The black puppy and Magnum were standing on a stone platform. It was being pulled by huge ropes tied to a machine above. As they went up, the demon kept on wagging its tail.
“You looked happy demon,” he said.
The puppy looked at him, “Shut up, human!”
Magnum noticed the moon as they reached the surface. It was glowing. Its tail waved slowly, floating behind the light. It looked real, like a demon.
Tanna was waiting above with the wounded man lying on the sand.
“It's nice to be out again! I'm excited to eat eat eat!” the puppy jumped around but its two other faces didn’t look as excited.
Tanna approached the puppy. She tried to catch it but it ran and jumped all around so she missed, “Oh he’s so happy! Wait! You don’t have a name yet! What should I call you?”
“You will not name him!” Magnum said.
“Cerbie! Your name is Cerbie! And you watch this guy while I get the beetle,” Tanna said.
“No, that’s a bad name!” he said.
“Human, I don’t care what you call me,” Askel said.
“Wait! What is this feeling? Like something big is behind those dunes. I can see it in my mind! Like black spirits?”
“Good Human! It's the plague. Now go and kill some so we can recover!”
“But how? Is this coming from you?”
“You're starting to adapt my senses and you will get better at it. Just don’t die.”
“No! Some of them are big! These are mother demons!”
He saw them running in his mind, coming from his right.
“Hey!” Tanna came running from his right. She was waving at Magnum while running alongside the beetle and a crowd of demons.
“Run!” she said.
Magnum picked up the wounded man and braced himself to run with the beetle. Tanna swerved close to the beetle and climbed. She quickly got a rope.
“Hey! Come here!” she said standing now on the beetle's back. She threw the rope to Magnum.
He caught the rope and jumped to the beetle and now he and the man were dangling beside the beetle's body. Tanna smashed a button that pulled Magnum up.
“Thanks!” He said and then put the wounded man in one of the compartments.
“Demon, where are you?”
“I’m here!”
The puppy was beside him and he never noticed. A loud bang caught their attention. Tanna shot a mother demon in front of them.
“Right at the center of the core! She’s good!”
“Help me!” she said.
Magnum joined in on the shooting. He stood at the back picking apart the group of demons following them. They vary in size and some of the animals were unfamiliar to him.
“This rifle is great! But these demons are too many!” He started throwing some marbles and used his grenade launcher to give them some space. There were other groups of demons who noticed them and started to run after them too. They tried to maneuver through the ruins going around some large stones to try to lose some of them.
“Are you not helping us demon?”
“Human, I need to eat first! Or I’ll die there!”
“We're getting surrounded!” he said as more demons appeared in front of them.
“This is such a bad idea after all!” she said.
Magnum went to the front and started shooting. He used another grenade to clear them.
“Hehe! Food food food!”
“Don’t jump stupid! We’ll get killed!” Askel said.
“I know! I know! I’m just so so hungry!”
“Demon! Can't you order these demons? Tell them to stop pursuing us!”
“Order these abominations? No, they don't listen to us, human. They only listen to the creator of this stupid plague.
“Aren’t you a team? Ah shit! How fast can you eat?”
“Fast fast! Super fast! Hehe!”
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Magnum walked to the front beside Tanna. “Hey, I have a plan!”
“What?”
“Go left! And take this,” he gave Tanna his remaining grenade.
The beetle swerved to the left to avoid the group of demons in front of them.
“What’s next!” she said.
“Go forward And don't look back!” Magnum then jumped to the sand and he rolled over, “Don’t waste that grenade!”
“No! Stupid!” Tanna tried to stop the beetle but it wasn’t following her command.
“Samenub, keyun mage, nemitu se ikun”
“Samenub, keyun mage, nemitu se ikun”
He stood and looked around as he was chanting. The eyes of the infected ones around him glowed red and turned their attention to him. The others close to the demons that saw him also turned to him as if a message was relayed to them. All of them started running.
A set of marbles blew the approaching demons into pieces leaving the cores on the sand. However, the big demons survived and continued their approach.
“Go and eat those! While I distract all of them!”
“Samenub, keyun mage, nemitu se ikun”
“Samenub, keyun mage, nemitu se ikun”
“Good human!”
The black puppy was gone and was back to his side after several seconds, “Kill more, Human!”
“Woah! You’ve gotten big!” he said.
The demon was up to his knees now.
“These weaklings are not enough! Kill more!”
He stopped chanting and ran up a dune.
“Good thing I bought this armor! It's so light and I can freely move!”
At the top, he can see the beetle at a distance. There’s nothing following it. However, A few mother demons and hundreds of small demons were now running to get to him. Some of them already started climbing up the dune.
Bang! Another loud shot downed a mother demon.
“From that distance?”
Bang! Bang! Bang! Several lines of small critters exploded by the shot.
“Ah! Stupid! Now, demons noticed you again!” he said signaling Tanna to run away.
“Human, you got your own problems here!”
