance.
If explosions were occurring there, it implied that sector six was on the verge of being
overrun.
"The Blackguards are pushing hard."
"Yeah."
The explosion wasn't just a random act. Noah likely ordered it to prevent access to the prison's secondary entry.
The entrance connected Fasard to the prison by a bridge, one so long as to prevent prisoners from escaping. There was a black chasm under the bridge.
Amber and the others didn't know how Noah planted bombs there.
It was weird, honestly. Noah planted spies and troops around the prison without a single enemy soldier noticing it.
They were attacking, but at the sa ti defending, and while that was weird and surprising, the most surprising thing of it all was how Noah did all of this.
The whole point of this operation was to prevent the outside guards from reaching the prison.
Noah isolated it, but the situation was dealt with by the enemy guards.
The bridge's collapse sent a simple ssage to both sides.
For Noah and his troops, it was a bitter but strategic retreat.
The Blackguards saw it as a clear sign their enemies would do anything to stop them from reaching the prison.
While the prison was inaccessible from sectors six and seven, that didn't an there weren't other places from which to enter.
Aaron got cold shivers run down his spine. "If the bridge on sector six has been destroyed, it ans those in sectors 5 and 4 are still up."
"Yeah," Amber said.
Here was the problem: to access those areas, the Blackguard had to co back to Sector 7.
"We must leave."
"Yes. Move!"
The group retreated. Sectors four and five were still guarded, so the best thing to do was to reach that area and help fortify it.
Amber and her team navigated the ruins of the battlefield.
There were no more troops there, those that were aiding the Blackguards were rerouted to sectors four and five, while Erik's troop had been decimated, and those who survived retreated to the sa sector.
They circumvented sector 7, which had beco a no-man's-land, and focused on sectors four and five, where the defenses were still holding strong.
In the end, they arrived behind a battlefield. Most of the soldiers were using brain crystal
rifles to fight.
It seed absurd that brain crystal powers had dominated the human world for centuries, yet the advent of technological developnt rendered years of training obsolete.
They positioned themselves in an elevated area, taking advantage of a crumbling building's second floor.
This vantage point gave them a clear view of the battlefield below, where soldiers exchanged fire using the brain crystal rifles.
The team was well-hidden among the debris and shadows, making their presence unnoticed by the enemy forces engaged in the firefight below.
"What do we do?" Mikey asked.
Amber observed the area.
"Open a path and take position," Amber said.
Her team nodded in understanding, spreading out to execute her command.
Amber could see Erik's clones defending position, but the number of enemy soldiers was
overwhelming.
"Are you sure we can get past that sea of people?"
"We should," Amber said.
"All but Floyd, Gwen and Benedict have powers that are effective against multiple people. We
must wreak as much havoc as we can."
"What if the blackguard arrives?" Aaron asked.
"That's why we need to breach the enemy's line. If we stay here any longer, the blackguard will arrive from behind. The soldiers and the blackguards will encircle us." Aaron sighed. "Let's go," Amber said. The group started channeling mana. They didn't have enough to kill everyone, but they could for sure unleash carnage in a small section. Amber released her fog. She kept it high so that Martha, Aaron's, and Mikey's brain crystal powers could be used. Martha used her vines to ensnare her opponents.
Of course, she killed many, but not as much as Mikey and Amber. Mikey's bugs devoured the soldiers alive, mostly from down the waist, while Amber corroded them from the waist up.
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