307 Chapter 307: New Threats

"A…red Gyaragon?" Dong Fang Yue Chu spluttered, stupefied by the monster's sudden appearance. "I've never heard of a red Gyaragon before!"

"It must be a shiny monster!" Harrison Reed exclaimed without thinking. I gave him a dry stare. Really now? A "shiny" monster? What was this? A Nintendo game? I was pretty sure we didn't get to capture these monsters in hi-tech balls and use them for battles.

"Interesting. It must be the alpha of the pack." Adam Lacroix was completely unperturbed, and he was musing to himself for some reason.

"I'll take care of that," Lilith said, somewhat confidently. She glanced at Adam. "Mr. Adam, I'll trouble you to handle the rest of the Gyaragons."

Adam bowed. "Consider it done, my lady."

"The rest of you, please back Adam up." Lilith turned to instruct the Hell's Hound mercenaries. Then she paused and considered for a moment before glancing in our direction. "Colonel Kell, if you don't mind, I would like you to split up half of your forces and send them with my friends to help with the evacuation of Troy City."

"Understood, ma'am." A grizzled man of about forty nodded, his steel-flinted eyes hard and cold. He turned and barked out a few orders to his mercenaries, and a company filed up to join us. Lilith then turned toward us.

"Don't waste too much time dally about here. Hurry up and go!"

With that, she was gone, taking off on Kagutsuchi, with her Hellfire Bear tailing them both to engage the red Gyaragon in the center of the Behemoth swarm. I exchanged a glance with my friends, and then we took off in another direction and headed straight for the city. The mercenaries followed closely, covering our advance with their mana rifles.

Swiping the screen of my smartphone, I called Troy.

"Come on, answer, Troy," I grumbled. "Where are you?"

"Shouldn't we be evacuating the people here?" Dong Fang Yue Chu asked, confused. I glanced at him and nodded.

"Yeah. But from Troy's reports, it seems that he has gathered the majority of them somewhere, but he needs more manpower to serve as escorts for…" I consulted the secondary holographic screen that my smartphone projected. "Three thousand people?!"

"What the fuck?! That's a lot!" Theodore exclaimed, shocked. The mercenaries who were following us exchanged several worried looks. I didn't blame them. It was going to be a tall order for less than fifty of us to escort three thousand civilians.

But we had to try.

"What about the people still in the buildings?" Harrison glanced at the smoking and crumbling skyscrapers around us. It was hard to tell, with all the fumes and destruction, if there was still anybody inside there. And if Troy wanted me to nuke the city, it was going to be diffult to avoid collateral damage with civilians still in there.

"If they see us and join us, we'll protect them. Otherwise, they're on their own. We'll have to link up with Troy King's forces first." The leader of the mercenaries spoke up. As he did so, I noticed an update to the mission directive.

Oh, so we weren't going to nuke the city after all. The higher-ups had specifically sent me a high-priority order instructing me not to unleash my strategic-scale spell on Troy City. They didn't want to sacrifice the civilians and abandon the city. They wanted to save it.

Even now, they were pouring more of their military forces into the city to exterminate the monsters and quarantine it. They weren't taking the nuclear option, after all. Not when there was a chance that civilians might still be inside the city.

"That makes sense," Theodore pointed out when he noticed me reading the updated directive. "They didn't abandon Jing Tian City and nuke it to oblivion when the monsters invaded it. Why would they do that for Troy City?"

Because it wasn't the protagonist's city, and so nobody cares what happened to a random city that had never been mentioned until just a few chapters ago?

"Pick up the call, Troy," I hissed irritably, checking my smartphone and seeing that it was still trying to connect to him. Fortunately, it didn't take too long, and I heard a click before the screen transformed into Troy's face.

"Richie? That you?"

"Yeah! Where are you? We've reached the city." I consulted the secondary screen. "You said you have about three thousand civilians following you right now, but you didn't specify the location."

"Ah, my bad. That's because we're constantly on the move. These bastards keep chasing us, and there's way too many of them to fight off." there was an inhuman shriek off-screen, and then desperate gunfire and lots of shouting. Troy glanced to the side, his brow furrowing, and then he turned back to me. "I'll send you the coordinates by text…and if we move, I'll send you the new coordinates. But we shouldn't be too far from the old ones if that happens, so just proceed to wherever I send you first."

