Youmu took another step back.

These disgusting things wouldn't touch her---!

Green light flowed up Roukanken's edge, shimmering and shifting along the youkai-forged steel as it illuminated the dark, damp forest. This had the unfortunate side effect of illuminating the sickly-looking paleness of the seething swarm of centipedes. It was spiritual energy, power radiating from deep in the core of her body and up her arms, heath spreading outwards and flowing over Roukanken.

It manifested not as a simple aura, but as a mystical extension of her blade, a green light nearly piercing the canopy entirely.

"Danmyouken - Meisouzan!"

The great flashing blade of light was brought down in a single instant, and in that one blow dozens of centipedes were severed apart, their fluids vaporizing on contact with the light coating Roukanken.

And then in nearly the same instant, the light was gone.

By their combined efforts, it seemed as if nearly the entire centipede swarm had been wiped out, only a few stragglers seeming to remain. Youmu took a deep breath, relaxing. While she wasn't frightened of creatures like this, they were still disgusting. Not only that, but such a great presence of centipedes simply couldn't mean anything good at all.

However---

Remilia brushing aside the leaves would make a particularly gruesome discovery. The general sent of rot, decay, meat, and wet plant matter combined together would have made it difficult to detect before, but the carcass of another boar was present.

This one was far fresher, but also almost entirely stripped clean of meat, only glistening strips of red remaining on its stained bones.

Perhaps more importantly was the creature crawling over it.

It was enormous, at least fifteen meters in length, its segmented body glossy black but with a crimson head. Its bloodstained mandibles clicked, antenna twitching as it scuttled over the bones, surging forward directly at the diminutive vampire and the others beyond.

And there was another sinuous, chitinous form already emerging from the darkness of the forest beyond it.

"Th-there's..."

Youmu trailed off slightly, half in shock as her feet swiftly left the ground.

But this explained the bodies, and the bite marks. The ones they'd killed so far weren't even adults---!

@Izurich@Raineh Daze@PKMNB0Y@Lugubrious@EchoWolff

Though a majority of the animals had gotten comfortable with their newfound freedom by the time Rayne and Fran had arrived on the scene, the latter leaping into the midst of all of them and summoning bolts of lightning where she stood was more than enough to spook them into fleeing. Given how they had just gotten through the chaos of invaders showing up and wrecking things here, thunder and lightning in the middle of a clear day was sufficient cause to panic.

And panic they did. Though the first sparks had spurred the cattle (among other things) to begin to charge, it didn't take long for them to begin to stampede, barreling around and only being roughly directed by Rayne as she desperately attempted to keep the other spooked creatures from getting caught up in the torrent of hooves and dust as it was steered one way or the other.

Unfortunately, what seemed to be missing from that haphazard plan was how to get the stampeding herd to stop when they were pushed back through the fence. Without any reason to stop fleeing the terrifying electricity that had traditionally never been a herald of anything good, the stampede charged straight through the wooden fence that was meant to contain them before continuing to run further east.

For what little it was worth, though, at least the other animals seemed to just be scared stiff by what had just occurred and weren't charging off to follow after the cows. Most of the ones that Rayne had thrown off to the side—or, well, was able to toss away from the stampede—were easily caught by some of the farmhands attempting to handle damage control, which otherwise left the sheep and pigs to be managed thereafter.

@DracoLunaris@Rezod92

@PKMNB0Y @DracoLunaris

“Please tell me you have a plan to get them to stop!”

"...Eh?"

Ah......so that's why Fran felt something was missing from her idea. Probably would've been wise to think of something to stop the cows after she corralled them. As such, without a substantial block to impede them, the stampeding cows tore through the fence with ease and continued running east. Hastened to correct this gaffe, Fran jumped ahead of the herd and turned on the lightshow again, keeping it on as she directed the herd until they circled back toward the farm.

This time, Fran had an idea on how to get them to stop.

"Cover....ears!", the Servant yelled to Rayne and the other farmhands, it was the only warning they will get as Fran once more leapt in front of the herd. She stood her ground as the stampede bared down on her, but she did not cower or fidget in fear.

Instead, she took a deep breath and....



As she used Wail of the Falsely Living, the scream being so loud that even the town and the surrounding forest can hear it, the stampede would indeed stop, less by choice and more on the fact that the screaming was so fear-inducing and debilitating that the cows couldn't breathe properly and as such...

Thud.....Thud,Thud.....Thud....

After thirty seconds, Fran ceased her wail and saw the cows had fallen to the ground, passed out due to lack of oxygen. She walked up to one and kneeled down, pressing two fingers on the cows neck, feeling a pulse. With a satisfactory nod, Fran stood and turned to Rayne.

"Cows.....stopped."

The look of someone who believed in her. The feeling it gave Anne was as addictive as any drug, and all the more terrifying for it. For the sake of this girl, for the sake of this village, she would cut down any number of enemies—but even so, there might still be those who suffered. No matter how many times she won, war wasn't a realm in which a single woman could realistically protect everyone.

