Mai’s blood turned to ice in her veins, hair standing up on the back of her neck as the roar continued to reverberate from the walls of the sewers. It was almost painful. Blink-clicking open her menu she scrolled down to the hazmat suits on off and selected a helmet with noise-dampeners. It was nothing special, sometimes the more industrial parts of the sewers could be deafeningly loud and so sewer workers were issued with templates which would allow them to avoid going deaf during their tenure.

BIOMASS NOTIFICATION

Screams quickly followed the roar, as well as the crackle of gun fire and a strange hiss-zap she hadn’t heard before. A blue light accompanied the latter, flashing in and out of existence so quickly it left her with the impression that she might have been imagining it.

Whatever I’m up against sounds big, fucking big, she thought as she closed the clothing menu and opened up the weapons menu. Scrolling quickly she shot past her normal choices of SMG and knives, going straight to the assault rifles.

Although she’d used assault rifles in training, they weren’t her preferred weapon type, and so she hadn’t spent too much time looking at the options. A fact she quietly cursed her past self for. Past self and present self often warred in Mai’s mind. Present self was well and truly regretting what past self had got her into with regard to the Culling. All the while knowing that her future self was going to continue to balls things up and get involved in situations best left well alone.

Such as a battle with a creature that can roar so loudly it nearly deafened me from dozens of paces away!

The Assault Rifle menu appeared, and she opened it up.

None of the names made any sense. She ordered the menu by two criteria. Calibre, that is, how big the bullets were, and rate of fire. Whatever she was facing was huge, and was going to take a lot of bullets to take down.

She’d have gone for a light machine gun if she could, but preferred to have the ability to use her non-weapon hand as a shield should the need arise. Which she well and truly felt was going to happen.

Blazing Sun – 7.62mm, 600 RPM. Big bullets, capable of firing ten rounds a second. The magazine was thirty rounds, which meant she would have three seconds of full-auto before she needed to reload.

It was a particularly beautiful weapon. With the magazine behind where the trigger would have been had it been a non-nano weapon, it was what was called a Bullpup, Emperor knows why, and with the stock being black, its colour gradually changed through the spectrum of red until it was almost white.

At five per cent BIO-MASS to form the weapon, and a further nought point three per cent for the actual bullets, creating it was going to cost her twelve per cent BIO-MASS with each reload costing nine.

“Let’s hope they kill the damned thing before I get there,” she muttered, bouncing on the spot, trying to think of a reason why she shouldn’t get involved. There were many, but none of them outweighed the need she felt to help the first voice she’d heard.

Rolling her shoulders she moved as quickly as possible whilst retaining some modicum of stealth, keeping all of her skills passive until she got close enough.

Another roar blasted down the sewer tunnel, her helmet’s dampeners kicking in immediately to save her hearing, even so she found that moving closer had meant she could physically feel the power. It shook her bones, and her feet tingled.

“Hells, what in the Emperor’s left nut sack is that doing to the people fighting it?” she murmured, straightening up from a crouch she hadn’t realised she’d adopted. Gritting her teeth, she pushed forward.

Light flashed into and out of existence so quickly it was as if it had never existed, and again there was a strange hissing noise. The combat was closer now, no more than fifty paces away and she was able to make out three sets of figures in the light provided by whatever weapon was creating it.

Humanoid figures darted back and forth, firing weapons at the third, much larger figure. In the brief time that the light had flared into being, she’d been able to spot a spider-like body, larger than any spider had any right to be. Larger by at least three times than any of the humans it was facing.

Mai paused, opened up her menu and quickly made three grenades, attaching them to her suit’s chest rig.

BIOMASS – 58%

At thirty per-cent it was expensive, but she still had the two bottles of BIO-MASS boost the Scavenger Queen had given her.

Just hope I’m still alive to be able to use them!

Kneeling, she took a couple of seconds to watch the battle, allowing her eyes to adjust now that the after-trace of the light had gone. Whatever the weapon was, it seemed to be only able to fire every few seconds.

Although the humans were fighting the monster, it was clear that they weren’t working together, something she could have told from the way they were talking before the battle began. One, a slight-looking figure, darted back and forth, using some sort of sword.