That made sense. Unless the civilians could fly or teleport, there was no way such a massive group of people could move so quickly. Combat mages and professional paramilitary soldiers would be able to catch up in no time at all.

"On the double!" the mercenary leader shouted. From his epaulets, I was able to guess that he was a lieutenant. They had received the coordinates that Troy had just publically posted on the network for all friendly forces.

"The other forces will arrive in about two hours, huh?" Harrison murmured to himself darkly. "Until then, we're on our own."

"Why are they taking so long?" Yue Chu whined. "They should hurry up and fly here already!"

"We are fast because there's so few of us, and we don't need much preparation," I informed him. "But large-scale military mobilizations are a different matter. Logistics, getting whatever vehicles available to move thousands of men, arming all of them with thousands of weapons – unlike us, who have our own personal weapons – establishing supply lines, a chain of command, especially when different regiments are participating, and recalling soldiers from exercises, leave or training…there's a lot of preparation that needs to be done before you can send an entire army to fight. It's not as easy as receiving the order and then rushing here immediately. They have to all report to camp first, organize their equipment, and wait for transports. And the officers also have to draw up strategies, coordinate their efforts, and…"

"Okay, I get it. I get it!" Yue Chu held up both hands to cut off my rambling. Then he stared at me suspiciously. "Why do you know so much about military stuff?"

"I thought it was pretty obvious," Theodore rumbled.

"Me too," Harrison added. Yue Chu paled considerably as he glanced from him to Theodore to me.

"You guys…"

"Contact!" one of the mercenaries yelled, and gunfire erupted explosively. The four of us spun around to engage the enemy, and I caught sight of fleeting specters emerging from behind debris and collapsed buildings.

An eerie howl burst out from one of them, the sonic assault flooring a couple of mercenaries. Their comrades opened fire upon the offending ghost, but it raised its seemingly intangible arms and constructed a sound wall that vibrated intensely to halt the mana bullets in their tracks.

"Banshees!" Harrison hissed, identifying the rank C monsters immediately. I nodded, even as I summoned Orion and prepared to launch a volley of arrows at the incoming spectral creatures. The soldiers, undaunted by the first failure of their attack, continued to pepper the Banshee, and eventually its sound barrier couldn't hold up against so many mana bullets and collapsed. Its body riddle with lethal rounds, it dropped onto the ground.

"These things evolved from Phantoms," the lieutenant remarked as he consulted his smartphone. "According to your friend, anyway. His brother injected Phantoms with the evolution virus, and they mutated into Banshees."

"At least they didn't jump from rank F all the way to rank A like the Magic Carp and Gyaragons," Yue Chu mumbled with a shudder. Raising his hand, he bathed a couple of Banshees that were trying to flank us with flames, reducing one of them into cinders. The other backed away with a screech, but my azure arrow found its mark and reduced its head to a bloody crater.

"Maybe the virus affects certain species of monsters more than others," Theodore suggested as he swung his thunder hammer and smashed a couple of Banshees into gray pulps, their bodies shaking from the devastating electricity. A third Banshee tried to scream at him, but Harrison snuck up behind it and rammed his glowing hand through its back and chest, destroying its heart. The Banshee collapsed without a sound. Swining his hammer around to brain another Banshee, Theodore expressed his gratitude without turning. "Thanks."

"I hope the Gyaragons are just a special case," Harrison murmured, looking slightly worried.

I concurred, but I kept my words to myself for fear that I would trigger a flag and some new monster would pop up. Both Yue Chu and I continued to provide ranged support for the mercenaries, whose disciplined volleys of las-fire were scything down ranks after ranks of Banshees. Yue Chu's fiery spells were burning away their sound barriers through sheer heat, while my armor-piercing arrows penetrated their defensive spells with the force of tank shells and obliterated whatever unfortunate Banshee too slow to evade.

I had to admit that the mercenaries were helping us out a lot, their combined firepower overwhelming the line of Banshees and driving the rest into a disorganized retreat. Even though individual mana rifles were weak, when coordinated into unified volleys of las-fire, they proved to be devastating, able to chip away at the hide of eventhe most armored monster. Any monster underestimating the humble mana rifle was going to pay with its life.

