"Nine, stand up or you're dead!" Koori warned as she waved her hand.
The next moment, the falling snow followed her will, melting into a clear stream of water before rushing toward the target. With the amount of snow present around, by the time the "wave" reached the target, it was already as tall as a building!
SPLASH!
But the target didn't seem bothered or scared by it. Instead, it raised a hand, causing the wave of water to stop in place... as if held by an invisible hand.
"Ugh...!" Koori groaned, gritting her teeth as she desperately maintained control. "This fucker got a wide control range and high capacity...!"
Just as I was thinking she was monologuing, I noticed that Neun had already returned to his feet and was rushing in an arc. He was planning to flank the target this time!
"Wait, not just that...!"
Apart from a simple charge, he was also bringing four floating daggers with him. They followed him as if they were part of his body, despite them not being in contact with his hands at all.
The next instant, I heard an unfamiliar voice, quiet but warm, echo in the earpiece.
"Limiter... off!"
The next moment, Neun's movement changed. If he was rushing in at a pace of 2 m per second earlier, thanks to the exoskeleton supporting his charge... Right now, he was rushing in like a speeding bullet!
It was so fast that by the time the target noticed his approach, it was already too late.
BAM!
Neun's shoulder hit the target, sending him flying back and slamming to, and bouncing off the ground. After that, he moved the four daggers to pin the target's limbs against the asphalt.
Or at least that was the plan...
"SCREEECH!"
The target raised another ear-piercing shriek. But that's not all. After the shriek, the flying knives started falling down, as if they lost all the force behind them. They failed to reach the target and injure it critically!
"Good job!"
But despite his failure, Koori praised Neun's actions.
After all, thanks to his attack, the enemy was now distracted for a moment. This brief opening was more than enough for Koori to make her move.
She froze a few shards and sent them flying on a low, complicated arc before they inserted themselves into the target's sides. Blood spurted from the wound as the shards penetrated deep, and the target squirmed in pain from having a foreign object enter its body.
"Now, freeze!"
With a motion of closing her palm, the open wound... started to crystallize.
The blood flowing out of it solidified into ice crystals before the frozen parts spread further. From the wound, to the entire side, until it began eating away into the target's chest and limbs.
"HMPH!"
Of course, Neun didn't just stand idly either. He managed to regain control over his daggers, and let them stab the target on its four limbs. It was now nailed against the ground, unable to even move.
"Target is immobilized. Now's the chance!" Koori reported back to the tower.
[Confirmed! Setting the coordinates right now...!]
And then, the same female voice echoed once again. She sounded nervous, but her voice was filled with resolve.
[Teleporting the target to 1,000 km up in the air!]
With her words as the signal, the target's figure suddenly began flickering. Like a poorly tuned television, its figure kept blinking in and out of existence until a second later, when it completely disappeared and was never to reappear again...
[Success! Confirming that the target's now in orbit! With its exit altitude, it should pass away long before reentry!]
"..."
What an overpowered ability. I definitely shouldn't make an enemy of this teleporter girl...
"Good work, everyone. We wrapped this one quickly and with little to no damage to the area." Koori sighed in relief. "We'll now return to base. We'll wait for the Night Hawk here, so don't undo the perception veil until then."
[Copy that. Keeping the Perception Veil at low power output.]
"Phew..."
The encounter barely took a minute, but this should've been a Risk-level A... should it really be this easy? Or are the two before me just that powerful that it looked so easy?
{Duck...!}
And just as I was distracted, a voice echoed inside my head once again. The same voice that saved me countless times before... my own voice.
My body followed the instruction almost instantly, bending my knees and lowering my posture completely. And the next instant, I heard the sound of something sharp cutting through air right above my head... That was a blade, wasn't it?!
I didn't dare waste time looking behind but instead sent a reverse kick, trying to chase away the enemy behind. I did a front flip along with the kick, allowing me a brief moment to see what was behind.
And there... stood a skeleton-looking man. He was even thinner than Neun was, practically just skin and bones!
But the craziest thing was the sword he had in his hands. That was a broadsword, about two and a half meters long and half a meter wide. Just from looking at its bulk, I can tell that it was heavy. Maybe a hundred kilograms at least? Getting hit by it would feel like getting slapped by a car or something.
"Wheeze...!"
And just as I was daydreaming, the skeleton man parried my kick with the sword's hilt before raising it up and bringing it down in a fraction of a second. An act that definitely would've required great strength from him... something he shouldn't be able to do, given his lack thereof.
My mind churned fast, but not as fast as the voice in my head.
It commanded once more, asking me to create a shield out of the snow. Albeit impromptu and lacking integrity due to the rushed action, the snow around me still formed a small barrier, delaying the incoming blade by a fraction of a second—just enough for me to push myself off the ground and roll across roughly.
"Ugh...!" I groaned as I spun back up. "Need help here! There's a new enemy! And he's armed...!"
Just as I finished speaking, the figure that should've been left a few meters away...
WHOOSH!
He was already before me, swinging his giant sword down on top of my head.