Chapter 116: Chapter 108: A rescue, of sorts.

Aranea broke through the elevator’s gilded doors. Two soultakers barely had time for a warning shout. The warlord threw them off the floor, sending them down three levels, right into the paws of her advancing troops. Keyl was the next to jump from the ruined elevator, landing a quick kick at the leg of the soultaker armed with a sniper rifle. His kick shattered both the armor and the knee beneath it, causing the woman’s ruined leg to hang on nothing more than the ruined muscles and skin. The knight captain ended her suffering with a merciful blow to the head, knocking out the foe.

Several more warriors charged from the elevator, tackling their foes, breaking bones, and reducing them to a helpless state before tying them up. A similar situation was happening on the floors above. The wolfkins climbed on both walls and through the main elevator’s shaft, leaving just a token force to march across the stairway, disarming the mines along the way.

The enemy resistance was fierce without the tower, the soultakers were almost throwing themselves at the advancing wolfkins with little care for their lives. Their desperation and stubborn refusal to give in spite of overwhelming odds earned them a begrudging respect from the wolfkins. These soldiers were ready to die in vain, outnumbered and outgunned, normies against new breeds, just to protect their heir.

Thankfully, this choice will be denied to them. Aranea smirked, punching a soultaker in the face. Her attack shattered the steel helmet and cracked the bone, leaving the man with a concussion. She grabbed the man by the shoulder, not allowing his body to fall away from the platform. Loyalty is its own reward. There was no reason to make any more orphans.

The tower looked gorgeous. The floors and stairs were covered with rich crimson carpets that were now either set on fire or shredded with bullets. The stone walls were covered with exquisite carving, forming countless poems and history lessons about the Soultakers. Numerous alcoves covered the stone walls, most of them empty, the inscriptions at the top of each alcove were scrupulously scrubbed away. A few statues, made of cheap stone, stood in the alcoves: statues dedicated to elders of the Bento Tribe, a few doctors from the Soultakers tribe, and even a couple of scientists from Iterna. The cheapness of these statues and the new inscriptions made on the bronze tablet created a jarring contrast with the magnificent-looking black walls lit by countless lamps.

In the days before the war, this tower was supposed to house important guests and diplomats from Iterna and Pearl. It had a spacious kitchen and elegant-looking elevators, ready to carry the guests to the luxurious rooms above. A cinema was built on the tenth floor, and a conference room was built on the twelveth. Now all the suits inside the sixteen-story tower were empty, safe for a few servants hiding within. Aranea gave the order for her soldiers to lead the people onto the bottom floor, by force if needed. The foes disabled elevators, breaking them completely, but failed to set up the traps inside the shafts themselves, and now they were paying for their mistakes.

"Up, knight captain," Aranea told Keyl, stopping him from treating the injured woman, "The regular army will tend to their wound."

"Yes, warlord." Keyl said after a pause.

Together they charged ahead, running past the other wolfkins, who were busy capturing the few struggling foes. The chaos of the battle and shouts of people were starting to die out as the pair reached the solid iron door on the fifteenth floor. Aranea and Key simply kicked together, ripping the reinforced door and slamming it to the floor of the massive hall filled with dining tables. Stepping inside the warlord saw several scared servants and an old man pointing a gun at her. The hall had several massive windows that were currently closed with steel lids.

"You will never hurt the young master…" Aranea was on the man before his finger managed to shoot. Her claw slid behind the trigger, preventing the old servant’s feeble attempts to resist. Aranea gently wrangled away the gun, crumbling it in her paw.

"We do not come to harm Tehuoto in any way," Aranea told the servant softly, trying to sound reasonable. "Calm the young one and bring him to us."

The man stepped away from her, looking at both wolfkins with defiance and clenching his fist.

"The tower guards are alive," Aranea pointed behind herself, "I am not lying. The kid is safe, and so are you."

"We can take him by force," Keyl joined Aranea, pressing his paws together in a gesture of peace. "But this will scare the young kid. Please, sir, for his sake, lead him to us peacefully."

