Chapter 233: Deja Vu

December 26th, 625

My breathing was heavy as I jumped, using my boots to launch my body to the top of a building.

I ran and jumped across several others, gliding between the gaps until I found some targets. 

I swung Totenstahl around and pulled the trigger, unloading on some Hog Riders charging through the city. The other monsters around them were cut down in the barrage all the same.

These monsters were moving through the village and not every citizen was in the center yet. Some had decided to pack belongings, some were simply stupid enough to take their sweet time. Regardless, I was attempting to hold this sector and save who I came across. I didn’t have the energy to stick my neck out and rush though. I had to conserve for the inevitable battle against another high Authority. I didn’t expect to hold this village without a fight. 

And I wouldn’t risk all the others to save those who lacked the urgency to save themselves. 

After clearing a street of monsters I suddenly saw a flash in the corner of my eye. I spun around, seeing another monster on a nearby rooftop. 

One I had never seen before, but I could recall troops screaming about them during our retreat. It was also in the catalog of Scourge species, I just never expected to see it in this frozen hellscape. 

A Bellowbeast. 

A monster that could spit massive columns of flame. It incinerated flesh and magic alike, notoriously difficult to defend against. 

I saw the flames bellow toward me and I dove off the building, my legs straining to land with all the weight on me. 

I loved Totenstahl but the massive pack on my back was weighty, even with my enhanced body. Exhausted as I was, moving it around like this was taking its physical toll. 

I lifted Totenstahl anyway and raked the Bellowbeast with rounds, sinking over a hundred into its leathery and rocky body before noticing how little damage I’d done. To handle that heat it needed an equally tough body, and this one was apparently Authority 8. 

I sprinted to the side when it swept toward me with more fire, chucking a grenade as I did so. It was cooked perfectly so that when it passed by the Bellowbeast’s head, it exploded. 

I heard a scream, the fire going out, so I launched myself back up the building and put more rounds into it. 

I didn’t stop shooting until it was a dead pile of gore. 

The cold atmosphere irritated my throat as I took in more air, simply staring at that Bellowbeast for a few seconds. 

These monsters were getting more difficult to deal with, and they were constantly coming. Even disregarding my current exhaustion I was getting sick and tired of it. 

I needed this battle to be over. 

That’s when I heard a scream. I was distant, to the outskirts of the village. 

I started running, jumping from rooftop to rooftop. 

I saw some monsters on the way, sweeping them with Totenstahl, leaving them behind with mortal wounds. 

“AAAHHH!! Help me!”

I let out a pained breath, pushing myself to keep leaping across rooftops until I arrived near a street. 

A little girl was stumbling in my direction, a man mere steps behind her, scrambling in panic. He picked her up as he ran by, just as a group of monsters chasing them rounded the corner.

I lifted Totenstahl and opened fire.

Six beasts jerked to the tune of my gunfire, dropping to the scorched street with little ceremony. One of the beasts, just a bit tougher than its fellows, dropped a moment later.

The explosions attracted more attention, monsters coming in from beyond the village turning toward my direction. More rounded other corners, appearing from alleyways as I saw flashes of fire lighting up other streets. 

There had to be several hundred monsters in the vicinity. I could hear Umara and Feiden fighting nearby. 

I just shot the monstrosities as they came, bodies dropping as they came bounding and scuttling toward the man and little girl. Some took a few dozen rounds of concentrated fire, and with a moment to breathe I dropped from the roof and into an alleyway, planting myself on a corner. 

I kept one eye on the running pair going down the street as I swept across incoming enemies with the glowing hot barrel of my weapon, watching their faces contort in exertion and terror as the real enemy that was chasing them blasted its way through an entire building, chunks of ruins and clouds of dust flying across the street.

A light, the color of a raging star, pulsed in a way no light ever could as it illuminated the monster it belonged to.

Another Bellowbeast. Even as I dispatched the last few stragglers trying to make their way to the pair, even as I focused fire, each bullet packed to the brim with the harshest Psyka I could muster, even as I yelled to the man and the little girl he carried to sprint for the alleyway that would give them safety, its throat inflated and filled with inhuman fire, lighting the blackened cobblestones beneath its feet.

It shrugged off my rounds, each of them flattening against its rocky skin. The full size cartridges didn’t even stagger it for a moment, and it soon flooded the street with murderous flames.

