The total number of deadheads left—regular or special—was about half of what it originally was. Almost all of them were still advancing forward but a select few were either feeding on their own or just staying in place.
Well, the bloaters would just feed on anything that moves while the tailor would feed on the regular ones first before increasing its own little army, and the only one staying still was the hulker with a bad knee.
At this point, everyone else was just waiting for the ones behind it to advance but not everyone was designed to sit still.
A group of people started to hug the fence to the left and right to be out of its reach before they started to move forward and leave the hulker behind. Doing this type of thing was extremely dangerous but since most of them were from Mr. Cuervo's fold, in their heads, the show must go on.
With that said, they cleaved through a few dozen deadheads but another group was also responsible for dragging the bodies away. No one wanted a repeat of what just happened earlier but the rate of dragging corpses back versus the rate of putting them down had a large difference.
No one wanted to get too close to the hulker who was staring everyone down in a defensive position, but its mere presence was the bottleneck to get a balance between the two tasks the participants were performing.
However, while everyone else was focused on the players in front, no one noticed that Artem was discussing something with the rest of his team.
They were huddled in a small circle but it seemed like he was this close to getting pummeled by Katya and Quinn. From the way the two were holding their weapons, it seemed like Artem wanted them to lend theirs to Nikolas and Ilya.
Tatiana and I could see them bickering from the fence we were perched on but I tried to wave over Mr. Cuervo once more.
"Mr. Cuervo—"
"No! You're not allowed to—"
"I'm not joining—"
"I told you no! You're— Huh? You're not gonna try to—"
"Listen. I know we can't join but can we throw something over?"
Mr. Cuervo looked over curiously, "Hmm? What is it?"
I pointed at Tatiana's axe, "That one."
"What's so special about that?"
"Let my team use it and you'll find out."
"You—"
Before Mr. Cuervo and I could finish our conversation, my team just moved ahead with Artem in the front. I thought for sure that Mikhail would be the one to start it but Artem was walking forward at a moderate pace, injection axe in one hand and gripping it tightly.
However, Katya and Quinn still kept their own weapons but the ones who had the same injection system—Katya and Mikhail—were on the farthest left and right from Artem's position.
The rest of the game continued on for a while but the highlight was a close match between what Benjie did and what Mikhail did.
To be completely fair, Benjie also did a lot by taking on the hulker solo and injuring it in the process but his achievements got overshadowed because he forfeited. But in my opinion, the actual NovelFireP was Artem and I think that he could've also gone toe-to-toe with it alone because it wasn't the same one we faced before and there were weak spots we could exploit.
'Let's just say I'm fucking glad one of them is on my team, heh.'
I was just about to hop off from the fence I was perched on but I heard Mr. Cuervo's voice.
"You got a good team there, Hermano. And their weapons, how are they special? Did I see it and didn't notice?"
"Hmm, I could show you later since they just used the sheer weight of them—"
"Do you think our blades could pierce through those things' skin?"
"Just the skin—"
"Just answer my question, kid. You know what I mean."
"Heh. Mine could. I dunno about yours. Maybe it could too?"
Once I said that, Tatiana just glanced at me momentarily before she hopped down and shook her head. Mr. Cuervo looked like he was deep in thought so I just followed after Tatiana who was already a few steps ahead.
"Hey."
"What?"
"Is there a problem?"
"Can your blade really do it?"
I chuckled gently, "We would've known if we were let in—"
"Just answer."
I just looked Tatiana in the eye before I faintly smiled, "Yes and no."
Tatiana never looked so confused, "Huh?"
"Heh, that's for you to figure out," I said as I started to walk past her.
"WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!"