The elderly man glanced at the other servants, then back at the wolfkins. A trickle of sweat ran down from his forehead, and the man tugged at his collar, breathing heavily. He wanted to say something when the building shook.

Aranea’s first thought was that someone outside had fired at the tower. But after a brief consideration, she understood that the explosion happened on the floor above. Without saying a word, she charged on, followed by Keyl, toward the rich doors at the end of the hall. She knocked them down in one kick, racing up the stairs and stumbling upon the site of a massacre.

Sixteen soultakers were lying disassembled on the floor, their legs, arms, and torsos were bisected with perfect accuracy. Just from a brief glance, Aranea could tell that their lungs were cut along with their hearts with a single motion, silencing any screams before they could leave their mouths. The soldiers were guarding twin gigantic doors with a symbol of the sun over them. The upper part of the doors was missing, someone or something sliced its way through it. Hearing a noise of moving metal on the other side, Aranea and Keyl jumped over the door.

They landed in a spacious room. Once filled with beautiful furniture, it was now in a state of chaos. A bed on the opposite side of the room had been crashed. Carpets were ripped apart. Fireplace destroyed. The wardrobes were sliced. And in the middle of the room lay a female figure, her arms wrapped over something below her.

Towering above her was a mechanical abomination. Its steel form looked like a centipede, numerous steel segmented blocks were connected with each other through a single, liquid spine. The cyborg possessed long, blade-like legs, each longer than a full-grown human. On top of the top steel segment was mounted an elegant-looking upper body of a woman, made entirely from steel. Her purple lenses glanced at the wolfkins, and the cold lips twisted in a smile.

And one of her legs pierced the back of the elderly woman, painting her purple robes red.

"Reclaime…" Aranea never let the strange woman finish. She fired twice, once at her head, another in the middle of the twisted mass, sending the massive body into the wall.

The cyborg thrashed, breaking the wall and falling into the small bathroom behind it. Stones fell from the ceiling, covering the steel form in rubble, while the warlord and the knight captain leaped toward the bleeding woman.

Aranea touched the woman's neck. She was already starting to get cold. The warlord moved the woman to the side and saw a young kid beneath the deceased person. The woman tried to shield the poor being with her own body.

"Aranea here," The warlord called the command, sending the video feed, "We found Tehuoto. He is dead."

The kid had a gaping hole in his head. His nose and eyes were missing, along with his upper jaw. The steel blade came straight through the woman, through the kid, and finally through the floor. The poor boy never had a chance. This whole situation reminded her of that time when regulators raided their own city. Always too late. Had I charged ahead instead of… This time was different. She felt sadness. And rage.

May the Spirits grant you a better life next time. Aranea made a quick prayer, filming the dead body. Noticing a movement, the warlord shouted: "Watch out!"

Keyl’s blade flashed out, stopping two metal legs that were about to bisect him.

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The cyborg came from the rubble like a whip, striking forth with two lower legs. Her entire body was covered with dust, but the rail gun failed to make even a dent in her strange metal. The woman smiled anew, opening her mouth and allowing a long laser cannon to come from it. Keyl groaned, being pushed into the ground by the massive blades.

"Die, you filth." Aranea fired at the cannon, sending it backward into the steel head. Her weapon failed to cause any damage directly, but the recoil was strong enough to push the weapon straight through the metal head, causing it to come outside.

The next shot came at the torso above Keyl’s head. The rail gun's shockwave pushed the knight captain to the floor while also sending the cyborg flying away from him. Countless legs struck out, trying to find balance and overcome the rail gun’s shot.

"Thanks for the help." Keyl took Aranea’s paw, standing up.

"Ha! Guess I'll be saving your life again and again, Keyli boy." The halfbreed joked.

"This merely makes us even for Belaz, furball." She heard a smile in his voice.

