9. Incoming

Swiftly raising his handgun, Luke didn't wait for the man to continue with his speech and immediately attacked. As if he had predicted his move, the man lightly stomped the ground and a wall of stone covered his body. 

The bullet bounced off from the wall as the man spread his hands and laughed, "Hahaha, so excited for our upcoming dance, eh?" 

"Rosemare." called Luke as he pointed both of his handguns while he fly to another direction, searching for a good angle to shoot. 

"[At your service.]" 

Shortly, Rosemare replied as it pointed its gun's tip to the man and ready to put the trigger. 

"Fire!"

Without further ado, Rosemare shoots at the man without warning as it flew a little bit higher. 

"Kuh!" gritting his teeth in pain, two shots had successfully landed on the hooded man's back white the rest was blocked by some kind of transparent barrier. Turning his head to the area where he thought the bullets came from and said, "ᛟᛒᛋᛖᚱᚡᛖ! (Observe!)" 

Soon, right in front of his eyes, a pair of magic circles materialized. The magic circles float in the air as they follow every gesture of his head. In his view, everything on the sky had become filled with only two colors, light purple and dark purple. 

But on a certain spot, there's a bluish flames with humanoid form, holding something in its hands as it pointed its weapon to him. 

"Found you." 

He stretched out his hand to where Rosemare should be. But as he was about to chant a spell, a few bullets that were covered in fireballs as big as a basketball, flew towards him. 

"Tsk! ᚨᚲᚲᛖᛚᛖᚱᚨᛏᛖ! (Accelerate!)" clicking his tongue, he chanted a quick spell as he felt his body become so light. Swiftly, he dashed away from once he stood, and dodged the incoming bullet by moving thirty meters away in a blink of an eye. 

"You aren't trying to ignore me, aren't you?" said Luke as he pointed his handguns and was about to shoot again before he felt something coming for him at an unnatural speed. 

Having no time to chant for a complex spell, Luke activated his energy shield of his armor and used one of the basic protection spells, shield spell. 

In the next moment, a translucent blue shield covered Luke's body as another shield with the shape of a transparent wall right in front of him, protecting for whatever attack that would come. 

Soon, a large caliber bullet was clashing with his energy shield at maximum power and made a loud bang as it started. He could see that the bullet was ejecting a wind element from the inside to amplify its penetration force. 

Smiling, the man said as he saw Luke's attack was interrupted, "You are not the only one who has a company." 

Didn't bother to glance at the hooded man, Luke's gaze scowled as he muttered, "That's.. A compression spell. You wanted to use that spell against me, the creator?" 

Luke's gaze landed on another man in the distance. The man carried a gun's barrel that was strapped in his right hand with some cable and magazine round connected to the man's armor suit. 

As Luke was about to show the man the real power of the compression spell, from the air, a figure emerged behind the man with a shotgun in his right hand. The figure had his armor broken in some parts and seemed to be deeply injured, with his left arm from the shoulder below completely gone. 

The figure hurriedly shot his shotgun right at the unguarded back of Luke's assailant. Dropping his gun to the floor at the same time that the enemy's body was falling down, the figure put two fingers on the helmet's area of his right ear and said, "Yo, Luke. Yet died? Tough bastard, aren't you?" 

"Orzo?!" exclaimed Luke as his expressions changed from wary unto a surprise immediately. 

Nodding his head, before Luke could ask what's going on, Orzo continued, "Can't speak in our team's intercom. Andie the backstabber sh*t was in there and would know our conversation. Stabbing us one by one. And guess what? They got Weiss on their ranks too. I don't know how they convinced the big *ss motherf*cker, but they got us real bad." 

"But.. It's not long before we start the mission. How could they get us so fast?" asked Luke back in suspicion. 

"Those guys had a way to make us weaker than we could be before we went to this place.. There's a…" 

As Luke and Orzo conversed, the hooded man noticed his fallen companion and thought, 'This is not good.. They were saying that there's only one enemy, and his Android had been broken before he could go here. The f*ck Zullian said when he sure he had shot the Android for good? I'm gonna kill him later for this!'

Still tangled in a fight with Rosemare, the man didn't bother with his objective to kill Luke anymore and started to get impatient. Clapping both of his hands as he chanted, invisible force began to shoot right from his palm to Rosemare with inconceivable speed. Struck right to Rosemare's body and make it blown away for a good, fifty meters away. 

Using this chance, the man chanted his acceleration spell once more and rushed away to another direction as fast he could. The fight would be unfavorable for him with three versus one, with that in mind, it was better to run away and seek for reinforcements. 

Pulling out his communicator, he called one of the henchmen at one of the buildings that was used as their base as he said, "I need help! That dog, Zullian was wrong! The guy still has his android, and there's his friend that came to pick him up!" 

But instead of a reply, all he got was buzzing noises from his communicator, as the voice on the other end seemed to have a hard time connecting with the communicator's network. 

"Listen! We were... Bzzztt-! As they come… Bzztt-! The negotiation… Bzztt-! Fail.. Bzzztt-! Abominations… Bzztt-! Aaaarrgh!" 

With that last, agonizing dying scream, it didn't take another brain cell to figure out what just had transpired. With cold sweats dripping down from his forehead, the man could only mumble absentmindedly as his expression warped in horror, "Oh.. Boy.." 

Soon, an earthquake occurred on the whole area as the clouds in the sky began to gather and swirl above a certain building. The closer the clouds get, the more their color changes into crimson. 

Slowly, the man halted his steps as his body froze. His gaze was fixated on the sky as his body felt the tremor of the earth below him. Eyes widening in despair, the man spoke softly. 

"God.. Help us…"