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《Day of Wrath [Doom 2016/Eternal rewrite]》E1M7: Unto the Evil

“Exposure to the particular Argent energy signature of Lazarus Waves has three distinct types of reaction among non-demonic test subjects, identical to unshielded exposure to Hell’s reality.

Type Theta reaction. Most human test subjects, commonly around 90%, expire without further remark. This figure is slightly lower for human brains that have been extracted from their bodies, more so if these have been transplanted into other human bodies, robotic chasses, or chimera platforms. This figure climbs to 100% in all other tested non-human life forms, save demonic. Type Theta corpses exhibit no further animation and do not resurrect as Possessed.

Type Sigma reaction. About 10% of human test subjects will mutate into Possessed or resurrect as such if perished from exposure. However, through psychological indoctrination and neural conditioning on pre-exposed subjects, the UAC has been able to raise this figure to upward of 40%. The exact nature of the Possessed depends on an individual basis, but subjects will predictably retain combat skills and tactical cognizance. Further Lazarus Wave exposure will augment their qualities and result in additional mutation.

Type Omega reaction. An extremely minuscule proportion of human test subjects, less than .1%, will not only survive direct exposure but [DATA EXPUNGED – See Report File ‘Hercules Complex’ 1]. For these reasons, Lazarus Wave exposure to subjects predicted to have Type Omega reactions is not to be attempted, and these should be immediately terminated.

1. There is no Report File labeled ‘Hercules Complex.’”

- UAC Report File “Lazarus Waves”

E1M7: Unto the Evil

“Agent, what the hell is that?”

Even with her five years of experience as an Elite Guard, Ruby had no words to describe the scene in front of them and could not answer Reeves’ question.

Having backtracked from the hangar to the hallways they’d previously escaped through, the group of survivors came across the corpses of the possessed soldiers they’d taken down, but these were greatly different from the last time they’d seen them.

The flesh from the fallen soldiers had begun to spread across the interior of the Mars Base, throbbing crimson tissues creeping from the shattered armors and snaking along the clean white surfaces, dendrites and miniature tendrils waving in the air. Even the blood splatters on the walls were spreading like a vicious mold.

“The dead demonic tissue must be reacting to the breached Tower,” she surmised.

And to the three demon lords now on this planet.

“I don’t know what this means. I’ve never encountered anything like this before.”

“Really?” Rogers asked in surprise. “Not even as an Elite Guard?”

“There’s never been a Category Four breach on Mars before. There’s no precedent for a situation such as this.”

And the only Cat Three breach was before my time.

Romero spoke up. “So what do we do now?”

“…Whatever this growth is, it’s bad news for us. Stay clear and definitely don’t touch it.”

She thought back to the corruption spreading across her pulse rifle, and on her own hand.

“Oh God,” Reeves commented while covering her mouth. “It smells.”

Even through her helmet, Ruby could smell the rancid stench of decomposition in the air, filling her nose and hanging in the back of her mouth. It smelled like vomit.

“That’s not just its own stink, it’s releasing something into the air.” Romero surmised. “If we don’t hurry, soon we might not be able to breath.”

Or worse, that’s not poison it’s releasing but spores.

“There’s a weapons division in these labs not too far from here. We head there, get some supplies, and figure out a route to the teleporter deck.”

Her eyes fell upon a portion of the Hellish growth spreading from the corpse of a soldier. The skull had been fractured to reveal pinkish-white brain matter, but the face was likewise a disfigured red mess melted onto the floor. A single white eye lay on the surface of the palpitating tissue, gazing intently at Ruby.

She gulped.

“And we move there fast.”

* * *

The Slayer landed hard on the floor of the Mars Base, sticking the landing and cracking the glowing transporter panel with his knee.

The change in sensations was undeniable. The reality he now resided in was far more stable and physical than the chaotic nightmares of Hell. Low gravity, frigid temperature, carbon dioxide atmosphere.

The Slayer never imagined he’d be glad to be on Mars for once.

An incoming transmission beeped on his HUD. It was Hayden.

“Incredible. I reactivated every available transporter resource in the Base and brought every teleporter array online, hoping against hope that you would find your way back. I thought the chances of you returning were mathematically impossible.

But you did. I imagine you must have fought through many a difficult battle to return here. Welcome back.”

The Slayer ignored the two and stood up. He stood within a loading dock filled with barrels, tanks, and crates of equipment, the breached wall-to-wall window with a view of the Martian Spaceport.

The nightly landscape was incandesced with the amber glow of a thousand fires burning throughout the multi-tiered surface, blazing on the flat tarmacs, control towers, and metallic husks of a hundred scorched ships. Most were small- to mid-sized atmospheric vehicles or landing shuttles, though the Slayer could spot the shape of fighter ships and larger frigates among them. A number of mostly intact ships could be seen taking off from the surface, and he could spot the faint glow of others high in the night sky. There were other points of light blazing across the sky like shooting stars, launching missiles and dropping bombs onto the surface. Hunter drones.

“Though the situation is most dire. The Fracture has been breached, and the demons now stake their claim on Mars. The automated defense systems are engaging the enemy but they will not hold for long. The Hell portal must be shut down.

With the Argent Tower destroyed, the Fracture can no longer be closed from this side. The Hell energy location flows from location in their world we call The Well – a nexus that is completely inaccessible to direct transport. We’ve detected the signatures of three minor and two major demon lords exfiltrated onto this planet, entities that the UAC does not have the capacity to neutralize. Though I imagine that won’t be a problem for you.

I have evacuated most of the remaining spacecraft and self-destructed the rest, but there is some difficulty because of the system lockdown, and there is foreign interference present upon the network. Which can only be demonic in origin.”

The Slayer could sense them. Their presence was thick upon the unseen layers of reality, relaying commands to lesser infernal minds and spreading ruin and distortion throughout the physical world. He closed his eyes and reached out with Farsight in an attempt to locate them, letting space and time unfold before him.

His mind quickly became overwhelmed with countless images of barren terrain and desolate compounds, saturating his vision in a kaleidoscope of rock, glass, and blood. Teeth and claws, flesh and metal, but no demon lords. The Slayer frustratedly silenced his Farsight.

Useless power. Even if his mind had recovered its focus, Farsight had never been the Slayer’s specialty, and the demon lords were surely concealing their presence to avoid detection.

Something small. How long had passed since the Argent Tower was breached? If Hayden was still evacuating the shipyards, then surely the Tower was breached recently. He closed his eyes once more and cast his sight towards the past.

The escaping ships returned to ground and the smoldering blazes gradually vanished. His gaze soared past the shipyards, Martian plains, and abandoned sectors of the Mars Base before arriving at the breached Argent Tower, a fiery shattered beacon of infernal energy letting loose innumerable hordes of demonic beasts upon the red planet. The Tower reverted to its whole and unruptured state before exploding in a blinding eruption of flame and light.

Fifteen minutes. A grand sum of fifteen minutes had passed on Mars between the destruction of the Argent Tower and the Slayer’s return. He had certainly not spent just fifteen minutes in the Kadingir Sanctum, but then again, such was the nature of interdimensional travel. The feat of returning to Mars was impressive enough, but to do so within such a short period of departing?

Perhaps he could stop this invasion after all.

“VEGA is trying to access Olivia’s files. If you can get to the nearest terminal, we will provide you with information. That’s all for now.”

He had to keep moving. He turned around and set off into the facility while equipping the super shotgun and bringing up his automap, looking for the nearest computer terminal. A sudden burst of electronic warbling prompted him switch off the automap, and the Slayer turned the corner to find himself before a group of six sleek chrome robots standing in the middle of the hall, with glowing blue circuitry and carrying light arms such as combat shotguns, phase rifles, or HARs.

“DOOM MARINE IDENTIFIED,” one spoke in a low metallic voice as he came into view, and the Slayer readily raised his weapon.

the talking computer spoke up.

The Slayer scowled but lowered his weapon. Besides turning when he arrived, the droids did not react to his presence and remained idle, occasionally warbling and repeating vocal phrases in the same computerized tone.

“READY.

AWAITING ORDERS.

NO THREATS DETECTED.”

A new sound fell upon the Slayer’s ear, a thin whisper of hissing static. He would have brought up his automap to check for nearby movement, but he could already see the faint shadow slowly gliding towards him, a low figure in the dim corridor directly ahead.

The figure stopped on the edge of light and darkness, and the Slayer could just make out a small levitating ovaloid of dull black metal, with no external features save an array of large asymmetrical glassy optics on its surface, unblinking and glinting faintly with the ceiling lights.

“NO THREATS DETECTED.”

Neither he nor the figure moved. The Slayer could see the transmission icons of Hayden and the computer idly pulsating on his HUD – no doubt waiting to see what happened next.

Keeping his sight on the unidentified object, the Slayer discretely signaled his Praetor Suit to identify.

…SCANNING…

ERROR: ENTITY IS SHIELDED

CANNOT SCAN WHILE ACTIVE

Just as the Slayer tightened his grip on his shotgun, the white noise emanated from the object grew in intensity and the UAC droids jolted in alert, their circuit lights changing to yellow as they assumed combat ready positions.

But not towards the object.

“DROP YOUR WEAPON,” one droid instructed the Slayer. “YOU HAVE FIVE SECONDS TO COMPLY.”

Only some of the droids held their guns towards him. The rest spun around bewilderedly as they searched for a target.

“POTENTIAL THREAT DETECTED. SEARCHING. POTENTIAL THREAT DETECTED. SEARCHING.”

“OPEN FIRE.”

The combative droids opened fire on the Slayer, their flimsy attacks clinking or fizzing harmlessly on the Praetor Suit to leave his HEALTH completely untouched, but he did not react yet. The ovaloid object had not changed its status since first appearing, and he needed to know what it was.

“HSSSSSS!”

The white noise spiked into a shrill buzz as the black ovaloid suddenly rushed down the same direction it’d come from while cloaking itself, losing visibility until becoming a dim shimmer that quickly vanished, but the droids immediately recoiled and contorted while releasing harsh metallic growls, and their circuitry lights became a sinister red color. They turned and raised their weapons at him once more.

“DESTROY THE SLAYER.”

He raised his eyebrows.

PEW PEW PEW PEW! ZAP ZAP ZAP ZAP! POW! POW! POW!

The droids opened fire and the Slayer winced out of reflex as their attacks pierced through Praetor Suit and ticked away at his HEALTH. 96. 92. 88.

Normal machines would never be able to hurt him or his armor. The droids were being augmented with demonic power!

Diving into action, he raised the super shotgun and fired it at the droids. The closest four droids exploded in a cloud of shrapnel as the buckshot tore them to bits, and strafing around the incoming projectiles, the Slayer reloaded the weapon and killed the remaining two with explosive slugs.

The droids hadn’t been much stronger than zombies, but the Slayer was concerned. The UAC had built autonomous machines of war, and the demons knew how to hijack them.

Plus, now they knew he was back on Mars.

Nothing he could do about that now. He had to find the controlling ovaloid and destroy it before it caused more trouble.

The Slayer raced through the corridor and glanced down the passing hallways searching for the ovaloid object, but he couldn’t spot it. The thing had camouflage capacities and finding it by sight would be difficult. He turned on his automap and checked for movement. A group of red dots appeared ahead as another red dot rushed past them. He switched to the HAR and aimed as the dozen corrupted droids came into view.

Opening fire on the second group of droids, the Slayer paid close attention to their behavior as corrupted man-made machines. They communicated among themselves through radio frequencies and acted as a single unit, moving out of each other’s line of fire and providing cover support when others reloaded. The Slayer guessed they would resist in-fighting as well.

He shot one’s arm and it broke off, gun and all. He shot off another’s legs and the droid fell to the ground, but even crippled the droid determinedly drug itself towards him. He crushed the droid’s head with his foot and rushed towards the one-armed droid to bait it into a melee attack. The droid swung its fist and the Slayer parried it with his Bracer, staggering the droid. Moving in for the kill, he swept the droid off its feet and crushed its head against the ground, but the attack restored his ARMOR rather than HEALTH. Hmm.

Another droid aimed its shotgun at him, to which the Slayer raised his HAR and shot it with a precision bolt. The firearm exploded, killing the droid and faltering another beside it, which the Slayer finished off with a well-placed round to the head. The headless droid sputtered and fell to its knees, dropping its plasma rifle and powering down on the dirty facility floor.

POW! POW! POW! A sudden stream of heavy plasma orbs struck his back and reduced his HEALTH to 75. He let himself become careless, again. Damn it.

The Slayer turned to the source of the plasmoids and saw two droids push through the group, but these were different. Thicker with armor plating covering their components and sleek white plasma rifles in their hands, clearly combat units rather than security ones. The Slayer aimed for one of the droids’ head and fired, the bolt shattering the armor plating but not killing it. He rushed out of the way of their incoming plasmoids before aiming for the exposed head and pulling the trigger. The droid’s head burst in a surge of electricity that electrified those around it and the Slayer took the opportunity to throw a grenade into the stunned mob, which destroyed several of the weaker droids and faltered the stronger one, causing it to spin around and reveal the glowing power pack on its back. Thinking quick, the Slayer moved to a safe distance and shot the power pack, watching as the droid exploded in blue plasma that incinerated the last of the robots.

Catching a pale shimmer out the corner of his eye, the Slayer spun the HAR and shot the cloaked entity with a precision bolt, the shot shattering its outer armor and breaking its invisibility to reveal a pale fleshy interior. He loaded another bolt and fired it, gibbing the organic core with the shot.

The Slayer moved in to examine the entity’s remains with a closer look. The aura that lingered on its corpse like a foul miasma – there was no mistaking it. It was demonic.

“It was able to hijack a state-of-the-art assault platform with recursively redundant programming. This is trouble, VEGA. All UAC defense assets on Mars are now in danger of being seized by the enemy.”

“…Protect the Base, VEGA. Maintain the network for as long as you can.”

While the two consulted with each other, the Slayer prompted the Praetor Suit to scan it once more.

…SCANNING…

ANALYSIS: DEMONIC CONSTRUCT POSSESSED BY MACHINE SPIRIT; INJECTS DEMONIC MALWARE INTO MORTAL TECHNOLOGY

TIER: MEDIUM

DESIGNATION: SEEKER

The Slayer scowled at the seeker’s remains before turning to the fallen assault droid behind him. He stooped over and picked up the white plasma rifle it had carried, clearly a more modern and recent addition to the UAC’s arsenal.

M2 PULSE RIFLE ACQUIRED

MUNITION TYPE – PLASMA CELLS

PRIMARY FIRE – SEMIAUTOMATIC PLASMOID STREAM

SECONDARY FIRE – CHARGED EXPLOSIVE ORB

NOTE: PLASMOIDS ARE FASTER/STRONGER THAN THOSE OF M1 PHASE RIFLE BUT HAVE WEAKER ELECTRIC CHARGE AND COST DOUBLE AMMO

As the Slayer primed and loaded the heavy plasma gun, he glanced at the strewn components of the UAC defense droids. They were hardly impressive or worth concern – likely made to defend against minor breaches of zombies or imps – though he’d be unwise to let the demons use them against him. He kept the suit’s scanning system online; seeing how he’d be facing completely unfamiliar enemy types he’d never fought before, the module would help analyze these to better combat them.

A soft electronic chirping a few meters away drew his attention, and looking up the Slayer caught sight of a small spider-like robot peeking at him around the corner.

explained the computer.

It was a curious robot, military-green and with a notably mechanical appearance in contrast to the UAC’s usual sleek and digital aesthetic. It was tiny, with an egg-shaped head and four insectoid legs that could easily fit in the Slayer’s hands, and a single red eye gazing intently from the middle of its face.

The Slayer raised his new heavy plasma gun at the robot. If the demons were able to hijack the UAC’s defense droids, then this one might pose a threat as well. The robot immediately cowered and backed away slowly while chirping softly, shaking its head side to side.

He took aim directly at the robot’s head and placed his finger on the trigger. The robot stopped and lowered itself to the floor while looking up at the Slayer, releasing a quiet whirr almost like a whimper.

…

Ugh. He didn’t have time to destroy every last robot on Mars, the Slayer thought as he lowered the pulse rifle, to which the bot warily stood up. His priority was the demons and finding out how to close the breached Fracture. The five demon lords were the real threat, not the UAC’s droids and certainly not a tiny bot. He holstered his weapon and raced into the facility, checking his automap for the nearest computer terminal.

In the distance, the sentry bot looked on at the retreating Slayer before quietly following.

* * *

I walked through the portal and instantly emerged on the other side, stepping onto rocky ground within a dim narrow crevice, from which a smoky red sky gleamed above.

“Wha- That was it?”

I was expecting another stomach-churning rift like all the others I’d taken in Hell, but this one was nothing like that. It was almost like the teleporters back at the Base.

“Huh. That was ea-”

No sooner had the words left my mouth that a loud chittering rose all around, and a swarm of large insect-like creatures crawled over every visible surface towards me.

“Whoa shiiit!”

I raised my hands and released a flame wave, burning away a great number of bugs although the swarm kept coming. Switching to my flak cannons, I opened fire on the writhing crowd and released another wave, and another. The creatures squealed and screeched as they fell to fire and buckshot, but they seemed to never end.

Something leaped at my face, a grotesque bug the size of my head with thick clawed legs and a squirming abdomen. It scratched and bit at me, prompting my shield to trigger.

“AAAHHH!! GETOFFGETOFFGETOFF!!”

Other creatures leapt and latched onto me while I struggled to throw off the first attacker, slimy swollen creatures like overgrown ticks. My overshield turned purple and red before finally bursting, throwing off most of the creatures and loosening the grip of the large cricket-like one on my face.

“UGH! AGGHH!”

I grabbed it by the abdomen and threw it on the ground, shooting and blowing it to bits before my smoking guns ran out of ammo.

“Fly, you fool! Use your damn jump pack!”

“I KNOW I KNOW!”

I fired my jets and soared over the writhing masses, switching to my machine guns and raining explosive rounds on the horde, throwing one explosive fireball after another.

As quickly as they appeared the creatures vanished back into the shadows and left the dark crevice in silence, with only their lifeless husks and steaming fluids indicating they ever existed. I fell back to ground tense and apprehensive.

“What the FUCK was that?”

“Looks like you landed right on their nest.”

“YOU THINK?!”

I looked back at the spherical wormhole I’d taken to this place, half-considering returning to that damned maze only to watch it destabilize and disintegrate with a fading whirr, the bright shimmering surface quickly evaporating away to a dim silence.

“Of course. Why shouldn’t it?”

I took a closer look at the new location I was now stuck in. There were countless cracks and channels on the rocky walls from which more bugs could emerge, and the chasm I found myself in was very narrow and restricting in movement, at least for combat. It was probably four or five meters wide at most, and far too dim to see clearly in either direction, at least until it branched out in irregular patterns.

“I can’t see shit down here, Colonel. I don’t even know where to go. I’m climbing out.”

“You sure about this? John, those walls don’t seem too friendly.”

“Better up there than down here.”

* * *

HELIX WEAPONS DIVISION

AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

Ruby pressed her hand against the door panel, which accepted her credentials and slid open with a quiet hiss. The door opened to a clean white laboratory, and Ruby held her arm out before the group stepped in.

“We’re really not supposed to be here, so don’t touch anything, capisce? Some of this stuff’s real dangerous.”

The group grumbled in affirmation, and Ruby lowered her arm as she led the way into the lab.

The Weapons Division was a sterling clean laboratory lined with deck after deck of various firearms, surrounded by abandoned tools and automated machinery. Phase rifles, pulse rifles, and vortex rifles in various states of construction and disrepair. Standard plasma-based UAC armament. There were even ARC Cannons, an uncommon sight appropriately dubbed by personnel as “lightning guns.”

They reached the end of the deck and arrived at a processing desk with lockers and cabinets neatly tucked against the wall.

“Lieutenant,” Ruby addressed Rogers. “You and these three- um, two, patch yourselves up, scrounge up all the supplies you can, and take count. I want a clear inventory of all we have and a clean bill of health for everyone before we head to the teleporter array. I’ll go log in to the network.”

“Copy that, Agent.”

Ruby stepped away from the team both to search for the nearest computer terminal and to clear her mind. After hours of desperately trying to survive the demons and the group, her body and nerves were exhausted, and she needed a moment to herself.

She walked back from the direction they came but soon turned the corner to a different part of the laboratory, putting the group out of view as she entered a more covert section of Weapons Division.

The weapons studied there were no longer conventional firearms but strange and exotic artifacts. She entered a deck holding weapons from Earth’s past. A feathered tomahawk, a wooden club lined with obsidian razors, a sleek katana with a blade scratched and worn with the marks of a thousand battles, a mystifying axe consisting of several fused hooks, their metal black as night and carved with arcane blood-red symbols. Ancient human tools of demon-killing.

A deck of demonic weapons brought back from Hell expeditions, floating behind translucent force fields. A twisted knife made from a gnarled demon claw, a carved bronze icosahedron that occasionally produced black spikes from its vertices, a long cylindrical firearm consisting of dark ridged metal and a murky emerald at the end.

The pain in Ruby’s right hand flared up again, and she breathed deeply as she clenched her fist. She didn’t want to take her glove off and look at the infection, but she knew it was getting worse.

Ruby reached the final deck and slowed down as she beheld the artifacts before her.

A bright steel lance with switches along the handle that would trigger a plasma spearhead at the end. A broad white shield with a blue cross on its face. A longsword with white crossguard and black single-edged blade.

Relics from the human civilization of Argent D’Nur.

She passed these artifacts and stopped in front of the final deck, an experimental weapons area which seemed empty in comparison. There was a matte black military knife with a straight pointed blade and an open handle revealing electronic components. Ruby recognized its type: a neural knife, like the ones the UAC’s Blackwatch operatives used.

Huh, more like Blackwatch “butchers.”

Those soldiers didn’t serve as security on Mars, rather doing the UAC’s dirty work all throughout the Solar System. ‘From the bright blue to Neptune,’ the saying went. Virtually everything about them was classified even for Elite Guards, from their missions to equipment to identities, but rumor was they were augmented too. Probably not for fighting demons but that wasn’t their job. Not that that made their feats any less impressive, or the troopers any less scary.

