Enchantments are real! It is so crazy that they are real, like we could have a real Excalibur or maybe Zangetsu. Don’t judge me. Anyway, some of the folks down in R&D were trying to see if they could melt sigils into a different shape. The goal was simply to find a use for the less useful ones, maybe even change them into better ones. While this was a dead end, they did discover an odd lattice within the crystal.

  One of them plugged the structure into an old 3D printer. When he copied out the structure, he found that the sigil could slide into it. So yes the first enchanted ‘relic’ is not a holy sword or some heaven defying creation. It is a lump of plastic that an overweight college freshman made in a garage. Oh and as to what it does, it can increase the range of any noise it makes, a bit underwhelming as it is a lump of plastic.

  Day 135, Owen Landers

  Silas drove through the night. He was tired, yes but he was handling the aftermath better than anyone else. Aron and Mandy didn’t know the way, and there was no one else to take the wheel.

  The anger and urgency had slowly bled away as he reread the offer of a blessing from Fenris. Silas hadn’t even known that was an option. The knowledge rubbed him the wrong way, it read more like a contract than how a blessing should work.

  If he remembered his Norse mythology correctly, Fenris was a giant wolf monster that was supposed to bring about the end of the world. What did it mean to catch the attention of a creature whose only purpose was murder? Silas didn’t know, but its meaning gnawed at him.

  Atrocity was not the act of protecting your loved ones. It was not the could never be clarified as self-defense. It was the domain of those people vilified throughout history. Silas wanted to tell himself he hadn’t committed atrocities. That everything he’d done was justified. For a moment, he could almost believe it.

  Then three faces flashed through his mind. He gritted his teeth as the seed of shame took root. Was killing someone in that moment warranted? Silas turned the question over carefully. Yes. According to his beliefs.

  Rahul had threatened to torture Bella, Samantha, and eventually Abby when they got around to retrieving her. Asura had held a gun to Samantha’s head. They had been planning to find Abby, to use her as leverage making Bella and Samantha disposable. Silas believed, truly believed, that if a man wouldn’t defend his family, he couldn’t really be called a man.

  Still, as a person raised going to church, intent mattered. Why he did something mattered just as much as the act itself. There was a time and a place for everything.

  Again, the three faces returned. Two men and a young woman. They’d been hiding in the restaurant from a nightmarish spider, and. Silas had butchered them. They hadn’t fought back. They had looked at him with relief when they saw him. He had told himself they were a threat. Maybe that justification would’ve held if he’d had to fight his way out.

  But he hadn’t. He’d teleported away without ever leaving the gift shop where Bella and Samantha were being held. Anger welled up, this time aimed squarely at himself.

  If he hadn’t been running purely on rage, he would’ve recognized it for what it was. He’d done it because he was angry. What he’d done would have been a war crime a few months ago. He would’ve been court-martialled and tried for murder.

  Silas ground his teeth, “What the hell is wrong with me?”

  There was no way to go back. He wasn’t some rage ridden hero with a split personality that could use an alter ego as a scapegoat. Another memory surfaced, one that made the issue so much worse.

  This all started because he’d tried to use Rahul’s greed to keep him in line. From the moment they arrived, Silas knew Rahul wasn’t trustworthy. So he’d shown off something only he could do, proved his value.

  In a perverse way, it worked. A hundred people died because of his attempts at manipulation. Bella and Samantha were hurt because he had tried to find a way to control Rahul.

  The low-battery warning chimed. Silas sighed, “Figures. I can’t plan to save my life, and I can’t even map out how much distance we can get on a single charge.”

  He’d assumed the charge would last a full day. Five or six hundred miles at the very least. That estimate was probably accurate under perfect conditions.

  These weren’t perfect conditions. The roads were wrecked. The bus was armored with iron slabs that no engineer had ever accounted for. Four hundred miles per charge was a generous assumption, three hundred was more accurate. A full recharge would take time, at least a full day.

