The side of the transport vehicle folded inward.
Bang!
The mutant hadn’t even touched it yet. When the one with the black plate stuck to its face reached out, something like a black line shot along the floor. The steel plating of the overturned transport crumpled, and the cargo containers piled behind it were shoved back.
The cover could no longer serve as cover.
Noise shoved the broken terminal into his coat.
“We’re blocked, boss!”
His other hand had already dropped to his waist.
A shortened pulse carbine.
Tat-tat-tang!
Pulse rounds struck the floor in front of the mutant. As the shots ricocheted off a heap of cables and scattered blue sparks, the mutant’s arm momentarily changed direction.
In that gap, the two wolf-types split left and right. They didn’t go in too deep. They knew, too, that if that hand caught them, they wouldn’t get free.
I skimmed along the floor.
The entrance Noise had mentioned was inside the cargo zone. But the path leading straight there was already blocked by mutants.
One long-armed creature climbed over a cargo container. Its arms hung low enough for its fingertips to touch the floor, and each time it moved, it scraped away the surface of the steel plating.
There was no need to kill it.
What we needed now was a path.
My spiritual sense spread wide. The weight of the collapsed cargo containers, the fuel pooled on the floor, the current remaining inside the cables, and the intersecting movements of the mutants all caught at once.
The long-armed mutant leaped down. The instant its path overlapped with the black-plated one following behind, I slipped beneath it.
Crunch!
Its arm burst through the floor.
As I passed under it, the tip of my tail brushed a broken battery pack.
Crackle!
Blue liquid splashed out and sparks erupted.
The long-armed mutant twisted its body. Its arm slammed into the chest of the black-plated one coming after it.
Bang!
The two became tangled together.
It wouldn’t hold them for long. Still, the path was open.
Noise threw himself between the cargo containers first. Blackbeak followed close behind.
After checking behind us one last time, I folded my body.
Ground Shrink.
The space between the cargo container and the collapsed gun barrel drew close in an instant. In the next, my body had slipped behind the wreckage of the barrel. The mutant’s hand swept over the floor a moment too late, but all it touched were the metal fragments where I had been.
A heavier sound pushed in from behind.
Thud.
The knight-class was still blocking the front of the cargo zone.
It swung the heavy thing in its hand sideways. Tank wreckage was shoved aside, and the gun barrel embedded in the floor bent. Several drones were caught in the impact and fell, vomiting sparks.
In front of it stood the leader of the Red Pine Society.
Alone.
What lay strewn around him were the remains of the Barrier Coalition forces. Crushed tanks, half-melted drones, soldiers trapped beneath tanks along with their armored suits.
In the midst of it all, only the leader of the Red Pine Society was still moving.
And yet, he was laughing.
Heh heh.
It was a laugh like blood caught in his throat.
“Hey, Beak.”
Blackbeak’s foot stopped for the briefest moment.
The Red Pine Society leader jerked his chin toward the inside of the cargo zone.
“All the way under the barrier in person. Seeing as you even dragged these beast bastards along, I doubt you’re just here to watch.”
“You still have the strength to run your mouth, Kazin.”
Kazin spat blood.
“If my mouth shuts, I’m a corpse.”
He jerked his chin toward the inner cargo zone again.
“Under the purification filter. That’s where it is?”
Noise’s shoulders stiffened.
It was only an instant.
The corner of Kazin’s mouth rose.
“Right.”
Blackbeak gave a low laugh.
“Playing dog for the district government wasn’t entirely useless, then.”
“If I’m going to be called a son of a bitch, I ought to earn my feed.”
Kazin’s split lips twisted.
“Not that someone who only cleans up the shit and piss in the beast pen would know.”
One of the wolf-types bared its teeth.
Blackbeak did not move.
Seeing that, Kazin laughed even harder.
“What? I treated you like a person, and that rubs you the wrong way?”
“Kazin.”
Blackbeak’s words grew short.
“If you want to die, die alone.”
“If I was going to die alone, I would’ve done it long ago.”
The knight-class turned its body again.
The thing in its hand rose through the smoke. If it struck the inside of the cargo zone, there was no way the entrance Noise had mentioned would survive.
Kazin gave a small tilt of his head.
“That big bastard.”
A breath mixed with blood leaked out like laughter.
“Draw its attention for a moment.”
Blackbeak snorted.
“Fuck off.”
Kazin did not answer.
He moved to the side.
The knight-class turned after Kazin. Its heavy weapon tilted through the smoke, its tip aimed toward the inner cargo zone.
Noise’s face hardened.
“Boss, from that angle, the entrance—”
Kazin laughed hoarsely.
“See?”
Blackbeak’s mouth twisted.
“This motherfucker.”
Blackbeak asked no further.
Snap.
His fingers flicked.
