Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

Katarina and her remaining crew members were being pushed back as they relentlessly fired on Cerise Gunvald.

With only a single flick of her hands, she could send any of their heads flying from their bodies.

To prevent this, Katarina's team was forced to constantly be on the move and keep up a steady burst of lasers to keep their approaching enemy from getting within range with her weapons.

Having noticed that a constant and timed together volley was easily deflected by their opponent, Katarina had ordered them to stagger their attacks to put more pressure on Cerise.

No matter how fast or skilled she was, it was impossible for someone to move at the same speed as a shot from a laser rifle.

What Cerise was doing instead was reading the trajectory of the attacks and acting just a moment before the triggers were pulled.

Still, while they had forced a sort of stalemate, it had become clear to Katarina that they did not have enough firepower to bring the beast of a woman in front of them down.

Her speed and combat expertise were astounding. On a level that Katarina could hardly believe.

This was a woman that had fought on the front lines of thousands of battles and made it through all of them. Usually, being the one coming out as the victor.

There was hardly any room to doubt why she had earned the highest honor anyone could from battle. She truly was the current greatest hero of the Dramid Alliance.

'If I don't figure out something soon, we're going to lose.' Katarina thought as her mind raced for a solution.

Every moment they were being forced away from the hangar where their escape ship was waiting.

They could not possibly push forward when one wrong move would see them mercilessly slaughtered

It was no also only a matter of time before a swarm of refoments arrived from the Alliance Police. No doubt once that happened Katarina and her team would be arrested if they surrendered or killed if they continued to resist.

'What I wouldn't give for a plasma or laser grenade.'

Thanks to the high-level security of this place, laser rifles and body armor had been sneaked in ahead of time, but that was all that their employer had been able to provide.

There had only been so much available space to hide armaments in locations where they had been unlikely to be found.

The laser rifles themselves had all been broken up into many pieces and hidden in multiple locations to prevent notice. Asking for any more would have been practically impossible.

Except, as she thought about how useful having a wide range weapon would be, Katarina glanced down at her laser rifle and an idea surfaced from recesses of her memories.

Back when she was still starting out a mercenary, she had seen a thug she was trying to apprehend overload his weapon and cause it to explode.

Typically, there were safety measures in place to prevent such a thing from happening, and a newer model like the laser rifle she currently was using certainly had them.

'But I should be able to disable them. Then I can turn this thing into an improvised explosive.'

While keeping one hand on the laser rifle and continuing to shot, Katarina fiddled with its safety mechanisms with the other and got to work on overloading the weapon.

Cerise naturally, noticed that Katarina was up to something, but she was unsure of what.

Despite all of her experience, this was her first time seeing someone trying to do what Katarina was. In the Alliance Police no one would ever even think of resorting to such a dangerous and desperate action even if they knew how to.

One wrong move, and the laser rifle would blow up in her face. Killing Katarina and likely taking several members of her team with her.

'I've been taking things slowly and carefully since I only need to buy some time to win, but there's no reason for me to let them do as they want.' Cerise thought, her intuition honed from long years of experience telling her to press the attack.

With a great burst of speed, she launched herself forward and closed the distance between her and Katarina's group.

Obviously as she closed in, they picked up their own pace and fired more rapidly to prevent their foe from getting close enough to use her weapons.

Having seen Cerise easily decapitate five of their members already, Katarina and her subordinates all unconsciously bent back slightly to keep their heads out of range.

Of course, while Cerise did prefer to go for quick and definite kills, it was not like she was forced to only target her opponents' heads.

The slowest of Katarina's bunch, a man who had gotten his chest slashed by Cerise's earlier assault, found himself suddenly tumbling to the ground.

Though he had kept his neck and head out of reach of Cerise's threads, as he was taking a step back, his right foot had lagged behind the rest of his body.

In that moment, the front of his foot had entered Cerise's range, and she took the opportunity to strike. Slicing off all of the man's toes.

Moving as quickly as they were, the man did not even notice the injury until he had put his foot down again and fell over from a sharp pain and loss of balance.

Katarina and her subordinates attempted to push Cerise back, but she was not going to remain so passive any longer.

Weaving from side to side, she avoided laser blasts coming for her and used her right hand to manipulate her threads to deflect those that she could not dodge.

It was less than half a second later that she had caught up to the fallen man that had been trying to crawl away.

Desperately, he fried his laser rifle at the woman approaching him, but his attacks hardly slowed her down.

With a simple flick of her left hand, she removed his head from his body. Leaving his now lifeless corpse to slump over onto the ground and dye the hallway floor red.

"That's six. Just eight more to go." Cerise said, her eyes like a predator taking stock of her remaining prey.

More ferociously than before, Katarina's party fired at Cerise, but just because they were further enraged and desperate from the loss of another member of their team did not magically make them stronger.

In fact, some of them became sloppier as fear started to creep in.

All they could wonder was if they would be the next one to have their heads gruesomely chopped off by thin threads they could only occasionally catch a glimpse of as they deflected laser blasts.

It was not long before Cerise pushed close enough to attack again.

Her opponents were now more aware of their heads and feet since they had watched their comrades being targeted in these areas.

However, this merely made them too fixated on these areas. Leaving other places for Cerise to exploit.

Swiping with both of her hands, she sliced through the wrists of two more people. Forcing them to lose their weapons along with the hands holding them.

All she needed to do was take another step forward and direct her threads towards their necks. Killing the two individuals before their hands and weapons even reached the ground.

'Sh*t, I need more time.' Katrina thought as the situation became more desperate.

Even with nine of them working together in coordination, they had just barely been able to keep Cerise at bay.

Now that they were down to just six of them, things were going to spiral out of control quickly.

They no longer possessed enough firepower to prevent Cerise from closing the distance.

With her incredible abilities and skill, she could easily push through and start massacring them now.

'There's only one thing left that we can do.'

Growing more distressed, Katarina stopped what she was doing an pointed her weapon at the restrained Nianni that the balding, spindly man named Brixton was carrying.

He was the same one that had questioned whether this job was worth it while he was drunk the day before.

Now, even Katarina had second thoughts considering what was happening right now.

"Take another step closer and I'll scramble her brains! You're fast, but even you won't be able to save her from this range!" Katarina shouted threateningly.

Seeing that the situation had chaged, Cerise stood still assessed her options.

She had intervened because Katarina and her team were committing a grave crime that she could not overlook. Even at the detriment of her true mission here.

However, her goal was not to kill all of them, but to safely retrieve the kidnapped Nianni. She had simply been eliminating them because they were active threats.

"Why don't you think about this rationally. You're not going to be allowed to escape now. Enough time has passed that the Alliance Police has certainly been contacted. So instead, drop your weapons and release the girl. Do so, and I'll make sure that you end up in one of the Alliance's less harsh prisons."