Ruby had never met a Blackwatch soldier before, but she passed one once in the Lazarus Labs. That helmet….

She shuddered.

Ruby didn’t use neural knives herself. Not that she had need for them. She was more than capable of putting demons down with a gun, and she hated what they did to people. Moving on from the knife, she spotted a different weapon in the same deck. A glossy black rifle with an angular faceted surface and multi-pronged barrel, branded with the UAC logo and carrying a dark munition pack in its stock, not a standard-issue plasma pack.

Despite the branding, Ruby was not familiar with the firearm, and she could not explain the sudden chill she felt as she beheld its sinister shape. That manmade weapon terrified in a way not even the other demonic relics she’d just seen did.

She hurried on towards a gate at the end of the floor, a locked windowless steel door with additional security reinforcements. Ruby didn’t remember ever going through this door, and she didn’t know what was behind it.

She placed her hand on the panel, which loudly beeped in refusal.

“Error,” spoke the automated voice system. “Security credentials not accepted.”

What?

She tried opening the door again.

“Error. Security credentials not accepted.”

I mean, I am a relatively novice Agent, but I’m still an enlisted Elite Guard with top-level Lazarus clearance. What the hell could they be working on that I don’t have permission to access? Why wouldn’t I have access?

She took a closer look at the panel beside the door. Unauthorized tampering with UAC property was a major violation, but she didn’t imagine there was anyone left to stop her.

She broke off the entry panel with a punch and began to rummage about the exposed wiring.

What was it? Red wire on the blue chip? No, that’s for the lights. Maybe it goes to this other switch?

She connected the wire which instantly produced a loud spark and shocked her hand. She hissed and pulled it back.

Damn it. Maybe I had to pull this wire out too and press this button for three seconds? Or was it two?

The circuitry shocked her hand again and she yelped at the stronger surge, glancing at her glove’s seared plating and smoking fabric.

“YOU SON OF A BI-!”

She punched the exposed wiring in fury and stared as the components shorted out and the gate slid open, breathing deeply as mist poured through the crimson-lighted aperture.

What the hell did you just do, Taylor? Get a grip on yourself, for crying out loud, you’re gonna get yourself in trouble.

Ruby’s eyes adjusted to the room’s dim red interior, but soon widened when she saw the object at the very center.

“No. Fricking. Way.”

It was a bright red longsword floating within an illuminated suspension field, similar to the Night Sentinel one she just passed, but sleek and digital compared to the other one’s medieval stylings. Instead of white, the slimmer blade cover and crossguard were scarlet, and the single straight cutting edge was an extraordinary deep black that did not appear to reflect any light. It didn’t even look like metal. Like the strange black rifle outside, the sword bore the UAC logo.

Ruby was fascinated by the sword. Enthralled. Mesmerized.

Almost by instinct, she slowly reached for the weapon and pulled it from the suspension field, remarking at how light it felt and how it seemed to fit her hand perfectly. She ran her fingers along the edge, immediately noticing the scratches it left on her gauntlet’s plating.

What is this?

She had no idea what the weapon was, but she knew for a fact that she was taking it with her. Her combat training didn’t include sword-fighting, but she had enough skill to make use of the weapon.

At least, she hoped.

Ruby turned to the monitor on the suspension platform.

Project Bleeding Edge. Vorpal Sword? What the heck is this?

She was about to tap on the monitor when she realized she was still holding a meter-long experimental sword in her hand.

She checked the sword’s handle to see if she could somehow tie it to her belt when she noticed a discrete switch on the grip, a small single-finger trigger beneath the guard. Curious, she pressed it. Nothing happened.

Dismissing the switch, she spotted a magnetic holster on the sword’s handle and activated the emergency magnetic weapon holster on her suit’s back, bringing the sword over to it. The sword adhered to it, unusually easy to carry and access from such a position.

Wondering if the sword was built for use by Elite Guards, Ruby tapped on the monitor and brought up the latest data entries.

Titanium-tungsten alloy molding…graphene-reinforced steel blade…force field matrix…sanguimantic manifold?

She read the latest report, timestamped twenty-four hours earlier.

‘Considering the UAC’s success in the reverse-engineering of Night Sentinel weaponry, such as the ARC Cannons from their plasma spears and the latest combat-ready Vorpal model from their swords, I have suggested we shift our focus to their suits for new body armor designs, but all my research requests have fallen on deaf ears.

For some reason, Doctor Pierce assures that such work is no longer necessary, and Director Hayden seems more preoccupied with the Praetor Suit, perhaps of the belief he can replicate the Doom Marine’s impossible feats!

I even went to that tosser Betruger, ready to offer armor designs for the Revenant drones, the Blackwatch troopers, even his Nightcrawler chimeras, ready to kiss ass and make a good impression to the higherups for a reassignment, but the cunt wouldn’t even see me.

I really don’t understand why everyone suddenly has cold hands for arms tech and would rather play petting zoo with demonic bioresearch. We’re standing on the edge of an uncharted frontier of unimaginable defense technology the likes of which countless agencies would pay out of their bums for, but all these dimwits seem to care for now is weaponizing the demons! As if a retard with half a brain would buy those god-awful monsters! Why have a perfectly effective weapon that reliably makes things you point at dead when instead you can make a weapon that’s just as likely to turn around and bite your bollocks off? That has enough spice to stand out in the competitive market!

Oh, I am so fired when they go through these logs.

Eh, who am I kidding? Nobody ever reads these things anyways.

- Dr. Croshaw’

Ruby was too bewildered by the report’s implications to be shocked by its language.

The ARC Cannons were based on Sentinel spears? Nightcrawlers?

“They wanted to add armor to the Revenants? What the hell could even kill a Revenant?”

“What’s a Revenant?” Romero asked nonchalantly behind her.

Oh shit.

* * *

RATATATATAT!!

The Slayer poured a thundering surge of chaingun rounds into the erratic whirlwind zigzagging across the landing platform, which crackled with infernal energy and picked up great plumes of thick Martian dust. The scanning module on his HUD identified it as a “dust devil.”

No shit!

He switched to the phase rifle and let loose a stream of plasmoids before switching to his new pulse rifle. POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! The pulse rifle certainly had a strong kick, but it was no use. Physical rounds passed harmlessly through the dust devil and plasma orbs merely slowed it down, and it only grew larger as it gathered strength. Even if it continued to grow, he didn’t imagine it’d do more than scratch his HEALTH, but he wasn’t going to let even this measly demon follow him across the Spaceport.

His eyes fell upon the glowing vortex at the base of the dust devil, where it siphoned dust from the ground into its funnel, and he threw a grenade at it. Although it missed in the eddy’s haphazard motions, the grenade’s shockwave blasted through the dust devil, disrupting its structure and stopping it in its tracks. Thinking quick, the Slayer switched to the rocket launcher and fired a rocket at its exposed base. The explosion dispelled the base of the funnel and the demon quickly dissipated with nothing but an echoing screech that faded away into silence.

The Slayer frustratedly holstered the rocket launcher and passed through the airlock leading to a facility comms center, a nexus lined with several rows of abandoned terminals. Blood splattered many of the broken screens and puddled on the floor, drag marks leading through the doors to other parts of the facility. There was a ravaged HAR mounted on a turret pointing towards a breached gate, bullet casings littering the floor and the user – or the soggy red mess that the Slayer presumed was once the user – strewn on top of a nearby table, with infernal sigils glowing in their vicinity.

Poor bastard.

The Slayer grimaced at the morbid sight before turning away and approaching the nearest operational terminal, tapping the INITIATE SEARCH prompt on the screen.

“Olivia has an artifact in her private lab that we’ve been studying for years,” Hayden informed him as the display changed to the scene of some unfamiliar laboratory, a strange stone artifact suspended in the center of a tall circular room with ceiling-high pillars.

“I believe you can use it to find the answers you seek. It bears your Mark.”

What the hell?

His very own Mark blazoned on the surface of the large stone tablet, surrounded by smaller symbols written in some foreign demonic language. The Slayer didn’t understand the entire text – much less at a distance and unable to decipher their mystical meanings – but he could make out certain terms like “energy”, “portals”, “weapons”, “healing”, and “power unlimited.” But perhaps most worryingly, “DO NOT RELEASE” directly beside his Mark.

What was this tablet?! Who created it?! Why?! The Slayer’s mind flooded with questions as the talking computer spoke up and the display changed to a digital map of several Base sectors.

Granted.>

“You can access her Lazarus facility from the north sector of the Advanced Research Complex, about eighty kilometers away,” the cyborg explained as the map indicated a location in the Base northeast of the Slayer’s position.

Just eighty kilometers? He could easily cross that distance on foot in -

…

As a map marker appeared in his HUD for the keycard, the Slayer realized the datachip he’d taken from the deceased red guard in the Kadingir Sanctum probably had the appropriate clearance, but it’d be better if Hayden and the computer didn’t know he had it. He would have to find the red keycard indicated on the monitor, but at least that wouldn’t be too difficult.

Seeing a map station on the other side of the room, he walked towards it when he noticed a security alert flash on a nearby terminal, a system alarm flagging an unauthorized personnel entry at a certain Helix Labs. Oddly, the notification cleared almost as suddenly as it appeared, with only the briefest blip passing over the screen from one moment to the next.

Unauthorized personnel entry? Not a demonic breach, but living human personnel entering a UAC installation without security clearance? Survivors on Mars?

The Slayer made no sign of having noticed the alert as he reached the map station and tapped the download prompt before bringing up the automap.

spoke the computer,

There are very few exterior facilities between the airstrips and landing platforms, so I suggest a stealth approach to navigate the sector. Both to avoid alerting the demon lords of your presence and to avoid potential sabotage of your progress…>

What was the computer doing? It was blathering information that was either worthless, obvious, or that the Slayer already knew, but for what reason?

Suddenly, a notification appeared on his HUD as he studied the automap.

INCOMING ENCRYPTED TRANSMISSION

…DECODING…

SIGNAL ORIGIN: VEGA

Huh?

He read the message that appeared on his visor.

SURVIVOR CELL

HELIX LABS

20 KM SE

HAYDEN KNOWS

WILL DIE

SAVE THEM

<…once you have the keycard, it’ll be a straightforward path to the nearest tram station. Good luck.>

So, there were still human survivors on Mars. Hayden must have known, but it seemed he didn’t want the Slayer to know. Why?

It didn’t matter. Those people would never survive the invading legions – let alone the five demon lords now on the planet – and the Slayer wasn’t about to stop trying to close the breached Fracture.

But Hayden likely knew that too, which made the Slayer curious as to why the secrecy. Perhaps it was the nature or identity of the surviving individuals?

Sighing, he realized there was no point in speculation if he couldn’t confirm the presence of survivors and investigate them without Hayden realizing. Or the computer as well. For all the Slayer knew, it was just Hayden’s puppet and the cyborg wanted to manipulate him through it. Logging into the network was out of the question then, but perhaps his Farsight would work.

Mindlessly tweaking some system systems on the Praetor Suit to keep Hayden distracted, the Slayer reached out with his mind in the direction of Helix Labs, passing over desolate runways and barren terrain before arriving in his mind’s eye at a sterling clean installation. There were teleporter rings, the mutating corpses of zombies, a weapons lab…and five human survivors in various locations throughout the facility. Wearing basic UAC security armor, carrying light firearms, and one of them was a red guard.

Ohhh.

So that’s why Hayden didn’t want him knowing, he thought as he silenced his Farsight and returned to the Spaceport, walking over to the broken HAR turret.

Five survivors meant nothing in the face of a full-scale planetary invasion. With the data chip in his possession, the Slayer had no need for the surviving red guard, and he knew for a fact that Hayden would never let them or any of the other survivors escape the planet. Which suited him and the mission just fine.

He picked up the usable ammo belt from the HAR and was about to leave when he stopped at the door, afflicted with something he would have never thought possible: second thoughts.

No. No! NO!

He was not going to let this be an issue for him! There were three Summoners and two Barons of Hell on the planet! If he didn’t act immediately to kill them and seal the Hellgate, they’d amass a fleet powerful enough to survive interplanetary travel and reach Earth in a matter of HOURS!

And if he didn’t act to save those five individuals, now that he knew about them, they would die. And it would be his fault.

These survivors probably couldn’t even handle a few imps, and he wasn’t about to babysit them the whole way! For crying out loud, the Night Sentinels’ rite of passage alone had them face Hell Knights in a one-on-one battle to the death! With no armor and just traditional Argenta weapons!

The Night Sentinels would have saved them. They would have seen the human lives in most immediate danger and acted to rescue them. And just thinking about his fallen Night Sentinel brothers, his comrades on Phobos, how desperate and helpless they would have felt in the face of certain death, made him feel even worse about leaving the survivors to die.

Ugh. He didn’t even know if they were headed to the Spaceport. And he had wasted enough time already. Mars was lost; saving the billions of human lives on Earth was of utmost priority now. The Night Sentinels would have understood, and they would have agreed. They’d sworn a blood oath to give their lives, if need be, in the service of Argent D’Nur.

How about clearing the Spaceport then? Ridding it of demons so they might have a chance to escape?

…

Even if he killed them all, the Spaceport wouldn’t be clear for long. Sooner or later, the planet-wide legions would follow and converge on his position.

But, he had a Slayer Idol boost. If he cleaned out the Spaceport and activated the Idol immediately after, the psychic energies might repel the demons long enough for the survivors to reach the Spaceport and evacuate the planet.

…That might work. And he would lose a Slayer Idol that he might have better use for later.

He scoffed. Whatever. He could always fabricate another Slayer Idol, and it wouldn’t take too long to clear out…how many demons were in the Spaceport?

He brought up his boosted automap while checking the Calibrator component of his HUD, which listed the number of active enemies in his current sector. Three hundred fifty-two, mostly zombies and Lost Souls. There werfe a few Pinkies, Revenants, Cacodemons, and Hell Knights, but the automated hunter drones seemed to be picking those off without much trouble.

Whatever. At least once he cleared the Spaceport out, he wouldn’t feel guilty about continuing with the mission.

Whatever.

Turning to his equipped runes, the Slayer disengaged Dark Claw and equipped Lethal Force, seeing how the latter rune’s additional damage would contribute to the mission.

The corpses of all demons he killed might become hazardous to the survivors, especially in the presence of the five demon lords, but he wasn’t doing jack shit about that. He was already doing pest control; he wasn’t about to do janitor work!

Frowning, the Slayer spotted some discarded shards of armor beneath a desk and walked over to pick them up, only to watch as these revealed themselves to be metallic insect-like creatures that leapt at him and bit through the Praetor Suit, ticking his HEALTH down to 68.

Seething with fury, the Slayer ripped the demonic mimics off his Suit and crushed them in his hands before stomping on the remaining ones with his boot, smearing their greenish blood on the floor.

Sometimes, it seemed all of Creation existed just to piss him off!

Hearing a soft chirping behind, the Slayer spun around to find the small sentry bot peeking at him behind a corner. He scowled at it but stormed off into the hallway, putting the bloodstained room and confused bot behind.

* * *

“And the soldiers, they volunteered for this procedure? Awake and unanesthetized?”

“There were always plenty of volunteers. Many younger soldiers wanted that strength and power. I suppose they always thought they’d be the ones to retain their consciousness.”

“Did they ever?”

“No.”

Ruby stood at a control terminal in a security station by the weapons lab, calculating a viable route to the teleporter array while talking to Romero. She felt somewhat ashamed for having been surprised at the classified weapons deck, and for divulging top-secret Lazarus information to the gunslinger, but it was too late to take back what he’d seen.

“God. Cyborg skeletons with jetpacks and shoulder-mounted rocket launchers?

How the hell do you even come up with that?”

“We didn’t. The idea originated from our ATLAS Pilots that became Possessed.”

“ATLAS?”

“Armored Terrestrial Logistics and Attack System. The big mechs.”

“Ah, those.”

“Yup. Those Pilots are already augmented to handle the physical and neural stresses of a six-meter twenty-ton machine, and they carry advanced jump packs for use in urban combat. They’re formidable fighters even without mechs, more so when demonized.”

“Wait a minute, the UAC already owns all of Mars and its orbital space. What do you even need ground mechs and Pilots for?”

“They’re used in demonic breaches.”

“That’s a bit of overkill, isn’t it?”

“Quite the opposite, they barely stand toe-to-toe with the big ones.”

“Wait, big ones?”

Ruby thought back to mottled grey skin, grotesquely muscular bodies, and blank skull-like faces.

“Real big ones.”

“Well, did they work?”

“With some R&D, yeah. Mostly. Demons are very different from infantry, tanks, and aircraft, so the mechs needed to be custom-built, and the Pilots likewise specially trained.

We had a contract directly with the manufacturer. Amber Sun would send us specialized chasses and prime Pilot candidates, which the UAC repaid with top money and VIP client rights.”

“…This all sounds like very black-book stuff, Taylor. You sure you should be telling me this?”

“As things are, we already have a slim-to-none chance of getting off this rock. If it’s not the demons, Hayden will keep us grounded so we don’t tell Earth what really happened here.”

“Is that why you took that sword?” He pointed to the Vorpal Sword on Ruby’s back.

“Well, why’d you take that one?”

Romero rested his hand on the handle of the ancient Earth katana hanging from his belt, which he’d snatched from the weapons lab. A solemn expression fell upon him, and he spoke in a low voice.

“Where I come from, it is said that the weapon chooses its wielder, not the other way around.”

“…Do they really?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?” He said cracking a smirk. “I just made it up.”

Ruby snickered softly, raising her hand to her mouth before remembering she still wore a helmet.

“Besides, I come from a mining colony in Ceres. I’m pretty sure the deepest wisdom there was ‘finders’ keepers.’”

“Cheers to that!”

The gunslinger smiled in agreement, but it was a half-smile.

She still felt guilty for not telling him that there’d be no evac for the team, and she had hoped events could have played out differently.

“Can we agree, to be completely honest with each other from now on?”

Ruby turned to face the mercenary. Sounded like an odd inquiry, but if he was willing to make amends, so was she.

“Deal.”

The gunslinger paused before making his next question.

“So, what’s Hell like? Is it really how the old legends portrayed it?”

No. No human mind in a million years could have ever imagined the truth.

“It’s different. An entirely alien dimension. Everything we know about physics breaks down with it. There is energy and even life in it, but whatever it is, it’s not like us. It’s not friendly.”

“Hmm. I’m guessing the people of Earth used this and the other weapons back there against the Hell creatures long ago.

So the myths and religions, were they all true after all?”’

Worse.

They’re all wrong.

“Fact is always difficult to tell from myth, but, evidence does point that many historical societies did encounter the forces of Hell, in one way or another.

Whether or not the dimension we refer to as Hell is the actual Hell of legend, the inspiration behind the legend, or just a coincidentally similar analogue, is a question for the academics.”

“Like Hayden.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“And is Hayden really as pretentious and arrogant as they say he is?”

Oh, sure.

“Oh, sure,” Ruby exclaimed with a laugh.

Romero likewise chuckled, and Ruby nodded in agreement before returning to the monitor.

“I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

And there it is.

“I wasn’t here on Mars just to take out a random employee. That was my cover.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mixom hired me. They were running a heist into an Advanced Research Complex, I believe. With sleeper agents. I was in charge of extraction, keeping the getaway ship running and keeping attention off them. The operation was in a few days so I dropped by the Hospital for a check-up, and it seems the scanner room shielded us from the energy wave.

Guess my drinking problem got something right after all.”

“So, Mixom in ARC, huh?”

It wasn’t impossible, but it certainly would have been difficult to bypass the UAC’s and VEGA’s security protocols, even with sleeper agents.

Corporate warfare was nothing uncommon, particularly off-Earth and with mega-corporations such as the UAC and Mixom, but Ruby was impressed they’d made it that far. Mixom must have been playing the long game.

“Dunno why you guys were snooping around here for,” she absent-mindedly remarked. “All that stuff goes straight into our product catalog. Lots of people pay good money for the shiniest tech in the system.”

“Taylor, I think Mixom knows about Hell.”

Ruby typed for a few more moments before freezing, her brain processing and finally realizing the significance of Romero’s words.

“What?” She asked the gunslinger.

“…I’ve been on and off with Mixom for twenty-five years, hired for one off-book mission after another because of my skillset and experience.

I’m not in on everything, but I know they have something going down at a secret base in Europa.

Somewhere called Tei Tenga.

Never been there, but there’s strange rumors coming from that moon. Stuff about colony madness, mining excavations, and…a trade.”

Ruby had never heard of Tei Tenga before, but hearing the name “Europa” brought a sinking – and chilling – sensation to her gut, bringing back memories of ice and fire and explosions.

Europa? Why Europa?

It took every ounce of her will to pronounce her following words without any discernible quiver.

“Trade? What sort of trade?”

The gunslinger looked at Ruby with a harrowingly grim stare before replying.

“I only heard one thing: ‘We hand them those Revenant demons, and the Deraki give us the key.’”

A grim silence followed, punctuated only by the faint beeping from the active terminal.

Romero continued.

“I figured ‘demon’ was code for some kind of technology, a weapon or something. I never thought they’d mean actual demons.

And those ‘Deraki’…I’m guessing that’s someone on the other side.

Anyone, anything you know?”

Ruby gulped.

“N-no.”

But demons are always known by so many different names!

A trade? Did Mixom make contact with an intelligent demonic race?

Do such beings really exist?

The computer terminal suddenly beeped and whined as it received an incoming transmission, and both Romero and Ruby stepped back from the image that appeared on screen.

“Well, I’ll be…”

“Hiro-!”

“This has gone far enough, Agent Taylor,” declared Samuel Hayden.

* * *

I climbed the walls of the rocky crevasse I found myself in at a steady but wary pace. Through careful bursts of my jump pack, I thrust myself upwards while ensuring I landed on solid footing and didn’t disturb any of the free-standing rocks hanging near the edge. I didn’t want to cause a rockslide or wake something unpleasant up.