  He pulled over. Using the reinforced frame of the bus, he shoved another abandoned car off the shoulder and took its place. Once the lights were off and the engine powered off, the bus looked like just another dead vehicle.

  Silas rested his forehead against the steering wheel. For the first time in a long while, he prayed. He wasn’t a good Christian. It had taken the deaths of a hundred and fifty people to make him do what he was supposed to be doing by habit.

  The prayer was simple. A simple plea for help, not dissimilar to his first days in hell. When he finished, he didn’t feel better. Whatever relief he’d hoped for didn’t come.

  He leaned back in his seat. The past was the past. All he could do now was hope that no one at the IDF base would pay for his mistakes. It was a foolish hope, but most hopes were.

  He chewed on a strip of jerky and distracted himself with planning out their trip. With battery life being unreliable now, the best plan was to sleep during the day and drive at night. He didn’t need sleep, but wasting daylight wasn’t an option.

  Though limiting himself to a vehicle that could only travel a few hundred miles per day seemed foolish. Abandoning the rolling shelter seemed equally foolish as well. He sighed at the impasse he found himself in.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Bella said quietly from behind him.

  Silas jumped in surprise. Mandy and Aaron had been asleep for hours. Samantha and Bella had been unconscious from the chloroform. Silas had no idea how long it normally lasted, but combined with exhaustion, he wasn’t surprised that Bella was only just waking.

  He looked back at her. How much should he tell her? Bella shared many of his feelings, but not his compassion. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say she was broken in the same ways he was, she just didn’t think that brokenness was a problem.

  To hell with it.

  “Do you know how many people I killed to get you and Samantha back?” Silas asked.

  Bella shook her head. “No. I was unconscious.”

  He nodded. “Right. I indirectly killed about a hundred people. Directly, over a dozen more.”

  Bella blinked, startled, “Were they trying to hurt Samantha?”

  Silas slowly nodded, “Yes.”

  “I don’t see why you’re so concerned about it, they had it coming.” Bella shrugged.

  “I don’t think you get it,” Silas said, “It was a hundred people.”

  “And?” Bella raised an eyebrow. She didn’t seem to be able to empathize in the slightest.

  Silas grimaced. He didn’t know if Bella was being intentionally obtuse or if she truly didn’t understand. So he spelled it out, “Not all of them were involved. Some were innocent, just trying to hide from the monsters and I killed them. I don’t want to get home and find Abby, only to be another monster that needs to be put down.”

  Bella’s eyes widened slightly at the outburst before she shook her head, “I don’t care. I would burn down the whole world to keep Sammy safe. I don’t care if those people are men, women, or children, their lives are simply not valuable in comparison,” She gave Silas a gentle smile that was at odds with her statement, “You can’t change the past, and worrying about a few bodies in a city filled with a million corpses seems a bit pointless. Is there anything else on your mind?”

  He repressed a shudder. It was unsettling to hear someone say such things with a motherly smile. Well, Silas had already noticed that Bella had issues. Instead of dwelling on them he answered her question.

  “I got a blessing offered,” Silas said. “By Fenris.”

  Bella raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

  Silas explained. He read the message to her word for word. It was dressed up in lofty language and divine promises, but beneath it all was something ugly.

  Bella snorted. “That’s just a slavery contract with an extra perk. Though it is quite a nice perk”

  Silas nodded. That was exactly it. The part that truly bothered him was the title Fenris had chosen, Master of the Blood of the Innocent. Anyone who chose to call themselves that was not going to be a benevolent patron.

  As far as Silas understood, blessings were supposed to be acts of divine intervention tipping random chance in your favor. You did righteous works and something beneficial happened. A man who donated to the poor would often see an increase in their business’s prosperity. Back in Greenriver, people called it Providence.

