Finally having finished preparation to leave the town of monster hunters after suffering a ambush and a hostile negotiation with the mayor Lux was overseeing the last of the double checking of their inventory when she suddenly stopped in her tracks and drew her pistol while looking around as she sharpened her senses.

"What is it now?"

Not really that keen on waiting more time to leave the badly smelling outpost behind Terra looked at Lux suspicious of if she was dragging out the inspection, or trying to make up some sort of excuse to burn the town to the ground.

"Something is wrong. It's like my backup sensor feedback is lagging, but the time lag doesn't add up at all. It's like, I've… DAAAAx.x.xX!!!"

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Looking around suspiciously while she slowly pieced the available information together as she quietly muttered before her confusion turned to rage as she figured out what was happening as she turned to one of the drone escorts.

["Oho~ That took a surprisingly long time for you to figure out, you're getting sloppy Lux~ I had to vary the signal delay for the sensors so you would realize, I could have killed you about 57 times."]

"Ha, ahahah! 'You're getting sloppy' MY a.s.s! GET OUT OF MY f.u.c.kING OP! THIS IS NOT THE FREAKING TIME!"

Understandably quite upset by her teacher pulling a practical test on her whíle she was in active deployment Lux almost punched Dax to death with her bare hands before remembering that he was not actually there, and then calming down a tiny bit as more rational parts of her head started working once more.

["Oh~ That's some scary eyes you have there. Do you want to try and kill me again?"]

"So why the f.u.c.k are you here?"

["There's a few reasons, firstly I'll need to borrow a few drones to clean out this area."]

Knowing she couldn't directly oppose her commander Lux put on a frown before asking to the specifics.

"How many is a few exactly?"

["Hmmm~ This one and 3 more Reapers and one railgun carrier for 24 hours."]

"14 hours."

["20 hours."]

"14 hours."

["I said 20 hours."]

"You can do it in just about 12 hours, what the h.e.l.l do you need the extra time for?"

["I'm going to poke something~ Plus I need time to force founds out of miss Urla and arrange for a pickup."]

Hearing the expression 'poke something' form Dax and knowing exactly what that usually entailed, Lux's slight frown turned full blown.

"That better blow up in your face alone if it does, In fact just why don't you use a QRF fireteam from low orbit?"

["Nah."]

"... Okay then, final offer: 18 hours."

["Perfect~"]

Sensing some deeper meaning behind Dax's flat out refusal in using the ready drone teams in low orbit, Lux finally agreed to letting Dax borrow a part of her force.

["Then I'm kinda busy now, so please excuse me~ Oh and we should have some drinks when you guys return to Kingstead~"]

Giving his goodbye to Lux and Lilly that was standing in the background the drone Dax spoke trough switched to more mechanical movements as it moved to grab some extra ammunition before grabbing on to the side of 1 of the 2 high caliber railgun carriers that then hurriedly left the formation.

"That's that then, let's leave this town behind too."

Looking back a final time at the town of monster hunters before mounting up, Terra, Lux, Lilly, Iris left with and the additional child under their protection.

-

After the convoy of strange vehicles left without a trace after the owners killed countless people the town's occupants looked forward a bit more peaceful days, but they would have to wait a bit more.

"What the f.u.c.k is that sound!?"

Alder, a veteran monster hunter had woken from his hangover in the middle of the night by some terrible sound that had rung out without warning. Clutching his arcing head he drank some water before getting somewhat dressed as he graped his trusty twohanded sword and rushed out into the street.

"What the h.e.l.l is going on!?"

"Monster swam! Get to the gate!"

Being quite used to the rigors of living in a hostile area the other hunter quickly and precisely relayed the current situation to Alder and they both rushed towards the only exit and entrance of the town, nicknamed the killzone. It was and would always be completely voluntary to defend that the occupants, but for one simple reason every single monster hunter always responded when there was an attack. That simple reason was that the stronghold they all lived in only had one entrance, and that naturally meant a single exit. The perfect fortress was also the perfect trap for anyone inside. In that case if something penetrated the defenses it was truly better to die at the gate than be hunted down and killed inside a perfect cage with no chances of escape.

"What's the situation!?"

Having reached the gate Alder had mostly sobered up and was therefore confused when he saw that not a single hunter was standing up on the wall to defend.

"It's being handled, we can properly just go back."

"But what about the swarm? Why are we not manning the wall!?"

"If you want to do that go ahead, I'm going back to sleep."

Seeing the crowd of hunters disperse Alder was confused and decided to see what all the fuss was about, he headed towards the wall as another ear shattering explosion sounded from directly past the wall.

"What the f.u.c.k!?"

Rus.h.i.+ng up the wall Alder was blown off the wall by a ma.s.sive surge of warm air.

"What the h.e.l.l!?"

Even more confused after landing back in the dirt Alder at least understood why there was on one standing up on the wall as he more carefully climbed the stairway once more and peaked out over it into the darkness ahead. What he saw he didn't immediately understand, whatever was there out in the dark was glowing red hot, as if it was raw ores being melted.

[PRIMARY ACTIVE COOLING CYCLE COMPLETE, EJECTING SPENT HEATSINKS.]

Suddenly the whatever shone bright red in the dark was shot off as the surroundings was lit up.

[FIREMISSION RECEIVED, FLARES. TARGET ACQUIRED, LOAD HV-HEAT.

RANGE TO TARGET: 1.673 METERS.

ANTI MARTIAL MODE 11 'SLAM'

FUSE: NULL

IMPACT FUSE: 0.3 NANOSECONDS

FIRE AT WILL.]

Letting loose a round towards the distance the AEHWP moved backwards up the ramp leading to the town before it once more engaged its anti recoil system as multiple spikes penetrated deeply into the ground.

[RAPIDFIRE ORDER RECEIVED, MOVING TO ACTIVE COOLING MODE #4…. COMPLETE.]

Extending more securing braces multiple turbines started swallowing air that was supercooled and fed into railgun array as it prepared for rapidfire of its main weapon.

[FIREMISSION RECEIVED, FLARES. TARGET ACQUIRED, LOAD UHV-HESH

RANGE TO TARGET: 902 METERS.

FUSE: NULL

FIRE AT WILL.]

[FIREMISSION RECEIVED, FLARES. TARGET NOT ACQUIRED, BLINDFIRE LOAD HV-SATGM

RANGE TO TARGET: NULL

STRIKE MODE: 'SLAM'

FIRE AT WILL.]

[FIREMISSION RECEIVED, TARGET ACQUIRED, LOAD HV-APFSDS

RANGE TO TARGET: 913 METERS

FUSE: NULL.

ANTI MATERIAL MODE 9 'SLIP'

FIRE AT WILL.]

As the night grew blighter the continuous fire rang out without break every monster within a range of 5 kilometers was wiped out when the first light hit the outpost.