The fact that the chasm was as still and silent as a grave only added to my tension.

“You’re almost there. Just one more jump and you’re out.”

“All right, give me a moment. I want to check it out.”

“Copy.”

Instead of jetting out the chasm, I pulled myself onto the edge and cautiously peeked over the surface.

I gazed upon a barren desert composed of rolling hills and dunes of dark arid soil, with sharp rocky crags occasionally rising from the ground and deep cracks marking its surface in every direction. Small red fires burned across the scorched land, the ghostly vapors dispersing the only light, and the sky was thick with smoke and ash.

I turned in the other direction.

“Oh, shit!”

Through the smoke and murky sky, I could make out the outline of a massive object casting its shadow on the surface. There was no way for me to deduce its size, but it must have been giant. Probably an entire mountain suspended above the surface of this damned inferno.

“My God…John, this is incredible! That is the location of the gate I’ve been directing you to all this time! Those aliens back at the labyrinth really pulled through! They brought you all the way here! That is your ticket home!”

“Wait, you’re serious? That thing will take me back home?”

“YES!”

“But…that thing’s floating miles above the ground! I have a jump pack but not wings! How the hell am I getting up there?”

“You let me worry about that. Your job now is to cross this desert and head towards the gate.”

I scanned the desert for movement. The landscape was mostly plain with very few obstructions from the dunes or rocky crags, but the smoke was incredibly thick, and I felt reluctant to climb out of the chasm. I slowly holstered myself over the edge and pulled one leg onto the black soil.

THUMM. THUMM. THUMM.

I began to feel deep reverberation rumble through the ground as soon as I climbed up to ground level.

Footsteps.

THUMM THUMM THUMM THUMM-THUMM-THUMM!!

Feeling the rumbling speed up, I heard something large and heavy charging across the surface in my direction.

“AAAHHH-!”

I quickly let go of the edge and dove back into the chasm but lost my footing in my frenzy and loudly crashed down the walls to the bottom, landing hard on rocky ground. I was dazed but unhurt, and looking up I caught sight of a large shadow loom over the opening and a single bright red eye blazing with Hellfire peer down at me from above.

“RAAARRR!!”

As quickly as it appeared, the thing ran off and vanished, and I panted heavily trying to calm my nerves.

“I knew it was too good to be true.”

“T-that thing…ugh, that thing was huge. I can’t, I can’t go up there.”

“No, you can’t. You’ll have to cross the desert from down here.

With the rest of the bottom feeders, it seems.”

I gulped and pulled myself up, heading in the direction of the hanging shadow in the sky.

“I’m fine with that. Like I said, better down here than up there.”

* * *

Line up a precision bolt. POW! Three zombies down.

One grenade, two grenades. BOOM! BOOM! Seven down.

Switch to pulse rifle, charge an explosive orb, release. POWW! Five down.

Switch to HAR, aim scope at soldier’s plasma rifle. POW! Only one down but fresh plasma ammo.

The Slayer rushed through the Spaceport’s runways, shooting at every demon in sight and occasionally glancing at his automap to check for nearby enemies as he made his way to the runestone marker and the weapon icon not far behind.

The first marker lay in the center of a large flat tarmac, a completely exposed clearing with no cover or landmarks besides a single crashed fighter ship from which the signal originated. Glancing at his automap for enemies, the Slayer checked his surroundings and made sure they were clear before sprinting towards the marker, intent on staying as inconspicuous as possible before reaching the red keycard. He couldn’t risk bringing the entire planet onto his position and compromising his access into the Lazarus Facility,

He arrived and ducked behind the smoking ship, a small jet-like craft bearing marks of demonic lightning attacks, likely from the Summoner he’d slain back at the Argent Facility. The cabin was empty and the pilot nowhere to be found. The Slayer approached the front of the ship where the runestone lay, coming face-to-face with a strange honeycomb object composed from hexagonal ceramic tiles and casting a warm amber glow. The Summoner’s attacks must have produced the runestone from the spacecraft’s heat shielding.

RUNE ACQUIRED – GODSPEED

RAMPAGE PRODUCES DAMAGING TRAIL AND AREA OF EFFECT

The rune might prove useful in wide spacious areas such as the Spaceport, the Slayer thought as he swapped his currently equipped Boiling Blood rune for Godspeed, feeling their symbols flash in his mind as they left or came into effect.

Satisfied, the Slayer raced out of the exposed runway and headed for the weapon marker, running around a wrecked frigate’s service tower and finding a security droid squad near an abandoned military LUV, shooting at several encroaching zombie workers.

“DEMONIC PRESENCE DETECTED. BEGINNING TERMINATION.”

The droids could handle a few zombies, but the Slayer was more interested in the weapon icon marked on the LUV. He took a few steps towards the vehicle when he heard a faint hiss from around the corner, a thin raspy static. The low dark figure of a seeker hovered into view and whirred in alarm upon sighting the Slayer, turning the security droids’ circuitry lights from blue to yellow.

His heartbeat immediately spiking, the Slayer focused a Blood Punch and released it on the seeker, eviscerating it with the blow and sighing in relief as the droid’s lights turned back to blue.

Walking to the LUV, the Slayer switched to the M1911 and put down the last few zombies with well-placed headshots.

“NO THREATS DETECTED. READY. AWAITING ORDERS.”

Climbing onto the vehicle’s tailgate, the Slayer took a moment to inspect the shielded firearm mounted on the artillery seat.

A railgun.

An actual, by-God, man-made, manually operated railgun. A sleek silver weapon over almost two meters long with black handles, two shiny parallel rails, and a centrifugal force chamber.

The Slayer had used similar weapons before, though always of extraterrestrial or demonic origin. Such designs tended to suffer from insufficient power and inadequate durability, not to mention user safety. The armored shielding on the barrel was likely to protect the user from the weapon discharge as much as from incoming attacks, but if there was anyone who could figure them out, it was the UAC. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about either problem once he entered the weapon into the Praetor Suit’s systems.

There were a number of small steel bolts strewn around the floor of the artillery seat. He picked one up. It was a thin needle-like flechette about ten centimeters long and one centimeter wide, with a sharp tip, smooth body, and a glowing blue capacitor on the tail end. Munition for the railgun, with built-in power supply.

Collecting the flechettes and grabbing hold of the railgun’s handle, the Slayer pried off the unneeded frontal shield and disengaged it from its mount, flicking on the power switch and watching the weapon hum to life as the force chamber spun up and began to glow a cool cyan color.

‘UAC Gauss Cannon Mk III,’ he read on the side. A gauss cannon would be a type of coilgun, not railgun, but if the UAC’s scientists didn’t care for correct nomenclature, then neither did he.

‘Try Not To Die When Firing This Beast.’

He was sure he’d manage.

GAUSS CANNON ACQUIRED

MUNITION TYPE – FLECHETTE BOLTS

PRIMARY FIRE – PRECISE SEMIAUTOMATIC SHOT

SECONDARY FIRE – SIEGE MODE; WIDE AOE AND PASSES THROUGH ENEMIES

NOTE: WEAPON HAS SIGNIFICANT RECOIL THAT MUST BE COMPENSATED BY USER

The Slayer turned to the distance. There was a resource stache in a nearby service tower, which was filled to the brim with zombies. He would drop in, clear house, and restock before heading towards the final sector of the Spaceport, which contained the target keycard. Ready to move on, he climbed down to the LUV’s trunk when he noticed a large bullet-shaped mortar shell on the floor of the bed. He was about to kick it out of his way when he spotted a startling triangular symbol on its casing.

It wasn’t a mortar shell; it was a nuke.

A small-scale tactical shell rather than a large-yield bomb that would reduce half the Base to cinders, but there was no doubt about it. Even without the nuclear symbol on both the round’s casing and his HUD, the Slayer could sense the unmistakable radiation emanating from the shell.

His surprise replaced by curiosity, he cautiously picked up the reflective silver warhead.

A goddamn nuclear artillery shell. What would the UAC even use it for? Ship-to-ship space combat? Excavations? Demonic breaches? Even a single Summoner would already be immune to nuclear attacks. The only practical antidemonic applications of such a device for the UAC would be against large swarms of imps or zombies, or maybe as a last resort against Hell Knights.

He tapped the warhead’s casing, listening to the faint chink chink produced.

In any case, he’d definitely make better use for the round than the UAC ever did. He signaled the Praetor Suit to enter the shell into its storage matrix. Perhaps he could use it as special ordnance.

ERROR: SELECTED MUNITION IS TOO LARGE TO CURRENTLY INGRESS INTO STORAGE MATRIX

MATRIX MUST BE REPAIRED OR UPGRADED

Oh, for FUCK’S sake!

“HSSSSSS!”

“DESTROY THE SLAYER.”

Immediately looking up, the Slayer laid eyes on the squadron of security droids, now possessed and glowing red, converging towards the LUV as a horde of zombies and imps, Pinkies and Revenats, Cacos and Hell Knights warped into the clearing, the culpable demonic seeker hanging far behind the mob. The construct must have found him as he contemplated the mini nuke and notified the demon lords of his position.

The Slayer was about to equip his rocket launcher and leap into action when he remembered he still held a nuclear artillery shell in his hands. He looked down at the warhead, then back at the horde.

* * *

Romero unsurely backed away from the imposing transmission of the on-screen cyborg, but Ruby held her ground and advanced towards the monitor.

“You bastard, it was you! You’re the one that did this!”

“I can assure you; I did no such thing.”

“I don’t believe you! You’re the one that got everyone on this rock killed, and now you want to kill us too!”

“This bickering is pointless. Soon the demons will completely overrun the planet, and there will be nowhere you can hide from them.”

“Don’t listen to him, Hiro. We’re getting out of here. Do you hear that, you bastard?! We’re getting off this planet!”

“By venturing into the lower decks of the Helix Labs and teleporting to Lazarus? I can think of no course of action more foolish or irresponsible than that.”

“Why did you even call, you fucker? Are you trying to gloat? Enjoying our misery from your bunker or escape pod or wherever you are?”

“I called to give you the only piece of advice I can offer: Accept your fate. Stop trying to escape, and stop deluding yourselves with the illusion that you will survive.

Do yourselves a favor, and put yourselves out of your own misery. Suicide is a preferable alternative compared to the end that awaits you.”

“Always the philanthropist, aren’t you?” Ruby hissed. “Always working ‘for the greater good,’ ‘for the betterment of mankind.’

Lots of betterment that happened here.”

“What happened here is a grave tragedy, beyond anyone’s control, but it’ll all be for nothing if Earth isn’t warned and prepared for what is to come.”

“Atop a mountain of corpses, including ours.”

“A terrible but necessary sacrifice. What Earth needs now is a hero, and that is a burden I will solemnly accept.”

Ruby felt sick to her stomach. At the carnage that had happened, at Hayden’s indifference to it, at his arrogance, and at his willingness to leave them to die just so no one would tarnish his image of a savior.

“Well, I have good news for you, Doctor Hayden. We’ll save you from that heavy burden. We’ll get off this planet, we’ll make it back to Earth, and we’ll tell the whole wide world what really happened here.

We’ll tell them that you found a dimension of unfathomable evil and exploited it for your own gain. You used its power to create weapons and monsters, sacrificed countless lives to it, and worst of all, you let it in to slaughter an entire planet full of innocent people.

If the world really needs a hero, Director, I can assure you, it WON’T be you.”

The cyborg looked down ever so slightly. Ruby thought he almost looked disappointed.

“I admire your will, Agent Taylor. It always drove you to excellence, made you a great soldier and an even better Elite Guard. But now, it will only bring you suffering, both to your companions and to yourself.

I cannot help you, and I cannot save you from what’s coming.

You have my sympathies.”

The monitor cut to black as the transmission abruptly ceased, and the facility immediately blared with a flashing red alarm.

“DEMONIC PRESENCE DETECTED.”

“What’s going on?” Inquired Romero.

“We need to move! Get back to the group!”

Both of them raced down the hallway to regroup with the others, past the ancient human weapons that burned with bloodlust and the demonic relics that shook violently behind their containment fields.

“Rogers! Amanda!” Ruby called out.

“Agent! What’s going on?”

“ROOAARR!”

Something roared nearby. A harsh, guttural, feral roar.

“Our position is compromised; we have to move! Did you pick up the supplies?”

“Yes! We have ammo but we’re running low on med packs!”

“Good enough!” Ruby yelled as she unholstered her pulse rifle and tossed it to the floor, the corruption spread further and faintly smoking. She grabbed a fresh pulse rifle from the deck, primed it and loaded a fresh plasma pack before flicking its barrel light on.

“Go, let’s go!”

Ruby took the front and led the group out of the weapons lab and back through the winding corridors of Helix, the gore and blood splatters that marked the hallways appearing black under the strobing red lights.

“Whoa whoa whoa stop!” The gunslinger held his arm out in front of Ruby, and the team skidded to a halt in front of a convulsing corpse of a fallen soldier, whose glistening fleshy tissue had spread across the floor and adjacent walls. The flesh on top of the corpse burst off into bulbous growths that floated in the air, holes spreading in their front to reveal mouths full of sharp yellow teeth.

“HSSSS!”

“Shoot!” Ruby yelled. “Shoot them!”

POW POW POW!! PEW PEW PEW!! ZAP!! ZAP!!

The team opened fire with their various firearms, shooting down several of the flesh spawns but the creatures were tiny and darted between their bullets, closing the distance and latching onto their armor.

“Ugghh!!”

One of them landed on Ruby’s arm. She ripped off and crushed it with her other hand, glancing at the tiny bitemarks the thing had left on her suit. Romero pried several off his chestplate and Rogers even ripped one off his exposed neck, but the team had no time to stand still.

“Keep moving! Keep moving!”

“ROOAARR!”

They fled past the corpse and passed through an open gate, the sign BIOTECH RESEARCH DIVISION hanging above the door. They entered a deck lined with translucent stasis tubes on the walls, containing dark shapes barely visible behind the fog on the glass. Some of the tubes were cracked and had released thick red tissue onto the floors and walls, which unfurled into long thin tentacles as they approached.

“Taylor, look ou-!” Romero yelled before being thrown into a wall, a long seared crack on his armor where a tentacle had slammed him.

“Hiro-!” A tentacle whipped out and wrapped itself around Ruby’s ankle before pulling her off her feet and dragging her down the corridor.

“AAAAHHHH!!”

She pulled her pulse rifle to the front and desperately fired, blindly shooting to free herself but to no avail, and she was just wasting ammo.

Wait, the sword! The sword!

She reached over her shoulder and pulled the Vorpal Sword free before reaching forward and slashing at the tentacle with it, cutting it in a single swipe. The bleeding tendril retracted with a sharp hiss and Ruby clambered to her feet back to the group.

“Help! Help!”

The other team members were desperately fighting off the tentacles as well. Reeves was trying to pull the tendrils off a bound Romero, and Rogers was desperately clutching at the tendril wrapped around his neck and chest.

Quick as lightning, Ruby raced toward the group, hacking and slashing at every flailing tentacle that crossed her path and noticing a distinct red aura beginning to form around the base of the black blade. Reaching the team, she raised the sword and hacked the fleshy ropes off Rogers, careful not to strike the lieutenant. Rogers raised a free hand and pulled the severed tentacles off himself, gasping deeply as he rubbed his sore neck. She turned around and stabbed the sword into the tendril holding Romero down, reaching out and pulling the mercenary to his feet.

“ROOAARR!!”

It’s right on top of us!

Something rumbled nearby, and the team raised their eyes to see a large hulking shape break free from a stasis tube on the far side of the corridor. A hulking figure about the size of a person with scaly green skin, three brawny arms, and two red humanoid heads.

“What is that WHAT IS THAT!” Yelled Reeves from the back.

Rogers responded.

“SHOOT IT!”

PEW PEW PEW! POW POW POW!

The four of them opened fire, but their bullets bounced off the demon’s skin and their plasmoids sputtered harmlessly on contact, only slightly slowing it down. The creature growled and stomped heavily towards them.

“It’s no use!” Shouted Romero. “We have to fall back and find a way around this thing!”

“This is the only way to the teleporter deck!”

Ruby raised her rifle at one of the demon’s heads and pulled the trigger. The plasmoid hit and burst against the tender red flesh, searing tissue and splattering blood on the wall. The demon stopped and roared in pain,

“Aim for the heads! That’s its weak spot!”

The group turned their guns to each of the monster’s heads, prompting it to raise its arms in an attempt to shield itself.

“ROOAARR!!”

Suddenly, the beast lowered its posture and charged violently at the group with arms over its head.

“MOVE! GET OUT OF THE WAY!”

The team scattered to avoid the demon’s attack, and as it charged past them and slammed into the wall, Ruby spotted two tumorous growths on the creature’s back.

“It has red tissue on its back! Shoot at that if you can!”

The rest of the group clambered to their feet and fired at the creature’s exposed back as it pulled itself free from the crater in the wall.

“ROOAARR!!”

The demon turned around and spit a long black harpoon-like tongue at Ruby’s head, which only barely grazed her helmet.

“Look out!” Shouted Rogers. “Don’t let it impale you!”

The other head spit another tongue at the lieutenant, which struck his forearm and pinned it to the wall.

“AAAAHHHH!!”

Ruby loaded a fresh plasma pack and turned the pulse rifle at the monster, but it charged towards Rogers and Ruby couldn’t risk hitting him with the splash damage. She slung the rifle around her shoulders and drew the Vorpal sword.

Rogers desperately tried to free his pinned arm while shooting at the demon with his phase rifle, but the demon knocked the rifle out of his hands and withdrew its harpoon tongue before grabbing the lieutenant with two burly arms and bringing him towards its open maw.

“AAARRRGGGHHH!!”

Ruby leapt at the monster and dug the Vorpal sword into a red growth on its back, causing the demon to roar and stumble around in agony. It slammed her into one wall and another, knocking the wind out of her but she noticed the creature’s blood being siphoned into the crimson blade, the scarlet aura growing brighter and further towards the tip.

‘Sanguimantic manifold’…Blood! The sword feeds on blood!

She pulled the sword from the creature’s back and ducked beneath a thrashing arm before slashing at its chest and stomach, the blade slicing through the thick skin and spilling blood all over the floor.

“Hiro!” Ruby called out. “Your sword! It’s weak to swords!”

The gunslinger nodded in understanding and holstered his vortex rifle, drawing his katana and charging at the demon. The monster lunged at him with a pincered claw but Romero ducked under and slashed at its stomach, the sword passing clean through the entire left side of the beast.

She swung the sword upwards and sliced off one of the arms which held Rogers, prompting the demon to drop him. The scarlet aura now reached the full length of the blade and without thinking, Ruby pressed the trigger beneath the guard as she brought it down on one of the demon’s heads, watching the sword become engulfed in bright crackling energy and chopping the head off in one blow.

“ROOAARR!!” The monster howled in agony. “ROOAAAAARRRRR!!”

The creature punched Ruby with its bleeding stump and knocked her against the wall before spitting a mass of steaming green fluid at her. She fell to the ground before the glob of acid struck where she’d just been a moment prior and began eating away at the wall.

Reeves and Romero still circled around the creature, trying to shoot at its exposed red flesh, but the demon now spit thick globs of acid in their direction. One of them struck close to Reeves and struck her arm in the splash, causing her to drop her HAR and fall to the ground in agony.

“AAAHHH!!”

“Amanda!”

“ROOAARR!!”

The monster raised a clawed foot to crush her. and Ruby quickly rolled out of the way before the foot landed and cracked the ground. Another foot stomped heavily near her, and the creature ducked to stab at her with a pincered arm, its claws sinking deep into the floor.

“Ah!”

“Taylor! Go for its ankles!”

Seeing the Vorpal Sword had gone dark once more, Ruby slashed at one of the demon’s exposed ankles, slicing its tendons and causing the creature to stumble. Romero slid towards her and brought his katana across the other ankle, cutting the other foot and bringing the demon down to both arms as she flanked the monster from the other side and slashed at its exposed back. The creature turned and shot a hooked black tongue at her, but the harpoon inadvertently struck the Vorpal Sword and bounced off a shimmering energy shield.

FORCE FIELD MATRIX! THE SWORD CAN REFLECT INCOMING ATTACKS!

Reacting quick, Ruby swung the sword and sliced off the creature’s tongue before it returned to its mouth.

“ROOAARR!!”

She leapt onto its back and stabbed her sword into one of the red growths, the blade passing entirely through the monster.

“ROOAARR!!”

The scarlet aura fully illuminating the blade once more, Ruby raised the Vorpal Sword and triggered its power slash before bringing it down onto its neck, illuminating the corridor in a electrifying red glow before slicing the head off and causing the monster to go limp, thudding heavily onto the floor as thick blood poured from its neck stumps.

Ruby panted heavily atop the dead monster, the Vorpal Sword dark once more and hanging from her hand as she struggled to catch her breath.

“DEMONIC PRESENCE ELIMINATED.”

Romero slumped against the wall with Rogers unconscious some distance away. Reeves was bent over on the floor, breathing but painfully clutching her arm.

“Amanda?”

“Burns…it…burns…”

The monster’s acid hadn’t struck her directly, but it had still managed to eat through her security suit. Burn wounds shouldn’t be treated with med packs, but she needed the wound treated immediately.

Something crashed in a room nearby, Ruby looking towards the sound of breaking glass. Turning to face her exhausted companions, she stowed her sword and grabbed her pulse rifle while heading towards in the direction of the noise.

She reached the first door in the hallway, a broken glass gate whose shards lay scattered on the floor. She passed through the empty frame and held her weapon ready, moving its light across broken scientific equipment, bloodied countertops, and multiple dead workers.

Wait…these bodies aren’t spreading in those disgusting growths…Why is that?

And my hand…my hand isn’t hurting anymore.

Something shuffled behind her, and Ruby spun around with finger on the trigger, but she gasped and froze.

White lab coat, wavy black hair, wide piercing eyes, badge of the Global Science Council.

What…what the fuck?

The woman flinched from Ruby’s rifle light and fearfully huddled away from the Elite Guard, covered in blood but breathing, unzombified, and very much alive.