The black-plated mutant straightened again.
It was the one that had been shoved away earlier after tangling with the other. One side of its chest was crushed, but it did not stop. Behind it came the one with the long arms and another with bone spurs jutting from its shoulders.
The three advanced toward us at the same time.
One wolf-type sprang left. It wasn’t trying to bite. It merely skimmed the edge of the creature’s range and made noise, and Noise raised his carbine in that opening and fired in short bursts.
The rounds grazed the side of the black plate’s face and scattered sparks. Its body did not stop, but its reaction faltered for an instant.
That much of a disturbance was enough.
My spiritual sense caught the movements of all three at once. The reaction came first from within the black plate, while the long-armed one’s strength gathered below its elbow. The one with the bone spurs folded first below the waist.
Though they appeared to be moving separately, the instant they lunged, they aimed for the same points.
A hand to seize me.
An arm to tear Noise apart.
A body bending toward Blackbeak.
My ocular technique twisted those reactions.
They did not stop. Only where they looked and where they reached misaligned. The black-plated mutant seized empty air, and the long-armed one scraped the floor after I had already passed. The bone-spurred one rammed into the cargo container in front of it.
I folded my body through that opening.
Ground Shrink.
The distance vanished.
As I passed beneath the black-plated creature’s jaw, I raised demonic power along the tips of my scales. A black current running from below its neck into the inside of its chest caught in my spiritual sense.
My demonic power pierced straight through its center.
The black-plated mutant stopped. Its body was still moving forward, but the motion inside had been severed.
I was already beneath the second one.
The long arm came down late. My ocular technique caught again, and its arm scraped past an inch beside my body. The instant the floor split, I used that gap to burrow below its waist.
Scales sharpened with demonic power stabbed into the inside of the folded joint.
The black fibers gathered like tendons snapped, and the center within collapsed. The long-armed mutant buckled from the knees.
The third one let out a shriek.
Bone spurs spread in every direction.
Between them, a small opening appeared below its chest.
It was a gap human eyes would have missed.
To my eyes, it was enough.
A flash of gold brushed past for the briefest moment.
My ocular technique seized the creature’s body. The mutant’s shriek cut off, and I entered through that gap.
Puk.
The tip of my head, laden with demonic power, passed beneath its chest and reached the center inside.
The bone spurs froze in midair.
The black-plated mutant toppled forward. The long-armed one clawed at the floor while folded over, and the bone-spurred one collapsed onto a cargo container, its lower chest caved in.
It did not take long for all three to fall.
Noise’s carbine muzzle followed belatedly, but the places to shoot had already vanished. Blackbeak’s finger, too, stopped in midair.
The knight-class sensed that opening first.
Its body turned.
That was enough.
Kazin’s hand rose beneath the nape of his neck.
Under the black implant, an old terminal where flesh and metal meshed opened. His blood-soaked finger pressed inside it.
Bzzzt.
The black implant at his nape flickered briefly.
There was almost no sound. Only a faint static, small enough to be buried beneath the cannon fire and metallic noise, brushed past.
Kazin clenched his teeth and pushed his finger deeper.
It was just about to lock in.
From beneath the tank wreckage behind him, a sheet of metal flipped over.
One mutant buried among the remains of the Barrier Coalition forces unfolded its bent body. Half its upper body was crushed, and bone spurs protruded from its shoulder.
“Kazin.”
The bone spurs spread.
Crunch!
Kazin’s side bent. Black thorns drove between his armor plates. As they dug in all the way down to where flesh and metal met, Kazin’s body was shoved sideways and blood sprayed from his mouth.
The light inside the implant at his nape went out.
The smile vanished from Kazin’s face.
He grabbed the mutant’s neck with his mechanical arm and slammed it into the tank wreckage. The metal plate caved in, and with the following impact, the mutant’s head was crushed. Several bone spurs snapped off inside Kazin’s side.
Only then did black fluid leak out.
The area around the wound was quickly stained. Black blotches spread through the red blood, crawling from his side past the underside of his chest and up toward the implant at his nape.
—It’s an infection.
The AI’s words struck short.
—It’s climbed into the implant. At this point, it’s not a matter of whether his body can endure. He’s being eaten from the inside.
Sparks burst from inside his mechanical arm. The black implant at his nape flickered on its own, and black stains spread beneath his skin.
Kazin did not look at his wound.
He looked at us.
“What are you doing?”
He swallowed blood.
“If you’re going, then go.”
Noise moved closer to Blackbeak.
“Boss, we need to get out now.”
Blackbeak did not hesitate. His body turned toward the inner cargo zone, and the two wolf-types lowered themselves and followed behind him.
He did not look toward Kazin again.
Blackbeak’s back grew a little more distant through the barrage.
Then Kazin laughed.
