Chapter 6 : Return to Kharos

Ripley crouched under the window of the smithy. The man inside was working, hammering away at something. While iron tools seemed to be plenty steel did not seem to exist in this world. Ripley came from a world that was much more advanced. The blacksmith was struggling with the process of making steel. It was not the fault of the man himself but rather the furnace. To make steel a great amount of heat was required; the furnace it seemed was inadequate for the task. However, Ripley came up with several modification ideas on how to make it more effective. Now he just needed to install them.

He made sure the blacksmith was busy. Tossed a ball of cloth into the fire and hid. The mixture of herbs should produce a smoke. Covering his face he leaped in and stayed close to the ground. He had blocked the door out. The man didn’t seem to be trying to leave. Ripley put a cloth over his face and held it there; the mixture once inhaled had a powerful sleeping effect. With the blacksmith unconscious, he went back outside and carried in the crates he used to block the door. There wasn’t much time and he wanted to be done before the man woke up.

Once his work is done he leaves written instructions for the man and makes his exit. Ripley had been busy with other matters. Rider had left him some advice on killing demons so he was doing his best to be prepared for the inevitable moment he had to fight one. They had not found him in all those years while he lived in the woods but going to town always made him anxious. Towns were often targeted for the Feasts. If one were to happen here? If one were to happen before he was prepared to fight? Would he even survive? These thoughts plagued him often. He knew he would have to face demons eventually, after all the only way to get to Arayoch was to fight through hordes of them. There was so much he still needed to learn. Rider had mentioned Hellbourne demons and that they were immune to fire, while others weren’t. There seemed to me a great deal of different demons that his body had seen in the Feast. Silver and iron were two things that could hurt them so he made sure to craft bullets from those materials. Ripley had the blacksmith make molds for casting bullets. He could heat and melt some metals in his home. Making a bullet did not require a lot of metal. Making each one by hand was a long process but it helped him pass the nights. On other nights he traveled seeking holy ground or water from a temple. In his home world people built grand temples for sages and past kings, healers, and scholars. The hadn’t been much belief in a god or a pantheon of them. His people placed their faith in other people. Perhaps this was why Arayoch had targeted them. Ripley was still unsure if there was a reason or if it was all just entertainment for a cruel and evil god.

The people of this world feared demons and magic and believed in curses and superstitions, and yet Ripley had not seen anything like a temple in the village. He traveled around and asked. He didn’t know the word for temple in this world’s language, it had not come up in any of the books he read while learning. That meant that religion was not something important in this world either. So he would ask about a place to pray to a higher power. Most people didn’t know or give answers about graveyards and old legends. None of it was really helpful. Although he did learn some things. People seemed to be aware that sometimes entire villages vanish overnight leaving nothing but blackened ground where they once were. People avoided those places and advised him not to visit them because they were haunted.

Ripley knew the real cause of this – the Feasts. It seemed that they didn’t happen as often as he had initially thought as these stories were decades apart. The last one had been ten years ago in Kharos. So it was likely that another one would occur within the next couple of years. Ripley was determined to stop it. His guns were nearing completion. Of course, they would be far from perfect but they were his best chance in a fight. While his body was athletic and trained he knew he couldn’t hope to win without an advantage. The mechanism was already assembled; it just needed the steel casing to be finished. He decided to have two made in case one broke in the middle of the fight. Precaution was always necessary when dealing with the unknown. He had filled two pouches with ammo, one with silver and one with iron. Once he had his guns the final test would be to kill a demon.

He still wasn’t sure how he was going to accomplish it. Demons showed up in this world during Feasts, but they did so in large numbers. Ripley wasn’t prepared to face an entire legion of them. Just one or two would be a good start. But he had no idea how to find a single demon.

After a week of waiting he finally had everything he needed. It was probably not the best work but it was a start – he had guns now. Ripley made sure to practice with targets first, tied to trees but made from a light material that moved from the slightest wind. He had been a good shot in his previous life, but these guns were different than the ones he had used. These were a little more primitive but he supposed they would get the job done. Each could hold five bullets inside it. One he filled with silver, the other with iron.

Ripley wasn’t sure what had led him back to Kharos. It was a feeling, a vague feeling, perhaps it was hope. All those stories about haunted ruins of burned down villages and the hope that the criminal will return to the scene of the crime. As he gazed at the charred ground that even after a decade emitted some warmth and the occasional tuft of smoke, he only felt sadness. A soul-crushing sorrow as the memories of the boy whose boy he had taken played in his mind. A ring of fire surrounded the area, the demons emerging from it, and the slaughter and debauchery that followed. He felt it burning in his blood, as he recalled the gelatinous, slug-like thing raping him, carving the mark into his back. It ached; it throbbed as if reacting to the memory. There was a sharp ringing in his ears, a nausea that was threatening to overwhelm him, and a searing pain in his back. Ripley hunched over and held a hand over his mouth trying not to vomit. The ground shook.

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He looked up, feeling the pain in his back become more intense while the ringing in his ears was going away. Ripley had to double-check to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. There was a shape, mist-like but becoming more solid by the second. He somewhat recognized it ­– a demon. He had seen similar ones during the Feast. A part of him wanted to run away, and a deep feeling of dread came over him. He calmed his breathing and slowly moved toward the cover of the trees. He had come here hoping to kill a demon and he was not going to run. The form finished manifesting. The demon was huge, taller than a two-story village house. It had a large round belly with a mouth. It had fur around its neck like a lion’s mane. It only had one eye like a Cyclops and two large arms. Ripley recalled seeing demons like this one with four arms or more at the Feast. Gathering up all of his resolve he aimed his gun, the one loaded with iron, at the back of the demon's head and shot. The bullet hit as the demon cried out and rubbed the back of its head but it did not seem to be seriously hurt. It looked around furiously. Ripley hid behind a tree but then he heard the demon say,

“Ahh, a human! Good! I was getting hungry!”

