NOW they cheer for me. Where was all this enthusiasm before coming here, when I said “Bring the shields.”, “Equip full armour.”, “Stay in formation, send probing attacks.”?

Scale-tooth was feeling quite irritated and frustrated. Nobody in the battalion, including that muscle-brained idiot Shi Hu, listened to him when he advised caution. Too lazy to even gear up properly, they’d fallen into such a rudimentary trap, leading to so many unnecessary casualties.

The silver lining was that after this was all over, he would finally be able to request a transfer away from this posting on the fringes. Perhaps somewhere nearer to Central. Any place where he wouldn’t have to deal with meat heads who thought with their muscles or glands.

But first, to deal with this woman who was eerily accurate while wielding such powerful pistols. Hmm, better to add on another force shield, just in case. Alright… extend it out, one body length on each side should be sufficient to get everyone remaining-

Wait, what’s she doing?

***

Trip began at a slow walk, holstering the single-shot pistols. Finally, it was time for her trusty revolver. As she hefted the comforting weight of the gun in her right hand, she drew her knife in her left. Suitably armed for the coming conflict, she sped up to a jog.

When she saw the croc take its hand away from the red shield, she readied herself.

As expected, she saw the telltale glow form around its hand. She began sprinting.

The instant she saw the croc’s arm move, right before it thrust its arm forward to release a flame bolt, she shifted directions, sprinting diagonally to the right. As the flash of the flame bolt sped towards where she’d been, she jumped forward into a tuck and roll, the explosion behind her helping to push her forward.

Nearly there. She resumed running, now towards the bear demon beside the croc. Once again, it shot a flame bolt. Once again, she dodged and recovered to continue running.

Just as it seemed as though she was intent on running head first into the red force shield, she shifted directions to the right, running past the edge of the shield into the massed demons.

BOOM!

A gory mixture of blood, bone chips and brains fountained out the ear of a lion demon, having been shot in the other ear. Like a puppet with its strings cut, the lion hybrid flopped to the ground.

The demons around froze in shocked horror, trying to find where Trip was.

BOOM!

Another demon, a bear two steps away from Scale-tooth, had the same thing happen to it, the insides of its head becoming outsides through an ear.

“Spread out! Find her!” shouted Scale-tooth while hoping that nobody had seen him flinch.

Only some of the demons responded to his command. Some others were still frozen in place, seemingly convinced that movement would draw attention to themselves, spelling their doom. Others stayed in place with their heads on a swivel, trying to find Trip that way.

“Here!” “Here!” “Here!”

A chorus of cries rang out as some demons tried to engage Trip the moment they saw her, but she always dodged or parried before slipping away behind other demons, always moving, never staying in any one demon’s field of view for long.

BOOM!

“Spread out! I said SPREAD OUT!” shouted Scale-tooth again.

Stay low. Dodge. Do not engage. Evade. Move. Jab left, duck and roll right. Claw strike approaching from the left. Parry. Move. Change directions. Spin. Move.

Ears and eyes are target. Shoot only when convenient. Spread out kills, stay unpredictable.

In this way, Trip continued to shoot down any demon she could, trying to thin out the numbers. Her smaller build compared to the demons was an advantage, her speed and unpredictable movements helping her stay out of their line of sight.

Four more shots rang out, a lengthy pause of several breaths between them, dropping four demons from different locations. Two from the rear, one from the edge, and another one near Scale-tooth, a panther demon that collapsed on top of the bear demon.

Scale-tooth couldn’t take it anymore. If he let this continue, the remains of the battalion would end up getting shot out from right under his nose. Dismissing the red force shield in front of him, he raised both hands into the air. His head throbbed, feeling like it was about to explode, but he persevered. He had to give it his all to control the descent of the flaming boulder so that he wouldn’t end up dropping it on Shi Hu, or worse, himself.

Wait. Would it be so bad if he “accidentally” dropped it on Shi Hu? Maybe later. For now, he needed to swat this irritating black-clad fly that was dropping the demons like… well, flies.

“Hear my command! Charge the village! Ignore everything else!” Even shouting out commands caused his head to hurt so much, his eyeballs felt like that were about to explode.

This time, more of the battalion responded, stopping their futile search for Trip to start running towards the village. Once again, a flaming boulder dropped out of the sky, even bigger than the previous one. Scale-tooth focused his gaze on it and concentrated, feeling that curious squeezing sensation within that part of his mind that activated every time-

BOOM! BOOM!

Two shots rang out. The first cracked the red scaled force armour on top of Scale-tooth’s right eye. The second shattered it entirely. Scale-tooth was shocked and disoriented, part of his vision no longer covered with the red tinge of the force shield.

He blinked. What? How did-? No! His control was slippi-

Another six shots rang out in quick succession, destroying his exposed eye and the brain behind it.

For a brief moment, all Scale-tooth could see was red, and he felt relief.

Ah, this must mean that I’ve restored my red shield. Now to-

As Scale-tooth dropped, so did the great flaming boulder.

The sky fell, drowning out everything in blinding sound and deafening flame.

-- Chapter 44, End --