Fired.

- Is Clare on her way? - Maria smiled as she said this, looking at the five presents and thinking about how tight their time was and calmed down deeply, no, far from calming down, she was excited about the situation, maybe she could delay them or get rid of them.

- Yes, she'll be here soon. - Coyote's voice sounded calm.

- Should you be telling me this? I think the smart thing to do would be to hide it," Maria retorted in a playful voice, she liked that he had responded instead of attacking immediately, although she was confident that winning, even if only for a second, was still worth the risk, she knew it would be tough to hold them off in a safe manner.

- It's no use hiding it, you'd know from our method acting, well whatever, are you really not going to hand over the boy? This is the last time I ask nicely, even though I'm a gentleman I don't have time right now. - The man known as Coyote's said in a calm, monotone voice.

- I politely decline and... Fuck off! - Maria's voice sounded from inside the sphere of light, which became even brighter.

- Sigh, well... I guess there's no way then. - After saying this, he paused for a few seconds before his voice sounded again. - Formation D.

After saying the formation, the man began to chant something without moving, and as he chanted, the shadows in the room seemed to come to life as they began to ripple, this slow, gradual process happening as the four of them circled Maria and Arthur according to the formation. Both women were circling Maria, while one of the men stood just above the sphere the other moved away and from his arm the image of a KFH M88 A8 rifle appeared, and in the same way as with the wings earlier a metallic liquid separated to build up the image, only this time it came from his elbow. Maria looked at the formation apprehensively, she didn't mind facing the three that surrounded her, even though they limited her mobility she wasn't afraid, after all, she was one of the strongest people under Clare's command, and though she isn't Apollo's apostle like Clare is Loki's, she has still received many blessings from this god and believes she can hold her own if not beat these three, but this situation left her completely cornered as she looked at the other two.

She didn't know what the man known as Coyote was doing, but seeing the reaction of the shadows she was sure it would be problematic, she wanted to stop him, but with this formation it would be difficult, no, if she didn't take care of the man who walked away it would be impossible, looking at the rifle Maria felt wronged to the limit, as she worked in the army she knew this new model of rifle very well, this rifle was specifically designed to shoot down people who can use their souls to protect themselves, its weakness was that after a few shots it would be rendered useless due to the pressure it exerts on itself, since it uses the energy provided by the individual to generate the explosion instead of gunpowder the barrel can withstand between one and five shots, depending on the force put into it, but even if little force is put into it at this distance Maria knew she was in trouble.

- Arthur, get on my back. - Maria said with a deliberately loud voice, as they wanted Arthur alive for negotiations, this would limit a lot of what the sniper could do, no, just getting Arthur on her back was quite an advantage for her to gain time.

- Mn - Arthur nodded and climbed onto Maria's back, who had knelt down so that he could climb up.

Maria stood up with the little boy on her back, she used her left hand to support him before speaking in a high, calm tone. - Hold on tight.

- Okay. - Arthur replied as he strengthened his grip around Maria's neck a little.

'I'm not proud of using a child as a shield, but in this situation ignoring an advantage will only create an obvious weakness for these bastards' Maria thought as she ran her eyes over the men surrounding her, her gaze stopping on the man who had positioned himself on a tree trunk with his rifle resting on another trunk a little higher up. She paid special attention to this man and as she stared at him, she raised her right hand and a spear made of light but behaving like a flame appeared in her hand, the light around her increasing slightly in intensity as she began to run towards the man with the rifle.

The man frowned, normally such a move would be ridiculous, it would be great for him if the target ran in a straight line towards him, even if he couldn't see it thanks to the huge orb of light covering it, it would still be possible to hit it if he was willing to destroy the weapon itself in a single shot, but right now he hadn't even considered taking the weakest of shots, let alone the most powerful.

- Tsk... - The man decided to just put the rifle behind his back and dodge, he knew it would be useless to use the rifle for the time being and since the boy was with her the most the rest of the team could do was keep Maria here.

