Everything was suddenly bathed in white.

A loud and piercing ring screamed in Luna's ears, drowning out everything else.

The man's grip on her throat vanished and she fell, hitting the hard and glassy ground with a thud. The pain barely registered.

She couldn't see. She couldn't hear. Her head spun and a wave of sickness washed over her as she tried to scramble away, but she had completely lost her sense of direction.

It was the same for the man in the silver armor. The sudden flash and intense sound had made him release his grip on Luna. He had been taken off guard.

Another soft clink sounded nearby but it was lost in the high-pitched ringing buzzing in his ears.

Suddenly a thick and choking smoke began to fill the air. It wasn't like the smoke from a fire and was rather heavy and gray and it didn't rise.

It spread out along the ground in the form of a thick fog that swallowed what little the two of them could see of the fading white light. Soon they were completely blind and trapped in a gray and silent world.

Panic started to bubble in Luna's chest. She was helpless and exposed.

Suddenly, she felt a pair of strong arms wrapped around her.

One went under her legs and the other behind her back as she was lifted from the ground in a single, rough movement. She was so surprised she didn't even have time to struggle.

She could feel the wind rushing past her face as whoever was carrying her ran with their footsteps steady and sure-footed even on the broken ground.

The ringing in her ears slowly started to fade and was replaced by the sound of her own ragged breathing and a pounding heart.

Her vision started to come back in blurry patches. She blinked, trying to clear the spots from her eyes before she looked up at the face of the person carrying her.

It was a familiar face.

It was Allen.

He held her in his arms while his eyes were fixed on the path ahead as he ran.

"Allen?" she managed to choke out, her voice weak and confused. "What… what are you doing here?! Shouldn't you be back at the camp?"

He glanced down at her for a split second with his expression neutral.

"We can worry about that later," he said with a flat and focused voice. "Right now we have much better things to take care of."

He tilted his head back toward the thick cloud of smoke they were leaving behind.

After running for what felt like forever he finally skidded to a stop at a safe distance far from the center of the crater.

He gently set her down on her feet with his hands steadying her as she swayed, still dizzy.

He turned and looked back at the smoke-filled area.

Right at that second a powerful gust of wind ripped through the crater. It was not a natural wind.

It was a blast of pure force that tore the thick gray smoke apart and blew it all away in a single and violent rush.

And there in the center of it all, the man in silver armor was revealed. He stood with his hand still held out from where he had blasted the smoke away.

The look on his face had changed. The deep boredom was gone and in its place was a sharp look with his eyes looking directly at Allen.

"Quite interesting," he said.

Allen paid no mind to whatever he was saying and was rather completely invested in himself.

Is the drone in position?

A small notification appeared in the corner of his vision.

[Position confirmed. Altitude: 200 meters.]

That was all he needed.

Without a second of hesitation the thought formed in his mind.

MP5.

The cold and hard weight of the submachine gun appeared in his hands and he didn't waste a moment moving forward with it.

His thumb flicked the fire selector switch down. It turned to full-auto.

He squeezed the trigger.

A deafening roar ripped through the air with a continuous stream of fire and hot brass casings erupting from the gun.

The bullets tore across the crater as they kicked up puffs of black dust, racing toward the man in silver armor.

"You're wasting your time," the man said.

He charged. But instead of running, he moved, like a silver blur gliding across the glassy ground and closing the distance at an impossible speed.

Allen didn't flinch. He just held the trigger down while keeping the stream of bullets aimed directly at the man's chest.

The bullets slammed into the invisible shield. Each impact was a small and sharp flash of white light like a tiny firework.

At first, nothing happened. The invisible and invincible shield around him held and the man kept coming with his expression unchanged.

But the bullets didn't stop at one or two and were continuous.

One after another in a relentless, hammering rain of lead the bullets rained upon him.

Soon enough a tiny, glowing crack like a spiderweb on a frozen pond appeared on the shield where the bullets were hitting.

The man didn't seem to notice or perhaps he simply didn't care. He was still getting closer.

The cracks started to spread, with another line of white light branched out from the first. Then another. The shield was designed to stop single and powerful blows like Luna's sword.

It could heal that kind of damage. But this… this was different.

This was a thousand tiny hammers hitting the same spot over and over and never giving the magic a single moment to recover.

The man's confident smile finally glitched. He looked down at his chest and the spiderweb of cracks now covered his entire front, glowing with a bright and unstable light.

He was still moving forward but he had slowed down. He had finally realized that the shield wasn't healing.

Allen held his ground with the MP5 bucking in his hands, spitting a constant stream of lead.

One final bullet left the barrel in a flash of fire. It spun through the air, a tiny piece of metal. It flew straight and slammed directly into the center of the glowing web of cracks.

For a split second, there was silence.

Then with a sound like a thousand sheets of glass shattering at once, the entire invisible shield broke. It didn't just disappear.

It exploded outwards in a shower of a million shimmering invisible shards that vanished into nothing.

The man in silver armor stumbled to a stop, his eyes wide with a flicker of genuine shock.

He was now completely exposed with nothing protecting him.

As it happened a grin spread across Allen's face.

"Phase one complete, moving onto the next," he mumbled to himself.

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