As before, I only got asymptotically faster as I constructed more and more of my safety tunnel. Although, my mind kept wandering to what might have happened at the shelter I was going to- slowing me down.
I briefly explained to Carlos what I was doing with my drone when he asked when it had started flying off, stating that information was more important than the small amount of subtly I would lose on this operation by sending it. I could hear that he was thinking about saying something in response to that, but ultimately agreed with my assessment.
As abhorrent as the thought was, effectively skipping transporting the civilians from this shelter in the overwhelmingly likely case that they were all dead meant that our schedule had been pushed up by about half an hour. Which, while not a lot of time in most circumstances, meant there was half an hour less time for something else bad to happen.
By the time the drone arrived, I was still trying to justify why I didn’t really feel an intense emotion at the loss. Numbers in my mind attached to a faceless conglomerate just didn’t have any emotional stakes.
The nearly forty bodies frozen with looks of terror and pain, strung up on hooks made of their own entrails was much more emotionally stimulating. To a person, everyone in the shelter had been disemboweled, flash frozen at some point in the process before they died, and left clearly visible through the gaping hole that had been the sidewall of the building the shelter had been in.
Each was facing the new doorway like a macabre choir, where the conductor of their death sat. It let the drone get just enough of a look to show they were there and waiting, but not long enough to get a good image before the demon raised a palm and shot a beam of heat at the drone.
The whole situation was clearly intended to be a taunt.
One that worked on both Carlos and I, but not Devil.
That sounds more crazy than intended. Acting out Devil required dedication and resilience; their character allowed them to be angry, but not the blind anger the display was designed to encourage. Devil’s anger should be focused and productive. That way of acting generally works better in the type of story I wanted to tell: one where the main character lives with no permanent injury.
It was also the more practical reaction. The demon clearly had powers that could somehow defy either gravity or the very poor performance of guts in compression and alright strength in tension. Saying the bodies were hung on hooks of flesh wasn’t a metaphor.
The only good part of the situation was that the drone was fine. The digital rat apparently had similar instincts to their city-dwelling counterparts, letting it duck behind cover just before the beam of fire was shot at it.
Back on focus, my assumptions of intelligence were definitely correct, however, I assumed it would be more like a smart predator, not a sadistic manipulator. I was also wrong on what magic the demon might have, which was nice because it meant I wasn’t going against my self-identified counters, but bad because I hadn't considered… whatever that was.
One part was easy. It could shoot beams of heat- hot enough to damage the thermal camera in the drone. That wouldn’t be too bad for me as long as I could see the coming. The rapid expansion of gas out of my canisters cools the chemical down, which I typically use to help stop reactions, but would also allow it to better absorb the beams. It could also act as a sacrificial armor, burning away to prevent me from frying.
On that note, I quietly asked Cleo, “does my costume protect me from energy attacks like that one?”
In their near-constantly calming voice, they replied, {to some extent. The costume doesn’t reduce the energy you are subjected to, it spreads it out to lessen the impact on any given area. Thermal energy is one of the trickier ones since spreading it can cook you, where you might only lose a limb otherwise.}
“I don’t know about you, but losing a limb is really bad for humans.”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
{Apologies. I meant to say that getting one limb carbonized is preferable to having your entire body cooked to an optimal temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit.}
Not sure if I was concerned more by maybe not being protected or by how Cleo had phrased their final statement, I just decided to get back to trying to figure out what the demon could do. Reviewing the thermal footage while trying not to think about the implications, I realized the area the bodies were in was colored as cold as the gradient could indicate.
I even checked the normal footage again to see if there was any magical darkness in the area with how pure black the interior of the building was. As I had remembered, that wasn’t the case, so along an abrupt line just before the first row of bodies, the temperature dropped from a cool fifty-ish to below the negative forty lower limit of the sensor.
Because I was thinking of worst-case situations- and because magic tends to be on the ridiculous side- I assumed that that area was either absolute zero or close enough to not really matter.
Maybe being a little optimistic about the demon having a potentially exploitable weakness, I guessed that the energy for the beam came from siphoning all available energy from the bodies’ area like an ongoing and thermal version of my own energy conversion. I also assumed that the demon had eyes of some sort with a visible spectrum including infrared.
In my musing, I realized I could start feeling my adversary out despite still needing around ten minutes to finish the route out to that area. I had been in a rush to get eyes on the scene when I had first sent my drone in, but now I was aware I should be much more careful.
Telling the drone to make as little sound as possible while peaking over the edge of the roof it had settled on, I watched the camera view slowly inch forwards. I didn’t know if it could feel emotions, but how it would let off a small burst of thrust to move a tiny bit forwards before staying completely still for a few seconds certainly made it seem terrified. One final hop let one of the higher-zoom cameras get a partial view on the courtyard occupied by the demon.
It was sitting in the same position as before, oblivious to how it was now being studied. Surprisingly, it wasn’t even looking around for the drone- maybe assuming it had hit, although that would make it dumber or more alien than my previous speculation.
Suppressing the urge to throw up at the sight of the suspended bodies, I took time to properly study the demon. More than every other demon, it looked complete or polished: no oozing fluids, no over or under abundance of limbs, and surprisingly no mouth. It was bipedal with one arm ending in a hand and one ending in a long blade. The entire surface of its body was covered in black overlapping plates that looked like a beetle’s carapace, except for a ring of spots around its head where eyes sat.
It didn’t appear to have ears, an assumption corroborated by the fact it didn’t react when I had the drone make as much noise as possible without moving into view- although the drone might have also been sandbagging out of fear. Deciding not to try anything else that might result in losing equipment, I instead focused on speeding up my route preparation until I got to where the outer edges of my perception could see the courtyard.
It didn’t react to the presence of my poorly contained ULE, but I didn’t relax. After a moment of consideration I took a chance that using [Act] would make my ULE signature less noticeable than if I left it off, despite its steady usage of energy. Creeping closer, I confirmed the bodies were in fact under a large amount of magic- so much that the area was drawing in a constant stream of ULE from the surrounding area through magical convection currents.
Getting slightly closer, red outlines appeared in some of the buildings around the demon’s courtyard. Quickly scanning through them with my detailed sight revealed them to a pockets of demons holding as still as they could manage. Each group was positioned in such a way that it could quickly rush out into the open space- probably to provide a distraction mid fight if I decided to fight there.
That had me readjusting my assumed level for its intelligence back to around a human level.
Now needing some way to deal with those packs, my brain jumped to an idea equally brilliant and idiotic. Mimicking the last fight in my first breach, I found a pipe of decent-but-small size and used [Improvised Weapon Proficiency] to imbue two small sections of it with weakness on either ends of an approximately six foot section imbued with strength, before yanking as hard as I could.
The weakened sections screeched in protest, but snapped off without the middle bending, spilling water that I quickly backed away from. The ends were warped and jagged from sheering, so I used both my perk and chemicals to soften and smooth it- all while keeping a close eye on the humanoid demon.
Satisfied at its inaction, I grabbed a nearby fire extinguisher, cut off the hose and emptied it. The force it exerted was smaller than I expected, but that could be made up for with some magical cheating. A little more work let me glue the pipe to the pressure vessel and fill it with a lower- but still alright- pressure of silane.
As a final touch, I formed a bipod from cyanoacrylate before heading to the roof of the building I was in, trying to suppress nervous chuckles at how bad of an idea this was.