《A Daemon's Gamble》


 Chapter I: The New World

    ¡°It was 2012 and the world was coming to an end. Scientists had monitored the movement of the Earth¡¯s tectonic plates and discovered that they started to shift, but not in the way that most would imagine. Instead of shifting entire continents towards one another, the plates were slowly sinking into the Earth.


    The water levels rose or, to be more precise, the land moved to go underneath the ocean''s¡¯ surface. Ninety percent of the world started to panic when news got out and they started to think about ways to avoid death.


    Casualties started to rise as Humanity started to fall. Then, as a last, desperate act, the governments of three countries opened up their secret projects to the populace. The entire world came together and voted on who would live and go Humanity¡¯s last efforts of survival.


    This project was known as Project ARC, or Atmospheric Removed Centralization, which was a project that was originally meant to bring small portions of Humanity into orbit to see if Humans could survive as a colony in space or travel through it. However, now it was being used to take portions of intellectual people and bring them away from the natural disasters.


    Scientists, Engineers, and more piled on, but the governments only took the brightest. They took tests that pertained to their fields and, if they didn¡¯t pass the first test, they were booted from the program.


    However, the common folk, grocers, animators, writers, and more, didn¡¯t even have a chance to be accepted. They felt slightly avenged when they saw that one of the space crafts had failed to launch, causing the vehicle to crash back to Earth. Only half of the crew survived the fall.


    Feeling that the end days were upon them, people started to steal to survive. They took what they could to build bunkers and shelters to try and, hopefully, outlive the event. In four different cases, there were buildings specially made to withstand floods, earthquakes, and radiation, but one of them didn¡¯t survive and broke down, killing all the inhabitants.


    In about a month, both of the working ARCs were working and monitored the situation from above. Their engineers and scientists working out a way to survive to long periods of time in space.


    In that time, coasts of many countries were covered in sea water and even half of Taiwan was flooded. Japan had many islands flooded, but they had already started to create a wall to block out the water. At the moment, it seemed that everyone wanted to move inland which caused massive stampedes of both cars and people.


    Humanity lost about one fifth of its entire population by the first Shift. What happened after that was, after four months of surviving, the gravity started to flip and turn in several parts of the world: Florida, Nebraska, Egypt, Finland, India, Brazil, and Mongolia.


    The gravity shifted to either do one of three things: It created areas of zero gravity, reversed gravity, or make it seem like gravity turned ninety degrees. People flew and fell and the amount of people dying rose.


    Of course, my great-grandfather was there. But, instead of being affected by the gravity, he was in his bunker in Nebraska. The gravity there made it so that there was zero gravity and he and his family plus some family friends floated around in their bunker. Luckily, he was able to survive both Shifts.


    The first Shift stopped after a week. The water levels then seemed to drop to about what they were originally and it looked like the world was going back to the way it was. But the people aboard the ARCs knew better.


    They sent out transmissions and messages to tell us that it wasn¡¯t over, but, by then, it was far too late. They were able to identify a second one, but only three days before it started. Even then, they didn¡¯t know when it would come and, by the time the messages and warning reached us, it was too late.


    The second Shift started eight months after the first one, when small areas of zero gravity appeared all over the world. It just suddenly happened. They gave off electromagnetic waves that people could detect, but only with the correct equipment.


    Aboard the ARCs, they scanned the entire world to see which areas got affected, but, as it turned out, it wasn''t just a few select areas around the world, but there were at least ten mile long spheres of zero gravity in every country.


    Of course, since they were spread out, a few portions of Humanity managed to avoid them. However, after a week of waiting, like the last event, the gravity in those areas reversed and thousands were sent into the atmosphere.


    What was horrifying about that was that the ARC space stations had their own gravities, albeit they were small, and some bodies started to orbit around them. At the mere sight of such things, people regurgitated the meals they ate prior.


    After another week of waiting, the gravity spheres started to shrink and they started to move towards different areas. At each of those points, the spheres combined to create enough pressure to create what many called Madness Vortexes. It was said that, if you walked too close to one, you would either go made with the urge to kill or die on the spot. As it is now known, those vortexes were actually connected to several points in the Madness Realm where mainly emotions and feeling exist. However, it was quite lucky that nothing living from that realm actually entered for, if they did, it would be unstoppable.


    At the point that many would call ¡°The Convergence¡±, the vortexes turned into portals and beings of fantasy and magic entered the world. Earth had now changed forever and, as some may have said, for better or worse.


    The portals were connected to one of four places: The Underworld, Limbo, the Feylands, or an unknown realm where no one goes in or out of. Beings could move back and forth between the two worlds via portals.


    Nowadays, there are only four portals. One for each realm.


    The Underworld led to a world of spirits, but not one that most would think. Humans have decided to call it that because they heard other races call it that. In fact, there were Yokai and Evil Spirits that came from that land as well as Spectors, Banshees, Vampires, Werewolves, and more. Too many to list off the top of my head.


    The Feywilds is a wonderful place full of lush, green fauna¡­ or so I hear. The Elves, Fae, Elementals, and more came from that place. Some are hostile to Humans while others work alongside them.


    Limbo was where Daemons and Devils arrived from. Contrary to their names, these Daemons were somewhat friendly towards Humans, but mostly because they embody the Seven Deadly Sins. I actually asked my grandfather about it and, apparently, the Daemons and Devils and everything else are quite similar to things from what used to be Humanity¡¯s fictional stories. Sometimes, the worlds converged causing some other worldly beings to arrive and then, after a while, disappear.


    That was how Vampires and such became the beings told in legends. Why Satan was known as the Demon King and why the Seven Deadly Sins were told to others. It was all because of these small convergences.¡±


    She stopped speaking. She had become tired telling her niece the world¡¯s story. Actually, she was the daughter of her adopted sister, an Elf. The niece she told the story to was a mix of an Elf and a Cambion who actually worked diligently unlike his brethren. Their daughter was more Elf than Infernal, but had a pair of pale horns and a tail.


    The person telling the story, Priska, was not simply a mix of two or even three different species. She was a mix of five. The only Human blood she had running through her veins had come from her great-grandfather who had married a Succubus. Then, after a long line of marrying into different species, she was the final product.


    Using her hands to prop herself up on the carpet, she looked up at the ceiling. She hadn¡¯t been alive long enough to experience any of those things. However, two of her grandparents were alive at the time.


    Her grandfather on her dad¡¯s side, Gusion, a Duke of Hell, and her grandfather on her mother¡¯s side, Daemos, a Pure-Breed Vampire. She found that it was easier to ask Daemos as he gave her answers that were nice and easy to understand while, even though he spoke straight to the point, Gusion¡¯s answers were not so¡­ understandable.


    Now, one might question why someone might marry a Duke of Hell. The answer was simple, in a way, a girl who happened upon him when he was just starting out a company using three of his forty legions of Daemons and Devils liked how he was always to the point and could be kind and considerate to those around him, even if his answers could hurt people as he usually told honest answers.


    Thus, her father was born after three years of trying to win Gusion over. Of course, due to how painfully honest and brutal Gusion¡¯s speech was, her father, Naelstrum, went off on his own when he was 16. At that age, he already found a place where he could work with a cheap apartment nearby.


    His work place was a spell scroll shop known as Entomb where he was now the manager. Currently, he was thinking about expanding the business to different locations that didn¡¯t have spell scroll shops.


    Her mother actually had a much easier childhood, but filled with a lot more blood. Daemos ran a company that leased Vampire soldiers and bodyguards out to anyone for the right price. Occasionally, there would be disputes on price and how much they would be allowed to have at a given moment. That inevitably led to Daemos stealing both the blood and the life of the customer.


    Her mother¡¯s name was Diena which was a name that her mother chose for it was the same name as a protector spirit that was somewhat famous in the Underworld. Her mother was a Banshee, but Banshees, who were used to be thought of as ghosts, were actually ethereal spirits who could go through solid objects and, if they were so inclined, could have children.


    However, many chose not to and this was one of the rare instances where they did so.


    Both of Priska¡¯s parents were mixes who carried the same powers as their parents, but they also had a chance of developing a new power from mixing old ones.


    ¡°What happened to the ARCs?¡±


    Priska looked back at her five year old niece. For someone who was related to Elves, a race not commonly known for curiosity in things other than magic, she was quite rare in her way of thinking.


    Turning away from the white ceiling, Priska answered as she had nothing else to do. She was given the job of entertaining her niece while her brother-in-law was working and while her adopted sister was buying some groceries at the local market.


    ¡°They are still in the sky. You can see them from down here.¡±


    She pointed past the window they were near and her niece, Mea, looked skyward. In the distance she could see a large sphere with some other geometries sticking out.


    ¡°They built their crafts to be better and to be more resilient. It was forty years ago when they sent down ships to the Earth¡¯s surface to look for resources and life when they realized that Humanity had already started to live with other species. The ships went back, bigger and better than before, and those new species went up along with them.


    Nowadays, there are four ARCs with Humans still running them, well, at least mostly. I¡¯ve heard that some Elves and Daemons have learned how to use the instruments in space. The only reason why the two ARCs from before don¡¯t come down is because, if they did, it would be like the asteroid that crashed into Earth, wiping out all the dinosaurs. Do you understand?¡±


    While Mea could understand most of what Priska said, she did not know the meaning of many words spoken to her. Those foreign words confused her to the point where she flat out ignored them and tried to fill in the holes.


    It was at that moment that, with her excellent hearing, Priska could hear that the door was being unlocked. Turning just in time, she saw her sister, Nile.


    Her beautiful, blonde hair flowed around her as she hefted her grocery bags inside. She looked to be around the age of 16 rather than her true age of 24.


    Wiping the nonexistent sweat from her forehead, she looked at the two of them and smiled.


    ¡°So, what did aunt Rika tell you today?¡±


    That was her name for her sister, Rika, since it was shorter and easier to say. Mea jumped up, off the carpet, and hopped over to her mother. She squeezed her tightly in a hug and let go long enough to spit out a few words before going back to hugging.


    ¡°Auntie told me about the world!!¡±


    Of course, such an ambiguous answer would make anyone confused, but Nile still put on a smile. Still hugging her child, she looked over at Priska who was getting up.


    ¡°What did you actually tell her?¡±


    With a shrug as she moved past the two of them, she spoke.


    ¡°Just about how Earth became the way it is now, 84 years ago.¡±


    Nile made a face to say that she understood what she had told Mea and she nodded. It wasn¡¯t an inherently bad thing to tell children, but it was something that was either better told at an age where they could be taught about it in school.


    Priska and Nile, however, were taught all about the subject when they were but children. Of course, their parents talked to Priska more about the subject due to her being their actual daughter. Nile wasn¡¯t jealous of them doing so for she was 10 years old at the time and felt that playing games and hanging out with friends was much more important.


    Priska on the other hand, was just 5 and loved to hear stories about her family. How her grandfather, Gusion, led his 40 legions against another Daemon and won. How her other grandfather, Daemos, was able to terrorize entire villages. How her great-grandfather had met with his wife.


    It was all interesting how all this history made up a small portion of her family. Of course, being Human, that great-grandfather who had survived both Shifts and the Madness Vortexes, he had died quite a while ago. Some of her other great-grandparents also died, but not due to old age.


    As for some, her grandmother who was a Banshee was formed from the large amount of negative emotion that entered from the Human realm. That energy came together and formed a humanoid that could go through solid objects and scream at a high enough pitch that it affected the human psyche. Gusion, however, was born from the void. He obtained a form that defied human logic four thousand years after the Limbo was born. Six thousand years after that, he gained several forms, but only three of them could be shown to Humans.


    ¡°Well, I¡¯m going to go home now.¡±


    ¡°Alright! Bye!¡±


    ¡°Bye-bye!!¡±


    The mother and daughter waved to her as she gave a slight wave before exiting the door. She locked the door behind her before putting her four keys in her pocket.


    Priska was wearing grey cargo pants that had six pockets. Her keys were in one of the two pockets on her thighs. Her wallet was in her left waist pocket and her phone was in her right. In her back pockets, she had only a can of mace and three pieces of honey candy.


    Walking down the steps of the apartment building that her sister lived in, she reached into her back pocket and unwrapped a piece of candy. Plopping it in her mouth, she looked around.


    This scenery was native to her, but was certainly very different from what most who lived before the Convergence would see.


    Now, the smallest building in the world was three stories, excluding privately owned houses. The largest building was known as the Giants¡¯ Domain, but not because it was for Giants. No Giant had ever set foot on Earth due to how devastating the effects would be. No, it was called that because it was as tall as the tallest Giant who stood at 8 miles and reached the stratosphere.


    That building had everything, from arcades to grocery stores and houses to barracks. It was also one of the most heavily fortified buildings in the world.


    Speaking of which, the geography of the world actually stayed the same, save for some craters dug by the gravity spheres, but the governments came together under the new government known as the Species Per International Agreement, or SPIA for short.


    Of course, there are some rebels who have broken off from SPIA, but they were forced into alliances due to how much support SPIA had from every species. Their firepower and human resources in the military and security was unparalleled by any country in the past or in the present.


    SPIA¡¯s leaders consisted of a High Elf, a Human, Satan, and a Lich King. One representative was chosen from each world, except the one that no one knew what transpired within it. Their terms were for life, but they were tested each year to see if they would act in benefit of the people living under SPIA and to see if they were planning to assassinate other members of their high council.


    The High Elf was an Elf who had lived for three thousand years already and was a master spellcaster. The Human was an extremely charismatic leader who could increase morale with a single speech. The Lich King was one of the three most powerful Undeads in the Underworld who could raise entire armies of the undead. Lastly, Satan. The leader of the Daemons who was very persuasive and, unlike what other religions said about him, he was quite friendly with everyone who wasn¡¯t a complete goody two shoes.


    Aside from the buildings and otherworldly beings, the technology had improved immensely. In fact, Elves had started to spearhead the research for A.I., even though people were quite against the idea. Phones still retained their classic rectangular shape, but were now able to do things that computers could do on top of their original function. There were more satellites in orbit and basically the entire world shared this technology.


    However, there were downsides to this change in society. More fights broke out in the streets, usually inter-species brawls, and the jobs like assassin and mercenary made a comeback. They were now officially recognized as legal jobs as long as you went about it through the guilds the government set up. Unsurprisingly enough, it was Satan who accepted this act and allowed it.


    Finally down the last flight of stairs, she felt her phone vibrate. Taking it out, she saw that it was one of her seven coworkers, Seru, who was calling her.


    ¡°Hello?¡±


    ¡°Ah! Priska! Um, there is a job for you that is near where you are now¡­ If you could, could you take care of it?¡±


    ¡°As if I have a choice.¡±


    ¡°I am sending the directions over now.¡±


    Seru hung up and Priska looked at her phone once more. Seru had sent instructions via text and Priska readjusted her cropped, black jacket.


    In that jacket, she had two pens in her breast pocket and two secret pouches on the inside of it. Her shirt was white with the image of a cat outlined in blue. To be honest, this wasn¡¯t even one of the most out of the norm clothes. Some people wore clothes entirely made of dark materials or some wore cartoony shirts.


    Immediately turning left from the steps, she found herself at one of the many roads in the city. She walked along the sidewalk, dodging people as she passed them, and managed not to get pickpocketed.


    This city she was in now was New York City, a city that expanded to at least a quarter of all of New York, but it was now a den of thieves, pickpockets, and gangs. There were many poor people living here, but also many well off or rich people as well.


    She turned once again and moved at a brisk pace towards the trains in the station. She scanned her card and entered through the gates. Waiting a moment, she crammed herself on one of the trains and the doors closed.


    After what felt like an hour and was actually three minutes, she heaved a great breath in and out as it felt great not to be squished by so many people. Two more minutes later, she was outside of the station and looking at a giant casino.


    ¡°Umm¡­ ¡°The Silver Rabbit¡±? I don¡¯t think that¡¯s a great name for a casino¡­¡±


    She looked down at the instructions once more. Looking back up, she found herself face to face with a giant man dressed in black.


    ¡°And what is a little lady like you doing around these parts?¡±


    Her height was actually 5 feet and 10 inches which was quite tall for a woman. However, compared to the giant man looming over her, she was quite small.


    ¡°I¡¯m here to gamble.¡±


    She scoffed at the man, as if she had actually meant to go to this casino just to gamble. Even if she thought that gambling was a disease, this was the easiest way to infiltrate the building.


    ¡°You don¡¯t seem like the type to gamble. You here to serve drinks? You¡¯d look mighty fine in a bunny costume!¡±


    The man chuckled to himself, imagining the girl in front of him dressed in tight, black clothes and fishnet stockings. To be quite honest, Priska was quite a beauty, a trait she received from being both part Vampire and Succubus, even if just a quarter and an eighth of each.


    ¡°No. I¡¯d rather not make a fool out of myself dressing up in some ridiculous outfit, thank you very much! Just let me through.¡±


    The man clicked his tongue and stepped aside to harass another person entering the casino. Priska quickly bounded up the steps and looked around.


    Considering how much the world had changed in the span of 84 years, it wasn¡¯t too strange for casinos not to go out of business. They have actually helped to set up peace talks in the beginning, at least at the casinos that weren¡¯t submerged in the sea or upturned by gravity spheres. Also, it was just 84 years and more people got addicted to gambling and such things.


    There were loads of tables with people betting on and playing with cards. Thousands of slot machines were lined up in rows and people of all species were gambling away most of their money, only a few managing to win.


    She looked over at a girl holding a platter of champagne and tapped her shoulder. This girl who was wearing a white bunny costume almost seemed to jump a few feet in surprise. She soon calmed herself when she saw it wasn¡¯t a lustful customer or her boss.