The man glanced back for but a second, and with the intense heat singing his hair, no longer hesitated before throwing the girl to me in the alleyway. She was no more than eight to ten, old enough to understand what was going on and experience the terror that comes from comprehension, but not old enough to do anything about it or cope with it. I reached forward and grabbed her as the fire drowned the man, unheard whispers on his lips.

In the few moments I had left, I wrapped the girl with my body, stumbling back a few steps in an attempt to gain some distance, any distance at all, from the flames tumbling into the alley. Even beneath my gear and hood, it was like standing in an oven.

Even as the fire rushed over me, even when I went to the floor to try and reduce the surface area the fire could burn, I knew it didn’t matter.

I couldn’t hear the screams, but I felt them against my chest.

The fire was gone in a matter of seconds. Everything was in flames, even the ashes on the stones charred to dust.

I lifted myself from the floor, opening my arms to find but a small corpse.

Skin flaked off my chest, nothing more than cinders. Outside my inadequate embrace, it partially crumbled, revealing cracked bones and burnt flesh.

Even through the mask, the smell reached me. I wanted to retch, but danger started approaching me, getting closer much faster than any Bellowbeast should be able to.

Still, my eyes remained locked on the corpse before me, once alive just seconds ago.

Then the danger stopped, the thing looking down upon me from a rooftop, its sickening voice entering my ears. I somehow knew who, what, it was before I even looked at it. 

“I can’t say I’m a fan of cooked meat anymore.”

It played like deja vu, my head lifting even though my Aura had captured an image of it already. 

“Especially not that cooked. All the flavor is gone. Little girls are the good ones too. Why couldn’t you protect her better?”

I lifted my eyes to find the sadistic piece of shit standing above me

Completely black eyes and a face I could never stand. There wasn’t even a trace of mutation on it either. The process wasn’t difficult, or forced. It had changed willingly.

My mind almost drew a blank. The sudden surge of overwhelming anger and frustration paralyzed me. I couldn’t seem to understand.

Why did this have to happen? Why did the Scourge exist?

I would sacrifice my life if it meant stopping them, killing them all. But that was too easy, apparently. My death meant nothing.

No, it was my life they wanted. My time, my blood, my sweat, my sanity.

With every death, with every murder, they continued to chip away at it. I hadn’t quite noticed at first. I could brush off death so easily back then. I still could now. But its toll grew. I could feel the cracks forming.

I didn’t want to. I felt like I could resist it, either by simply not caring or accepting it as part of the job. Death was everywhere, I’d encountered it everywhere I went, and there would always be more. It was just a fact of life and I had gotten used to it. It wouldn’t faze me. 

I had watched tens of thousands die during our retreat. I had watched tens of thousands more die on the battlefield. I had watched friends be slaughtered, I had sent friends to be slaughtered. I had sent thousands to die. I had prompted the movements of the entire military that had eventually ended in the eradication of over 200 thousand soldiers and the fall of a major front of the war. Death couldn’t faze me.

Yet the little corpse in front of me remained seared in my vision and on my coat. The tender memories of Nonnen felt like they were constantly replaying. I could still hear Amira’s words in my ear. I could still see Pollux getting decapitated. I could still feel the recoil of the pistol that had ended the life of my own Snow Dove. 

The screams were unending, constant, never leaving my mind. My memory was too perfect for that. I was too smart to forget, to ignore. 

I stood as the danger to my life grew. The monster above me was all smiles as charred skin peeled off my coat. The metal backpack full of ammunition seemed to weigh twice as much. 

I looked into its eyes, what passed for eyes, simultaneously seeing its twisted perversion of a smile. 

The sheer depth of corruption I saw within it was enough to make me shiver in unadulterated hatred. Totenstahl ran so hot that I felt my hand holding the bipod burn, yet I couldn’t feel the pain my own spirit was inflicting. 

I hated it, but what I hated more was the fact that I would get no joy from killing this thing. It wasn’t enough that it would be dead. It wasn’t enough that it was one more monster no longer walking this planet. It wasn’t enough that killing it would spare one more person from death or destruction. 

The sight of this dead fiend made me feel nothing. No, this fiend shouldn’t even exist. The Treehouse shouldn’t have fallen. We should’ve been able to hold the line. We shouldn’t have had to retreat. 

