Chapter 342: Who Are You?
Laz ran towards the dining hall area where he knew his friends were. When he had scanned the area earlier, he had noticed it. He had also noticed that the last stable safe area was being breached even before he fought the fox.
He honestly didn’t even know if they would live long enough for him to get there.
But it wasn’t like he could ignore Death and Lyssa either.
So now Laz could only make haste and run, his powerful strides covering the distance in mere moments.
Coming upon the building, Laz could see various weak beasts roaming around outside. It didn’t take much to imagine that these weaker things retreated either in fear of the stronger ones or because they were kicked out.
Whether it be the animal kingdom or the the human world, power makes the rules.
Laz didn’t even bother stopping to kill these little creatures as he rushed past, one part wind, one part storm. While the beasts may have noticed, they couldn’t and wouldn’t challenge him.
As for Death and War coming up behind him, they both took out their weapons, a scythe and and a rather large battle axe and went to work killing as they ran. Only they knew where they had gotten these types of modern made, old style weapons.
By the time Lyssa had caught up, the only thing at the entrance to the building were dozens of animal corpses and pools of spilled blood.
"That felt good."
"Yes. Truly."
War and Death were smiling while Lyssa was walking over, her face covered in hesitation.
"What’s wrong girl?" War asked, her smile not fading.
"Do you enjoy this kind of thing?" Lyssa asked, glancing at the blood soaked beauty.
"Oh yes. How could we not?" War said, laughing.
Death, despite her own enjoyment, was a bit more sensitive towards the younger woman.
"Perhaps this isn’t the kind of battle you enjoy. Perhaps there are no kinds of battle you enjoy. But you need to understand something and it won’t be easy. This world is different and has been for a while now. Perhaps to normal people, it’s hidden pretty well or takes place outside of their home bubbles. But for the you who is standing here right now, this is going to become your new normal. Kill or be killed. There is no grey area to your own survival. And hesitation? That will just cause more pain to you and to those close to you." Death put a hand on Lyssa young shoulder as she finished explaining. While Death and her sister’s were born into pain and violence, it didn’t escape Death’s attention that others were not. Perhaps it has to do with her own mindset which is much calmer than her three sisters.
After all, the essence of Death has always been eternal peace and rest.
"Then... does he enjoy it?" Lyssa asked, knowing that Death would understand the question.
"Enjoy it? I’m not sure. Compared to us, he grew up in heaven on earth. But reject it? Run from it? No. He will kill all those who wish him and his harm and will wash himself in blood. I don’t know exactly what caused him to be like this, even those who could be considered close to him don’t know why. But they know one thing. There was a time when he was gone from everyone after things started. It was only a few months, but when his... girls... talked it over, they all figured out one thing. He changed during those months. He became darker, harder. At least on the outside. But inside, he was still the same man. It’s not like he is two different people, more like, he broke out of his shell. The shell of a peaceful life. And now it’s your turn. You’ve started later than many, but I can feel it in your blood. You are not just the gentle and kind person on the outside, you are also a storm of violence with an iron will. Now you just need to let it out..." Death said, her face calm.
Lyssa nodded, not really sure if she believed this pretty older sister. For her, Laz’s change from Dean was just too different.
"Come on. We’re going to miss all the fun!" War said, running inside. Lyssa and Death caught up quickly.
"Did you tell them to meet us?" Death asked War.
"Uh... You know I can’t spread my sense that far," War answered back with a slightly red face.
"Well now we are farther than even I can sense them and our phones are useless," Death said back with a frown.
"Are you talking about your sisters?" Lyssa asked, trying her best not to slip on the blood soaked tile floor.
"Yes. Since he has awoken, there is no reason for us to stay here after we kill everything attacking this place. In fact, it will be better if we leave quickly," Death answered.
"Then allow me," Lyssa said and focused her thoughts on the two other girls that looked identical to the ones running in front of her.
Thankfully, Pestilence and Famine had much keener spiritual sense than their sisters and felt Lyssa’s probe, understanding at once.
"Wow, considering she’s not even in the foundation building stage, she’s pretty powerful," Famine commented as she and Pestilence ripped through a blast doors lock and left one of the emergency exits.
"Truly. I wondering if her late awakening has anything to do with it? Then again, we really don’t know much about the whole process anyway," Pestilence replied, grabbing the door and ramming it back into place in the frame, bending it slightly. Although the door was now broken and not longer useable, it would be impossible to get back in, much less coming out through it.
Laz’s sword was surprisingly clean while the rest of him was drenched with blood. He could feel the gathered survivors in the basement using his spiritual sense while the blasts of gunfire indicated they were still alive. Focusing on the hoard gathered in the hallway in front of the door, Laz could quickly sense two rather strong signatures. While not at the same level of the fox, it was still levels higher than the regular demon beasts.
’I can’t think that these creatures are always going to be just as stupid as the fox. While it was easy to kill, that’s because it didn’t treat me as anything but a meal. Some of these beasts might be much more weary,’ Laz thought to himself, trying to not let himself ever feel like this was easy.
The moment he became conceited would be the moment he would be the most likely to die.
Laz also noticed a decent barrier type of set up had been erected in the room. The only reason there were as many survivors still standing was because of this ingenious set up. But even then, just with sheer numbers alone, eventually it would become a blood bath. Several people in the room had already been ripped apart due to the defenders not being able to stop one beast or another in time, but it looked like they quickly responded by shooting the beast dead once it paused to snack on it’s prey.
Beasts were still just beasts in the end. Not all of them could have the intelligence of the higher evolved ones.
