NIKKE, when the stars bloom

"commander?"

When Kristen heard the word, she laughed coldly.

"I'm afraid it has already..."

"You better shut your fucking mouth, Christine."

Unable to bear the anger in her heart, Lolfu half-closed her eyes, and her golden-red eyes, which only top hunters could possess, were filled with undisguised malice.

"Am I wrong? Can your team still contact him through voice?"

Faced with this pair of eyes, Christine was not afraid at all. She raised her chin and glanced at the other person.

"He must have already run to the ground. As long as we attract Letcher's attention, it won't be a problem for him to escape with his inexplicable intuition, right?

Don’t you think about whether Nikki was with him when we found him?

Or do you really believe his lies about Nikki's disappearance overnight? I think it was him..."

Zizz—boom——!!!

The distinctive sound of gunfire suddenly drifted from the sky into the ears of everyone in the underground passage, interrupting Christine's words.

Clank, clank, clank——

Before the few people could react, Letcher, with half of his torso shattered, rolled over and over, and fell to the ground helplessly.

At the same time, a meaningful electric current came from Nikki's earphones.

“Sizzle…sizzle…sizzle…”

"Hey... Zizi..."

"Hello? Rabbi, can you hear me? Hello? Can you report the situation? Hello?"

"This is Rabi, commander." Rabi, who had watched the whole farce, curled up his lips into an imperceptible smile after hearing the familiar hoarse voice.

"The vanguard troops are in great need of your command now."

"?"

"My signal can't reach Anis and the others. Tell them to come to the south entrance now. After that, you bring Christine and the others up from the south entrance, and I'll be in charge of the fire cover.

Oh, hurry up, I can’t hold out for long.”

"Yes, Commander!"

Chapter 10 Letcher, Nikki, and the Man

The deeper the night, the brighter the starry sky becomes.

It was like the fireworks bursting out from the muzzle of a sniper rifle, extremely dazzling.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

The brass shell, which was half as thick as his forearm, flew out of the ejection port as Phoenix pulled the bolt smoothly, and landed on the concrete floor with a clear and pleasant bell sound.

Along with it, two lucky Letchers were also dropped to the ground.

One wears two.

In the eyes of Phoenix, who has a full perspective, such an impressive record is neither a big deal nor requires much technical content.

For him, how to avoid the counterattack of the Letcher group is the real life and death challenge.

Swah——

As expected, in just a blink of an eye, the group of letches surrounding the entrance were like owls, collectively performing a neat and gorgeous 180-degree horror look back for Phoenix and Pepper.

Immediately afterwards, a dozen gun lines with swaying green flames instantly tore the trash can on the street into iron fragments.

However, it is a pity that the scene of blood and flesh flying everywhere did not appear in the visual sensors of Letcher and others.

[The target is lost, and the target's location is being deduced...]

[The probability that the target is behind the building is 93.65%]

After a few dozen milliseconds of deduction, the Letchers, having obtained the results, turned their guns without giving up and swept along the street corner towards various commercial shops on the street.

In an instant, the century-old buildings were reduced to rubble and dust under the bombardment of thousands of bullets. The cafe on the corner even tilted and collapsed due to the break of the load-bearing wall at the bottom.

Bang bang bang bang bang——

While the Letchers were firing and calculating whether the high-threat human had been shot and killed by them, in the underground passage behind, Lapi took the opportunity to command the other three to rush out of the entrance and opened fire on the backs of the Letchers.

Lorfu, who was full of anger, saw the opportunity to come face to face with the Letchers. How could she suppress her inner rage? She picked up a shotgun and rushed directly into the Letcher group.

With a height of nearly two meters, combined with the great power and aiming advantage of the shotgun at close range, Lolfe didn't have to deliberately attack Letcher's vital points.

All she had to do was simply aim the gun at the ejection port or feed belt of the Letcher cannon and pull the trigger to silence it completely.

On the other side, Merry also wanted to try the same thing, but due to her limited height, she had to raise the shotgun above her head to barely aim at the position where she wanted to shoot.

So she naturally gave up the spirit of learning and continued to use the time-honored fire suppression, pulling the trigger on the main body of the Letchers.

"Where's the commander?!"

In the team, Christine, who originally distrusted the commander the most, after blowing up the core of a Letcher, took a very high risk to turn over and stand on the scrap metal body of Letcher, anxiously looking at the smoky street corner.

"Commander? Can you hear me?"

"commander?!!"

……

……

"commander!"

On the street, Pepper, with her head and face covered in wall dust, grabbed Phoenix's collar with both hands, and relying on Nikki's inherent strength, dragged the commander like a piece of luggage to escape from the subsequent bullet bombardment of Letcher and others.

"Is the commander injured?!"

"I'm fine..."

"Do you feel any pain?!"

"Pepper..."

"Commander! Don't try to hide your injuries like they do in third-rate movies. This is disrespectful to life!"

