"Ethel, the sonic attacks are destabilizing our defenses!" she called out over comms.

Ethel, still engaged in brutal close combat below, narrowed her eyes.

She raised her gauntlets, her mind calculating in milliseconds. She needed to disable the Howlers fast—or their forces wouldn't last much longer.

Ethel ducked under a sweeping Ravager claw, rolling sideways as another tried to snap at her with its venom-dripping maw. Her energy gauntlets hummed, charging up a pulse blast.

She slammed her fists together, triggering a dual pulse explosion outward. The shockwave sent the Ravagers reeling, giving her just enough time to turn her attention to the Howlers.

Her tactical display flickered, mapping their flight paths. Three in formation. Two higher. One breaking lower.

Perfect.

Ethel thrust her arms forward, her gauntlets glowing a deep crimson.

A gravitational distortion wave rippled through the air, catching the three Howlers in mid-flight. They screeched, their bodies yanked together as if an invisible fist had clenched around them.

Before they could break free, Ethel clenched her fingers—compressing the gravity field further. Their bodies crumpled inward, bones shattering, wings snapping—until they imploded in a burst of black mist.

The battlefield briefly fell silent.

Then—the Ravagers roared.

The ground shook as the massive quadrupedal monstrosities surged forward in unison, their spiked tails whipping, their acidic maws snapping.

They had been waiting for their moment—and now it had arrived.

The first wave of Ravagers collided with the barricades, their bone-plated bodies slamming into the steel plating. Metal buckled. Soldiers were sent flying from the force.

One burst through, its jaws closing around a defender, lifting him into the air before crushing his body in its fanged maw.

Lucy landed back on the ground just in time to see three Ravagers closing in on her position.

She gritted her teeth—there was no time to hesitate.

As the first one lunged, she sidestepped, twisting her body into a spinning arc, slashing her glaive upward. The superheated edge met the creature's armored plating, but only glanced off—its hide was too thick.

She had to go for the weak spots.

The second Ravager's tail lashed toward her. Lucy threw herself backward, barely avoiding the spiked appendage as it whipped past her face.

She landed into a backflip, just in time for the third Ravager to charge—but she was ready.

Lucy used the momentum from her flip, thrusting her glaive downward, driving the weapon straight through the soft tissue beneath its jaw. The blade pierced up into its skull, and with a sharp twist of her wrist, she ripped the weapon free, leaving the beast to collapse in a twitching heap.

One down.

But the other two were already on her.

And then—the Leviathan roared.

The sound was different from the Howlers' shrieks.

It was deeper. Older. More primal.

And it carried power.

The shockwave blasted outward, sending soldiers and debris flying. The ground itself cracked beneath its six massive limbs, molten fissures forming from the sheer gravitational force it generated.

The Leviathan wasn't just fighting anymore.

It was unleashing its full strength.

The horde surged forward again, this time with even greater speed and aggression.

Ethel and Lucy's people were being pushed back.

And for the first time in the entire battle—

They were losing ground.

Lucy moved first—a blur of lethal efficiency, her every motion a masterclass in fluid combat precision.

The Ravager's claws tore through the air, razor-sharp and brutal, but Lucy was already moving. She dropped low, the beast's strike whistling just over her head as she pivoted sharply on her heel. Her muscles coiled, her glaive already in motion.

Another Ravager lunged at her from behind, its venom-coated mandibles snapping, aiming to tear her apart.

Instead of retreating—she advanced.

Lucy stepped into the attack, shifting her weight onto the balls of her feet, torso twisting sharply. With a tight, controlled arc, she swung her glaive, the superheated blade slicing clean through the Ravager's exposed neck before it even had time to register the attack.

A spray of blue ichor erupted as its massive body convulsed, the severed head toppling away in a lifeless sprawl.

Lucy didn't stop.

As the headless corpse began to crumple, she used it as a launching pad, vaulting over its falling form.

Mid-air, she twisted, her glaive already descending in a vicious overhead strike.

The plasma edge met bone, carving a glowing fissure straight through another beast's skull. Its body convulsed, a gurgling snarl escaping its throat before it collapsed like a marionette with its strings severed.

