2 days since the last chapter…

 

A large deer monster stood with its horns pointing proudly towards the sky showing a large pattern that looked like flames made of black bone. Its fur was an ashy gray and it had orange eyes and smoke coming from its nose and mouth. Its legs were long and its neck was stretched like a llama, but it still carried the round nose and short tail of a deer.

 

Its head moved around constantly as it ate the grass underneath it and as it chewed it looked around for bigger monsters. The grass was a red color and looked like it had just started to sprout next to a large pile of brown droppings. A bit further away was a man holding a rifle that looked like something from a science fiction book.

 

David was wearing a gray sweater with the hood down and the zipper up, the pants he wore were dark thick work pants that had knee padding built-in. He had donned a pair of workboots that were in good condition and a belt with pouches held several spare magazines he had made. A knife hung at his side that was a standard military design.

 

“Dammit! Stop moving!” David complained. 

 

They had seen several destroyed homes inside of a valley and began making their way down the hill when they spotted the creature. Stopping the van at the midway point, they were only the distance of a football field from the creature who was busy eating. They had killed several monsters along the way and he had used the rifle several times now. 

 

This was a road that stretched southwest of the small town and supplied the wells for most of the farms in the area. The entire area was covered in dense woodlands that obscured the houses that had already fallen apart. David took a deep breath as he sighted the creature on the side of the road.

 

The head of the creature was small, and the constant movement as it ate made it almost impossible for David to get a good shot that he felt like would hit. The large projectile from his slag rifle was slow-moving and could be avoided by a fast target if it was in motion already. This was because most of the fuel came from waste magic stones and it didn’t have the same power as fresh ones.

 

“David, try not to hit it in the body again. You wasted almost all of its meat last time…” Harry reminded him from the side.

 

“But if I miss, then I could start a forest fire! Why the hell did I make this my primary weapon!?” David complained as he grit his teeth.

 

“Are you gonna smoke him, or what?” Tray asked. “He has almost finished eating that fire grass…”

 

David pulled the trigger the moment he saw the large deer’s head make its way towards the red glistening grass as sparks erupted from the gun followed by a line of flames. The bullet left a visible trail as it flew where it distorted the air from the heat it left in its wake but the sound of it firing was closer to lightning from the crackle and heat. A smile crossed his face as he saw the metal pass through the side of the deer’s head and leave a flaming hole that emitted black smoke.

 

“I got it!” David called out proudly.

 

“Shit! The tree is on fire!” Tray called out in fright. “Lena!”

 

“Good shot.” She replied as she finished carving a rune into the air and pushed it towards the tree that was emitting dense smoke and flames from the blackening bark. 

 

The large tree had already lost its bark as the flames had quickly climbed up the tree making it wobble dangerously. The rune moved with a soft white color that turned blue as the mist began to form around it that started to cool into water. By the time the rune passed from their position on the hill to the tree behind the deer, several buckets of water had accumulated around it as it began to douse the flames.

 

David was looking at the weapon in his hands with some mixed feelings at the moment, that became more towards frustration when he heard a cracking coming from the metal can at the side. Opening the hatch revealed a slot that held a plastic bag that was filled with powder that was a white color. It was the remains of the magic stone that he had used when he first loaded the gun in the morning.

 

He had made a 5 round magazine but the magic stones could only facilitate 3-4 shots before they crumbled into dust. A person could only take mana from a magic stone until the mana level in their stone matched the donor unless they used an ability as David did. These scrap stones are what he was using to power the weapon, as they had quite a few of them laying around.

 

“Don’t congratulate him! The deer is burning!” Tray yelled out.

 

“I got it!” Harry called as he ran forward with a one-handed ax with a hefty blade. 

 

His armor had changed as he had also been given a Lorica Segmentata, but he was made of much thicker plates at ¼ inch(6.35MM) thick mild steel. Bracers and greaves were strapped on using thick leather belts and he made a heavy sound when he walked. Enchantments were carved into the plates to make them even harder to penetrate with conventional(non-magical) weapons.

 

David had tried to go a step further and offered to paint each segment a different color of the rainbow using his father’s bake on metallic paint but Harry had told him it was unnecessary. Instead, Harry had wrapped the plates in a dark cloth so that they didn’t make as much noise when he moved. Stepping forward quickly he swung the ax decisively with a downward sweep at the burning deer and cut the head off with a strong blow to the thin neck.

 

“Get it onto the asphalt!” Tray yelled to Harry.

 

Looking at the flaming head at his feet and the road that was a short distance away, he pulled back his booted foot and took careful aim. Some of the loose leaves and foliage were lifted with his kick that sent the head tumbling through the air like a weed as it missed the asphalt and rolled into a ditch that ran along the road.