    ¡°Excuse me, but do you know where the High Roller¡¯s Den is? I¡¯m supposed to meet up with a friend of mine there, but I can¡¯t seem to figure out where it is¡­¡±


    ¡°Oh! Just go up the stairs for two flights and go down the largest and widest hall. At the end of that, you will get to a kiosk that will ask for confirmation that you want to roll for high stakes.¡±


    The girl pointed at a flight of stairs and in another direction that was likely supposed to be where the hall to get to the High Roller¡¯s Den was. A beat later, she was moving back into the crowd to serve drinks.


    Nodding her head to show her appreciation, Priska moved towards the stairs and hopped up both flights with amazing agility. She also had to slip in between the tight spaces in the crowd, but she had done so with seemingly no effort at all.


    In just a few minutes, she stood in front of the High Roller¡¯s Den¡¯s hall and looked back at her phone. She couldn¡¯t read it aloud, but if she did, she would say: ¡°A man with blue skin and three horns?¡±


    But she couldn¡¯t question her orders. It did come from her superiors after all.


    Sighing, she placed her phone back into her pocket and strode through the hall. The crowd seemed to be more and more spread out the farther she went until only a small handful of people were about her. Those around her seemed to also not be regular citizens. They were dressed in clean and fancy suits and carried briefcases.


    There were several doors in the hall that she had passed while walking. She found that most people who entered the den only went to those rooms as this last room only allowed for one winner and you needing at least five thousand dollars to spend freely, if not more.


    Beyond that group of two and three, since there were two different groups of people waiting, there was a door. It was huge and made of, or at least coated in, gold.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    There was a kiosk and Priska peered down at the screen. It said that it would give her a pass into the den if she filled out the paperwork saying that she wouldn¡¯t sue the casino if she lost upwards of one thousand dollars.


    Since it was needed to complete her current job assignment, she signed and filled it out. After pressing the ¡°Okay¡± button, she was given a small card that came out from one of the three slots on the machine.


    Looking towards the door as she took out the card, she saw the door open. It seemed that she had come at just the right moment since the High Roller¡¯s Den opened up at 3:30 and, even though she didn¡¯t know this, she entered the building at 3:15 and finished her paperwork at 3:29. That meant that she was able to enter the den.


    In the center of the magnificent and glamorous room lay one grand table. The surface of the table was green and there was a deck of cards on the table. On the opposite side of the table sat three people on high chairs. Though high, their chair seats only came up to the table¡¯s highest point.


    Each of them wore vertically striped suits that were a navy blue color. The two men on the sides had ties while the only female in the center had a bowtie. They each wore white masks with a painted on smile.


    This mask was for protection since there had been cases of people beating up the staff members for not winning once they saw them in public. This was just one of the three protections they had in the room. The other two being a glass wall with some circular screens to speak through and armed guards that had magic guns, though they were outside the room.


    To the left, there was a bar with an extraordinary amount of alcohol on its shelves. To the right, there were tables and four doors, three bathrooms and one to enter the kitchen.


    ¡°Welcome! To! My! CASINO!!!¡±


    A man with a deep voice bellowed and the six of them could hear his voice through the speakers.


    ¡°I am Knig! The owner of this fine, fine establishment! You six have entered the High Roller¡¯s Den¡¯s Ultimate End! This will be the place where you will either win big or lose all!!¡±


    Suddenly, two spotlights appeared in front of the bar and they could see the one talking through the microphone: A man with blue skin and three horns.


    By his side, there were four armed to the teeth men or women, it was hard to tell under all the armor and kevlar, and they had their fingers on the triggers. Of course, the safeties were on, but, if things went south, they would open fire.


    And so, just as he had appeared, the pair of people next to Priska, both dressed in black, pulled guns and started to fire upon the five. Unfortunately, they were mowed down the second they pulled out their guns.


    The bullets discharged from the guns of the guards were high powered energy rifles that used a combination of lightning and light magic to deal devastating attacks. Using those attacks, the guards blew apart the bodies of the pair. All that remained were scraps of meat and bone. Some of their skin had melted and was charred and their faces were now unrecognizable.


    ¡°Ooohh!! That did not look good!! Looks like you lost¡­ your life!!!¡±


    Knig smiled as he spoke into the microphone while Priska cringed at the bad joke. Then, after fishing out a small, rectangular box with a button on it, he pressed the button and the double doors shut behind them. The trio who stood next to Priska was now shaking with fear as they felt trapped, like mice being played with by a cat.


    ¡°Admit it. You six are here to kill me, right? I¡¯m right, aren¡¯t I.¡±


    The other three behind her got on their knees and put their hands in the air to surrender. Priska, however, started to stroll over to the guards. The faces of shock on the trio¡¯s faces was truly amazing. What wasn¡¯t, was the shape they would be in in just a few seconds.


    ¡°Well, that makes this easier!¡±


    As she spoke, her face contorted to form a smile so filled with malice and evil that two of the guards lowered their guns slightly. They were so taken aback at how such a cute girl could make such an evil face.


    ¡°Fools!! Well, kill them!!¡±


    Knig looked to his left and to his right and pointed at the girl walking up to them while cracking her knuckles and licking her canines. She looked like an insane, bloodthirsty maniac.


    The guards, following orders, started to fire their guns at the girl. They didn¡¯t want to as it seemed like this young girl was unarmed and it also seemed like a waste, at least to the men, to kill a girl as cute as her.


    However, as the bullets streaked towards her, she didn¡¯t flinch, not one bit. Instead, she just kept on walking with the intent to kill Knig.


    This was her job, she had to kill this bastard because of his crimes. He assaulted people all over the city, killed a couple dozen in the blink of an eye, and even dealt in some drug trading. The problem was that the police couldn¡¯t do anything without evidence, but that was where she and her coworkers came in. Multiple people created contracts saying to kill this man, and so, her job was to fulfill this request.


    The bullets entered her body, but kept on going straight through and hit the trio. Apparently, all these people were assassins and mercenaries, but they seemed to be just amateurs. They saw a good, hefty reward and flew too close to the sun.


    However, unlike those who weren¡¯t prepared and didn¡¯t have the naturals talents needed, Priska was able to adapt to the situation just by turning into one of her three forms. One was the one she was in when she wasn¡¯t working, another was for advanced combat, and the current one came from a fusion of Vampire and Banshee that her mother could also use.


    The Banshee side allowed her to move through solid objects while the Vampire allowed her to heighten her senses. She sniffed the air and, because Vampires are quite sensitive to smells, was able to identify eight other body odors in the room, not including the five who had died behind her nor the five in front of her. The three dealers and bartender had already left the scene and were hiding in the kitchen.


    The shooting stopped as soon as they realized that she couldn¡¯t be hit and they started to move Knig. The downside to being ethereal meant that she couldn¡¯t hit anyone. She had to stop using it to attack. However, she had a trick up her sleeve to avoid this problem.


    Blood trickled from the dead corpses and it moved silently in a river. That river snaked towards the group of guards and Knig and, as if it had a mind of its own, it sprang up from the floor. Solidifying, it skewered them all in the head. The blue skinned criminal, however, still seemed to be alive, albeit in much pain. He yelled and screamed as the area between his eyes was punctured. His species was one that could stay alive as long as their hearts weren¡¯t damaged.


    The other guards were not of this species. Two were Humans while the other two were Elves. When they got stabbed in the head, they died. Not only did they not stay alive afterwards, but they also fell to the floor and stopped moving.


    The blood turned back into liquid and the hole in Knig''s head slowly closed. Crawling on the floor, he turned back just in time to see something with horns and covered in fur reach into him.


    This beast was something that people would fear if they saw it roaming the streets. It was a being of wrath and death and, to those who would dare defy it, it killed in extremely brutal ways without any feelings of remorse.


    It sliced open the area above his heart and it retrieved it just to pop the still beating heart in front of his eyes. Then the creature devoured the rest of the heart after dropping it into its long maw.


    With terror-stricken eyes, Knig breathed one last time as blood filled up his lungs. When the beast pulled out his heart, it had dug a hole in his body that damaged the lungs and multiple bones. Drowning in his own blood, his head fell back to the floor and the color faded from hsi eyes.


    ¡°Phew! Target eliminated!¡±


    Priska wiped the blood from her mouth. She had changed back into her casual form and started to walk towards the door. On the way there, she stooped down and grabbed a rifle. She was going to need it in a second.


    Looking down at the gun, she realized that this wasn¡¯t nearly the amount of bullets she needed to escape. Hurrying back to the corpses, she took their clips and filled her own. Counting the amount she had, there were two full ammunition magazines and three bullets, each magazine had twenty bullets.


    ¡°Mmmm. I¡¯m gonna take this.¡±


    She reached down and took off a kevlar vest that seemed about her size. Donning it, she heard a noise coming from the kitchen. It sounded like metal banging against metal and someone wheezing.


    She drew the charging handle back and cocked the gun. Making sure the safety was turned off, she pointed the muzzle at the kitchen door. The kitchen door was made of metal, but had a small, circular window at about head height.


    She could see a man with a gun held up to his eye through the window. He seemed to be trying to be cautious, but Priska was already aiming the gun at his head. After a single tug on the trigger, a bullet of magic flew from the gun, moved through and made a small hole in the door, and hollowed out the man¡¯s head.


    A moment after, she could hear a scream that sounded from the kitchen. It went on for a while and the source seemed to be moving farther away. Nineteen bullets left in the magazine.


    Using her heightened senses, she could tell that there were at least ten people on the other side of the golden entrance now. What she could do was enter her Ethereal Vampire form and move through the oncoming volley of bullets, but she couldn¡¯t kill or hurt them. She was going to need to use her third form that already came out for a moment to finish off Knig.


    She pilfered the remote that Knig held in his cold grasp and she pressed the button. The double doors swung open and there were some shouts. The guards beyond the door had been startled by this action as they had intended to blow up the door with the explosives that were already placed on the door.


    ¡°Go! Go! Go! We have permission to kill all assassins on sight!¡±


    The guard that was yelling that ran into the room. He was covered from head to toe in a mix of metal and kevlar armor. On top of being the most heavily armored guard in the room, he also had buffs that increased his strength, speed, and stamina. You could tell by the blue, red, and yellow aura that shimmered around him.


    As soon as he stepped into the room, Priska started to fire her rifle. Each bullet that she fired found its way into the man¡¯s armor, but it didn¡¯t seem to penetrate his skin.


    ¡°Die! Die!! Die!!!¡±


    The man hefted two large assault rifles to just above his waist area and started to fire. His aim wasn¡¯t too sharp, but that didn¡¯t matter if you managed to put a bullet in the thing you are aiming for, at least that was his thinking.


    Turning ethereal as fast as she could, she found that a bullet managed to enter her left forearm and she winced in pain as she touched it. Quickly, using the blood magic to send the rifle she dropped into the area that she was diving into for cover, she hid behind the bar.


    The bullets kept hitting the walls, alcohol, and bar itself as she stopped being ethereal. Using two of her fingers, she started to claw out the bullet that had lodged itself in her arm. When she had gotten it out, the other nine guards had come into the room as well and were firing.


    Taking a dish cloth from the floor that the bartender had dropped, she wrapped it around her arm to try and stop the bleeding. While she was able to heal faster than the average Human, she wasn¡¯t able to regenerate lost flesh in mere seconds. No, it took hours just to heal up a single bullet wound like the one in her arm.


    With her right arm, she held up her hands towards the gun and puddle of blood. There were rules when using her blood magic. One of them was that she had to be able to see it to use it. If it went out of her field of vision, it would splash on the ground and become a puddle once more. Another one was that it could only use general movements, like moving stuff in a direction or things like that. It would be too inaccurate to try and fire a gun with it.


    On top of the rules for her blood magic, there were also rules for her ethereal. She wasn¡¯t able to pass through walls, floors, or ceilings. However, she could go through doors, furniture, items, and people with no problem. One thing that prevented her from just walking from the situation was magic. It could also damage her and it actually had a chance of injuring her more as she was vulnerable to magic in that state.


    The only thing she could do now was wait for a chance. A chance to use her natural abilities given to her by Gusion, one of the Dukes of Hell.


    Everyone was firing, but Priska could tell how many were firing at the same time and who was reloading. She was not able to locate where that person was, though, she was able to tell what type of gun they were using and how much magic was being used. Her senses did not only pertain to the five regular ones, but she could also detect the amount of magic using a skill that she had that allowed her to sniff out how dense the magic was in one area.


    As four out of ten were reloading their guns, one of them being the fully armored guard, she hopped over the counter with rifle in hand. Right as she reached her apex, she started to morph.


    Her pale skin sprouted dark grey fur. Her nails turned into long talons. A tail grew from her tailbone and it poofed up with fluffiness. Her bones began to shift as the structure changed. Red eyes turned gold as her face turned into a snout. Horns erupted from the top of her head, between the two wolf ears she now had.


    If one had to describe her general shape, they would say it looked like a werewolf, but more feral. It had two horns that made a slight ¡°Z¡± shape and ended in sharp points. The teeth seemed to shine with a mixture of saliva and a fluid that could paralyze someone if it came in contact with their bloodstream. Her fur looked sleek and fluffy, but nobody would want to try and pet her.


    It was a proven fact in the world that Werewolves and Werewolf-like beings were some of the most feared medium sized humanoids. Their lust for blood and fighting was greater than most and their combat and assassination prowess was far more extraordinary than most. An annual survey had been taken just a month before and the top three things people were afraid of, species-wise, were Werewolves, Vampires, and Shape Changers. The first two were usually one of the top five every year.


    With that thought in mind, seven out of the total ten guards took a step back, stopped firing, and tensed up. The other three kept on firing their guns, one of which was the man decked out in armor.


    Priska swung her rifle towards the guards and held down the trigger. Bullets flew both towards and from the enemy and several guards were either injured severely or killed. Only six guards remained as she moved in a zigzag movement to attack the guards at close combat.


    Two of the guards had managed to hit her with bullets. One was the one who held two assault rifles and the other was holding a submachine gun. The rest of the guards held rifles or pistols or shotguns, but they all somehow managed to miss every single one of their shots, likely due to fear.


    Three bullets landed in her left arm once again as she used it to block. That arm also held the rifle meaning that she could catch the bullets from midair, which she could do if they weren¡¯t from sniper rifles, made of silver, or made of pure magic and if she was concentrating on catching them.


    She didn¡¯t use her right arm to block and catch because, if she did, it would inhibit her ability to cut and shred the enemy.


    Her right arm was outstretched and she was ready to slice and dice her enemies into small giblets of meat. Her claws stretched out of her fingers to create talons the size of kitchen knives.


    With a single swing, she created enough air pressure to push everyone off their feet. Then, without wasting a single moment, she swung wildly at the enemy. However wild it seemed, it was actually a controlled attack where she pinpointed the weak points and targeted them.


    The talons dug in and out of bodies creating lifeless corpses that fell to the floor in a mess of blood and intestines. She gouged out their livers, spleens, parts of lungs, and their hearts.


    To get to all those bloody innards, she had to rip apart the metal or kevlar armor which she did with ease. It was like taking scissors and cutting paper. The kevlar was shredded and the armor diced until all that remained were dead bodies.


    Ten bodies were strewn along the floor as blood dribbled down the walls. The glass that had separated the players and the dealers was so covered in blood that you couldn¡¯t see the other side. Even one of the chandeliers had a lung and intestine on it.


    She dropped the rifle and used blood magic to literally douse it in blood and crush the gun into scraps so that her fingerprints weren¡¯t on the gun.


    Turning back into her regular form, she started to sit down at one of the booths. She had to get the bullets out of her arm before they tainted her with magic corrosion. Magic corrosion was an effect from a bullet that basically poisoned the victim until they become paralyzed and, if untreated in five days, die.


    She ripped out the bullets that had been lodged in her arm and she started to rip parts of the guards¡¯ clothes to create makeshift wraps to stop the bleeding. If she was a Pure-Breed Vampire, they wound would have disappeared in a matter of seconds. Her mother would heal from a bullet in a couple minutes and wouldn¡¯t die of blood loss. Priska needed a couple hours to heal and would most likely die of blood loss and other things that would not kill vampires right away.


    Quickly moving towards a section of alcohol that hadn¡¯t been shot, she pulled off a bottle of whiskey and dripped some onto her would. She winced as she did so and wrapped the cloth over her wounds.


    After treating her wounds, she started to walk towards the double golden doors. She didn¡¯t hobble or limp over because her legs weren¡¯t injured, but her arm felt like shit.


    She pulled out her phone with her right hand and used her fingerprint to access it. After pulling up the app, she texted Seru.


    She messed up the spelling of some of her words because her whole body was shivering ever so slightly, but enough so that it hindered her texts. This was one of the side effects of magic corrosion that meant that the magic corrosion wasn¡¯t too terrible.


    <I¡¯m at the door. Just hop into the dark blue car with blue underlights.>


    Seru had a habit of texting sentences while trying to watch out for grammar and to see if it made sense.


    Right when she was about to leave the room, she picked up a jacket that was too large for her that was on one of the dead amateurs. Going outside of the room while essentially showing off her wounds was a terrible idea. Even more so was that guards were able to tell they were bullet wounds and would start to open fire on her since the only ones with those wounds were people shot by the guards.


    She put it on over the wrapped pieces of cloth that her blood was drenching and left the scene. There obviously were security cameras everywhere, but her manager should be able to take care of that problem by destroying all the footage and the rest of the evidence. As for people who saw her, they would have their memories altered by the Clean Up Crew.


