Savage Webs, page 10
part #2 of Apocalypse Cultivation Series
Residential, businesses, Walmart, or McDonalds? he thought. When his sensitive hearing caught the sound of screaming to the east, he nodded. “Head toward the screaming it is.”
Jake took off at a run, quickly leaving his wooded area and flashing across a residential road. As he neared a zombie, his wooden sword flicked out, fast as a striking snake, and crushed its head as he passed. He hadn’t even slowed.
Being on Earth again might feel the same, but he was not the same anymore. He was a hell of a lot stronger than last time. Part of him worried for whoever was screaming, but he also admitted that he was excited to be back. His entire reason for coming here had been to kill vampires too. Maybe he could help people and get what he needed all at once.
“Let the hunt begin!” he said. His grin showed his sharp teeth.
Chapter 16
It wasn’t immediately obvious where the screaming was coming from. It took a few minutes. Jake ran over roads and through patches of forest much faster than he could have even imagined before. Running over land like this was several times easier than escaping from a group of monsters through the Web Burrows.
Jake found the source of the screaming about a kilometer away. He cut through a park and quickly took a measure of the area. It looked like a community, a housing development. The people who’d lived there had actually done a pretty good job of securing the area. Working together in some capacity was usually a common denominator of people who survived the first few months after Purple Rain.
In this case, the neighborhood had parked cars on the side of the road and across access to the housing development, protecting it from other cars. The rest of the area seemed surrounded by trees, at least that Jake could see. These measures would have made the area much harder for other people to mess with. Would-be raiders and thieves likely hadn’t even bothered. There would be easier nuts to crack, and it hadn’t even yet been a month since Purple Rain.
The residents had built towers and some of the houses had little platforms on the roof as lookout towers too.
Jake thought they’d done a pretty good job with the resources they had. They’d even used wards to help deal with the faster and more dangerous ghouls. Unfortunately, they hadn’t been as thorough as a community of this size would need to be. Jake could spot a few holes in the defenses with a quick glance.
What the hell? he thought. Now that he was closer, he could see the immediate problem. Monsters had broken into the housing development. Lamia. In his timeline, the snaky monsters hadn’t shown up until at least a few months from now. They were much more dangerous than ghouls and even lower-level vampires. Lamia could think. They weren’t quite as smart as an average human, but they didn’t need to be when they could bench-press a truck.
Jake smelled blood. His weak spiritual sense swept over the area, helping him locate clues. It seemed like the residents on watch had been killed and the rest of the community was just now aware that monsters were even attacking. Gunshots rang out, piercing the falling dusk.
Amateurs, thought Jake. Nightfall was one of the times that everyone in any defensive position should be most vigilant. As soon as the first sentries went down, the others should have used a flare or an air horn to signal an attack.
But normal people, survivors wouldn’t know that right now, he admitted. I didn’t even have time to put it down in the advice I left on the internet.
Without even thinking much about it, he’d already faded into the shadows, moving silently forward, masking his presence entirely. He moved slowly, trying to get a read on where all the monsters and humans were. They should have had a big ward or barrier with this many people, though…
He discovered how the monsters got in a moment later when one of the rooftop shooters was suddenly consumed by a ball of burning purple fire.
The lamia have a mage, thought Jake. He had a time limit on Earth, and he had a mission that had nothing to do these people, but this was a different situation than when he’d seen shitty things happening around him back when he’d been a zombie.
Besides, he’d really already made a decision to get involved when he’d followed the scream.
Jake really hated lamia. Their favorite thing to do was kidnap human children, take them back to their nest, and slowly torture them, feeding off their blood and body parts until nothing was left.
Anything that preyed on children was worth killing in Jake’s book. “Public service,” he muttered. The screams were still some distance away, and directly through the residential neighborhood. Now the entire neighborhood were fighting. Jake counted at least a dozen naga. Two were tearing through houses. The mage was further north. Jake couldn’t see her, could just sense something weird in that direction—it was also where the magic fire had come from.
It looked like there were more naga coming from somewhere north too. The creatures were doubling down on this attack; maybe they could smell children. A flare soared up from the housing development. Someone was signaling something, but Jake wasn’t sure what.
Most of the attacking monsters weren’t near Jake; he was coming in from the southwest. He did see one of them when he was almost to the boundary of the park he was moving through and the trees surrounding the housing development. The creature must have been a scout.
She was a snake from the waist down. The size of her body was roughly human, but the snake portion was gigantic, as thick around as a woman’s hips where it began. Naga tails could be twenty feet long and the monsters could weigh as much as a car. The older they were, the longer their tails were.
Two sets of arms extended from the naga’s torso. Those up top would be closest to human, just scaled and clawed. On bottom were killing arms, shorter than the top arms but bladed from the elbow up. Naga were dangerous for their speed, strength, the way they could move so fast so low to the ground, and because of their killing arms.
Higher-ranked naga used weapons and tools, but the lower-ranked ones were still fast as hell and could soak up a lot of damage before dying.
The naga’s facial features were inhuman. Like the rest of their bodies, naga faces were a mix of human and reptile with hints of their aquatic nature mixed throughout.
