"Tch---!"

The left-behind ooze was rising again? It wasn't just that there was seemingly an inexhaustible army ahead of them, but the already-defeated soldiers were reviving from destruction?

Thankfully, it seemed as if they did have a weakness. The ooze they left behind on destruction was being repelled by Agent Mae's efforts, her incense was effective. It interrupted the reformation of any ashigaru that hadn't fully formed, and additionally repelled the ooze and forced it back deeper into the ruined mansion.

But that didn't mean they weren't operating on a much stricter time limit then they'd initially thought.

Arisa knew this meant the current strategy of wiping out each wave simply wasn't sustainable.

They had to reach the source.

"A-188!" she called the shapeshifted anomaly, even as her burning blade crashed down to split another Ashigaru in half down the middle, "Teratoma! Keep going! Tear a path through their formation and head for the mansion's center! We'll follow you!"

With the sohei temporarily dealt with, they had to capitalize on this moment before any more dangerous warriors appeared. If the Ashigaru were forming defenses to prevent them from going deeper, it meant that whatever was spawning them was likely somewhere towards the center of the ruins.

Rather then fighting every wave and relying on Agent Mae's finite number of incense sticks to keep the reanimating soldiers at bay for as long as possible, they'd decapitate this phantom army!

[@Raineh Daze][@Eisenhorn][@Izurich][@OwO][@Rune_Alchemist]

[hr]

If there was one good piece of news for the Agents in the rear team, it was the fact that Agent Yakumo's blind assault had managed to clear a path.

The ambushing shinobi were swift enough to evade the attack, though one was caught by the foot and pulled under and the dissolving form of the mercenary killed by Agent Zhao was smashed apart.

Agent Tachibana's arrows, too, aided in keeping them to the sides, forcing them to break off their ambush and helping to disperse what remained of the defensive line.

In the face of the tentacle assault, the large, katana-wielding figure seemed as if it decided to take a stronger defensive position deeper in the mansion, retreating down the hall while brandishing its long blade at the same time.

Unfortunately, as vision and hearing steadily returned to the Agents, it was evident that luck wasn't entirely in their favor. The bodies of the soldiers they had slain, left behind, were beginning to reform.

Ashigaru picking up their blades and spears, leveling their arquebuses to take aim at the Agents.

At the same time, however, they had a path forward.

If slaying the soldiers wasn't effective, then---

[@PKMNB0Y][@Psyker Landshark][@Raineh Daze]