"All units, pay attention! Formation Three, riot configuration!"
Seeing the Rebel Soldiers charge at her side, Zhu Yuan calmly and methodically directed her subordinates to meet the attack.
The Sheriffs showed the professionalism expected of them, working in practiced coordination to intercept the Rebel Soldiers before they could break through.
"Strange. These guys aren't acting normal."
Watching her subordinates hold the line, Zhu Yuan's expression turned puzzled rather than relieved.
By rights, even with better equipment, her side should have been at a disadvantage against Rebel Soldiers with far more combat experience — that had been her initial expectation, at least.
But the pressure from the enemy's attacks was far lighter than she'd imagined, and it left her thoroughly confused.
"Commander, the Rebel Soldiers are suppressed!"
Zhu Yuan could tell something was off, but not everyone shared her awareness.
Seeing how little pressure the Rebel Soldiers were putting up, the rest of the Sheriffs were overjoyed, and quickly requested further orders from Zhu Yuan.
But before their joy could last, the Rebel Soldiers they'd just "subdued" and knocked down clawed back to their feet like demons crawling out of hell.
"What?! Why are they getting back up?!"
"Don't panic! Hold formation! Keep them suppressed!"
The sudden turn of events sent a ripple of alarm through the Sheriffs, but Zhu Yuan's timely orders steadied them.
Still, watching the Rebel Soldiers fall and rise again and again, Zhu Yuan's expression darkened by the moment.
"Are these things monsters? Miyabi, can you—"
Remembering she had a heavy hitter on her side, Zhu Yuan's first thought was to call on Miyabi for help. But when she turned to look, she found Miyabi's full attention locked on the Ethereal not far off, and swallowed the words back down.
No good — Miyabi needed to keep watching that strange Ethereal. If it moved now, things would only get messier.
The Ethereal's speed was frightening. Zhu Yuan was certain no one but Miyabi could track its movements, and Miyabi understood that too. Without a word passing between them, the two old classmates had reached the same silent understanding.
So for now, Zhu Yuan would have to find her own way to hold her people together under the pressure.
Miyabi and the Ethereal held each other in check, neither willing to move first. But the Rebel Soldiers had no such restraint — their true target wasn't the Sheriffs at all, but Miyabi standing in the middle of the formation.
"O Progenitor! Grant us your blessing!"
"O Progenitor! Grant us your blessing!"
Chanting the phrase, the Rebel Soldiers hurled themselves at the Sheriffs with a manic, suicidal abandon.
They squeezed their triggers without pause, and some even snatched up their sabers, shrugging off the Sheriffs' counterattacks to close the distance and reach the front line.
Just as one raised his saber to strike, a shot dropped him to the ground — only for him to rise again moments later, covered in wounds, still lunging at the line like a demon returned from hell.
"These lunatics! No — monsters! These things are nothing but monsters!"
Zhu Yuan's Sheriffs still held the upper hand, but the enemy's reckless, suicidal assault wore on everyone's nerves without end.
The cycle repeated over and over — knocked down, rising again — and the sheer relentlessness of the fight doubled the pressure on the Sheriffs, stretching their nerves as taut as a drawn bowstring.
Finally, under that crushing strain, a crack appeared.
"Argh!"
A riot-shield Sheriff took a saber blow to the shoulder, his grip loosening as the shield slipped from his hand and clattered to the ground.
With that opening, the Sheriffs' line broke apart in an instant, like a landslide giving way.
"Attack! Attack with everything you've got!"
The Rebel Soldiers' captain swung his saber into a shield-bearer who tried to block him, wiped away the spattered blood with a casual gesture, and kept charging toward Miyabi's position.
Zhu Yuan rushed forward to cut him off — she knew Miyabi couldn't afford to be disturbed right now.
"Your opponent is me!"
Zhu Yuan pivoted at the waist, snapped a high kick into the Rebel captain's jaw, then let the Suppressor K22 open up at full power, punching several bloody holes through him.
"Everyone, fall back to me! Gather the wounded! Riot units, reform the line!"
The force in Zhu Yuan's voice finally pulled their morale back up.
At the same time, a commotion broke out behind the Rebel Soldiers' ranks.
"Die, all of you bastards!"
Boom!
A compressed cannon shell tore through the ranks — the Rebel Soldiers, so intent on charging Public Security, paid dearly for it.
Their rear had suddenly been ambushed by Nicole and the others. Billy and Nicole's firepower wasn't much, but it was just enough to throw the Rebel Soldiers' back ranks into disarray.
Anby, a close-combat specialist, moved through the formation like lightning, weaving back and forth — sparks trailing in her wake, and with every soldier she passed, that soldier hit the ground in a flash.
Anby didn't go for kills — she knew that if these Rebel Soldiers actually died, something far more troublesome would take their place. The Sheriffs' non-lethal apprehension policy turned out, in this moment, to be exactly the right call.
Afterward, Anby returned to Nicole's side. As Hollow Raiders, the two of them weren't eager to get tangled up with the Sheriffs.
In fact, the moment the Rebel Soldiers gave up blocking them and turned to attack the Sheriffs instead, Nicole had been ready to just grab Billy and the others and run.
But her conscience was too big for that — in the end, she'd only ducked into a corner to watch the standoff between the Rebel Soldiers and the Sheriffs, ready to step in and help the moment things turned dire.
"Well, that's more than enough goodwill spent. Perlman's been caught — let's slip away in the chaos and go find Geno and the others."
Then Nicole hefted the Ether Cannon again and fired a charged shot straight up at the ceiling.
A crackle of shattering glass followed, and the chandeliers overhead came crashing down, smashing into the crowd of Rebel Soldiers below.
"What—? Now! Push forward!"
Zhu Yuan, sharp as ever, seized on the chaos Nicole and the others had sown among the Rebel Soldiers, and rallied the Sheriffs to press the advantage.
Meanwhile, the Cunning Hares tried to slip through the confusion toward the stairwell, hoping to find Geno.
But right in the middle of that chaos, the standoff between the one human and the one Ethereal finally broke.
The Ethereal, unable to hold back any longer, struck first — leaping high off the ground and lashing out with a kick aimed straight at Miyabi's head.
Seeing this, Miyabi's presence flared to full force as she drew Tailless to meet the blow head-on.
But just as the two were about to collide, the Ethereal in front of her vanished.
____
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🔥 New history: Re:Zero: Starting with a Confession to Pandora — posted on The_Mikudayo