Chapter 51 - Guilts and Miracles

Ross couldn't look at the corpse he was holding in his arms, but he brought it with him as he rushed to find a place to hide before any enemies could try to engage him. Once he was concealed behind one of the defense barriers, he held onto the corpse tightly without looking at it.

"C-Claire?... Claire, are you still with me?" He asked to make sure if she was still alive. But he can clearly see through his peripheral vision that Claire is missing her head.

He can't bring himself to look at Claire directly and remains in denial of the instant death of his companion. "Claire?... why won't you say a word!?"

Even if Ross can't accept this reality, he can already smell the strong metallic scent of blood from this corpse. Slowly, he sets his eyes on Claire and saw her raw flesh and blood exposed. "AHH!!" He pushed her body away and trembles in fear.

"N-No... no!!!... Claire!!..." Ross sobbed, he blamed himself for her sudden death.

Maybe if he never made such meaningless argument with her, then she still would've been alive today. Or maybe if he never had gone with her from the start then maybe she'd still be alive and actively participating in this war.

"...Claaaire..." he held her hand as he cried pathetically.

This corpse before him used to be someone alive and living fiercely just a minute ago, so it was hard for him to believe that this lifeless body and Claire Duvent was the same person.

Life can be taken in a flash, he thought as he can feel the warmth in her hand turning cold. Maybe sooner or later he'll be the next one laying on the ground as a corpse that's slowly rotting away on a battlefield.

Moments of despair such as what Ross is currently experiencing commonly happens to anybody during war like this. Despair inducing moments like loss, betrayal, intimidation and more that can easily affect people's fragile minds and egos makes them grieve and completely lose hope in everything, while there are others that goes into a self-destructive mode that wants take everything down with them as they drown from despair.

Then at another area on that battlefield, a battle between a pair with the most superhuman strengths clashes. Those that get caught in their way, whether an E.D.L. or I.E.A. soldier, have either died or suffered a fatal injury. Though they were all left unnoticed as this monstrous pair focus on taking each other down.

"...AAAAARGGGHHH!!" Devian grits his teeth as Heinz pushes him to the point that his feet were getting buried on the ground.

"STUBBORN FOOL, JUST DIE ALREADY!!" Heinz yelled in frustration. She finds it way more difficult to deal with Devian than Bernadette as he was way more powerful and stronger than the other.

Devian grips tightly on Heinz's hands and crushed the bones in her hands. "AAAAHHH!!" That made her let go of him for a moment and gave Devian the chance to strike back.

"HAAA!!" He aims his shifter cannon at her, but Heinz quickly redirected it to another direction and a group of I.E.A. soldiers on retreat were instantly obliterated with his attack.

She then lands a punch on Devian's face equipped with a shifter fist that enhance the force she puts into the punch. "HAAH!!"

It fazed him for a few seconds until he managed to strike back using the same shifter weapon. They exchanged blows simultaneously, blows that can kill other soldiers that ranks below them.

Their extreme battle have been going non-stop for more than a week, but Heinz have fought longer than that as Devian only took Bernadette's place to fight her. And their battle is the most destructive and dangerous among everything on that battlefield.

Devian managed to hit and send her flying, then as Heinz was on air, she transforms her shifter into a machine gun and rained multiple shots at Devian "DIE ALREADY!! DIE, DIE, DIE!!!" She screamed.

The lot of soldiers from both sides got caught in her attack have all been shot dead in a matter of seconds with only Devian as the survivor after managing to block her attack with a shifter shield.

"TCH! THIS BASTARD!" He then chases after Heinz before she can hit land and strike again.

As Heinz was about to fall on land, she feel like she can no longer fight with her body going completely numb and all strained after fighting for so long. She have also used up all her drug energizer which helped her to keep up all this time.

"Damn it... am I going to die... like this?..." she asked herself.

Then someone suddenly caught her before she can fall. "So you were here all this time?!" Heinz caught glimpse of Reginald's face before shutting her eyes.

"Yeah... I was about... to get.... their... heads..."

"You moron!! You're gonna kill yourself if you keep on fighting any further!! How much of that drug you already consumed!?"

Heinz grinned. "All... of it..."

"WHAT THE HELL, HEINZ!—" before Reginald can scold her, Devian was only a second away on firing an energy missile from his shifter missile launcher. Reginald was able to evade on time with Heinz on his arms. "Tsk! Rivlin..." he hissed.

"HERE TO SAVE YOUR FUCKING DAMSEL, REGINALD?!" Devian is pissed to see Heinz being rescued on time. "DON'T INTERVENE WITH OUR BATTLE, I'M NOT DONE WITH HER YET!"

"GIVE IT UP, RIVLIN!! I'LL LET YOU GET AWAY THIS TIME, SO FUCK OFF!" Reginald yelled back.

"If that's the case... I'LL JUST KILL BOTH OF YOU!!" He dashes to chase the pairQQ.

Reginald didn't want to put Heinz into any more trouble so he ran away from Devian for her sake and got to outran their pursuer.

"...FUCK!!... THAT FUCKING ASSHOLES!!" And Devian got so infuriated that he missed such a rare chance to kill Heinz. Still, he continues to slaughter the rest of the I.E.A. soldiers that was running away from him.

Blood kept raining down wherever Devian went as he ruthlessly slashes anybody he lays his hands on. Then as he beheads another one of his victims, the person's head was sent flying afar and landed to where Ross was hiding.

A decapitated head would definitely freak out Ross easily, but he was way more freaked out than ever to see something that seemed like miracle happen before his eyes.

"...no way..." he muttered. After mourning her death for hours until the darkness have envelop the skies, the moonlight reflected on her hair and skin, making it seem as if she was a porcelaine doll that had a hair of shining gold.

Her bluish green pupils gazes back at him as she opened her eyes. "...Ross?..."