*

  Makin' the lot of us prepare accordingly by takin' our stance.

  My heart was still drownin' in the darkness of my reality, but my mind tensed up to steel me for the approachin' horde, makin' the dread in my heart subside a little.

  A massive horde of Flea-gloats came into the light of the floodlights like a wild flood.

  These things were nastier than the description we were given, even from this far distance.

  They hopped, coverin' a crazy distance with maddening speed.

  The heavy machinery unit behind us started to shoot at 'em the moment they came into the light, which rattled all of us in front.

  “Stay calm!

  Their aim is to kill as many as possible before they reach our own range for close combat… Just stay put so you won’t be mistakenly shot at!” the Team Leader yelled to be heard over the thunderous sound of heavy machinery being fired.

  Many were ripped apart, but many Flea-gloats managed to avoid the rain of bullets and projectile explosives, still hopping towards us without fear.

  Even those with slight or severe injuries pushed forward.

  But we didn’t fall short in our response.

  Immediately they were within our reach, we sliced, stabbed, and dodged them, but some of us that couldn’t react quickly to our first contact were almost immediately mauled and ripped apart.

  I didn’t really see the Team Leader in action that much yesterday after his super entrance, but today he seemed to have the intention of being the foremost Guard and holding his position.

  He swung his greatsword to the left, cutting deep into the body of one of the Flea-gloats that slashed at him, then quickly tilted his head to the right, dodging a Flea-gloat that bared its row of spear-head fangs at his head.

  Two more Flea-gloats rushed to maul his right leg, which was positioned in front of his left.

  The Team Leader threw a cartwheel over the Aggressors, landing behind 'em and furiously spun his sword, smacking 'em with its flat side, which sounded like the shot of a combat shotgun.

  The two flew across the field, crashing hard into their kin.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Another Flea-gloat jumped and landed right on his face, savagely trying to bite through his helmet.

  The Team Leader moved like a madman, trying to rip the thing off his face, crashing into other people and smacking away any Flea-gloat that tried to flank him.

  He finally ripped it off and smacked it to the hard ground with one hand, dealing good damage to it as tiny fragments of its shell scattered into the air.

  He then raised his sword high up into the air, the blue-lit crypts on it shimmering brighter and brighter, and he swung the sword down with devilish speed at the Flea-gloat he had slammed to the vine-covered ground.

  This caused a deafening, quaking boom, with a large cloud of blue dust, debris of vines and unrecognizable mushed-up Flea-gloat parts, a spider-web-shaped crater, and a chilling wave of blue-tainted shockwave – creating far greater devastation than the one he'd delivered to the Zipper-spines yesterday.

  Before the dust even settled, he leaped into the air like a freaking cannon towards the river of Flea-gloats in front.

  Reaching his peak speed, making him temporarily stationary in mid-air, he gave a roaring battle cry and raised his greatsword above his head, the runes glowing even brighter than before, then descended with great, earth-shattering force onto the horde of Flea-gloats on the ground.

  An insane cloud of dust and debris scattered very high into the air as the ground literally rocked like a landslide.

  His blue shockwave threw a large number of Flea-gloats into the wind.

  I was even swayin' to the side; the only reason I still stood was because I'd somewhat prepared to body it.

  This greatly aided the lot of us, as lots of the bugs were either fuckin' tumbled all over the place or struggled to take two steps, findin' it hard to get back on their feet.

  I slashed through as many as I could before they got back on their feet and started to hop around like crazed prostitutes.

  Soon, they were back on their toes, or whatever they had, just as I had expected.

  With their sheer numbers and viciousness, they would have torn through us on the front line a fuckin' long time ago, but we (luckily) had assistance from the Viper’s armored vehicle mounted with heavy-duty arcane guns at our rear, and they too were assisted by the rest of the army further behind us.

  I didn’t see it as a reassuring or clever tactic, but it was somehow workin' against the fuckin' bugs.

  Until it didn’t…

  Moments later, the arcane machine guns and launchers couldn't keep up with the spread of advancing Aggressors.

  They had long since gone past us, with those of us in the front lines fightin' very desperately and madly to stay on our toes.

  It was so fuckin' chaotic, with bombs dropping everywhere, a beastly rain of bullets tearing through anything in its path, and those fuckin' Flea-gloats hopping around like crazy as they desperately tried to evade machine gun rounds and explosives.

  It felt like I was in a literal storm of dust, fire, and blood, dampening my vision and hearing – especially my hearing.

  I tried desperately to separate myself from the horde of Flea-gloats since the Viper Guards at the rear didn’t give a shit about us and bombed everywhere.

  Runnin' in zig-zags, tryin' to avoid a direct hit, I couldn't help but think, ‘Why did I not fuckin' leave earlier?

  Am I fuckin' goin' to die here?!’

  Shockwaves from different kinds of explosives threw me around again and again, even tossin' me away from a spot high-velocity rounds hit milliseconds later.

  All I did was run around scared shitless, hopin' I wouldn't die here.

  Images of my mother, Daigo, brothers, sister – both bad and worse – flooded my head in the midst of this mayhem.

  I am not fuckin' thinking straight … I need to fuckin' concentrate!!

  I ran toward what I could make out to be a heap of vines attached to the wall, like some kind of cluster of boulders.

  My aim was to climb it to hopefully avoid the bombing and gunfire.

  Also, to defend myself from Flea-gloats that might hop in my direction when I climbed to the top.

  Defendin' myself even if I made it out with only one fuckin' limb.

  As I ran, still stumblin' over, a missile landed a bit close to me.

  Though the actual blast was taken by the Flea-gloats on my left side, the freakin' shockwave pushed me fiercely, sendin' me flyin' to my right like a fuckin' tin can.

  I felt my body hitting and passing through the wall of vines on my right.

  Normally, the vines of Gates can be so tightly held together I could die from impact, but this wall of vines felt very loose; it was almost like passing through many untangled thick ropes.

  My luck ran out when I felt my right shoulder hit somethin' very solid and hard, then heard a cracking sound from the shoulder, before falling down.

  The ground seemed to have disappeared because I had time to try to understand what was happening while I was falling to my death.

  After a few seconds, I fell hard face-down to the ground.

  My sense of time broke when I smacked against that solid rock or somethin'.

  What felt like falling for a split second also felt like I was falling for days, but that sense quickly returned as I felt my body colliding with a very hard surface beneath me.