But this time—

Maybe this time, it'll be different.

The Knight told herself that with a desperation and longing even she wasn't fully conscious of.

This time, I'll protect them all.

At the very least her words seemed to have given Millie a little more strength, though her request sent a small shiver of dread racing down Anne's spine. Was she going to ask about her father? It she posed the question directly, it'd be hard to change the topic without making the answer all too obvious. After a moment's hesitation, though, the swordswoman gave a nod of assent, and braced herself for the worst.

"...Dreams?" She blinked, a little surprised as well as relieved. "I'm not an expert on those. Maybe I can take a guess, though, if you'll tell me a little more. What kind of scary stuff was this lady talking about?" It could be just a coincidence, but if the girl with a connection to the Goddess had received any kind of vision, then that had to be investigated. Precognitives, prophets: Anne had heard of things like that before, even if most of the time it sounded like mere superstition.

Unfortunately, before she could get a full answer, an echoing wail blew through the room and assailed both of their ears. Anne looked up, immediately tense, one hand dropping to hover near the hilt of one of her swords. "Hold on a moment," she told Millie. "I'm just going to check outside." It was inadvisable to leave the girl over what could easily be some kind of diversionary tactic, but Anne still made her way to the door and hazarded a quick peek outside, her eyes flashing to and fro for any sign of continued disturbance.

Just one scream. Probably not a full-scale attack, which meant either some random mishap, or... Another 'unexpected guest' had appeared.

@PKMNB0Y

Really, what was the vampire's issue? The insects were ugly and probably painful but it wasn't like they were much of a threat to someone like her. Probably? There was something weird about them, they did seem awful squishy for insects and, as someone who had spent the best part of the last thousand years in Japan's forests, Mokou could say with some confidence that she was fairly versed in what insects tended to be like.

Crunchier.

But with everyone firing bullets, running around like crazy, or just plain cutting through them, at least it was now clear enough to see what the real reason was: they were soft because they were babies. That was one big centipede.

... should they even be letting the miko anywhere near this thing?

Still, it was big enough that it would take a lot more effort than a simple fireball to kill this. And going the full danmaku route was probably out; the forest might not catch fire given the current conditions, but everyone else would still have to worry about all the fire floating around. Or, in the extreme case, the lack of oxygen and overall temperature--the spell card rules really did make things a lot more convenient with having fire that didn't actually need to be hot.

Since she was already flying, that made the choice pretty simple: just dive into the thing feet-first, let the kick do whatever damage it did (mostly to her legs) and stagger it, because the more important part--

Was the erupting plume of fire afterwards.

As chaotic as the insect ambush started out, the situation ended up being pretty manageable. The centipedes, soft-shelled and not exactly difficult to hit, seemed to be relatively easy pickings if one could get past the initial fear factor. Lewa confronted each bug in turn, sometimes several at once, unceremoniously hacked them apart, and left the ropy halves to wriggle their last. With everyone's efforts combined the centipede assault didn't last long. Their wanton slaughter left the whole area stained with splashes of murky blue arthropod viscera, and without the might of a swarm to back them the handful of leftovers that survived could achieve very little. It looked like it wouldn't take much more for the otherworlders to exterminate the scuttling threat completely.

Perturbed by the whole affair, Lewa used the lull in the storm to wipe the bug gunk from the protodermis edge from his air axe. He wasn't worried about dulling his blade necessarily, or the possibility of rust, but something bothered him all the same. Even taking into account the instinctive fear response from some of the humans, the centipedes' unprovoked aggression, and dogged refusal to flee for their lives, struck him as oddly self-destructive. The rahi he knew didn't just mindlessly throw their lives away without any real chance of reward; if anything, these creatures reminded him of the bohrok, who fought, destroyed, and died for the sake of destruction alone. Maybe that was just the nature of swarms? For a beast that only existed as part of an army, perhaps the army itself superseded all else.

In his uneasiness, Lewa kept his guard up despite the relatively minor threat. He paid close attention to the strange noises that filtered through the trees, wondering just what sort of animal would be attracted rather than repelled by the sounds of conflict. He noticed one member of the team, Remilia, who hadn't put up as much of a fight, wandering off. "Wait, there could be-!"