    Being a mercenary meant, at least in this day and age, covert operations and keeping the body count to a minimum. Of course, there would always be collateral: bodyguards, rookie mercs and assassins, and even some civilians.


    Her actual occupation was known as Mercenary. In that job, she had a sector of seven other mercs, assassins, and hired bodyguards. For each of those eight people, they had a manager who erased data and handed out assignments and a cleaning crew that was comprised of three people.


    Each of those eight people were ranked in the country from best to worst, best being 1. In those sectors, people generally helped each other out by telling them job descriptions or actually tagging along with them to do the work. Each sector needed immense trust and, if even one person died of those eight, then the trust would have to rebuilt from the ground up.


    The sector number she was in now had changed throughout her career, mainly being that the number kept getting higher as more talented people joined up with her. The current number was Sector 4 out of a total 1,834,472 sectors all around the world, some even in other worlds.


    Most sectors had people who were relatively okay at their jobs, but many still messed up from time to time, ultimately leading to their demise. The number would then start to lower due to lack of mutual trust, but then the number would increase with how well the sector worked together. Of course, every sector lost and gained people causing numbers to fluctuate.


    Before the current people in New York City¡¯s sector, it was ranked 4,573. Just from Priska joining, since she was the first of the current members, the rank went straight to 1,002. When the other seven current members entered, they went up in rank until they reached fourth.


    ¡°Excuse me. Pardon me. Just squeezing through¡­¡±


    Priska was dealing with less pain than before due to her healing abilities. While only seven minutes passed and her wounds were still there, the blood had dried and the pain had stopped.


    At the moment, she was moving through the wave of people that had appeared. Apparently, many people who like to gamble go on Sunday as there are more tables open and that got in the way of Priska.


    When she finally dove into the dark blue car, she was exhausted after getting turned around several times in the tsunami of gamblers. She made a face at the crowd.


    ¡°I don¡¯t understand why they go to such a crowded place¡­ even if they do have an addiction¡­¡±


    Seru patted Priska¡¯s shoulder. Seru¡¯s build was like that of a small teenager. She was petite in both height and width and was almost as fragile as one as well. However, what made her a great assassin was the large amount of far-ranged spells she knew to assassinate her targets. If the target was within a mile, she could snipe them. On top of her knowledge, the sheer amount of mana she could use was superior to that of even young dragons who wield much greater magic than even the nobles of the High Elves.


    Her race was known as Dark Elf and most of her people were only capable in some magics, but High Elves usually had more proficiency. Since she had so much more magic that the rest, she was treated like nobility until she became around the age of 20. Then the portals opened up, dumped her and her tribe onto Earth, and that portal closed. Since then, she had to find work in many different forms until coming upon her current job that she prefers to the rest of them. That and the large paychecks.


    ¡°They think they will win and they will move as a part of the crowd until they do so.¡±


    She thought lowly of both Humans and Spirits and disliked how they both were unreasonable and acted mostly on emotion. She got along fine with Priska and the rest of their sector because they mainly relied on logic to help them survive the jobs, so, even though Priska was a quarter Spirit, she was fine with her and the two of them were actually great friends.


    ¡°Yeah¡­ So, we gonna go to the office or¡­¡±


    Seru stepped on the gas and sped down the shoddy streets. The sidewalks were caked in filth and the homeless were taking what they could. This neighborhood was just a den of evil.


    ¡°I still don¡¯t understand how you are able to drive being that short.¡±


    Priska chuckled to herself as Seru put on a fake amused smile.


    ¡°Well, being short has its benefits, like being able to get a boyfriend. Oh wait, it¡¯s your personality that is throwing them off.¡±


    She chuckled as Priska¡¯s face morphed into one of someone who wasn¡¯t amused.


    ¡°Anyway, why didn¡¯t Beta IV call me? She¡¯s my manager after all.¡±


    ¡°She said that she was, and I quote, ¡°Taking my wonderful children to the ballgame today!¡± or something like that.¡±


    Priska¡¯s manager, Beta IV, always talked about her two ¡°wonderful¡± son and daughter who always bickered. Thankfully, no one at the office had to see her children as they always heard the phone calls, that were turned on speaker mode, from the dad saying that the children were out of control.


    Beta IV is her codename as she is more fond of that than her actual name and no one, save for her family, knows her real name. On top of no one knowing her real name, she hides her ID in a wallet that had a number lock on it. Even with all the secrecy, she still talks about her family and personal life.


    ¡°Makes sense.¡±


    Priska nodded. Then she had a terrible thought.


    ¡°She¡­ she won¡¯t bring them here for Bring-Your-Child-To-Work Day, right? I mean, by what I¡¯ve overhead, they like to mess with everything!¡±


    ¡°And? You do not have any makeup.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, but I¡¯ve got my arsenal! And Beta IV¡¯s office is directly connected to mine! If they do come, I¡¯ll have to tape off my area then¡­¡±


    ¡°Do not be foolish. No rational parent would bring their child to a mercenary office.¡±


    She said as flags were being set up.


    They reached the office. Contrary to what many thought merc offices looked like, the building was made of limestone and was cleaned enough so that there were no stains or filth on the walls or windows. The windows were made of bulletproof glass and the building itself was surrounded by a light blue coating that shimmered in the afternoon light. Most would not be able to see the barrier at all unless they actively looked for it and had magic.


    Magic users could see active barriers or auras of magic in their range of vision. Non-magic users could see offensive magics and some magics that could buff or heal a person. So, to the ordinary eye, which consisted of only 11% of the world¡¯s population, the barrier was basically non-existent.


    The building was seven floors tall and each floor was quite large as well as square. There were some windows lined up along the walls, each an equal distance away from one another.


    Seru pulled up into the parking lot and parked her blue car in one of the eight spaces designated for the people who work in the field. There was a total of fifty spaces although there were only forty three people working in the office at the moment.


    The two of them exited the car and walked through the small parking lot that was built around three sides of the building. They moved around the building and opened the front door.


    ¡°Sup.¡±


    The man at the front desk slightly looked up from his tablet. He always liked to read web comics and watch videos on different platforms. He was an Oni and had two long horns on her forehead.


    ¡°Hi.¡±


    ¡°Hello.¡±


    Seru was a person who disliked to speak with slang and too casual language. Thus why she spoke in a somewhat formal tone.


    The two of them nodded at him as they spoke and they walked into the elevator. There were two elevators and two sets of stairs, one on the left and one on the right, and one elevator was open and waiting on the first floor.


    Pressing the button to go to the fifth floor, Seru stretched her petite arms and stood on her tiptoes. Every time she drove a car, she felt the need to stretch afterwards due to how cramped it felt to her.


    It took less than a minute for them to reach their floor, but Seru had already gone through several stretches in that amount of time.


    ¡°Whew.¡±


    She wiped her forehead, even though there was no sweat, and stepped out of the elevator with Priska. She was clutching a small purse that had a strap around her shoulder. The reason she acted this way was due to one of their coworkers.


    ¡°I hope Vao does not show up today.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s the one who took some money from you yesterday, right?¡±


    ¡°It is not just yesterday. He does it everyday. Yesterday, he emptied out my coin purse.¡±


    ¡°Ah, the black cat one, right?¡±


    Seru nodded as she peeked around the corners of the small wall barriers that were taller than her by about half a foot. Priska could easily see over them due to her height and noticed a shadow moving closer towards them..


    ¡°Wah!!¡±


    It was Vao and he was here to take some more money to spend it on something no one, except for him, knows. Vao was a person who lingered in the shadows and crept up to people. This skill of his led him to being one of the most skilled assassins who utilize close combat.


    ¡°Can I have some coins?¡±


    Seru hugged her purse closer to her and hid behind Priska. She hissed at him as she slowly backed up towards her office.


    ¡°I think that¡¯s a ¡°No¡±. Why do you even want the coins?¡±


    Vao stood up straight as he was crouching before and he put both his hands in his pockets. Smiling, he decided not to answer and he sneaked around Priska to get to Seru once again.


    No one wanted to get in a fight with Priska, at least not in close combat. While Vao carried one of the best close combat records, he always used melee weapons. Priska only needed her fists. Her current type of mercenary was known as Heavy Brawler and she was one of the best.


    Vao was a quarter Shadow Demon, an eighth Wood Elf, and five eighths Human. Shadow Demons and Wood Elves were known to be skilled in stealth skills and Shadow Demons made for great assassins. So, while Vao was only a quarter Shadow Demon, he was still quite talented.


    Priska turned to watch as Vao sneakily followed Seru to her office and sighed. She shook her head a bit and moved towards her office.


    The area that she was currently in was basically like a lounge area with a few low walls, come potted plants, and a couple couches. Along the walls on the left and the right, there was a line of computers on a table as long as the room. There were doors along all sides of the room with a total of twelve. There were four doors on the wall with the elevators and the rest had two doors each.


    Those doors led to small halls that were connected to two door frames with no doors. One was the office for the eight mercenaries and assassins and the other was for the managers. Two of the doors on the wall with the elevators were bathrooms and the other two were closets.


    Priska walked to her office on the far side of the lounge. Her office was on the door to the left with a poster of a white cat next to it. The poster had actually been hung up before Priska came into her current job.


    She walked over to her office chair and plopped down. Her work day usually didn¡¯t start until 8:30 am, but if she had to do a job in the morning, she was required to go to the office. After every job, there would always be paperwork to fill out and a paycheck needed to be received.


    On top of the paperwork, there were also the contracts they were told to complete and the building had several different vehicles to reach the target as quickly as possible. There was even a helipad on the roof where four different types of helicopters were parked.


    There was a tan colored folder on her desk and it had the words ¡°Casino Target XVII¡± written in messy handwriting. She opened it up and pulled out several pieces of paper that she started to fill out. One was for the medical bills if she had any injuries, but she didn¡¯t fill it out as her wounds always healed by the next day. There were two pieces of paper for collateral damage, one for objects and buildings and the other for civilians and others. The last several were to count up how much the mercenary¡¯s paycheck would be if you take in account the two collateral papers while the medical bill was paid by the government, but you still had to pay at least a thousand dollars for a single bullet hole.


    The file was created by the managers, given to the mercenaries or assassins after they killed the target to sign, and then processed by the government and given to the person who created the contract to have them pay. In, usually, a few hours, their paycheck would arrive and it would generally be a large sum of money.


    With the files and paperwork, one could usually figure out how much they would be paid per job. That being said, some mercenaries don¡¯t bother doing such simple calculations, largely due to how tired they are, and send it off to the government via messenger.


    ¡°Phew! 14,533 dollars! Well, without tax¡­¡±


    Some days, they didn¡¯t get targets and they were left without pay. On top of that, the money they received would also have to be used to procure new equipment or repair old equipment. Then, with the remaining money, they had to take out the living expenses which were quite high in NYC and then, finally, they could use the rest to do whatever they wanted.


    She crossed her arms and sighed. She actually didn¡¯t really know what to do with most of the remaining money and placed them in either the stock market or her bank accounts. Occasionally, she would use some money for social events or just buying stuffed animals.

 Chapter II: A Day Out

    ¡°Hey, you aren¡¯t busy, so come with me to get some coffee in an hour! I¡¯ll meet you at the entrance!¡±


    Priska looked up from her paperwork as Ceriena slid past her door and went to the building¡¯s entrance. The paperwork Priska had to deal with was actually just her bills since there was very little to do at the office.


    The only things on her desk were the bills, a laptop, and some other files. It was basically void of all fun, save for the laptop with some decals on it. The other files were mainly just organizations that she had disabled or crippled in the past. Nothing too extraordinary.


    Priska was friends with Ceriena, but she didn¡¯t like coffee and how many times Ceriena asked her to hang out at a nearby cafe. The bitterness of coffee was something that Priska absolutely hated and, whenever they went out, she usually got hot cocoa or a milkshake if they had it.


    She looked back to her bills and started to work on them once again.


    Ceriena was a mix of half Wind Nymph and half Fire Nymph. Her specialty was throwing weapons and she had joined the sector a year ago. She was quite friendly with others and almost everyone in the office was her friend. There were some, like her manager, who don¡¯t quite get along with her.


    After an hour, Priska went downstairs to meet up with Ceriena who was reading something on her phone. She looked up and grinned as she placed her phone in her purse.


    ¡°So, shall we head out now?¡±


    ¡°Sure. Where to this time?¡±


    The pair started to walk through the double doors and Ceriena made a left when they reached the sidewalk.


    ¡°It¡¯s a place called the Inu Cafe. They named it that since the owner has a dog that gets along well with customers¡­¡±


    Another slightly annoying aspect of Ceriena was that she liked to elaborate on subjects that most people wouldn¡¯t care or even think about. Although, she would also usually stop talking if she noticed that the one she was talking to was not focusing on her. In this case¡­


    ¡°Huh? Oh, you looking at the pet shop again?¡±


    Priska had turned her head to look across the street to find the small pet store that had always been there. It had all sorts of pets now, not just cats and dogs, and was now a chain store.


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    She spoke without focusing on what she really was saying. She was more focused on the cute animals that slept in the store.


    Ceriena tapped her chin a couple times before asking her a question.


    ¡°Cats or dogs? Which, of the two, do you like more?¡±


    They kept walking as Priska started to ponder the subject. She did like dogs as they were playful and energetic, but she also liked cats since they were fluffy and were lazy.


    ¡°If I had to pick¡­ Cats. They are fluffy, can catch mice, and won¡¯t track mud into your apartment.¡±


    ¡°Oh. Was it ¡°that time¡±?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    Priska shivered as she remembered the time when she was taking on three part time jobs at the same time. For one of them, she was a dog walker and she had been doing it for only a couple days before the ¡°incident¡± that made her change her mind.


    There was a dog who was quite large with the name Pups. The owner had wanted to thank her for taking him on some walks while he was gone and brought Pups over to her apartment. The owner gave her a box full of cookies and she thanked him before saying goodbye. Mere moments after they had left, she realized that the area around her front door was covered in mud and filth and it took several days to clean.


    The two of them approached the cafe after a few more minutes and a waiter seated them. Both of the two women were single, but only one of them was looking for a man. The second the waiter left the table, Ceriena leaned in and spoke in a soft tone.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you think he was hot?¡±


    She spoke while still eyeing him up. Priska just sighed and picked up the drink menu. This was another thing she had to deal with when around her. She could get a guy easily with her looks and charm, but she eventually got dumped due to her terrible manners and habits.


    ¡°Did your last boyfriend dump you?¡±


    Ceriena sighed deeply while leaning back in her chair and looking upwards towards the sky. The area they were seated in was outdoors, in a slightly fenced off area with half of it covered by the overhang. Currently, Priska was in the shade while Ceriena was seated in the sun.


    ¡°I¡¯ll take that as a ¡°yes¡± then. Wait, wasn¡¯t that one the punk?¡±


    ¡°No, that was the one before this one. This one was the smart-ass.¡±


    ¡°Ah.¡±


    They were silent for a while until the waiter came back to receive their orders. And, being the woman desperate to not be single once again, Ceriena tried to give a pick-up line.


    ¡°Anything you want to drink?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll have you.¡±


    Priska sighed, shook her head, and face palmed. That was easily one of the worst ways to give a pick-up line that she heard in her life.


    ¡°She¡¯ll have a black coffee, no sugar, and I take a triple chocolate sundae. Sorry for my friend.¡±


    ¡°N-not at all!¡±


    The waiter wrote down their orders and bowed. His face was flushed red, but not because of the awful pick-up line Ceriena gave. No, it was because he had a look at Priska close up. She was actually voted Most Beautiful Person in the office, ergo more beautiful than Ceriena.


    Since Ceriena was half Wind and half Fire Nymph, she had both white and redish pink hair. Her hair was basically snow white with four streaks of hot pink, two on either side. One of her eyes was slightly glowing red and the other glowed a pale white color, but both were a shade of dark pink.


    Priska was a whole head and shoulder taller than her, but she was only a little less than the average height of most females, not including races who were inherently small. Her hair was on the long side, but was usually tied up in a single, large braid that went over her right shoulder.


    The clothes she wore now were casual clothes: a light blue blouse with frilly edges, an open jacket that went down to just above her hips, and some shoes that had heels to them. Her blouse was enough to cover down to just above her knees and, if needed, she could still run. Underneath, there were usually several different assortments of throwing weapons as that was her speacialty.


    ¡°Rude!¡±


    Ceriena pouted at having lost her chance at her 32nd boyfriend.


    ¡°He was probably going to dump you in about a week.¡±


    Priska was actually wrong about that. If he had gone out with Ceriena, he would have dumped her in less than three days. Truthfully, she was saving her from another heartbreak.


    ¡°Anyways, did you hear that one of the managers in getting married!? Lucky bastard!!¡±


    She bit her thumb as she spoke, still pissed off about the missed opportunity, but trying to move on.


    ¡°Oh, who is it?¡±


    ¡°The manager of Mixu, Ryin, is! Oh, and get this, he-¡±


    Her sentence was cut short by a scream. It had come from the inside of the cafe and, when the two of them looked, it was a waitress who had fallen on her rear.


    She had to have fallen for a reason; that reason being that there was a gun pointed towards her. Several people in the cafe gasped as they saw this and most of them either hid in their booths or escaped the cafe. Some were even calling the police.


    The gun was a double barrel shotgun with a drum magazine and red laser sight on the underside of the right barrel. The barrel itself was glowing red and, if one dared to look, the shell inside the gun glowed an intense shade of light red.


    The man holding the gun was wearing a balaclava with tinted black goggles on and no mouth hole. There were, however, holes for the two horns that were emerging from his head that were black in color.