Jake crept up behind the scout and thought about using his wooden sword, but he decided that he should bring out the real weapons for the naga. Instead, he drew his sword Bloom and infused it with his chi. Then he remembered he could use techniques again—this was not the Web Burrows--and enhanced the blade with Mercurial Lunar Dao Polish before delivering a powerful cut. He’d expected to meet strong resistance.
The attack took the monster’s head off at the neck with hardly any resistance at all.
He stared at the falling body in surprise. When the corpse began whipping around in death throes, Jake reflexively flicked his sword out at the giant coiling snake body. Again, his cut hacked through the creature’s body almost effortlessly. Jake barely avoided getting a whole mess of guts and other nastiness on himself.
“Well, cool. Guess it beats the alternative.”
Jake moved past the broken ward, the makeshift defensive fence made of nailed boards between trees, barbed wire, pallets, and pieces of cars. Jake easily hopped over it. He skulked through the backyards of several houses, keeping a watchful eye out. Nobody noticed him. Jake was hidden in the shadows again and most everyone still alive was rushing north to fight.
Him killing the scout might have actually saved some of them. He moved faster. The sooner he found the stolen kids, the sooner he could help their parents.
He found the screaming kid about a half mile away from where she’d been stolen. The nagas had been moving north and somewhat west, threading through the forest between residential areas. If Jake had still been human, it would have been challenging to catch up. As a shadow ghoul in the deep Gold levels of Body Refinement, it wasn’t a problem
There were three of them. One was carrying two children over its shoulders. Both kids were not moving. The one up front had one kid. All three naga suddenly stopped.
Jake had never been able to understand any monsters, but now when the naga spoke, he knew what they were saying. Being a Champion has its perks, he thought.
“Can you shut that one up?” one of the other naga snarled at the one in the middle that had a hand around the head of the screaming little girl.
“You try it! If I squeeze any more, I’ll kill it!”
“Who cares? We can just get more. All that noise is making my gills tickle.”
Jake decided that was a good time to make an entrance. He almost drew Bloom again, but thought better of it and used his wooden sword instead. There was nothing like a real world test to figure out if weapons would work or not. Bloom was also so lethal, he was afraid of accidentally hurting the children with it. He’d still be ready to switch weapons immediately if he needed to. The wooden sword hungrily soaked up his chi and he used Lunar Dao Polishing on it for the first time.
Wooden sword or not, it didn’t make a difference. The first naga’s arm holding the screaming child fell, severed. Then Jake spun his carved sword and delivered a wicked, classic saber cut. The naga fell back, hissing and gurgling.
The naga up front threw the children she’d been carrying and surged toward Jake. He flowed around the monster easily, cutting at targets of opportunity, lopping off hands and arms before taking her head off.
He was almost skewered by the last snake woman. She’d been carrying a giant spear made of rebar. The Deep Heavens Solstice Society Midnight Cloak whipped out a fold to a nearby tree and pulled him to the side. Instead of slamming the spear through his chest, it scraped painfully across the top of his arm.
Quick as lightning, the naga slammed the rear of her spear down, aiming for Jake’s head. Damn, they’re fast, he thought. He swung his sword at the rebar itself, cutting off a length that went spinning into the forest.
The naga took a look at her dead or dying fellows, the severed weapon in her hand, and took off. She slithered away north, hissing and growling, making noises unlike anything on Earth before Purple Rain.
Jake ran after her, and when he got a clear shot, he flash-stepped forward, swinging his sword with explosive power.
His attack blew through the naga’s hips like a lawn mower blade through a chicken carcass. The terrible wound bisected the monster and she writhed in agony, unable to even scream.
“Don’t kidnap kids. Don’t be an evil asshole fuck. I don’t feel sorry for you,” Jake said. His voice had come out in the hisses and growls of the naga language. The monster’s eyes, already wide with pain, glittered with shock. Jake flash-stepped back, leveled his hand, and gave a nasty grin. “This little trick here is called a Demonic Contradiction Wave.”
Jake charged the Demonic Contradiction Wave with one simple reaction, his energy with Earth’s, but he used his new, greater energy to make it more powerful.
He hadn’t been able to use his techniques for ten years, and he needed to know what he was capable of.
It turned out he almost hadn’t flash-stepped back far enough. The explosion absolutely demolished the forest ahead of him. Trees and other foliage had been turned into shrapnel with such power, it could shred other trees. Jake was floored for the second time in less than an hour.
In the Murim world, he was practically a baby, just setting foot onto the road of power. But back on Earth, especially right after Purple Rain, he would probably be classified as a C-rank monster…if he was stupid and had no weapons. But as a cultivator, with weapons, with skills and techniques…
He honestly wasn’t exactly sure how to categorize his power level using the monster levels or adventurer ranks from his first life.
One thing was for sure, though. Naga could definitely still kill him if they got the drop on him, but in a head-on fight, they didn’t have much of a chance. He began to smile again until the screaming girl started up again. His smile fell.