His warning came too late to prevent her horrific discovery. A moment later, the monstrosity that the vampire unveiled charged toward the group through the foliage. The creak of its heavy exoskeleton and the clack of its mouthparts told Lewa everything he needed to know about its comparative side before he even laid eyes on it. "Incoming!" he called, whipping around in order to sprint toward the disturbance. As he ran, he whirled his axe around preemptively, stirring up a stiff wind. When the full-grown centipede finally burst from the underbrush, Lewa knew he'd made the right decision. Now this was the kind of rahi he was used to fighting. "Wind, fly!" With a swing his axe his cyclone blasted forward, tearing up grass and leaves as it whirled toward his foe. Even if the beast didn't receive the tornado's full might, it would hopefully keep the beast away from his allies, not to mention give them a clear shot by shredding the surrounding foliage. His preemptive strike bore fruit; the next moment, Mokou swooped down to strike the monster head-on, its venomous mandibles knocked away by the fierce winds. One beat later, a fiery explosion went off, exacerbated by the remnants of Lewa's tornado. Despite the substantial new danger, this looked like a promising start.

Oh.

At this point, Remilia wasn't at all surprised to discover yet another swine carcass, especially when she had bigger things to worry about, quite literally too. Of course, of course those disgusting little pests were merely juveniles of something far, far worse. As repugnant as those critters were, surely they couldn't massacre these many boars by themselves, something must be assisting them. And she had just found the answer.

"...?!!" Still reeling from her broken composure, Remilia reacted a tad bit too late as the oversized insect barreled towards her, or perhaps more exactly, toward the direction of its hatchlings, and the vampiress just so happened to be in its way. The result was obvious, the centipede's carapace collided against Remilia's infantile body, and the unprepared crippled youkai stood no chance as she was sent flying, this time very much against her will.

"Uwaaaaah?!" Her uncharismatic wail reverberated through the air before she crashlanded some distances away, bouncing once and skidding on her back. "U-uuurgh..." Delirious, she failed to comprehend the other sinuous, chitinous arriving at her location...

@PKMNB0Y @VitaVitaAR

The appearance of the new, far larger centipede compared to the ones they were cleaning up until this point in time cause Sanae to throw her hands in the air in exasperation. While the smaller centipedes were mostly terrifying due to a combination of how they had appeared and a natural aversion to the things, the fact that those were actually babies made Sanae feel like some karmic force may as well have been messing with her.

At the very least, though, the bugs being bigger made them feel a bit less terrifying in the "thoroughly grossed out" sort of way; large as they were now, they felt more like proper monsters than things dancing on the precipice of the uncanny valley.

It was still terrifying, granted, but it wasn't like there were hundreds of them trying to crawl over them and eat them alive.

"Of course those were babies!" the green-haired girl complained, shaking her head before aiming towards the centipede barreling down towards them and readying herself to rejoin the fight. Given their cooler heads (relatively speaking), though, Lewa and Mokou were the first to react to the new threat—never mind Remilia, though, as she was tossed through the air before the monster could even get close—and it took but a few seconds for a spiraling tornado of flames to rise into the skies above as it seemed to consume the bug.

"...Well," the young woman said, lowering her arm for a moment, "that seems a bit... Flashy."

It was hard to discount the visual impact of a spiraling torrent of fire, especially in the middle of a dark forest, but as the flames died down it became clear that the centipede that had been caught within wasn't lying dead on the ground. It's exoskeleton seemed to be glowing from the heat and a few of it's limbs had been scorched off, but the best that could be said about it was that it had taken some pretty heavy injuries and was taking more from effectively being cooked alive...

But that didn't mean it was going to stop there. In it's flailing and blind rage, the monstrous creature lashed out at everything and everything around it. With Mokou being the closest to it and the perceived cause of it's pain, though, she was it's primary target, the rest be damned. Seeing that it was most certainly not dead, though, Sanae wasted no time in adding her own projectiles into the fray to pepper away at the monster's exoskeleton.

On the other side of the battlefield, however, Remilia would not be given any sort of recourse to recover. The sound of those chitinous legs skittering across the ground would not cease, and though the baby centipedes had been mostly routed, they were not all dead. As such, when presented with such a free meal in the form of the prone Remilia, one such bug quickly attempted to approach her and bite away...

Only to disappear through an oddly perfectly circular hole that opened up for a brief second.

Any sort of confusion at that event (if it was even seen to begin with) would soon matter little compared to the other massive centipede that was now approaching Remilia. This one seemed no less aggressive than the one that had sent her flying, and it didn't seem particularly inclined to simply brush her away as the other had...

@VitaVitaAR@EchoWolff@Izurich@Lugubrious@Raineh Daze

---

Pleased that Anne had indeed chosen to hear her out, Millie nodded her head before continuing to explain herself.

"Ah, um... That lady was saying something about, uh... Walls between worlds weakening? And I think she said something about evil people trying to, um... Bind? Things to this world?" the young girl began to ramble, only for a sudden shriek from outside the building to cause her to freeze up. In a panic, the young girl quickly covered her head and curled up, nodding her head as Anne went to go check outside to see if anything was up. When there was no response from the woman, though, Millie slowly raised her head back up and called out in turn.

"Um... Is everything okay outside? Was someone hurt or something?"