* * *

I huddled behind a rock cover, staring at the hive of large wasp-like creatures which buzzed frenzily in a corner of the deep crevice. Their bodies were made from deep brown chitinous shell, but their abdomens were clear and seemed full of a bright orange fluid, which cast a faint glow in the dim pit. The wasps themselves were big, probably the size of my hands, and their hive was a pitted spiral structure that blocked the whole passage.

“What are you thinking, John?”

“I’m thinking maybe that hive is flammable. And I know wasps don’t like fire.”

“No, you’re thinking of bees. Besides, you’re in Hell, not Earth. You don’t know how these wasps will react to fire.

Those probably aren’t even wasps!”

“They look just as nasty.”

There was something crawling on the floor towards the hive, a black metallic scorpion with gnarled pincers and two sharp tails. Without warning, the waspids descended upon the scorpion and began swarming over it. The scorpion fiercely fended off their attacks, ripping waspids apart and stinging at them with both tails, but was overwhelmed and vanished beneath a wave of fluttering wings and glowing abdomens. As suddenly as it began, the swarm flew off to leave only the twitching corpse of the scorpion on the barren rock, dripping with bright orange venom.

“Oh, that’s nasty.”

“Those things attack in swarms, and that’s a whole nest there,” I whispered while slowly backing up. “It would be better to find another route aroun-

Ah!”

There was another scorpion at my foot. I stepped on it out of reflex and immediately felt an excruciating pain throughout my leg as if I’d been impaled with a white-hot skewer.

“AAHH-!”

I screamed in agony but quickly covered my mouth, realizing too late I was within earshot of the waspid hive. The creatures fluttered but thankfully didn’t react and continued buzzing as normal.

Strangely enough, the sudden pain faded to leave nothing but a faint ache and a fiercely racing heart. I stumbled back from the scorpion but quickly realized it was unmoving, and taking a closer look I noticed it was just a lifeless husk, empty and split lengthwise in half.

I checked my foot. The white armor plating was dirty but undamaged, and my overshield hadn’t even triggered.

Did I prick myself on its stingers? I just brushed against it!

Stooping down to pick the empty shell up, I briefly hesitated before cautiously lifting the shell from the bottom. Nothing happened. Picking it up, I found its eight legs were studded with sharp glinting spikes.

“That’s strange. I stepped on it with full force and it only split halfway. It’s not crushed at all.”

“I don’t think that was you, soldier. The critter must have split its shell like that when it molted. It looks like their shells are tougher than they look.”

I glanced at the other scorpion slain by the waspids. The husk seemed whole and almost undamaged, with orange venom dripping only from the gaps in the shell. They must have forced their stingers between its body segments to kill it.

I slowly reached out and passed my finger over the tip of a spike. My overshield didn’t trigger but it still felt like my finger was sliced opened and the bone pulled out with rusty pliers.

“Urrgghh!!”

I winced but clenched my jaw shut and breathed deeply as the pain faded away just as fast. I cracked one eye open. My cybernetic hand was completely normal.

“See what I told you? You never know what you’ll come across in Hell. The husk of a demonic scorpion whose shell is still saturated with its undying malice, for example.”

I took a closer look at its empty leg husks. Four on each side, with joints and lengths that corresponded to my fingers. I tentatively put my fingers inside the shell. They fit perfectly.

“No. You’re not ACTUALLY considering that, are you?”

“If this power is really in the shell, then I must be able to use it as a weapon, no? I may not be able hit too hard with just my hands, but it’s a better choice in this cramped area. At least it’ll help me keep the bugs at bay if things get hairy.”

I held the partially bisected shell in both hands, got a firm grip, and with a strong sideways motion split it in two. I fitted both hands into both pieces, careful not to prick myself with the spines.

“State-of-the-art cyber-arcane combat platform, and you make brass knuckles out of the shell of a dead bug.

What will you do next?”

I clenched and unclenched my hands. The tips of the shell’s legs made sharp claws, and the stiff tails made a spiked bar over my knuckles. I still had a free range of movement, and I would be able to use the Bronze Spear if need be.

I cackled and excitedly threw punches into the air before striking a pose.

“I’m gonna throw some hands.”

* * *

The Slayer Rampaged up the service tower’s stairways in a fiery blaze, ignoring the radioactive dust still clinging to his Suit and the mild chunk the bombshell’s detonation had taken out of his HEALTH, though it was nowhere near the size of the chunk it had taken from the Martian surface. He grinned and made a mental note to keep a respectful distance from future nuclear blasts.

His Godspeed rune ignited the air around him as he blasted through every locked gate in his path, leaving a charred trail of destruction in his wake and scorching nearby Possessed into smoking crisps.

Approaching the technician locker room which contained the target resource stache, he skidded to a halt and stopped in front of the gate, searing its metal surface with a gust of embers and superheated wind. He forced his hands between the smoldering juncture and pried the door open.

It was an unspectacular storage area lined with several rows of rusty lockers, dirty benches, and a thick layer of dust over the floor. There were pressure valves on the walls, caked shut with grime, releasing only the occasional trickle of steam. The contaminated air was still saturated with various unsavory but mundane smells the Slayer was grudgingly familiar with, and a wide window to the burning Spaceport illuminated the dust currents swirling through the air. The Slayer walked over to the nearest locker and opened it.

A combat shotgun, a wrench, and a turret mount. He shut the locker.

Next locker. A rocket launcher, a shovel – a shovel? – and a brown rucksack with spare rockets. The Slayer collected the rockets and moved on.

A worn blue baseball cap, a scratched wooden bat, and a carton of non-dairy milk substitute. The Slayer scowled and forcefully closed the locker.

Hearing a sudden high-pitched ringing at the window, he turned and found the small green sentry bot sticking to the outside of the window, projecting a red laser beam from its eye to cut an opening into the tower. The circular pane dropped to the floor and the bot squeezed its way inside before cheerfully bouncing onto the window frame, staring at the Slayer.

“This is unexpected. No other prototype has exhibited such a level of user compatibility. I’ll have to run additional tests on further versions.”

The Slayer didn’t need a fucking companion dog! He needed that red keycard and for everyone to stay the hell out of his way!

There was something held between the bot’s front legs, a crumpled white medikit. He crudely snatched the med pack from the bot and crushed it, boosting his HEALTH to 100.

Something groaned from behind the doorway, a charred zombie worker that had survived the Slayer’s blaze, slowly shambling towards him. He paid neither the zombie or the startled bot any mind.

Next locker. A murky brown bottle of liquor, a black eyepatch, and a military-green revolving grenade launcher. He pulled out the bottle and smashed it against the zombie, splattering its brains on the wall and disgustedly dropping the broken bottle before reaching in for the firearm.

The bot jumped in surprise as the Slayer tossed the weapon through the window, leaping onto the frame to look at the falling firearm.

He despised grenade launchers. Too slow and short-ranged to be machine guns, too weak and imprecise to be rocket launchers. At least he got a few grenades out of it.

More groaning echoed from the doorway as numerous zombies came into view. His annoyance rising into irritation, the Slayer was about to lunge at the demons before the bot fired its beam at them, carving precise holes through their foreheads and dropping them with keen controlled bursts. The bot then crawled through the gate towards the advancing mob, and from behind the door the Slayer could hear the sounds of laser pulses and sizzling flesh falling to the ground.

He frowned before opening the next locker.

A medical saw caked with dry blood beside a clip of medigel syringes. He fiercely grabbed the syringes and crushed them in his hand to gain 16 HEALTH before slamming the locker shut.

The Slayer heard the heavy footsteps of something large and mechanical clambering up the staircase to the locker room, and the sentry bot wailing in alarm as something violently smashed at the walls and railing.

A vein throbbing in his temple, the Slayer took a deep breath before opening the next locker, finding a large recurve knife and a sleek white-and-purple sniper rifle with a plasma pack in its stock. Although he had a distaste for exclusively long-range firearms – preferring more versatile weapons like the HAR – he picked up the rifle to collect the plasma pack when he noticed the jars of murky yellow fluid stashed at the back of the locker, several of which were shattered.

The shrieking sentry bot rushed into the room wildly firing at something behind the door.

The Slayer looked down at the rifle. Its handle and ammo pack were dripping with the yellow liquid.

In the blink of an eye he pulled the entire locker from the wall and threw it at the zombie smashing through the door, a former worker wearing a yellow industrial power loader, seared laser marks covering the branding “Grip-Ton Cargo Handler.” The locker struck the worker’s heavy metal frame and knocked it down the stairs, crashing loudly as it tumbled down and away.

A livid Slayer focused a Blood Punch and tore the door off the next locker, but relaxed somewhat upon seeing the heavy minigun besides the black munitions box. He unclenched his crackling fist and picked up the rotary machine gun. “UAC Mach 4 Minigun,” it read on the side. Like the one the red guard back at Res Ops had wielded. He had no need for the weapon anymore; it fired the exact same .50 caliber rounds as the HAR, only at a higher and hence wasteful rate, and his D12 was more than ideal for the role, but he collected its long coiled ammo belt to restock his bullet pool. He put the weapon down and opened the munitions box. A moldy sandwich and a small black electric motor. He pushed the putrid meal aside and curiously picked up the motor while signaling the Praetor Suit to analyze it.

…SCANNING…

ANALYSIS: GATLING ROTATOR

NON-UAC MODIFICATION FOR ROTARY MACHINE GUNS

OVERRIDES SAFETY RELEASE, ALLOWING WEAPON TO FIRE IMMEDIATELY WITHOUT WAITING FOR MAXIMUM ROTATION

COMPATIBLE WITH D12 CHAINGUN

Brushing off the rotator, the Slayer extracted his chaingun and began retrofitting the mod onto it.

As the Slayer worked, the sentry bot waddled in front of him and began blinking its eye intently at him. He frowned in confusion but continued his work on the firearm. The bot turned to the nearest bench and fired its laser at it, slicing through its metal bars and dropping the heavy panel to the floor before returning its gaze to the Slayer.

Wha- Oh! The bot was trying to show off its laser to him! It actually wanted the Slayer to use it! He scoffed behind the helmet, amused if in a contemptuous manner.

DELTA-12 30 MM CHAINGUN MODIFIED

PRIMARY FIRE – FIRES IMMEDIATELY WHILE SPINNING UP TO FULL SPEED

SECONDARY FIRE – PRESPINS WEAPON TO MAXIMUM SPEED WITH REDUCED ACCURACY

Hearing groaning from the other side of the room, the Slayer turned the modified chaingun to the sound’s direction and spun it up, taking in the loud satisfying whirring before pulling the trigger.

RATATATATATATAT!!

The rounds tore through sheet metal, flesh and bone, and wall with no impedance or resistance, leaving an immense smoking hole of bloody rubble in front of the Slayer.

BZZZZ!

The loader zombie reappeared in the doorway, its industrial exoskeleton battered but still whole and brandishing a wide clawed gripper on one arm and a spinning buzzsaw on the other. The Slayer switched to the Gauss Cannon and aimed at the zombie’s exposed head before firing.

PEWW!!

There was a flash of blue light and the wall behind the zombie blew out in a tremendous explosion to reveal the smoking Martian night. The Slayer had anticipated and braced for the railgun’s recoil but was still surprised by the heavy kick. The zombie itself had disappeared into a fine red mist visible through the damaged loader helmet, which stood motionlessly for a moment before stooping and collapsing lifelessly on the floor, dropping one of its electric batteries. The Slayer turned back to the bot and presented the smoking railgun to it.

Now THAT was a weapon.

The sentry bot was positively dwarfed by the Gauss Cannon, staring intently at the Slayer’s firearm before suddenly standing up and hopping over to the cracked window frame. It looked back at him for the briefest moment before leaping through the opening and vanishing into the amber haze.

The Slayer looked on in puzzlement before moving on to the next locker. A scratched tablet-like PDA, a butterfly knife, and a silver wristwatch. He was about to reach into the locker when he felt a strange premonition and turned on his Clearsight, discovering the demonic mimic disguised as the wristwatch. He irkedly snatched at the mimic, revealing it to be a crab-like critter that leapt out of the locker and tried to crawl away before the Slayer drove the knife into its back. Noticing something else in the back of the locker, the Slayer reached in and threw away the worn PDA before pulling out a small folded drone.

ECHO DRONE ACQUIRED

CREATE HOLOGRAPHIC DECOY THAT MIMICS ACTIONS AND DISTRACTS ENEMIES

…Now that could be somewhat useful. The Slayer always had difficulty concealing his presence, so distraction was often a wiser alternative to stealth.

Moving on to the next locker, he was about to open the door when he spotted the fresh blood dripping from beneath, and footprints other than his own leading from the storage area to the adjacent room on his right. The sound of a sharp metal edge grinding against the floor suddenly resonated through the doorway, along with the groan of pained raspy wheezing. The hunched shape of a flamer specialist clambered into view, dragging a bloody fire axe behind it and holding the decapitated head of a young man in the other hand. The head was not zombified. The specialist’s bright red heatsuit was torn open in several places and covered in blood, and its black full-head respirator revealed no visage or emotion.

The specialist did not react to the Slayer inside the storage area, taking a few more heavy steps before pausing and dropping to its knees, letting go of the axe and head in its hands. The figure stared emptily at the floor for another moment before pulling the flare gun from its hip, raising it to its temple, and pulling the trigger.

The incendiary grenade blew the figure’s head off, splashing the interior of the room with burning matter as the headless corpse slumped and dropped to the ground.

Accessing his weapons cache, a disquieted Slayer dropped three rockets onto the floor of the burning storage area and tossed a grenade behind him before leaping out the broken window. The explosion thundered behind him and split the service tower in two, its upper half crashing onto the rusty Martian landscape as the Slayer raced deeper into the Spaceport.

That had been a huge waste of his time.

* * *

Romero knelt beside Ruby in front of the woman. “How is she?”

Ruby removed the flashlight from her rifle and held it in front of the woman’s eyes, immediately noticing the bright golden tone of her irises, followed by the severe dilation of her pupils which did not respond to the light. The woman’s breathing was rapid and shallow, and she did not focus or otherwise react to any of the other survivors. After the initial discovery, she sat motionlessly on a stool Ruby had brought up for her, saying nothing and staring emptily into space.

“She’s in shock. She’s fine but isn’t responding to anything. It’s almost like she’s blocking out the whole world.”

“You think it’s trauma from the original attack?”

“Could it be? That was hours ago.

I’m a soldier, not a psychologist. I can tell a bullet wound from a knife wound and treat both. Whatever this is, is beyond me.”

The group huddled quietly inside the room in which they found the scientist, but the team was exposed and Ruby knew they had to move out soon.

“Agent. I’ve gotta be honest with you,” Rogers spoke up. “We shouldn’t bring her.”

“What?!” Romero yelled.

“We don’t know what state she’s in! She’s clearly rattled out of her brains and we can’t drag her along! She’s only going to slow us down!”

“We found another human survivor, you sad sack of selfish shit! We can’t leave her here to die!”

“She’s not even wearing armor! Gun or no guns, she won’t take a single hit from anything and she sure as hell isn’t gonna keep up with us! Either way, she’s going to die!”

“Why don’t we leave you here to die, you bastard?! You’d be right at home with your own people! Maybe they’ll even drag you back to Hell where you belong!”

Ruby sighed as the discord escalated behind her, ignoring her quarreling companions and keeping her focus on the scientist.

“Yup, this is what I’m stuck with. They’re good boys but can’t stay off each other’s throats.

Men, huh?”

Ruby was met with a blank stare. She reached out and softly wiped a smudge of blood from the woman’s cheek. Her face, her blouse, her lab coat were stained with it, but it seemed to be splatters rather than her own bleeding. In fact, besides her strange unresponsive state and quiet nervousness, the woman was completely uninjured.

“It’s not healthy to stay covered in blood,” Ruby commented as she browsed her pack for a medikit. “Even nowadays, people still carry nasty bugs, and if you don’t clean it off you could catch something.”

She found a medikit and opened it, pulling a roll of gauze from beside the vials of medigel.

“I don’t have a towel but this’ll work. You don’t mind, do you?”

The woman remained silent. Ruby tore a square from the roll and used it to gently wipe the woman’s face from the grime and filth.

“The attack was almost three hours ago. How did you survive that long by yourself? With no guns or armor or anything? You wouldn’t happen to be a secret combat specialist, would you?”

Ruby jested, but it seemed her joke fell on deaf ears. The men kept arguing behind her, Reeves was applying medigel to her arm, and the scientist made no indication of being aware of their or even Ruby’s presence.

She sighed dejectedly, cleaning the woman’s nose and mouth from the splattered gore.

“Look at you. When you’re not covered in blood and guts, you don’t look half bad. You’re probably the best-looking nerd I’ve met.”

Ruby brought the gauze down to clean the woman’s bloody neck when she spotted the thin chain hanging around it, holding a pendant hidden behind her blouse. She reached out and pulled the pendant out.

A simple gold cross, bearing the nicks and marks of time.

“Religious, are you? I could never get into that myself.

I guess, after all I’ve seen…it’s just a bit hard to believe that there’s a God out there.”

Ruby put the crucifix down, unaware of the woman’s tranquil breathing and relaxed posture.

“…I’m…I’m…not.”

She put the dirty gauze down and slung the pack over her shoulders before realizing the scientist had spoken.

“What did you say?”

The woman stared blankly at the floor, bearing an exhausted and somber expression.

“I’m not…religious. This belonged….to…my mother.

It’s all I have left of her.”

* * *

“Left. It’s left.”

“No, go right!”

“Ugh!”

I was caught in a crossroads between two forks in the crevice, these splitting off in opposing directions and leading to or away from the gateway, but I didn’t know which was which.

“Look, why don’t we climb back up to the surface and check our position? Pop up, get a look, and dive back down? Real quick and dirty.”

“You sure you want to do that?”

But I was already jetting up the steep walls.

“Why not? I could use the fresh air.”

With forceful bursts from my jump pack I soared to firm handholds and hoisted myself up as my fuel recharged. Before long I was at the edge of the ravine and slowly lifted myself up.

Rolling dunes of dark arid soil, rocky crags, and a thick smoky sky completely empty of any shadows or other discernible features.

“What the hell? Where’d it go?”

I looked around in all directions for the shadow in the sky, but I couldn’t find it.

Maybe it’s being obstructed by all this smoke?

“I’m gonna look around,” I said as I climbed out of the crevice. “I need to see where I am.”

“What happened to ‘quick and dirty?’”

“Watch.”

I stayed low on the arid surface while heading to higher ground, keeping an eye on my radar for any movement.

“Where are you going?”

“Just up this hill, now hush. I need to focus.”

I hurried up the dune as a mountain range came into view, but as I climbed to the peak I discovered the mountains were floating hundreds of meters above ground, a wide flat plain that stretched unbroken before me.

“Whoa whoa what the…WHOA!!”

My brain struggled to comprehend the sight before me until I finally understood what I was looking at, and I stumbled back in the weight of the realization.

What I thought was a floating mountain range was actually a miniature planetoid suspended high above the Hellscape, a rocky obloid structure that I dreadfully realized was a living entity. Giant craggy tentacles slowly writhed and recoiled from its underside, and its body was marked with great lacerated wounds and sickly gaping eyes, yellow and with horizontal beast-like pupils.

I ambled backwards at a complete loss for words, unable to keep my gaze off the entity but intent on putting as much distance between me and it as possible.

“What are you doing? You’re going the opposite way!”

Colonel Johnson’s barking snapped me out of my trance.

“What?!”

“That’s the gateway! That’s where the portal that’ll take you out of Hell is located!”

“THAT’S THE PORTAL?”

“Affirmative. You see those lights down there?”

“Lights?”

I hiked up the hill for a better look. Far beneath me in the plains, seemingly right beneath the planetoid, were a series of concentric and radiating pinpricks of light.

“Is that a…city?”

“It’s where you need to go, soldier. Head down there. That’s how you’ll get to the gate.”

Before I could reply or make a gripe in protest, a large white dot appeared on my radar display as the ground began to rumble.

THUMM.

THUMM.

I looked over my shoulder with blood as cold as ice, my eyes desperately searching for movement but only spotting a shimmering mirage and rocky spikes above the sands.

THUMM. THUMM.

A single localized mirage. I glanced at my radar and found the dot slowly pacing towards me from that direction. I put two and two together and began to back away.

“John. The crevice is that way.”

“The thing’s not as far as it seems. I have a better chance of reaching those crags behind that I do the crevice.”

“This isn’t a good idea.”

THUMM THUMM THUMM THUMM!

The dot began charging at me as the mirage faded to reveal a giant skeletal creature stomping on two boney legs towards me, with a long dark tail and a black crocodilian head with six red fiery eyes and jagged white teeth.

“OH FUUUCK!”

I bolted down the hill as fast as I could as heavy slamming footsteps gained on me and the creature snarled with Hellish ferocity. There was another deep fissure in the ground about hundred meters away, but I knew I’d never get there before the monster caught up with me.

THUMM THUMM THUMM!

“RAAARRR!!”

“Shoot the ground! Now!”

I switched to my flak cannons in understanding and unloaded them on the ground on my position, picking up a thick plume of dirt and sand. The creature pounced and snapped at the sand, but I was already racing off to the cluster of rock outcrops nearby.

“RAAARRR!!”

The creature crashed against the slab just as I darted into cover, showering me in a burst of pebbles and rubble as it bit at the crags and forced its claws through the openings. I squeezed myself as far back as I could, my new scorpion claws leaving deep gouges on the rock.

“Wait….WAIT!”

I threw a hook at the nearest claw, watching my spiked hand connect and spread crimson cracks from the point of impact.

“RAAARRR!!”

The monster recoiled in pain, pulling its talon back and giving me enough space to scamper deeper into the cluster.

“SQUEEEE!!”

“OH FUCK OFF!”

A horrific long golden spider leapt at me from a cranny in the rock, and I realized I had walked into another bug nest, but I was in full fight mode and not about to be bothered by tiny insects anymore.

I punched the spider out of the air and instantly splattered it on the rocky surface while switching to my flak cannons and killing off the others like it that were hiding in the cluster.