  This wasn’t that. This was an ability. Not so different from his bone-crafting technique, just worse. Much worse. If he accepted, there was a very real chance Fenris would reach straight into his soul and attach it to one of his sigils. Letting a genocidal, apocalyptic wolf take root inside his soul seemed like a very bad decision. He explained his thoughts to Bella.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “I agree,” Bella said. “Never sacrifice your freedom.” Then she hesitated, studying him with a complicated expression. “From what I understand, though, your goals don’t include a life of violence. So it wouldn’t be a good fit anyway, right?”

  Silas took a bit of offense at the question, “Of course it isn’t. Who wants to live a life of bloodshed?”

  Strength was great and power was likely mandatory now but not for the sake of violence. If he could choose his ideal life, it wouldn’t be soaked in blood. It would be sculpting, using his talent to build strange, beautiful things. Raising a family with the people he loved.

  He didn’t crave peace, but he dreaded violence touching Abby. Strangely, when he imagined adventure, it wasn’t Abby at his side. It was Bella and Samantha. All of this drove one thing home, Silas was slowly being changed.

  Part of him wanted to blame his Sigils. Another part wanted to blame the last few months of constant violence. However, he knew those were just excuses. There was a common saying that people were made by their circumstances, which was somewhat true, but a more accurate version was that people’s foundations were laid by their circumstances. After that, people engineered themselves.

  If Silas let choice be taken away from him, there would never be any chance of redemption. Not that he even knew what redemption looked like.

  All he knew was where it would start. Getting Mandy and Aron home. To start on that Silas would need to scout the area, hunt more monsters, and study the map. After getting to Mongolia, he would travel through Russia, and cross the ice bridge through Alaska. It might take longer than he originally intended, but there was no real reason he couldn’t do it.

  Silas stretched as much as he could in the front seat of the bus, “I’m going hunting. Nothing big, just to get some meat, maybe a few sigils to trade next time we run into people.”

  Bella rolled shoulders. “Need me to come with you?”

  “No, I should be fine. You keep watching over Samantha and the others. It’s not like I’m going to challenge anything strong. I just need to challenge something tasty-looking,” Silas said.

  Bella grimaced. “Just make sure not to eat anything weird in front of people. They might get the wrong idea about you.”

  Silas nodded his agreement, then paused, “By the way… have you had any strange cravings? Like raw meat or anything like that?”

  Bella thought for a moment, then shook her head slowly, “Not for meat, but certain fires are captivating. It’s weird. I couldn’t tell you exactly why, but a part of me just craves fire. Not chaotic burning, something more like a campfire.”

  Silas raised an eyebrow. “Or like a hearth.”

  “Yeah… I suppose that’s closer.”

  Silas nodded. “It makes sense. All your sigils have something to do with heat or gathering. And your personal one literally has hearth in the name.”

  Bella hummed. “I wonder what Sammy’s does, then. Hers are air, heat, and even more air.”

  Silas didn’t know, but he was certain they’d find out eventually. After giving it a little more thought, Silas shrugged and stepped off the bus to go hunting. Whatever their sigils did, it would be less weird than eating raw meat and making art from skeletons.

  True to his word, he didn’t target anything particularly dangerous. He focused on smaller creatures. Now that they were a couple of hundred miles away from the center of Delhi he wasn’t sure what he would find. That made him wonder if he’d start seeing different monsters. It wouldn’t make sense if they were region-locked.

  He’d entered a portal from Germany, less than twenty miles from a portal to India. He’d rescued Bella and Samantha from a portal connected to Australia, less than three miles from one connected to China. Within a twenty-five–square-mile area, there had been portals to Germany, China, India, and Australia.

  The monsters should be fairly evenly scattered across the planet. So it was with great delight that he descended upon the first creature he recognized.

  It might have been disingenuous to call them small, but he was still irritated at Fenris for pointing out his flaws. When he saw the werewolves, he didn’t hesitate. He knew Fenris was the one who had tainted them, and if Fenris was going to offer him a slave contract, then Silas might as well start by getting rid of some of the creature’s servants.