 

“Good enough,” David said flatly as he looked at the weapon in his hands.

 

He had built the weapon to supplement his damage and increase his range. Now he understood why the Machine Lord had never thought to use such a tool as an improvised weapon. The damage was so horrific that if he managed to land a body shot it often destroyed all the tissue around the wound and caused it to burst into flames.

 

An angry sigh exploded from his mouth when he realized he was going to have to go back to the drawing board and create another weapon. The electromagnetic rivet gun should just remain a tool as far as he was concerned since he couldn’t use it to hunt anything. It was the same problem that affected mages that insisted on using fire magic or large explosions. 

 

“That was better, since you didn’t hit the body we will be able to use this meat,” Harry called as he began to carry the body to the van.

 

“Sorry, I didn’t think it through when I built this thing. I will make something else and save this for when we need it.” David called out.

 

“That thing is badass, just a bit too badass though!” Tray laughed as the smoke and flames slowly went out.

 

“We aren’t getting much meat this way, but not having to fight hard is nice!” Harry called back with a laugh.

 

“Billy, can you bring me a pot and a hand shovel?” Lena called as she moved to inspect the grass. 

 

“I got it, Lena!” Jasmin called instead as she hopped out of the driver's seat of the van after pulling closer.

 

David stood up and slung the rifle over his back being careful of the coils as he moved over to Lena and Jasmin. The grass had been partially eaten but there were still many stalks of it that were healthy and it looked like it could recover.

 

“Shovel that manure into the bottom of the pot with some wood chips, then place the plant with its roots covered in the soil in the bottom and try not to disturb them,” David said from behind her.

 

“This stuff can be used to make salves that are incredible for burns, heals them in moments!” Tray said with a laugh.

 

“Don’t use it on your head or face though, It removes hair at the follicle and you might not be able to grow it back,” David explained.

 

Tray suddenly issued a scared whistle as he looked at the glistening red grass. “I did not know that... I suddenly don’t have much interest in it…”

 

“I will make sure it isn’t damaged!” Lena announced as she began to carefully start digging around the roots.

 

David found his eyes scrunching together as he watched her deft and nimble movements as she began transferring material into the pot. First, she carefully selected the wood chips and then broke up and moved over the manure before she transferred over the plant and the dirt around its roots. 

 

“David, are we going to have to start collecting monster droppings?” Harry asked.

 

“No, we have Kannabis. We can also use ground-up bones as a substitute since we have been throwing them away until now.” David explained before he turned his eyes to the cat at his side.

 

Pandora had no idea that she was also expected to contribute to the growth of magical crops. As a monster, and more importantly a demon, her droppings could be used to help improve the growth of magical plants as well. Giving her a few pats that brought a smile to the cat's face made him smile slightly and forget some of the frustration of trying to use his new weapon.

 

“I got the grass,” Lena told him and pushed the pot towards him as she moved in front of him with her placid expression. 

 

David could see from how she was moving her head towards him that she had become jealous of the attention he was giving to the cat. This caused him to chuckle as he reached forward with his free hand and began to run it through her silky smooth hair. She tilted her head down so that he couldn’t see her face but he could tell from slightly red ears that her face was covered in a blush.

 

“I’m almost finished!” Billy called from his perch on the trailer.

 

“Where the hell is the drilling company? I don’t see any signs of it!” Tray yelled out as he took a moment to look at the map and the dirt road they were on.

 

“It's still a mile down the road, they built right off the side of it in a cleared section of forest,” Harry responded confidently. “We hired them to put in the well on our farm, they also sold the irrigation equipment we used.” 

 

“Our property already had a well drilled when we got here,” David said as he finished petting the cat and his girlfriend. 

 

“David, the monster’s stone was in its head!” Billy yelled from the trailer as he finished cleaning meat off the deer’s body.

 

David looked over at the flaming head that released a terrible stench as even the horns of the creature had caught fire causing a scowl to cross his face. This was something that the Machine Lord had already seen as common sense but David was having to learn that himself. One of the things that David was hoping to find at the drilling company was some industrial tools with better precision. 

 

“It’s probably only in the early phases of the second layer, the stone has probably already been destroyed. Let's just leave it and go.” David called out as he looked around but only saw the ruins of a house that had fallen, everything else was forest and tall grass along the washed-out road.

 

“I think your weapon is useful,” Lena told quietly as she made her way to the van carrying the potted grass.

 

David turned and began walking to the van and climbed in behind Lena with Tray and Harry following behind him. Jasmin started up the van and it began to roll forward silently with the only sound coming from the tires bouncing on the dirt road. 

 

“Hey Jasmin, do we have any tunes?” Tray called from the back.

 

“It only has a cassette player, we have some old rock from the ’80s but not much else...” Jasmin said quietly.