The other group of humanoids were clustered, working to protect what looked like a couple of their downed comrades. A healthy distance was kept between them and the lone figure.

I bet that guy’s the owner of the arsehole voice, the bully. Which would mean that it was more than possible the figures on the ground were caused by him, and not necessarily the monster.

Light flared, off-on, so quickly that she couldn’t tell if it originated from the arsehole or the monster. Judging by the lick of flame on the monster’s shell, it came from the arsehole.

“Friendly coming!” she yelled as she activated USE ASSAULT RIFLE, TUNNEL COMBAT, SEWER COMBAT and SITUATIONAL AWARENESS. Pushing herself mentally, she advanced towards the battle, rifle raised.

Target boxes immediately started to appear on the hideous creature. Nearly every one offered her a near-as-dammit one hundred per cent chance to hit. None offered anything above nought point one per cent for a critical.

She’d thought mogwai and jiangshi were bad enough, with ghouls holding an especially dark place in her memories, but this creature was beyond hideous. It had three legs on either side of an immense and bulbous body, each of the legs ending in bony-spurs taller than any human.

Curled horns as long as her arms jutted from either side of its head, and its face resembled a demonic-pug. Protruding eyes, sore and weeping yellow pus stared sadly at the humans it was fighting, whilst a cactus-like tongue lolled from its mouth.

What the Hells! She laid her sights onto the nearest hit box and let rip with the rifle any second thoughts at entering the battle well and truly banished. There was no way in the Twelve Hells that she could allow it to live and potentially put her former comrades at risk.

Oof! She’d forgotten about the recoil of an assault rifle and her bullets stitched an ineffective line of divots over its natural armour.

HIT! 0.1%

HIT! 0.1%

HIT! 0.1%

HIT! 0.1%

HIT! 0.1%

HIT! 0.1%

Two per cent BIOMASS blasted into the creature with practically indiscernible effect. She’d be eating her own body before she managed to do even a couple of per cent worth of damage.

“Fire your fucking weapon!” she screamed towards the lone figure, who appeared to be happy to watch her draw the creature’s attention.

It was only now that she realised its health bar had only two black squares, the rest being a stubbornly healthy green.

He flicked a rude hand gesture, then shook his weapon hand. A bar of light shone where she assumed the power pack was. A green light pulsed into amber, then red and then back to green again before repeating the cycle. She wasn’t sure but it appeared that the green light stayed on a smidgeon longer the second time.

All that took less than a second, and that was all the time the creature needed.

It roared, and Mai’s ears felt as though they were bursting before the dampener kicked in. The pain was blinding, tears rolling down her face, and she opened her mouth in a scream.

DAMAGE! 2%

INTIMIDATED!

STAGGERED!

Something was wrong with her ears, her balance was off and it felt as though she was on a sewer barge the way the sewer floor appeared to buck and roll beneath her feet.

Blinking, unable to clear her tears away due to the visor protecting her face, she caught the flash of something white heading towards her.

Without a thought she activated FREERUNNING and dived to one side, tucking and rolling before coming back to her feet and throwing herself into a sideways somersault. Shards of plasticrete from the shattered floor behind her erupted into the air.

Landing, she spun and opened fire on whatever had attacked her. It was one of the creature’s legs, jammed at least five hand spans into the floor of the tunnel. Seeing how close she’d come to death turned her mouth drier than a desert.

HIT! 0.1%

HIT! 0.1%

HIT! 0.1%

She kept the burst low, more controllable than before, her bullets hammering into a nice tight grouping, but still doing no discernible damage at all.

Shots from the other side of the creature rang out, the other group of what she could now see were urbexers opening fire with their own weapons.

Hiss-zap, flare of light, and she was left blinking at the intensity of the light being so close. Even through the afterlight she was able to see that the creature’s health bar had dropped by another block, leaving seven firmly in the green.

She fired, more to keep her own fear at bay than in the hope it would injure the creature.

“How many times have you hit the fucking thing?” she shouted towards the lone figure.

“Six! Half a block a time! Thing’s built like a bloody hover tank!”

The creature span, presenting it’s back to them as there was the thud of a heavy machine gun from the other group. Tracer cracked past her head as the heavy bullets ricocheted from the creature’s chitinous armour.