    Behind him, there was a woman and another man dressed in the same mask with each of them wearing the same white blazer with red outlines. They all wore jeans with pistol holsters on them as well. However, they each held different primary firearms.


    Ceriena leaned in towards Priska once again.


    ¡°This is the part where they start cursing loudly, right?¡±


    And, as if that was an order, the three people with guns started to shout.


    ¡°Get on the fucking ground and fill this bag with cash!! If you don¡¯t fill the goddamn bag with all the money you have, we will start blasting you fucks into the ground!!!¡±


    The man who was yelling gave another waitress a duffel bag and pointed his gun at the girl on the ground. The other two were shouting cusses at the other customers and binding them with zip ties.


    Ceriena looked down to find the waiter that she had hit on earlier was trying to hide behind their table. She made a disgusted face at the person and reached down¡­ to pick up her cup of coffee. He had both of their drinks and was about to give it to the two of them when the masked people came in the cafe.


    Ceriena watched the scene unfold as she took a long sip of her coffee. She wasn¡¯t really concerned about dying herself as the only things that could kill her was an excessive amount of liquid nitrogen or powerful magical attacks.


    Priska quickly took her sundae from the tray as it was starting to slip. She plopped it down in front of her and started to nibble on a brownie. Similarly to Ceriena, not many things could kill her, but not because she had very little weaknesses, it was because of how she would react in the situation that would keep her alive.


    She looked back at the situation and Ceriena started to speak.


    ¡°You gonna help out or something?¡±


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you do something first? You¡¯re the one who pointed out the problem.¡±


    ¡°Well, if I¡¯m not getting paid, I¡¯m not doing jack.¡±


    ¡°Mmmm.¡±


    Priska did want to help out, but she knew the police were already on the way. They have been able to arrest criminals more quickly in the past few decades and they even had access to multitudes of different technologies that helped out in trials, cases, and even some detective work.


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    The female robber looked at Priska and glared. Some people disliked Priska by how naturally pretty she looked and, like many others, the female robber also disliked her and decided it was a good idea to point her assault rifle at Priska.


    ¡°You! Get you and your friend and that pasty fellow over here now!! Also!¡±


    She walked up and snatched Priska¡¯s sundae from the table. She started to turned the glass over to pour it into her mouth when Priska attacked.


    If anyone at the office had learned anything about Priska, it was to, one, not mess with her stuffed animals and, two, do not, ever, take her sweets. Ceriena went wide-eyed as she knew what was about to come.


    As fast as lightning, Priska did five different actions in such a small time frame. First of all, she punched the robber in the face, their blood trailing through the air. Then she used the glass and scooped up the sundae before it was tainted by either the ground or the robber. With one swift move, she placed the glass on the table once again and looked at the female robber.


    She loomed over the robber as if she were Death incarnate and held her leg up high. She swung it downwards in an axe kick and crushed her lower abdomen. Then, soon after removing her foot, she picked her up by the scruff of her collar and literally threw her outside the cafe and she hit a car and dented it.


    There was no doubt in anyone¡¯s mind that she was dead now. The kick would have crushed her internal organs and made her bleed internally. The punch to the face caused her to have a bloody nose and her jaw was also now dislocated. Lastly, after hitting the car that was parked on the side of the street, she bleeding from every orifice on her face and twenty seven different bones, including some areas of the spinal column and skull, were not just broken, but turned into powder.


    The cars in 2096 were made of a new material that could withstand trees falling on them and some lower caliber bullets. They were near indestructible, but this one was now dented.


    However, with all the reinforcement of the cars came the new safety systems which prevented most collisions and stopped people from hurting others.


    Unfortunately, cars still didn¡¯t move to not be hit by people flying through the air. From across the street, everyone could hear an audible scream.


    ¡°My car!!!¡±


    The person who screamed that crumpled to their knees and began to weep as that car had been recently bought with their own hard earned money.


    ¡°Oh, uh. Sorry!¡±


    Priska cupped her hands around her mouth to shout at the person. She had unintentionally broke someone¡¯s car. What she had truly meant to do was throw the person across the street and into the concrete building which would have shattered their bones as well.


    Both civilians and robbers stepped back in unison as they witnessed monstrous power. Priska looked back at the two robbers and took a step forward. They stepped back. When she took a step to the side, she noticed that the customers started to squirm and tried to move out of her path.


    ¡°Ohhhh. I get it. You guys are afraid of me because I¡­ might¡¯ve killed one of your friends? Anyways, I¡¯m gonna go back and finish my sundae. If you bother me while I¡¯m eating it, I¡¯ll do ya in worse than the first one.¡±


    Her tone took on a cold tone in the end and everyone nodded. They were all pale as ghosts as they realized she only killed the person due to a petty reason. However, she had spent her own money on the sundae and was not happy when someone threatened or tried to eat it.


    Turning back around, she saw the waiter crawling on all fours towards the exit. Priska briskly moved back to her seat outside after opening the door and sat back down.


    ¡°Phew! One disturbance removed!¡±


    She reached for one of the spoons already set on the table and started to eat. Ceriena sighed and looked back to the robbers as she drank her coffee.


    ¡°Mmmm! This tastes good!¡±


    Priska spoke as gunshots filled the air. The silence was broken and, on the ground, lay a dead waiter. He had tried to reach the entrance to escape, but he was caught and shot. It had taken just one shell from the shotgun and his organs littered the ground.


    People screamed as Priska and Ceriena both enjoyed their orders. While Ceriena was crossing another potential boyfriend off the list, Priska was focusing solely on the dessert in front of her. She tuned out the sounds of gunshots and screaming as she took another bite of ice cream.


    Since both of these mercenaries were not being paid nor was there any other benefit, they were not taking care of the robbers. They usually let the police earn their pay by doing so and regular criminals were basically small fry for them.


    As soon as the other two robbers quieted everyone, save for Ceriena and Priska, with duct tape, they could hear sirens wailing from down the street. The police had come when a person called to announce that someone had shot someone and another had damaged his car.


    Drones were already on the scene and were covered in illusion magic that made they basically invisible. They were weak, but they displayed live images of the scene and could easily sneak into places. Of course, magic users were able to see a thin outline if they looked closely enough, but most robbers did not. Instead, they focused on the police surrounding them or the hostages.


    In the current group of two people, only one of them could use magic, since the female who died could also use it, and he was more focused on the waitress putting the money in the bag. She was about halfway done and needed to fill it with some more bills.


    ¡°Hurry up! Those cops are almost here!¡±


    He shouted at her while waving the muzzle of the shotgun at her face. Tears streamed down her face as she complied with their request.


    ¡°Quiet!! I can¡¯t fucking hear myself think with all your wailing!¡±


    The other robber yelled at the hostages that were zip tied and dropped into a pile of people. What had instigated the shouting was the fact that he had kicked the dead waiter to the side of the cafe so that it would be easier for the two of them to escape.


    Then the robber managing the hostages put his hand to his ear. He was receiving a call via earpiece. He said ¡°yes¡± and ¡°okay¡± several times before ending the call with a ¡°got it¡±. Turning towards the other robber, he started to speak.


    ¡°He¡¯s almost here. We have to hold out for a minute more. I¡¯ll hold off the cops and you focus on the money, alright?¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡±


    Both of them nodded before turning to complete their tasks. The one with the shotgun kept urging the waitress to put the cash in more quickly while the other ripped a table out from the ground and turned it on its side to act as a barricade.


    He crouched down and placed his rifle on it to steady his aim. He pulled on the bolt and readied his gun that was pointed down the street.


    A police car came screeching around the corner and the man fired. The bullet rotated through the air and penetrated the windows of the cafe first. Then it sped through the air and hit the police car window.


    The bullet wasn¡¯t able to move through the glass, but it hit it with enough force to crack it. He fired repeatedly after that and struck the same place three times more. It seemed that he was a crack shot who was finally able to strike the person in the driver seat.


    The vehicle then careened out of control and slammed into a fire hydrant on the side of the road. The car was now dented and the dead driver hung on the front windshield with glass impaling his organs. The officer in the passenger seat fumbled out of the wrecked vehicle and tried to crawl to safety.


    The robber, not about to let anyone go other than Priska and Ceriena, shot the person in the head. Brain matter flew from the exit hole the bullet left behind. Then, in a single fluid motion, the shooter reloaded his gun and readied it.


    ¡°They¡¯re quite loud, huh?¡±


    Ceriena turned to look back into the cafe once more. She had finished her coffee and had set it aside. To her, this situation was more on the calm side and, to show that, she started to rest her chin in her hand.


    Priska finished up the last of her dessert and picked up a napkin to wipe her mouth. She wasn¡¯t a messy eater per say, but she did try to stuff more things in her mouth than she could chew. She looked at the scene again while sipping on the water she poured out for herself. At the table, there was a pitcher of cold water and several glass cups.


    ¡°Yeah. Well, I just got my paycheck, so¡­¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I know. Stuffed animals, right? You gonna get that Black Dragon plushie you¡¯ve had on your mind?¡±


    ¡°Nn.¡±


    Priska nodded as she got up. Ceriena sighed with a smile and took out her wallet. She place ten dollars on the table, partially underneath a water glass, and got up.


    ¡°Which place sells it again? Was it Puru Puru or Kosedyr?¡±


    What she was referring to were the two main plushie stores that Priska plundered. Puru Puru was a Japanese branch that had a lot of anime and manga plushies and Kosedyr was a local store that sold plushies of mythical beasts. Actually, Kosedyr employees could always recognize Priska since she had bought things from their store since she was little, and always at least four at a time.


    ¡°It¡¯s Kosedyr. I¡¯ve already taken you there several times.¡±


    The two of them left the cafe from the entrance as both the hostages and the robbers watched. They did not want to die at the hands of Priska and thus let them go. It was so much easier for them to just wait half a minute than to go toe to toe against her.


    As they opened the door, three more police cars barreled down the street towards them with a helicopter overhead. They noticed that the two of them were leaving the cafe and they knew that they weren¡¯t the enemy.


    Every police officer in the city knew who was a part of the sector stationed there, at the very least just the eight mercenaries and assassins in the group, by memory. They were forced to learn who died and who replaced them because there would occasionally be powerful ones in that group and the police force would have a hard time stopping them. That and the fact that they were paid by and directly worked for the government.


    These mercenaries were higher up on the food chain than the police and even some special forces units. Even after they retired, the mercs would sometimes go to work in more powerful positions.


    Priska and Ceriena chatted to one another as they crossed the empty street to their right. The cafe was placed on a corner and the police had come from the front.


    Suddenly, several more shots rang out and several more bullets hit the police officers. Two of them died, but they were both passengers in the cars. In response to the attack, the helicopter doors opened on either side and two very large guns came out.


    The helicopters of 2096 used magical energy to maneuver around in the air and the blades of the helicopters had been taken off. More weaponry had been added and now there were several different types to deal with different situations.


    One was for fires, another for emergency situations, another for recon, and three for criminals. Those three carried either missiles, EMPs that had a small blast radius, and energy weapons. The missiles were for heavily armored criminals, EMPs for car chases, and energy weapons for regular situations. This was a regular situation.


    EMPs nowadays could affect cars and other vehicles due to the amount of electronics within the cars. If there was a vehicle that did not have electronics, then the police would use their secondary, the AGB, or the anti-gravity bomb.


    This current helicopter was filled to the brim with energy weapons whose light pulsed in the shadows of the tall buildings. A moment passed, then the two guns started to fire off light blue rays of magic. While it was an ¡°energy¡± gun, it actually ran on magical energy with bullets of pure mana which dissipated after a couple hours and caused no ecological harm.


    The bullets passed through the windows of the cafe and started to hit the floors of the cafe. Some parts of the window were melting down and were almost a white red color. Every single shot was calculated so that it would not hit the civilians, but there were always some mistakes or things not taken into account.


    One of those things was the sleek, black van that came out of the nearby alley and stopped in front of the cafe. Bullets bounced off of it and the two robbers entered the vehicle.


    ¡°Come on!!! We¡¯ve got to go!!¡±


    The leader of what used to be three people waved at the other guy to hurry. That person he was talking to was unclipping something.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    ¡°We can¡¯t have anyone trace us back to this!!¡±


    He threw the cylinder at the car that the female robber was still in. There were small lights on the side of the item that started to flash white. One flashed, then two. Three. Four. Fi-


    Explosion! It rocked the whole block and dust flew into the air. What he had thrown was a plasma grenade that had a five second delay on it. However, instead of getting caught up in the dust and dirt, the van had already started to move and both robbers were in.


    ¡°Fuck!! You almost killed us!!¡±


    The driver shouted back at them as he reached to the seat to his right. The two robbers had entered the vehicle through its sliding doors so that the passenger seat was empty. In the place of a person, there was a bag full of objects similar to the one the robber had thrown.


    He pressed a button and dropped it on the road. It exploded and so did several parked cars. It helped them to escape¡­ for now.


    In the meantime, Priska was choosing a second stuffed animal to buy. In her arms was the Black Dragon plush that she had wanted. It was a one of a kind, limited item that was handmade from only Kosedyr. The shopkeeper actually made two of them, one for the customers and one for Priska, since she knew that she was going to buy one.


    The cashier called to Priska since she and her friend were the only ones in the store at the moment. He swiftly opened the small gate, exited the checkout area, and moved over to where the two of them were.


    ¡°Thinking of getting the Nemean Lion or Eikthyrnir? I¡¯d recommend getting Eikthyrnir, mostly because it is almost sold out.¡±


    Priska looked back at the person and nodded. She placed the lion back on the shelf and walked up to the counter. The cashier, who Ceriena has tried to hit on several times, rung up the items and she paid with her credit card.


    Walking out of the store, she pulled the Black Dragon plush from the bag and looked at it. The craftsmanship was amazing and it had many details on it. She hugged it and, after a couple seconds, looked at it again.


    Ceriena had come out of the store and was busy on her phone. She was updating some of her social media accounts when she heard a loud gunshot.


    Slowly, she looked up to see that Priska was bleeding. Her left shoulder had been shot clean through.


    ¡°Hey, are you al-¡±


    She stopped. She noticed that Priska had gone rigid. Not because of the pain, but because of what Ceriena saw beyond her shoulder. She took a step back, then four more. She didn¡¯t want to get in her way now.


    ¡°Y-you!¡±


    Priska pointed at a black van speeding down the street. Several people were shooting the cops from it and one shot had obliterated the Black Dragon¡¯s head.


    She quietly and quickly placed the remainder in the bag and handed it to Ceriena. Tentatively, Ceriena asked her a question.


    ¡°You okay?¡±


    Then she felt a burst of bloodlust flood from her friend. She started to transform into her Werewolf form and howled at the midday sun.


    ¡°I WILL MURDER THEM!!!¡±


    She started to run at the van. Her speed was unmatched by the police cars as she sped down the road. She was running in the area in between the road and the sidewalk and had to sidestep multiple bikers.


    ¡°GET BACK HERE, YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!!!¡±


    Every step plunged into the asphalt and made small indents whenever the tips of her toes touched the ground, since that was where the most pressure was applied. She started to bound on all fours to the point where she was several yards behind the car.


    Several bikers that she ran past fell off their bikes due to the wind pressure surrounding her. The air rippled and the wind blew several objects all around. Ceriena watched as several people lost their coffee and sympathized with them mentally; she knew what it was like to lose coffee.


    Police officers watched as she bounded down the street and was gradually speeding up. The helicopter above was now going slower than her and she was still going strong. By the time she reached the van, though,they had already passed several streets. They were nearing a large power plant that used magical energy.


    The driver of the van stepped on the brakes and he came to a stop. All three people started to leave the van when Priska encountered them. They stood, face to face, with a dark grey werewolf that stood at a height that was much larger than them.


    The two robbers stared in fear as they felt this same deady aura before. They had felt it in the cafe when their companion was getting the shit beaten out of her. The driver, however, pulled a pistol.


    Shakily, he started to point it at the being and the lead robber saw him.


    ¡°If you-¡±


    Too late. It was far too late to save his life as the gun was literally shredded before his eyes along with his hand. Then his left arm came off followed by a sound like a soft ball hitting the floor.


    The second robber screamed in fear as he saw the driver¡¯s head roll. He started to run, but he didn¡¯t make it far.


    Blood rose from the dead corpse of the driver and formed into a lance. It flew through the air, like a bullet, and pulverized him. He fell to the ground with a hole in his body. Organs spilled out and his heart that was partially destroyed had flopped out.


    ¡°Eep!¡±


    The leader of the group turned to look at his two comrades before raising his hand in the air. Priska looked at him as he did so and she started to run towards him. He had been slowly creeping away and was several yards from her.


    While she easily closed the gap, he was no longer there when she reached his space. Instead, he hopped upwards and grasped onto a ladder that had fallen from an overhead helicopter. The robbers had actually chosen this spot to enter their final getaway vehicle.


    The helicopter moved upwards, out of her range, and the man started to climb the ladder. He only had one bag of money of the two that they divided it up in, but that was still a large amount of cash.


    He turned back to see Priska turn into her original form and his eyes widened. He cupped one hand around his mouth and shouted at her.


    ¡°Why did you attack us just now?¡±


    ¡°Is it not obvious?! You mangled my stuffed animal!! I¡¯ll murder you one day!¡±


    The man looked at her like she was insane, then scoffed.


    ¡°As if you could find m-¡±


    From the inside of her jacket, she pulled out a magnum. She usually had it with her, but due to babysitting duty, she didn¡¯t bring it to the casino. The black and silver gun only had two enchantments, anti-regeneration and dispel magic.


