As if they were already waiting for something like this to happen, a line of about twenty soldiers lined up side by side near the gate, all of them used the standard bolt action rifle and wore the same navy blue uniform albeit with a black mask for facial protection against the cold.

All of them raised their weapons while frantically looking around for the angelic beast, what bothered Leona the most was some soldiers looking towards the sky as if they expected a flying foe.

Henry started to bang his hand against the door behind him until another soldier opened it and asked.

“What is going on?”

“Death angels at our rear. Make sure to wake everyone up.”

“Got it.”

He went back and at the same time Leona followed behind him. With the loud noise both Athena and her brother woke up as the two were still blinking to drive the drowsiness away, Oliver and Phoebe on the other hand seemed ready to as if already expecting something like this to happen.

“All units prepare for battle!” Oliver stood up and shouted. “Sergeant, stop the vehicle! We’ll split into two groups. Jill, Hank, you two take sir Krieg to safety! Henry, Lyon with me!”

“Yes sir!”

All four soldiers answered as the captain pushed the door hatch open. The freezing cold rushed inside as if sucking all the heat out of the interior. The female soldier named Jill shouldered Krieg’s body by putting his right arm around her neck, meanwhile Hank did the same on the opposite side as they both got up.

Leona followed right behind the group Oliver was leading and the moment she stepped out of the vehicle her face was assaulted by the bone chilling cold wind, it seemed surreal how cold it was compared to the cave they were in a day ago, but thankfully she drank the warmth drink Henry had given to her so she wasn’t feeling too cold. Unlike the high elf, whose teeth were chattering from the intense cold as she complained out loud.

“I can’t feel my damn fingers…!”

“No time to waste, let’s move!”

The female soldier shouted as she and her comrade began carrying the knight out of the vehicle towards the city’s walls. Leona hastily followed behind them, Phoebe had the longbow ready with an arrow coated in poison loosely knocked against the string, Athena and Arthur both held rifles in their hands whilst running towards the gate.

“All soldiers! In formation!”

Oliver’s shouting could be heard from the other side of the vehicle, Leona looked over her shoulder and saw the captain getting other soldiers into a line with their rifles ready. The tactician felt some confidence from the numbers of soldiers present, if Krieg and Phoebe along with a handful of Akrapocalian soldiers managed to fend off a death angel, they surely could do the same.

‘This should be fine, they are trained for this after all-’

But right before her eyes, the pod the other soldiers were in was squashed like a bug under the weight of a gigantic humanoid white winged scaly beast, blood began to seep out of the destroyed vehicle forming a puddle around the crash, instead of a head, both arms had serpent heads to hands each hissing and licking the air as if searching for prey in the vicinity and instantly started to rip the pod apart as if trying to get to the succulent insides of a fruit. Its chest had some sort of vertical opening that kept moving up and down making a horrid sound of numerous teeth grinding against each other.

All soldiers were paralyzed with fear, Leona wished she hadn’t turned around as her legs locked in place even though all cells in her body screamed in terror of the sight of the angelic demon. Phoebe fought her instinct to draw the bow as she noticed a gentle sheen of the scales covering its entire body as it could probably stop an arrow without denting. Athena held her brother to keep him from moving as she whispered while looking over her shoulder.

“Art, do not move.”

Jill and Hank were standing still while clenching their teeth as to hold their breaths. Leona was trying to come up with a plan to attack the beast as running away could potentially mean death of everyone including her group. There were too many variables with a foe she had never seen before, would the scales be strong enough to reflect bullets? Magic? Could they even manage to penetrate it? How was it not outright attacking them? Could it be blind? There was a flood of questions to which she lacked enough information to form a cohesive plan.

However the death angel didn’t hold back as it flung back pieces of the destroyed pod beneath its scaly human feet as it easily went through the bodywork and before long it reached the bloody insides of the former transportation. Much like a child picking a piece of fruit from a canned good, it picked up a squashed soldier from the arm and opened its vertical chest maw revealing many rows of sharp teeth as it gulped the whole man in one bite as the teeth ground the man’s body into nothing. Some of the blood seeped down towards the scaly groin of the beast before a terrified scream broke the stillness of the situation.

“FIRE! FIRE! WHAT ARE YOU ALL WAITING FOR?!” A man wearing a slightly different uniform issued the command to the soldiers near the city’s walls, he was already in his forties as it could be seen from the many wrinkles around his brow and a few white strands of hair popping from the captain’s hat. However that was hardly the right time as the panicked soldiers took blind shots at it as they were still heavily affected by the mere sight of the death angel feeding itself and many of the projectiles either missed entirely, almost hitting some of Oliver’s men or simply ricocheting off the scales at a poor angle. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! KILL IT!”

The death angel suddenly turned its two snake hands towards the soldiers who fired their guns and it seemed to prepare both wings for flight but the moment it turned around Oliver saw an opportunity.

“All units fall into position! Take aim!” His commanding voice made the soldiers around him make organized firing rows, four soldiers stood behind four kneeling as they aimed their rifles at the monster’s flat back. “FIRE!”

A volley of shots pierced through the beast's scales as a dark purple ichor began to pour out of every hole made from the bullets. But as if right out of a horror movie, the left hand suddenly twisted and turned around its back, biting into the side of one of the kneeling soldiers flinging him towards soldiers defending the city like a child’s toy. The body skipped against the snow terrain once before colliding full force against the defensive line, knocking most of the soldiers away like bowling pins.

“Fall back!” Oliver yelled as he noticed the other arm preparing to do the same. “Don’t let it grab you!”

“John!” Henry shouted but the moment he did so the other snake arm bit right beneath his right arm and began to coil around his torso. “Argh!”