 

“David! You couldn’t even give this thing a jack for a phone?!” Tray called.

 

“You still have your phone?” David asked in shock.

 

“Of course! It's never left my pocket.” Tray asked and pulled out a pristine phone that he had seen in an ad a few times. 

 

“Okay, you have me beat. I lost my phone and all my possessions at the hospital I woke up in.” David muttered. “I will look for a new cd player while we are raiding the drilling company.”

 

“Jasmin! Stop! There are people ahead!” Billy called after he heard Pandora call to him.

 

David paused as he looked ahead but couldn’t see anything but forest on both sides of the road, it looked like the rest of the road they had passed. Feeling the vehicle comes to a stop the small cat quickly made its way to the front and began smelling the air carefully. David could feel the tension in the van starting to increase as they waited for her answer.

 

“Mrow! Meow mow meow!” The cat called with a hiss.

 

“She smells blood, she says there is a lot of it! It's drifting from upwind!” Billy translated. 

 

“Do you think someone has been hurt? Could it have been monsters?” Harry asked.

 

“Let's not get ahead of ourselves, prepare for the worst, and hope for the best,” David called out sternly.

 

“Got it!” Billy called as he opened his window and reached out to grab a cord that was attached to an armored door that he pulled down over his window with a solid metal clap. 

 

Jasmin also reached out her window to pull the hatch down, which reduced her vision to a single slot. The bars on the inside of the window were primarily for monsters but the armored sections were bulletproof for rifle calibers. The windshield had steel grating installed on the outside that already narrowed a shooter's ability to fire into the vehicle.

 

Harry also put on a helmet that he hated wearing unless he had to since it married his vision so much, it was a swat helmet that one of the old military veterans kept in their garage. The plastic face shield was thick and rated to stop most rifle cartridges but it had the bad quality of fogging up during prolonged use. The modern helmet with the old armor gave Harry a very strange appearance. 

 

“Billy, trade places with Lena, she has the best range out of us,” David called. 

 

Billy immediately moved into the back after crawling between the two front seats to make room for David’s girlfriend to move forward calmly. David also thought of taking the wheel in place of Jasmin but figured it would be better if he was able to get out and fight. The van began moving forward again at a slower pace as both women kept their heads on a swivel to look for any hidden dangers. 

 

“Harry, if you go I will follow behind you.” Tray said and patted the guy’s shoulder. “Make sure you keep your shield up.”

 

“I got you, just stay close,” Harry assured him.

 

“I see tire tracks,” Lena reported. “They came from a dirt road up ahead, it looks like a hunting trail.” 

 

David looked at where she was pointing and saw a gap in the foliage and a dirt path that had the fresh weeds ripped down. From the looks of it, he could see that several vehicles had used the dirt path to make their way onto the road. A frown crossed his face when he thought of the reasons they would have for coming this far outside of the town.

 

“They are probably raiders, or a group similar to ours,” David reported. “Pandora, can you tell what type of blood you smell yet?”

 

“Meow!” She reported.

 

“Human,” Billy said with some fright from in front of him.

 

“I see the sign ahead, there is a fence and it looks like they drove through it!” Jasmin called with white knuckles on the steering wheel.

 

“Who here is against killing people?” David asked eerily.

 

Everyone stopped talking and the van became silent at David’s call, but the first one to respond was Tray.

 

“I have already had to deal with raiders when I was in Boulder, those people were monsters in human skin. I also fought some vampires when we were making our way here.” Tray said calmly. “If they try to kill us then we kill them.”

 

“I’m okay,” Lena reported.

 

“Harry?” David asked.

 

“Do we have to kill them?” Harry asked.

 

“The people I fought were cannibals, it is better to kill them if they try to kill you.” Tray said firmly.

 

“We shouldn’t make assumptions, maybe someone was hurt fighting a monster...” Harry suggested with some hesitation.

 

“I see them!” Jasmin called.

 

David looked through the window and saw several vans and trucks covered in runes written in blood on the vehicles. All of the blood was fresh and looked like it had only been painted on a few hours ago as it was still wet in areas. Rust covered the vehicles that had iron and metal plates attached to the windows with spikes and chains running along the sides with meathooks carrying monster bodies.

 

“Cultists!” David yelled when he saw the shape of the runes on the vehicles.

 

The moment he saw them he was reminded of the church and the runes that covered the walls that bound the small imp in the building. The shape and sharpness instantly made it clear that they were also Infernal runes, only someone who was in league with the demons would know of them. 

 

“Turn the van around now! We need to run!” David called out but he heard a yell from outside.

 

“Look! Unbelievers! We have ourselves some unbelievers!” A male voice called out happily.

 

“Shit!” David called before he looked at the cat. “They are going to have demons with them! We need you!” 