    ¡°And that day is today!!!¡±


    She pointed it at him as he tried to climb, but he was too slow. The helicopter pilot had no idea what was going on and kept trying to fly away.


    A loud shot rang out, louder than the helicopter and far louder than the sirens of the police cars. The bullet was even faster. Before the robber could react to the sound, he was already shot.


    His body froze up for a moment before falling to the ground and turning into paste. The money lay there, some of it soaked in blood. He had fallen about seven stories and now some of his bones were crushed into dust.


    The police had already surrounded them, but there had been a barrier around the ladder and helicopter that didn¡¯t allow regular bullets to hit. With the use of her gun, she was able to kill the man and stopped them from completing their heist.


    Several officers shrunk back in fear as she looked at them. Then she looked at the bag of cash that had fallen to the ground.


    ¡°Can I get some compensation for this?¡±


    She gestured to the mess behind her. She placed her magnum back into her jacket and started to get out her phone.


    ¡°Freeze!¡±


    Some officers forgot the eight mercenaries in their city.


    Priska looked up with eyes that froze the person in place due to how scary it was. He shakily cocked his gun that was pointing at her and fired off several shots.


    However, those shots passed right through her. Since she was holding onto her phone, it also became ethereal and she could still touch and use it.


    She looked back at the officer whose gun was taken away and glared. She slowly reached back into her jacket when the officer closest to her bowed.


    ¡°I am terribly sorry for my junior¡¯s actions. Please, spare him! He is ignorant!¡±


    Everything seemed to freeze as the police awaited her next move. They couldn¡¯t actually charge her for murder because she had a license to kill. It was an ID that she had in her wallet that said she could kill those opposing herself.


    Of course, for such IDs, there were proper procedures, even if they were weak. One rule was that if the user kills five or more people intentionally within the span of one month, they will be placed in prison. So far, she had a record of only killing three innocent people intentionally in her entire career as a mercenary. The previous record was only killing seven in one year, but she beat it with three in two years.


    Actually, one of her coworkers had one of the worst reputations, with forty eight innocent deaths in one year. That person was Hiak, the close range gun wielder. He was also known as the partially insane one.


    For most people, many of the kills were accidental and done with guns. The courts ruled them as intentional kills and decided that they were counted as innocent deaths. It was mainly the victims¡¯ families who protested for this as the bodies were¡­ quite decimated.


    Priska was a close combat expert and focused mainly on the enemy and usually didn¡¯t involve civilians in fights. Of course, there were those like Hiak who liked to kill those who got in their way. In fact, Hiak was one fifth of the reason why that law was instituted.


    Even with all the bad reputation, Priska was friends with him because they both liked guns and blood. However, Priska liked blood for different reasons, mainly because it gave Vampires more life energy to live and they were also attracted to it. Even so, they were on friendly terms, but she never once went outside of the office with him.


    At the present moment, the officer who fired at her was being crushed by the body of five officers who did not want to die. The officer in front of her was still bowing and was sweating bullets.


    ¡°Fine. Just make sure it doesn¡¯t happen again. If it does¡­ that¡¯ll be my fourth innocent.¡±


    Every officer gulped as she spoke. Then, once realizing that, if this doesn¡¯t happen again, it was all fine and good, they all chuckled as if they escaped death.


    While Priska was known as the Heavy Brawler, she still used the guns from her arsenal. All those who¡¯ve seen it felt both awe and fear as they even saw weapons only sold on the black market.


    Along with guns, she also had some explosives and melee weapons, but was still looking for a suitable trench knife. If someone had to give a ratio of weapons to other in her office, it would be one to one, but what most don¡¯t know is that she has two more places where she stored weapons.


    She bought a chest that could fit twenty items and only responds to the owner where she placed fifteen items so far. The other area was a fake wall in her closet where she placed only her most favorite guns.


    If someone included all that, it would be more like four to one. However, only Priska knew about the other two places. Not even Beta IV knew about it, even when she brought in a chest small enough to fit under her desk or when she hired some guys to make a fake wall and install it. Although, she had her suspicions about the last one.


    Priska started to walk away. Well, not really away from, but more like through the police. She stepped through the police cars and officers. Some felt weirded out while others tried to get out of her way, but ended up knocking themselves out with the cars.


    On her way out, Priska was already texting Ceriena to pick her up. She wasn¡¯t sure if they would, but she would like a nice, fat check sitting on her desk by the end of the day.


    After a moment, she received a message from Ceriena.


    <Y do u nd 2 b pkd up all the tm?> (Why do you need to be picked up all the time?)


    It took her a moment to fully comprehend what she was saying because Priska only used some shortened words to text, like ¡°plz¡± or ¡°thx¡±. Ceriena was someone fluent in texting and social media while Priska was more¡­ illiterate in those ways.


    <Yes?>


    She could not find a more suitable answer than ¡°yes¡± as she had no excuses. This time she ran after some guys to kill them. Before, she had climbed a building to take out some snipers. Another time, she got lost from the group in a mall and they found her in a toy shop looking at all the stuffed animals.


    <Ill b thr n a mmnt.> (I¡¯ll be there in a moment.)


    ¡°Does that mean moment?¡±


    He spoke to herself quietly as she read. She was walking down the road and knew that Ceriena was coming to pick her up. All the members of the sector had linked phone accounts and they could each find the GPS location of one another.


    Back when Priska left, Ceriena waited until Priska had vanished from her line of sight and then started to move to the parking lot where her hot pink sports car was parked. Outfitted with many different gadgets and technologies, she was able to bring it almost everywhere, roads, water, gun fights, but not the sky. Technology had come far enough where cars could fly, but they were far too dangerous to be called safe.


    It was a few minutes later that Ceriena picked up Priska from the sidewalk. Priska was sitting on a bench holding her shoulder. She slowly got up and made her way to the car.


    Once she entered, Ceriena tried to comfort her because, by that point, Priska was sniffling due to the loss of the Black Dragon plush.


    It was truly a sad event. There was only one other in the world, but it had been bought a week ago. Even if she wanted it, she didn¡¯t have a license to steal, only spies had such rights and only for the benefit of the government.


    ¡°You okay? Here, let¡¯s go get that wound treated first, then we can go back to the shop, alright?¡±


    Priska nodded in silence, like a child who had just lost their toy. She started to take off her jacket and rolled up her left sleeve to look at the bullet wound.


    There was a hole all the way through and you could even see some bone. It had penetrated in an area that was a few inches above the heart. However, if it had hit her in the heart, she would still be alive as one would need to destroy both her brain and heart at the same time and they were far thicker and more protected than any Human¡¯s.


    Genetic traits passed down by both Daemos and Gusion allowed her to live much longer in what would be a fatal position. However, she did not have the immortality of Gusion nor the immediate regeneration of Daemos. Instead, she had a set lifespan, although no one knew what age she would reach, and she healed in a longer amount of time.


    Although, sometimes it was observed that some traits were shown later on in life. Some people were found to be immortal so long as they had magic and others developed some new skills or physical traits.


    For Priska, she had only discovered her blood magic three years ago, one year before she started working as a merc. It was actually a somewhat stupid reason why she knew. She had ended up smashing her face into an electric pole, being too busy on her phone, and got a bloody nose. She really didn''t want to get blood on the shirt she wore at the time and willed the blood to move away from her shirt.


    At the time, it freaked her out and she took a step back causing the blood to fall onto the ground. Since then, she was able to hone her power and control it into the still-not-so-perfect power it was today.


    Instead of going to the hospital, they went to the 4th floor of their office, the Medical Center where the members got treated for injuries and such. There was a professional medical staff on that floor who were able to do basically anything from surgery to taking care of sicknesses.


    When they entered the ground floor, the security guard looked up from his tablet at Ceriena hauling up a much larger Priska whose injury had already started to heal, bit by bit. He was used to this common occurrence and pressed a button under his desk.


    As soon as he pressed it, the two of them could hear the sounds of rolling wheels followed by numerous footsteps. From a side door, four nurses ran up to her with a gurney and they placed her carefully onto it.


    After strapping her in, they rushed to the elevator and placed a key in the slot under the buttons. The medical staff all had keys that made the elevator prioritize the level it was used on and it automatically went to the medical floor once they went inside.


    Since Priska¡¯s condition was not fatal, but more like a small cut to a Human, they staff had an abundant amount of time to get her to the floor. Even so, they rushed to one of the medical rooms once the elevator door opened and they immediately started to heal her wound.


    First, they used alcohol to clean and disinfect the hole. Then they cast healing magic and cleaned it up afterwards. Then, since there was a cut and blood coming out, they wrapped it in gauze and had her drink some kind of liquid with medical properties.


    It had been only ten minutes when they finished and Priska was let out of the room. Most medical facilities around the world were only a bit worse than the one in their office. While they had healing magic and things like that, they did not have the healing tonics that increased the natural healing of someone.


    Ceriena found Priska staring up at the ceiling of the first floor and sighing. While the plush was not very expensive, it was more of a habit to buy two plushies every paycheck, if there was enough money.


    Priska looked at Ceriena and got up. The two of them drove to the shop as Ceriena consoled Priska. Of course, being someone who shouldn¡¯t mope around all day, she started to think of a new plush to buy.


    When they got out of the car, they started to walk when Priska overheard someone next to them.


    ¡°...And it was mental!! Apparently, the guy on the ladder was shot! I didn¡¯t even make any money off of that heist!! Fucking bullshit.¡±


    Priska stopped in her tracks and spun on her heels. Grabbing the guy by the collar, she spun him to face her. The guy was surprised when he was grabbed and tried to squirm out of her grasp.


    However, the moment she growled with an inhuman noise, he stopped moving. He started to whimper and sweat dribbled down his forehead.


    He dropped the phone he was talking on and the call immediately hung up. The phone cracked on the sidewalk as Priska¡¯s grip grew tighter.


    ¡°Were you the asshole who drove that helicopter?!¡±


    The man¡¯s face paled as he realized that she knew what he was involved in before. He had only recently parked the helicopter and was now waiting for someone to transport him.


    ¡°N-no.¡±


    He drew up his hands defensively and tried his best to look Priska in the eyes, but was clearly having trouble doing so. Ceriena watched this scene with zero knowledge of what they were talking about.


    Priska¡¯s blood red eyes seemed to glimmer just a little with a tinge of purple aura. This was a trait she received from Gusion, Know Truth. It allowed her to see if someone was telling a truth or lie, but nothing more. It favored yes or no questions and hated anything else.


    However, unlike active skills, this was active at all times and her eyes only radiated purple when someone lied to her face, not via text or such. Luckily, this person said ¡°no¡± while the real answer was ¡°yes¡±.


    She shoved him against the side of the nearest building and from his hip came an audible crack. He writhed in pain and tears started to flow from his eyes. It was quite painful.


    ¡°You lied. Who were you talking to?¡±


    ¡°N-no one!¡±


    She knew he was lying, but now had to try and find their name. It was obviously someone working in the shadows. She heard several robberies all around the city similar to this one where they had two kinds of escape vehicles and similar guns.


    Her conclusion? It must be another criminal organization. She knew of three within the city, twenty in the state, but the three in New York City only dealt in drugs, human trafficking, and weapon dealing, not robberies for cash.


    ¡°Who is your boss?!¡±


    ¡°I-I¡­¡±


    He was trying to form words, but they wouldn¡¯t come out. Instead, foam did and his eyes rolled back. Then, his limbs went slack and his head lolled to the side.


    Priska clicked her tongue and threw him in a nearby alley. He was already dead. It was remotely used cyanide which, nowadays, ignored the properties of magic and could only be removed if someone took out the tooth with the cyanide inside.


    The unmoving corpse seemed to sail gracefully through the air, only coming to a stop when hitting a brick wall and landing perfectly in a black dumpster. Several bags could be heard being popped and a foot was still sticking out.


    ¡°... Fucker.¡±


    She mumbled under her breath. Not only did she not find the organization, but now didn¡¯t have any leads whatsoever. Whoever was doing this had power, money, and manpower.


    ¡°So¡­ who was that?¡±


    Priska whirled around to see Ceriena. She was completely relaxed as she turned off her phone. While Priska was interrogating him, Ceriena was updating her social media platform by saying, ¡°Going to get plushies with friend!!¡±


    ¡°One of the guys who was in league with the dude who shot my Black Dragon.¡±


    She could barely contain her anger and was growling through her teeth.


    ¡°And your shoulder.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, but what¡¯s more important? A body part or a stuffed animal? It¡¯s obviously the plush, right?¡±


    ¡°Unless you don¡¯t have a healing factor¡­¡±


    She said it in such a quiet voice, that she could have thought it in her mind and it still wouldn¡¯t have made a difference.


    ¡°Anyway, let¡¯s go get you that¡­ Ekiterner?¡±


    ¡°Eikthyrnir.¡±


    Priska corrected her. Ceriena¡¯s knowledge of myths was only bound to the Odyssey and several passages of Jason and the Argonauts. Priska¡¯s surpassed about 70% of the known world in Earth mythology alone.


    ¡°Sure. Let¡¯s go get that.¡±


    When Priska had ran at the opponents about an hour ago, Ceriena walked back into the store to explain what happened. The cashier apologized as the second Black Dragon had already been sold and Priska said it was no problem, while holding in her anger the entire time.


    ¡°Anyways, I¡¯m here to buy Eikthyrnir. As you saw¡­¡±


    She gestured to the decapitated Black Dragon.


    ¡°... It died. A truly unfortunate accident where all persons involved must pay with their LIVES!! Ahem.¡±


    She accidentally let slip the voice of wrath within her and tried to cover it up by clearing her throat. While Ceriena was used to it, for the most part, the cashier was able to deal with it. He too knew the tragedies of when stuffed animals are shot with bullets¡­


    He shook off the memories of her younger brother shooting her kitten plush.


    ¡°Certainly. Oh, I mean ¡°Certainly¡± to buying Eikthyrnir, not the lives part. I mean, you could if you wanted to.¡±


    ¡°Ah, I already killed five who¡¯ve done it. Just need to find the boss and kick the crap outta him until he vomits his organs out.¡±


    She smiled creepily as, in harmony, Ceriena and the cashier shuddered. Her smile, while still captivating, seemed cruel and sadistic. However, all she really was thinking about was revenge as she was neither a torturer nor a S or M.


    ¡°Anyways, I¡¯m gonna go get you that plush now¡­¡±


    The cashier quickly scurried away to retrieve the stuffed animal.


    ¡°Why do you care so much ab- Nevermind.¡±


    She was about to ask the taboo question and sensed bloodlust rising from her body. No one, not even her manager liked her bloodlust. It caused too many people to piss their pants and several people also froze in their chairs causing them to not work. Just another racial trait from a Vampire, Banshee, and a Duke of Hell.


    By the time the cashier got the stuffed animal, Priska had mostly calmed down. She was still a bit emotional, but her mood had become brighter.


    Even with the mood being better, there was silence throughout the checkout procedure. One could even hear the talkin outside the store as no music, talking, or any other sounds were heard.


    ¡°So, what now?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m gonna look on the database to try and get some more data. Can¡¯t have these guys killing any more plushies.¡±


    ¡°Alright. I¡¯ll drive you back to the office, but I¡¯m going home once you get out of the car.¡±


    They walked to the car in the parking lot and entered her car once again. They could walk, but both of them were quite tired already from all the things that happened earlier in the day. It wasn¡¯t just physical fatigue, but mental as well.


    In a matter of minutes, Ceriena drove to the front of the office and Priska got out. Ceriena called out behind her as she started to roll up the window.


    ¡°Good luck! Don¡¯t stay too late.¡±


    Priska waved and entered the building. The guard, still on his tablet, glanced towards her and then returned to whatever it was he was doing. He really only cared to do his job to the point that someone would call him ¡°mediocre¡± at his job.


    Priska nodded as a greeting, but he ignored it. Used to this gesture, she continued onwards to the elevator. She needed to find a pattern between the heists.


    The elevator stopped at floor 2, the break and eatery area. The door opened and in came Beta IV. She was the Human manager of Priska who now had a cup of coffee in her hand.


    Sniffing the air discreetly, Priska could smell the scent of chocolate around her and the bitter scent of black coffee. Beta IV had eaten a chocolate muffin several minutes ago.


    ¡°Priska! How¡¯s your arm?¡±


    She opened up her arms to greet her, but then retracted her arms when her coffee almost spilled. She then took a sip while Priska answered as she stretched her previously damaged arm.


    ¡°It¡¯s fine now, but what I¡¯m trying to do now is find a specific group.¡±


    ¡°What kind? The ones who deal in drugs?¡±


    ¡°No, it seems like there is a person controlling the money heists behind the scenes.¡±


    ¡°Like the ones who you killed earlier?¡±


    ¡°Exactly.¡±


    She took another sip of coffee and the elevator dinged and the doors opened. The two of them stepped out and made their way towards their offices.


    ¡°I can ask some of the FBI people that I have connections with. I¡¯m sure they can send over something.¡±


    ¡°Thanks.¡±


    They were about to go separate ways when Priska wheeled around and grabbed hold of Beta IV¡¯s shoulder.


    ¡°You¡­ you won¡¯t bring any of your children here, right?¡±


    ¡°Huh? On Bring-Your-Child-To-Work day? That¡¯s a great idea! I should do that!¡±


    They both entered their own offices and Priska slid into her seat. She face palmed as she looked up at the white ceiling.


    ¡°Motherfucker.¡±


    She mumbled. She felt like she just triggered some sort of disaster or something akin to it.


    Peeking through her fingers, she looked at an envelope on her desk. Tentatively, she took the envelope and slowly opened it. She carefully tore the tape off and pulled out the paper within.


