The Gamer's POV

After the Last Resort command was given, some cadets stayed behind to keep attacking the giant lord, while the others split up into their assigned squads just as they had planned.

During the chaos, Evelyn turned away from the giant lord who she had also been targeting. Turning a bit to the left, she could see Eun-ji calmly approaching them not too far away. Since Evelyn had been placed in charge of a squad, she yelled to call the twenty-three other cadets in her unit to join her, and then they all headed off to take on Eun-ji.

***

Eun-ji walked slowly and gracefully through the chaos like she was taking a quiet stroll in a park. When she reached a spot near the cadets, she lowered herself and sat cross-legged on the sand. She then reached up and took out her hair tie, releasing her ponytail, after which her long black hair fell around her shoulders like a dark curtain. Then she took off her glasses and tucked them into her collar.

After that, she slowly opened her eyes for the first time in a long while, revealing twin pools of impenetrable darkness. From those pools of black, blood began to flow out, staining her pale cheeks as if she were crying.

Not long after, the white sand began to bulge and swell in places around her in a circle. Then, the heads of several little girls slowly began to eerily emerge from the sand. In the short seconds that followed, ten girls, none older than seven or eight, pulled themselves fully out of the ground.

They were all wearing white dresses. Each of them held a decrepit-looking doll in one hand and several long pins in the other. But the most disturbing part was that their mouths were sewn shut with thick black threads, and their eyes were twin pools of void, bleeding just like Eun-ji’s.

They all dropped down in a circle around Eun-ji, facing the battlefield. Simultaneously, a large, round golden halo as wide as the circle of girls began to shimmer into existence above them.

While it was forming, Evelyn and five others closest to her lunged forward to strike. But just as they were about to step within a few meters of where the girls and their lord were positioned, the small girls placed the dolls on the sand in front of them. Then, they raised a pin and each of them struck the legs of their doll with it.

The moment the pins hit the mark, Evelyn and the five girls suddenly let out yelps as they fell to the ground. They groaned in pain, clutching their right legs which were now bleeding as if they’d been pierced by a real spike.

While they were writhing on the floor and trying to crawl away, the girls quietly raised their pins and stabbed the necks of their dolls. Blood erupted from the necks of the cadets in a violent spray, and as they clutched at their throats, they began to choke. After which, the life began to leave their eyes one by one.

During this slaughter, two more cadets had tried to rush in to help, only to suddenly succumb to the same fate. Seeing that, one of the cadets yelled, "Stop! Don’t get too close!"

The others who were in Evelyn’s unit halted immediately, their eyes wide with terror as they watched their friends die without even being touched. After only a few seconds, the only person still alive out of the first attackers was Evelyn. But she looked as if she was just one breath away from joining them. Worse, she was channeling much of her energy into the wound, but it wasn’t healing as fast as it was supposed to.

’Blood. I need blood,’ Evelyn thought as she desperately crawled to one of the cadets near her who had just died. She bit his neck and began to gulp down the cooling liquid. After a few seconds, though, she gagged and spat it out to the side. The blood from someone who had died lacked life force the longer it stayed dead, and it was like eating rotten meat.

Still, she had thought that would do something... that her wounds would at least heal enough for her to stand. However, although they closed just a tiny bit, the deep gashes remained open. And they hurt so much that she kept groaning in agony.

Meanwhile, the halo which had been shimmering atop the lord fully formed, after which it began to spin slowly. As it did, a large winged monster suddenly emerged from it into the air. The monster looked like a gray bat with mottled flesh and leathery, tattered wings. The moment it emerged, it let out a shriek, then lunged at the other members of Evelyn’s party who had halted.

One of the cadets had already turned around and fled. Seeing that, the male cadet who had yelled earlier yelled again. "Hold!"

Hearing that, the others, rather than flee, readied themselves to take on the creature. One of them, a girl, quickly crouched and touched the sand.

Almost immediately, the sand began to surge upward, forming into two massive hands that rushed and grabbed the creature, holding it in place.

The hands had barely caught the monster when the male cadet now leading the unit on behalf of Evelyn swung his blade upwards while muttering, "Black Ice."

From the ground, a jagged crescent of black ice suddenly rose up, slicing through the air and splitting the creature straight down the middle.

However, in that moment, dozens of the same horrid creatures had flown out of the halo one after another and were all now flying towards the cadets.

The male cadet, Bjorn, yelled again. "Everyone hold!"

Everyone stood their ground and since most of them had already had their fears eaten away by Athena, the look in their eyes as they prepared themselves was one of cold resolve.

In better words, they all looked ready to die fighting.

At that moment, they all unleashed their attacks as the creatures slammed into their line.