The Fifth Layer (7)

The two other gates opened. Ejiro, Adia, Bryan, and Victor arrived North of Syphon City. They could see its walls and buildings from a kilometre away.

Luo and Jenna arrived from the South. Their side had run into many skeletons and even human mages, but they had defeated them.

"Commander Rack, how is it going?" asked Jenna over the comms.

-Crash!

James Rack fell through a building's concrete wall and breathed through his metal helmet. Zephyr Dragos was aiming his new handgun at him.

-Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The metal mage transformed the floor into walls to protect himself from the explosive bullets and ran to the other side of the building, exiting through the front door. "Get here asap. The reptoid Seat is here!"

Zephyr quickly spotted him in the street and took some distance by jumping away. Rack had transformed his metal pole into a swirly structure that spun around him and deflected all of the reptoid's bullets. He quickly closed the gap between him and his opponent.

The metal in his hand transformed into a spear, and he struck at Zephyr's unprotected head. Yet, Zephyr's armour had sensed the danger and rapidly swung his upper body sideways to evade Rack's attack.

Rack struck in the air. He couldn't move in time as the reptoid took hold of his spear and ripped it out of his hands. He threw it far away like a javelin, but it wasn't Rack's only weapon.

'I have him!' The man's left gauntlet sharpened into a knife as he stuck it into Zephyr's neck. Or at least, that was what was supposed to happen, but he caught a glimpse of Zephyr's smile.

A punch to the stomach, almost perforating his armour, sent him flying up. The metal collision echoed throughout his body. He puked into his helmet. The reptoid was fast.

-Urk!

Just before he landed back down, Zephyr kicked him into the crowd of skeletons.

He pushed the skeletons off himself and stood up dizzily. Before he knew it, Zephyr's boot pushed him to the ground. The Seat stepped on him and aimed his handgun. "I wonder how many bullets you can resist."

"Haha. You'll run out of bullets before finding that out." Rack secretly formed a shield on his right arm.

-Bang!

That wasn't Zephyr's bullet, nor Rack's shield. The loyalists had arrived. It was Victor! He had flown by in the blink of an eye and fired at Zephyr's chest. His intelligent armour couldn't move him out of the way in time as the bullet exploded.

Zephyr found himself lying on his back. Rack slowly stood up. Their fight wasn't over yet.

"I don't know who that was, but thanks for the help," the commander said out loud.

Near the two leaders, the vampires were fighting reptoids and skeletons. Ejiro, Adia and Bryan were targeting the few wizards that were there. Jenna and Luo, who had just arrived, took on the ice wizard and were evenly matched.

Fire, ice, metal, guns, wings, wind, bones and scales roamed at Syphon City's doorstep. Victor and the vampires by his side were flying above the field, eliminating threats and supporting the other soldiers. He combined his two handguns and fired at a reptoid in silver armour.

As the reptoid lost balance, Victor dived onto the grass and penetrated his claws through the creature's neck.

"Hello." Amidst the skeletons, a figure in a dark hood approached him unfrightened.

Victor turned around hurriedly and examined the short stranger. Judging by their voice and proportions, they seemed to be a woman. However, he couldn't see through the mask. It was crafted from an old tree, evident from the visible pattern of growth rings that almost seemed to form a spiral.

There were two large eyeholes. The strange woman's dark eyes pierced through the wooden shell with a faint green glow.

Victor was stunned. His own eyes became green, and his body rigid.

"Go." She said in a deep, mysterious tone, "Fly and kill."

Victor's wings propelled his body upwards and straight towards Adia, the one closest to him. She had been grouping skeletons with her sticky strings when his claw came rushing towards her.

She gasped. She quickly jumped away and swung herself out of the swarm of skeletons underneath her.

"Hey! What are you doing?!" She landed a dozen metres away and turned around to face him.

Victor's face was empty. The body didn't care about anything other than accomplishing its mission.

Adia prepared to fight. Dark magic strings shot out of her wrists as she quickly built a web to capture him and an escape path.

Bryan and Ejiro, over fifty metres away, noticed what was happening. They saw something she didn't. 

"ADIA!"