He found the little girl standing where the naga had dropped her. She had dark hair, red, puffy eyes, and was wearing pajamas with cartoon characters on them. When she saw Jake, she started screaming even louder.
“Got some pipes on you, huh?” Jake muttered. He crouched down where he was without coming any closer. “What’s your name?” he asked.
The girl tried to scream louder. Her voice was getting hoarse.
She didn’t seem like she was going anywhere in the dark, and if she did, he’d hear her screams move, so Jake went to find the other children. One was injured, a tween boy with a broken leg. He was hissing in pain, but otherwise didn’t make any noise. The boy’s curly hair had blood in it. He flinched back against a tree when he saw Jake.
“Hey, buddy, I’m not here to hurt you,” said Jake.
“I can understand you. Monsters can’t talk. Why can you talk?”
“Because I was not always a monster. I used to be a man. And now I kill monsters.”
“Did you kill the other monsters? The ones that had us?”
“Yup.”
“So you’re a good monster?”
Jake wasn’t sure exactly how to answer that at first, but eventually just settled on, “Yup.”
The boy nodded seriously. “Good always beats evil. That’s what my mom always says. Everyone is going to be okay. I have to believe it. Mom says belief has power. She can do magic now. It’s pretty cool, but there’s no more electricity, so I can’t play games anymore.”
“Cool,” said Jake. He felt a little awkward. “What’s your name?”
“Jared.”
“Jared, can you help me talk to the other kids? We need to get you all back to your parents, and I’m afraid that if we don’t get moving back soon, and not screaming out here in the middle of the forest, there might be more monsters that find you. I can fight, but I can’t protect you all.” He nodded meaningfully at the kid’s fucked-up leg.
“Okay.” The kid gritted his teeth. “My leg is starting to go numb, but it still hurts. It’s weird. This sucks. The snake monster threw me into a tree. Before that, I was being quiet. I’m not a coward. I was using strategy.”
“Uh, okay.” It seemed important to the kid that Jake believed him. Jake thought the kid was already a little strange that he could talk to Jake in the first place. Maybe it was a combination of children being more resilient and the fact that the world had forced all the survivors to take a crash course in adaptability since Purple Rain.
Jake stood. “Alright, let me find the other kids. Then I’ll come back here and carry you to talk to them. We need to get going as soon as possible.”
“I will be here. I can’t really move right now,” said Jared.
“Alright. I’ll be right back.”
When they finally began moving back to the housing development, Jake was carrying Jared on his back and holding the hands with a little girl who kept staring at him with huge, terrified eyes. Another boy with a mangled arm followed them, whimpering and terrified, but more scared of being alone in the woods than following the others. It likely helped they were all heading back to where the children had come from.
The screaming girl had finally stopped screaming. Now Jake knew her name was Erica. She refused to come within thirty feet of him, but still followed. From her angry, suspicious stare, Jake got the feeling she thought she was watching out for the other kids.
Jake had blood all over him from his fight with the naga, and from getting the two boys moving.
It was moving like this that Jake suddenly found himself face to face with a very angry and scared group of people, some of which were carrying literal torches.
“Oh great,” he said. Not for the first time, Jake wished he didn’t look like something out of a D&D monster manual. He didn’t want to hurt regular people, but if any of them did anything to endanger the kids, he might end up killing humans in his first hour or two back on Earth.
Chapter 17
He knew the new people were coming long before the children saw them. Eventually, the children also noticed the lights and finally heard the voices yelling their names.
Erica took off like a bat out of hell, crashing through the undergrowth and whimpering as she ran. Once she got to the adults, she attached herself to one of them and didn’t let go.
The remaining three moved faster toward them.
“Holy shit! What the fuck is that thing!”
A couple flashlights of different intensity lit up Jake and the remaining kids he was walking with. They gasped and all three of them fell back. One of the armed adults raised a rifle, but another shouted, “That thing is holding Jared! Don’t shoot!”
From Jake’s back, Jared waved his hands frantically and said, “Don’t shoot Jake! He saved us! He’s a good monster!”
“Are you okay, Jared?”
“Yes! Well, I’m hurt, so is Tom, but I think I’ll be okay.”
Kids grow up fast during times like these, thought Jake. He felt a moment of sadness, thinking about all the little bodies his team had stumbled across in his past life.
“Can you get down, Jared? You and Tom should come to us. Leave that…whatever it is,” one of the men said nervously.
“I don’t think I can get down, Mr. Hensley. And I don’t want you to start shooting,” said the boy. To one side, the boy Tom stepped up. He didn’t get too much closer to Jake, but he also didn’t go to the townspeople.
“It’s night! We can’t stay here! Let’s just shoot this thing and take the kids,” said one of the men.
“Yeah, that would be a really bad idea for lots of reasons, genius. How about we just have a chat,” said Jake.
The group of men all stopped moving entirely. One said, “It spoke.”
“Yes, I spoke. Now lower your fucking guns, please,” said Jake.
“It spoke,” one of them repeated. This time, Jake identified the speaker as a man with a big bushy beard and a head lamp. There were three of them before him, and one woman behind them who was still comforting a non-speaking Erica.
