CHAPTER 94: PROTECT!

The battle had reached a stalemate, with Pilar’s regenerative abilities keeping him alive despite their best efforts. Six and Rebecca looked at each other, their determination unwavering. They had to end this.

"Big guy, we can’t keep this up forever."

Rebecca panted, her voice tight with strain.

"We need to find a way to truly end this gonk."

"I know."

Six replied, his expression grim.

"But we can’t let up now. We’re so close to breaking him."

"We need to find any weaknesses he has."

Six said, his mind racing through scenarios.

"Something that even his ’Hard-to-Destroy Lizard’ power can’t handle."

Rebecca nodded, her eyes narrowing as she studied Pilar’s pulsing, reconstructing form.

"He’s not just regenerating."

She observed.

"He’s getting stronger with each hit."

Six’s eyes widened as he realized the gravity of the situation.

"His hide is now strong enough that our origin bullets are barely working while most are bouncing off him; he’s also feeding on our aggression and power. The more we fight, the more he heals."

Pilar laughed, the sound echoing through the wreckage like the cackle of a madman.

"You see? Your fruitless efforts only fuel my strength. The more you resist, the more powerful I become!"

The two exchanged a grim look. They had to change tactics.

"We need to outsmart him."

Rebecca said.

"Find a way to hit him where it hurts without letting him feed on our aggression."

"Agreed."

Six said, his grip tightening on his sword.

"But first, we need to keep him busy."

Rebecca nodded, and together, they charged Pilar again. But this time, their attacks were calculated and precise, aimed at distracting the daemon rather than dealing heavy blows. They danced around him, their movements a deadly ballet of steel and fire.

They circled Pilar, who was now visibly weaker but still fighting with relentless ferocity. The air was thick with the stench of burned flesh and the acrid scent of daemonic blood. The ground was scarred from the relentless battle, and the once-mighty sanctuary lay in ruins around them.

As they fought, they searched for any signs of weakness, any hint of a vulnerable spot.

"Look for anything that could be a weak spot."

Six ordered.

"Anything that doesn’t regenerate as quickly as the rest of him."

Rebecca nodded and took a step back, her eyes scanning Pilar’s monstrous form. The daemon’s regenerative abilities were unlike anything they had ever encountered. His scales, muscles, and even bones seemed to knit themselves back together in mere seconds.

As Pilar pushed himself back to his feet from another attack, a weakness revealed itself: a faint glow emanating from his back, a crystalline protrusion, pulsating with a sickly green light that seemed to be the source of his power.

"There!"

Rebecca pointed, sending the screenshot to Six.

"His power source! That has to be it!"

"I see it."

Six said, his voice cold and focused.

"Let’s end this."

They both opened fire, their combined barrage of bullets and lasers pummeling Pilar’s back. The daemon roared in pain as the crystal took the brunt of the attack, cracking under the onslaught.

"It’s working!"

Rebecca exclaimed and switched her Punisher to a high-powered sniper mode. She took a moment to steady her breath and focus, her finger hovering over the trigger.

Pilar stumbled, his movements becoming more sluggish, his regenerative abilities faltering.

"You think you’ve won?"

Pilar managed to choke out through clenched teeth.

"Fools! You’ve only made me angrier!"

With a final burst of strength, the daemon lunged at them, his claws outstretched. But Six was ready. He dodged the attack and threw his entire weight into a powerful kick that sent Pilar reeling.

Rebecca took the shot. The origin round shot true, piercing Pilar’s back and shattering the sickly green gem.

Pilar roared in agony as the crystal shattered. The daemon’s body spasmed, his scales falling away to reveal the writhing, twisted mass of Warp energy beneath.

The dark essence grew more erratic, reaching out and trying to reattach itself to Pilar. But without the crystal’s control, the energy was chaotic, tearing the daemon apart from the inside out.

With a final, soul-wrenching scream, Pilar’s body lost all the daemonic energy, dissipating into the ground. The daemon’s body went rigid, and a deafening silence fell over the battlefield. All that was left was a standing corpse and a smoldering crater where he once stood.

Six and Rebecca stood there, panting, their weapons still smoking. The battle was finally over.

"Is he really dead this time?" Rebecca asked, her voice trembling.

Six let out a deep sigh. "Yeah, but I don’t think it’s over yet."

"I don’t believe that was the source of his power. He’s not gone because I haven’t received the alert for the invasion’s completion."

Roar!

As Pilar’s shriveled corpse let out a roar, the daemonic energy he had lost pooled into the ground, summoning Bloodletters and Bloodthirsters.

"HAHAHA... You dumb FUCKS! "That wasn’t my Achilles’ heel."

"What you destroyed was an energy storage crystal that I use to harness daemon energy as a backup power source."

"Hehehe... Now that you’ve destroyed it, you’ve unleashed a flood of daemonic energy from the Immaterium into this world. Good job!"

Six and Rebecca stared in horror as the ground beneath them began to shift and boil with the released daemonic energy. The summoned Bloodletters and Bloodthirsters grew in number, their monstrous forms twisting and writhing as they took shape, their eyes burning with malevolent rage.

"Shit."

Six muttered, his grip tightening on his rifle.

"We’ve got to get out of here before we’re overwhelmed."

Rebecca nodded, letting her Punisher in automatic mode. It now hovered in the air, shooting at the daemons, buzzing as it changed between its various armament forms.

"Agreed. But I can’t just leave this mess for others to clean up."

In a burst of speed, she reached Six’s severed left arm and extracted a Third umbilical Cord from the Pipboy, which she had from the system store

"I’ll deal with them, then seal off this place somehow. We can’t let any more of these monsters into the mortal realm."

Rebecca spoke as she dispatched a Dr. Handy to reattach Six’s arm. She then turned to confront the new threats, her expression hardening as she exited her power armor and consumed the Third Umbilical Cord.

"Bring it on."

"Void... Trigger!"

Rebecca stood enveloped in a sphere of black void, which cracked open the next moment to reveal her transformed appearance. She now had a slender, curvaceous frame, displaying a lean, athletic, and well-defined build. Her arms and legs were lined with defined muscles, and her striking white hair and ruby-red eyes became even more prominent.

The most notable features of her unusual form were her tall, floppy rabbit ears and her small, round tail. Her long white ears pointed upwards, while her compact white tail sat neatly at her rear, giving her an overall resemblance to an albino rabbit.

Gone was her Elite Riot Gear outfit; instead, she wore a sleeveless black leotard with dark purple trim around her shoulders and waist, adorned with a wide yellow crescent moon design across her chest. Complementing her leotard, she had purple thigh-high boots with plating around the heel and toe areas, making her feet resemble those of a rabbit. She also wore a pair of thick white gloves with long cuffs, completing her striking look.