[[[ Near the village entrance ]]]
[[[ 3:00 AM ]]]
(Sorai): Do not fire until I tell you.
(Zeus): Buddy, I can hit one of them. Are you sure?
_ I said wait.
(Beatrix): I spotted something in the air, far away... It's a mecha!
(Sorai): That's bad.
Sorai and Zeus were holding the same type of rifles, and Beatrix was carrying a sniper.
There was a group of vehicles behind sand hills and about twenty men taking cover there, firing at the soldiers at the entrance.
There were also many bikes coming out from the village toward the tunnel, each carrying armed fighters.
Snipers from the village were positioned on the mountain top next to the one where Zeus's group was located.
(Sorai): All those bastards are wearing gene fighters' suits... But they're not relying on the suits' armor for assault. Maybe just extra caution, or they're all level-one gene fighters and their suits can't withstand bullets for long.
(Beatrix): If we don't intervene, the enemy forces will overpower the village fighters.
All the village fighters were not gene fighters, except for four men leading the group—level-one gene fighters.
As for Marwan, he couldn't help much—he fled after spotting the enemy mecha approaching. He couldn't win in a direct fight.
At the same time, he couldn't leave the village forces alone, so he used his speed to attempt quick raids before retreating… But the three enemy mechas were protecting the ground troops while also chasing Marwan.
What was impressive was how Marwan was dodging long-range enemy attacks with amazing skill.
(Sorai): If we successfully attack the enemy ground troops, our location will be exposed to the mechas.
And indeed, the moment one of the village snipers fired a bullet that pierced an enemy suit and killed him, one of the mechas launched missiles that obliterated the entire area.
If it weren't for the stealth suits of Zeus, Sorai, and Beatrix, they would have been bombed a long time ago.
(Zeus): They're just level-one fighters. Can't I get close to plant some bombs and withdraw? That way, we can hit them without exposing our location.
(Beatrix): I'm sorry to see how ignorant you've become after losing your memory.
(Zeus): What!? Explain what you mean!
(Sorai): Mechas' detection systems have a fixed range. They'll detect you if you get close, even with a level-four stealth suit—let alone ours, which are level three... and yours is level two. That's even worse. You'll be detected before we are.
(Zeus): So the higher the level of your suit, the closer you can get without being detected?
(Sorai): It depends on the type of detection system… But common systems lose effectiveness as the target gets farther away.
(Zeus): So what do we do?
(Sorai): If we had some fast drones, maybe we could strike them without revealing our position.
_ Why didn't you bring any?
_ Those things are expensive… I'm talking about the advanced kamikaze drone class, not the cheap common ones. The cheap types would be destroyed by the machine gun defense systems on the armored vehicles.
_ What if I told you I have an alternative to drones—something that detection systems can't detect?
Sorai thought for a moment, and Beatrix realized what he meant. Her eyes lit up and she asked:
_ Your daggers? What are they made of!?
Zeus smiled, and in the next moment, the daggers shot out from the rotating disc on his back. He threw twenty grenades into the air, and the twenty daggers grabbed them before speeding off toward the enemy.
Zeus remained focused on guiding the daggers to their targets and retrieving them before they ran out of energy.
He had to increase their speed as they neared the enemy to prevent them from noticing the incoming swarm.
Two of the enemy's flying mechas were chasing Marwan, while a ground mecha, loaded with heavy weapons, was too bulky to fly effectively.
That ground mecha was causing serious trouble for Marwan due to its aerial defense systems.
When Marwan briefly moved away, the ground mecha aimed its weapons at the village entrance, unleashing a barrage of heavy bullets and dozens of small missiles, killing dozens of men at the site.
Marwan attempted to attack the ground mecha whenever it targeted the entrance, but his guided missile strikes failed due to the mecha's defense systems.
As for his other weapons, like machine guns—while they could hit the target, the mecha's armor could absorb such light damage.
And if Marwan tried to get close, the enemy's flying mechas—right on his tail—would take him down before he got the chance.
The daggers dropped twenty grenades and returned immediately.
Five of the grenades were aimed at the ground mecha, placed close together to maximize the impact. The other fifteen were scattered among the vehicles, with three thrown among the soldiers.
The grenades exploded, sending armored wreckage flying for dozens of meters.
As for the soldiers, at least half were killed, and most of the rest were injured—two or three fled in random directions.
The ground mecha's armor absorbed the blast, but the force knocked it down.
Marwan saw his chance. He swooped in and launched a salvo of missiles, then fired a plasma cannon that took some time to charge.
The attacks worked—shattering the ground mecha after breaking its energy shield.
At the same time, Marwan took a direct hit to one of his machine's wings. His beastly hybrid mecha let out a screech of pain, one that came from Marwan himself—merged with the machine.
His mecha crashed, and he barely managed to steer the fall into the crevice between the mountains, leaving a hundred-meter-long trench behind.
When one of the enemy mechas tried to enter the crevice for a finishing blow, Beatrix fired a shot that struck the flying mecha right in its "eyes."
The hit didn't do real damage, but it startled the pilot enough to make him pull up and retreat instinctively.
(Zeus, impressed): I didn't know you were such a good sniper! How did you manage to hit it?
(Sorai): Damn it! Move, now!!
The three of them ran at full speed, and just a moment later, their previous position was bombed by the second flying mecha.
They survived thanks to their suits' shields, which absorbed the impact. But still, their shields were reduced to less than half from the blast's shrapnel and heat.
They kept running, fearing another strike. Meanwhile, Marwan had enough time to exit his mecha and flee, joining the rest of the villagers escaping into the tunnels.
The enemy mecha continued to bomb the area for a while, to no real effect—there was no one left outside. And the mechas didn't dare enter the mountain tunnels, fearing traps or ambushes.
Due to their losses, the enemy forces decided to retreat, taking Marwan's damaged mecha with them.
The stealth mode helped Zeus and the others escape in the first moments before the enemy mecha got close enough to scan the area effectively.
They entered the tunnel, and the mechas could do nothing to stop them.