Even as she ducked she could see panicked glyphs appearing over the heads of some of the humans. In a heartbeat they were off and running in all directions, firing over their shoulders as they did so, leaving only three of their companions to face the spider-demon.

“What .,..?” she breathed as a scorpion-like tail curled from under where it had been tucked away. Venom dripped from a large, hooked sting. A blur of movement was the only warning its target had.

A woman, she was screaming in fear, firing a small pistol over her shoulder as she tried to flee the battle. As the stinger plunged towards her it whistled, before plunging into the top of her crown. Blood erupted out of her mouth in a torrent, and her eyes burst from their sockets at the force of the impact.

Hideous slurping followed the strike and Mai gulped as she realised that the now pulsing sting was sucking the woman’s brains from what remained of her skull. She didn’t need to look at the woman’s all-black health bar to know that she was dead.

Just as quickly the sting retracted, the woman’s body falling straight to the floor in a bloody heap.

“Distract it!” Mai shouted at the man, activating USE GRENADE, pulling and priming one in one smooth motion. It flashed, a quick pulse of red, to indicate that it was charged.

Activating the USE GRENADE skill created a new display on her retinal monitor. At the base of where her grenade would land was a red circle, and in every target box on the creature’s body in that circle had a CRITICAL HIT chance above it. None were higher than five per cent due to her Rank in that skill, but that was many times better than the chance she’d had with the assault rifle.

Attached to the circle was a looped line which showed her the trajectory her grenade would take if she threw it in the direction her arm was moving. She shifted it slightly to ensure that as many of the creature’s hit boxes were highlighted.

A quick underarm movement and the grenade left her arm, its red light continuing to blink as it sailed through the air.

“Down!” she threw herself into the muck on the bottom of the sewer tunnel, sliding forward slightly. A heartbeat’s pause and then the grenade detonated.

HIT! 5%

HIT! 10%

HIT! 5%

HIT! 1%

HIT! 5%

BLEED @3% PER SECOND

STUNNED

Instead of roaring, the creature squealed as the grenade hurt it in a way none of the other weapons had before. Two whole blocks of green filled with black, and the BLEED and STUNNED glyphs appeared over its head.

Re-absorbing the assault rifle, Mai took a grenade in each hand. Her USE GRENADE was still active, with plenty of time left for what she needed to do.

Aiming, she shifted the circle towards where the creature was most badly injured, luminescent blood dripping from holes torn in its belly by the blast. Her CRITICAL HIT chances now showed as being near seven per cent for most.

So many damned hit boxes, I’d have to be cursed by the Seven Lords of Misfortune to not get at least one.

And with that she pushed herself to her knees, primed the grenades and let fly.

The lone urbexer’s weapon hiss-zapped again, this time knocking a full bar of health into the black as the light burned into one of the gaping wounds she’d caused. If she thought the creature’s screech of pain was loud before, she was mistaken.

DAMAGE 2%

INTIMIDATED!

STUNNED!

Redundant, the warnings told her nothing she didn’t already know. It tried to spin, but one of its legs was injured, causing it to stagger, its body tilting slightly. Steaming ichor poured out of where the light had struck.

Two flashes of light, two loud thunder bursts as the grenades detonated.

HIT! 5%

HIT! 10%

HIT! 5%

CRITICAL HIT! 15%

HIT! 10%

CRITICAL HIT! 25%

KILL!

TITLE GAINED! DEMON KILLER

YOU ARE TRULY A WARRIOR OF LEGENDS! BARDS WILL SING YOUR LIFE STORY AND PEOPLE WILL WEEP THAT THEY NEVER GOT TO KNOW YOU!

TITLE – DEMON SLAYER 5%

Guts, chitin, flesh and yet more luminescent ichor fountained in all directions as the creature’s belly was blasted open by the power of the grenades. Health bar completely black, the creature collapsed soundlessly to the ground, legs curling beneath it in one last-ditch attempt to protect itself.

“Well done, little girl,” Mai turned to see the lone urbexer behind her, dripping with ichor. But what really drew her attention was the weapon pointing at her, its charge well and truly green. “Now, what do you think you’re worth to other Cullers?”

Hands raised, knowing that she’d never be able to kill him before his weapon atomised her, Mai closed her eyes and waited for death.