DeSean passed around the ear-protection and waited until the stalker stepped out of the vehicle first. It was almost predictable. The Enlightened Chosen were eager to kill the Chaos Marked, so the ball was in their court when they wanted to engage. Evidently, the muscular man didn’t have the patience to wait and see what DeSean had in store for him, proving the Marine right.

The Chosen flung his door open and slammed it shut behind him, shaking the vehicle hard. DeSean cocked an eyebrow from what he saw through his optiling’s view. The man wasn’t just huge. He was disgustingly muscular, like a puffed up doll that was vaguely shaped as a human person. It was the physique of a creature that would have young, in-his-prime Arnold Schwarzenegger as an appetizer.

“Lylothia, I might—” DeSean started.

“Need the extra mana sustaining this form of mine,” she said. “Reach for me when we must speak by other means.” The princess vanished.

“Sergeant DeSean, the literal lake-side monster is getting really close right now,” Art History wailed. Botany clenched her rifle with a white-knuckled grip, her breaths coming out hard and fast. Both university students were wide-eyed and jacked-up on beef jerky, nicotine, and pure shots of adrenaline.

Still, DeSean waited. A good ambush required anticipation. Like drawing an arrow to its full length, and holding it for long enough until you loosened right before the tension became too much. Rush it, and they would rush the shots. Wait too long, and they would lock up and become fallible. It was on DeSean to succeed where he and Quinton failed earlier, getting these guys a real taste of combat and following through to the bloody end.

“Count to ten now,” DeSean ordered, busting out of his door.

He hit the rainfall like smashing through a watery wall. It was heavy. The ground was slippery. Everything was pure chaos except for the rifle in his hand. It wasn’t the weapon he used in the Marines, but it was familiar enough.

He ran perpendicular of the truck, off the shoulder and down the slope before snapping off a shot that struck the muscular Chosen on the shoulder. The beast of a Chosen veered away from the back of the truck. He lumbered after DeSean, stomping through shin-slurping mud and stalks of tall grass.

DeSean twisted around and charged away, getting parallel with the road. Every stride forward splashed mud everywhere and slapped grass against his legs. The rain struck like icicles, stinging hard against his back even with the leather jacket. Running away from an enemy this close to his back would’ve been hard if it wasn’t for the optiling keeping watch. DeSean saw through his minion the big Chosen hounding after him, but moving no faster than him.

The Marine spun around, coming to a stop and letting loose a short barrage of rifle fire. He struck three times, drilling into the monster’s chest. The bastard barely slowed, eating up the distance with heavy lunges.

The Chosen cocked back an arm and swung with full force at DeSean’s head. The Marine ducked and hopped to the side, moving beneath the blow and breaking into another run. This time he targeted the road.

The monster pickup grunted and roared as it barreled down to the patch of road DeSean was about to reach. It slid into a wet, squeaky stop.

Art History pointed his rifle out of the rolled-down window and sprayed bullets once DeSean got out of the way. Botany did the same from her seat behind the driver’s wheel. Their shots weren’t always accurate, but the two of them combined stunned the Chosen. Add in a third shooter, DeSean, and they made the monster stumble around while knee deep in a flooded stalks of grass and mounds of mud.

The rainfall lightened. The lightning and thunder died with a final distant flash. And their rifles clicked empty, but DeSean’s weapon didn’t stay empty for long.

Muscle memory from years of training saw him reload almost instantly. Then he continued to pound the muscular nightmare with lead while Botany and Art History fumbled with spare magazines. They got back on the program, eventually, and started up another barrage right when he finished.

DeSean scowled as the muscular Chosen waded slowly through the muck under small-arms fire. Past the whip-crack thump of guns going a-blaze, DeSean heard rounds drumming flesh. It didn’t sound like the bullets were passing through.

When the inhuman man got closer, DeSean’s scowl deepened at the smiling madman who was oozing trickles of blood from dozens of surface wounds. His shirt and pants were shredded. At certain places on his herculean body, DeSean spotted bullet fragments embedded into the flesh like studded piercings.

Then a heavy silence filled by the rain overcame them. The Chosen came to a stop on the shoulder and spread his arms wide.

“Do you see how futile your wittle weapons are, Marked!” roared the Chosen. “I am impervious. I am mountainous. I am a fiber of the body that’s the Lord of Light and Order, and this fiber is strong, Marked! Very strong! You could’ve been aa strong as me. A fiber like me. If you had said yes to salvation. But you turned your back on what could’ve been yours. So guess what?”

“You’re going to sell us your fitness program with a giveaway book titled, ‘Protein, Protein, Protein,’” Botany said.

“He looks like a caricature of what a third grader would draw of surreal Superman,” Art History said. “I’m half convinced he’s a man wearing an inflated costume packed with ham and tomato sauce.”

The Chosen muscle-man lost his insane grin. His eyes shone with a darkness that didn’t reflect the supposed motif of the Lord of Light and Order. A cold shiver ran up DeSean’s spine, and before the dance started up again, he passed Botany his rifle through the driver’s window.

She looked at him questioningly.

He pulled out a knife. A big knife. “Drive down, I’ll take care of things from here.”

“But—”

“The light will crush you! [Flash Spread]!” The pumped-up Chosen exploded in sudden eye-searing light, his voice distorting strangely when he cried out the name of the attack.

DeSean’s vision was filled with brighter-than-day illumination, and he instantly knew he was at a critical disadvantage.

“Dazzle!” DeSean roared. “Floor it!”