@Drifting Pollen

Still stunned from the full-body slam and subsequent rough landing, Remilia failed to notice one of the insectoid hatchlings skittering towards her for a nibble, nor it suddenly being swallowed by an inexplicable hole. By the time she recovered her mental faculty, all the vampiress could see was the second giant centipede staring down at her, mandibles clicking, her visage reflected in the clusters of its gigantic compound eyes. Then, within the next few hundred milliseconds, though Remilia's mind could recognize the creature's imminent attack, her post-Cerennia body was far too flawed to properly react.

Curses...!

And then, pain, pure unadulterated pain as Remilia's slitted eyes shot open wide. Her limbs tensed up, fingers curling, and adrenaline rushing in self-preservation response as the centipede's mandibles clamped down on her left shoulder, before it yanked.

"AAAAAAAAARGH!!" Remilia's banshee-like wail - not as deafening, nor deadly as Fran's but plenty loud nevertheless - violently tore through the forest as the centipede ripped off the Scarlet Devil's left arm clean off her torso, crimson blood immediately gushing from the wound. At that moment, time itself seemed to slow down as a wake-up call came full force into Remilia's mind. In hindsight, it might be obvious, the signs were all there, but now, at this very present, Remilia realized one crucial fact.

That she was in mortal danger.

Ever since she and Flandre made their home in Gensokyo, the Scarlet Devil couldn't even recall the last time she was in a genuinely lethal situation, her personal power and the spellcard rules guaranteed that all conflicts could be solved without her having to worry about dying. Even during that conflict with the Lunarians, one of the rare times that the rules were suspended, she didn't feel threatened. They were all just fun and games, something to stimulate herself out of boredom, but now...

Now, she was truly, undoubtedly fighting for her life.

"THAT'S IIIIIIIT!!"



Only a fool would spit in a devil's face and declare victory.

With a bestial roar more akin to a truly monstrous devil than the elegant mistress of the night, Remilia took off into the air. Then, she hovered in front of the insectoid assailant, staring murderously at the monster's eye level as her body began emitting that distinctive scarlet mist, her noblesse oblige gone, replaced only by an enraged youkai fighting for dear life. With a guttural growl, Remilia tapped into her power to collect the blood - her own spilled blood - to coalesce upon her right palm.

"GUNGNIR!!" She summoned her comrade, her loyal companion that had been with her since forever, before even Sakuya. The magical spear promptly spawned by her palm, significantly smaller and feebler than it should be, but it was still the Gungnir the Blood Spear. "I VOW TO VAPORIZE YOU TO THE FOUR WINDS!!" The vampiress howled with vengeful fury as she gripped gungnir with her right hand then charged at the centipede, she'd brawl with the monster in a vicious all-or-nothing fight where only one may walk out alive.

"DIEEEEE!!" Remilia bellowed as she attempted to jab, stab, pierce, and impale the creature's carapace, all made in a singular effort to kill it. No fancy spellcards, no flashy danmakus, she'd murder this thing and send it to hell, and if possible, slay it again so there'd not be a single trace left of its abominable presence. This was no Gensokyo and even if it was, neither the Red-White Miko, that Gap Hag, nor their goddamned Great Hakurei Barrier would stop her from erasing this creature's existence!

@VitaVitaAR @PKMNB0Y @Lugubrious @Raineh Daze @EchoWolff

With the wind amplifying the resultant firestorm into something way more impressive than Mokou's own flame whirlwind--now wouldn't those be a fun pair to combine?--it came as quite a surprise that the centipede was still alive. Now, normally one would think that a ground-bound insect isn't going to provide much of a threat to someone who can effortlessly fly and manoeuvre in three dimensions, but there was a crucial point at play here: the canopy overhead was somewhat restrictive, and this centipede was actually huge.

She would probably have avoided it fine if its survival wasn't so surprising. Which lead to her current predicament: being smashed out of the sky, and pinned under a creature that was far too big for her to possibly move it. Oh, and it had broken something in its flailing. Probably a shin bone? It was her leg that was hurting--oh, her neck too, guess that had gotten broken. That explained the position, must have died there--

Oh, crap it was biting her. Wasn't it full!? That fucking hurt, more than the leg thing did, now it was... well, she'd probably find out what the hell the venom was doing later, but probably "nothing good". Actually, it felt kind of weird already. Being bitten didn't normally hurt internally like that...

She should probably do something about this, right? But burning it externally hadn't done much, and even if its underside was squishier, she couldn't really move much. But... its mouth was right there, and her arm was probably functionally useless anyway.

Tuning out all the screaming--seemed the vampire had finally stopped freaking out?--Mokou took the entirely reasonable step of shoving her arm into the giant centipede's mouth as possible. See if it would survive an exploding fireball inside its own head.

“You don’t?!” Rayne, her fingertips on forehead with disbelief, replied with shock to the confused look and “Eh?” she got in response to asking what the stampede stopping plan was, before throwing her hands up in alarm with an equally alarmed cry of “what do we do!?”