"I'm really fine."

Raising his hand and patting the girl's elbow, Phoenix, who was lying on the ground and being dragged all the way, said helplessly with both anger and laughter:

"My shoes are going to fall off if you keep dragging me like this, Pepper."

"Are you really alright, Commander?"

After hearing the commander's words, Pepper let go of her hand with lingering fear, then squatted down and started touching someone without consent.

"Commander, the adrenaline level in your blood may be too high, so you may not feel the pain."

"Wait a moment……"

"As the team doctor, I need to conduct a simple examination on the commander. First, I must confirm whether there are any signs of heavy bleeding."

"Wait, wait a minute..."

"There is no sign of bleeding in the head, neck, or back. There is no sign of bleeding in the abdomen, hips, or thighs..."

"Pepper! Stop!!!"

Grabbing the girl's soft hand that was about to touch the inside of her thigh, Phoenix, who was also trembling with fear, opened his frightened eyes and said quickly:

"Help me up. We have to clear out Letcher on the right wing, otherwise Lavi and the others will be easily attacked from both sides."

"...Okay, okay!"

Seeing the commander's full-throated voice, Pepper's trembling heart finally calmed down a lot. Then, she hurriedly put her hands through the commander's armpits and "lifted" him up from the ground on the spot.

However, what Pepper did not expect was that her unintentional way of supporting him actually successfully brought the hidden danger to the surface.

"hiss--!"

The sharp pain coming from his armpit made Phoenix gasp instinctively.

pain,

Heart-piercing pain.

"Pepper..."

The man stood up, leaning on his sniper rifle with his left hand, and said to the doctor beside him with a grin:

"Strong painkillers, quick!"

"Yes!"

Compared to her weak state when she was carrying the gun and loading bullets, the moment Pepper heard that the commander needed an injection, her entire mental outlook instantly changed from a soft and cute girl to a physician with full aura.

She skillfully unbuttoned Phoenix's collar, took off his coat, then took out a pair of scissors from her tool kit and without saying a word, she cut open the white lining underneath the coat, completely exposing the commander's right shoulder to the night sky.

The mini flashlight attached to the handle of the scissors illuminated the man's right shoulder and chest. The real injuries revealed caused Pepper's aura, which had just changed, to be significantly shaken.

Then, she murmured to herself with some distress:

“There is a moderate tear in the right pectoralis major muscle, a tear in the humeral tendon, and possible soft tissue contusion on the right rib.

Commander, your body can't bear the recoil of that weapon. If you continue to shoot, you might..."

"Painkillers."

A deep and hoarse voice drowned out Pepper's words. The young doctor, who had never experienced war, looked up in surprise and happened to meet her commander's eyes.

Before this, Pepper had always believed that the commander's eyes could be gentle, calm, or serious.

But it was not until this moment that the girl realized that her understanding was so superficial. The so-called gentleness, easy-goingness, and seriousness were actually just illusions.

They tried their best to hide the madness in the commander's eyes, as well as the aggression and brutality that was enough to make people panic.

"Yes, Commander."

Pursing her lips, Pepper obediently took out three emergency analgesics, each the size of a little finger, from the pocket of her short vest and skillfully inserted the needle into the man's already purple skin.

After a while...

Rustling, rustling—Russling, rustling—

Combining positioning signals with noisy gunfire, six Letchers appeared one after another on the street east of the southern underground entrance.

If they had an emotional system, they would be extremely excited right now, because there is no Letcher in the world who can refuse to tear apart the bodies of humans and Nikki. How beautiful that would be...

Boom! ! !

Suddenly! In the Letchers' digital visual sensors, the body of a fellow creature exploded into pieces without any warning.

The sound of gunfire that followed was like the most convincing warning sign in the world, indicating that this road was blocked.

[Detecting hidden target...]

Realizing that there were threatening units lying in ambush on the southern section of the road, the mechanical spiders immediately turned their guns in the direction of the shooting.

Boom! ! !

However, in the blink of an eye, another of its kind was knocked to the ground by an armor-piercing bullet, and the flying chip fragments reflected a silvery luster in the moonlight.

[Warning! Thermal imaging lock failed, no biological signal detected. ]

A triangle sign indicating invalidity popped up in the Letchers' visual interface, and the backup program was immediately activated, guiding the mechanical spiders to launch an indiscriminate sweep from left to right towards the southern road.

Boom! ! !

There was another muffled sound. The core of the third selected Letcher was destroyed in the process of dumping ammunition. The "dead" machine lost its balance system and was pushed backwards by the recoil of the machine gun and began to spin in place. It happened to hit another of its kind not far away, and blasted it into iron filings like a trash can.

Boom! ! !

The banging sounds that represented death continued, and the last Letcher, who witnessed the destruction of its own kind, sent a final message to its own kind and leader in less than two seconds.

[120.44 / 30.24, high threat target]