My friends shouldn’t be dead. There were so many things that should be different, that weren’t, that would never be. 

And it wasn’t my fault. There was nothing more I could’ve done that would’ve changed things. 

Instead, it was the fault of those who held the power yet refused to do anything with it. Out of fear or malice, I didn’t care, both were no different in my eyes. The fact that the Sovereign of the Treehouse didn’t fight the enemy meant that he was just as much an enemy of humanity as the Scourge that overran the walls. 

Those who allowed evil were just as bad as those committing it. Those who didn’t do what they could to strengthen themselves, prepare for, and eradicate the Scourge deserved to die to the enemy they were negligent of. 

Those at the top who didn’t provide those below them with the tools, time, and guidance to strengthen themselves and prepare for the enemy deserved to be killed by those they were screwing over. 

I raised Totenstahl, the last pathfinder shooting toward me with a blade and a gleeful smile. 

“I’m going to cut off your arms and then make you watch as I fuck your beloved girlfriend!”

It screamed in sadistic joy, the fantasies within its head driving every one of those deadly movements. 

And in response I felt my Psyka move with so much intensity that time was drawn out, every second turning to a minute as my Aura was cast into the surroundings. 

My nerves fired so fast that my muscles strained and tore with every movement. I didn’t need adrenaline. My mind was overriding my limits for me. 

For a second I moved faster than the enemy, a knight an authority above me, and I dodged its attack. Its momentum carried it in front of my barrel, and I fired. 

The bullets that came out were nearly molten with wrath, four of them making contact with the enemy’s body and turning flesh to ash before it even made contact. Then it tore a smoldering hole through its body, repeating six times before its body flew past me. 

“FUCK!”

It screamed again, my finger having come off the trigger with perfect timing, not a single bullet being fired into the ground and wasted. 

I could see six holes in its abdomen, and although it wasn’t enough to kill it, it wasn’t healing from it either. 

My words came out, Totenstahl nearly melting with malevolence. 

“You are the last Pathfinder. I will send you to hell, so that those in heaven may watch you burn for eternity.”

“Haha! You couldn’t possibly kill me after I’ve gained so much power! You cannot fathom the depths of what I’ve been given! I am a demigod!”

“No.”

I raised Totenstahl again, the enemy dodging, my finger having yet to pull the trigger. 

“Today, it will be enough. You will experience all that my life and effort has culminated in, and you will know nonexistence.”

“I’d like to see you say that again while I fuck that precious girlfriend of yours to death.”

It laughed as I spun around, simultaneously releasing a clone, both of me releasing a grenade while pulling Totenstahl’s trigger. 

It tried to dance around my aim, jumping back when it got close to the grenade, which was a dud, and subsequently allowing me to hit it with two rounds. It screamed again, jumped back in to attack my clone. 

My clone dropped a grenade at its feet as I threw another grenade over, aiming my gun to the side and firing. The enemy jumped back to dodge both grenades and then ran straight into my bullets, another three rounds painting it, the grenades not exploding. 

Then it rushed my clone again, another grenade dropping at its feet as I backed up. It pushed forward anyway, the grenade turning out to be a real one and exploding at its feet, taking off a pound of flesh, not completely severing a limb. 

It screamed once more, my clone disappearing under its attack, another two rounds arriving at where the enemy paused, hitting it in the thigh with impeccable timing. 

I let out a long breath as it charged me, another clone splitting off as I raised Totenstahl and aimed straight at it. 

Then, light flashed, and I saw the enemy appear outside my Mind Palace. 

I stood within my command center, the fiend standing in a white expanse, locked within and being aimed at by every weapon atop my bulwark. 

My voice entered its mind. 

“You will die, but you will not be ignorant of what you are facing. I will make you aware of who is about to kill you. You will learn through your death.”

It got no chance to respond, every weapon on my bulwark opening fire, bombarding its Aura with everything I had. It was locked, unable to escape my barrage, unable to fight back and being wholly suppressed. 

“You can thank the freaks of Unholy Light for teaching me this trick.”

My vision snapped back to the real world, my Aura wreaking havoc upon my enemy so thoroughly that I knew it could no longer hope to read me. 

I simply stepped to the side, the enemy pursuing a nonexistent enemy. 

