One shot of the fire-element bullet was enough to clear more of the fog than the ten thousand tamers combined. However, I could feel my shoulder hurting already, even though I only shot once.
Before I could even raise my voice to ask, Ember had already made another clone and covered me with it. The slime suit fitted tightly over my body, supporting my limbs.
"Thanks!"
While saying that, I cocked the lever once more and pulled the trigger. One shot after another was sent out without pause. After emptying the full 10-round magazine, the immediate surroundings of the barrier finally cleared up.
I removed the now-empty clip and grabbed another one, slamming it in and loading it. Then, I raised the aim, pointing toward the Succubus Lord, a good few kilometers away.
*Bang!*
The rifle released a loud, deafening sound, unlike the previous rounds. The slime suit got blasted to pieces, unable to handle the recoil of the shot.
This bullet was an experimental one, packed with the same amount of energy that the artillery shell previously had. However, due to its size, the pressure of the compressed energy was too high, and the bullet became highly unstable.
The clip I loaded only had four of those bullets, but it looks like the slime suit can no longer handle another shot.
The bullet I fired off, as if teleporting, appeared where the Succubus Lord was almost instantly. Unable to react in time, the bullet passed through its heart, opening a fist-sized hole.
The monster shivered, surprised. She stared at the hole that had opened in her previously pristine chest. Her expression turned from surprise to anger in an instant, releasing a loud screech.
Goddess Blanc's barrier couldn't block the soundwaves, resulting in all of us falling to our knees, our ears bleeding profusely. What's more, the wound on its chest closed up almost instantly, making me feel futility and despair.
"That's cheating!"
I shouted as I chambered another round and aimed at its head. However, as soon as the Succubus Lord saw me aiming, it quickly dashed away from its position, not letting me lock on to it.
To add to this, she was also sending sporadic waves of bloody claw attacks, making it so that Goddess Zeta couldn't spare attention to redirect my shot. The fog was also closing in, starting to eat away at Goddess Blanc's barrier once again.
I looked around, assessing the situation.
The god tamers were battered, with only Goddess Blanc and Vermeil able to fight. Ajax was injured and currently healing, unable to join in. His wounds were, for some reason, not healing quickly enough. It was as if something was hampering his recovery.
God Zeshion was out of energy and completely unable to participate in the battle. Even with the most powerful tamers in the world gathered, we were still unable to kill the Succubus Lord.
"However, its energy levels fell quite a bit!"
Unlike before, when looking at her was like looking at the sun—bright and almost blinding—the amount of energy she possessed dropped by about half. The damage that the artillery and the previous sniping did was probably working on her, adding to the curse of Cursed Ore from the bullet case.
"Come on, work faster!"
I prayed as I resumed tracking her movements with the scope.
After a few seconds of chasing her, the moment I was waiting for came. She started to squirm uncomfortably as the energy inside her started running amok.
"Finally!"
I took advantage of her slight pause and pulled the trigger. Another deafening roar came from the rifle as a bullet flew with blinding speed. My shoulder snapped, and my bones were crushed completely, as I didn't have the slime suit to absorb the impact.
The rifle dug into my shoulder and crushed my right lung, making me cough out bubbly blood almost immediately. However, I ignored all of the pain and watched the bullet I shot.
As if guided by a string, the bullet honed in on the Succubus Lord's head. At the last moment, however, she recovered slightly and managed to twist her head slightly, avoiding a direct hit. The bullet hit her cheeks, coming out on the other end, below her right ear, dislocating her jaw completely.
"..."
I was speechless.
It was a shot that I literally put my life on the line for, but it still wasn't able to completely kill it off. While I was thinking that, Ember rushed to my side and quickly tried out her healing skill on me. After her evolution, she should have had a better grasp of her Void Energy, so the success rate must've increased.
"Master...! Why didn't you ask for another slime suit?"
She scolded me as she kept attempting to use her skill.
After the fifth dud, the sixth time succeeded. My body, as if getting rewound, recovered to its previous shape. However, just as I recovered, the Succubus Lord recovered too.
[Hateful humans...]
However, for some reason, she stayed still and didn't move. Only her voice echoed in our heads, filled with anger and a tint of fear.
[I'll let you off for now. But mark my words! I will return with vengeance!]
After leaving her last words, she opened a red portal and vanished inside it.
"No! Come back here!"
I hurriedly cocked the lever and aimed one more time. Before I even asked, Ember decided by herself to use her last clone to protect my body. As I was kneeling after pulling the trigger, I was sent rolling backward by the recoil.
[I remembered your face—the one who stole my children. I will definitely come for you, even if that's the last thing I can do!]
The bullet I shot got sucked into another red portal and teleported back to us. She used the same method that Goddess Zeta was using!
The bullet was too fast to even react against, so we couldn't guard against it. Fortunately, Zeshion managed to squeeze the last bit of his energy, creating a palm-sized crack in space that swallowed the bullet and saved everyone on its path.
He fell to his knees, fainting, but Zeta quickly caught his listless body. When we returned to look at the Succubus Lord, she was already gone. Only the last bit of the red portal, rapidly closing, was left behind.
"... She escaped..."
I muttered, then smiled.
"Just as planned."
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