Magnum saw the the beetle cross the horizon followed by some demons. “Damn it! Okay, Demon! It's just you and me. You’ve eaten now. Give me what I want. I need to make it quick."
“Don’t order me!”
A surge of energy came rushing to him. The hair all over his body stood up, his senses were sharper, his body lighter and most of all, he could feel his arms, It's stronger. However, voices rushed to his mind. Voices he was familiar with, the Call of Demons!
“Ugh!” His knees buckled and he fell down.
“Get over it, Human!”
“I’m trying! To contain it!”
“SHUT UP!” but the voices would not go away.
“They are coming, Human!” The demon dog jumped on the heads of the demon down the dune. He growled and let out a loud bark gaining all their attention. All of them went to the dog and the dog started running around.
The voices flooded Magnum’s brain. It occupied all of his senses. Visions started to appear. Images of death and decay, and fire. On the fire, he saw a familiar image, the image of his father.
“Well, you’re too weak for this. Go pick a small one.” the image said while holding a huge sword.
“It’s gonna be okay, son! I’ll handle this!” the image said before it pushed him. Multiple hands pulled Magnum as the silhouette of his father ran to a rampaging demon. He exploded into pieces along with the beast.
“Nooooo!” his hand touched his gunblade.
“I can carry it now,” he said as his senses started to come back.
“I don’t care how heavy it is! I’ll carry it!” the voices started to dumb down and he could clearly see again. He saw the demon dog wounded and limping while running away from a mother demon and several smaller ones around the dune.
“Stupid Human! You’re finally back!”
Magnum stood. He can still hear a hint of the voices but he can fight now. He jumped down in one swoop and ran towards the demons. He caught up with them in a few seconds. He started swinging his gunblade exploding everything it hit.
“I’m sorry! I feel better now. Also, my movements are faster!”
He ran towards a rat demon as big as him. He jumped and twisted himself and hit its body multiple times. The core of the infected splattered around. He jumped to a few smaller demons and easily dispatched them.
“I don’t like this!”
“You said you want power!”
“This is cheating!”
“No need to feel guilty, human. The knights are doing the same thing!”
“Hmmm... You’re right. If they are cheating, then I should cheat as well!”
The demon dog went to eat the cores from the dead and started regenerating his wounds. A fifteen-foot rooster mother demon remained and a few small ones near them.
Magnum threw some marbles at the mother demon as it came closer but the small chickens came to him first. Magnum targeted the small demons, chickens that were flying to him fast like bullets.
“These chickens are different from the ones I killed before!”
He jumped as he felt the chickens flew to him but it was late. He got hit on his legs and body making him fall over.
“Stand up!”
He stumbled evading the other chicken while the mother demon came flying from above almost hitting him with its claws and beak. He rolled and jumped away. When he looked up, he saw the small demons flying to him and he swung his gunblade and exploded them.
“Now eat some more!” he said.
“Yes! Yes! Hehehe!”
The rooster demon flew up again but now it dove down to hit him.
“Move!” the demon said.
He jumped away and looked back at the demon. It was having a hard time getting itself out of the sand. He ran to it and swung his weapon to its body. He broke its hard skin and wounded its body.
“Woah! I cut through the skin! I have to hit it again before it heals!”
He hit it again. This time triggered some explosions and it carved a huge part of its body but it quickly regenerated.
“That was faster than the wolf!”
“They are stronger here, human!”
The giant rooster used its beak to attack him. He dodged multiple times but his right arm got hit on the third attack. He jumped backward.
“Why didn’t you evade!”
“I’m trying!”
His right arm was broken. He took his gunblade with his left hand and put it on his back. The rooster got out of the sand and flew up again.
It dove down for the second time. His feet almost got caught by the dive and then the rooster used its beak again to attack him but he was able to roll away.
Third dive. Magnum ran away but threw some pellets in the air exploding as the chicken went down. It did serious damage exposing the core but it regenerated again.
“There you are!”
“A big one! A big one!”
“Kill it now human, before more of them come!”
“I know!”
The chicken flew again. He knew now what to do, the rooster would just fly above him so he threw a handful of his marbles above him. And with his sharpened senses, he anticipated the timing of its drop and then swung his blade as strong as he could with his left hand. He felt the hard core crack as he hit it. He then triggered his sword exploding and breaking the core into two parts.
“Core! Core! Core!”
Magnum then fell down.
“Eat eat eat!”
The demon puppy jumped at the core. He ate it and then he became a bit bigger again.
Magnum felt his body lighter “Are you giving me more power?”
“Not yet. I’m healing you.”
“Good, give me more power” Magnum stood up.
“Okay Human, you want more! I’ll give you more!”
Magnum felt a cold and dark energy surround him. He started to hear the voices again. It came like a tidal wave drowning all of his senses. He fell on the sand eyes wide open.
“Hahahaha! Good work Human! Now take some rest. We have more to kill when you wake up.”