As soon as the man dodged, his eyes widened, he had heard a report about Maria in the past, but he didn't take it too seriously like most newcomers, but the moment he looked back his eyes widened as he felt all the hairs under his suit stand up; he saw that the tree he had been standing in for a few minutes had simply disappeared, the ground was also cracked for a few meters, this crack extended for more than ten meters and a golden fire that resembled gold came out of the cracks formed in the ground and covered the trees that remained on this path, strangely none of the trees except the one he had been standing in seemed to be charred at the moment. Maria retracted her spear and faced the man, who turned away with a smile on his face. Knowing that they couldn't see the smile on his face, she tried her best to intone the most sarcastic voice possible as she teased the man. - Are you opening a zoo? First the coyote and now a rat, what are the rest of you? - Maria's disdainful voice rang out, but none of the people seemed to mind answering her, the three surrounding her continued in the same formation while the man she called a rat just stared at her from afar.

'Well, I expected that, I've never been good at provoking others, at least not when I want to. Maria was a little disappointed that she hadn't managed to distract them for a moment, but she still didn't worry too much, she just continued attacking the man who had the rifle slung over his back.

As he watched Maria fight them all Arthur's eyes lit up, not with admiration for Maria or the others on the stage, the person who made him cheer up was Samantha, he remembered the few scenes where he had seen Samantha fighting when she was only a little older than him and thought about comparing her to Maria; whenever Maria brandished her spear of light anything she touched was split and she seemed to have control over what burned or not, the flames didn't spread when touching the bushes, seeing this and remembering Samantha's fight he was sure that Maria's control over her power was better than Samantha's on a colossal level, he didn't even know how to make this comparison since many parts of the forest disappeared while Samantha was fighting that day, obviously he didn't know the level of Samantha's control today, but he still found it difficult that it was as refined as Maria's, but even knowing this he still admired Samantha deeply. Arthur could see sweat dripping from Maria's forehead, watching as she gave her all to each attack, and the size of the destruction he assumed she was strong, but that was only in his parameters, Arthur ignored the fighting around him as he remembered some of the scenes he saw, among them the one that most caught his attention was when countless demons dozens of meters long and with trees in their hands like clubs rushed towards Samantha, and instead of panicking or at least looking cautious she just gave a big smile to the dozens of demons, and after that she just stretched out her hand and Arthur was stunned as he watched a third of the forest disappear in a sea of flames that resembled the sunset with their coloring, this scene at the time made Arthur respect her as someone strong, but seeing the level of Maria, a person considered the right arm of one of the strongest people in the entire Clypeus territory he felt happy, imagining being trained by someone far above that level of power he felt extremely excited and even forgot how hard it was your training.

As Arthur rambled on, Maria was doing her best to postpone the fight, but the three who had previously only been spectators and prevented her from escaping began to intervene, leaving her increasingly cornered. 'Hell, are they all strong?!' Maria was jumping and running to dodge the group's attacks while looking for opportunities to counterattack, however, the group always managed to stop her from counterattacking; since the three of them started fighting and with the support of the man with the Rifle they strangely managed to accurately attack her arms and legs despite the layer of light she put around herself. 'Fuck! Maria thought as she coughed up blood after the man with the rifle on his back pulled out a small semi-automatic pistol and shot her in the feathers and abdomen. The shot went all the way through her stomach, but she didn't make a sound, she just started allocating her energy to healing herself immediately, but the same wasn't true for Arthur, the shot that went through Maria's stomach came out her back and lodged in Arthur's left leg who couldn't help screaming as he increased the strength of his grip around Maria's neck.

"This is already the second chapter where the last paragraph has disappeared when viewed on cell phones. To avoid this, I've decided to duplicate this message at the end of each chapter, hoping it will resolve the issue. If you're reading this, I apologize if it's intrusive, but it's a better solution than leaving the chapter incomplete."