Chapter 139 – So You’ve Shown Yourself at Last — Allow Me to Give You a Proper Thrashing!

The new Makina that had appeared in Grain's field of view. Rugged, yet refined -- its silhouette overlapped with a strange, familiar sense of déjà vu he couldn't quite place.

With no time to dwell on it, the green Makina instantly charged the large triple-barreled rifle it held, and unleashed a beam of terrifying density.

"Like hell I'll let that hit me!"

Grain snapped Riese into a quick lateral slide, slipping past the line of fire by a hair's breadth. The beam he'd dodged tore straight through a massive chunk of debris drifting behind him and vanished into the darkness beyond.

"Terrifying firepower... but there's a gap before it fires!"

Certain of this, Grain immediately aimed the Arcian's barrel at the enemy machine.

-- In that instant.

Amid a fierce shower of impact sparks, the green enemy machine's left shoulder blew apart violently. Caught off guard by the impact, the enemy machine's balance broke badly.

"Aland--!"

The one who'd landed that blow on the mysterious machine was Aland's Enomeil. A shot from his shoulder-mounted cannon had struck the enemy's armor beautifully. As he closed rapidly on Grain's position, Aland fired his right-hand Photon Rifle with pinpoint accuracy through the chest of one of the closing mass-produced units.

"Captain, what is this thing...?! It's just like Ard--"

Just as Aland started to say it, the green enemy machine vanished completely from view.

A disappearance caused by sheer hyper-speed movement. But Grain's Riese's main sensors had caught its astonishing turning trajectory.

The green machine had closed to point-blank range in Enomeil's blind spot with off-the-charts acceleration, and had already raised a blazing Photon Saber high overhead.

"Dodge it--! Aland--!!"

At the same instant as Grain's shout, a dazzling flash of light cut through Aland's Enomeil--

◆◆◆

With the fierce battle between the Vigilante Corps and Argria raging behind her, Letaria's Arden had reached the far side of the structure.

"...I sense it strongly, from around here."

A strong, skin-prickling sense of wrongness.

Looking around, she found what appeared to be a massive loading entrance, its mouth gaping open, leading down into the structure's depths.

"--?!"

Following her instinct, Letaria reflexively swung Arden's Photon Saber in a flash through what should have been empty air.

The space her blade cut through erupted in a violent explosion. At the same moment, she detected countless unsettling signatures buried in the surrounding darkness, all at once.

"A trap... mines, is it?!"

It was a weapon she recognized from her own experience, having seen them once before while taking on freelance work. They were laid out meticulously across the entire space, as though guarding the building's entrance.

Letaria sharpened her focus and threaded Arden forward through the gaps between the mines.

And then -- just as she reached the entrance.

"It" burst out from deep within the structure as if flung loose, and charged at Arden with terrifying speed.

"So you've shown yourself at last -- allow me to give you a proper thrashing!"