She certainly had no idea, and at first it seemed neither did Fran, as both of them were helpless to stop the cows from smashing through what remained of their enclosure. Then when Fran had an idea Rayne had every right to be concerned about what it was, especially when the woman leapt in front of the stampeded she’d made and shouted for them to cover their ears

“Wait look out what are you-” Rayne called after her, before seeing her breathing in deep and going “oh no” before clamping her hat and hands over her sensitive pointy ears.

It only sort of helped.

Unnatural fear spiked through her heart and gripped her throat as the Knight, entirely unused to any kind of magical mental effects, floundered under the onslaught that physically forced the levitating woman back. Only it wasn’t entirely true that she wasn’t used to having her mind affected by others, it was just that the Link’s two way connection was one of hope and heroism rather than fear, and it was to that Link Rayne clung to in-order to steel herself against terror.

Then, all of a sudden, it was all over. The cows, unable to cover their ears even if they had been able to understand the warning, had fallen, while the people still stood. Mostly. Rayne wasn’t entirely sure if her legs would have supported her had she been standing rather than floating.

She was also too busy checking first her own breathing and then that of the farm hands to worry about the cows, but given that Fran seemed to think they were fine after a touch to the neck, maybe they were? She’d leave that to the farmers who would know the health of their livelihoods far better than her.

After half catching her breath she managed to respond “I, well, yes” to Fran’s short declaration that the cows had indeed been stopped. Which they had. But it certainly had been quite the dramatic ordeal, for them, the cows and “Wait. Oh no, the town!”

She suddenly spun on the spot after that declaration, and blink dashed back the way they had come, clearing the walls of the town a few moments later and then calling out to the citizenry who had 0 context for the lightning and screaming: “Don’t panic, everything’s fine! Frankenstein just had a, uh, really noisy way of herding the cows? But again, everything’s fine. Mostly. I mean the cows fainted but I think they’ll be ok?” after which she glanced over her shoulder to check that things were indeed ok back there.

The echoing wail that Fran had let loose did indeed stop the cows in their tracks, but though the fear that had stopped them in their tracks stopped the rampage, it could not stop their momentum. What had once been a stampede quickly turend into a multi-cow pileup, with multiple heifers crashing and colliding with one another as they ground to a halt. Needless to say, it was certainly a sight to witness for any of the farmhands who still had their wits about them.

The very same action that had stopped the cows had, of course, stopped everything else in the process. Though Rayne was able to weather the storm, everyone around her had not been so lucky. Most of the people who had been running about trying to get the smaller animals back towards somewhere manageable looked as if they were frozen still, their joints locked in place as they struggled to overwhelm the sudden fear striking at their very core. The animals fared no better, and a few seemed to fall over just as the cows had. That did provide a moment to gather them up all the same, though—provided people could get moving and transport them elsewhere before clarity returned to their minds and led to an even bigger freakout than before.

Those nearest the wall—or, in other words, those who Rayne had immediately rushed to assuage the fears of—almost instantly readied themselves for combat as soon as they regained their senses. Their ears hadn't quite recovered from the shriek, but the young woman's gestures and the way she seemed to be more concerned about them than fighting whoever had caused the issue seemed to at least give them reason to slowly return to what they were doing before.

Hopefully it didn't take too long for their hearing to return.

@DracoLunaris@Rezod92

@PKMNB0Y @DracoLunaris





As Rayne blink dashed back to town to reassure the locals that nothing was amiss, Fran turned her attention back to the unconscious cows....which have now become quite the sizeable bovine pile-up.

Huh....Every time she comes up with a solution, a new problem instantly rears its head afterwards. Oh well, at least this issue is more manageable. Dismissing her weapon, Fran approached the cow, bent down and, once she had a good grip on the animal...

"Hyup!"

....lifted the cow onto her shoulder as if it was a measly bag of carrots. The berserker then walked all the way to the big barn that was still intact and gently put the animal down inside. As she strode back out, Fran stopped near a farmhand, who was still frozen from her screaming earlier. It only took the Servant a moment to find a remedy to this problem. With just one finger...

*BZZZT*

"OW!"

There. Got the human moving again.

And so began Fran's task of going and froth, picking up cows one by one and depositing them in the barn, all the while zapping a farmhand on the way. Hopefully, enough of them can get started on building a new fence to keep the cows contained once they wake up. As she walked with another cow in tow, Fran notices Rayne glancing over to her. With a neutral expression that heavily contrasted with everything she has done so far, the Servant gave the witch knight a thumbs up before resuming her task.

It had been one hell of a shriek, but Anne couldn't hear any of the usual sounds of battle. No plume of smoke in the distance, no crowds of fleeing villagers—the ones she could see looked just as confused as they were scared by the sudden noise. The Knight watched and listened carefully for a couple more seconds, until she finally picked up the distant shout of a familiar voice.