“RAAARRR!!”

The relentless Bonecrawler violently clawed and snapped at the outermost of the rocky crags, which broke under its weight and brought it closer to my position.

“OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT!”

“John! Your three o’clock!”

I turned to where the Colonel indicated and almost screamed. Behind a nearby crag was the decaying husk – that I thankfully realized was dead – of a giant waspid almost as big as me, a swollen and evil-looking creature that might have been a hive queen.

“What?! What about that?!”

“It might have something you can use! Work that magic of yours and make something out of it!”

I would have protested about rummaging through the guts of a giant bug but I was cornered, out of ideas and running low on options.

“Okay, I’ll check it out!”

I raced over to the wasp queen’s corpse as the Bonecrawler crashed through another outcrop and scraped at the ground only a few meters from where I had been. Kneeling in front of the bug shell, I quickly pored over its husk, searching for a remarkable body part or glowing item in its vicinity.

“Come on, soldier! Hurry! No spell totem or embedded weapon? Its mandibles, its legs, its stinger?”

“Nothing! There’s nothing!” I tore a clawed spear-like leg free from the body, but the shell was weak with rot and came apart in my hands. The mandibles were too spiky to get a proper hold of, and the “stinger” was a wicked array of blades and spikes, still tainted with venom, that I was not about to put my hands on.

“RAAARRR!!”

“It’s getting closer!”

There was a row of pores lining the husk’s abdomen, and something twitched from within one. I reached in and pulled out a spiky translucent ball containing what appeared to be miniature waspids.

An egg sac.

“RAAARRR!!”

I pulled my bronze knife and stuck it into a gap between two shell segments on the abdomen, pushing the handle down until the weakened shell cracked and broke. I pried the broken fragments off and disgustedly pushed rotting organs aside until I found a hard branch-like structure holding several egg sacs, similar to a bunch of grapes.

“That’s insane! You think it’ll work?!”

“Let’s find out!”

I grabbed my knife and cut the egg branch loose before turning around to the unrelenting Bonecrawler, taking aim and throwing the egg sac in my hand at it.

“RAAAAAARRRRRR!!”

The sac burst on impact with the demon’s head, releasing a mass of miniature waspids that swarmed all over the Bonecrawler, biting, slashing, and stinging it. Giant as it was, the monster recoiled and thrashed in pain and ceased its assault, all while the wasps frenzied over it.

“Go! Go! Now’s your chance!”

I raced out of the rock cluster away from the tormented monster and into the open desert.

“Look! There’s the fissure!”

The long dark crack spread across the surface in the distance, to which I rushed at full speed towards.

“RAAARRR!!”

“John! You’ve got company!”

“I KNOW I KNOW!!”

“RAAAAA…!”

“AAAAHHHH!!”

I ducked into a powerslide and fell into the crevice, hearing a giant set of jaws snap shut inches above me.

“RAAARRR!!”

I hit the walls of the fissure on the way down and crashed hard on the ground, scratched and shaken but fortunately in one piece. The Bonecrawler violently roared through the crack, furious but unable to reach me.

“Ugly bastard.”

“Did you get it?”

I turned to the organ in my hand, a bunch of egg sacs still whole and undamaged.

“Right here.”

“And you still remember where to go, right?”

“Um…” I hesitantly pointed down the crevice in front of me. “That way?”

“Other way.”

“Right.”

* * *

Leaning from behind cover of a parked LUV, the Slayer studied a strange new type of Lost Soul through the HAR’s scope.

In contrast to all other Lost Souls he’d ever encountered, which were the demonized organic heads of human beings, this one appeared entirely synthetic. Its metallic structure possessed small rocket engines on its back and bottom, which produced bright yellow flames to keep it aloft. Instead of a skull complexion, it had the upper half of a blank face and a lower jaw mounted beneath, both appearing made of ceramic, out of which long needle-like teeth stuck out of.

Where did these new Lost Soul variants come from? Augmentation from the UAC or demonic construction? The Slayer had no idea.

The Cybersoul was one in a swarm of six, and the Slayer watched as they fought a trio of white UAC aerial drones, each little more than a plasma rifle mounted beneath a circular levitation apparatus. The drones fired persistently at the Lost Souls, but these were faster and swerved around their plasmoids while taking great bites out of their metal frames. The drones managed to shoot down two of the Cybersouls and landed several hits on another, but the damaged demon avoided their fire and charged at the nearest drone while blazing brightly, exploding and tearing the drone apart. Another Cybersoul bit down on a drone’s rifle and split it in two, causing it to explode, while another opened its mouth and shredded the remaining drone with a stream of white-hot shrapnel as fast and hard as automatic rifle rounds.

Interesting.

The Slayer equipped the rocket launcher and aimed it at the demons before pulling the trigger and firing a rocket into the swarm, remotely detonating it and killing them all in the blast.

But still nothing more than worthless Lost Souls.

A distant POW cracked in the distance, almost like the firing of a HAR precision shot.

BOOM!! The Slayer flew backwards as the LUV he leaned on exploded in a swell of blue plasma after a .50 caliber anti-material round went through the vehicle’s power cells.

23 HEALTH gone, down to 92.

Quickly entering combat focus, the Slayer landed on his feet and furiously spun around in search of whatever had fired that shot. His eyes fell upon a humanoid shape standing on top the smoldering remains of a light mech, wearing a sophisticated grey combat suit with a heavy assault rifle in its hands. Clearly not an average grunt but a specialist, perhaps the pilot of the fallen mech.

The Slayer raised his own HAR at the figure and shot a precision bolt, but the figure astonishingly dodged the bolt and fired another shot, this time at the Slayer’s head. The bolt hit and reduced his HEALTH to 78.

A demonized Pilot.

It didn’t matter. Specialized or not, it was nothing more than a zombie, and zombies had never been difficult to put down.

He headed in the direction of the Pilot, which jumped off behind the mech and reappeared running away into the plains. The Slayer followed and opened fire with the HAR. The bullets struck their mark but passed harmlessly through the Pilot, whose figure sputtered and did not cease running. Confused, the Slayer closed the distance and punched at the soldier’s back, whose body disappeared into a flurry of luminous particles as the Slayer shattered the small echo drone generating its holographic image.

A decoy!

POW!! Cracked another precision bolt behind him, which struck his back and brought his health down to 67.

The Slayer scowled in fury as his blood began to boil. He turned and raced across the tarmac towards the Pilot, which fled in the direction of a multi-leveled aircraft hangar, where his automap indicated the red keycard was located. He aimed his HAR at the zombie and fired it again, but the rounds were vaporized by the shimmering defense field around its body. The Slayer accelerated and switched to the pulse rifle before noticing the Pilot was headed towards a dead end as the ground entrance to the hangar was blocked by the wreck of a crane truck, and it certainly couldn’t outrun the Slayer on open terrain. Nowhere for it to go.

The mech Pilot suddenly shot a grappling hook from its left forearm at the vehicle’s crane and slung itself into the air with tremendous velocity, hurling itself into the third level of the hangar facility in a matter of seconds. A shocked Slayer skidded to a halt in complete dismay.

The demonic Pilot landed on the edge of the platform and turned around to look down at the Slayer. It did not have the hunched feral posture of most Possessed, instead standing up straight and composed. Calculating. Intelligent.

The Pilot held its arm out towards the Slayer and slowly beckoned towards itself. It was challenging him.

Motherfucker.

The Slayer leapt off from the ground with a powerful thrust and latched onto the edge of the second level platform, hoisting himself up as the Pilot vanished again. He stood up to find himself in front of a pack of standard Possessed soldiers. He switched to the HAR and quickly took down the squad before turning to follow the demonized Pilot. He jumped again and landed on the third platform, catching sight of the Pilot darting beneath the wings of fighter aircraft.

The Slayer followed suit and leapt into the air while equipping the rocket launcher and opening fire. BOOM!! BOOM!! BOOM!! The explosions echoed throughout the hangar as the rockets destroyed one aircraft after another, igniting their power cells and filling the air with swells of bright red flame, but the Pilot was already gone.

“ROAAARRR!!”

A trio of Hell Knights rushed through the flames towards the Slayer, followed by a pack of imps and soldiers drawn by the explosions, but he cleared a path through them with the rocket launcher and left them behind. He’d deal with them later, but first, he was going to beat the ever-living devil out of that Pilot.

The zombie shot its grapple at the edge of a breached hole in the wall and slung itself upwards, prompting the Slayer equip the Guass Cannon. He leapt and took aim before firing.

PEWW!!

The Pilot was too far and mobile a target to hit with the railgun, the bolt merely grazing its shield as the zombie disappeared behind the edge, and the airborne Slayer was thrown backwards by the cannon’s recoil. Worthless gun.

He unequipped the weapon to free his hands and leapt at the wall, digging his hands into the vertical surface and jumping again to clear the hole. He entered a dim portion of the facility occupied entirely by steel beams and scaffolding, the glowing circuitry of the Pilot’s suit visible up ahead. He equipped the HAR and fired a precision bolt, which struck a column. He switched to the rocket launcher and took careful aim before pulling the trigger. The rocket exploded near the Pilot but it fired a lateral jet from its back-mounted jump pack to sidestep and avoid the blast. The Slayer chased after the zombie, barely able to keep his footing as he raced across narrow walkways in the dim environment.

The Pilot exited the area through an open construction aperture and entered a different section of the hangar, a tall narrow area lined with the active rocket engines of cruiser ships undergoing automated test firings. The scaffolding ended and there were no traversable platforms between the active engines and the yawning depths.

Just as the Slayer raised the Gauss Cannon again at the zombie, the Pilot jumped off the scaffolding and grappled onto the left-side wall, using its jump pack to provide both lift and lateral thrust as it obliquely ran across the sheer vertical surface.

WHAT THE FUCK.

The Slayer did not stop again but chased after the Pilot, grasping once more onto the walls and leaping off to follow after it. His own jump pack was clearly a more basic model meant for simpler vertical lift, and did not have the wall-running capacities or precise controls like that of the Pilot. The zombie nimbly and almost gracefully darted between the two walls and avoided the firing engines, but the Slayer had no air control and unintentionally passed through several flaming jets, bringing his HEALTH down each time. 62. 56. 49.

His rage only escalated. This was only a zombie, a simple demonized operative with mundane equipment, and yet it was managing to outmaneuver and outrun him!

Furious, the Slayer pushed on through the flames and chased even faster after the Pilot, determined to get his hands on the zombie’s filthy neck. Looking back to the charging Slayer, the demonic Pilot flicked a throwing knife onto the wall in front of it, which erupted on impact into a small swirling blue vortex. The Slayer pounced at the Pilot with arms outstretched just as the zombie passed the gravity grenade, which exploded in the Slayer’s face. The zombie received a tremendous speed boost from the burst as its shields absorbed the blast while the Slayer lost another 12 HEALTH and was disoriented.

The two then left the test firing area and entered a wide flat service platform overlooking a docked cruiser. The demonic Pilot leapt off the walls with the Slayer in hot pursuit, who immediately switched to the Gauss Cannon for a clear shot. He aimed and fired, but the Pilot ducked into a powerslide beneath the bolt and immediately fired its jump pack as soon as it reached the edge of a platform, conserving its forward rush and effortlessly clearing the thirty meter gap to the opposite platform, while the Slayer’s firing action canceled his momentum and brought him to a halt.

The Pilot had ceased its fleeing to turn around and face the Slayer, who steamed both from heavy heat damage and rage alike. He had more than 100 HEALTH before encountering the zombie, now he had 37, whereas the Pilot was entirely untouched. It could anticipate his attacks and utilize the environment against him, and it was only a zombie.

Something stepped out from the fog behind the Pilot, a group of four Revenants. They shrieked and jerked in contrast to the Pilot’s quiet calmness, which raised its arm up and brought the other demons to silence. The Revenants were a meter taller and undeniably tougher than the shorter zombie in front of them, but they fell back under its command, staring with deathly intent at the Slayer. The Pilot held a fist towards the scorched Slayer, stuck the thumb out, and pointed it down.

When he got his hands on that Pilot, the Slayer thought, he was going to reduce it to fucking atoms.

The operative turned around and disappeared into the darkness, leaving the Slayer with four Revenants on the other side of the gap.

There was no way he could reach the Pilot in time. To jump the distance he’d need too much of a running start, and if he hovered across with his jump pack he’d just make himself an easy target for the Revenants. He could probably take them out with a single siege blast from the Gauss Cannon, but the recoil would be…

The Slayer thought back to all the times he fired the railgun and was thrown back by its incredible force.

…The recoil would be just what he needed.

He took a few steps backwards before charging towards the edge and leaping off, immediately turning around and firing the Gauss Cannon into the air behind him. The railgun’s recoil threw him forward across the gap and directly into one of the Revenants. Without a pause, he dropkicked the demon to break his landing and killed it with a railgun bolt to the face. He turned to the two on his right while charging up a siege blast.

PSHEWW!!

Two flechettes were ejected from the railgun’s side as the weapon spent their capacitors to supercharge a single third flechette, which shot out through the rails at supersonic speeds and explosively atomized the Revenants’ power cores, showering the area with flaming viscera. He turned to the last Revenant beside him while brandishing the chainsaw, sawing into the screaming demon’s exposed abdomen to recover ammo before charging a Blood Punch and releasing it unto its chest. 51 HEALTH. It would do.

He switched to the HAR and rushed into the darkness after the Pilot, bringing up his automap to locate it. There, fleeing away in the level below. He dived below through an open grating and Rampaged in the direction of the zombie, turning on his Clearsight and spotting it some distance ahead in a maintenance deck. He looked through the HAR’s scope and lined up the crosshairs before pulling the trigger, noting the Pilot’s keen reaction by sidestepping the shot and fleeing into the complex environment.

He understood. The Pilot’s equipment likely included omnidirectional sensors to alert its user of incoming projectiles or tracking sights.

Then it was time for some quick scopes!

He followed the Pilot and centered his HAR on it and brought up the tactical scope just long enough for the crosshairs to become visible before pulling the trigger. Successful hit. The bolt struck the Pilot and was vaporized by its shields, but these lost some intensity and clearly took damage.

The Pilot looked upwards and shot its grapple into the ceiling to sling itself into an elevated ventilation duct, but this time the Slayer was ready. He switched to the rocket launcher and fired at the ground at his feet while leaping, wincing from the blast but propelling himself upwards before switching to the Gauss Cannon and shooting it backwards for a forward impulse, thrusting himself into the ventilation duct hot on the Pilot’s heels.

The duct was a plain narrow shaft that winded above a surface of crackling electric circuits, but the Slayer knew now how to keep himself in the air and chase after the zombie. Unable to wall run, he grasped at the walls and leapt off as he spun around and shot the Gauss Cannon behind while on straight stretches for the speed boost, quickly switching to the HAR while in the air and quick scoping to hack away at the Pilot’s regenerating shields while the railgun cooled down.

As they reached the end of the ventilation shaft into another plain deck, the desperate Pilot lobbed another gravknife into the wall ahead, hoping it could frag boost away from the Slayer, but he equipped the rocket launcher and fired a rocket in the direction of the vortex, which was pulled into its center and exploded directly on the Pilot. With critically low shields, the Pilot jumped onto the deck and activated a trio of echo drones to distract the Slayer so it could scurry away, but he wouldn’t be fooled twice. The holographic drones had been deployed at straight angles relative to the Pilot and moved forward in a stiff oblivious manner while the actual Pilot strafed to the left and leapt onto the adjacent wall, but the charging Slayer had already pounced at the zombie, striking it and grabbing onto its feet.

He slammed the zombie back and forth across the floor and walls, shattering its body armor and throwing it through a window into the exterior of the facility. The Slayer leapt after the stunned zombie and slung it towards the ground, diving after it to land on top and crush its torso before ripping off its helmet, charging up a siege blast, and holding the whirring railgun to the demon’s emaciated face.

Say good night, asshole.

PSHEWW!!

The supercharged bolt exploded on impact with the ground in a bright plasma explosion, bringing the Slayer’s HEALTH down to 34. Three flechettes gone, almost critical health, and when the dust cleared the Slayer could see nothing of the demonic Pilot save for some shards of scorched bloodstained metal in the smoking crater.

Absolutely worth it.

The Slayer sighed in relief from the kill, putting the fact that he’d almost gotten killed by a simple zombie out of his mind. He’d wasted too much time already. The demon lords surely knew he was in the Spaceport by now, and the survivors in Helix were likely dead as well. Forget the rest of the demons in the sector, he had to keep moving if he was to reach the Lazarus Labs in time.

He holstered the railgun and proceeded into the facility he’d just explosively exited from, passing through the gate and checking his automap for the red keycard’s location, which appeared to be…blinking? The entire automap was warbling slightly with small visual artefacts glitching through the display.

Hmm. That was odd, though likely just interference on the facility’s network from the demons’ presence. It was unlikely the UAC had designed the Base with this magnitude of breach in mind.

He traipsed down the abandoned corridors before arriving at a disheveled security station, in which the red keycard was visible lying on the front desk. He reached out for it and-

-missed as the keycard grew legs and crawled away from his hands.

What?

The red piece of plastic split apart to reveal a narrow mouth of needle-like teeth, which hissed at the Slayer before the demonic mimic jumped off the desk and creeped away into the darkness. The Slayer watched it crawl away and disappear, standing quietly for a moment as he attempted to process what just happened.

Then, he snapped.

* * *

“Colonel, you seeing this?”

The crevice was beginning to break up into many smaller channels as the surface gradually leveled down to meet the ground, but there were strange dark structures occupying the space. Featureless and pitch-black with dull unreflective textures.

“Affirmative. I’m getting some strange readings here. I can’t make sense of them.”

I reached out towards one of the monoliths and hesitantly placed my hand on it. It felt like nothing. No temperature, no hardness, no texture. I could see my hand pressed against the surface but couldn’t feel any physical sensation from it. As if it wasn’t even there.

I shuddered.

“Well, whatever this is, I gotta go through here. The gateway’s that away.”

“Be careful.”

I entered that region with eyes open and guns ready, but I couldn’t see anything. No movement in my visual field or in my radar. And it was silent, quiet of the sounds of crumbling rocks or the hissing of creatures.

No, not quiet. A dreadful almost imperceptible reverb filled the air, resonating in my bones and in my very core. The faint red glow from the smoky sky was replaced with an oppressive ashen gloom, and even the corrosive sensation of Hell had disappeared.

Whatever this place was, I had the clear sensation that I was not supposed to be here.

I stopped.

“Oh, no.”

I had reached a clearing in whose center sat a low black pedestal, atop which floated a gnarled severed hand as black as midnight.

“What the hell?”

The hand was not human, having only three clawed fingers with a hard shell-like exterior, and a strange purple symbol glowing in the palm. There was a distinct murkiness in the air, a thick black fog that rose from concentric patterns on the floor and chilled my body on contact.

“Colonel, what is this?

I feel…cold. Empty.

This power…this isn’t of the demons.”

I took a step back.

“This isn’t from Hell. This is something else.

Something…older.”

Colonel Johnson said nothing.

“Colonel, you copy?”

No response.

“Okay, okay. Comms are down. Must be interference. Stay focused, John.”

I stared at the shadowy hand in front of me.

It scared me. It truly terrified me how despite being so small, that totem made me feel tiny. Like I was the worthless insect scurrying about, ignorant of the colossal ageless powers that loomed above.

If it frightened me, would it frighten the demons too?

This power…it opposed. Negated. Nullified. It opposed Hell, but it opposed life. It opposed Creation. And it would oppose me.

I already wielded terrible curses that razed weaker beings beneath their power. I bent them to my will. Perhaps I could wield this power too.

I’ve made it this far. I haven’t gotten killed or lost myself yet. That must mean something. I must be strong enough.

I just want to see my family again.

I breathed in and reached out towards the totem. It was only a hand, but I could sense it staring at me.

Dark, sinister. Perhaps without malice, but without warmth or compassion either.

Death does not hate. It does not love. It does not feel or think or take sides.

It just is.

“Uhhhh…”

I grabbed the hand which immediately began dissolving into long hissing tendrils that twirled around and settled on my arm, forming a dark liquid exterior that spread to the rest of my chassis. It was cold.

“AhhhhHHHH…”

The monoliths around me ominously rumbled as the shell finally spread over my face and entire body, shrouding my vision in a sea of pure blackness…

…that slowly dissipated.

I was still in the same location, and when I looked down I saw the black covering sinking into my body and be absorbed by my chassis.

Except on my right hand. The white plating around the blur artifact had disappeared behind a glossy black cover.

“Oh…”

My knees felt weak, and my right hand cold, but I was uninjured. I felt…normal.

“…John! John, are you there? What happened?

…There’s a new signal present in your system. I’ve never seen anything like it.

It’s leveling out. Equalizing into your system, stabilized by your Argent circuitry.

What the hell did you do?”

“…I can feel it. It’s like a spell, but one without words. Without thought. Do you know what it does?”

“It seems like-”

“Wait! This place is coming down.”

The monoliths around me were dissolving into dark vapor and dissipating into the wind as the red overtone slowly creeped into the atmosphere.

“That totem was holding this place up.

Colonel, what’s the layout of the rock surface on my location?”

The pillars had diffused enough to reveal the crimson smoky sky, the flat horizon, and a shimmering mirage in the distance.

“Let me check. Uh…”

The mirage disbanded to reveal the stalking Bonecrawler staring right at me.

“You’re on open terrain.”

“RAAARRR!!”

“SHIT!”

“RAAARRR!!”

I bolted in the opposite direction as heavy footsteps thudded behind me.

“Colonel! I need a twenty on a fissure ASAP!”

“You’re past them, John! It’s level ground from there to the gateway station!”

“RAAARRR!!”

“What do I do?!”

“Fucking do something!”

I grabbed one of the waspid egg sacs from my hip and tossed it behind me, but the throw was off and the grenade landed far to the side.

The footsteps were almost behind me. I heard the thing leap off the ground in a snarling pounce, to which I triggered my phase shift and blinked through its closing fangs.

