“It must be so nice to be nearly immortal, am I right?” the Machine Lord asked, some irony in his voice. 

 

The Machine Lord stood before a large creature that was bound to a wall. Its skin was crimson and it walked on two cloven hooves. It had long given up on fighting the chains that bound it in place. 

 

“Please, just let me die already…” it begged him.

 

“And send you back to the sea of blood so early?” the Machine Lord said with some annoyance. “I have barely started replacing anything yet! You still have one of your original arms, and so many of your organs!”

 

Laughter filled the room at the end of this utterance, the demon in question also began to sob brokenly as he trembled in fear of the weak and frail man in front of him.

 

“Mother, I think I am going to begin researching the soul and consciousness itself.” the Machine Lord announced with some excitement in his voice. “As long as I get your true name, I can call you back as many times as I want. I have a whole list of your ilk that I have already begun ‘working’ with! Hahahaha~!”

 

This demon was one of the unlucky ones who was tricked into accepting a summoning by the Machine Lord, this was a man that every single demon had a deep fear of. 

 

“Was going to the sea of blood not enough for you?! You killed some of us over and over and over again…” the demon pleaded with the Machine Lord. “What did we ever do to you? Why do you hate us so much? If you are going to turn me into one of the broken, you can at least answer me!”

 

“The broken? Is that what they are calling the demons I have modified? I made all of them so powerful though, some of them may even be able to put up a fight against the devils.” the Machine Lord said this with annoyance. “What can you do if you teach the hungry to fish only for them to choose starvation?”

 

The Machine Lord was putting on a pair of black gloves that were made of a thin polymer, they seemed to absorb all light around them, much like the man's pants did. He dressed less like a king and much closer to your local doctor or dentist, but the feeling he released was closer to a grim reaper. The killing intent that stained the man from the untold number of lives he had taken gave him a very particular feeling, it was like the Machine Lord’s fingers were already digging around inside of your body.

 

[REPORTING: I have prepared the tools and equipment you have requested.]

 

“I can practically feel the dread and fear that you experience in my presence, I like it quite a bit.” He said plainly. “I learned something when I spent a hundred years trapped inside of granite, carefully clawing my way out. If people appreciate you, then what they are doing is just coveting what you possess. If you never want to be stepped on though, then you need to instill fear in all those around you.”

 

The Machine Lord walked before the demon, one of its arms had been replaced with a cannon on a frame that acted like its original limb. Many tubes came out of its body and connected to this weapon. Another cannon was being carried over on a crane that was going to be attached to the demon’s back, a mechanical leg could also be seen being carried in by several golems.   

 

“Only through fear will your enemies ever show restraint.” the Machine Lord said plainly. “No one will try to swat the fly that is capable of poisoning the offending hand to death, that is what I have learned.”

 

-

 

David’s eyes opened, and he could still see the giant demon that the Machine Lord was treating like some lab rat. Its eyes that were the size of dinner plates were filled with fear, and it had been crying. It was such a bizarre sight that David wasn’t sure what to make of it anymore, it was something he had to endure every single night.

 

Looking around the small tent, he saw a sleeping bag that was slowly encroaching onto his own, that was because the occupant would slowly move towards him throughout the night. They had been camping along the way for the last several nights, and slaying monsters on the way, most of them were just larger versions of what they had been previously. It allowed David to realize that mana had only recently been introduced to the world.

 

David slowly climbed out of his sleeping bag and made his way towards the small door of the tent. The only reason that the two of them were able to sleep like this was due to the amount of low-tier magic stones they had collected. The small tarp now had a complete traveler’s ward; this was a set of enchantments to make a small campsite nearly invisible, it also had a detection system to wake up the inhabitants in the case of something coming close.

 

It cost them four magic stones a night to run it, but it meant that they didn’t need to keep watch. This alone allowed them to move much faster, as they saved nearly four hours a night, and both well slept. As long as they picked an area that monsters were unlikely to pass through then a traveler's ward was considered the best protection for hiding your presence from them.

