Shrouded Seascape

"Think about it again, Miss Anna. For whom am I doing this? What I've been doing is all for the sake of satisfying your condition. Do you really expect me to build an entire aircraft without enough steel?"

Before the Shattered God could continue speaking, Anna ended the call. Then, she melted into the walls and began to investigate the potential lurkers.

Anna had no idea if the enemies' concealment ability was just extremely powerful, but she found no lurkers despite searching almost the entire village from beneath the ground.

Time ticked by, and it would soon be time for them to make a move. At quarter to one in the morning, Anna returned to her room to make the final preparations for their plan that would commence in fifteen minutes.

Upon changing into a neat, tight-fitting outfit, Anna stared quietly at her phone.

When there were only three minutes left before the scheduled time, Anna finally noticed movement outside. She looked down and found that the sleeping tourists were all walking on the street.

Their eyes were closed tightly, and they staggered in their steps as they followed the villagers walking slowly into the pitch-black woods with torches in hand. The young woman who had asked Anna to take photos for her earlier in the day was among them.

It was late at night, so the streets were supposed to be empty. Beneath the pure white moonlight, however, the group of people walking slowly down the street like zombies composed an eerie scene.

However, Anna was relieved to see the sight. They had finally made a move. An unknown enemy was far scarier than a powerful enemy, after all.

Just then, a man's voice echoed from the door. "When sand can no longer help you, perhaps you should try stones instead."

Swoosh!

A grotesque green fireball phased through the wall and flew toward where the voice had come from.

Anna rushed out of the walls and emerged into the corridor. A middle-aged man was on the receiving end of the corrosive fireball. As the flames reduced him to ashes, he let out nary a scream of pain and merely stared at Anna with a smile.

Before Anna could figure out what was going on, she saw a pair of twin sisters standing at the far end of the corridor. The two little girls held a patched teddy bear with each hand.

"Green causes your body to decay; perhaps you could try the path above. You should know that above the Spider Door is the Peacock Door," the two little girls said at the same time.

Instead of attacking immediately, Anna chuckled softly and said, "It seems that my disguise still needs quite a bit of improvement. All right, let's talk.

"I'm not asking for much. I heard you have an Anomaly capable of altering memories. Give it to me, and I'll leave immediately."

Neither side had shed blood, so Anna believed that there was still room for negotiations.

"Of course, I can buy it as well. Either way is fine. You decide," Anna added.

The little girls slowly shook their heads. "The Red Moon has deceived you; its purpose, like that of the Great Stag, is extremely dark and selfish."

BOOM!

A deafening explosion reverberated, and the tremors were so violent that Anna found it difficult to maintain her balance.

Anna rushed out of the hotel and saw a shell flying over her head with a whoosh and landing on the mountain peak. Towering flames erupted upon impact, vanquishing the darkness.

Whiiir!

The sound of propellers pervaded the air as tandem-rotor helicopters rushed over from a distance. A hail of bullets descended, tearing apart everything human in the entire tourist village.

The Shattered God's people had finally made a move.

The bow was drawn, and the arrow had to be released.

"Everyone, come here!" Anna exclaimed. Then, amidst the cacophony of explosions around them, she charged into the distance with the Fhtagnists running next to her.

The clown's black top hat engulfed Anna's severed arm. When it pulled back, a chubby arm was revealed, starting from the stump.

"They'll attack every other position. We just have to handle everything on the left side!"

The Shattered God had already figured out the terrain. Clearly, they had spent more than just a day or two investigating the place.

When Anna and the others arrived at the foot of the mountain, they discovered that the mountain was on fire. The surrounding temperatures had soared, and the thick smoke had drastically reduced the visibility.

"Move slowly and follow the map. Don't engage with them. Our mission is to contain them in one place," Anna explained their task to the Fhtagnist.

They nodded and walked slowly along the route marked on the map. They looked around vigilantly, wary of any ambushes.

They had been walking for quite a while now, but Anna still could not find the so-called Blind Sisterhood. Instead, there was chaos all over the place, as the tourists—who had been walking in a daze—were now running around crying and screaming.

The freckled young woman covered in dirt spotted Anna leading a group of people up the mountain. The sight invigorated her instantly, and she rushed over to Anna as if she were family.

"Waaaah! Många döda! Många döda![1]" the freckled young woman exclaimed with tears dripping down her face.

However, the amiable Anna earlier in the day was exceptionally cold. She did not spare her even a glance, and she kept walking up with her head down. The high-schooler Olivia was terrified by their demeanor, but she decided to follow them, as she believed she had no other choice.

"High Priestess, she's still following us. Do you need me to help get rid of her?"

Anna glanced at the helpless and terrified young woman. "Don't waste your time and attention on anything else. The enemy could ambush us at any time."

Swoosh!

A bullet flew past them, and a large number of women clad in a black nun habit appeared at the turn up ahead. The women seemed to be on drugs as they made a mad dash toward Anna with their weapons in hand.

Anna's figure vibrated at a high frequency, and she disappeared into the ground in the blink of an eye. Green fireballs made out of her corrosive flames appeared where she once stood, and they made a beeline for the distant enemies.

Anna controlled the corrosive fireballs underground, which made them impossible to extinguish. Of course, they could still be extinguished, but they would have to attack Anna to do that.

Unfortunately for them, Anna was underground.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Meanwhile, the Fhtagnists rushed forward and slaughtered everything before them while shouting their loyalty to God Fhtagn.

Deafening gunshots, the grotesque noise of flesh being torn apart, and miserable howls intertwined in midair to create a harsh, discordant mixture of noises that only added to the chaos on the battlefield.

Unfortunately, the enemies were no match for Anna and the Fhtagnists. The Fhtagnists were particularly powerful, as they had just obtained their very own special ability.

Olivia's eyes widened to the maximum at the brutal sight before her. Tears welled up in her eyes, and everything that she had learned about the world from textbooks was being distorted in the face of the scene before her.

Upon seeing someone being torn in half right in the middle, Olivia couldn't hold it in any longer and bent over, vomiting the barbeque she had eaten for dinner.

The noises soon faded, and Anna emerged from the ground just as the Fhtagnists were cleaning up the battlefield.

Anna kicked a bloody rifle on the ground, and her face showed a hint of mockery at the sight. For an anomalous organization, they sure are reliant on firearms. Do all of them carry firearms to shoot at each other instead of Anomalies?

Just then, Anna's face changed drastically. She squatted down and observed the rifle with both hands. Her heart sank as she stared at the rifle. The rifle was brand-new, and she had definitely seen one of it before.

She had seen one in the Shattered God's factory, which meant that the Shattered God had manufactured the rifle in her hands.

All of a sudden, an idea popped up in Anna's mind, and it prompted her to stand up and rush toward one of the corpses.

Upon reaching the nearest corpse, Anna was stunned to see the corpse's attire changing from a black nun habit to the camouflage uniform worn by the Shattered God's believers.

1. Many people died! Many people died! ☜