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"Who dares to bully my teammate?" Erza appeared beside Kaiser with a gun in her hand.
She had a frown on her face.
"Hahaha, it seems I will live, though I don't know whether that's a good thing or not," Kaiser said while laughing.
"You better not do something stupid like this again with that life of yours that I saved. Anyway, Ren informed me of the situation. Boss had foreseen this situation turning out like this before only, so he asked me to support you; you better thank him later, " Erza said with a deadpan while masking her concern for Kaiser's current state.
Akeru had told her on the morning of the day they regrouped with others in Duneshade, and before entering this city, he had told Erza to react according to how the situation would turn out.
Though, he himself was sure that the situation would turn out something like this.
"I will try," Kaiser said, trying to move his hands.
He was feeling like all the energy from his body was sucked out and the pain had numbed his senses to a point which was never experienced by Kaiser before.
He was only conscious due to the adrenaline in his system.
He gritted his teeth as he mustered whatever ounce of willpower left in his body and brought out a metal case from his pocket as he handed it to Erza.
"I am sorry that you have to follow this selfish request of mine."
"It's fine. Though we haven't known each other for too long, you are still a friend. I could at least do this much. You have done what you could; you can rest now. I will make sure that what you want is fulfilled," Erza said as she took the metal case containing bullets from him.
"Thank you," Kaiser smiled wryly as he succumbed to unconsciousness.
"Oh, you are the dumb girl from that time," Miko said as she got into a combat stance while tentacles made of water appeared on her back.
"Unlike last time, you are not going to get away," Erza said as she pulled back the slide of her gun to load the new rounds.
Both of them stared at each other for a few seconds, trying to gauge each other's weaknesses.
And it happened in an instant.
BANG BANG BANG
Miko dashed forward and rushed at Erza for close combat, while the latter did the same while firing bullets at her.
Tentacles moved at lightning speed as they deflected all the bullets aiming to hit Miko.
A knife appeared in Erza's hands as she clashed with one tentacle while various barrels appeared on her body as they shot bullets, making the remaining tentacles work hard to not let them hit Miko.
They battled in close combat for a few seconds, with Erza starting to retreat in another direction she came from. Miko followed after her, as unlike Erza, she wasn't that good in ranged combat.
Their battle location changed from the charred battlefield.
A very big barrel appeared on Erza's stomach as she shot a big bullet, which looked more like a cannonball.
This made Miko focus all on defensive as she wasn't able to pursue Erza, who was successful in creating distance.
"Well, I didn't want to show this hidden card before, but I don't really have any other choice," Miko said with a sigh as a large amount of mana was released from her body.
It branched into multiple paths until all of them turned into water and then formed 5 identical water clones.
"Fuck, these things would be annoying, won't they?" Erza said as she fired a bullet at a clone; the bullet passed through that clone as it would pass through water.
"Indeed, not only that, but they retain the same prowess as mine." Miko generously gave away information as all 5 of her clones, along with her moved.
They started by first surrounding her, as Erza retreated while creating a machine gun to send a lot of bullets at them.
However, it soon became futile as the clones soon surrounded her.
Erza, who had already anticipated that, stomped on the ground, and a decent chunk of her mana also left her.
"Let's see how you would fare against these babies," Erza smirked as multiple turrets surrounded her and started automatically firing.
Miko's clones, who were very close to Erza and had hurled quite a number of water bullets, had to stop and focus on defending as they saw the water bullets tearing up.
Though one bullet could only take some chunk of water from their body, they would be in trouble if they got hit by multiple bullets at the same time.
However, soon, they started moving again, with each of their own tentacles moving at breakneck speed to deal with the bullets.
"Did you really think these would be—"
WHOOSH
Suddenly, the water clone who had spoken found herself face to face with a nuke.
BOOOOOOOOOOM
Not only that water clone but two more were engulfed in the explosion radius as they got helplessly vaporized.
Dust covered the entire battlefield as the other clones, along with the real Miko, started retreating.
Miko's eyes widened as she barely tilted her head as a bullet passed through where she was before.
'From where? Oh, that's too far away. Did she set up the field beforehand and lure me here?' Miko quickly noted that Erza had put a sniper rifle at that location.
A few more bullets were fired along with that bullet.
Among the remaining two clones, one of them was able to remain unharmed as she was able to twist her body at unnatural degrees while the other one wasn't that lucky.
Before they could leave the ground, both of their eyes widened as they jumped from the ground quickly.
Miko's clone quickly moved her tentacles as she pushed the main body with a lot of force just as multiple rockets came out of the ground.
'FUCK, I am not confident I can survive if I get hit by one of those nukes; I would definitely die if I got hit by multiple of those!' Miko cursed as she used her tentacles to soften her landing.
Due to two successive attempts of sudden attacks, Miko hadn't been focusing much on her sensing field.
So, she wouldn't have been able to detect somebody passively if they were good at hiding a decent chunk of their mana.
That is exactly what happened next.
Just as Miko landed, she felt something cold touching her forehead.
"If I wanted to kill you from the start, this wouldn't have been a battle."
That was the last thing she heard before the sound of a gunshot.
Erza had shot a bullet at her forehead and saw Miko drop to the ground with her eyes rolled back.
The water tentacles had lost their shape, which made Miko's body get wet.
Erza then aimed at Miko's chest and shot another bullet.
"I am done," Erza said while communicating directly with Ren.
"Very well, I am already at the rendezvous spot. Bring Kaiser with you; I will inform the boss," she heard Ren's voice from the other side.
"Uhh, do I really have to act as a transporter?" She groaned but immediately went to work as her boss was technically fighting two Captain-level individuals.
---
"Stop moving, let me kill you," Akeru said with a neutral expression.
"I don't want to die at the moment." The girl rolled her eyes as she hurled another air punch at him, which Akeru dodged.
Since killing Broccos, he had been chasing her yet hadn't been able to catch her.
If one looked at Vespera's body, they would realize that she was battered up pretty bad.
Her one hand wasn't functional, with various spots like her gut, one knee, and multiple minor spots bruised.
It was the drawback of using more impact than her body could handle, or how if you put more force to a spring or a rubber band, it would eventually break.
Something similar had happened to her body.
On the other hand, Akeru didn't even have a scratch on his body.
"Hmm, I guess you are lucky. I need to leave. Your kingdom was not that bad; I really liked the cuisines. I hope the next time I get invited, I would be an official guest," Akeru shamelessly said like he was not the one responsible for killing two of the shining generals of this kingdom.
"Huh, you are already leaving? But I was having so much fun," Vespera panted as she rushed after his fleeting form.
A spatial sphere was hurled at her straight from the front.
She cocked her functional hand back as she punched straight at the incoming spatial sphere.
BOOOOOM
A large amount of concentrated air rushed to that spatial sphere as it got directly transported out of the dimension.
However, the amount was enough to close the spatial tear, as every spatial attack generally has a limit of how much it can transport.
"It was fun fighting with you. See ya." Multiple more spatial attacks came at her, making her focus on dodging.
After she was done with that, she found that not only couldn't she sense Akeru's mana, just like from the beginning when she saw him, but this time, her instincts were also not telling her anything.
***
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