 

The effect they left on the landscape was so obvious that a sentient creature like a human, or a high-tier monster, would notice the anomaly. Opening the door to the tent, he slowly climbed outside of it and saw that the campfire had burned down significantly. Throwing a few logs onto the fire, he then took a seat in front of it and watched it crackle and pop.  

 

It was still dark, the sun could be seen just throwing light onto the horizon and would not rise fully for a couple of hours. David looked at his left arm, it had now healed considerably, the skin was still a mess of scar tissue but it worked as well as it had before. The only real change to it was that his sense of feeling in it was significantly reduced from what it once was.

 

Deciding to use this time to temper his arm, he began to take control of his mana carefully, and use it to cause slight damage to his muscles and bones. This was damage that was easily healed, but it made his arm more resistant to mana, this would make it harder for it to pass through his arm in the future. This pain is the main reason that the Machine Lord looked down on Martial Force users, even though he helped advance the field. 

 

It would also be sore for hours afterward, and if he tried to push it too far, he could permanently injure himself. It was just like you couldn’t recklessly absorb mana from magic stones or you could shatter your own by over pressurizing it before it had time to stabilize. If you took in a lot of mana that wasn’t pure then you also had to worry about corruption as well, this was mana from creatures like the undead,+ void entities, and demons.

 

Finished with a round of tempering, his entire left arm felt sore as if he had just finished a hard workout session with it. The more he tempered his arm, the more mana he would be able to store in it using his ability. For now, it was empty, he was focused on using all of the mana he could to increase his layer as fast as possible.

 

That was because Lena was able to outgrow him on the same meager resources he had access to. At the current trend, it would take him over a month to reach the second layer, and Lena should be able to step into it within a few short weeks. On Edea, most teenagers should already be in the second layer, and most adults should have been in the third.

 

It was just like staying in shape, it wasn’t hard if you did anything at all with your time. It usually wasn’t until someone tried to increase their tier that they would run into serious issues, and this is where monsters got their biggest advantage. This was because monsters could reach a tier above humans.

 

High-tier in the 9th layer was the highest tier that humans could safely reach, with any level of success. Above this was the supreme tier, this encompassed the tiers from layers ten to twelve. This was something humans couldn’t reach due to the size the magic stone would get to, not without severely damaging their organs. 

 

“Did you have those dreams again?” Lena asked, crawling through the opening of the tent.

 

“I did, this time was incredibly twisted and dark.” David told her.

 

“What did he do?” She asked.

 

“He captured a demon, he tricked it through a summoning. The man treated it like fishing, he came up with all kinds of different ways to summon demons and make them think it was someone else doing it.” David said as he stared deeply into the fire. “Demons don’t actually leave the sea of blood where they spawn from, the bodies you see are a projection.”

 

“How does that work?”

 

“It means that anytime they die, they can be reconstructed in the sea of blood, they never truly die since that wasn’t their true body.” David explained. “He found a way around that since it seems like he went to the sea of blood, I haven’t seen that part yet. He was able to summon the projection and use it to pull their true body from the sea of blood, he then modified them and cast them back. Then he would destroy their projection and wait for them to regenerate it, then use the demon's true name to force it to answer his summons, all so he could verify if the modifications he made became permanent.” 

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

“Imagine if you died, then you would reappear inside of the nearest hospital, and this happened because the hospital had a perfect record of you and can make a clone and transplant your consciousness into it.” David said. “Now imagine a sick intern decides to remove your legs and attach tank tracks, he also puts long-range homing missile pods onto your back, your hands get replaced with lasers, and you get a sharp-bladed tail. He modifies that file directly so that every time you die you come back as this horrible monstrosity.”

 

Lena looked down at the ground with a blank look, she was thinking through everything that he had told her. He had wanted to keep all of the bile that was the Machine Lord’s life to himself, but that was like a water jug that was constantly being filled with disgusting motor oil. If he didn’t talk to someone about it then he would erupt from the sheer horror of it all.

 

“Why did he do it?” She asked.

 

“Originally it was because he thought that their immortality was similar to his own but better.” David said, then shook his head for a moment before he continued. “It wasn’t though, so he instead started experimenting with the properties of the blood sea itself. This was before he started suffering the attacks that caused his death, he ended up stopping his research on this field, at least I think so. It is so jumbled and makes so little sense.”