 

“Meow!” The cat said with a decisive nod before turning her head to the small boy.

 

Billy suddenly felt a chill that began to crawl up his back the moment the cat met eyes with him, he could tell he wasn’t going to like this.

 

“Billy! This is our chance! Serve as your master’s steed and together we can use this chance to gain strength by devouring these demons!” The cat called to him with seriousness.

 

He could feel the ears he hid under his woolen cap begin to droop as he felt his enthusiasm plunge. “Pandora, I don’t think that is a good idea-”

 

“Billy…” She held up a small paw and revealed small claws that glimmered dangerously in the light. “I know where you sleep. Do not make me use these.”

 

“Cultists!?! You mean the same people who left the trap in that church!” Harry called in fright.

 

“They are demon worshippers, they work to bring them through, so they can gain power!” David called as he prepared to load a magic stone into his gun with a plastic bag around it.

 

Closing the catch on the can on the side, he then chambered a round and dropped the magazine to the floor. Reaching down with his thumb, he popped the round out and placed it in his pocket in case he needed it later. Billy then picked it up, crawled over to a bucket nimbly, and quickly reload slugs from a small bucket into the magazine.

 

David caught the full magazine that Billy tossed over and placed it in a pouch before he reached over and grabbed the small cat. He then placed her on his shoulder where he felt her claws find purchase on his coat. 

 

“They are coming towards us! What should I do?” Jasmin called.

 

Before David could issue any orders Lena finished creating the rune from mana in the air and sparks began to dance near the tips of her fingers. She then pinched the rune in the air and cast it through one of the slots in the windshield. David finally caught a glimpse at one of the cultists as he came charging through the fence and it confirmed his worst fears. 

 

He was a man in his early 20s, probably younger than David. The man wore a black shirt with a tabbed collar, but the weapon he carried was anything but righteous as he was carrying a bloody fireman’s ax. Several other men and women wearing simal garb were following closely behind the man, their clothes were all dirty and they were covered in stains.

 

The rune began emitting denser sparks that quickly formed a column as they rocketed towards the man in the front and buried themselves into his chest. The man jerked several times, unable to move before he issued a breath that was clouded with black smoke. He fell to the ground where he jerked a few more times before he ceased moving any further.

 

“The heathens killed him! Use the irons!” One of the men in the back called.

 

David watched as they began pulling an assortment of rifles from their backs and took aim at the van. Jasmin screamed and began to panic, causing Lena to reach over and pull her behind the armored dashboard as bullets began to slam into the van. Behind the seats were larger steel plates that kept the people in the back safe from any gunfire coming from the front.

 

Jasmin screamed as Lena pulled her behind the dash as the rifles began to fire at the vehicle causing sparks to fly from the bullets exploding off the armor. The van began to accelerate as Jasmin pressed down on the gas in her panic while Lena reached over and grabbed the wheel of the van and turned it towards the group of cultists. A few reacted immediately and dived to the side to avoid the oncoming vehicle but a couple panicked and were unable to move out of the way in time. 

 

“Don’t go in there! We have no idea how many there are!” David yelled but it was too late.

 

With a couple of bangs followed by the wet crunch of them meeting the tires were followed by brief muted screams that were quickly cut off by the trailer going over them. They hit the chain-link fence and threw it out of the way as they barreled into the parking lot and David saw several converted vehicles that were covered in armor. He breathed a sigh of relief when he realized it was only a couple of vehicles and it had to be a small group.

 

“Lena! Hit the RV! It has people in it!” David turned to the people in the back, Tray was still calm but Harry was shaking badly. “Harry! That is human blood covering those vehicles and that didn’t come from them! They killed people and they will keep killing people if we don’t stop them!”

 

Jasmin, Billy, and Harry were all experiencing the psychological terror that came when people witnessed the death of other people. They were locking up, they were panicking, they were afraid, and they felt a deep sense of guilt. These were the most natural feelings in the world for modern humans to have.

 

The van made contact with the RV and the moment it did a bright light emanated from the bumper and seemed to flare up upon impact with the vehicle. Then like the roar of a cannon, a loud detonation was heard as a shockwave shot forward from the bumper creating a giant rectangular hole in the RV before it began to tilt and roll. At that moment as the RV was rolling, Harry was able to glimpse something inside of it that caused his heart to stop beating in his chest.

 

The Rv rolled and the screams of several people were heard as the large RV rolled over and the Van was forced to a stop. Lena reached forward and grabbed the emergency brake and gave it a pull before she gave Jasmin a few shakes to get her to focus on the situation. Before David had time to take stock of the situation the back door of the van was kicked open and a roar was issued from behind him filled with pain. 

 

“Harry?!” David called as he saw the large man pull his large shield forward as he charged out the back of the van.