Laz showed up in the hallway a moment later and didn’t falter even once. Running forward, Laz stuck a rather large deer demon beast, stabbing it from behind and beheading it before it could even react. The red light in it’s eyes quickly faded as it’s head, adjourned with blade like antlers, hit the floor with little noise as it’s antlers got stuck in the ground first. Just the weight of it’s head alone was enough to push the sharp antlers several inches deep before it came to a stop.
Laz then repeated the process as the animals were all focused in front of themselves, not paying attention to the lives of their comrades being taken one by one behind them. The gun fire in the room also helped Laz to remain undiscovered, even if the first blow wasn’t enough to kill the beasts. Rarely did that happen though.
The smarter two creatures, a wolf and a coyote were both standing close to the entrance, telling their followers to hurry and break through, kill the weaker humans and rip the limbs off the stronger ones that they had been ordered to capture alive. While the wolf and coyote were smarter than the others and able to lead, it wasn’t by much. If a human were to normally have all four of their limbs ripped off, they would die from blood loss in seconds so using this as a way to keep them alive but defenseless was stupid.
Not that either of them knew.
"More. More. More."
"Running low. Waves keep coming. Humans keep killing."
"Should be enough. Human’s already dying. Killing slowing down."
"Send in big ones to break piles."
"Send piles flying. We go after. Eat first. Go back later."
"Yes Yes. Call big ones up."
The wolf and coyote spoke back and forth. Soon, three large bulls and one massive, nine foot tall bear appeared at the door, ready to charge forth and kill their way inside.
"More? Where are more?"
"Be more. Be many more... Where be?"
Neither had been paying attention as Laz cut down the ones in front of him. With so many beasts in the hall, all blindly charging forward on orders, they never once took a look at the ones around them. Had the coyote and wolf been smarter, they would have stood up higher and kept watch on their hoard. But neither of them felt it was needed as the beasts were forbidden to kill one another via the master’s order.
Just as the two decided to get higher and see why the other large sized animals hadn’t come forward, a glint of light was seen as a beasts covered in red charged forward and stabbed the massive bear’s chest making a sound like ripping wet paper. The bear screamed out, and looked down, just in time to catch the glowing red eyes of the much shorter creature beneath it. It wanted to reach our and rip this thing to shreds, but it could feel itself growing weaker every heart beat... or at least it would have been every beat if the heart hadn’t been badly mangled when it’s chest was stabbed.
As for the rest of the creatures, two girls wove through them like a maelstrom of death, carving up beast after beast and covering themselves in blood as their weapons painted a beautiful, bloody picture of massacre.
Death and War were happy to release their stress by engaging in a slaughter. As for Lyssa, while she was hanging back, she was still there with her eyes open, trying to take in the carnage. She felt that what Death said was the truth, that she would have to be a part of this sooner or later. She might not be at that level yet, but at the least she could get herself use to seeing blood and not want to vomit every time.
Due to Laz, Death and War, the situation outside became a slaughter house while those still trapped inside suddenly found no more enemies coming for them.
Just this moment of reprieve was enough for the exhausted fighters to sit down and check their ammo supplies, grab a drink and wonder if they would survive the night.
Just as they thought they had a moment, the sounds of a large beast roaring it’s displease shook the building as the defenders once again took up their positions.
As soon as they saw a shadow in the door, one of the more high strung ones opened fire right away before Manager May ended up yelling at him.
"Not till you see it, otherwise we will just be wasting ammo." She couldn’t help but curse this idiot in her mind. With so little ammo left, there was no way they could make it until damn.
Just as she finished her words, the shadow then appeared in the doorway while screams and echoes continued from the hallway behind. The strange part was those screams sounded angry and terrified, not hostile and determined.
Just when everyone was ready to open fire again, they noticed that the red colored creature in front of them looked strangely human like as it stood there holding an old, saber like war sword in it’s hand. It looked back and forth across the defenders who were too shocked to speak before noticing his group of friends and smiling. Just as he did this, he reached out into the hallway and dragged something else inside.
While the red man might have been a demon from hell, the one he pulled in looked relatively blood free and normal.
It was Lyssa.
"LYSSA!!"
"LYSSA!!!!!"
"LYSSA!"
Her band mates called out to her, and ran forward as though they wanted to embrace her, before they were stopped by their manager who fired a shot into the air before leveling the gun back at Laz.
"WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?" She asked, her tone more aggressive then ever before. Being a former solder, even if she was an engineer, she had felt blood lust and killing intent many times before. But the amount of blood lust coming off from this blood colored man was staggering.
Lyssa, seeing her manager upset, then turned to Laz and seeing his sorry state, walked over to a battered supply cabinet, wrenched it open and removed the cleanest towel she could find. She then stood up and walked back and before everyone’s astounded eyes, proceeded to use the towel to clean off the blood man as well as she could. To help her, Laz reached into his pouch and pulled out a bottle of water that he then dumped over his head while taking deep breaths. Lyssa had stood back and let this happen before stepping forward once more to clean him off even more.
While there was nothing she could do for his clothing, at least his face was now visible and his hair was back to it’s normal black color.
As for Laz, he was taking deep breaths and trying to calm down. He had let himself go earlier while engaging in the whole sale slaughter as he felt every pore of his body cry out in delight at his actions.
This obviously wasn’t the best way to talk to these people.
After having his hair and head cleaned by Lyssa, he looked over at her and simply whispered thank you before she stepped forward and went over to greet her friends.
For some strange reason, she felt that taking care of Laz in this way was a normal thing.
Now that his face was revealed, Mike, Jason, Stevo and even the Manager recognized him at once.
"DEAN?"