Grrk.
Boiling blood churned once inside his throat.
“Blackbeak.”
Blackbeak stopped. He did not look back.
“What.”
“You hate this zone, don’t you?”
Kazin spat blood.
“I hate it too.”
He turned his body toward the knight-class. Black blood flowing down from his side ran along his thigh and dropped to the floor. The implant at his nape blinked like a broken marker light, and one of his legs had already lost its rhythm.
Even so, Kazin did not collapse.
“But.”
He stepped forward.
The floor beneath the shattered lower barrier creaked low under his blood-soaked foot.
“It’s my bowl.”
The corner of Blackbeak’s mouth twisted.
“You old son of a bitch.”
Kazin laughed.
This time, it was not a hoarse chuckle. His torn lips parted, revealing bloodstained teeth.
“Even a son of a bitch can’t stand a bastard who kicks over his bowl.”
With those words, Kazin’s back and the inside of his arms opened.
Old armor plates spread apart, letting out red heat. Blue lights embedded along his spine went out one by one, then began to beat madly again. From between flesh blackened by infection and mechanical parts, his final output was forced upward.
The knight-class’s heavy weapon came down.
Kazin did not dodge.
His body was already too broken to dodge, and from the start, he did not seem to have any intention of doing so.
He stepped on the tank wreckage and threw himself over the crushed gun barrel. One leg failed to follow, and black blood sprayed from his side. Even so, the implant at his nape tore through his flesh and surged upward, driving that body one final step forward.
He burrowed into the spot he had been pounding at all this time.
Beneath the chest where the armor had split open.
Between charred flesh and metal plating.
Kazin’s long weapon drove into that place.
Kagagagak!
The knight-class’s body shook violently for the first time. The thing in its hand failed to strike the floor properly and slipped sideways, and a pile of cargo containers burst apart as flames rose.
Kazin bared his teeth.
“Here.”
The devices in his back, arms, and along his spine opened all at once.
Noise drew in a breath.
“Self-destruct…!”
Blackbeak spat curtly.
“Down.”
Light erupted.
Kwaaaang!
The explosion shook the cargo zone. The overturned transport was pushed back, and the remains of drones were caught in the flames and hurled upward. Hot shards of metal scattered in every direction.
I pressed my body against the floor. Demonic power spread thinly along my scales, and several fragments scraped past beside me. The stench of burned flesh and melted metal surged in all at once.
The smoke cleared.
The knight-class still looked intact.
Kazin’s self-destruction had failed to kill it. Only the armor beneath its chest had split open, and one knee had sunk slightly. The thing in its hand had not broken either. It had stopped for a moment, but showed no sign of falling.
Kazin was nowhere to be seen.
Only pieces of burnt armor and fragments of an implant whose blue light had gone out were scattered across the floor. Black blood spread as if boiling, then soon dried like ash.
Noise bit his lip.
“Even after that…”
Before he could finish speaking, a collapsing sound came from inside the cargo zone.
Rumble.
Noise turned his head.
“The entrance!”
The inner cargo zone that led to the underside of the purification filter. The structure blocking its front was coming down. Whether it was because of Kazin’s explosion, the knight-class’s missed attack, or because the lower barrier itself could no longer endure, there was no way to know.
The path was blocked.
A gap remained, but it was too narrow to even shove one person through. Worse still, behind us, the mutants were rising again.
Newly fallen mutants climbed over the wreckage.
Black figures continued to drop from above the barrier as well.
Thud.
Thud, thud.
Noise adjusted his grip on the carbine. His hand brushed over the wrist launcher, but only one round remained.
Noise clenched his teeth and raised the carbine again.
“Boss, the rear’s blocked too.”
Blackbeak looked at the knight-class.
The opening Kazin had made was disappearing. The knight-class slowly straightened itself, and the black mass beneath its split armor wriggled as though meshing back together. The knee that had sunk was also gradually extending.
The heavy weapon scraped against the floor.
Screeeech.
The sound of metal rang long.
The entrance was blocked.
Mutants were surging in from behind.
In front stood the knight-class.
This was no longer a situation where we could consider a way back.
The AI’s words struck quietly.
—The aftermath of the explosion remains. Its internal reactions are still disrupted, but that won’t last long.
My spiritual sense swept over the knight-class’s body.
Beneath the armor on its front, the disturbance left by the explosion had not yet vanished. The black flesh was wriggling and narrowing the gap, but it had not completely closed.
It was not enough to call a weakness.
Still, there was now a place to touch.
I lowered my body and raised demonic power thinly over my scales. As the knight-class’s heavy weapon rose, I drove my senses into that split place.
As my ocular technique followed, the inside of my eyes grew hot.
Golden Eyes.
Within the golden light, the snake biting its own tail began to turn slowly.