Rayne? From what Anne could hear, the witch girl was trying to assure people of their safety. That, and something about... Cows?

Whatever. So long as it wasn't any threat, Anne didn't need to know. In fact, Anne didn't want to know, or have anything to do with it at all. Effective immediately, she was making the tactical decision to keep as far away as possible from that nonsense, and let someone else wrangle the insane weirdos for once.

"Nothing to worry about," she told Millie, as she turned away from the door a little too quickly for comfort. "Just a, um, farming incident. Why don't we talk about dreams? You have very interesting dreams." Before she could overhear anything else about screaming cows and suffer a mental breakdown, the Knight stumbled back to the girl's side and knelt down once again. "Tell me. Did the lady you saw say anything more about the bad people, or what they were trying to bind?" Her green eyes were a little serious, even as she patiently waited for Millie to find her answer. Weakened barriers between different worlds, binding things to this one: even if it didn't make a lot of sense, the whole affair sounded eerily reminiscent of what had happened to Anne herself, and all of the other 'strangers' besides.

@PKMNB0Y

“Oh shoot they can’t hear me, um, Rayne said to herself as she floated above the wall, looking down at the still deaf people. She pressed a contemplative fist to her mouth, while holding the elbow of that arm with her other hand and tapping a foot in the air as she thought, before doing some low grade charades

She used a pair of fingers to mimic a horn on her forehead, before sweeping her hands down a bit like lighting, used two fingers to mime cow horns, made a scared face, mimed something running away using her fingers, did the gesture for Fran again before miming shouting very loud with both hands cupped around her mouth, miming the running away thing falling over, placing her cheek on two hands like it was a pillow, before finally giving a thumbs up.

It looked very silly, but that probably helped stop people worrying more than an actual explanation of the mess the latest addition to the imported heroes number had first caused and then, mostly, solved. It also meant that the woman in question was mostly done electrocuting people into wakefulness when Rayne turned back and had something new to worry about.

The thumbs up really did not help. At least all the loud noises seemed to have stopped

“Gaia give me-” she began to sigh, before pausing, remembering Gaia was gone, and correcting “me give me strength I guess. Not like she was listening before anyway” and then did indeed give herself the strength to go down and keep helping.

“Everyone ok? I think it's over” she asked the farm folk as she drifted to and fro, checking on their health and state of mind, giving a reassuring smile and a helping hand to stand even while she was very unsure about how to handle Fran. Things seemed ok now, but she needed to take the woman aside and try and see if she could impart some caution into her.

Somehow, it wasn't surprising that Fujiwara had brazenly allowed herself to sustain a gruesome injury. As long as the centipede didn't consume her liver, that wasn't really any reason to be worried.

Even if it did, the Hourai Immortal herself would be fine. The centipede would, however, be immortal.

Not that Youmu doubted her ability to suppress an immortal centipede, however.

She took a deep breath. As grotesque as these creatures were, the sheer size made them far less unpleasant to look at then their offspring. It was strange, but the half-phantom saw no point in questioning what aspect of her psychology made her feel that way.

Youmu had to make sure no-one who was more vulnerable to the centipedes' venom than Fujiwara or the Scarlet Devil was injured.

Drawing Roukanken back, her eyes narrowed, she channeled spiritual energy over the blade and swung it, releasing a flurry of nearly-invisible razor-sharp wind slashes in a barrage down towards the nearest of the enormous arthropods.

But each clashed with the monstrous creature's chitinous exoskeleton without piercing it. Certainly, she could see the lines cut into the shell, but beyond that it hadn't done enough damage to kill or even simply injure it.

Youmu grimaced, but drew Roukanken back all the same. The fact was that she'd have to strike them directly, as unpleasant as it was, in order to cut through the----

Suddenly the enormous centipede was lurching skywards, gnashing moutherparts snapping as it lunged towards her.

But it was fine. Even if that was unexpected, it didn't matter. She'd simply dodge---

A tremor ran through her body as she tried to move.

Damn it, she'd forgotten---!

Her phantom half's loosened connection was like a torn muscle. She'd pushed her body too hard in that instant, for only a second, and nearly tore it further. Youmu couldn't use her full speed. If she'd remembered that, she'd likely have been able to evade the monster.

But stunned her body throbbing, pulsing with even a split second of agony, she couldn't.

The centipede's massive jaws snapped shut and Youmu felt herself hurtling towards the earth beneath it, the sheer weight of the creature over her.

But the half-phantom's instincts hadn't failed her.

Roukanken's unbreakable blade had intercepted the gnashing jaws. Clamped between them, she'd manage to hold it back at the last second despite the pain that had struck her, purely by instinct.

Youmu gritting her teeth. The sudden shock, the sensation of striking the ground reverberated up through her as she landed on her back, another dull burst of pain striking her. But it wasn't the sharp stab of her soul being pulled on.