  It was a small pack, only three of them, and he didn’t give them time to mobilize. From inside the bus, he opened a spy portal directly above the first werewolf’s head. He dropped through using his body mass to drive his sword straight down through the back of its spine. It put up surprisingly strong resistance, the creature was tough, its skin and muscle dense enough to stop the blade from piercing all the way through.

  Despite its durability, it was nothing compared to the three-story monstrosity covered in armor they had fought recently. The blade sank in nearly a foot and a half. That alone would have caused massive damage, but a quick pulse of liquidation finished it before the creature even hit the ground.

  Silas sprang back up through the portal and closed it, instantly opening another behind the second werewolf. He stepped out of the bus and skewered it just as cleanly, channeling a final surge of spirit through the blade.

  Then he turned his attention to the last one and raised an eyebrow, “You ready to do this one on one?”

  The creature glanced at the portal, trying to understand what threat it posed. Through it, the beast could see Bella, sitting calmly with her hand resting gently on her chainsword. The werewolf was likely still stronger than her, but that was only true physically.

  The werewolf had seen two comrades instantly killed by a portal so it focused on Silas instead. It lowered its antlers and charged.

  For a brief moment, Silas was back in that pub, watching as the creature’s rack almost skewered him, diving out of the way before being knocked into a pile of dining tables.

  He wasn’t that person anymore. He had better control over his body now, and even without the oppressive level of strength that the monsters had, he was more than capable enough.

  Instead of dodging, Silas charged back. The antlers collided with him, but rather than diving aside, Silas jumped upward, grabbed one horn with his hand, and planted his foot on the skull between the branching antlers. His weight forced the creature’s head down, though even his considerable mass wasn’t enough to make it stumble.

  Still, now that he was between the antlers, they posed almost no threat. The werewolf realized this and whipped its head sideways, trying to dislodge him. It almost worked, but Silas kept his grip. As the creature swung, Silas let his body move with it, turning himself into a pendulum. He jerked hard, dragging the werewolf off balance and yanking it into a wide circle.

  It couldn’t stay upright. The beast crashed onto its side and rolled across the ground, which was when he released it. No need to roll around with a bunch of sharp points.

  Silas looked down at his hand. If only he’d had this power back in that pub. The creatures weren’t smart, they were just predictable. Maybe that was why people said knowledge was power. He knew what the werewolf was going to do before it did, and that let him exploit every movement and every mistake.

  The werewolf scrambled back to its feet and bared its teeth. Silas walked toward it calmly. It charged again, arms spread wide, ready to grab him this time.

  It was obvious. Silas could see the muscles tense, feel the commitment in the movement. This wasn’t a feint. So instead of targeting its head or chest, he dropped low, letting the antlers pass overhead. The creature wasn’t balanced correctly to scoop him up, and it didn’t react in time when Silas drove his blade into its hamstring.

  There was a sharp twang, then a wet snap as the tendon severed. The werewolf collapsed once again rolling across the dirt. This time, Silas didn’t let it get back up. He rolled to his feet and lunged forward, burying the edge of his sword deep into the monster’s throat.

  As soon as the light faded from its eyes, Silas purified it. He did the same to the other two and tossed the sigils to Bella. He already knew what they did and knew they were insanely good in a fight.

  Kneeling, Silas butchered the one he had stabbed through the neck. He sealed several cuts of meat in plastic ziplock bags before setting about removing the skeletons. A surprising amount of the body was made of bone, but even that didn’t take up too much space when packed into a single blob.

  “You think you can cook these?” Silas asked.

  Bella glanced at the werewolves and shuddered, “Sure I can do it.”

  Silas frowned, “What’s wrong?”

  “I uh, well, I used to read a lot of romance novels,” Bella muttered sheepishly, taking a piece of meat in her prosthetic and heating it.