“Ahhh!”

I was still in one piece but my overshield instantly broke. That was a heavy blow even with the shift’s damage reduction, and I didn’t know if I could survive another one even while shifted.

“RAAARRR!!”

“It can’t see me! It can’t see me while shifted, right?!”

“Tail!”

The monster spun around and swung its spiked tail in a wide arc towards me, without a doubt in a blind though intelligent attempt to strike me. With nowhere to go, I dashed forward while pushing on that new button present in my mind, watching my visual field be engulfed in black as the darkness on my right hand burst forth to form a jet-black cover over me.

In a split second I tore my way through spikes, flesh and bone to erupt through the other side. My chassis was completely untouched.

“RAAARRR!!”

And just like that fog dissipated and the darkness over me dissolved, vanished from my right hand as well.

“A shade cloak that protects you from harm and damages demons!

How the hell did you get that?!”

The Bonecrawler roared in agony from its skewered tail and pursued after me.

“Dunno, but it doesn’t last very long!”

I tried to trigger the shadow dash again, but it wouldn’t activate. The ability didn’t consume my mana, but it must have a cool down before it could be used again. Fortunately, I was still in cloaked phase shift and the monster charged blindly after me, occasionally clawing at the ground meters from my position.

“Wait! Head for your two o’clock! I’m reading the surface is weak in that area!”

“What?!”

“It’ll break through the ground and fall into the cavern below!”

“Won’t I fall too?!”

“Not with your jump pack!”

“RAAARRR!!”

My phase shift ended and the Bonecrawler roared upon spotting me.

“All right!”

Just as I saw a giant clawed foot descend from above, the darkness over my right hand reappeared and I somehow felt the darkness return, triggering it to stab through the Bonecrawler’s foot in a wide splash of steaming blood.

“RAAARRR!!”

The injured monster continued its chase but with an audible limp, letting me put some distance between it as I entered a stretch of land with noticeably different terrain: pale flat rock. I ran across it no problem, but with every step the monster took I could hear the ground crack beneath its feet. I turned around and saw sharp smoking cracks spreading out across the surface. One section of ground fell into the abyss.

“It’s working! It’s working!”

With a deep rumbling the ground began to crumble beneath our feet, the Bonecrawler puzzledly grunting as deep fissures spread in front of me. I missed my footing but fired my jump pack to soar up.

“RAAARRR!!”

“John!”

I turned around to find the Bonecrawler take one last leap at me. With my shade cloak on cooldown and no way to dodge its gaping maw or outstretched claws, I triggered my phase shift and dashed to the edge while bracing for-

“ROOOOOOAAAAAARRRRRR!!”

The world erupted in deafening roaring as colossal jaws burst through the crumbling surface and closed on the pouncing Bonecrawler just as I hit solid ground. Even with the phase shift’s noise reduction, I could hear the gruesome sounds of breaking shell and bone.

“RAAARRR!!”

I could barely see the new monster through my shift’s visual distortions, but I saw a rough scaly shell interlaced with glowing blood vessels, as if lava ran through that creature’s veins. There were two pairs of long sharp jaws firmly clenched around the thrashing Bonecrawler’s body – which seemed miniature in comparison – and countless yellow eyes lining each jaw staring dead at me.

“ROOOOOORRRRRR!!”

There was a deep bellowing and the beast sank back into its pit with the Bonecrawler in its maw, vanishing into the swirling smoke as the roars echoed and faded away.

I lay panting on the ground, exhausted and speechless.

“Well…I suppose…”

I tiredly sighed, picking myself up while awaiting the cheesy one-liner.

“There’s always a bigger bug.”

“That’s not how the line goes.”

“No? What happened to ‘tiny bug crawling away from the big critters?’”

“What happened to ‘tiny minnow swimming away from the big sharks?’”

“Hey! I wonder what this red button labeled “shut this smart-ass down” does!”

I nervously chuckled while resting my hands on my knees, feeling a tired and nerve-wracked mess.

“Or maybe I should press the mute switch? See if you can focus some of your mana to your brain instead of your mouth? Heh.”

The massive shadow of the gateway planetoid loomed above me. I was almost to the relay station or whatever lied beneath it.

“Ha ha. I should probably keep moving.”

“Copy.”

I headed for the gateway while keeping a vigilant eye around me. The environment was completely flat and still, but I knew better than to lower my guard.

I took a step forward and saw a dark spike appear high in the fog above me, instantly stopping and raising my guns.

“Easy there, soldier. Easy.”

The spike was not moving and seemed suspended in place. I took a step backwards and watched the object fade and disappear.

“Huh?”

Curious, I cautiously walked forward and watched the spike reappear and grow into a tall sleek tower that rose from the ground, several more appearing on either side.

“Cloaked. It’s a cloaking mechanism. The whole place is hidden.”

I ran towards the barrier, watching as the spikes grew into towering monoliths easily a hundred meters tall, carved out of dark ridged metal.

“Whoa whoa whoa stop!”

I skidded to a halt in front of the pale translucent field spread across the gap between the two nearest towers.

“Some kind of force field, Colonel?”

“Yup. Looks like this place isn’t just cloaked. That field is radiating enough energy to fry that big bony critter you were just running from.”

“How do I get inside?”

“You’d have to carry the dedicated sigil to pass through this gate unharmed, or have a similar enough Argent reading to slip past the defenses.”

“Hmm.” I grabbed the Bronze Knife and switched it into spear mode.

“What are you doing?”

I extended the spear towards the field, wincing in anticipation of an explosion or electric shock, before the speartip effortlessly passed through the surface.

“Uhh…”

The field lightly crackled and phosphoresced at the point of contact, but the spear appeared whole and intact through the other side.

“Well, look at you. Guess you lucked out again.”

“All right, here I go.”

I cautiously stepped forth and pushed myself through the field. It had more resistance than I anticipated, and I shuddered as a peculiar tingling passed through my body, causing my HUD to sputter for a moment before passing.

“I’m through. I made it.”

“That you did. Now keep moving. You’ve still got a long way to go.”

I kept moving forward. The world had fallen eerily silent and was shrouded in a deep red fog that swirled all around.

“I see a light!”

A soft yellow glow beckoned up ahead, the only light in that dim area. I slowly approached the light, spear raised and guns ready as the fog around me dissipated, revealing the source of the light.

I stopped.

“What…what the hell?”

Standing in front of me, in some Godforsaken region of Hell, was a shining manmade lamppost.

* * *

“I’m not with the UAC. I’m a doctor in biogenetics from Earth, sent by the Global Science Council as an ambassador to the UAC’s Mars facility.”

Ruby nodded at the scientist, kneeling beside the shivering woman as she recounted her grim tale.

“They brought me here on invitation, as a guest researcher to help…sequence some samples of human DNA. Screen for rare diseases or bizarre abnormalities.”

Ruby turned to Romero beside her. The two listened patiently to the survivor’s story as Rogers tended to Reeves’ injuries behind them. The woman’s gaze was still unfocused, and she took long vacant pauses in between sentences.

“Then it happened. There was a deep flash of red, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. It screamed in my head. Yelling at me. Like lightning stabbing into my mind.

The others fell dead.

Some got back up, but different. Changed. Like something was…carved out of them.

Like they weren’t human anymore.”

The woman brought her gaze down in a somber expression that shook Ruby to her core.

Ruby gulped, thinking how to approach the doctor before responding.

“These folks and I, we think we have a chance of getting out. There’s a shuttle here in Helix that’ll take us to the Spaceport, but we need to open up the flight network first. If we can get to the bottom deck of Helix, we might just have a shot.

You think you can take us there?”

A nearby computer terminal beeped, and Romero stood up to investigate. The woman did not look at Ruby as she replied with a helpless voice.

“There’s nothing for us down there.”

“Come on, we can make it! In a few hours, we can all go home-!”

“Go?”

The survivor turned to Ruby, who despite wearing a helmet, felt her heart sink as the woman stared at her with hollow eyes that pierced into her soul.

“There is nowhere to go.”

The woman held the haunting look for a moment longer before returning to stare at the floor, back hunched and arms around herself.

Ruby collected herself before kneeling closer and placing her hand on the doctor’s shoulder.

“What’s your name, miss?”

“…Name?”

“Your name.”

“My…name.”

The scientist’s expression softened, and something resembling contemplation came upon her face.

“My name….My name is E-”

“Taylor!” The gunslinger called out to Ruby. “You have to come see this.”

Ruby softly patted the woman’s shoulder before standing up and heading over to Romero.

“What’s the matter?”

“An automated message just popped up, an update of the network tracking the enemy’s movement.

The demons are moving away from here, but they’re gathering somewhere else. They’re gathering at the Spaceport.”

“What?”

“Have a look.”

Ruby walked towards the terminal. Sure enough, the display showed a digital map of the sector with countless bright red dots scattered throughout the surface and local facilities, all of them moving in the direction of the Spaceport.

“What’s gotten into them?”

She tapped on the glowing SPACEPORT node and selected the INSPECT prompt from the option menu, waiting for any available surveillance cameras to come online.

Then, the footage loaded.

Ruby leaned towards the screen, struggling to process the reality of the images in front of her.

I don’t believe it.

“Doctor Pierce, I don’t believe such a course of action is necessary.”

“It is not only necessary, it is crucial if we wish our present state of affairs to continue.”

“But this is madness! We’ll lose many viable subjects if we accelerate human trials!”

“We’ll lose much more than that if HE ever wakes up!”

Ruby glanced coolly at the resistant scientist seated at the board meeting, a young man with a fresh doctorate and his whole life ahead of him. He clearly wasn’t the type to become disruptive, but Ruby knew that the sight of four armed Elite Guards standing around the room would quiet even the most belligerent of tempers. Not that that would be an issue from the dozen heads of Lazarus research.

“I warned him,” Pierce continued. “I warned Samuel that he should not send an expedition to the tomb, that he must not retrieve the sarcophagus, but he did not listen. The Sentinels imprisoned the Marine for a reason, and now, he will only bring ruin to us.”

Another scientist at the table spoke up.

“We are still analyzing the relics found in the tomb, but it does not appear the Sentinels opposed the Marine. Preliminary studies of the Daeva etching suggest the Marine fought alongside them, perhaps even leading them."

“Until he brought destruction to their world, just as he will to ours.

That is why he was banished to Hell. That is why he was imprisoned in that cursed Pyramid.”

“But the other Argenta scriptures found indicate the demons feared the Marine. Why would the Sentinels banish him to Hell if-”

“Do not be absurd!” Pierce unexpectedly snapped at the researcher, taking everyone by surprise. “Demonkind would never fear a simple mortal man! Do not project your worthless human sentiments upon higher beings!”

“It has been documented, however rare, that certain individuals do survive direct exposure to Hell’s energy without becoming demonized,” another researcher pointed out, a middle aged man with shoulder length white hair. “We know that the Argenta civilization adapted over centuries to survive constant invasion through this mechanism of natural selection. Is it so absurd to believe that the same might have happened to the Marine? Perhaps even empowered him? Gave him unrivaled strength against the demons? Augmented his combat prowess, kept him healthy and unaging at a hundred fifty years old?”

“You do not actually believe that ridiculous notion of the so-called Hercules Complex?” Pierce hissed at the researcher.

“What other explanation is there? The man was a foot soldier, went MIA on Phobos a hundred years ago with the rest of his squad, he should have been dead by rights. But he reappears with the Argenta? Climbs the ranks to become one of the most fearsome warriors of a sorcerous people dedicated entirely to the killing of demons?”

“And you all realize what this means, right?” Interjected another researcher. “The fact that the subject made contact with the Argenta means that the extraterrestrial human civilization of Argent D’Nur still existed sometime within the last hundred years!”

Argent D’Nur existed that recently? Ruby quietly thought to herself. That’s crazy! There could still be survivors!

“This is unprecedented!” The scientist continued. “This changes everything about-!”

“It changes nothing!”

Scowling with indignation, Pierce painfully shuffled to her seat at the head of the table and brought herself down on the special chair designed to fit her medical exoskeleton.

“The subject is not a hundred and fifty years old. The fact that the Helix Stone and its warning of him was discovered in 2095 is no measure of his age either, and neither can we presume Argent D’Nur existed in any recent timeframe. If common relativity alters our understanding of time, Hell shatters it completely. We must not make the mistake of applying human fallacy to higher dimensional thinking.

As for the Sentinels, you all are keen to ignore the likewise recovered relics that detail the downfall of the Argenta civilization, at the very center of which was the Marine.

It was he who brought Doom to the Night Sentinels.”

“But…the tales of his feats and accomplishments…”

“They are just that: tales. Argent D’Nur was the equivalent of a twelfth-century society with twenty-second century technology. Its culture was severely backwards compared to what its advancement would suggest, fond of aggrandizement and mythification.”

Tales? What tales? What did the man do that would stand out in a society of magic knights and warrior mages?

“Perhaps the Marine was an exceptional soldier.” Pierce admitted. “Perhaps he was augmented by the Argenta’s magic. But I do not for a second believe the stories of him being some immortal demon-vanquishing demigod to be more than the fabricated legends of a primitive people.”

Immortal…demigod…huh?

“Then what do you make of the Helix Stone? The Stone is clearly a demonic rather than Sentinel artifact, and even it describes the Marine as a grave threat that must never be released.”

“The demons were warning US.” Pierce snapped back. “He is no threat to them, he threatens us.

It was they who gifted us with Argent Energy. Showed us how to wield its limitless power. And they knew that the Marine would oppose anyone who harnessed it. As he did to the Argenta. As he will do here.”

“If I may, Doctor Pierce.” A younger and prim scientist spoke up. “I have a suggestion that may solve our current dilemma.

Regarding the unidentified hooded entity depicted in the Daeva etching, the one watching over the Marine and Sentinels as they battle the demons. Its robed appearance resembles traditional Argenta Warpers, but the text and scene describe it as some heavenly figure of guidance and illumination.”

Heavenly? As in, old-bearded-God and white-robed-Angels-with-wings-and-halos Heavenly?

“The writing states that this figure bestowed its blessing upon the Marine. What if that refers to his strength? If this entity gave him his power, perhaps it can take it away.

If Argent D’Nur established contact another higher realm, one distinct and opposed to Hell, then perhaps-”

“You are a FOOL.”

Pierce did not yell, but the sudden drop in her voice immediately silenced the researcher and startled the rest of the head scientists. Even Ruby felt an unexplained chill race up her spine. It almost seemed like Pierce had growled at the scientist.

As if something else had spoken through her.

The Director of the Lazarus Project breathed in to collect herself before continuing.

“Mark my words. All of you!

The Marine has no higher power. There is no such thing as the Hercules Complex.

There is no such thing as Heaven.

And there is no such thing as the Seraphim.

We will now put this worthless talk behind and discuss how to prepare for when Samuel inevitably wakes the enemy!”

“You want to accelerate experimentation on the workers by SIX-HUNDRED PERCENT?” The original reluctant scientist exclaimed. “That is absurd! There is no cover that’ll justify to the Allied Nations a mortality rate that high!”

“I don’t care what you tell them, just get it done! I want every department working on this! Demon augmentation, thaumaturgic research, ATLAS production, the ARES Protocol! Current, pending, cancelled projects! Every option under the damn sun!

The gate will be opened! The Marine will not stop our work!

Malcolm!”

Pierce turned to a pale and aging scientist at the far end of the table, one with his face down who’d kept quiet thus far.

“Your Blackwatch troops are most satisfactory,” she spoke. “But they won’t be enough. I want your department working on a new line of cyberdemonic operatives first thing in the morning.

Reinstate the Griefer program if you must, volatility and incompliance be damned. We will need every possible edge against this enemy.”

“As you wish.”

“But you, you were working on a new breed of demonic chimera. One capable of intelligent behavior and advanced teleportation.”

“Correct. I utilized a Dark Imp vector along with Blackwatch technology, but the results were disappointing. I require a stronger demonic vector.”

“If I grant you access to the remains of the Hellas Summoner, would that provide what you need?”

The elderly scientist looked up, revealing a deep gray cataract over his right eye. Ruby shuddered.

“It would.”

In the live night-vision feed on the monitor, Ruby saw the bright thermal outline of the Doom Marine as he rushed across the surface of the Spaceport.

He’s alive. He’s alive.

Romero leaned closer to the screen, trying to make out the shape of the small white blur against the deep black backdrop.

“I’m confused. You fellas made the Marineguy into a real thing?”

Ruby chuckled, elated with relief and excitement.

We’re saved. We’re getting out of here

“What’s going on?” Rogers asked as he approached the two, Reeves holding her bandaged arm behind him. “What are you two looking at?”

Ruby hesitated for a moment, but then she magnified the display and stood aside.

“This.”

The other two turned to the screen and likewise approached for a better look, and Ruby noticed the female scientist face the terminal as well.

“We call him the Doom Marine,” Ruby explained. “We discovered him in Hell four years ago, chained within a stone sarcophagus inside a…a powerful containment site.”

“You found him…in Hell?” Reeves fearfully asked.

“He’s not a demon, he’s human. He matches the profile of a United States Space Marine lost on Mars in 2046.”

“2046? You mean…”

“Phobos. The one known survivor of the Phobos demonic invasion.”

“But, if he was on Phobos, how is he still alive?” Romero asked. “How has he not been killed by the demons?

Why was he contained?”

…immortal demon-vanquishing demigod…

Do they really fear him? If so, why are they moving towards him?

“I…don’t know. I really don’t.

But the demons are advancing on his position, away from the other sectors and away from us here in Helix.”

“But towards the Spaceport,” Rogers pointed out.

“I doubt he’ll stay at the Spaceport,” Ruby assured him. “No doubt he’ll keep moving. And by the time we’re done in Lazarus, the coast will be clear.”

“How do you know?”

“Look.”

Everyone turned to the screen. On the display, they saw the Marine rush behind a vehicle with a heavy assault rifle in hand and instantly headshot a zombie a hundred meters away.

“Holy…” Reeves whispered.

He ducked behind cover and tossed a grenade at a squad of possessed soldiers before opening fire at an imp, this time with a phase rifle and not a HAR.

Romero was flabbergasted.

“What the-! Where’d he just get a plasma rifle from?! Did anyone see that?!”

“Did he have it on his back?” Rogers proposed.

“It wasn’t there earlier! And I never saw him bring it forward! One moment it was the assault rifle and the next it was-!”

“A shotgun.”

Flashes of a combat shotgun firing burst on the screen, followed by one demon after another falling over dead in single shots.

Ruby was fascinated. The Marine’s movements were precise, calculated, tactical. He utilized the environment, anticipated the enemy’s attacks, and circumvented them or neutralized them before they could act. He wasted no time, squandered no ammo. One shot, one kill.

He’s a good soldier. The very best.

I knew it. I always knew it. Pierce was wrong. She had to be.

I don’t know if he’s immortal, but he does have strength. He does have the strength to face them, to fight them, to win.

He’s going to save us.

As the group stared at the monitor with fascination and puzzlement, Ruby’s mind raced with a million questions.

The Argenta hadn’t been immortal, but perhaps the Marine was? What magic or technology did he bear from the Night Sentinels? Was he truly blessed by Heaven? Did such a thing really exist?

What mysterious truths hid behind that visor? What unknowable sights had those eyes seen?

What deep unfathomable thoughts passed through that mind?

* * *

WHERE IN THE CUNTFACED LIMP-DICKED PISS-SWILLING FARM FRESH

FUCK

IS THAT COCK-SUCKING RED KEYCARD?

Blinded by rage and burning with bloodlust, the Slayer Rampaged across the Spaceport madly shooting rockets at everything that moved. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! He ran into a mob of demons and switched to the chaingun. RATATATATATAT!! Soon, the surface of the Spaceport was drenched in the bloody messes of zombies, imps, Pinkies, and Cacodemons that had failed to escape the Slayer’s fury.

He thrust his hands into a zombie’s chest and split in half. Shoved his fist down an anguishing imp’s throat and pulled out a slimy mess of purple organs. Revved up his chainsaw and sawed a roaring Hell Knight in half from the shoulder to waist, the monster desperately trying to pry the buzzing blade out only to half both its hands cut off. Blasted a Revenant’s legs off before thrusting his hands into the back of its jetpack and pulling out the control unit to have the dismembered demon fly forward and explode in the middle of a pack of imps. Used his Bracer to catch a soldier’s rocket out of the air and throw it into a Cacodemon’s open mouth.

WHERE’S THE DOUCHEGARGLING BLOODSHITTING LOWLIFE BASTARD THAT STOLE THAT RED KEYCARD?

POW POW POW POW! A sudden salvo of homing rockets fell around the Slayer and brought his HEALTH down to 87.

Spinning around, the Slayer spotted the possessed soldier taking cover behind a wrecked LUV, its head and body moderately armored with a light military exoskeleton, a thin smoke trail leading from its shoulder-mounted missile rack to the blasted ground around the Slayer. The soldier suddenly jerked up as the Slayer set his sights on it, realizing too late its fatal mistake.

FUCKER!

The exo zombie fled from its cover away from a charging Slayer, who Rampaged in a blaze of fury through the vehicle and ran the soldier down, kicking it to the ground and eviscerating it with the point-blank chaingun.

PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!

A burst of machine gun fire struck his face and chest. A trio of exo zombies advanced towards the Slayer, shooting at him from wrist-mounted miniguns and preparing to bombard him with rocket salvos. He raced towards them while strafing side to side to avoid their minigun fire and missile bombings. The nearest of the exo zombies raised its other arm to fire a sticky rocket directly at the Slayer’s chest. BOOM! 73 HEALTH.

The foolish soldier then charged at the Slayer, using its powered exoskeleton to sprint at great velocity towards him before the Slayer rammed through it in a burst of metal and blood. He grabbed the second exo zombie with both hands and tossed it at the third one before equipping the Gauss Cannon and charging up a siege blast. PSHEWW!!

“ROOAARR!”

A nearby Hell Knight crushed an unfortunate Revenant beneath its feet while roaring at the Slayer, rushing towards him as an incoming missile flight path appeared on his HUD, centered on the demon.