The ground shook as it moved towards where Ripley was hiding.

“Come out, I can smell you.”

Ripley gripped his silver-loaded gun and emerged from his hiding spot.

“I’m not going to be your snack! Not is anyone else ever again”

He pulled the trigger once, twice. The bullets hit the demon but once again only seemed to graze it a little.

“Ouch!” it said “that stings. What kind of human are you? You’re not gonna scream? Or run away? I like it when they beg me not to kill them!”

Ripley knew he was in over his head. He had no idea the skin of demons could be so hard. To hurt it he would need to fire from near point-blank range but this demon would crush him if it caught him. So he needed to get close without getting caught but for its size, it was surprisingly fast. Ripley felt the air touch the back of his neck and the demon was already next to him. He was starting to panic. Gripping both his guns, they were made to be used one at a time not simultaneously; he knew that but didn’t care. He was afraid of dying, not certain what would happen to him once he did. Would his soul travel to another world and resurrect again? But how would Rider find him then? How would he rebuild everything again without Rider's help? No! Death was not an option. Instead of fear he focused on the rage. The pain etched into his back. The images burned into his memory, the bottomless pain in his soul.

He began shooting with both guns at the same time. Running at the demon, ducking out of the way as it swung its giant hand to grab him. Reloading as quickly as he could. These guns were not exactly made for a quick reload. It grabbed the tree and pulled it straight out of the ground.

“I’ve never seen a human like you before! This is fun!”

“Fun!” Ripley spat” Murdering innocent people, raping children is fun for your kind! Well, I’ll show just how fun it feels to be helpless and hunted. I’m the demon hunter and this town you burned was once, my home, remember the name Kharos!”

He shoots aiming for the giant eye this time and one of his shots actually hits the mark. The recoil from using both guns is making his hands go numb but he doesn’t care. The voice in his head that screams to kill, to avenge drowns out the pain. There is a satisfaction to watching the giant monster stumble backward as it clutches its eye. Ripley uses the moment to reload both guns.

“That fucking hurts” the demon howls, its voice changing to a deeper more guttural tone. “I’ll fucking kill you.”

It slams the tree to the ground and it shatters. With one hand still covering its eye the demon gets back up.

“How do you plan to kill me if you can’t see?”

The demon growls again.

“I can smell you remember, human!”

That was all he needed, for the demon to open its mouth and for that giant tongue to come out. Once again he unloads both his guns. The vibrations of the recoils reached up his arms all the way to his shoulders. Blood pours out of the demon's mouth, and Ripley loads his gun again. He has to finish this. The demon is spitting out blood and cursing and slamming the ground like a toddler throwing a tantrum. Emboldened by his success Ripley moves closer. It uncovers its giant eye just in time to see Ripley aiming at it as he shoots until he is empty again. The demon falls unto its back.

“Are you really human?”

“Not used to humans fighting back?” he says mockingly,” Well get used to it. I’m the first of many. I’ll train humans to hunt and kill your kind and then we’ll make you pay for everything!”

The demon laughs, a mixture of laughter and pained howling.

“What’s so funny?”

“Demons don’t die. Arayoch just brings us back from hell whenever we do.”

Ripley had no idea if it was true or not. Hell? He could only guess that this demon was what Rider called a hellbourne. Perhaps not all demons died, perhaps they had a method of resurrection. He didn’t care.

“Is that so? Well then once you get back from hell and see your master tell him that Ripley sent you and I’m coming for him next.”

He keeps shooting the demon, in the mouth, and in the eye, eventually, he manages to break skin, focusing on those spots over and over until all 200 of his bullets are gone. it had stopped moving some time ago but Ripley wanted to be sure that it was dead. He felt exhausted, his arms had gone numb long ago, now they were trembling, and his shoulders could barely move. He was out of ammo completely and exhausted. The prolonged use of his guns had undoubtedly done some damage to his arms. If another demon showed up now he had no way to fight back. He ran into the woods. Never had Ripley imagined that demons were this hard to kill. This one didn’t even seem that strong. Its skin was thick and hard as a rock. When Ripley had tried to cut some off with his hunting knife he couldn’t slice it. It was becoming clear why the humans of this world didn’t fight back. The villagers were simple farmers not soldiers but even if they were soldiers what could they do when neither arrows nor a sword could pierce the demon’s skin? Ripley had only one because he had his guns – weapons from another world and even they didn’t do much damage to the hard skin.

In his mind, he made notes of the modifications he would need to make to his weapons to make them more effective. He will need to modify the bullets too, to increase their mass and impact power. Increase the firing range to give him more room to maneuver. He will have to rework the entire firing mechanism, to make it easier to reload. He was making all these mental calculations while staving off exhaustion. It was clear that he would not make it back home tonight.

He noticed something that looked like a cabin. Ripley was weary of it at first but then noticed that it looked abandoned. Of course, being this close to the haunted ruins of Kharos it made sense that whoever lived here was either killed or ran away long ago. For the night it would do. He just needed to rest for a while. It would be all right, wouldn’t it?