  Silas watched sadly as the meat cooked. Without any means of refrigeration, it would rapidly go bad, and they didn’t have a cockroach pile to dispose of the bodies. He wondered how Steve and his brood were doing.

  After the werewolf incident, which was what Silas decided to call the slaughter, he had expected things to escalate. That was how it always seemed to go in reality. Murphy’s Law dictated that if something could go wrong, it would.

  But for once, it didn’t.

  The road trip continued uninterrupted over the next few days. A handful of monsters approached them while they were stopped, but none of them posed much of a threat to the group as a whole. The bus drove for about three hours at a time before needing to recharge, and Silas extended their range by opening portals, letting them get a few hundred miles further than was ordinarily possible.

  Whenever they stopped, Silas mapped out the road ahead to make sure it still existed. It wasn’t uncommon for him to open a spy portal and compare reality to the map, only to find entire sections missing, destroyed by landslides, massive battles, or simply mountains of abandoned cars. There was even a section where a small war had been fought with rusted tanks and military hardware scattered about carelessly.

  The twins worked on refining their Sigils. Samantha and Bella did the same. Silas tried as well, but realistically he knew he was hitting diminishing returns. He’d already picked all the low-hanging fruit. If repetition could advance him any further, it wouldn’t be over days, it would take years.

  After the first few days, things became boring in that way only long car rides could be. Aron kept a close eye on the leaderboard, watching for new names. Several people who had reached capacity appeared and disappeared as they traveled. Silas suspected Rahul had deliberately stationed people across the area to maintain communications. It was brutal, but effective, if one link in the chain went dark, Rahul would know exactly where the problem was. Without him to maintain order it appeared to be dissolving.

  It took a while, but eventually Aron spoke up, “Hey, Silas… did you ever mention a guy named Abrar before?”

  Silas blinked. He vaguely remembered the name. “Yeah. He’s a local warlord from Pakistan, I think.”

  “Yeah. He just showed up on the leaderboard. Along with a few dozen others who hit capacity.” Aron tapped at the interface only he could see. “He’s not as strong as you in raw points, but he’s only a few behind and most of his stats are mental, just like yours. Bella could probably handle him, but… yeah. He’s a much bigger deal than Rahul was.”

  Silas let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Rahul had been the strongest person anywhere near the IDF camp, but he’d only been around Samantha’s level. The fact that a twelve-year-old had been one of the strongest humans in the region had always felt absurd. Abrar being near the top was… comforting, in a way. Humanity did have real defenders after all.

  Then Silas processed the rest of what Aaron had said, “Wait, you said others showed up too? How do you know they’re with him?”

  Aron gave him an uneasy smile. “There names all have ‘of the Sehra Tribe’ in place of a surname. They are all around Bella’s level and most of them are physically specialized.”

  Silas frowned. Was this a threat? Should they even go near that place? There were things he wanted but was it worth getting tangled in someone else’s mess? He didn’t want another Rahul situation. He didn’t want another hundred lives on his conscience.

  Still… he didn’t have to make it complicated. He could just show up, trade sigils for supplies, and leave. There was no need to reveal who he really was. He could use a fake name. Even if he didn’t, so what? Being at the top of the leaderboard didn’t automatically make him a geopolitical threat. Athletes didn’t change the world; they just won medals. They were symbols, not weapons.

  As long as he didn’t display anything obviously dangerous, it should be fine. Silas nodded, “Alright, listen up. From now on, no portals. We’re driving straight to Abrar’s territory, getting the materials for relics, and leaving. As far as anyone’s concerned, we all have basic sigils. No greater ones. Personal sigils stay hidden if possible.”

  He paused, then added, “As it's likely impossible to disguise, I’ll claim to use a basic U.S. soldier sigil. I don’t want to be there for more than a few hours Got it?”

  Everyone on the bus nodded. They started preparing to meet new people, only for the low battery light to flash on, again. The bus powered down. Everyone groaned. Meeting Abrar would have to wait another day.