The Slayer quickly rushed back before the guided missile exploded on the Hell Knight’s back, faltering it and blasting half its flesh off before another missile finally killed it. More missile trajectories manifested on the Slayer’s HUD as a pack of swooping hunter drones set their sights on the horde, and he swerved around the blasts of Argent-based missile salvos and carpet bombings as the explosions and shockwaves thundered across the surfaces. One drone did a flyby while firing its autocannon, a familiar buzzing BRRRRT hitting the Slayer’s ears moments after the explosive rounds erupted throughout the demonic horde.

Some soldiers and imps vainly fired their attacks into the smoking sky, but the hunter drones were too high and fast for the demons, even for the brutish Hell Knights with their rocket-like fireballs. One Cacodemon lazily gathered energy within its maw and unleashed a flurry of lightning bolts into the sky, a single bolt striking a drone and bringing it crashing down in a fiery blaze.

He could sense a nexus of demonic power up ahead, a focal point in the demon’s psychic network which could only emanate from a demon lord. Bringing up his automap, he spotted a freakish bright red structure centered at the nexus. The source of the interference.

KEYCARD!!

He Rampaged at full speed in the direction of the signal, igniting the air and nearby demons with his Godspeed rune while leaving a fiery trail of devastation behind, but he only had sights for nexus.

There was a faint shimmer ahead that vanished as the Slayer approached to reveal a horrific demonic starship in the process on construction – a grotesque structure the size of a cruiser with a skeletal frame of jagged metal ribs and grisly furrowed metal forming its hull. Small metallic critters on its surface chirped and scurried away as the Slayer arrived, and he switched to the rocket launcher while taking aim at the vessel.

RED!! KEYCARD!!!

The Slayer pulled the trigger and fired a rocket, which exploded against an invisible field surrounding the craft. There was a surge of green lightning and a figure rose from within the ship, a tall slim humanoid with a blue-red shell, two large upward horns, and a single yellow eye.

The first of the three minor lords, the one overseeing the construction of the demonic spacecraft and casting the defensive barrier around it.

A Harvester.

“RYAAAHH!!” The demon shrieked.

The Slayer immediately equipped the pulse rifle and fired upon the demon lord. POW POW POW POW! Some of the plasmoids struck the defensive shield around the demon but the Harvester teleported away before its shield could break, vanishing in a wisp of green smoke and reappearing a distance away behind the horde to point an arm towards the Slayer as it took command of the rampant legions and focused them on him.

He frowned and switched to the chaingun. RATATATAT!! He carved a path through the mob while charging at the Harvester, ignoring the fireballs and projectiles ticking away at his HEALTH. 68. 62. Cybersouls shot shrapnel at him from viciously toothed mouths, and several dust devils began manifesting from the Harvester’s presence. The horde could wait, but the demon lord was top priority. The demon lord shot a series of fast green fireballs towards the Slayer, who swerved hard to the left before the orbs violently exploded against the surface to raze the unfortunate mobs caught in their blast. The dust devils drifted towards the nearest injured demons and ate away at their flesh with coarse biting dust, killing them and growing in size with each demon slain. He still had time.

Back to the pulse rifle, charge and line an explosive orb, fire! POWW! Direct hit! The crackling plasma orb exploded against the Harvester and instantly broke its shields, which the Slayer followed suit with a long-range HAR volley. PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW!

Wisping away from the bullet fire, the Harvester warped to a wide runway and held a clawed hand out to siphon life force from the horde, demons howling and expiring as Argent energy was ripped from their bodies in a bright green beam and collected in a churning ring around the demon lord. The Harvester then raised its arms to produce crackling energy rifts throughout the atmosphere, and the Slayer quickly grabbed a zombie by the neck and raised it as a meatshield. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The energy fell to ground in large fireballs that bombarded the surface with green plasma, vaporizing weaker demons and even searing the flesh of Hell Knights. The Slayer held the soldier towards the nearest blasts to block some of the damage, but his meatshield crumbled to ash in his hand and his HEALTH fell to 44.

He wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer. The horde was too coordinated while the Harvester was alive, which he could barely see behind a thick shroud of churning dust. With the abundance of injured demons following the Slayer’s and Harvester’s battle, three dust devils had feasted and grown enough to obscure most of the area with their wide funnels that arced with demonic lightning, likewise depriving him of nearby opportunities to restore his HEALTH.

FUCK IT!

The Slayer turned on his Clearsight and turned his pulse rifle to the revealed Harvester. POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! The demon lord was unable to avoid the speedy projectiles and faltered as its shield quickly melted. The Slayer equipped the Gauss Cannon. PEWW! Miss. PEWW! The Harvester desperately brought its hands forward to project a runic shield, which cracked as the bolt struck.

PEWW!

The shield broke and the demon’s head sharply whipped back, slowly returning to reveal its seared face and shattered right horn.

The Harvester bared its fangs.

“RYAAAAAAHHH!”

The demon lord suddenly released a tremendous blast of green energy that left a vibrant aura and glowing sigils in the air. The Slayer flinched but did not take damage, noticing the myriad of summoning portals opening throughout the area, bringing forth dozens of fully corrupted UAC assault droids and security drones.

As the Slayer fell back from the advancing legion of demonized robots, the livid Harvester rose into the sky and siphoned the energy accumulated by the three dust devils, dissolving the twisters and absorbing their consumed life force to heal its injuries before turning to face the fleet of hunter drones that launched a storm of missiles and chaingun fire at it. With the Spaceport’s visibility restored, the Slayer watched the Harvester cast an ethereal barrier to block the incoming projectiles before it extended an arm and reduced half the hunter drones to ash. The Harvester made a fist and the remainder of the drones fell to earth, trailing fiery smoke and exploding on impact. One drone did a shallow crash landing and tumbled to a halt after crushing a dozen demons, while the Slayer strafed to avoid the fireball of another’s explosion.

The talking computer interrupted.

The Base is teleporting ATLAS assets to your position!>

ATLAS?

The Slayer noticed multiple bright blue bursts of light above the cloud cover just as an alert flashed on his HUD.

!!WARNING!!

INCOMING ATLAS-FALLS DETECTED

There was a thundering roar as five large burning objects fell to the ground from above the clouds, their outer metallic shells breaking off in the air to reveal five robotic mechs that loudly crash-landed onto the surface within dome-shaped barrier fields, cracking the tarmacs and picking up great clouds of dust.

ATLAS mechs.

* * *

“We’ll take the north staircase into the bottom deck and head for the teleporter array. Once we’re there, I’ll configure the teleporter and beam us over to Lazarus.

Hiro, help me with her.”

“You got it.

Ma’am?” The gunslinger held out his hand towards the scientist, who timidly took it and stood up.

“Amanda, Lieutenant, you two go with them and cover point. I’ll be with you in a moment, I have to make sure we aren’t followed.”

“Whatever you say.” With only one good arm, the engineer wouldn’t be able to wield the HAR, but she could use her plasma cutter. She grabbed the tool and headed out the gate.

“Stay close to me. It’ll all be okay.” Romero assured the scientist before following behind Reeves.

“Lieutenant, what are you doing?” Ruby asked the lingering Rogers as she typed away at the terminal. “They need you to cover them.”

“You’re trying to replace him, aren’t you?”

Ruby stopped and turned at the lieutenant.

“What?”

“You’re trying to replace Harrison.”

“…Why do you say that?”

“You feel his death was your fault, and now you want to bring that woman along so you don’t feel guilty.

If you manage to save another civvie, then you’ll be absolved from his death.”

Out of all the things that passed through Ruby’s head and she could have responded with, she only said three words.

“What’s your point?”

The lieutenant looked down and lowered his voice.

“Look, I feel guilty too. I wasn’t with him. If I’d been there then maybe he’d still be alive. You were looking out for the whole group and I was closer. Maybe it’s my fault.

But Christopher is gone. And we can’t bring along a brain-dead scientist that can’t protect herself and is going to die anyway just so you feel better about yourself.”

…

“I won’t tell you what to do,” he continued. “I won’t stop you. But when the time comes, I hope you’ll be ready.”

With that, the Lieutenant spun around and ran after the others, leaving a stunned Ruby alone in the abandoned lab.

After watching him leave, Ruby changed to a different program and brought up the lab’s surveillance footage.

One, two...three hours ago.

The display settled on prior footage of the laboratory, a brightly lit and shining facility where multiple scientists were conducting their work. Ruby could see the woman there too, holding a clipboard and conversing to a fellow researcher as she pointed to whatever was written on it.

The lights turned red and begun to flash, and the scientists looked around in confusion before the wave hit.

Ruby knew it was the wave, but all that appeared on screen was a bright flash of light that shorted out the cameras, replacing their feed with glitching static displays. Ruby sighed and began to walk away before the footage returned.

About half of the researchers were dead, lying motionlessly on the ground. The rest had become Possessed and violently fought among themselves, slashing at each other’s faces and biting at others’ throats or ripping out their organs.

In the center of it all, the woman stood. Alive and unzombified, staring with wide horrified eyes at the chaos happening around her. She fell to her knees and buried her face in her lap, covering her ears as she attempted to drown out the sounds of madness.

Ruby knew what was going to happen, but she couldn’t help but feel surprised when the zombies finished killing each other off and shambled out of the lab, leaving the scientist alone and completely unharmed. As if they never even realized she was there.

She’s an Omega. She’s a goddamn Type Omega.

Protocol dictated that all Type Omega individuals on Mars be terminated and their remains disposed of, because of the danger they posed to the Mars Base.

It was the Elite Guards’ duty to bring them to the Lazarus Labs. Precisely where they were going.

If they resisted, the Elite Guards had authorization to terminate them on the spot.

All it took was one bullet.

Ruby grimaced. She could still see the despair in the workers’ eyes as she instructed them to follow her. The quiet hopelessness in their walk, the shouts and weeping as they passed a friend or loved one, the tumult that always followed. She hated when they resisted, but it was the better end for them.

The howls and screams that echoed in Lazarus. The vivisection deck, the offering cells, the human experiments.

The Lazarus Refractor.

AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

No.

I won’t do it.

Too many innocent people have already died because of me.

Pierce was wrong about the Marine. Perhaps she was wrong about the Omegas too.

I’m going to save her.

* * *

The ATLAS mechs were steel-grey, varying humanoid machines about seven meters tall, the UAC logo and a large triangular A blazoned on their hulls. With his Clearsight, the Slayer could see into their cabins and at the individual Possessed Pilots operating each mech.

“DOOM MARINE IDENTIFIED,” the largest mech spoke in a loud robotic voice as all five stood up and equipped the massive handheld firearms carried on their backs while their protective deployment shields disintegrated. “BEGINNING TERMINATION.”

The Slayer immediately brought up his Suit’s Dossier and fabricated a Mega Charge to restore his HEALTH and ARMOR to 200 each just as a hail of attacks rained down on him from the five mechs, several rounds and rocket blasts already ticking away at his ARMOR to indicate they were being augmented by the Harvester’s power, which retreated into its sinister ship.

The largest mech wore heavy armor plating and slowly lumbered under its weight, but in both hands it carried a Delta-12 thirty millimeter chaingun while a smaller shoulder-mounted autocannon picked off nearby hostile demons, more than enough to manage its territory and deny the Slayer’s approach. “Onslaught,” the Slayer could read on its hull. Another two mechs had a medium amount of plating and sprinted at decently fast and maneuverable speeds in Mars’ low gravity, translucent full-body shields absorbing stray demonic attacks while they mindlessly crushed lesser demons beneath their feet. The more mobile of the two fired at him with a heavy plasma cannon while the other stood still to aim a long whirring railgun. “Pulsar” and “Firebolt.” The last two of the mechs were lightly armored but far more mobile and agile, one of which was even equipped with jet thrusters that let it briefly hover above the mob and rain Argent rockets at the Slayer from an elevated position before descending again. “Falcon.” And the last mech was…

WHERE THE HELL IS THE LAST MECH?

With a sharp crack, the last mech teleported ten meters in front of the Slayer and unloaded a fully automatic flak cannon at him, blasting large chunks of his ARMOR away with shotgun-like bursts. 186. 171. 159. He raised the Gauss Cannon and fired but the mech – branded “Stryker” – sidestepped the bolt with a strong flare from lateral jet thrusters and dashed again towards the Slayer while reaching over its shoulder to swing a massive electrified sword the size of a helicopter rotor. Despite his last-second attempt to dodge the slash, the Stryker’s sword hit and the Slayer’s ARMOR fell to 125. Furious, the Slayer equipped the phase rifle and released a stream of plasmoids at the mech to quickly overload and destroy its overshield before switching to his own autoshotgun and opening fire. BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM! The mech held its broadsword in front of it to block the Slayer’s attack, most of the buckshot reflecting off the force field surrounding the blade before dashing forward and vanishing in a swirl of bright streamers.

“Aim for the cockpit nose!” Hayden yelled. “Their armor is weak at that point!”

The Slayer leapt forward and switched to the Gauss Cannon before the Stryker reappeared directly behind him, firing the railgun both to propel himself away from the mech and shoot it directly in its exposed cockpit. The ATLAS faltered with the direct hit and the Slayer followed suit with a grenade between the legs and a rocket to the face, causing the mech to stumble once then twice with both blasts. Its metallic chassis singed and smoking, the heavily damaged Stryker charged towards the fleeing Slayer as it shot an electrified rocket from a shoulder launcher, red lightning arcing out to nearby demons and the Slayer as the rocket passed. 112 ARMOR. He frowned and switched to the super shotgun to shoot explosive slugs at the Stryker, who could block the slugs but not their explosive blasts. BAM! BAM! Slowly but surely the slugs ate away at the mech’s hull as the Slayer Rampaged towards it. He leapt to close the distance as the ATLAS dashed at him and swung its blade, which he keenly parried with his Bracer to falter the mech and then deliver a fatal Blood Punch.

WHIRRRRRRR…!

The Stryker then froze while emitting a blinding incandescent glow from its core. The top of its cabin flew off as the Pilot was ejected at great speed while the mech flooded with radiation. He immediately turned and rushed in the opposite direction before the ATLAS explosively self-destructed in a blinding surge of Argent energy.

BOOOOOOM!!!

The Slayer barely managed to avoid the crimson blast as his shell count suddenly skyrocketed to its full count of fifty, realizing the Praetor Suit had siphoned munitions from the mech’s flak cannon before looking upward at the descending Pilot. In a tight building or complex, the ATLAS Pilots might be able to outmaneuver him with their wallrunning and grapple hooks. But out in the open, the advantage was his. He equipped the pulse rifle and fired upon the Pilot as it flicked a gravity knife towards him, swerving out of the way of the projectile and overloading the operative’s personal shield. Its jump pack automatically firing to break its fall, the stunned Pilot hit the ground and the Slayer finished it off with a quickscope headshot from the HAR.

With the Stryker gone, the Slayer moved on to the other four mechs. He equipped the chaingun and swept the barrel across them, but the first three triggered additional energy shields to block the heavy rounds. Onslaught activated a hexagonal shield from its chaingun, Firebolt deployed a static shield wall and Pulsar projected a swirling particle shield from its hand to catch the rounds and shotgun-blast them at a nearby Hell Knight that pounced at it. Only the rocket-based flight-capable Falcon seemed to have no additional defensive abilities and dashed to sidestep the Slayer’s fire. His next prey, and his upcoming resupply of rocket ammo.

Strafing around to avoid its incoming rockets, the Slayer noticed a Pinky charge at the Falcon’s legs and promptly be crushed by the backstepping mech. A Revenant fired missiles at it, which the Falcon dashed towards and instantly smashed against the ground with a heavy punch from its free arm. A Hell Knight pounced at it, and the ATLAS deployed a serrated wrist-mounted knife whose edge burned with blue plasma and thrust it into the Hell Knight before ejecting the blade and dashing away. The impaled Hell Knight roared in agony and tried to extract the massive knife from its body, until the embedded blade flashed and the demon’s torso exploded in a shower of steaming guts and gore, its dismembered legs buckling and falling to the ground beside the spent knife.

Approaching the ATLAS, the Slayer opened fire with the pulse rifle to destroy its shields. The Falcon sidedashed and fired rockets at the Slayer, but he and his plasmoids were faster and the Falcon’s shields burst. Rocket launcher! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The ATLAS was still too far and mobile to hit directly with the rockets, but the Slayer triggered their remote detonations and managed to hit the Falcon with the blasts, which raised a shoulder launcher from its smoking chassis and fired a mine at the ground in front of the Slayer. He mindfully sidestepped the mine on his approach but this erupted into a tethered harpoon that shot directly at his chest. His ARMOR blocked the hit but fell to 105.

Damn bastard!

The Falcon raised another shoulder launcher and the Slayer shot at it with a precision bolt. The shot landed but the launcher didn’t break, which fired a cluster missile in front of him that exploded into bouncing shrapnel.

“Their armor is nano composite! Their structure cannot be compromised until all their armor plating is spent!”

HE GOT IT! HE GOT IT!

The Slayer leapt over the wall of bouncing cluster bombs towards the Falcon, which pulled back its free arm while deploying its wrist-mounted plasma knife. Anticipating the attack, the Slayer jumped over the searing blade and kicked the mech’s arm into the ground while climbing onto it and slinging over its back. The ATLAS thrashed and ignited its jets to throw the Slayer off, but with a vice-like grip he rodeoed the flailing Falcon and manually triggered its shoulder launchers, firing a tether mine at the flanking Pulsar to trap it and a cluster missile at the lumbering Onslaught. Looking down, he spotted a glowing black-and-green component on the Falcon’s hull labeled “SHIELD BATTERY – DO NOT REMOVE.” He bent down to grab the handle on the battery and pulled it free of the hull, watching the Falcon’s chassis set on fire as its overshield sputtered and died.

Landing on the ground, the Falcon stood still and released a cloud of thick smoke from vents on its back, kneeling into the fog as electricity arced across the smog and hacked away at the Slayer’s ARMOR. 101. 96. 91. He leapt off the ATLAS with battery in hand, but the mech’s hull had turned black and carbonized.

“Its nano composite armor is spent! Now, while its exposed!”

SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAYDEN!

The Falcon raised a shoulder launcher to fire a tether mine at the Slayer, but he equipped the HAR and shattered the thin strut with a precision bolt. It raised the other for a cluster missile. POW! Gone. The Falcon then soared into the air and extended missile racks in preparation to bombard the Slayer, but he slung the green battery at the ATLAS. BOOM! The battery exploded in green flame and electricity, electrocuting the mech and causing it to buckle. The Slayer Rampaged towards it and swept its leg while passing, bringing the mech down on its back before leaping back to charge a siege blast and thrusting the Gauss Cannon into the cockpit’s entry hatch.

POWW!

Pilot and mech down.

Should have ejected, dirtbag.

The remaining three mechs loudly buzzed as they saw the Slayer take down the second ATLAS, releasing grating roars and rushing towards him. Restocking his rocket pool from the remains of the Falcon, he switched to the chaingun and fired at the incoming mechs, but these activated their defensive shields and focused fire on his position. The Pulsar launched a glowing blue missile that erupted into an enormous gravity vortex which pulled at the Slayer and dragged nearby demons into its focus, tearing them to shreds and damaging his ARMOR with its sharp tidal forces while pulling the mech’s heavy plasmoids into its vicinity. 85 ARMOR. 79. 72. Slayer raced away from the whirlpool but not before the gravity bomb exploded with a heavy blast, losing another 14 ARMOR and noticing too late the homing rocket salvo that Firebolt had shot at him. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! 40 ARMOR. The Pulsar suddenly holstered its plasma cannon as the bright blue eye in the center of its chassis began ionizing the air in front of it. The Slayer’s eyes widened and he swerved hard left, but the Pulsar released a roaring particle beam that seared the surface and reduced unfortunate demons to cinders, turning to keep the beam on the Slayer for its duration. 12 ARMOR.

“BZZZZT!”

The Onslaught likewise holstered its chaingun and fired jet thrusters on its back to charge at the Slayer at alarming speeds while ramming through the horde in a cloud of fire and blood.

WHAT THE FUCK!

The Slayer rushed out of the mech’s path as it thundered past him, which shut off its jets and spun around to equip its chaingun and trigger its gun shield while loading a unique drum magazine into the weapon.

!!WARNING!!

INCOMING SMART BURST

The Slayer turned around and raced away from the ATLAS, but it had already triggered the storm of homing rounds that hammered on the Slayer’s back, destroying his ARMOR and hacking away at his HEALTH. 191. 183. 174. He desperately launched an echo drone which projected a holographic image of himself running in the opposite direction, and Onslaught turned its chaingun towards the decoy long enough for the Slayer to dart behind cover of another fallen ATLAS laying on the Spaceport and escape the volley of incoming attacks.

It was no use. The three remaining mechs were too well coordinated and had too strong defensive capacities for the Slayer to take them all at once. They were nowhere near as powerful as the two Barons at the Black Pyramid, but the human Pilots were far more tactical and knew how to counter the human Slayer. He might be able to kill the Harvester and cut off the ATLAS’ source of demonic empowerment, but he’d never get through all three mechs and the horde to reach the demon lord. And his Berserk wasn’t ready yet. He needed something to lighten the pressure on him!

WHIRRRRR…

The machine he leaned on suddenly jerked to life and powered up in a deep buzzing whirr, heavily picking itself off the ground with harsh metallic groaning. The Slayer backed away, realizing it was no ATLAS at all.

Its hull was not smooth steel grey but a dirty orange-brown, a rough and weathered six-meter monstrosity caked with rust and Martian dirt. Four insectoid legs ending with omnidirectional wheels and retracted stability spikes unfolded and stood on the rough terrain as a multitude of mounted cannons, turrets, and missile racks rose from the machine’s arms, shoulders, and back. A single red eye blazing with ardor ignited and gleamed from the center of the chassis, surrounded by spinning metallic maws and staring directly at the Slayer.

The machine was not protected by an overshield but rather thick gnarled armor crudely welded over its components.

Whatever the machine was, it had certainly not been built by the UAC.

Then, it spoke.

