At a distance across the empty street and into this expanse of houses that seemed to crowd her as though she was in the middle of a forest of dark twisted trees, Mary sat down on the ground with her empty half-closed eyes glued to the floor and her chin drenched with her own blood. The dust was soon cleared in silence, revealing a huge splatter of blood at the surface of the wall behind her back and a huge hole born out of that spear that was hurled to kill her. One of Jeremy's men didn't waste their time and turned one of their cameras to her, showing them that Mary had lost her left hand along with a tear on her right ear that moved onto the entirety of her other arm that looked as if it was bitten off.
"Mary, Mary! Mary, are you okay? Are you okay, Mary?" Jeremy shouted in panic before throwing out a laugh as he looked at MC.
"Oh, shut the fuck up Jeremy!" She shouted back before looking at the screen herself. "Mary, are you there?"
"I-I'm still o-okay.,. I could sit-still... go…" Mary replied with a heavy breath and the two, on the other end of the call, who didn't take their eyes off of the screen saw that only her lips had moved. "Please… don't leave me… her… don't pull me out… not when I-I'm ju… I'm just one step away from… Rei…"
MC furrowed her brows. She took a deep breath and instead of shouting back at Mary like what Jeremy had expected, with a caring tone like those of a mother, she continued, "Don't worry about it, you've d—"
Jeremy interrupted her by giving her a serious gaze as he shook his head. With that, he faced the microphone instead and added, "You've done well… we've slowed the target down significantly and it doesn't seem like it's interested in finishing you off. Can you walk — no, of course, you can't. Just wait right there and I'll send one of my men to pick you up since there are still a few things that only you could do, do you understand?"
"Yessir…" Mary said weakly before letting out a breath that made it seem as if she's smiling.
"Do you want me to call Viela?" MC asked after she pushed a button to mute their mic.
"One second," Jeremy sighed and cupped his chin. He glanced over a red dot drawn on the map in front of him and moved his eyes to focus on the monster's live feed. Seeing how it staggered as it tried to move as though it was carrying the weight of the world, he couldn't help but clench his fist and bring about his twisted grin. He faced the mic once more and after pressing a button, he continued, "I have good news, boys, we're one step away from bombing this bitch to kingdom come because of our friend Mary but then again, we can't rest easy just yet. To my shield heroes, regroup and pick up Mary and to my snipers, fall back to point B and shoot it down."
"Roger that, sir," one replied.
"Nice, we have a solid bet on where it's going since it's just going straight and would reach an intersection soon at point B…" Jeremy looked at the map once again as he squinted his eyes. There, he focused his sights on the line that would soon diverge into three other directions with one going further down south to where the river was located. "We don't have enough manpower to consider it going straight to point D so we'll be redirecting all of our forces to drag the monster down to point C, which we would set as Dolphin's stage. We'll just believe in our capability to threaten this monster so it would come and kill us, I'm looking at you flags!"
"Sir, please!" One shouted.
"Just keep us posted, we'll have to play the waiting game and burn as much time as we could. Why not take this time to breathe or maybe say your prayers," He continued with a chuckle. "I'll be coming back to you shortly."
"So, do you want me to go get Viela or not?" MC asked as she tapped his shoulder.
"No, please don't," Jeremy responded with a hint of fear staining his words. "We can't have the Muse adapt to her ability and much less her sword skills… It defeats the purpose of me being here and some of me dying there."
"You just don't want to meet her…" She let out a smug smile. "You fucking pussy."
"Well yes, but I still do think that my point is valid. We can't have anyone die in a battle of attrition and much more in a battle where our winning condition revolves around buying time, and we can't even win in this fight! How much time do we have anyway?"
"Wait up," MC replied as she took out her phone and looked at it. "Six minutes and two seconds."
"Good, that should be enough, and from the looks of it… we won't need to bust out Dolphin, we could only wait up and let it walk—"
"Help!"
Hearing a shout before it was cut off made Jeremy turn his head back into the screen in panic. He took a quick glance at the screen and seeing that even the cameraman was still adjusting to this sudden change, he pushed the button and shouted, "Anyone, tell me what happened!"
"The first flag was taken down sir!"
"The fuck?!" Jeremy raised his brows and held his breath.
"It… the… the monster ran!" One shouted with his voice that was soon muffled by the sound of consecutive gunshots.
"The monster ran after a moment of taking a pause, it grew muscles on its legs and some shit!"
"We weren't able to stop it from reaching point B!"
"It just fucking threw it's meat cleaver at the first flag as if it was nothing!"
"What do you mean it ran?" Jeremy slammed his fist into the table. "Give me the fucking visuals right now!"
"Yessir!"
At that moment when their screen was updated, all the saw was the Muse pulling out the spear that was stuck on its waist. Even before they could say another command, let alone a word, it threw its spear towards the second flag and caused its destruction.
Seeing this, Jeremy gritted his teeth and continued, "Shield heroes, where are you?!"
"We've just picked up Mary sir, I've heard about what happened, do we have to engage?"
"Wait a second, fall back and…" He couldn't help but pause at the moment his eyes found itself looking at the monster on the screen. "What the fuck is this?! Shoot it down, shoot it down now!"
Just when he thought that everything was done and there was nothing else to throw, the Muse pulled out its own left arm that was soon transformed into a blood-red spear. It seemed a little unstable as if all the weight that it was carrying was still there and even though it was still taking some blows from the bullets that were ripped its flesh apart, nothing was able to prevent it from taking its stance.
"We're shooting it down and none of us could touch the veil too, its head is dodging on its own!"
"What the fuck!"
Then just like earlier, all he could do was watch as the monster hurled its spear forward, piercing through dozens of walls until it managed to reach and destroy the third flag that was stationed beside the river. It was such a sight that happened so fast that made MC step back in shock but contrary to her reaction, Jeremy let out a twisted smile.