    It turned out that it was two papers, a note and a check. Reading aloud, she realized it came from the police.


    ¡°Hello Ms. Huld,


    We thank you for helping us to capture the criminals, even if just the bodies, and have decided to make some good on our promise. Included in this envelope is a check for $5,000. We have also decided to give you a badge for helping the police, although we will give it to you in private.


    Sincerely,


    NYPD.¡±


    She frowned. She didn¡¯t think that 19 years of age was enough to call someone ¡°Ms¡± nor was she comfortable with them calling her by her last name. Setting aside the mixed emotions and the note, she looked at the check.


    Indeed, it was a real check. Five thousand dollars for killing four plebs who defied her. That was easy money right there.


    Setting that aside, she opened up her laptop that was stationed to the right of several files with a cup of water on top. To the right of the laptop were the unfinished bills that she needed to pay by the 30th. However, it was only the 7th of September.


    Unlike work laptops that were mainly made for offices and such, this was a gaming laptop with some of the best modifications on the market. Although, she mainly played card games or strategy based games.


    She double tapped a shortcut on the screen and looked into the camera of her laptop. Then, after the facial recognition, she had to speak in a regular voice with a specific catchphrase the user set up already.


    ¡°Ahem. ¡®Nine Tails are really fluffy.¡¯¡±


    The laptop dinged and she was now in the database. All she had to do now was select all the related crimes and pull up searches on people who they might be. Then she could go after the people in question and threaten them.


    As she started the search, she heard a loud booming that sounded more like someone breaking concrete instead of running. After a few steps, a large man appeared in the doorway.


    He had tanned skin and square glasses. On both sides of his head, he had a pair of horns that was red and curved to the front. He wore a formal suit and tie. The suit was black, but the tie was white with a design of a diagonal red line through it.


    ¡°Hey! Someone just told me that you didn¡¯t complete that mission a couple days ago! What the f-¡°


    ¡°I did. The casino, right?¡±


    ¡°You did? Then why did¡­¡±


    Oryan¡¯s lecture was interrupted when the glass of water fell onto the laptop. Priska watched in horror as it started to drip water.


    Priska started to try and snatch it from the air before it fell completely, but a paper flew to the left and the water fell even faster than anticipated, slipping on the piece of paper.


    Too late. The water spilled onto the disk drive that was open. The water entered the computer and it short-circuited. The screen went from on to off as smoke started to rise.


    The fire alarms detected the smoke and the sprinklers went off. Since they were more focused nowadays, the sprinkler managed to only drench her, the laptop, and her bills. She covered the paycheck with her jacket.


    Sparks flew as Priska groaned. While the laptop was normally waterproof, when it had things open, it wasn¡¯t so effective.


    ¡°Who put the fucking glass there?! And who opened my disk drive?! That¡­ so help me that the God of Death doesn¡¯t help me murder you¡­¡±


    She was furious. She thought about taking out a grenade and throwing it in the middle of the building, but decided against it.


    She turned in her chair to face one of her other seven co-workers. It was partially his fault that the water spilled as the cup fell due to the shaking of him stomping towards her.


    They were not on the best of terms, but neither on the worst. They only recognized one another¡¯s achievements and, occasionally, Oryan would criticize her for not doing something.


    ¡°Now, where can I find some files?¡±


    Oryan rested a hand on the back of his neck and sighed. After a moment of eager anticipation from Priska, he slowly started to speak.


    He was the only person in the eight person sector who was devoted to being a bodyguard as there rest were either mercenaries or assassins.


    Using barrier magic, he could block bullets and blades and his reaction and cast time was even more extraordinary. It was almost impossible to get anything by him¡­ unless he wasn¡¯t in the area.


    His wisdom was great as Balrogs were very intelligent and logical strategists. However, he was only half Balrog and half Human. He was thirteen years her senior and was amazing at his job. Not only that, but he was already learning security tactics when Priska was just a child. A Balrog¡¯s lifespan was near limitless, even a half Balrog retained this trait. This was proven in Limbo where several Humans had ended up and it ended with Human and Devil/Demon hybrids.


    The points in time where Humans accidentally slipped through worlds and landed in Limbo were few in numbers, but it was enough to inform the Limbo natives about the hybrids. There were times where random people were sent there via a Satan summoning ritual, where Satan killed them all and dragged the person to Limbo, and also some battlefields dragged Humans to both Limbo and the Underworld due to the amount of blood and sacrifices all around.


    At present, Oryan was thoughtfully touching his chin and was trying to find an adequate answer.


    ¡°I believe that the FBI or the NYPD may have some¡­ try the police first. They are much closer. Oh, but don¡¯t do anything to them. If you do, I swear to¡­¡±


    ¡°Yeah, yeah, I get it. Don¡¯t be a Hiak. Now, can you do something about this water?¡±


    She glanced up at the spray of water only to find that some of it got in her eyes. She started to rub them out of her eyes when she saw, from the corner of her blurry vision, Oryan leaving. She was awful at any electronic equipment other than cars, computers, or other video or game related material.


    Sighing, she turned to look out the window behind her. The sprinklers stopped as Oryan flipped a switch on a wall and typed in a code. Placing both her elbows on her knees, her chin rested on her hands as she looked out at the grey city.

 Chapter III: Dont You Just Love Blood?

    After the whole ¡°Sprinkler¡± incident five days ago, Priska wanted to forget about it. Not only had the data been lost, but several people in the building berated her for letting her laptop break. She sighed deeply and looked at the sky.


    The laptop was in a shop for repairs and it didn¡¯t seem like she would be getting it any time soon. She lost the ability to watch Ne***ix and Cru***y**ll, not to mention the card games exclusive to PC only.


    Many companies survived the vortexes and the anti-gravity and actually have gained even more popularity. Human culture became a wondrous experience for many otherworldly beings. It was mainly the video websites and recreational companies that expanded.


    She opened up one of her honey candies and popped it into her mouth. She was quite troubled as she sat outside the police department. She thought back to several minutes ago¡­


    ¡°I¡¯m telling you! We don¡¯t have that information!¡±


    ¡°So where can I get it?¡±


    ¡°Do you think I know? Even if I did, I don¡¯t give a shit. Leave. You¡¯re interrupting my work.¡±


    The person at the front desk had yelled at Priska for the last five minutes about how they didn¡¯t have any of the files that she was looking for. And so, instead of working, the person went back to playing some sort of 2D bullet hell.


    ¡°You¡¯re not even working.¡±


    Priska grumbled as she moved to another person. They all yelled at her, save for one person who was polite. In such a short amount of time, Priska and this other person, Nierra, became friends.


    Nierra had made a comment about wanting to go back to her room full of plushies and the conversation led on from there. They exchanged contact information and Priska left after a short conversation.


    Now that she thought about it, not a lot happened in that time other than her getting yelled at by some people and making a new friend. Well, she had only one option left. A place that no person should ever have to, or want to, go.


    <hr>


    It took a few good hours with a taxi, but she finally made it to the place. A tall building that was a good eighty stories high and took up the space of five square blocks. The foundation was massive and is was like a blocky pyramid, the top getting smaller than the bottom every twenty stories.


    There were windows placed incrementally and the front doors were large enough for a Goliath to walk through, which is to say, about 10 feet. The doors were bullet-proof and automatic and the glass was clearly see-through.


    Inside, one could see the front desk that was at least 20 feet long and there were five people manning the one desk. There were stacks of papers that could be seen sitting behind them on a table equally as long.


    There were ten rows of chairs on both the left and right of the desk. It seemed that those were the waiting areas for the clients. Priska could see that someone would perk their head up and walk to the desk as soon as someone exited one of the doors behind and to the left or right of the desk.


    She got out of the cab after getting her credit card back. It was a bit costly to get here, but she wasn¡¯t going to waste time while she was here.


    She quickly moved over the sidewalk and past the shrubs placed neatly in front and all around the building. Several homeless people were being shoved off the property and some people in formal suits were walking in to the building.


    After entering the building, she went directly to the closest person at the desks who was in the middle. The man seemed young, but strong as he boasted a light tan and many muscles that bulged from under his suit and tie.


    As soon as she walked to the desk, everyone¡¯s eyes were drawn to her. They were mesmerized by her beauty and many gaze either jealous or lecherous gazes towards her. Even the people working at the desks stopped all that they were doing and stared at her.


    ¡°Um.¡±


    No one came out of their stupefied state. Only one person was not looking at her and they were engrossed in a sports magazine.


    ¡°I¡¯m here to see Daemos.¡±


    Everyone stopped staring and started to look away. While they were here to buy some protective services, they knew that Daemos had a short temper and many of the customers only dealt with his direct underlings. If she was affiliated with Daemos in some way, they would not like to find out how.


    ¡°W-what do you want with Sir Daemos? And w-why did you call him by his first name without honorifics?¡±


    The five receptionists gazed in horror as she addressed him without a proper title. This was known to get a lot of people killed.


    ¡°I want to get some info. Can you tell him that Priska is asking?¡±


    ¡°O-okay?¡±


    Nobody in the company save for the higher ups knew that Priska was a direct blood relative to Daemos, being his granddaughter.


    The man picked up the phone and called the highest person he could reach, the rank right below Daemos¡¯s. He spoke quickly into the phone and seemed puzzled by what he was told.


    ¡°Sir D-Daemos will come down s-shortly.¡±


    He seemed shaken as the other four receptionists shook in fear. Apparently, everyone who was lower on the food chain was afraid of him on a fundamental level.


    Everything was silent. The customers, the receptionists, and even the television was silent, since someone turned the volume down. Everyone stared at one of the elevators as it counted down from eighty. It was rapidly approaching one.


    When the elevator beeped, Daemos could be seen. A six foot four inch man with a black mask with a design of two eye holes covered by black lenses and a mouth in the mask that could open and close. Blood dripped from the mouth as the smell of iron hit everyone hard.


    He wore a white business suit with red outlines and several blood smears. His tie was basically drenched in blood as he walked. Several droplets dripped from his clothes to the ground. He caught several of them in black gauntlet and licked the blood that was splattered on his fingers and palm.


    He strolled up to Priska with a man who was slightly taller and much more bulky than him following behind. That man was covered head to toe in full tactical gear with four primary guns on him. They both walked with ease.


    Priska also strolled towards them and they both stopped in front of each other. The customers glanced at each other, uneasy of what would happen next. To their surprise, it wasn¡¯t bloodshed.


    ¡°Eye!! How is my favorite granddaughter doing?!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m doing well, you?¡±


    The both smiled, but Daemos¡¯s couldn¡¯t be seen. The customers were bewildered at this turn in events as the two hugged.


    ¡°I¡¯m doing great! I had lunch a few minutes ago!¡±


    ¡°Hahaha! It seems like you¡¯re still eating though!¡±


    She gestured to the blood. If one looked closely enough as well, they would be able to see some flesh bits stuck to the teeth of the mask.


    ¡°Yeah¡­ wasn¡¯t as tasty as I had hoped, but it should suffice. Have you been eating well enough?¡±


    ¡°Well, if you count brownies as¡­¡±


    They walked and talked and the conversation was cut from the customers by the elevator. One of the more bewildered people mouthed, ¡°What just happened?¡±


    The three of them, Priska, Daemos, and the bodyguard, went to the seventy ninth floor to talk.


    ¡°How is your job? Are you making a lot of money?¡±


    ¡°Yep! I¡¯ve had so much that I don¡¯t even know what to do with half of it. I mean, I guess I would spend it on hobbies¡­ if I had some hobby to do. Even with collecting stuffed animals, you can only have enough until your satisfied.¡±


    ¡°... And how many stuffed animals would you be satisfied with?¡±


    ¡°Three hundred million. I¡¯ve only got one thousand at the moment and I would only like to buy the ones I see in stores that I like.¡±


    ¡°Yeah¡­ brings you back, does it not?¡±


    Priska and Daemos both remembered at time when Priska was six. Daemos brought her to a toy store and bought her several plushies. Then, when walking out of the store, a guy bumped into Priska, making her drop a tiger plush.


    Crying, she picked up the toy that was in near perfect condition still and sat on a bench. Daemos soothed her while he phoned several of his guards on an earpiece.


    ¡°Take him out.¡±


    From that one phrase, the man ended up getting the shit kicked out of him and having his money and cards stolen from his wallet. In the end, Priska looked up at Daemos as she knew what happened.


    ¡°T-thanks.¡±


    ¡°Aww! I would literally do anything for you.¡±


    Back at present, they were walking through the halls to Daemos¡¯s office. His office was on the 79th floor, but the 80th floor was for entertainment and killing. Entertainment being indoor theaters and game centers. Killing being the place where Daemos ate.


    ¡°So, why do you not see me as often now?¡±


    ¡°This place is soooo far away. The building is stationed at the edge of the state while I¡¯m usually in the opposite part of the state.¡±


    Indeed, the reason she had not wanted to visit was because of the distance. That and the the fact that there were low-lifes hanging around outside the building at all times. The reason why no one should have to go is because most people do not need bodyguards nor advice from their grandparents that they cannot get from through the phone.


    ¡°It feels like several years since I last saw you.¡±


    ¡°...That¡¯s probably because it was several years. I last saw you when I quit being a waitress. You know, about two years ago?¡±


    ¡°I remember. We went out to eat and Gusion kept asking me what was in my flask. I did not want to scare anyone by saying that it was blood...¡±


    ¡°Of Humans.¡±


    Priska interjected. Whenever Daemos went out to eat, he would always bring his flask of blood as a drink.He didn¡¯t particularly like most alcoholic beverages except for blood wine, a type of wine that implemented blood in the creation of it.


    ¡°...And I also I did not want to not say anything because it would make me look rude!¡±


    ¡°Well, why didn¡¯t you just li¡ª Oh.¡±


    ¡°Yes. As you know, he has this nasty habit where he knows the truth of all things said.¡±


    ¡°Well, I mean, it is his passive ability.¡±


    ¡°He could have just not asked.¡±


    ¡°True.¡±


    The bodyguard opened Daemos¡¯s office door and held it for the two of them as they walked in. It was spacious with long sofas lining the walls to the left and right and a huge screen the size of a whale above the door they entered. In front of them, his desk sat with curled corners and random things on the shelf behind it.


    The bodyguard closed the door and the two were now alone in the room. Daemos led Priska to a comfy seat and then proceeded to sit in his chair. He reached for a drawer in his desk.


    Soon after opening it, he produced a glass bottle of dark blue. Inside, the navy colored fluid whirled around as Daemos shook the bottle with his left hand as he grabbed out two glass cups with his right.


    ¡°Blood?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll take a cup, thanks.¡±


    This, however, was not ordinary humanoid blood, no, this was the blood of Jotuns, the Frost Giants of the Winter lands in the Feywild. Their blood was a blue color due to their being descendants of some Gods. Those gods held gold or, sometimes, even white blood. Their direct offspring gained purple blood soon followed by the blue blood within the later relatives.


    It was actually not as dangerous to obtain Jotun blood as it was thirty years ago. While it is still just as expensive, a Pure-Breed Vampire now monopolizes the trade of it by taking the blood of criminal Jotuns and distilling it into a fine drink.


    This drink tasted good while also adding a proven five years to life per gallon one drinks in their lifetime. Of course, being immortal, Pure-Breed Vampires only drank the mixture for their own pleasure. Priska drank for both the taste and longevity as she didn¡¯t know how long her lifespan was, even though it would likely be at least a millenia.


    As he poured the drink, however, he started to talk business.


    ¡°You probably have not come here just to see me, sad as it is. So, what is it that you seek?¡±


    ¡°I want information about an organization that robs stores and places and uses several modes of transport to escape. Know anything?¡±


    ¡°Uh uh uh. You have to do something for me first. It will be something easy though. So simple, even a child could do it.¡±


    Skeptically, since Daemos¡¯ standards of children were quite high, she slowly answered.


    ¡°What¡­ kind of assignment is it?¡±


    She slowly drank from her cup. The blue blood slid down her throat easily and gave a sweet taste to her tongue.


    ¡°Straight to the point! That is why you are my favorite. Well, that and the fact we are related by blood. This assignment is simple. Just go to the corner of Fate and Arch street. Should be about that way.¡±


    He pointed out the window diagonally. Following his finger, Priska found he was talking about a drug den along the newly placed outskirts of New York. It was actually quite a bit of ways away, but it would be easy for her to travel there.


    ¡°And?¡±


    ¡°I want you to clear it out. There are too many¡­ what is the word? ¡°Business men¡± who sell there. It is bad for business. They kill all my customers coming from Pennsylvania.¡±


    ¡°All?¡±


    ¡°Well, maybe I exaggerated a little.¡±


    He held his index finger slightly above his thumb to prove his point. Painted on his face, a foolish grin.


    ¡°When should I star-¡±


    ¡°In about three minutes.¡±


    He looked at his watch. It read 1:57. There was no time to be fooling around now. She had to get there in three minutes and kill those who kill his customers.


    ¡°Any specific details I should look out for?¡±


    She had just downed the rest of her drink as he finished his sentence. As she stood up, she looked back at him and he thought for a moment. She was already halfway to the door when he answered, not getting up from his seat.


    ¡°They usually have a golden and black badge that has a lot of Elvish on it. Um, but they use roman numerals.¡±


    He was not very good with time. That was the main purpose of his bodyguard. To tell him how much time he had left for something. He also was awful at getting straight to the point, which is yet another reason he cannot get along with Gusion.


    ¡°Take my bike. Choose whichever you want, but return it when you are done.¡±


    ¡°Alright, I will.¡±


    She waved and he waved back. Just another friendly family experience. The bodyguard opened the door for her and closed it behind. Daemos watched as she left.