“DOOM SLAYER IDENTIFIED.

PROTECT THE SLAYER.”

…What?

The Firebolt ATLAS aimed and fired its railgun at the Slayer, but the barbaric machine dove in front of him to block the shot and aimed its myriad of cannons. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! POWW! POWW! POWW! RATATATATAT! A barrage of howitzer shells, railgun bolts, and rocket volleys thundered from the machine and rained upon the three ATLAS mechs, bombarding their shields and forcing them back while mounted autocannons laid waste to the legion of demons and UAC droids alike. Spent casings clanged at the stunned Slayer’s feet as the mechs, revenants, and cacos rained attacks on his position, but the machine intercepted them with autocannon fire or counter-rockets before they could strike it or the Slayer.

Snapping back to focus, he switched to his pulse rifle but found he was running low on plasma ammo.

“ROAAARRR!”

A Hell Knight leapt at him, but out of nowhere a gigantic metallic arm slammed the demon to the ground and tore at it with a massive rock grinder, the monster roaring and then gurgling as its face and torso were sawed into a crimson pulp that was siphoned by the Praetor Suit and restocked the Slayer’s ammo pools, the demons’ claws tearing at the arm’s plating before falling limp.

Now that was more like it.

The Slayer turned to the machine and met its gaze. Some kind of artillery phalanx, slapdashed together from the scraps of ATLAS mechs and mining vehicles. He didn’t know if it was on his side, but it definitely wasn’t on the demons’. He held the gaze a moment longer before rushing towards the mechs, and the phalanx revved its engines and lowered its posture before charging as well.

POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! The Slayer approached and fired at the mech with his pulse rifle. The ATLAS raised its arm to project a swirling particle shield, but the Slayer’s electroactive plasmoids quickly eroded the vortex and struck at the mech’s overshield before breaking it. The phalanx rained fire on the exposed Pulsar as the ATLAS sprinted to avoid the incoming barrage. Launching a stun bomb to briefly disable the mech, the Slayer flanked the Pulsar and leapt onto its back as the phalanx fired at its exposed cockpit with heavy rail bolts, removing the green battery from the Pulsar’s chassis and disabling its overshield. The mech broke free of the stun and fired at the phalanx with its plasma cannon, the heavy green plasmoids exploding against the machine’s plating. The Slayer equipped the chaingun and focused fire on the mech’s cannon, striking and ultimately destroying the firearm in a bright explosion of green plasma.

The heavily damaged Pulsar launched a gravity bomb at the Slayer as its blue eye focused another particle beam. Unable to throw the battery and struggling to free himself from the gravity vortex – feeling his HEALTH melt away with the tidal forces and the Firebolt’s rockets drawn into the whirlpool – the Slayer watched as the ATLAS unleashed its beam at the phalanx, but this suddenly released an equally blinding ray of vicious red plasma at the ATLAS. The two beams met in the middle and collided in a vivid white maelstrom that lit up the Spaceport before the Slayer freed himself from the gravity bomb and hurled the battery at the Pulsar. The battery hit and stunned the ATLAS, deactivating its beam and letting the phalanx incinerate its hull in a turbulent red blaze.

Charred and defeated, the Pulsar knelt and self-destructed in a controlled manner, not with a devastating blast like the Stryker but the Pilot ejected and soared into the night sky, until the phalanx looked up and incinerated the Pilot in a split second before its beam sputtered and died.

The Slayer raced to the Pulsar’s remains and siphoned fresh plasma munitions as he noticed the pack of Hell Knights swarming over the machine, cracking its armor with Hellfire slams and tearing at its hull with fiery gouging talons while it struggled to throw them off. He immediately equipped the Blazing Spirit and fired at the pack to falter them and break their grips from the phalanx, which shrugged them off and slammed them to the ground to finish them with point-black rocket blasts.

There was a sharp crack of thunder as a dazzling rail bolt exploded against the phalanx’s side and tumbled the machine back, a dreadful hole smoldering on its hull. It was the Firebolt, barely unmoved since its initial drop and close to its still functional anti-gravitic deployment pad. The phalanx had taken a heavy blow from the mech, and the Slayer needed the machine if he was to get past Onslaught and reach the Harvester. The ATLAS charged another shot, and after inwardly groaning the Slayer raised a middle finger at the mech and Rampaged towards it.

The mech roared in aggravation and turned its railgun to the Slayer to blindly fire a series of bolts in rage. POWW! POWW! POWW! Most of the bolts strayed far off, but one caught him in its blast and brought his HEALTH down to 126. He got an idea and deployed an echo drone at a divergent angle while he continued straight, reducing his speed to match the drone’s and equipping the pulse rifle as the hologram depicted him with. The Firebolt buzzed in confusion and turned indecisively between the two Slayers, unable to conclude which one was real. The mech aimed its railgun at him, and he thought his deception was over before the ATLAS turned to the decoy and opened fire. He grinned and strafed towards the mech. POWW! POWW! POWW! The Firebolt’s shots thundered past the hologram which continued running obliviously into the distance, until the ATLAS launched a homing volley of rockets and destroyed the flimsy decoy. The mech roared and spun to the real Slayer, but he had already reached the anti-gravity pad and charged the Gauss Cannon while soaring high above the ATLAS, which was unable to track a moving target across three dimensions. The Firebolt released another missile salvo, but he shot the Gauss Cannon to the side and propelled himself out of the rocket’s path. POWW! The Slayer released a siege blast downwards, thrusting himself up with the recoil and breaking the Firebolt’s overshield. POWW! Another siege blast hit the mech’s nose and buckled the ATLAS with the tremendous blast. Falling back down, the Slayer fired his jump pack to keep himself up a moment longer to aim the final shot. POWW! The bolt hit and destroyed the mech’s remaining armor plating to ignite its chassis.

Holy shit, the Gauss Cannon was strong as hell.

Persistent to the end, the doomed Firebolt stood its ground and loaded a distinct silver warhead on a dedicated shoulder launcher as an arcing missile path appeared in his HUD centering on him.

!!WARNING!!

NUCLEAR BOMBSHELL DETECTED

Shit!

The Slayer considered running to avoid the shell but decided against it at the last moment. Realizing he could use that shell himself, he stayed where he was.

Come on, just a little while longer.

The launcher fired and the warhead flew at great speed into the sky just as the phalanx pounced at the Firebolt, thrusting a massive arm into its compromised cabin and pulling the writhing Pilot out before crushing them and kicking the crumbling mech to the ground, but the Slayer was focused on the falling bombshell.

He had it. He had it.

The warhead sailed past him and the Slayer raced after it.

He had it! He had it! He had it!

The bombshell fell to the ground and the Slayer leapt to catch it with outstretched hands, defusing the trigger mechanism with his Bracer and nestling the warhead between his arms. The warhead might not have gone off but a stray shot from the remaining demons might still detonate it. With the package secure the Slayer raced towards the Harvester, but Onslaught still guarded the demonic spacecraft and aimed its spinning chaingun at him. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The damaged phalanx rained missiles on the last ATLAS, which furiously roared and fired its jets to charge at the machine.

“BZZZT!”

The phalanx assumed a wide-legged stance and dug its foot spikes into the ground while holding its arms out, catching the rushing Onslaught with a booming CRASH and cleaving a furrowed path through the tarmac but bringing the ATLAS to a halt. The Onslaught raised an arm and deployed its plasma knife to thrust it into and break it off in the phalanx’s exposed breach before spinning up its chaingun and firing at point-blank range.

With warhead still in hand, the Slayer rushed to aid his ally who vainly raised its arms to shield itself, these shattering and breaking off in the mech’s assault. The Onslaught ceased firing as its gun went empty but extended the red-hot firearm and discharged a heat blast, destroying half the phalanx’s armor as the remainder of the demonic horde descended upon the machine.

The Slayer prepared to drop the warhead and equipped the Blazing Spirit in his main hand as he rushed to the machine, but the phalanx grabbed a hold of the mech’s chaingun to immobilize it and yelled at him.

“NO!!

DESTROY THE DEMONS!!”

He skidded to a halt with bombshell still in hand, noticing the green glow of the Harvester rising from the demonic spacecraft. The Onslaught turned to him and began to aim but the Phalanx dragged the ATLAS back towards itself.

“DESTROY THE DEMONS!!”

He understood. He switched to the Gauss Cannon and headed for the Harvester as the demon lord shot explosive orbs at him. 105 HEALTH. 87. 61.

FWOOOOOSH!! Behind him, a blazing inferno ignited as the phalanx discharged its remaining cannons and unleashed raging streams of flame from its arms, incinerating the last demons and burning away the Onslaught’s shield.

He charged a siege blast and fired. POWW! The Harvester warped away from the bolt and threw a fireball at the Slayer. He shielded the bombshell with his body and lost 25 HEALTH. POWW! The demon lord dodged the shot which vanished into the distance.

The Onslaught loaded a smart burst drum into its chaingun and unleashed it at the phalanx, who blocked the barrage with a flame shield projected by its hand that seared the mech’s hull.

The Slayer spun around and aimed the charged Gauss Cannon towards the starship just as the Harvester reappeared in his direct line of fire. So predictable.

POWW!

Hit. The bolt shattered the demon’s shield and faltered the Harvester.

Go long.

The Slayer slung the nuclear bombshell into the air and took aim before focusing power into his leg and kicking the rear of the bombshell, a shockwave thundering from the kick as the warhead soared at incredible speed towards the demon lord.

“RYAA-!!”

BOOOOOOOMMM!!

A blinding explosion lit up the night as the bombshell exploded on the Harvester, incinerating the demon lord and its ship in a fraction of a second. The Slayer ducked as the deafening shockwave passed over him, standing up to see the mushroom cloud of smoke and ash rising from the blast.

Touchdown.

Far behind, the Onslaught shuddered and buckled as its source of demonic empowerment ceased and the phalanx ignited both hands afire to punch the ATLAS once, then twice, raising both flaming arms above its head and slamming them on the ground to release a devastating blast that scorched the Onslaught away. The Slayer checked the enemy count on the corner of his HUD. Zero demons left in the Spaceport.

With no more enemies left, the phalanx extinguished its flamethrowers and stumbled onto the surface, legs fractured and charred hull punctured and smoking as its body came apart with every step. The Slayer walked over and quietly gazed at the dying machine, betraying no emotion but relaxing his posture and meeting the phalanx’s eye. The machine held the look before falling to the ground with arm outstretched, powering down as its bright red eye blinked and faded away to black.

Staring at the fallen giant for another moment, the Slayer brought up his automap to search for the red keycard when something popped in front of him. A hatch had opened on the back of the phalanx amid a vivid gust of steam, through which something moved.

So the phalanx had been piloted after all. Unsure of what to expect, the Slayer braced as the smoke cleared to reveal the machine’s operator.

The small green sentry bot that had been following him throughout the Spaceport.

The Slayer stood completely still and silent. Distant thunder echoed from the horizon and debris from the phalanx chinked lightly on the ground as the two stared at one another. Chirping softly, the sentry bot meekly ducked and pulled something from the phalanx cabin with its leg, crawling over the machine’s steaming hull to meet the Slayer at eye level and cautiously hold the item out at him.

It was the red keycard.

Not knowing what else to do, the Slayer reached out and gently took the keycard from the robot, which still hung from its lanyard. It was undamaged and still operational.

The Slayer looked back at the watchful bot, which seemed no worse for the wear after its turbulent ordeal within the phalanx.

Strange little robot.

Scoffing inside his helmet, he entered the keycard into his storage matrix and equipped the combat shotgun while turning to leave, bringing up his automap to look for the tram station that would take him to the Advanced Research Complex. Behind him, the sentry bot sadly whistled and sat on the phalanx’s remains.

Uggghhh.

The Slayer stopped and lowered his shotgun, looking back at the tiny bot and gesturing at it to come.

The sentry bot immediately perked up and hopped over to the Slayer, happily chirping as it leapt onto his shoulder and the Praetor Suit automatically ingressed it into his systems.

SENTRY BOT ACQUIRED

TARGETS NEARBY ENEMIES WITH SEARING LASER

FOLLOWS SIMPLE COMMANDS AND CAN BE INSTRUCTED TO RETRIEVE SUPPLIES OR ITEMS

What the hell was Hayden thinking, the Slayer thought as he puzzledly stared at the bouncing robot on his shoulder. Glancing back at the fallen phalanx, he walked over to it and directed the Praetor Suit to scan its structure.

…SCANNING…

NEW BOOST SCHEMATIC ACQUIRED – SOVEREIGN PHALANX

MANUFACTURES POWERFUL ARTILLERY PLATFORM FROM AVAILABLE RESOURCES; CAN BE EMPLOYED FOR DEFENSE OR OFFENSE

DOES NOT EXPIRE BUT CAN BE DESTROYED

FABRICATION COST – 9 CALIBRATION CYCLES

Crude, makeshift, and slapdash. Shoddy work. But not bad, he admitted.

Not bad at all.

He glanced at the automap to find the shortest route to the tram station when he noticed slight static on the edge of the display. There was still some lingering interference on the Base network from the demon lord’s presence. Perhaps enough to hide him placing a Slayer Idol in the Spaceport from Hayden and his computer.

He sighed as he accessed his dossier and reluctantly withdrew the single Slayer Idol in his Suit’s storage. A small black totem with his glowing green Mark manifested in front of him and he took it in his hand, placing it down on the ground and triggering it to release its psychic energies at a reduced rate.

He studied the small totem which had begun to release a faint green vapor, the condensed fear and terror of a trillion demonic beings. There were still two Barons and another two minor lords on Mars, but with the death of the Harvester, they would have retreated deeper into their lairs to reorganize the invasion now that the Slayer had returned.

Which bought him and any survivors still on the planet some time.

At maximum yield, the Idol could probably ward off even major demon lords for about a minute, but at this rate, it seemed the totem would keep the Spaceport clear of the lesser invading legions for…five hours? Maybe more.

Maybe less.

The sentry bot curiously beeped at the Idol and inquisitively looked at the Slayer. He shrugged.

Whatever. If there was anyone left, they now had a chance to safely navigate the sector and perhaps find a functional shuttle that would take them off-world. But his job there was done. He cocked his shotgun and raced off towards the tram station, the bot whistling as he ran at great speed past the wrecked phalanx, five fallen ATLAS mechs, the remains of a demonic spacecraft and the gigantic smoldering crater from a tactical nuclear explosion. So much for stealth.

Far above on the peak of a service tower, a lone figure watched the Slayer and bot leave in a bright haze of dust across the scorched Martian surface. Wearing a midnight suit of UAC body armor and holding a neural knife in its hand, the figure knelt on the edge of the tower as the holographic skull in its helmet’s display sputtered and glitched.

The figure looked at the demolished machines, the ravaged hordes of demons, and the small green totem at the center of it all before grabbing the burst rifle lying beside it, standing up, and vanishing in the blue stream of a phase shift.

* * *

Gunfire. The sounds of automatic rifle fire echoing through the halls of the Phobos Lab.

It could just be the monsters fighting among themselves again, but the gunfire kept going and did not stop. It could be survivors. He raised the Retribution and set off towards the sound.

There were growls, hisses, shrieks. The roar of something huge followed by the blasts of a shotgun.

“Die, motherfucker! Die!”

The man’s voice echoed to where he was. A survivor. He spotted the muzzle flashes of gunfire up ahead and raced even faster.

“ROAAARRR!!”

BOOM!

A thundering rocket explosion, and everything went silent.

He stopped. Was it over? Was the man dead? Had his chance to find another survivor been stolen from just beyond his fingertips?

No. No…

He ducked behind the smoking gate and leaned over the edge. No movement. Breathing in, he braced himself before rushing into the room.

It was a massacre. Bits of flesh and gore splattered every available surface besides scorch marks and bullet holes. The corpses of those monstrous soldiers and the horrible impish creatures littered the ground, shredded and torn apart with incredible violence. There was even the bloody mess of one of those awful pink creatures, its bony tail ripped off and embedded into its crushed head.

What could have done this?

A silhouette appeared through the smoke, the outline of a man hunched over and breathing deeply.

It was Phillip. Injured and dripping blood not entirely his own, with a shotgun in one hand and an empty rocket launcher in the other, which he dropped to the floor. The mangled body of a musclebound and skull-faced giant lay at his feet, back broken and bloody flesh smoking.

His body armor was damaged to reveal the orange jumpsuit beneath, and his swarthy skin was scratched and covered with slashes and burn marks, but he was alive.

“What TOOK you so long, Marine?” Osborne hissed through gritted teeth before looking up.

His face was full of hatred, rage, and exhaustion.

And his eyes…Osborne’s green eyes seemed more intense than usual. Almost incandescent.

“…rrrooAAarr…”

The monster at his feet weakly growled and reached out with its remaining clawed hand.

Scowling in fury, Phillip holstered his shotgun and grabbed the fire axe slung on his back, raising it high before bringing it down on the creature’s neck.

* * *

KILLS - 100%

SECRETS - 16

TIME - 40:00

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In Serial45 Chapters

World Of Monsters

In order for Alyssa to survive the Zombie Apocalypse, she was going to have to trust another kind of monster.

PJ_Lowry 8 354

In Serial6 Chapters

The Demon King Shall Save The World

He left a promise broken... Before his death the one known as the Demon King left a promise broken, in the end he'd failed. Failed to create a place of peace for those persecuted as monsters, failed to do right by the memory she left, failed to save those that had supported him through his war against man, elves, dwarves and the gods themselves. His only solace; that he would meet his old friends once more in death. But it seemed the gods would refuse to grant him even that... By unknown means he is forced into the body of his four-year-old self and burdened with the task to fulfill the promises he'd broken. To find a path to peace when about him all called for war, gather friends and allies not just monster, not just human, his goal to turn the very order of the world upon its head while forces far greater than he imagined moved against him. With this new life he must put right what he had made wrong, No matter how steep the road ahead.

Argus 8 139

In Serial35 Chapters

The Billionaire's Ex Wife(Ongoing)

CAESAR SERIES #1"My father was right about you all along"He whispered dangerously through the room."What are you trying to say Sebastian ??" Clare sobbed hoping to know what her husband was trying to say. "SHUT YOUR LITTLE SLUTTY MOUTH YOU WHORE!" Sebastian was fuming in anger and hated to see the woman he love cheated on him."YOU MARRIED ME BECAUSE OF MY MONEY HUH?!" Sebastian laughed humoursly "Sebastian, tell me what's wrong so I can fix it please.." Clare was pleading to know what has come upon to her loving , possessive , and caring husband. "I WANT A DIVORCE !" Sebastian said dryly. These were the words Clare hated the most. She knew this day would come. She knew her life wasn't going to be a happy ending.She knows that the life she chose wasn't going to be a fairytale that she had expected it to be.She signed the papers and went to start packing her clothes. She packed the clothes she used before she stepped into this estate.She didn't want anything that was bought by HIM. She didn't want anything that can make her remember the man that broke her heart into millions of pieces The living life forming inside of her is enough to remember the man she loved and will still love.#AlphaMan: Read and find out yourself what's going to happen after five years of love torture.

Alpha Mann 8 338

In Serial22 Chapters

World Blueprint: Variety of Life

The bond of two: man and girl, attempts to survive in all seven realities which inflicted with danger from invasion of unknown enemies in every world. Waltren Eragle was born with untreated-illness. He created World Blueprint, defeated a doctor's future vision that he would die in few years. With the power, he had been living simultaneously in seven realities: Blueprint Reality, Science Reality, ALIEN REALITY, Alchemy Reality, Rune Reality, Steam Reality, MAGIC REALITY. Though, the disease was about to coming back after eight years. Despite hopeless, he lived long enough, accepted his fate soon and prepared to pass this ability to someone else. After third selection who failed, he encountered a girl who seemed to be a unsure yet qualify to grand the right. However, as he was teaching her everything to know about World Blueprint, otherworld invasion occurred one by one in every reality. Siqura Selvona was grew up with debt left by his father. She and her mother were working day and night, chased the end month to dismiss the flowery-interest rate. As weight gone from her life, she thought everything would be greater when all of sudden his mother disappeared and treated by people as murderer. Have no idea what was going on, stressed from massive rumors, until when they started seeking a revenge. Peaceful was over, she was about to raise weapon with her bare flesh-hand, believed herself as daughter of criminal but a boy who she never met before rescue her. On next day, people somehow forget about her mother and blamed the tragedy to someone else. The boy who saved her acted like close childhood friend even though she had no recollection of relationship. With her mother still missing, she took connection who a completely stranger to her. Available on sites: Scribble Hub - https://www.scribblehub.com/series/81248/variety-of-life Royal Road - https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/29384/variety-of-life Wattpad - https://www.wattpad.com/story/210843130-variety-of-life Webnovel - https://www.webnovel.com/book/17174007506882105 Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/OcelintSteiner Amazon Page for Other Series: "Perfect Blueprint Volume 01 - Soul Hack" - https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B07Y8SS7SD

ocelint_steiner 8 158

In Serial11 Chapters

Legacy of U.L.T.R.A (dropped)

Ever heard the story of the 3 musketeers, you know~ the one with the duel and the cardinal's guards. Known for "All for one and one for all"... Although it's irrelevant to this world, those three were basically saints in my old world and~"Oi Rallo"*sighs* "what is it?..""The whole "3 musketeers" thing... could we just drop the act already?""..but the whole story I pla-""I agree~ just get to the point..""...""I hate democracy..."This is a story of kingdom-building, war, and op main characters. This is my first story so expect nothing of worth.I also have no idea how long each chapter will be...I also suck at writing synopses..~

rallo 8 213

In Serial5 Chapters

Bleach (Arrancar male reader)

follow the story of how a arrancar would walk through the world of bleach and how he finds a reason to keep living.

Lightningstorm12 8 85

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《Day of Wrath [Doom 2016/Eternal rewrite]》E1M7: Unto the Evil

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World Of Monsters

The Demon King Shall Save The World

The Billionaire's Ex Wife(Ongoing)

World Blueprint: Variety of Life

Legacy of U.L.T.R.A (dropped)

Bleach (Arrancar male reader)

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