She could bare with it.

It'd fade swiftly.

More importantly than anything else---

A Konpaku wouldn't falter against a simple beast.

She forced her legs under her and pushed off the ground. The weight of the centipede was incredible, but she was pushing back against it all the same. Her arms burned only for a moment as she pushed again.

Roukanken's blade slipped through those gnashing jaws.

A blade forged by youkai, an unbreakable and perfect artifice that could cut even phantoms.

This centipede never stood a chance---!

It wasn't her full speed. But nevertheless, the moment Roukanken slipped through the centipede's mouthparts, Youmu broke into a sprint.

She could feel its bulk over her as she moved, as her blade sliced through chitin and flesh like a tatami mat.

Blue blood sprayed onto the damp forest floor behind her, as the massive centipede's bisected form fell apart, cut cleanly down the middle.

@Izurich@Raineh Daze@PKMNB0Y@Lugubrious@EchoWolff

---

Joker was worried, The new girl's constant injuries and Remilia having her arm torn off looked and sounded like it hurt... This wasn't the Metaverse, where bullet holes could be fixed with adhesive bandages. Thus was made abundantly clear.

Explosions of flame and a blade cutting through air, through space itself. Actions taken when he was just standing there, staring.

He needed to get his ass in gear. What good was he if he didnt even help?

As the blood spilled from Youmu's quarry, Arsene's form dissipated as the domino mask reappeared over his eyes. He moved to the now armless woman with the spear, he could practically feel the heat of her rage... His grip tightened on the knife in his hand. True faces. This time justified.

"Are you waiting for some kind of permission? You know what my answer will be." Arsene's voice chided in his head, restless rebellion that craved bloodshed...

"Yeah. I know." The trickster muttered, seemingly to himself from the outside.

"Remilia right? Mind if I join you?" He asked, rushing toward the object of the vampire's blind rage, readying his blade to strike.

"Destroy it however you wish, you will always have my blessing."

Despite her own efforts to try and deal with the centipede, it seemed readily apparent that her attacks weren't exactly doing much, if anything. The sounds of further battle from her side and rear made it quite obvious that there were more, though, but given how durable the enemy seemed to be it was rather unfortunate that she couldn't actually do much in this situation.

Or, well, not in any sort of timely manner. If she had enough time and space to pound away at them all with danmaku, she could probably get them to retreat.

Either way, it didn't feel particularly great being relegated to covering fire duty, and even moreso when the white-haired woman fighting alongside her was brought back down to earth with a sickening crunch. Even in the heat of the moment, it was nigh-impossible for Sanae to not instinctively cover her mouth and stare in abject horror as Mokou, despite her impossibly-grievous injuries, shoved her broken arm into the centipede's mouth and blew it up.

This time, things were far more explosive in a different way—a scene more fitting for a low-budget guro-horror film sort of way—as the bug's head had next to no way of handling an internal shockwave. One generous splattering of centipede brains and carapace later, and the headless flailing corpse spraying blue blood all over the place fell to the ground.

It was still moving despite that, of course, but it had to have been undeniably dead by now. That didn't stop Sanae from staring at the bloody sequence in pure horror, her brain still trying to process what exactly she had just witnessed. She had the brutality of people the day before, but that was different from seeing a scene as gruesome as this play out in front of her. After what felt like an ages-long pause, though, the shrine maiden finally worked up enough nerve to float back down towards the white-haired girl who had most certainly received a few more-than-lethal blows. A part of her hoped that the scene wasn't visceral enough to make her physically ill, but given what she had seen that didn't seem likely in the least.

All the while, the third centipede—the one that Remilia was facing down—was having a far less pleasant time than the other two of it's ilk. Despite being far less dead than the other two were at the moment, it was struggling far more in trying to strike it's prey down. Second after painful second, the arthropod swerved and twisted it's body, coiling around to and fro as it attempted to land any sort of meaningful blow on the vampire fighting for her life in front of it. Every stab from the spear within the girl's hands left a gash, every slash deepend the wounds made already. The natural armor upon it's body did not make it impervious by any means, and while the others found swift release, this one kept fighting tooth and nail with a being that did not wish to die.

But maybe that was how should have been to begin with?

As the battle raged on, the centipede grew ever more desperate to finish the small girl in front of it. By now, multiple limbs had been broken off, and it's movement had begun to grow unsteady as exhaustion began to set in. As it attempted to go for a wild bite upon Remilia's torso, however, the monster would find it's head parried by a metal knife and diverted ever so slightly to the side.

Joker's intervention, while timely, did not mean that the arthropod was willing to flee. No, this simply meant that there was one more annoying enemy to try and strike down with impunity.

@VitaVitaAR@EchoWolff@Izurich@Lugubrious@Raineh Daze

---

Though confused about Anne's rather brusque dismissal about the situation at hand, Millie chose to simply accept the woman's words at face value and nodded her head. It was weird that there was a farming incident that warranted a scream that loud, but...