They shouted, but their voices didn't reach her in time. Victor had stopped advancing. She tilted her head, looked from side to side to see what had happened, and felt a stinging sensation in her belly.

With the taste of blood in her mouth, Adia looked down. Bloody claws were sticking out of her stomach and scratching her insides.

The vampire's hand left through her back. She turned around, but the vampire had already flown away. Having a bad feeling, she looked up hurriedly, and her face became pale.

Tears ran down her cheeks, blood gushed out of her, and goosebumps spread from her toes like a shockwave.

Victor was on top of her, his gun barrel aiming at her neck.

"Adia! RUN!" Ejiro flew as quickly as possible but knew it was impossible to get there in time - especially when the opponent was another vampire.

Bryan's magic wings widened to five metres wide each. They broke the wind as they slapped each other and made some skeletons collapse from the wind pressure. 

Yet, he wasn't quick enough, either.

"No-"

-BANG!

Adia's face had gotten crushed by Victor's blasting bullet. She fell to her knees before collapsing forward. Skeletons ran over her like she was just a rock in their way.

Bryan Moon collided with Victor's empty shell. His large black wings sharpened and struck him with rage, yet the high-rank vampire was incredibly fast. 

Bryan couldn't land a single attack on Victor, but Ejiro suddenly swooped in with his sword while the vampire was distracted. With a quick swing of his Dragonsword, Ejiro cut off his hand and observed the vampire. 'What is wrong with him?!'

"Bryan," Ejiro ordered, "Victor isn't the only one 'rebelling.' Fight the others while I take care of him."

Victor's gun fell next to the masked woman. A tall vampire lady with dark hair and pale blue eyes approached the hooded figure and massaged her shoulders.

"Go on." The snake humanoid removed her wooden mask. She had green hair and a round face. "We'll hypnotize as many as we can."

More snake humanoids arrived behind her.

The vampire flew up with a few others: vampires from the Inner Layer who had stayed loyal to the Seats and disloyal to their new queen.

Ejiro approached Victor openly, but instead of attacking, he made his eyes glow with light magic. Stunned, Victor attacked regardless. Ejiro dropped down, dodging Victor's claws, and grabbed his boot. He threw him to the ground with all his force.

-Boom!

A dark-haired woman's scarlet lips formed a wide grin as she chuckled, brushing past Ejiro.

Her smile twisted into a fake, horrified expression. Her index finger pointed at Ejiro from above. "Victor is injured! They betrayed us! Loyalists, we have to kill the traitors!"

Then, suddenly, the fifty vampires who had been hiding amidst the skeletons surged out and began attacking people from Rack's side.

Victor's vampire division was overwhelmed by confusion.

"What is she saying?"

"Look at Victor! His hand!"

Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't have been enough to shake them. As professionals, they'd have figured out about the hypnotization, but some of the Inner Layer's members had snuck in during the dark-haired vampire's act.

"I knew we would get betrayed! We shouldn't have trusted humans and werewolves!"

"Charge! Kill the Western Army and its allies!"

Bryan heard the wind' honing. He turned around to face a sabre sword. 

It was the dark-haired woman again. He blocked her sabre with his wings, yet it swung through them, and the wings disappeared. The sword could dispel magic! 

The woman smiled. Her sabre struck into his heart. He gasped quietly. His lungs emptied a hollow cry. 

Ejiro's eyes widened. 'No! This is crazy… Aida, and now Bryan. Who else will die here?'

He bottled in the feelings for later. 'As an expert mage, I can't expect not to lose friends. I've lost many other brothers and sisters in this line of work.'

Yet, his vision blurred as he analyzed the situation. He finally spotted the snake humanoids below his feet.

"Hey!" He screamed so everyone could hear and turned on his earpiece's microphone. "Something's wrong! Some of the vampires have gotten hypnot-"

-Bang!

Ejiro barely dodged that bullet. It came from underneath. He looked: it was Victor. His hand had grown back already. 'What a monster!'

His ear twitched. "And you! Who are you?!"

-Clang!

He narrowly blocked the other vampire's sabre with his Dragonsword.

…

The other side of the battlefield wasn't in a much better situation. The Bone Mother's three red skeletons were causing chaos.