Honestly, if it was just the four of us, we wouldn't be able to rout the Banshees so quickly and move on. The moment we confirmed that there was no longer any sign of the enemy, we proceeded forward cautiously. The last of the Banshees were disappearing into the distance, and a few of the mercenaries stepped ahead to aim their rifles.

"Don't chase them," their lieutenant ordered when the Banshees vanished from view. "Prioritize the evacuation."

"Yes, sir!"

Restraining themselves, the mercenaries returned to their formations without complaint. They were just as disciplined as the Silver Wolves. I couldn't help but be impressed.

"Keep an eye out for any new enemies," the lieutenant continued. Even though I wasn't under his command, I obeyed. Checking my glasses, I scanned the area for heat signatures and the like. At the bottom left of one of my lenses, the motion tracker beeped as it detected countless movements on the edge of the vicinity.

"I've got movement!" I warned. "Hundreds of them!"

The mercenaries remained vigilant, glancing around and making use of their own devices. More than a few of them flipped their visors down to magically enhance their vision, peering through the gloom and rubble for any sign of the enemy.

"They're keeping their distance," one of the soldiers said. Even his professionalism couldn't mask the puzzlement in his voice.

"Probably because we gave them a good beating earlier," a grizzled sergeant suggested with a shrug. "They're being careful because they know they'll die if they just rush at us again."

"I thought they were monsters! Since when are they that smart?" it was a female mercenary this time.

"They have always been cunning," I muttered. "Underestimate them at your own peril."

The female mercenary glared at me. "Who do you think you're preaching to, kid? I've been through more battles than the number of years you've lived."

Ironically enough, I was probably much older mentally than she thought I was (I bet I was older than her, even, she looked like she was only in her twenties), but I decided not to mention that fact.

"Enough chatter!" the sergeant barked. "Eyes front! Sweep the area!"

"Yes, Sarge!"

The mercenaries hurried forward without any hesitation. I traded glances with my friends, and we followed them, but respectfully kept our distance. It wouldn't do for us to trample upon the pride of actual professionals, even if we technically ranked higher than them as combat mages as opposed to rank-and-file soldiers, who were only capable of the most basic spells.

That said, we couldn't underestimate soldiers. They were often the ones who mastered Ba Qi to its utmost extreme, and could easily defeat even advanced mages in direct combat. Hades, for example, could overpower me even without any advanced spells or techniques. Yuan Dao Yue Guang was also another example – and evidently he was ex-military before he became the security chief of the Stuart Corporation.

It was these soldiers with extreme Armament Ba Qi who were the deadliest warriors of the Federation. To a certain extent, anyway. They couldn't unleash spells of mass destruction like I could, but that didn't mean they would lose to me in a fight. More often than not, they would overwhelm me effortlessly, like how Yuan Dao so easily smashed apart whatever Constellation spirit I threw at him.

"The Banshees should be simple enough to exterminate for the reinforcements," Yue Chu was saying as we followed the mercenaries. "Let's hope this city doesn't throw any more nasty surprises…"

"Do you really have to raise a flag?" I growled, cutting him off. Yue Chu stared at me blankly.

"Flag? What flag?"

Was the guy deliberately being thick or something? I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and resisted a caustic response.

"Never mind. Just stay frosty." I returned my attention to the motion tracker on the bottom left of my glasses, and my pulse accelerated. "Something's approaching!"

At my warning, the mercenaries halted and quickly took up positions, glancing in the direction I was pointing. Several of them did so without even glancing at me – they had also picked up the anomalous movements with their hi-tech visors.

"Over there!"

One of the mercenaries rose from his position to open fire at an emerging dark shape, but after a few seconds, he froze.

No…he didn't really freeze. I watched in horror as his body slowly darkened, taking on a gray hue. His skin…his body was turning to stone.

"Petrification spell! Everyone, lower your visors!"

The lieutenant shouted.

Thanks to my glasses, which also provided some sort of protective enchantment against eye curses, I was able to see the source of the petrification spell. As the dark silhouette came into view, I recognized those uncoiling serpents that passed off as hair for a hideous, humanoid monster that possessed gray eyes and whip-like arms.

"Gorgon," I whispered, dread filling my voice. Noting the other menacing figures that were following behind the lead Gorgon in a sinister fashion, I felt my heart drop into my stomach. "A whole horde of them."