NIKKE, When the Milky Way Blossoms

"commander?"

Christine gave a cold laugh when she heard the word.

"I'm afraid it's already..."

"You'd better shut your rotten mouth, Christine."

Unable to contain her anger, Lorf narrowed her eyes, her golden-red eyes, the kind only a top-tier hunter could possess, brimming with undisguised malice.

"Did I say something wrong? You can still contact him via your squad voice chat?"

Christine wasn't intimidated by those eyes at all, and simply raised her chin and glanced at them sideways.

“He must have already reached the ground. As long as we distract Lecher, it shouldn’t be a problem for him to escape with his inexplicable intuition.”

Don't you think about whether Niki was with him when we found him?

Or do you really believe his nonsense about Niki and the others disappearing all night? I think it's clearly him..."

Zzz—BOOM—!!!

The distinctive sound of gunfire suddenly drifted from above into the ears of everyone in the underground passage, interrupting Christine's words.

Clang clang clang—

Before the group could react, a Lecher, whose torso was half blasted apart, rolled and rolled until he crashed helplessly to the ground.

At the same time, a meaningful electrical current came through the Nikis's earpieces.

“滋滋……滋……滋……”

"Hey...zzzz..."

"Hello? Lhabi, can you hear me? Hello? Can you report the situation? Hello?"

"This is Labi, Commander." Labi, who had witnessed the whole farce, smiled faintly upon hearing this familiar, hoarse voice.

"The vanguard needs your command now."

"?"

“My signal can’t reach Anise and the others. Tell them to come to the south entrance now. After that, you take Christine and the others and push up from the south entrance. I’ll provide cover fire.”

"By the way, hurry up, I can't hold out much longer here."

"Yes, Commander!"

Chapter Ten: Lecher, Niki, and the Man

The deeper the night, the brighter the stars.

Just like the flames bursting from the muzzle of a sniper rifle, dazzlingly bright.

Ding! Ding ding ding ding!

The brass cartridge, as thick as half a forearm, spun out of the ejection port with Phoenix's smooth pull of the bolt, landing on the concrete floor with a crisp, melodious bell sound.

Along with him, two of the chosen lucky Lechers also fell to the ground.

One through two.

Such an impressive record is neither particularly difficult nor technically challenging in the eyes of Phoenix, who has a comprehensive view of the game.

For him, the real life-or-death challenge was figuring out how to evade the Lecher group's counterattack.

Swah——

As expected, in the blink of an eye, the Lechers surrounding the entrance resembled a flock of owls, collectively giving Phoenix and Pepper a neat and spectacular 180-degree horrifying look.

Immediately afterwards, more than a dozen gunshots with flickering green flames instantly tore the trash can sitting on the street into pieces of metal.

Unfortunately, the scene that should have been filled with carnage did not appear in the visual sensors of the Lechers.

[Target lost; currently reconstructing target's location...]

The probability that the target is located behind a building is 93.65%.

After a few tens of milliseconds of simulation, the Lechers, having obtained the results, continued to turn their guns and sweep along the street corners towards the various commercial shops on the street.

In an instant, the century-old buildings were reduced to rubble and dust under the bombardment of thousands of bullets, and the corner cafe even tilted and collapsed due to the fracture of its load-bearing wall.

Bang bang bang bang bang——

Just as Lecher was firing his cannons and calculating whether the high-threat human had been killed, in the underground passage behind them, Lapi seized the opportunity to direct the other three to rush out of the entrance and unleash a barrage of fire at the backs of several Lechers.

Having been holding back her anger, Lorf saw an opportunity to get face-to-face with the Lechers and couldn't contain her inner rage. She grabbed her shotgun and charged straight into the Lechers' group.

With her nearly two-meter height, combined with the shotgun's high power and aiming advantage at close range, Lorf didn't need to deliberately attack Letcher's vitals.

All she had to do was simply aim the gun at the ejection port or feed belt of the Lecher cannon and pull the trigger to completely silence it.

On the other side, Merri also wanted to try it out, but due to her limited height, she had to raise the shotgun above her head to barely aim at the spot she wanted to fire.

So she naturally abandoned her learning spirit and continued to use her enduring firepower to suppress the enemy, pulling the trigger repeatedly on the main body of the Lechers.

"Where's the commander?!"

In the team, Christine, who initially distrusted the commander the most, risked a great deal of danger to climb onto Lecher's scrap metal body after destroying one of Lecher's cores, anxiously gazing at the smoke-filled street corner.

"Commander? Can you hear me?"

"commander?!!"

……

……

"commander!"

On the street, Pepper, her face and hair covered in wall dust, grabbed Phoenix by the back of his collar and, relying on Nikki's own formidable strength, dragged the commander away like luggage, escaping the subsequent barrage of bullets from Lecher's men.

"Is the commander injured?!"

"I'm fine..."

"Do you feel any pain anywhere?!"

“Pepper…”

"Commander! You absolutely mustn't do what those third-rate movies do—deliberately conceal your injuries. That's disrespectful to life!"

"I'm really fine."

Raising his hand, Phoenix patted the girl's elbow. Lying on the ground, having been dragged all the way, he said helplessly, both angry and amused:

“If you keep dragging me like this, my shoes are going to fall off, Pepper.”

"Are you really alright, Commander?"

Upon hearing the commander's words, Pepper released her grip with lingering fear, then crouched down and began groping someone's body without permission.

"The commander may have too much adrenaline in his blood, so he may not be able to feel the pain."

"Wait a moment……"

"As the team doctor, I need to perform a simple examination on the commander, and the first thing I must do is to check for signs of major bleeding."

"Wait, wait a minute..."

"No bleeding from the head, neck, or back, but bleeding from the abdomen, groin, and thighs..."

"Pepper! Stop!!!"

Grabbing the girl's soft hand as it was about to touch her inner thigh, Phoenix, equally startled, opened his frightened eyes and quickly said:

"Help me up. We need to get rid of the right wing of Lecher, otherwise Labi and the others will easily be attacked from both sides."

"...Okay, okay!"

Seeing the commander speak with such vigor, Pepper's trembling heart finally calmed down a bit. Then, she hurriedly put her hands under the commander's armpits and "lifted" him up from the ground.

However, to Pepper's surprise, her unintentional act of helping him up actually brought a hidden danger to the surface.

"hiss--!"

The sharp pain from his armpit made Phoenix instinctively gasp.

pain,

Heart-piercing pain.

“Pepper…”

The man who stood up, leaning on his sniper rifle with his left hand, grinned and said to the doctor beside him:

"A potent painkiller, quick!"

"Yes!"

Compared to her delicate demeanor when carrying a gun and loading bullets, Pepper's entire demeanor instantly transformed from a soft and cute girl into a commanding attending physician the moment she heard that the commander needed an injection.

She skillfully unbuttoned Phoenix's collar, threw off his coat, and then took out scissors from her toolbox. Without a word, she cut open the white lining beneath the coat, completely exposing the commander's right shoulder to the night sky.