Maybe the windmill had come down or something? It would've been a problem if they couldn't grind any wheat, after all...

Either way, though, the topic soon returned back towards her dreams—a topic that the young girl was more than okay with elaborating on.

"Um... Right!" she said, nodding her head, "There was that weird stuff about walls, and binding stuff... And I think there was something about 'accidents' too? It's sort of fuzzy, but I think that lady was talking about other people or something like that..."

With hew brow furrowed and eyes closed for a moment, Millie crossed her arms and tilted her head every so slightly to the side as she tried to remember that fleeting dream. A few seconds seemed to go by without any sort of progress, but almost as if a bolt of inspiration had struck, the young girl seemed to perk up almost instantly.

"Oh, right! She also said something about the country being in danger very soon! Something about the capital, I think...? But papa said the capital is super safe, so I'm not sure how that's possible..."

@Drifting Pollen

---

With the stampede having been handled with (relative) haste and the farmhands shocked out of their fear-stricken stupors, it only took a bit of prodding to get them back to work. None of them had truly shaken the feeling off by this point, but at the very least they were able to move anything small enough to carry back to their (comparatively) unbroken pens and cages.

If anything, though, the opportunity provided here was a good a time as any to make some small talk while the cows were lugged back to the barn, one body at a time.

And the pigs. And sheep. And the horses too, really. Honestly, it was a miracle that the only real casualties of the whole situation were the fences and, unbeknownst to Fran, a bit of Rayne's and Anne's sanity.

@DracoLunaris@Rezod92

The Vampiric Mistress of the Scarlet Devil Mansion had always been susceptible to the lulls of boredom, however, it wasn't so much as a consequence of having a long life. After all, plenty of other notable figures in Gensokyo had already existed centuries before her, no, it was more due to who she was as a person. Excitement and thrills, she craved those as much as she loved a good glass of 'wine', however, even she had her limits. A masochist might love pain, but beyond a certain point, it'd devolve from paraphilic pleasure to simply suffering.

And right now, she wasn't enjoying herself at all, it was a life or death situation where the latter was a distinct possibility. Thrill was available in spades here, except not the fun kind.

"!!!" The amputated Scarlet Devil continued to savagely attack her arthropod opponent, becoming as much of a beast as the creature itself. Her eyes were stuck widely unblinking as her one remaining arm repeatedly stuck the lethal end of Gungnir into insectoid flesh while her wings did their best to maneuver the vampiress to avoid further mutilation. Remilia was so focused on her vengeful rage that she didn't notice Joker's arrival until he deflected the centipede's bite with a timely dagger strike.

"..." For a brief moment, her visage - still as murderous as before - slightly turned toward the Summoner and his Astral Projection, "ASSIST ME IN SLAYING THIS ACCURSED VERMIN AND I SHALL REWARD YOU GREATLY, HUMAN!" The bloodfeeding youkai roared, not caring in the slightest at her lack of decorum, it was the thought that counts.

With Joker and Arsene being here to occupy the centipede's attention, Remilia decided it was time to end this charade once and for all. She rose into the air by a few meters, then raised gungnir high, preparing it as if it was a javelin. "IN THE NAME OF HOUSE SCARLET! I, REMILIA, SHALL DELIVER THEE UNTO DEATH!!" With that solemn vow, Remilia poured as much of her blood magic as she could into the magical spear, scarlet mist spilling from her body into it, causing it to crackle and throb with swirls of scarlet energy.

"PERISH!!"

In the next moment, The air itself seemed to be sucked into the spear as an eerie silence fell for a fragile second or two... before a sonic boom violently erupted as Remilia released Gungnir forward, the spear trailing crimson as it blitzed straight to the centipede's mandibled mug!

@PKMNB0Y @VitaVitaAR @EchoWolff

With the centipede suitably exploded, Mokou boldly decided to climb to her feet and get a better look at the state its biting had left her arm in. That was... ew, the blood and chunk bitten out of it was bad enough, but the spreading rot was the worst. Well, apart from the hand and forearm, that was just charred as normal. Yeah, she ought to do something like this and not just wait for it to heal off naturally, the rest of her would keep protesting at having this attached.

Fortunately, there was also a headless centipede that needed to be put down, and she still had one arm that wasn't damaged at all any more than normal. So if she just jumped over to it and...

The sudden pillar of flame centred on the centipede's ruined head was probably only a little surprising for the actual fire. The fact that it very briefly lead to a curious lack of a certain white-haired girl before she just... sprung back into existence, non-bitten or burnt hands shoved into her pockets, was no doubt slightly more baffling to those not aware of her immortality. The shirt looked a little worse off for it all, though.

If there was another thing to be annoyed at Kaguya for, it was that her and Eirin had way better abilities for this whole 'healing' thing.