[center][h2]Kochiya Sanae[/h2][h3]Aventon — Deep Forest[/h3][/center]
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 [i]more[/i], 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 [i]moreso[/i] when the white-haired woman fighting alongside her was brought back down to earth with a sickening [i]crunch[/i]. 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, [i]shoved her broken arm[/i] into the centipede's mouth and blew it up.

This time, things were far more explosive in a [i]different[/i] 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 [i]internal[/i] 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 [i]moving[/i] 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 [i]dead[/i] than the other two were at the moment, it was struggling far [i]more[/i] 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 [i]should[/i] 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]
[hr][center][h3]Aventon — Hunter's Lodge[/h3][/center]
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]
[hr][center][h3]Aventon — Eastern Fields[/h3][/center]
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]