A few more hours passed by and the former safe zone soon saw more and more insectoids within its walls, and more and more awakeners fell as they were surrounded on all sides.
The energy guns had been working non-stop, but the flow of monsters never slowed down.
Even the non-awakeners controlling the guns could barely move their limbs at this point. They weren't even fighting the insectoids directly. How much harder was it for the awakeners?
SLASH!
"UGH!!"
Naia's eyes glistened in tears as more and more of her brethren fell under the aliens' claws. There were simply not enough hands to handle all of them.
BANG!
BANG!
She shot an Elite-tier alien several times, but it still managed to grab Pairo, stabbing him through his stomach. This Elite was the assassin-type and moved extremely swiftly. With it hiding behind its fellow insectoid, she couldn't shoot it down on time.
With her superior eyesight, she could even see his internal organs being ripped off.
"PAIRO!" Smith yelled, but he could not follow and make the unnecessary sacrifice. He, too, was surrounded by monsters—one was even a heavy unit—and he could barely even defend himself, let alone rescue anyone.
Pairo smiled in agreement, but he also didn't want to go without a fight.
Channeling his remaining energy, grasping at the last bit of life energy he had left, he gathered everything into his body and—
BOOM!
A large amount of energy emanated from Pairo's corpse as he fell down the sea of aliens, creating a massive explosion that took down at least a hundred aliens of varying tiers.
This temporarily lightened up the load that his surviving allies had to carry, and the bald man—face dripping in blood, sweat, tears, and snot—vented all his anger at the damned trespassers.
Soon, Naia ran out of ammunition and shifted weapons. With few people left guarding this sector, she also had to step up to guard the battlement with Smith and a few others. Her abilities were never as destructive as most awakeners, but she also wanted to fight to the end.
Her weapon of choice was the rope dart, and she handled it as if it were an extension of her own limbs.
She gracefully let it spiral, creating wide arcs through the air. It would snap forward in sudden, whip-like thrusts, before recoiling just as quickly. Combined with her ability, each hit was deadly, even with these aliens with extremely hardy shells.
A sharp metallic spike held by a long chord whipped through the air, hitting one of the climbing aliens smack at its neck, skipping over its heavily shelled body.
The rope's momentum also pushed down two more aliens in between, the areas of their bodies that touched their ropes emitting a light smoke as if they were slowly being burned.
This alien screeched, feeling a bit burned, and it fell back, stepped on by its fellow aliens. The rope dart was then pulled back, and it gracefully retreated, spinning around the user's body.
Naia did not waste the momentum of her attack. The dart spun around her waist and under her arms. With a flick, the coil unraveled, and the dart shot forward like a striking viper to pull down another set of aliens.
Unfortunately, the alien was a Brute—also known as the insectoid Heavy Unit—and her dart did not embed through, but it did go through its outer shell.
Fortunately, while her abilities were not strong in the conventional sense, it was still very useful. That one point of piercing looked like it had been burned by acid, and it was spreading out.
On cue, Smith appeared next to her, smashing down the monster, directly at where she had hit, finishing it off. A brute went down and hit several others climbing up, squashing at least half of them.
However, with the sheer number of aliens climbing up, no matter how much they swung their weapons or raised their fists, it was not enough.
"GAH!!" Smith screamed as one of his arms was cut off, barely managing to kill the bugger with a retaliatory punch. Similarly, Naia found herself in an increasing number of close calls, wounds piling up on every inch of her body.
Fortunately, before Naia herself could be stabbed to death, a heavy force descended on their area.
SLASH!
The aliens nearby were pushed back by this force.
"You shouldn't have come down!" A handsome man with silver hair said as he appeared out-of-nowhere next to Naia, pulling her into his arms.
As he said this, he put his hands together and clapped. When they separated, it felt like space itself was molded.
With a wave of a hand, rows of aliens below them got obliterated!
The man's face became pale as he did this, but his expression remained stoic as if he was not affected. He looked at Naia with eyes full of disapproval.
Naia didn't mind this; her eyes focused on the man in front of her.
He was wounded and tired, but otherwise okay.
Good.
Despite her exhaustion, she looked calm under the man's oppressive gaze.
She turned her head to their section of the once-bustling city. Inside these walls, there were still a few thousand people, young, old, and disabled. The number of aliens inside had also increased to the hundreds.
However, at this time, none of the people were hiding, even if they were not guards nor were they awakeners. They all brought out their own weapons, ready to help out.
"Leader. I want to fight with all I have. There will be no more chances."
Not many people said it out loud before, but everyone knew: This was definitely the end. After so many years of suffering, today was the day they would finally be able to rest.
They knew this. They understood this from the bottom of their hearts.
No one had the delusion that they could still survive this.
However, they were determined to take as many of these giant buggers as they could!
Naia escaped the man's hold and continued with her fight. She either whipped them off the battlement or stabbed them with her projectile. She could kill the weaker aliens on her own and weaken the stronger ones. Even if she could kill just a few more aliens, she was willing to sacrifice a few limbs.
The others also had the same determination. No matter what, they would strive to take down one, and another, until their last breath.
These buggers landed on their planet 50 years ago, weakening the entire planet, triggering natural disasters, consuming lives—literally—to strengthen their own.
The fact that the aliens multiplied to this number was indicative of how much 'food' they had taken.
Taking even one down meant avenging at least several of their brethren!
Not to mention, after consuming their planet, these bastards would abandon it, heading to the next one. They believed that killing one counted as a good deed to the universe!
Not far away, Smith, now lacking an arm and a part of his head, bellowed from his lungs.
"FIGHT! PROTECT OUR HOME UNTIL THE LAST BREATH!"
The others nodded, throwing everything at the enemies in front of them, gathering the energy to chant with him. "FIGHT! FIGHT!"
This was undoubtedly their last stand, and they were determined to make it count!