311 Convergence 8

[IMI CAS ON STATION: FIRST SALVO ON FINAL GUIDANCE, READING BEACON 5 BY 5, SPLASH 10 SECONDS.]

"Alice now!"

"Gladly!"

With notice of final guidance by IMI and permission given by Dax, Lilly sprang into action and activated the spell formation she had been building for the past 30 minutes. With a brilliant glow surrounding her, Lilly raised her hand to the sky as 3 compressed chunks of bedrock the size of a bus emerged from the ground around her. Clenching her extended hand closed, the already compressed chunks of bedrock compacted further into spears over 5 meters in length, no more than 10 centimetres wide.

"Ready."

While just maintaining the massive amount of pressure and balance needed to keep such a spell on standby, Lilly knew full well how important it was to coordinate the attack correctly with the orbital artillery, if she messed it up they might not be able to kill the hydra.

"... Stand by."

With Dax coordinating the timing, Lilly blindly trusted him and launched her spell on his command. Pulling down her raised arm as the spears made of highly compressed bedrock were surrounded by complex spell formations as they reoriented themselves towards the hydra, continuously tracking it even though there was a forest in between.

"Go!"

On Dax's command, Lilly launched her spell which ripped straight through the nearby forest, tearing straight through the hydra's scales and deep into its body, hitting the cores hidden deep inside its body right the first salvo of orbital artillery impacted, knocking up a cloud of dust along with creating a massive explosion as Solaris landed back on the ground to join up with the others.

"... Please tell me that actually killed it."

Waiting for the dust to clear as she maintained numerous spells, Solaris inadvertently forgot about the 'rules of the universe' Dax and Lux had taught her.

"Not if you fucking jinx it like that."

"Ah, sorry."

The hydra had been sleeping when they found it, therefore it was unlikely to have shot down the aircraft they had lost, meaning that there was still something hostile in the area. Looking calmly towards Lux as he realized that fact it appeared that she had also just become aware of it, and to make matters worse it seemed that they had just been surrounded.

"Shit."

"Yeah, fighting would be unwise."

"... What are you guys talking about all of a sudden?"

Even with her sharp sense of hearing, Lia didn't seem to have picked up the creatures which had already surrounded them, not even Mare with her sharp senses seemed aware, further underlining the fact that it would be highly likely that Dax and his unit would suffer casualties if they tried to fight the unknown 3rd party which was currently observing them. With the others noticing Lux and Dax acting strange, Dax silently put his rifle down on the ground before stepping away from it, getting down on his knees he started relaxing.

"We're surrounded, as none of you guys even noticed them yet fighting would be unwise."

Mare was the first one to realize Dax wasn't joking when a cold shiver went down her spine, in a half panic she focused her attention on the surrounding forest which had been torched by the hydra's breath and the countless airstrike which had helped in defeating it as she noticed a vague presence which disappeared immediately after she had grasped its rough location, it had clearly realized that she had sensed it and then relocated.

-

Having put down his rifle and sat down, Dax attentively observed his surroundings while the others also disarmed, although a bit more hesitantly than he had done.

(20… No, 24 nearby. That can't be all of them, with the long range strike capability they've already demonstrated, there's likely at least a few hanging back…)

While whatever was currently surrounding them had used some sort of spell to turn invisible and although skilled, they couldn't hide the effect they had on their surroundings. An unnatural movement of a branch there and the shake of a leaf there, Dax slowly pinned down the positions of the creatures observing him, his cybernetic eye was also able to catch faint outlines of thermal signatures, but before Dax could figure out more there was finally movement.

"Here we go, don't show aggression, we don't want to start a war with an unknown party."

As Dax warned his subordinates (especially Ifrit) a final time something started moving towards them, while it was still invisible the way the ground beneath the creature depressed as it moved, Dax could already tell quite a lot about it.

(Interesting…)

Moving slowly so as to not create a misunderstanding, Dax made the helmet on his XMRA armour fold away to reveal his face as he put on his eyepatch to híde his cybernetic eye, in response the creature started undoing its cloaking spell. Slowly dissipating starting from the top, strands of well maintained and carefully braided red hair revealed itself along with a pair of reptile like orange eyes and faint white skin occasionally dotted with small red scales. Wearing a sort of vail black to cover the lower part of its head, the seemingly female creature was covered in elaborately embroidered black, slightly see through clothing which left little to the imagination the top and skirt combination, not even covering her mostly scale covered stomach. While she at first glance appeared humanoid, the creature turned entirely alien below the waist as it didn't have any legs, instead its body transformed into a long and slender scale covered body, not unlike that of a snake.

(So half humanoid, half snake. A lamia?)

Doing his best to keep up a blank poker face Dax observed the lamia's face for any changes in expression, although he wasn't entirely sure of it at the time, the lamia was doing the same, that is until it noticed Dax's eye which looked somewhat like its own. Maintaining eye contact, the lamia closed until it could practically reach out and grab Dax, then she rolled up her large tail beneath her body and 'sat' down facing Dax, but due to the sheer size of her tail, Dax had to look up to meet her gaze. After a few seconds of slightly tense silence, the lamia reached out and grasped Dax's hand, seemingly not willing to take no for an answer, it started dragging him away with the others following silently behind.

(What the hell is going on here?)

Meanwhile, Solaris was just about to break Dax's orders as she stared daggers into the lamia, while Dax hadn't noticed it due to how thick headed he was, the lamia's gaze had changed drastically after he had removed his helmet.