The loud bleat of a lamb was heard flying at her, forcing her to dive roll to the left down the next hallway. Where she just was landed the animal carcass, cracking the floor and splashing the black tar everywhere. It seemed to glare at her, but she had no time to check as another Shreiker rushed her from behind.
Swinging around, she slammed her shield into the human-like Thrall, sending it flying against the wall next to her with a splat. Just as she raised her barrel to take it out, the hair as the back of her neck warned of an unseen danger and forced her to take a step back.
Narrowly dodging a bone spike, she trained her rifle at the shooter with one hand hand fired a few bolts. Due to her rush, the only shot she hit was in its leg, causing it to stumble to the ground. This gave her enough time to aim at the first Thrall just in time for it to slam its hoof hand into her chest.
The forced caused her to fly back into the wall just a few feet away. Thankfully it barely affected her thanks to the armor. Bringing the rifle up again, she fired a few rounds into the pig-headed Thralls chest and face, making it twitch to the ground in a black, bubbly mess.
Turning to the ranged Thrall, she raised her shield and charged at it. With each spike blocked, a few bolts came back just enough to make it stumble back. Slamming her shield into its black chest, she sent it skidding on its back a few feet. Luckily it raised its head first, allowing her to take it off with a shot to its skinny neck.
『Begin memory implantation of Alphas 023 through 027.』
Thankfully, Caretaker was giving live updates on the progress. However, she felt this made time a lot slower than it should.
"Just tell me if there are any problems!" Wolf snarled as she dove to the ground to avoid the sheep carcass and another black spike from the larger Void Flayer.
『I have confirmed this bigger Void Flayer is a Class 9 Abomination.』
"No shit!" She retorted as she fired a few rounds at the Abomination.
Though the rounds went in, they seemed to have little effect on this one.
"Please tell me I can kill it." Wolf begged as she turned and ran down the hall again.
Just as she reached the end of the hall, a Howling made up of a lower half of a human and upper half of a calf barreled into her, sending her flying down the other hallway. Rolling onto her back, she barely got her shield up in time to stop it's disfigured cat jaw from tearing her apart.
『You do have the current means to kill it. It's weakness is the core beneath the hardened Ichor. After blasting it open, the 'heart' will be exposed.』
"Fucking-" Wolf snarled, kneeling the Thrall to send it flying over her head.
Bringing her rifle up, she fired a few rounds at the flying Howling that was descending above her. All she could do was toss her rifle aside and roll away from the Thrall. As it collided with the ground, it let out a piercing screech from its bat head. Rolling to her feet, she drew her sword and quickly slashed at the Howling to send its head flying to the left into the other Thrall away from its raven body.
Before she could deal with that one, the Abomination managed to catch up and throw its corpse weapon at her once more. Thankfully, she saw it during the wind up and was able to duck just in time. The other Thrall was not so lucky, taking the full brunt of the blunt weapon and sending it flying far down the hall into another Thrall.
Taking a spinning step, she tried to sever the black rope with her sword, only to be met by a metallic resistance. She wanted to curse, but was met by the Abominations spiked tendrils and sent flying down the hall towards the other Thralls that had barely recovered.
She had just barely used the momentum to roll onto her knees and spin around with her blade. Sliding past the first Thrall, her blade luckily made contact with the second and pierced its chest to stop her movement. The awkward angle made it hard for her to draw her blade back, so she instead kicked the Shreiker in the knee to break its exposed bone.
"How much longer?" She shouted as she drew her pistol and blew the Shreikers head off.
Switching hands with the pistol, she pulled her blade out of the bubbling corpse just in time to jump back from the flying carcass once more. This also allowed her to dodge the cat headed Howling as it tried to bite at her leg.
She fired two shots in its head to make sure this more annoying one stayed dead. After snarling at it, she ran further down the hallway out of range of the Abominations attack.
At the end she rolled right to dodge the black spikes the Abomination sent flying at her, only to find a Shreiker made up of a cow with pig legs and a chicken head and two Howlings of a dog and a cat that swapped heads, paws and tails.
Rushing them, she slammed her shield into the cat head at a wide angle to fire a shot at the Shreikers chest to make it stumble a bit. The dog head made a leap at her neck, but was dodged by ducking under to keep going towards the Shreiker. After bringing her blade up to decapitate the Thrall, she turned around and fired 3 rounds from her pistol. 2 at the dog head, 1 at the cat.
『8 Thrall and 1 Abomination left standing. There are 15 minutes left on Alphas 24-27.』
All she could do was nod as she ran down the hall away from the Abomination that was quickly gaining ground. Just as she went to check the status of her body, she noticed a pig snout filled with various animal and human teeth aiming for her head. Sliding on the ground, the Howling flew past and slammed into the wall a few feet away with a squeal.
Before she could find her footing, a human with long, disfigured chicken legs and spiked tendril arms dove down on top of her and bit into her left shoulder. Letting out a yell, she fired her pistol several times in the chest before punching to in the side of the head. As it went flying, she brought her pistol up and shot it in the head before turning to run again.
Then, she was sent flying by something that had knocked the wind out of her.
Rolling on the ground a few times, she eventually collided with the wall and fell onto her side. The screen in her helmet went red as it warned of excessive damage, but she couldn't pay attention as another Howling was barreling down at her.
It was all she could to raise her arm enough to empty the last few bolts of her pistol into the Howling. As she dry fired, the Thrall stumbled to the ground in a bubbling, black mess. She tried to get up to keep moving, but was interrupted by a sudden voice in her head.
"Rest easy, sister, I'm here!" A gruff voice shouted in her ear.
Just as she heard it, she noticed the Abomination down the hall turn away before letting out a threatening wail. As it turned around, several explosions filled its chest and caused it to stumble back.
"H-heart!" She managed to shout as she brought her shield up to stop a Howling from getting to her.
Her right arm was to broken to lift, so all she could do was force the raven headed pig back with a grunt. After it stumbled a bit, it tried to rush her again, only to find itself sent sprawling as a hammer hit its side.
Sensing another being, she tried to raise her shield in defense once more, but was quickly stopped when an armored hand landed on her left shoulder.
"We gotcha Commander, just rest up. Maine, on me!" Another voice called out to her in a soothing tone.
"On it! Black, help Brown. Everyone else, cover the Commanders escape." Another low voice ordered in the chaos.
Before her eyes were several more armored people like her, welding various weapons in offense against the Thrall. Though she couldn't see the Abomination anymore, the sounds it made told her that it was struggling.
"She's to wounded to treat here, it's a wonder how she survived." The softer voice called out as they hooked their arm behind Wolfs back and helped her up.
"No wonder she's the Commander. Damn near killed them all herself. Get her to Medical, I'll cover." The lower voice chuckled before taking up a defensive stance.
"Y-you...who..." Wolf barely managed to get out before her consciousness began to fade.
"Shit, she's slipping. Maine, help me out!"
"Rhino, get over here!"
"More coming from the first floor!"
"Tan, get her out of here!"
"Rest easy Commander, we won't let them have you."
The strange voices that called over the intercom strangely soothed her, allowing her to relax enough to succumb to the pain and pass out.