Before her feet even touched the ground, a Skulker lunged from her right—its scythe-like limbs gleaming, aiming for her exposed side.

Lucy's instincts fired like lightning.

She wrenched her glaive free, pivoting on her left foot, her torso twisting with sheer kinetic force. She let the momentum carry the weapon around, using the glaive's opposite end to crack the creature's jaw with a bone-shattering impact.

The Skulker reeled, its body staggering back from the force of the hit.

Lucy followed through instantly—her glaive spinning in a controlled figure-eight pattern before she drove the plasma edge forward, burying it deep into the creature's chest cavity.

The Skulker gasped, its translucent skin darkening as the plasma energy burned through its innards, its limbs twitching violently.

Lucy ripped the blade free, kicking the dying creature aside before it even hit the ground.

A shadow loomed—a Ravager's spiked tail hurtling toward her in a whip-fast strike, its barbed tip gleaming with corrosive venom.

Lucy's eyes locked onto the movement, her brain calculating at inhuman speed.

Her thruster boots flared, blue flames igniting beneath her feet as she blasted herself into the air, narrowly avoiding the venomous tail swipe that gouged deep scars into the steel floor where she had stood just a heartbeat ago.

As she soared upward, a Howler screeched above her, talons outstretched to catch her mid-flight.

Lucy twisted in the air, rotating her body into a controlled barrel roll, her glaive held tightly in a reverse grip.

The moment the Howler dived toward her, she angled her weapon forward—

—and let gravity do the rest.

The Howler impaled itself onto her waiting blade, its own momentum driving the plasma edge through its ribcage and out its back.

It shrieked in agony, its wings flaring in a desperate struggle, but Lucy didn't hesitate.

She yanked the glaive free, planting both boots against the dying creature's chest—

—and kicked off with explosive force, using its body as a springboard to launch herself higher.

She flipped mid-air, twisting gracefully, before landing on the back of another Ravager below, the impact sending a jarring crack through its spine.

As it snarled in fury, trying to shake her off, Lucy drove her glaive straight down, piercing through the soft tissue at the base of its skull, severing its spinal cord.

The beast shuddered violently, then collapsed beneath her, its massive form slumping forward in a heap.

Lucy landed smoothly, one knee to the ground, her glaive flourishing in a deadly arc as she rose to her feet again—

Ready for the next attack.

Ethel was the anchor, the calculated force that held the battlefield together.

She sidestepped a Skulker's charge, her footwork lightning-fast, anticipation sharp as a blade. The creature's serrated limbs slashed through empty air, missing her by mere inches. Ethel's counter was immediate.

She planted her back foot firmly, twisting her torso as she shifted her weight. With a sharp exhale, she unleashed a brutal roundhouse kick, the kinetic amplifiers in her boots flaring to life.

The impact landed with bone-crushing force, her boot slamming into the creature's ribcage like a battering ram. The Skulker folded inward, its chitinous exoskeleton shattering under the pressure, a distorted screech escaping its gaping maw as it was launched backward—

—colliding into a cluster of its own kind, their bodies crumpling like dominoes as they tumbled into a heap of thrashing limbs and shrieking agony.

A Howler swooped overhead, its guttural scream building into a disorienting sonic blast, the air vibrating with enough force to shatter bones.

But Ethel was already ready.

She extended one palm, her gauntlet humming with energy, and fired a targeted frequency disruption pulse.

The attack detonated mid-air, sending out a counterwave that intercepted the Howler's shriek, twisting the very soundwaves back toward their source.

The beast's own sonic blast rebounded into itself, its brain overloaded by the sudden auditory feedback loop. It shrieked in confusion, wings stuttering in mid-flight, body jerking as it lost control.

Ethel's eyes flashed with precision.

Her fists clenched, and two crackling orbs of gravitational force formed in her palms, their surfaces writhing with contained energy.

With a sharp twist of her hips, she hurled both spheres forward.

The orbs collided with the stunned Howler, their gravitational fields compressing instantly.

A localized implosion followed—

—the beast's body contorted, twisted inward upon itself, bones snapping, flesh crumpling into a dense, unnatural spiral of shattered wings and shriveled remains.

The attack left nothing behind but a warped, mangled husk that dropped like a stone onto the battlefield below.

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