    He sighed as he slowly turned his seat to look through the glass window. His left hand¡¯s fingers tapped rapidly at the armrest while his right hand shook for he was scared. Scared for the safety of Priska.


    He knew that she would come back alive and well, but there was still the chance, no matter how little, that she would either die or get defiled or both. It truly scared him to see family leave his sight. Afterall, he did watch the slaughtering of his brother, parents, and pet cat.


    Sniffling, he brought his left hand to wipe his nose with a handkerchief from his pocket.


    ¡°So grown up now. I am so happy for you!¡±


    The next few minutes was him wailing in his office which sounded like a monster mother roaring and weeping at the loss of its child. It was terrifying, especially to all those who worked on that floor and the two rooms directly below him.


    One person jumped in their seat, turned to the noise, and spoke: ¡°Gods almighty, please tell our boss to stop sounding like an injured panda.¡±


    While he was¡­ in distress, Priska briskly walked up to the roof and took one of his twelve different make and model bikes. However, these were not ordinary bikes, no, they were airbikes. Some of the most dangerous vehicles known to man, but Priska was able to ride it as easily as she could beat the shit out of someone.


    She hopped aboard a black and orange bike whose design was like several crisscrossing zigzag lines. These bikes did not run on gasoline, ergo no fuel tank. Instead, all the bikes were powered by a fusion reactor that also used a little bit of magic.


    Each bike was shaped like a bike except for the small wings on the back, the rotating thrusters in the places of the wheels, and the seatbelts like the ones on buses, the kind that only go over the legs. In the back of the bike, there were three bags. One on top of the bike and directly behind the driver and two on either side of the bike that were also behind the driver. The top one was for storing items while the two on the side were emergency devices that used a developed magic spell, Feather Fall, to slow descent in emergencies.


    The twelve bikes were under a pavillion-like structure with no walls. They were also lined up in a single row so that not one of them would hit another if someone decided to drive it directly from the parked spot.


    Priska rummaged in her pocket to find a small rectangular case that was as large as a person¡¯s palm. She pressed her index finger to a small rectangle with a screen on one of the long sides. A green light appeared on the small screen and the box opened like a small chest. Inside, there were eleven different keys.


    She flipped through four of them before unhooking the fifth one. She plugged it into the ignition and closed the box before placing it back in her pocket. She started the bike and it started to hover slightly above the ground.


    Carefully, she moved it out from the line of bikes and entered an open space on the roof. While most of the roof was open, only a small portion of it was on the same level as the pavillion floor as the rest of the roof was raised about half a story with helipads covering them. At the moment, there was only one helicopter on the roof that had blades.


    There were boxes moving from the back of the open vehicle into an automated elevator system. Helicopters with blades were not all that rare when moving cargo since they were a lot cheaper in bulk than helicopters without blades. It also depended on what the company made and shipped.


    Priska stepped on the rotator, the two pedals on either side of the motorcycle that rotated which way the thruster pointed, and gripped the handles. She slowly turned them and the thrusters burned brighter as she flew upwards.


    She turned the front thruster to the right and started off towards the ¡°cleansing area¡± that her grandfather told her to go to. As she went, she decided to go down the building in style. As it wasn¡¯t necessarily illegal to vertically drive down an eighty story building, she rotated the left handle that controlled the back thruster¡¯s power and the bike turned to allow her to be perpendicular to the ground.


    She sped down the building, not actually touching it, and people in the building were startled by the vehicle. Her grandfather was looking out of his window when she sped by.


    He was sipping on some blood as he sighed deeply when he choked on it as he saw a black and orange blur go by. It was mainly by the sheer surprise that there was a scene of serenity that was interrupted by the bike.


    There were some small wyverns on a small outcropping on his floor, but they flew away causing the window to be covered by tan and blue colors, as those were the colors of wyverns. The most surprising thing, however, was that at the speed she was going, Priska managed to literally cook some wyverns.


    So, when she went by the rest of the floors, people would see a blur of two colors followed by charred hunks of meat hurtling through the sky. Some people, as soon as they realized what they were, regurgitated their lunch.


    It took only a single minute, but she arrived at the drug den. She could see things that should not be described in a book that decided not to incorporate sexual content. Other than that, there were drugs, addicts, white outlines of bodies made with chalk. You know, the usual.


    There was a yellow haze all around her which made her eyes water. While her mother and grandmother on her mother¡¯s side could easily withstand this gas, she could not. At least, it didn¡¯t affect her too much.


    She took out the key from the bike and popped it back into her key box. The orange and black bike now sat in the middle of a small parking lot with only two other cars. There were tons of people eyeing up the bike and priska decided to take the easiest and safest precaution, blood magic.


    She took her finger nail and quickly cut her pinky slightly. Holding her hand over the bike, blood dribbled down her pinky and dropped onto the bike¡¯s surface. After several drops, she turned around and started to walk. Her wound had already closed as it was quite small. It wasn¡¯t completely healed, but it did stop bleeding.


    Without any rhyme or reason, she started to run down over the rooftops. She had jumped upwards and started parkouring her way in a direction. Two minutes were up as she looked on her phone.


    ¡°Gah! I¡¯ve got no time for this shit!!¡±


    She morphed into her werewolf form and started running faster than before and using her sharp eyes to look for badges. She was checking out multiple people¡¯s jackets, pants, and shirts to see if there was a badge that matched the description.


    As it turns out, not a lot of people roaming the streets. Maybe some people doing some of the new drug, Death, as they looked all pale and sickly, but that was mainly it. It wasn¡¯t until she found a less hazy street that she saw more people who seemed like they didn¡¯t do drugs.


    In just a few seconds, she saw a person with the described badge on his right sleeve. He was walking towards another group of people with the same badges. That same group of people had surrounded a car.


    The car was black with a silver crest. The windows were tinted black, the frame was reinforced, and the wheels were popped. There were scratch marks on the windows and the front of the long car seemed broken.


    It was obvious that the group stopped a car by forcing it to hit a fire hydrant and was about to kill whoever was inside. She had no time to lose.


    As the guy she had seen first walked up to the group, he waved his hand to call them. His left hand staying in his jacket pocket as he walked and he used his right to wave just before adjusting his beanie.


    ¡°Ey-o, I¡¯m ¡®ere!¡±This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    The last words he ever spoke had finished coming out of his mouth. It was at that moment his head burst like a pinata except it was brain bits instead of candy. The rest of his group looked in shock.


    One person behind them, who wasn¡¯t part of the gang, started booking it down the street. Where they were standing and the path they took had a trail of yellow liquid on the ground. Other people followed his example without leaving a trail.


    And, from the rooftops like a certain dark knight from the comics, Priska jumped down on the pavement. And similarly to the same superhero, she threw a projectile.


    Of course, she wasn¡¯t someone who didn¡¯t kill and that kunai she threw became lodged in a man¡¯s eye. He was about to scream when a bullet with insane precision collided with the bottom of the kunai.


    The kunai penetrated his brain and he fell to the ground, silent. A puddle of blood started to pool as his comrades watched two of their companions die.


    ¡°Ah. Yup, no, I ain¡¯t standing here. Fuck that.¡±


    A guy turned to leave, but found a knife at his throat. He turned to see the canine head of Priska staring at him with one red eye. He looked panicked and started to reach for the blade when she moved away.


    However, being a person who didn¡¯t like to waste time in killing unless there were only a few people, she had sliced open his throat when she was moving. The knife had found its way into his artery and blood spewed forth like a hose.


    Dark red flew from the wound and he spun to the right before he slid down the car''s side. His blood smeared on one window of the dark car and Priska turned to look at the rest of the group.


    There were only six of them left, but two of them were trying to run away. One was trying to enter a building while the other was getting on a bike with wheels. With ease, Priska whipped out her gun. Two shots. Two deaths.


    The last four yelled. They started to try and attack Priska with their switchblades. While many weapons had become illegal, many weapons had also become legal if the user owned a permit.


    The first one swung and missed, rattled by the fear of death. She gripped his outstretched arm and swiveled him around. His knife ended up in the second person''s heart. The first person stared in horror as he realized he had murdered his buddy.


    Then, with a swift flick of a paw, Priska broke the first guy''s arm causing the knife to rip out of his friend''s heart and into his own eye. Priska quickly rotated the knife and drilled it further into the first man''s skull.


    Taking her right foot, Priska kicked up the knife dropped by the second man and easily caught it. Twirling it through the air, she caught the blade after it had spun twice and side stepped to the left as another knife sailed over her head.


    She carefully moved to a spot where the two enemies left were lined up and threw it. It had enough force that it could have easily pierced an armored car lengthwise.


    One the first rotation, the blade cut clean through the first man¡¯s right eye. On the second, the hilt hit the second person¡¯s forehead and knocked him to the ground, still conscious. However, just because he was alive, didn¡¯t mean that he wasn¡¯t going to go through hell.


    Priska went into her original, non-Werewolf form. This was largely due to the fact that her fingers in Werewolf mode were far too large to accurately hold someone¡¯s collar. Also, she had claws in the other form and whatever touched her talons became ruined as they were sharper than whetted knives.


    The reason why most of her weapons were metal was because of this fact. However, Priska usually doesn¡¯t touch her clothes and leaves them alone when in her Werewolf form. On top of having some other special qualities, her clothes were made of a material that would allow them to be stretched out and not break when in other forms. This idea actually came from other Lycanthropes complaining about how their clothes broke when they changed.


    Unholstering her gun once again, she pointed it at the man¡¯s right shoulder. He was suddenly much more aware of the situation he was in and decided that there was only one course of action he could take.


    ¡°Please spare me!!! I¡¯ll tell ya whatever ya want!!¡±


    ¡°Huh? I don¡¯t need to shoot you?¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡±


    Suddenly, an explosion sounded, but seemed far away. Priska turned her head to her left and, after a few seconds, looked back at the man.


    ¡°Then tell me where there are more of you guys. Then tell me what your group does.¡±


    ¡°Y-yes!! We¡¯re regularly stationed at this corner, but there are two more groups all down thataways!!¡±


    The man pointed down the street. At first, he pointed to the left, but hesitated and pointed to the right.


    ¡°The right?¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡±


    It was the truth. Even before the head injury, he was not good with directions.


    ¡°The main area where da boss is is near da local cemetery at a good ¡®ol bar known as da Fate¡¯s Haven. Da boss likes ta work with them other larger gangs, like da Grym or them Ragoros people.¡±


    ¡°And what do those organizations do?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know about most of ¡®em, but I hear those Grym fellas work in money and da occult.¡±


    ¡°Grim?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, Grym!! I swear to God!¡±


    ¡°No no no, I mean, is it called G-R-I-M? Like the drug cartel in San Francisco?¡±


    ¡°No!! Like G-R-Y-M!!!¡±


    ¡°I see¡­ Anything else?¡±


    ¡°Uh, I hear that dis person is some sort of royalty. Is that good nuff?¡±


    ¡°Yup!¡±


    A cold smile grew over Priska¡¯s face as the muzzle of the gun turned to face the man¡¯s chin. He looked surprised and scared before his lower jaw was blown off.


    Still alive, but fallen to the ground as Priska dropped him, she grabbed a knife from inside her jacket. It was a serrated blade that was serrated on both sides and had a small point at the end of the handle.


    Flipping it into the air, it landed inside the man¡¯s shoulder. She picked it up as his muffled cries echoed in the near silent street. Then she stabbed it into the next shoulder and then removed it. This was to prevent him from talking or writing. While he could likely relay a message to someone if he really tried, it made it much harder while also making him suffer. Then she put away her ¡°tools of suffering¡± as many will come to know them as.


    And so, leaving the man as a bloody mess on the ground who was slowly drowning in a puddle of his own blood, Priska went up to the car. Not really cautious of anything inside the car, she fazed her hand through the passenger door on the driver¡¯s side, the left side of the vehicle, and rematerialized her fingers inside the car to open the door. Quite nifty for breaking and entering.


    The door opened to reveal a nice, light-colored interior. The cushions were a light shade of grey and there was enough room for six people, three people facing three people, with cup holders on the side. There were some other devices in the car, but none of them were worth mentioning.


    Sitting on those seats, there were three people. There were two on the seats toward the back and one on the seats towards the front. The person closer to the front died, seemingly on impact, and the other two were huddled away from Priska.


    A woman wearing a black suit and some pauldrons and vambraces was holding and arm in front of a smaller girl who wore an elegant dress and was holding a teddy bear. The elegant girl seemed a bit too old for the beat, but definitely was younger than Priska. The person trying to protect her seemed older, but still in shape. Both of them were slim, but the bodyguard was far more¡­ endowed than the other girl who was akin to the flatness of an anvil.


    Priska took a step back and spoke to them.


    ¡°I have rescued you from the hooligans who wrecked your car. Are you here to see Daemos?¡±


    A small, meek voice that was at the same time as sweet as candy spoke.


    ¡°Y-yes. Thankth-¡±


    It sounded like she bit her tongue as she spoke and another voice spoke, this one pleasant to listen to, but not as enjoyable to hear as the first one.


    ¡°We are here to acquire some guards for our diplomatic journey. Has he sent you? Do you lie?¡±


    ¡°Well, as his granddaughter, I hardly think I would lie about this. Secondly, yes, he did send me.¡±


    Suddenly, a hand grasped the open door and the elegant girl came out. Her shoulder length, blonde hair flowed behind her with a pair of pointed ears sticking out from beneath them. Her light blue eyes shimmered in the sunlight, even through the druggy haze. Her heels clicked on the ground and she held the teddy bear to her face, like she was trying to hide from Priska.


    Following her, the bodyguard came out with chestnut colored hair that was cut short. She dusted herself off and looked around before introducing them both.


    ¡°There is no reason to state my name as I am a lowly guard. She, however, is the Third Princess of Amacerine, a nation of the most magical High Elves in the known worlds, Lady Taylor Chaedi Birel Amastacia!¡±


    Taylor lowered her bear to reveal her beet red face only for a second before hiding behind it once again.


    I guess she¡¯s embarrassed from biting her tongue¡­ Wait a sec¡­ This bear¡­


    Several thoughts ran through Priska¡¯s mind as she looked at the bear. She scanned it all over and wanted to asked dozens of questions, but only one came out.


    ¡°You like stuffed animals too?!¡±


    This bear was a special plushie. Only five of these bears existed in the entire universe and they were worth several quadrillions of dollars each. Priska had heard that there would not be anymore made again and they were given to royal families of different races, notably the most famous and powerful royal families. That meant, of all the Elven empires, this princess came from the most powerful.


    Taylor nodded as her head bobbed along with the teddy bear. The bodyguards sighed as she started to store the dead bodies of her fellow bodyguards in her spacial magic. The reason why Taylor hadn¡¯t been freaking out was because she hadn¡¯t known that the driver and the second guard had died on impact. The second bodyguard had died because he was only casting a bracing spell on the last bodyguard left and the princess.


    ¡°What¡¯s your favorite animal type for plushies? Mine are wolves.¡±


    ¡°Mine¡­ are foxes¡­¡±


    She picked out her words carefully so as to not bite her tongue again.


    ¡°I am¡­ sorry for biting¡­ my tongue. I am not used to¡­ English.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fine. Daemos can speak some Elvish. I¡¯m sure he¡¯ll greet you with open arms. Just say you are friends with me, Priska.¡±


    ¡°Friends?¡±


    ¡°Hmm? Yeah, let¡¯s be friends. I love stuffed animals and you do too, right?¡±


    The princess peeked out from behind the bear and looked at Priska, still unknowing of whether or not to trust her. In the end, she gave a slight nod and Priska smiled. Almost as soon as the smile registered, Taylor hid behind the bear once again.


    To be honest, the bear was awfully large. At least the size of half her body, and Taylor was about 5 feet 1 inch. It was quite plump and had fluffy, brown fur with a pink ribbon tied into a bowtie around its neck. This bear also was not creepy, but more cartoony in its design as people were quite scared of dolls in this day and age.


    There were at least three hundred movies about dolls in the horror genre alone and some old classics were getting their seventh or eighth editions remastered. In this world, unlike Earth before the incident, movies could be remastered like games with the cgi and motions done differently.


    Another great thing about movies in 2096 was that the credits at the ends of movies scrolled to the top really quickly so people could see the end credit scenes. Especially useful for Marv*l and all ninety two movies all connected to the same cinematic universe with twelve tv shows on top of the ninety two.


    Only three fourths of the original actors survived the major event a few dozen years ago, but now they were on things like the children of the characters and also more questionable characters.


    Priska quickly pulled out her phone as she looked around them. There could be more of the thugs, but she couldn¡¯t smell them as her sense of smell was blocked by the scent of drugs. It actually nauseated her whenever she sniffed the air. Unfortunately, she didn¡¯t bring a medical mask or a cloth and some coal.


    She quickly called Daemos and he picked up within a second.


    ¡°Yes, Priska?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve got a Princess Taylor¡­ um, A-, Ama-... something with an ¡°A¡±. She and her bodyguard say they are here from a High Elf empire?¡±


    ¡°Hmm? Do you speak of the Third Princess of Amacerine, Taylor Chaedi Birel Amastacia? I¡¯m friends with her grandfather. Never really got along with the current king, but we are on okay terms at the moment and he kind of trusts me.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, her. Anyway, I ¡°beat up¡± some people of that gang or whatever. They crashed the princess¡¯s car and killed two people. Sounds like the boss is at a tavern near a cemetery and there are two more groups down the street.¡±


    There was a pause. She could faintly hear the sounds of buttons being pressed.