“Phoebe!” Leona quickly turned to her. “Aim for its mouth once it opens it!”

As if they shared the same idea, the high elf nodded as she pulled the longbow to a maximum draw. All happened in one fell swoop, as the monster raised the right arm to devour Henry, Phoebe managed to release the arrow that lodged itself in the right side of the terrible maw. With the arrow piercing through the inside of its body, the death angel began to flail around whilst letting out a terrible roar and eventually let go of Henry who was flung against the snow a few meters away.

Leona managed to stay focused despite the deafening bellow ringing her ears as she unsheathed the longsword before winding it up behind her back.

“Winds of time, grant thy power unto myself, Windshot!” Once she finished chanting, she lobbed the blade full force at the death angel’s open maw and as the blade was spinning through the air she raised her left hand as her palm started to release sparks of blue flames as she shortened a chant. “Piercing Flame!”

Mana coiled around her arm before condensing into a flaming azure spear of fire. As she shot the spell the previously thrown sword was spinning so fast it could be mistaken for a saw blade, once it made contact with the interior of the mouth, it tore apart a chunk of purple flesh out of the beast but even before it could react to the pain, the flaming spear came right behind exploding the fleshy insides, searing the already gruesome wounds.

At the same time the high elf used the window of opportunity to lay down as many arrows as she could physically fire.

“I’ll have to take it up a notch as well.”

After grabbing seven arrows out of her quiver and began to fire one after the other with seemingly singular movement for each projectile. While not coated in poison, the bodkin arrows could do more than enough damage at a full draw weight against its soft mouth.

“...Aim!” Oliver managed to get the rest of the soldiers in position as he also aimed a rifle at the flailing beast. “FIRE!”

Another volley of shots made a direct hit and the monster was already showing signs of sustaining heavy damage as purple ichor gushed out in greater quantity and the whitish scales began to fall like flakes.

‘We… we can kill it!’

Seeing how the battle was progressing towards their favor, Leona was confident they could finish it off before there were any more casualties and began to prepare to cast a fire spell.

“Flames of destruction heed my call, reclaim mine enemy unto the ashes, Flame Spear!”

The tactician kept pelting the death angel’s front with a continuous barrage of powerful fire spears that exploded on impact, slowly pushing the gigantic monstrosity off the pod’s remains. After the city’s soldiers regained their composure, they also started to fire in unison against the angelic threat and made a number of wounds on the outside of its body. It was looking like the monster was finally giving in to the continuous assault.

However, a beast is far more dangerous when wounded and Phoebe was sure it had at least one last trick up its sleeve before it either died or fled away.

“All units take aim!” Oliver raised his voice one more time as the death angel enveloped itself within its wings. “FIRE!”

“No wait!” Phoebe noticed the odd pattern of movements the beast was making but it was too late. She turned to Leona and grappled her towards the ground. “GET DOWN!”

Once the bullets made contact with the feathers, the death angel’s wings started to shudder before suddenly springing wide open, releasing a number of razor sharp feathers in every direction.

“ARGH!”

Henry was badly wounded in the left leg as a feather the size of his arm cut deep through his thigh. Oliver was lucky to be standing behind one soldier who took the full force of one feather and instantly died from the impact.

The soldiers from the city’s defense scattered around in panic as they saw their leader fall beheaded on the ground. Leona was thankfully saved by Phoebe’s quick thinking. Jill, Hank and Krieg were safely behind the pod so there was no danger presented to them. With most of its assailants not able to fight, the death angel took three corpses of the soldiers beneath itself before taking off in a fast flight towards the mountains to the south.

Everyone was too shocked to talk about what had just happened.

“What in the world…?” Leona looked around her and noticed a few trees missing bits and pieces from the feather explosion. The high elf stood up first before offering the tactician a hand. “Thank you Phoebe…”

“That was a close one.” Phoebe sighed whilst looking around the carnage. “I should’ve seen that coming, cornered beasts are often the most dangerous kind.”

“I thought we'd be able to kill it before anybody else was killed. That was… reckless of me.”

“Don’t blame yourself. Just look around, at least our group wasn’t hit by any of these.” She kicked a feather stuck in the snow, the size was about a longbow’s arrow with razor sharp edges on the plume, not only the feathery part, but the root of the oversized projectile was also hard enough to pierce through chainmail. “I wonder how these things evolve like that. I thought it was only capable of mindless destruction.”

“You’re saying it purposely waited for us to attack?”

“Maybe. You know what they say, the hunter can become the hunted anytime.” She glanced over the rest of the soldiers who managed to survive, albeit almost barely. “I’ll go help them so we can get out of this infernal cold.”

“Right.” Leona nodded and Phoebe went on her way. Turning around she noticed both soldiers carrying Krieg in somewhat of a hurry towards the city gate. The tactician hurried to their side in order to make sure they were okay as she asked. “Are you alright?”

“Thankfully we were behind the pod.” Jill replied. “I shudder to think what would have happened to us if we were faster.”

“Turned into sheep cheese most likely.” Hank bitterly laughed. “I never thought at my age I would see something more terrifying than what I’ve seen in the war. To think the angels themselves are hunting us down.”

“You shouldn’t say that, Hank.” The other soldier advised. “These aren’t the goddess messengers, if anything it’s probably something the demons came up with in order to deceive us.”

The two of them kept moving towards the city’s entrance while trying to keep their own spirit up by talking about the goddess of light. Leona looked over her shoulder towards where the death angel fled to. It was a mere feeling but she could tell something was different from that one particular death angel.

“I’m sure this won’t be the last time we’ll see that thing.”

She mumbled before turning around and heading to the capital city gate.