 

It disgusted him so much to see demons getting butchered like cattle, he often replaced entire sections of their bodies while they were still awake. The sound of his cheerful humming and the screaming of demons while their flesh and organs were being cut, these were the sounds that filled David’s ears when his eyes were closed. Dark bags had already started to form under David’s eyes from his inability to sleep since he started experiencing this sequence of dreams.

 

“How much farther until we reach Ward?” She asked.

 

David looked over and saw her starting to pour oats into a water-filled pot, she was also mixing in brown sugar and some sugary syrup she had packed. She liked heavy breakfasts, and he was glad that he hadn’t brushed his teeth yet. Looking at the map and doing some math after getting his bearings he figured out their location.

 

“We should arrive in a couple of days, we had a much better time than I expected.” David said with some shock. “How are our food stores looking?” 

 

“We have a lot of dried meat, I made more before we went to bed but we are almost out of canned vegetables and dried fruit.” Lena said as she passed over a bowl of oatmeal with dried fruit in it along with brown sugar and maple syrup.

 

David began to eat the bowl of oatmeal, if it could still be called that and noticed that it was starting to become brighter outside. He had spent a few hours tempering his arm before Lena had woken up and come outside. It was already warm at 65 degrees(18C) which meant it would probably only get to about 85(30C) at the hottest.

 

The lack of people they had seen was kind of eerie. They had avoided getting near large cities like Denver since they didn’t know the situation but they hadn’t even seen any survivors. All they had seen so far was the remnants of them trying to escape, things like destroyed ATVs, ruins of campsites, and the occasional pile of bones.

 

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a cell phone and turned on the power, he then waited for it to turn on. Lena watched this as well but she didn’t seem excited about it in the least. Every morning David checked this cell phone that he found for service, but so far he had gotten no bars anywhere so far. 

 

“Didn’t you pick that up from that destroyed campsite we found?” She asked.

 

“Yeah, it was the one that the monsters had attacked. One of the corpses that we burned had it in their hand, so I took it since it wasn’t password protected.” David said.

 

“Any luck?” she asked.

 

“None, as per usual. I doubt the cell towers survived.” David said.

 

“Then why do you keep checking?” she asked.

 

“Because if it does suddenly start working then that means that the government was able to hold somewhere.” David said. “You saw that giant snake monster that appeared with the undead, right? That corpse had to come from somewhere, so I wouldn't be surprised if nastier things like dragons were around somewhere. That undead that we saw in the helicopter was a wyvern, I would bet money on it, and you don’t have wyverns without dragons.”

 

“Where did they come from, were they like the monsters here? All we have seen are the monsters that were small animals before.” She said in confusion.

 

“No, I think that our world is being invaded by another for some reason, do you remember those granite pillars?” He asked her.

 

“I do, why?” She said.

 

“Those had creatures trapped inside of them, the ones that didn’t die from being shoved inside of the stone. The ones that could survive were all high-tier, I am honestly afraid of what might have come out of them.” David told her. “But I cannot imagine that it is the only thing to have appeared, the world that the Machine Lord was from was called Edea, and a lot of terrifying individuals were from there. Some of them were even created by the Machine Lord, that is why it worries me so much, and why I have lost so much sleep.”

 

David noticed that there were very few emotions that the blonde woman ever showed, it seemed to be confusion, a caring smile, and just nothing at all. It worried him about just what went on inside of her mind, but he couldn’t pry too much or she would just lock up. It didn’t help that other fears had also begun to appear in David’s mind.

 

If parts of Edea are appearing here, what else could be appearing on Earth?

 

Would parts of Hell, the Void, the Astral Islands, the Chaotic Abyss, or any of the other realms start appearing on his world too? Finished eating he handed Lena his empty bowl to clean, he then walked over to the tent to break it down. After he was done packing everything up he would brush his teeth then begin hiking for the day.

 

I am almost home! 

 

They would be able to complete the journey in a week, much faster than he had anticipated.