    ¡°Alright, I have dispatched a crew that will arrive soon. Go out there and kill those cultists.¡±


    ¡°...¡±


    Priska looked back at the bodies. They didn¡¯t seem like cultists. More like a biker gang that lost a lot of blood.


    ¡°Cultists?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. They bring people back to life and use blood in rituals.¡±


    ¡°Alright. Thanks, bye.¡±


    ¡°I will see you later!!¡±


    He sounded cheerful for some reason, a reason that Priska couldn¡¯t place. Maybe it was the fact that she was finally relying on him some more. Who knows? If only someone could see into Daemos¡¯s mind without falling into madness.


    Priska hung up and put her phone away. Then she turned to the still embarrassed princess and her bodyguard.


    ¡°There is an extraction team coming. Wait here. I¡¯ll kill the rest of them. Okay?¡±


    Taylor nodded as the bodyguard gave a slight bow. With that, Priska left as she darted down the street in the direction the cultist pointed. Daemos knew where the two Elves were as he quickly found where Priska was by locating where the call was coming from.


    Priska quickly morphed into her Werewolf form and padded down the street. Civilians scrambled out of her way as addicts and prostitutes were shoved aside by her paw, not claws. As it turns out, there were a great deal many cocottes and users in the streets, far more than the amount of regular people.


    She soon came upon a crashed helicopter. It was burning and some people with the same badges as before were carrying out boxes enchanted with durability magic. There seemed to be twenty three of them, far more than last time.


    Of those twenty three, there was a man who seemed to overlook the operation and was giving out orders. He was wearing a black mask that covered his eyes so that everyone could easily tell who his true identity was, if they knew him outside of gang work.


    It seemed like now was a good time to use a special attack she had been saving.


    Quickly, she drew her gun and fired three shots. One went through the black mask on the man¡¯s face, another struck a man¡¯s throat, and the last entered a man¡¯s eye and found its way into a fourth person¡¯s heart.


    All four people fell to the ground as Priska reloaded her shots. In less than seven seconds, she had reloaded, gone ethereal, and became surrounded by a mob of nineteen men and women.


    ¡°Cap her ass!!¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t let ¡®er live!!¡±


    ¡°Shame though. She¡¯s a looker.¡±


    Nineteen guns were drawn, none were fired. Instead of shooting, the cultists started to claw at something that was crawling on them. It was red and like a living slime. It¡¯s iron smell and stickiness gave the material away.


    Priska used the blood of the four dead people to climb on the people¡¯s bodies and block their airways. It looked like a wet ball was covering their mouths and noses like a medical mask.


    Even though there were nineteen people, zero people managed to get the blood off. One after another, they fell to the ground, asphyxia being the cause of death. The guns fell to the ground, still in their rigid hands. Some pistols went off, but it only helped Priska¡¯s cause as they hit other gang members.


    The entire circle of people fell to the ground and silence ensued. Priska looked left, then right and shrugged. A normal massacre size for her. Although, she would preferably like more of a challenge with at least fifty people against her, but the world isn¡¯t that perfect.


    One gun, belonging to the first dead person, the one with the mask that now had three holes instead of two, was a gun smaller than a regular shotgun, but was not sawed-off. It was the size of a medium sized machine gun and had a clip size that, after Priska counted, was twelve shots. She picked it up to add to her secondary collection. She had a special spot for this gold and purple beauty of a gun.


    No shots seemed to have been fired and she was left with a full clip of ammo that she wasn¡¯t able to refill¡­ yet. She hefted it in her right hand and started walking, like a fucking badass, to the next location before she headed to the tavern.


    Along the way, she found that there was a drugged up person who decided to walk up to her, while she was holding a gun. He had bloodshot eyes and shaky hands and wore a business suit and tie.


    ¡°Hey, how much?¡±


    ¡°How much? For what?¡±


    The man gestured to the entirety of her. She realized what he was now asking. She should have realized with all the prostitutes out. He thought that she was a hooker.


    ¡°Priceless.¡±


    ¡°C¡¯mon, everybody¡¯s got a price. Now, be a good little hooker and tell me how¡­¡±


    He never finished his sentence. He had tried to reach out for Priska¡¯s arm when it fell to the ground. Who knew that a knife, if used with enough force, could cut bone and flesh at the same time? Obviously the one who used it did.


    The arm splattered to the ground with a forming puddle of blood underneath. The man stopped speaking as now he was on the ground, wincing and whining about how Priska should have just gone with him and not cut off his arm.


    She kicked him in the stomach and crouched down to look at him closer. Then she leaned in and whispered something into his ear.


    ¡°I. Am. NOT. A. Prostitute.¡±


    Then she reached down with both hands, shotgun now on the ground. One hand clasped onto the upper jaw and the other on the lower. With a simple pull and push, the mouth elongated to become a foot longer. There was now a lot more blood.


    Priska picked up her shotgun and stood up. With zero mercy or pity in her eyes, she spoke.


    ¡°You¡¯ll live. Just not well. As for me, it won¡¯t count against my record.¡±


    Then she walked away.


    A massacre later, she reached the cemetery. Next to it, the tavern, Fate¡¯s Haven. She first decided to look through the iron fences around the cemetery to see if there were any cultists within its grounds.


    All there was were multiple holes in the ground, far larger than a single coffin, and many tombstones in the dead grass. The grass was black and the tree were dead. The stumps remained, but they were a grey color and some parts seemed to blow away with the wind.


    There, however, were no people there. Only death and wind on all three floors of the cemetery. Since there is too little space in the world, people are cremated eighty percent of the time and the other twenty are buried in large, multi-story areas.


    The cemeteries now were square-ish in shape with several stores and had a square hole in the center for sunlight to pass through. There were no walls on the floors, but there was dirt and plants, or what used to be plants. This was all mainly to conserve space, even though it was quite disrespectful in four sevenths of all cultures on and introduced to Earth.


    She walked onwards to the building. It was five stories tall and the foundation was made of red bricks which lined the first floor and every other floor, like a candy cane because the rest of the building material was whitish grey cement blocks.


    There were windows, about four per floor on each side of the building, eighty windows in total, that were tinted black and had shades that were barely visible behind them. The doors were made of a dark wood, but seemed to be reinforced with a metal frame. There was a set of double doors in front of the building and a single door behind, but Priska couldn¡¯t see that one.


    She walked down the broken sidewalk and moved past a person who was lying on the ground. He seemed to be still alive, but his skin showed that he was about to die as he had taken too much Death, the drug. Well, that wasn¡¯t Priska¡¯s problem.


    She pulled the door on the left open, as that was the door she was closest to, and entered. It seemed to quiet outside with the wind howling and the leaves blowing around, but inside was a cacophony of sounds that clashed against one another. The sound of yelling, slamming, insulting, and punching.


    A smile drew across Priska¡¯s face as she thought, What a nice place!! Of course, she wouldn¡¯t have gone normally as this was a tavern/bar and she didn¡¯t like alcohol. Too bitter and not sweet enough most of the time. Also, even though the drinking age for her was theoretically 19, because of her being a Vampire, she was only 19 and it would be bad if someone saw her drunk, especially on a job.


    The thing she liked about the place was the danger and fighting. She loved fights. So much so that she begged a person to teach her to fight and even got a job as a mercenary. And, being the brawler she was, fisticuffs was her favorite sport, no matter who told her it wasn¡¯t.


    She carefully slide past several tables of people to get to the counter where there was a man, not tough looking like bartenders in movies, but rather lanky and skinny. He was mixing a drink in a container and opened it for a second to pour in a red syrup that smelled of fruits.


    By now, several of the customers had noticed her and they showed a certain cautiousness, like they were expecting her to be a government agent, which she technically was. They peered at her out of their peripheral vision and she noticed. Her sense of sight and smell, although still somewhat blocked by the scent of drugs and lesser than her Werewolf form, was still far better than a regular Human¡¯s. She could see that a total of nine customers and the bartender were looking at her, a grand total of ten out of the thirty three people drinking.


    Priska swiftly moved in front of the bartender, she was still on the opposite side of the counter as him, and placed her right elbow on the table.


    ¡°A caramel root beer for me, thanks.¡±


    The bartender and three people around her laughed. It seemed that that drink was one not suitable for bars as ¡°tough¡± as this.


    ¡°Oh, and add a cherry on top please.¡±


    ¡°Sure, sure, sure. And then what? Some milk and teddy bears?¡±


    ¡°Ah! I¡¯ll take the latter.¡±


    The bartender sighed deeply. He was not willing to talk to a customer who was like this. They were just too annoying for him. Instead of talking, he just opened a can of root beer and poured it into a glass cup with some ice chunks in it. He didn¡¯t have a teddy bear though.


    Once he handed the glass to her however, she leaned in a started to talk in a quieter tone. The bartender looked surprised, but then slowly leaned towards her as well, wondering if she had anything important to say.


    ¡°Where can I find a boss of a cult? One that deals with resurrection?¡±


    ¡°Sorry, lady, I don¡¯t know nothing.¡±


    ¡°So, you do know something.¡±


    Not only did she know he was lying, but he was also using double negatives in his speech, one that was a cliche line in a movie whenever someone did know something.


    ¡°I-I said I don¡¯t!¡±


    He started to panic. Several people at the counter and at the tables were turning their eyes to look at her. Some people were even looking at her through the reflections in their beer bottles and phone screens.


    A moment passed, then another. In the next few seconds, people sprung from their seats, guns drawn and magic circles deployed. They all aimed at Priska and she calmly stood up from her seat.


    Priska turned her head, right, then left, and sighed. Quickly, she whipped out her knife and pointed it at the bartender. That kicked it all off.


    Bullets fired from all directions towards her. It all happened so quickly, the shotguns and pistols and machine guns firing at her. It only stopped after a minute as the smoke of the surrounding area dissipated.


    ¡°That all you got?¡±


    You could hear the smugness in her voice as she spoke. The surrounding gang members looked in surprise as the could of dust settle and priska was holding a pistol and a shotgun. Only one word was uttered by the rest of the people, ¡°Fuck¡±, before she fired.


    It was like a scene from Hell, blood swirled from the dead and attacked the living, bullets rained from every directions, but none touching Priska, and people yelling and running and trying to escape.


    Not a single soul was left alive except for the bartender. The shotgun that Priska had picked up was fairly useful in this situation. Not only that, but each round seemed to be able to tear through several people at once, a sign of a truly amazing gun.


    A single bullet from the pistol wiped out the brains of two people in a row and the person behind them¡¯s left lung. A shell from the shotgun was able to paint the walls of the bar with the blood of the opposers. In the end, the bar was littered with organs and corpses. Even some of the chandeliers had some intestine lining it.


    Before wiping everyone out, she became ethereal, thus why she had to stand up from the seat, and the bullets travelled through her. It ended in the death of six people just by having them accidentally shoot one another. Thus, the total death count was thirty seven deaths within the bar.


    She sighed, disappointed that there was no other challenge, and started to sip her drink. It was unharmed for the most part. The actual glass was broken at the top, but the shards of glass that separated from it were on the floor and not in the drink. Also, she was using a straw.


    After a long sip, she reloaded her guns and placed them in their respective positions. Then, as if she were picking up a fallen object that was not heavy, she plucked the bartender off the ground from behind the counter. He was pretending to be dead, but his heavy breathing gave him away. That and the fact that he was slowly moving about to escape, but was breaking bottles underfoot.


    She hoisted him to his feet and then slowly walked through the counter. Only her lower body became ethereal as she did so and her left hand slammed the bartender into the wall of what was now broken glass. He yelped in pain as some shards entered his back, but he tried to keep quiet for the most part.


    Priska sniff the air around her. Yes. There was the stench of fear emanating from his body, but she was not the source of it. In fact, he seemed to be sweating because of what was above him.


    Priska¡¯s truth deciphering generally depended on how a person¡¯s body reacted to questions. She could hear the heart skip a beat, someone hold their breath for even a moment, things like that allowed her passive ability to be applied. And so, she was also able to tell if someone was afraid and in what direction the source of their fears were. However, she was not able to read a piece of paper and know it was a lie or not. However, Gusion could, but that was because he was a Daemon. This ability, Know Truth, was based off of Gusion¡¯s instinct to tell truth and lie and the ability to understand the body and how the blood works from Daemos. Know that she thought about it, she received a lot of gifts from both of the two.


    Back on track, Priska looked upwards, the direction that the man was glancing towards. It was so clearly obvious that whatever was above was something to be feared. Then she pointed upwards as the bartender followed her finger with his eyes.


    ¡°Is that your boss?¡±


    ¡°N- Yes¡­¡±


    He was about to lie, but resorted to telling the truth. She grinned slightly. Maybe this one would be harder to kill than the rest. Ooh, maybe their blood would taste good. Maybe they would even have an amazing weapon!


    ¡°What are their powers?¡±


    ¡°He can summon greater demons and can use r-¡±


    A small shadow snuck up behind the two and snapped the bartender¡¯s neck. It was so fast, so simple, so¡­ brutal. Then it tried to strike Priska in the next second.


    However, the ¡°shadow¡± had to materialize to snap the bartender¡¯s neck. And so, it also had to materialize to attack, but Priska had whipped out her knife at that moment.


    She would have liked to say that she managed to kill it in one hit on purpose, but she took out her knife and was about to take a swing when she tripped on a bottle and fell over. The knife, still in her grasp, slashed across the shadow imp¡¯s face and it fell to the ground.


    One of its eyes were sliced in half and its lower jaw was divided in half. The juice from its brain had started to leak out and its body was punctured by glass when it hit the ground. The green blood from the gashes were leaking and the body itself was dissolving into ashes that floated into the air and dissipated from reality.


    It is commonly known that some demons and imps dissipate and return to the Underworld. Once they reach the underworld, they either reincarnate into a greater or lesser being depending on what they did in that life, but they always remembered their past lives.


    ¡°Tch.¡±


    She clicked her tongue. If she was caught off guard from this, she would surely have a much harder time fighting the boss. On top of that knowledge, the bartender was dead and her drink was now spilled on the ground. What a waste.


    She looked around the bullet ridden room. There were two staircases in the room, one on either side of the bar counter. They both looked identical and seemed to lead to the same place.


    ¡°Well¡­ let¡¯s head up this one.¡±


    And so Priska started towards the stairs to her left and easily hopped up them with long strides. This prick was not going to get away with nearly breaking a teddy bear on top of spilling her drink.


    The staircase was actually in pristine condition, despite the shootout, and only had one bullet in the first step. Both the railing and the steps were made of some sort of sturdy wood and they had a purple carpet going up it. There was some sort of design dyed into it, but it was worn away by all the walking.


    The staircase was actually connected to the next three floors, up to the fourth, and hallways of doors were seen on the middle three floors. This building must have been used as an inn¡­ before Priska got there.


    When she reached the fourth floor, she encountered some resistance. There stood three demons, but not the intelligent kind. They wore armor, but there were to of the same demons behind a larger demon that could still fit in the hallway.


    The two behind the leading demon wore iron armor with flexible kevlar pants. They held chainguns that had small rectangle shields on both sides of them, right and left. They wore helmets with holes in them to fit their three horns. Their red eyes glowed through the metal helmet¡¯s visor.


    The leading demon was wearing full mana laced steel, save for a helmet, with kevlar underneath, but it seemed to be thin, like the other two demons¡¯ pants. He held one magnum, in his left that was pointing at Priska, and one saber in his right hand. He had spiked pauldrons and knee pads. On his head, he wore a blindfold that was burned at both ends, but was extinguished already. His skin was red, but he had no horns on his head.


    The leader roared in a bloodcurdling scream that seemed to make some other people in the rooms yelp. Someone opened the door to the look at what the fuck was going on, but they ended up back in their room.


    Most people enter their rooms on their own, but this man went back into his room with a bullet in his head. The leader of the trio fired a single shot into the man¡¯s head. The now dead man twitched on the floor for a moment and then stopped moving.


    The two demons behind the leader seemed excited now and they launched their attack, but against Priska. Their gun barrels started to rotate and bullets fired out from the muzzles.


    The bullets fazed through Priska, but, when they hit the walls, they stopped for a second before a sphere about several inches in diameter appeared. It seemed to be made of darkness and, once the darkness faded, there was a small ball of whatever was in that sphere crushed into a smaller circle, like a gravity manipulating trash compactor.


    That would surely be fatal if they hit her, but luckily fate was on her side. The man who had just died had blood dribbling from the hole in his head and the corner of his mouth. If he hadn¡¯t been there and died, she would have had to resort to a more tricky and dangerous tactic of phasing in and out of the current plain of existence.


    The blood stealthily rose up behind the two behind the leader and Priska dove for cover against a wall only to find that she fell through the wall. Well, that would still be useful. While she couldn¡¯t see and her grip on the blood magic would soon fail, she decided to expand it into a huge sphere with numerous spikes that jutted out. The spikes elongated and pierced both the walls and the enemies.


    When Priska peeked out into the hallway, she realized that both the enemies with chainguns were dead, because holes in the body would lead to blood loss, and the leader had lost his legs and was screaming in pain.


    Without taking another step forward, she pulled out her knife and threw it at the demon¡¯s red forehead. He shook violently before Priska fired three more shots into him with her pistol.


    ¡°Well, that¡­ wasn¡¯t really a challenge¡­¡±


    She spoke to herself as she walked down the hall. There was a hatch on the ceiling at the end of the corridor and she wanted to open it up. However, she first left the ethereal plain and picked up a chaingun and both chunks of ammunition that the demons left behind. She would have someone study some of those bullets later. For now, though, it was time to face the boss.