Dungeon Raider System

Nika rushed in through the shadows of the city of new Texas at a speed only she could move. The steets, buildings and objects she passed were already vague waypoints and due to the eclipse's ability to darken the sunlight, navigating through them became even more difficult but even after getting lost a couple times she still made it in record time to the Pegasus.

She appeared in the ship's bridge seemingly out of nowhere and pushed the emergency button without uttering a single word which caused Phlox to lose the grip on the sandwich she was eating.

"Phlox, if the bathroom is clogged up again, please kindly ask the maintenance crew. I'm busy with something important." Medusa said.

"It's Uriel, he needs help." Nika said.

"I keep telling him that, but he refuses to se a psychiatrist." Luna butted in.

"It's not about his mental state... they're beating the crap out of him! It's an actual emergency!" Nika made a short summary of what transpired, though she was only able to witness from the moment Uriel stealthily summoned her with the statue.

"No way Uriel killed innocent people, there must be something else you're not telling us." Medusa covered her gaping mouth with a hand, yet deep down she had always feared a moment like that would come.

"We can discuss moralities after we help him." Said Luna who did not really care if he killed ten or a hundred humans she didn't know.

"That's the thing, I don't think we can reach him in time and that is without even considering people could get in our way or they might even attempt to shoot the Pegasus down. Worst part is, the sky is so blackened now I don't think I'll be able to find my way to him through the shadows unless he summons me." Nika was biting her nails so hard she drew blood from the tip of her fingers.

"We should use the L.U.N.A." Said Medusa and everyone present, Miss Dragonfang included, reacted as though a forbidden word had been mentioned.

"I am... huh... here." Luna said taking small hops so the tall engineer could see her.

"I know, silly. I'm not talking about you, but a weapon I made. It's called L.U.N.A. and it stands for Lethal Unstoppable Newtonian Artillery." Medusa explained though Luna did not seem impressed.

"I am flattered you named it after me, but I don't really like any kind of firearm."

"Trust me, you are gonna love this." Said Nika, who was in the know about the weapon just like everybody else in the ship other than Luna.

Luna was then taken to a small room with a small hatch that somewhat reminded her of the dumbwaiter she saw in the monastery. It was too small for a regular person to fit in but Luna would fit perfectly in it.

"This was a joke concept, something I made for the fun of it and never ever intended to use it. Now it's built, I think it might be precisely what we need."

"What kind of ammunition does this use?"

"You, you're the projectile." Nika said.

"Human cannon balls were a thing in the past apparently, though according to Uriel they did it for fun. They were not powerful and were considered pretty dangerous for the would be projectile, but in this case you should be fine because..."

"I'm a lycanthrope," Luna nodded, then continued speaking with half her body already inside the pipe. "fire me."

"Cross your arms and press your head down on your chest to prevent damage, also, you entered backwards. You must go head first or the mechanism will hit you in the head."

After fixing that and making minor adjustments, Medusa went in to the bridge to calculate the trajectory. The L.U.N.A. followed the same concept a handheld gun as it worked under the same newtonian concept of physics, but due to the scale being bigger the parable drawn by the projectile was bound to change due to external factors such as air drag and even whether or not Luna remained on the same position.

But Medusa being able to crunch numbers in her head faster than a person could input them in a calculator helped make this process much faster and she pressed on the button that would fire her friend at a speed that would rival with Nika's shadowblink.

After being fired through the cannon, the casing that protected Luna from the propellant gases fell on the ground with a few clanks that resounded like a bell ringing and they watched as the tiny spot disappeared in the air, though just when they couldn't see her anymore, Luna activated her trait which allowed everyone to see her trajectory as she flew.

With both arms cross and wielding orichalcum claws, Luna thought of herself as the impersonation of a comic character from the old times. She didn't like the idea or the execution of Medusa's 'joke weapon', she was absolutely in love with it. Everything about being fired from a huge cannon was incredible and even soaring the skies gave her an exhilarating sensation she did not know existed, though she did not know that the actual reason they came up with the idea in the first place was that everyone who had ever been hurled away by Luna wanted some sort of revenge.

If it wasn't for Luna activating her trait, no one would have noticed her presence. Not even Sam, whose trait allowed him to see what most people couldn't and the reason for that was simple. In the short span that took Nika to call for help up to when they turned Luna into a hunter projectile, the fight had taken an unexpected turn.

Although Sam tried to prevent the army from intervening, the place was eventually surrounded with soldiers who formed a perimeter to prevent the hunters from causing too much damage while also taking the chance to fire at the Holy rank rogue hunter due to his many crimes against humanity. This meant that Sam was now at a disadvantage, especially since Ika refused to participate in a fight against innocent soldiers who only did they job.

The cryptid hunting agency did not remain idle as the first thing they did was to direct their full might against Mark, who was evidently possessed by a horror level cryptid.

Had that been all, Uriel could have seized the opportunity to take them down, but the problem came when the rangers turned on him. They did not care about sides or anything other than the civilians and their city, which is why they needed to contain the threat at all costs.

All three participants of the fight soon found themselves behind cover to avoid the rain of bullets and traits being fired which immediately put their battle at a pause.

This came in handy for Uriel, though, who by that point was heavily injured and could barely breathe. Cracked ribs, bruises all over his body making him look as though he was possessed by an eclipse and deep cuts that would have caused him to bleed out if not for the life essence he stole from Sam.

Sam himself wasn't faring much better despite looking completely fine. It didn't matter how many injures he received, he could immediately regenerate from any kind of damage and unless they managed to disable him, he would be able to survive through anything they threw at him. But the same could not be said about his flux energy, he was already spent when he arrived at the city after crashlanding in the east coast and after having his life essence and flux energy sipped away by Uriel he was struggling to remain conscious.

Mark, on the other hand, had been unconscious for a while now, but that soon changed when the Eclipse retreated back into his usual hiding to recover from the damage he suffered throughout the fight. With the means at their disposal, neither Sam nor Uriel would have been able to kill it, but the fight had drained its flux energy which forced it to consume most of his host skin.

This meant that the moment the skin retreated, Mark was left with barely a few patches of skin here and there. By all effects, he had been flayed alive. It started with a groan, then it turned into a shrill scream that sounded like music on Uriel's ears.

Even the soft breeze caused Mark to feel pain as his body was completely exposed and his heavenly rank constitution did little to help. Dust would stick to his wet body giving Mark the appearance of a living corpse and without eyelids, every tiny speck of debris seemed to find its way to his eyes causing him a mind dulling pain which left him no place to think, only to beg for mercy.

"Someone help me." Mark begged and Uriel soon replied, though he did not leave his cover as the weather forecast bullets for the foreseeable future.

"I could put you out of your misery, but..." Uriel was soon left without words as he noticed something other than bullets lightning the sky, it was Luna's trait.