"God-Emperor above! Who was it?! Who sold weapons to these things?!"
Griffin was so shocked that he actually cried out to the God-Emperor.
And as the fierce firefight continued, he was horrified to discover that those weapons seemed to be official standard-issue firearms.
They were only the lowest-grade autoguns, but the amount of information hidden behind that fact was so enormous it was almost impossible to process.
It was obvious that this was a trap. Someone wanted to use these abhumans to cripple the Weepers, or even kill them outright.
Just as Griffin's face darkened and he was trying to figure out who was behind it, a sudden burst of pain erupted from his back, and then another wave of intense gunfire rang out behind him.
Clearly, Sharkteeth's side had also come under attack from the Croc-Men.
"Kid, patch up the bleeding on my back!"
While Griffin blew apart one fearless monster after another with the logging gun in his hands, he shouted to Gavo, who was already so busy that her legs were almost tangling together.
Although she would have loved for this bastard with his love of torment to drop dead on the spot, he absolutely could not die right now.
Looking at the storm of bullets on both sides, she knew very well that they were grasshoppers tied to the same rope.
She grabbed an emergency clotting patch, avoided several ricocheting rounds with a nimble side roll, then darted to Griffin's back with astonishing speed and temporarily sealed the bullet wound that was still leaking blood.
Griffin was surprised by Gavo's speed, but he had no chance at all to praise her.
Because the situation was becoming worse and worse for them.
Even though the Weepers were experienced, coordinated well, and carried heavily modified high-powered guns, the Croc-Men shooters were using their own kin as flesh shields. The battlefield conditions for both sides could not even be compared.
Soon, more and more injuries began appearing on the Weepers, and some of them were already losing too much blood to keep fighting.
Just as Griffin's mood grew darker and the battle situation tilted further against them, his battle-hardened instincts suddenly told him that the turning point was near.
The advantage of those armed Croc-Men depended entirely on the suicidal charges of their own kind, but for mutants who were regularly purged year after year, that level of loss could never be maintained for long.
One corpse after another was blown apart in the tunnel. The abhuman monsters that had looked endless just moments ago were now clearly thinning out.
The battle-experienced Weepers immediately seized the chance, picking off several armed Croc-Men with controlled bursts and then using them as bait to gun down the others who tried to grab the dropped weapons.
"Brothers, fire for me!"
At that moment, the ugly look on Griffin's face disappeared, replaced by a confident and savage grin.
The first real opening came from the rear position guarded by Sharkteeth. There had been fewer attacking Croc-Men there to begin with, so after a prolonged charge-and-fire exchange, they were the first to break.
Once the enemies in the rear scattered like frightened animals, Sharkteeth ignored his own injuries and immediately brought his men forward to reinforce the front line.
The moment Sharkteeth and his people linked up with Griffin's side, an even denser wall of fire ripped through more of the monsters, and several more armed Croc-Men dropped in the blink of an eye.
"Something's wrong..."
The enemy was starting to collapse, but Griffin felt an inexplicable chill crawl over him.
After years of living one step from death, he had developed a special sense for danger.
And right now, that sense was screaming one message at him.
A terrible danger was about to arrive.
At the same time, Gavo was hearing piercing shrieks all around her, and a powerful sense of death swept over her from somewhere unseen.
This was a psyker's precognition of danger.
And at the exact moment both of them felt that warning, a Croc-Man that had been hiding in the darkness for a long time suddenly rushed out.
This was a gigantic monster, twice the size of the other mutants, and cunning light flashed in its vertical pupils.
It let out a shrill cry and hurled something in its hand toward the Weepers.
Under the light of the gunfire, the cylindrical metal shell of that object reflected crimson flashes from its many hexagonal indentations, like the eyes of a daemon staring at the tightly grouped Weepers.
Griffin's pupils shrank to needlepoints.
He could not understand why these mutants had gotten their hands on a fragmentation grenade, the kind of weapon that was absolutely forbidden from appearing in the underhive.
He wanted to shout for everyone to scatter, but it already seemed too late.
That crafty monster had chosen its throw perfectly, placing the landing point just in front of them.
Just as rage and unwillingness surged into Griffin's eyes, the corner of his vision caught a figure moving.
It was Gavo.
At that moment, with adrenaline surging through her, she charged straight out from the Weepers' line into the dense hail of fire.
At full speed, bullets streaked past her body one after another, yet not a single one hit her by some miracle.
Instead, the Weepers behind her, who had been holding the advantage just moments before, suddenly started taking hits one after another, all of them baring their teeth in pain.
Gavo only had one thought in her head.
Please, don't explode early.
Sprint, dodge bullets, reach, catch the grenade, twist the waist, throw it back.
The whole motion flowed in one smooth sequence.
The mutant monster on the other side froze, its grin stiffening on its face. It stared in shock as a small human charged through the crossfire of both sides, snatched the fragmentation grenade out of the air, and hurled it right back.
It thought for a long time and still could not figure out where things had gone wrong.
According to the plan laid out by the humans who had provided the weapons, they were supposed to lure the enemy deeper in, wear them down with gunfire, herd them closer together, and then wipe them all out with a single grenade.
The steps were right. So where had the problem happened?
In the end, it stopped thinking.
Not because it figured it out, but because it was blown to pieces.
With their leader dead, the other Croc-Men immediately scattered and fled for their lives.
...
"Not bad, little one."
"Good kid. Without you, we'd all be finished."
"..."
The Weepers crowded excitedly around Gavo, showering her performance with praise.
At that moment, their attitude toward her completely changed.
Before, they had accepted Gavo because she had passed Griffin's test.
But after that counter-ambush battle just now, they truly accepted her as a comrade.
Surrounded by these big brutes and praised so fiercely, Gavo had absolutely no idea how to handle it, so she could only keep scratching at her gas mask-covered head.
[Successfully recognized by the gang. Achievement completed: Underworld.]
[Talent acquired: Connected. Desperadoes feel more favorably toward you, while law enforcers feel less favorably toward you.]
...
"Interesting little brat."
Far away, Griffin, who was searching for something, glanced at the awkward Gavo and let the corner of his mouth rise slightly.
Then his gaze abruptly sharpened, and he bent down to pick up one of the Croc-Men's rifles that had not been destroyed in the battle.
He dipped a finger into the blood from one of his wounds, smeared it across the rifle's stock, and then held it to the light for a closer look.
Under his darkening stare, a savage dog's head emblem slowly emerged where the blood had soaked into the wood...
(End of Chapter)
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