He heard tires slipping on wet asphalt. He felt the truck buck forward from behind him. The air rushed by, tugging at his leather jacket. Next came the heavy, scrunching steps of something huge rushing him directly. The Marine cursed and dodged to the side. He felt a flying brick wall clip his arm and send him spinning around on his heels.

Somewhere down the road, the perceptions behind his Focus caught the truck squealing to a stop. Then a loud splash reached his ears before he turned his attention to the looming threat nearby. He was still blind, his eyes darkened by vision-consuming black spots. The same happened to his minion whose sole purpose was to observe, and it was somewhere around the place the truck had stopped since it’d been riding on the cab.

DeSean tried to get low to avoid another hit to his head.

A sledge-hammering force smashed into his gut. It stole all of the air in his lungs. He heard more than he felt—CRACK—something breaking in his torso. A rib or three. He was also moving with his feet off the ground. It was hard and fast and disorientating. Like a rag-doll, but blind. Then he landed on his left shoulder before he kissed the asphalt with his cheek, coming to a tumbling stop.

A pool of bitter copper filled his mouth. He gagged on it. Nothing else would get down no matter how hard he tried to breathe. He couldn’t breathe. I CAN’T BREATHE. But he wasn’t dead. Not yet. So, he pushed up. He slipped. Fell. He tried again and failed once more.

It was like being a fish out of water, flopping around for life.

While blind.

“Hurr. Hurr. Hurr. Look at you. Frail. Pathetic. You are so far beneath me, it’s hard to stomach the sight of you.” The Chosen laughed boisterously. “While I exist on the summit, at the cusp of reaching my Main Path, you exist in the shadow of the lowest valley. It’s almost sad. I pity you, Marked, truly, I do.”

DeSean accessed his Status Tablet while the asshole gloated. He pushed 10 Od into Strength, jumping from Od Level 89 to 99. Only extraordinary determination—his Focus and his prior training—kept him from dumping all his Free Od on it. He stayed disciplined despite the heart-pounding, chest-burning, head-aching pain.

Soon as the Od settled into his least used stat, the difference was felt immediately. He didn’t blow-up in size. He didn’t hulk-out. But his lungs drew in air with gusto. He found the strength, or Strength, to push up from the floor. His pain lessened. His vigor kept him up on his feet, ignoring the all-consuming throb and heat that overtaken the left side of his face.

DeSean spat a glob of phlegm and blood to the side. He still couldn’t see using his own eyes. But with a shift of his jaw, and a crick of his neck, he felt ready for round three.

The Chosen clapped. “Ha! Fine then. You are as stupid as you are skinny. Somewhere in the depths of chaos and Hells, the demons would find that admirable. But all I see is a pathetic waste of body living measly. Weakly. So I’ll break you into itsy bitsy pieces. I’ll sprinkle you on my breakfast. You’ll go well with my weight-loss cuisine!”

“I’m going to tribute you,” the Marine grumbled, “to Princess Lylothia.”

A tremendous presence loomed behind DeSean’s back.

The Chosen growled, losing his good humor. He was probably feeling the demonic presence that was nearby.

DeSean blinked through the rain water washing over his face, his vision returning too slowly to be feasibly useful. He heard the hard steps of the Chosen barreling at him and knew even with the increase in Strength, he wouldn’t be able to match however much the Chosen packed into his own Strength. But the scant moments he had to recollect himself gave him an idea on how to beat this bozo.

He leaned into the few bag of magical tricks he got. He switched his view to his minion, the creature crawling over from the ditch the truck had drove into. It stopped thirty feet away behind DeSean, fully recovered from the Chosen’s flash attack now. It saw DeSean’s scarecrow frame and the ballooned-up Chosen well-enough.

With the minion’s observation and his hearing, DeSean avoided the punch careening for his head. He stumbled out of the path of the kick swishing for his gut. With a painful, broken-rib-rattling gasp, he lunged beneath a wide punch that would’ve cracked his skull open like an egg.

“Slippery serpent! Whimpering weasel!” the Chosen shouted. “Stand your ground and face the judgement of the Lord of Light and Order’s muscle!”

“Gluttonous snake, fangs of chaos,” DeSean said, spitting blood. His mana stirred aggressively around his body at the utterance of hellish curse magic.

“Speak not the tongue of the Hells, vile villain!” The Chosen lunged for him, both hands stretched out, but DeSean veered out the way with a few inches to spare. The bastard must’ve invested so much into Strength he sacrificed everything else other than Endurance.

“Boil the hands of wolfish reach,” DeSean continued. His mana rippled like a droplet hitting a dark, shimmery puddle. His voice sounded distorted and demonic, the magic of the seance injecting itself beyond the bounds of simple spell-crafting.

The Chosen bent his knees and exploded into a power rush that was faster than any of his previous charges. He clawed at DeSean’s face, but the Marine snapped his head out of the way. Their shoulders collided and sent DeSean spiraling away, barely staying on his feet.

Without Lylothia’s stat boosts, he would’ve been a goner.“Mutinous heart, gut of poison.”

“[Strong Light Chop]!” Again, the Chosen’s voice altered itself. The name of the attack—the Skill—thrummed with power.

So did the Chosen himself as his pulsating veins shone with a bright white, eye-piercing light. The veins around his raised right arm shone the greatest until it was a beacon of power that chased away the dark at the end of the limb. The shining hand cut down with a killing swiftness.

DeSean growled, stepping to the right and forward into the attack. He gave up his ruthless fatalist malice to feed the magic its emotional toll and screamed the last words of the curse, “Devour the blood, flesh besieged!”