"Energy-absorbing armor," Ivar said over the communications, seeing how the cyborg was standing up. "Your rail gun can’t down her, warlord. Retreat to the hall below immediately, I have a plan."

"Wait!" Scorpio joined in. "Warlord, take Tehuoto with you!"

"Captain, any hesitation will endanger our soldiers!"

"Aranea, I beg you, please believe me on this one!" Scorpio pleaded, ignoring Ivar’s words.

The halfbreed fired one more time, sending the cyborg back before she could regain her balance. The warlord put the weapon behind her back, grabbing the dead boy in both arms, trying to preserve some of his dignity. Surprisingly, only a few drops of blood and brain matter came from his wound.

Keyl fired his shardgun, shattering the purple lenses of the murdered. This enraged the cyborg, and she charged at the wolfkins, her legs carrying her at the speed of a moving car. Without waiting for the collision, the wolfkins jumped over the ruined door, rushing down into the hall below.

The cyborg chased them down, hacking her way through the door without pausing. Aranea heard countless clacking sounds behind her, along with the sound of cracking stone, after the cyborg came upon the stairway leading down. On her HUD, Aranea could see that her soldiers had already moved the civilians out of the hall, forming ranks near the door leading to the lower floors.

"Please keep to the left, warlord," Aranea groaned, feeling how the blade slashed her and Keyl across their backs, piercing through the metal of their armors and reaching the skin. "You can do it. Just two more steps." Ivar spoke in a tired voice.

We can do wha…. The entire world shook. The left side of the hall exploded, propelling stone and steel forward with the speed of a bullet. Aranea found herself losing her footing, desperately clutching the deceased body to her chest.

The hall’s left side was missing. Something fired from the Reclaimers’ position, hard enough and precise enough to break through the shield and hit the tower with enough force to bisect the cyborg that followed after the wolfkins in two. The shortened steel body twisted, a human-like metal hand grabbed Aranea for a second, dragging her outside of the building, before both parts of the cyborg finally fell from the tower, coming tumbling down.

Aranea felt no fear, sliding across the edge of the newly made hole. Her power armor was still mostly intact. A fall from such a height was no pleasant jump, but she will live. Still, she felt a tiny bit relaxed when Keyl grabbed her by the shoulder, dragging the warlord back and taking her in his arms, jumping away from a section of the floor that collapsed soon after.

"Who is saving who now?" Keyl allowed the front of his helmet to slide down, blinking to her.

"Oh, please, you are overreacting, I was perfectly fi…" Aranea came to a halt, hearing how the entire upper floor and roof began to slide to the left. Connecting to the cameras of the wolfkins near the tower, Aranea saw how the enemy’s cyborg was starting to stand up from the crater made by her body. Hearing the sound coming from above, the woman looked up. In a second, her body was buried under tons upon tons of stone. A minute later, Scorpio’s black form landed on top of the rubble, removing any chance for survival for the foe.

"Yeah, okay, you saved me, sir knight." Aranea laughed along with Keyl, uncaring if anyone else was looking through the cameras of her own power armor or the cameras of her soldiers.

We live! She smiled, hearing Olesya’s report that the enemy leader, a man named Kurt, had been captured.

Keyl was putting her down, still laughing nervously with her while parts of the tower kept collapsing. Their laughter came to an abrupt halt upon hearing a faint breath.

The kid was breathing. The horrible wound on his face began to heal with new flesh, and a new nose and jaw began to appear on his ruined face. His breathing was hard, reminding Aranea of the breathing of someone with a crushed lung, his tongue was still missing but… The cold disappeared from his body, changing to a faint warmth.

"I knew it!" Scorpio whispered over the communication. "He is diluted."

Diluted. Aranea understood. When a person with a power had a child, his or her offspring would often have the same power as well, albeit a slightly weaker version. The Wolf Tribe and the Ice Fangs were somewhat unique in the fact that their power never weakened over the generations.

Tehuoto was a new breed. While possessing a weaker type of regeneration, he too was capable of coming back from the dead.

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