The Farming Saint in the Starry Wasteland (Elizabeth Schofield) novel Chapter 503

Chapter 503 Stone Through the Skull

Chapter 503 Stone Through the Skull

Rocket let out a muffled grunt and dropped to one knee, but he didn’t

go down.

Sharpie worked from behind a tree, picking his shots with cold, methodical precision, targeting the joint

eams in the enemy armor where the plating was thinnest.

le drove three of them back, but the return fire came surging in fast and heavy, and he was forced to buj back behind the trunk, a stray bolt scoring his shoulder. Blood welled up and tracked in a slow, dark line down his sleeve.

Desmond felt the situation collapsing around him, one agonizing degree at a time.

They were just simply outmatched.

All twenty pirates were A-level mental power users at their lowest, and the core fighters among them ran S-level or above.

They were impeccably equipped, seamlessly coordinated, and brutally aggressive in their tactics.

His own side, counting Clara’s group, numbered eleven people total, and Clara’s crew was already carrying injuries from before this fight even started.

A straight brawl was going to break them.

He kept firing as he retreated, closing the distance to Elizabeth one careful step at a time, dropping his voice to something low and urgent. “Ma’am, you need to leave now. We’ll hold them off.”

He snapped his head toward Melton without taking his eyes off the enemy line. “Melton, get her out of here. Back to the spaceship.”

The spaceship had its own defense systems, more than enough to keep her safe once she was aboard.

Melton had already stowed his rapid-fire rifle and reached for Elizabeth’s arm.

Ma’am, move!”

Elizabeth didn’t move.

The pirate leader caught the motion from across the clearing and let out a sharp, contemptuous laugh.

Leave? Not one of you is leaving!” He raised the axe and brought it down at Desmond in one savage, overhead arc.

Desmond threw his rifle up to catch the blow, and the energy axe connected with a thunderous impact, sparks cascading in every direction. The force shuddered all the way up through Desmond’s arms, his grip going numb and the weapon nearly tearing free of his fingers entirely.

SS-level mental power. An entire tier above him. The gap in raw strength was immediate and humbling.

Tyson drove in from the flank and thrust his energy sword at the pirate leader’s back.

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Chapter 503 Stone Through the Skull

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The man didn’t even turn to look. He snapped the his feet entirely.

axc

around in reverse swing and launched Tyson off

Tyson hit a tree with a sickening crack of splitting armor, and when he slid down the trunk, blood wa already tracing a thin line from the corner of his mouth.

“Tyson!” Clara broke toward him and caught him before he could crumple further.

The pirate leader rolled his axe in his grip with a leisurely, contemptuous flick of the wrist and fixed his gaze back on Desmond.

“Is that really all you’ve got?” He raised the axe again. “And you thought you could stop me?”

Desmond set his jaw and held his ground directly in front of Elizabeth, not yielding an inch.

His hands were bleeding where the grip had split the skin, and the rifle barrel bore a deep, ugly dent from the last blow, but he didn’t retreat.

Elizabeth was behind him. Retreat was not an option.

One of the escort team drove in from the side, rapid-fire rifle leveled at the pirate leader’s head.

The pirate leader pivoted smoothly out of the line of fire and brought the axe down on the rifle’s barrel.

The weapon detonated in the escort’s hands, and the shockwave flung him backward, half his body gone numb before he even hit the ground.

Melton raised his own weapon and acquired the pirate leader through his sights.

He never got the shot off. A pirate swept around from the side and drove a blade into his back before he could pull the trigger.

Melton folded forward with a choked sound and hit the ground face-first, his glasses spinning away into the grass somewhere.

Rocket hauled himself back upright, snatched up an energy axe that had clattered to the ground in the chaos, and charged the pirate leader with a roar that came from somewhere deep and furious in his chest.

The pirate leader glanced at him once, then drove a boot into his sternum with casual, crushing force, and Rocket went airborne, sailing backward and colliding hard with Olivia. The two of them went down in a tangled heap.

Felix was caught between two pirates at once, fighting them off from both sides simultaneously, and the effort was costing him, new cuts opening across his body with each exchange.

Sharpie’s ammunition ran dry. He dropped the empty weapon, drew the blade from his hip, and locked himself into a brutal close-quarters struggle with one of the pirates.

Clara stood guard over Tyson with her energy sword in her right hand, putting herself between him and everything trying to reach him.

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Chapter 503 Stone Through the Skull

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Her left arm had given out entirely. The wound had torn back open, and blood was running freely down the length of it, dripping from her fingers, but she didn’t fall back.

Only one thought occupied Desmond’s mind as he watched his people being ground down piece by piece.

Hold. Hold as long as possible. Hold until Elizabeth is somewhere safe.

But Elizabeth hadn’t moved. {

She stood exactly where she was, watching her people fall one after another, watching them hold on through gritted teeth, watching them bleed and stagger and refuse to break.

Tyson’s mouth was bleeding. Desmond’s hands were bleeding. Clara’s arm was a ruin of torn flesh and

the dark red. Melton had a deep, ragged gash across his back. Rocket had been kicked halfway across clearing and still climbed back to his feet. Olivia had been knocked down and was standing again.

Not one person had run. Not one person had surrendered.

Even the newest members of this strange, improbable little family, Clara, Olivia, Felix, Rocket, and Sharpie, not one of them had taken a single step backward.

One. Two. Three.

Now.

Elizabeth unclenched both fists and let the spent energy stones fall from her palms, each one drained completely hollow.

Then she bent down and picked up a rock.

Fist-sized. Utterly unremarkable. It was the kind of stone that could be found by the thousands in any stretch of jungle on any world in the known universe.

She closed her fingers around it, straightened up, and read the battlefield.

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