Chapter 470: Nasty Puddle

The air in the room had turned thick, tasting burnt and sharp, cloying scent of melting flesh.

BANG!

SKRRIIII!

BANG!

Salia shrieked in a multi-tonal sound that seemed to vibrate directly against the eardrums and then broke into a wet, chattering laugh.

Her limbs moved, blurring as she wove between the remnants of the furniture. Every time she spat, the floor hissed. The acidic liquid hissed against the expensive flooring, carving smoking trenches deep into the foundation.

In a matter of seconds, the ballroom area, the living room, and the bar were in ruins. Something that some people in here had only seen on the frontlines of the battlefield.

"How long is this thing going to spew this nasty liquid?!" someone shouted, but Julius didn’t turn to look at who shouted. He was focused on the zerg in front of him.

"Keep firing, don’t let her take another step forward! Keep her contained!"

Julius roared, his voice cracking over the roar of plasma fire.

"Don’t let her get out of the house!"

Salia, unable to step forward or backward, had no choice but to reared back. Her chest expanded like a bellows as she drew in a long, rattling breath.

Without wasting another second, she unleashed another wide, sweeping arc of acid. The arc went wide over the shredded remains of the sofas.

It slammed into the floor near the base of the stone firepit. Where Bryan and Julius had seeded one of the nine anti-personnel mines along the room’s chokepoints.

Sssss-pop.

The liquid struck the pressure plate of the hidden anti-personnel mine. The machine didn’t care what or how it was triggered; it simply did its job.

BOOM.

The detonation was deafening, a concussive thud that rattled everyone in the room. The blast caught Salia mid-swing. The shrapnel and concussive force slammed into her lower wings.

The broad, feathered appendages ignited instantly. The fine but deceivingly sharp, white plume-fur acted like kindling, catching the fire with a greedy, hungry crackle.

"Watch the blast radius!" Bryan yelled, diving behind a pillar just as the shockwave threw debris across the room.

Flames raced up the fringe of the wings, moving faster than the eye could follow. Salia’s triumphant laughter vanished, replaced by a sound that made the hair on everyone’s neck stand up.

She shrieked as she beat her wings frantically, desperate to smother the fire, but the motion only fed the flames more oxygen. The beautiful fur served as a perfect wick to the fire.

Fwhoosh.

The flames climbed higher, turning the elegant white plumes into black, curling ash. By the time the fire went out, leaving only the smell of scorched flesh.

The entire left hindwing hung in blackened, smoking tatters. Half of the appendage was simply gone, reduced to charred stumps.

Salia stumbled, her balance off-kilter, and let out a howl of pure anger. "My WING!"

The sound was jarring, almost comical, as it threw a tantrum over a torn hem.

"Do you have any idea how long it takes to grow this back to its beautiful state, you wretched little—"

She cut herself off, her breath ragged and wet hitches. Her bloody red eyes narrowed into thin, glowing slits, pulsating with a murderous light.

Even as she stood there, the ruined edges of the wing were beginning to quiver. Tiny, translucent filaments of muscle and bone were reaching out to bridge the gaps.

But it was agonizingly slow, compared to what Helena and Chronos had seen Keres do before. But it was because the rapid-fire regeneration had been compromised by the heat of the blast.

Julius didn’t wait for her to recover.

"She’s slowing down!" he shouted, changing his grip on his plasma pistol. "Fire! Don’t let her recover!"

Salia hissed. Her earlier composure was replaced by a cold, predatory desperation.

"Fine. You want to play?" she snarled, the word vibrating with a deep malice. "Then, let’s do it the hard way."

She dropped into a low, bestial crouch, her remaining wing twitching in a spasm of pain.

The room went deathly quiet, save for the crackling of the dying fire and the rhythmic, wet thrum-thrum-thrum of her heart accelerating.

"Bryan, flank left!" Julius commanded, his eyes tracking every flicker of her muscle. "I’ll draw her fire. When she lunges, take the shot!"

"On it!" Bryan replied, his voice strained but steady.

Salia didn’t wait for them. With a wet, tearing sound, she launched herself off the floor, the floorboards shattering under the force of her jump.

There was a blur of her shadow and burning plumage as she crossed the distance in no time.

"Now!" Julius yelled, and the air erupted again with plasma fire.

○●○●

Behind the second sofa, Pete crouched with his back against the sofa. He had one arm thrown across Helena, the other braced to drag Chronos lower whenever the acid came their way.

He was running out of body to cover them with while Thiago was trying to treat both of them. Helena was barely conscious, her complexion still pale because of blood loss.

Chronos looked worse despite not being physically injured. He was gray-faced and shivering. He propped against Pete’s leg with two empty plasma pistols he kept trying and failing to lift.

Thiago made another call. He grabbed the sofa’s frame in both hands and hauled the entire piece of furniture around in a screeching arc until its heavy back faced the ballroom area.

Acid hissed and bubbled into the far side of it. It would buy them seconds, seconds still count as something.

"Stay down," Pete snapped at Chronos, pressing a flat palm against his chest. "Both of you, stay down, I—"

"Give me a gun." Chronos’s voice came out thin and cracked as he ordered. "Pete. Give me a gun."

"Absolutely not. Look at you. You can’t even hold the empty ones."

Pete said, not taking his eyes off the gap between the sofa and the wall. He didn’t stop tracking the zerg’s silhouette across the smoke.

"You’re staying behind me until somebody puts that thing down."