And Totenstahl fired, bullets pelting its back and creating more wounds. 

“AAGGH! FUCK YOU!”

It turned around toward me and yet I was elsewhere, nothing but a clone before it. 

It ran toward that me and I dropped three grenades in three different places. It dodged the two it thought was fake, only for the third grenade to explode right by its other recent leg wound. 

The enemy’s foot blew off, so much Psyka loaded into that grenade that my head throbbed from the drain. 

The enemy was hurled a small distance through the air from the force of the grenade, Totenstahl already trained on where I knew it would travel. I pulled the trigger, my barrel tracking its path and pelting it with more wounds in the arms and chest. It wore armor around its chest but it was nothing before Totenstahl’s malice. 

“I’M GOING TO MURDER YOU! I WILL EAT YOUR FRESH CORPSE!”

The enemy screamed and threw out a weapon but I knew it would do that five seconds ago. The weapon thus flew toward one of my clones. I simply took four steps in the other direction and tossed a grenade I had been cooking. 

It exploded right next to the weapon the enemy threw out, deflecting it, the weapon exploding with poisonous magic. 

I raised my arm, letting the shockwave brush over me before raising Totenstahl again and painting the enemy with searing gunfire. 

It screamed, and screamed, and screamed as I shot each of its limbs. My head was splitting but I couldn’t care less. I could feel Anarchy but I only used it as fuel to bring annihilation upon the enemy’s Aura. 

I took off its other leg, and then when it started trying to slash my clone I took off its right arm. Then when it brought out yet another weapon I shot through the tendons on its wrist, the weapon dropping right after being activated and exploding right next to it. 

It blew half its torso off, but its vitality was so deep that it still wasn’t dead. 

“You’re practically screaming to me your every thought and move. Did you truly expect to kill me like this?”

“NO! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO FUCKING DIE! I NEED HELP!”

It screamed for its kin but I felt nothing nearby that could help in time. 

Instead, I walked over to it and knelt down as it bled out. 

And I smiled at it, sneering in joy. 

“You really are a fucking bug. Look at you, dying and screaming like a filthy pig.”

“FU-!”
“Uh-uh.”

My knife went through its neck, stopping its words as I laughed. 

“How disgusting. I hope you know how happy I am that you’re groveling like this. How I love seeing you unable to even scream.”

It struggled on the ground, gurgles coming out of its mouth, its eyes spitting hatred. 

I just continued to smile. I wanted it to know how happy I felt seeing its helplessness. 

“Man, I was actually expecting a decent fight from you too. What a fucking disappointment. You can die knowing that you’d never be able to bag a girl as fine as mine.”

It struggled some more before I suddenly saw its body glow, something within its chest flashing brighter and brighter. 

Then a massive explosion washed over me, packed so full of poisonous energy that the surrounding dozen buildings were eradicated, a crater appearing in the ground and the shockwave sweeping everything for 50 yards. 

I watched from a rooftop 55 yards away, a cigar in my mouth, my head pounding like crazy and blood pooling in my mouth. 

After my clone was decimated I spit in the enemy’s direction. 

“As if I couldn’t feel your master arm that halfway through the fight. I see all, fucking dumbass.”

I turned and started gliding away with my boots. 

The last Pathfinder was officially dead. 

“John?”

I heard Umara’s voice once I reestablished telepathy with her. 

“I’m fine.”

“What was that?”

“Eric. I killed him.”

“…I’m glad. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Start shrinking the perimeter if you haven’t already. More monsters are coming, and we’ve got several more hours before helicopters get here. Running around will only tire us, and I just ran through nearly all of my Psyka. I’ll need help with coverage.”

“Copy.”

I transmitted the same commands to Tana and Feiden, my head feeling like it was going to split open, and my body covered in pulled muscles. 

Using Anarchy to outright remove my bodily and magical limits wasn’t something I had expected to do. But it had worked, and now I had another card up my sleeve. 

And now one of my demons has been eradicated. As I thought, it brought me naught an ounce of happiness or relief, but I would spare it no more thought. It didn’t deserve the energy it took to even fire the neurons containing the memory of its name. 

We started pulling back, tightening our perimeter as more monsters started coming in. 

The fight wasn’t over yet, but I knew Sawn was on his way with transports. 

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