Daniel moved through the streets of the city, still obscured in Limbo but able to make out the chaos around him. There weren’t many monsters running about from what he could tell. He’d already moved a few miles away from the church at this point and had only seen a scant few.

He’d left Limbo to kill any that’d got close, but most that he’d seen seemed content to skulk about the city, hiding in wait and a waste of time to chase after. Anton would need to have the city thoroughly cleansed once this was all done.

Daniel could already picture the pain that would be. Most of the monsters he’d seen didn’t seem to be cursed by the Blood Moon and would have no compunctions with randomly picking off city members.

One monster Daniel had seen, a fox-like creature, tall and sleek with red human hands devoid of fur was darting from rooftop to rooftop drenched in blood and carrying a bag covered in viscera.

He’d tried to kill that one, but it’d disappeared in a cloud of confetti before he could jab it with his spear. That’d irked Daniel and forced him to continue moving with a pit of irritation forming in his gut. His failure to kill the monster would undoubtedly allow it to go off and kill more people. It was something he’d just have to live with though. He didn’t have enough time to fully commit himself to hunting down a single monster. It just wouldn’t be worth it.

As Daniel moved, he took note that while living monsters were relatively sparse, their corpses were not. The city's defenders hadn’t been idle while he’d been off fighting the drifters, and blood and gore had filled the street. Some clearly from humans, but most from the various monsters that’d made their way inside the wall.

It was nice knowing that the people of the city were able to defend themselves, for the most part at least. Though Daniel had a hunch that most of the monsters had been killed by the elite of the city and other denizens of the Blood Moon.

The problem was that not everything here was cursed by the Blood Moon. Many of the monsters seemed to be indiscriminately attacking anyone that they came across, and while that wouldn’t be out of the norm for normal monsters, those cursed by the Blood Moon should have preferred one another.

Something more was going on here, he just didn’t know exactly what.

These thoughts flashed through Daniel’s mind as he rounded the corner towards the Brighttree estate and stumbled across a rather gruesome scene.

Douglass, the first person Daniel had seen upon coming to this world, and perhaps the single person who hated him the most, was standing above half a dozen corpses, blood staining himself and the ground around him.

Every one of the corpses that surrounded him seemed to have been human, so far as Daniel could tell, though it was still rather difficult to differentiate inside of Limbo.

From the shifting smoke of Douglass’s form, Daniel watched as Douglass stood over the corpses, breathing heavily as he swung downward with his sword over and over again, flinging blood all throughout the area.

Daniel’s first instinct was to assume that the corpses were those of monsters, something that had either disguised itself as human, or had taken over their bodies of humans, but Douglass’ movements were too unsteady for that. His posture was slouched, shaky, with him occasionally reaching up and gripping his chest before falling into a coughing fit.

Something was wrong with the man, more so than usual, and Daniel wasn’t quite sure how to approach it.

After a moment of thought Daniel decided that he needed to see exactly what was happening, and not just the smoky representation that Limbo presented. So he switched Foundation of One to five parts reaction speed and reentered the real world.

Douglass’ head snapped towards Daniel near instantly, giving Daniel a chance to get a good look at him. His eyes were pitch black and he seemed to be covered in innumerable shallow cuts, likely caused by the people he was butchering.

Said people for the most part wore civilian clothes, but several amongst them were wearing the uniform of the Brighttree estate, and Daniel even thought he recognized one of them as someone often stationed to patrol outside the front gate.

Douglass shot from where he’d been standing, stone and blood flinging behind him as his feet dug into the street to propel himself forwards.

Douglass grinned as he moved towards Daniel, and Daniel took note of the blood staining the man’s teeth. Possibly caused by an injury, but given the man’s current action Daniel found himself doubting it.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Daniel reckoned that he’d need two layers of reaction speed in order to respond to his movements, which was rather impressive on Douglass’ part. It meant that at base his rare card, whatever it specifically did, was at least twice as strong as Foundation of One in its rare state.

‘I could take it from him,’ Daniel realized, calmly watching as the enraged man rushed towards him. He was moving at a snail's pace to Daniel’s senses, and it would only take a small bit of rearranging Foundation of One on Daniel’s part to easily kill the man. That was the difference between a rare and legendary card, even if one was only a pseudo-legendary.

Daniel clenched his fist, feeling himself moving slowly. While he called it reaction speed in his head, it was more apt to say that his perception and processing abilities had been enhanced beyond their peak. He just used it as a blanket statement. Every time he changed the card it enhanced what he wanted it to and not necessarily what it said. If he’d wanted to right now he could probably perceive several hours before the noble actually bridged the gap between them. And that was just fine, he’d intended to get a look and then retreat back into Limbo without doing a thing. He didn’t need to move much for that. If he wanted to move in his current state he’d need to enhance his muscles and several other minor aspects of his body in order to make use of his current reaction speed. A small trade, all things considered.

‘Honestly, why shouldn't I kill him?’ Daniel asked himself.

The problem though was that Douglass, despite being a massive pain in his side, was still a person… or perhaps he wasn’t anymore, Daniel pondered. He seemed almost bestial in this state. Perhaps he was being controlled, or maybe he was already dead and was just being puppeted.

It was hard to say for sure, to be absolutely certain. Daniel hadn’t had the time to really think it through, but he had been killing people when he’d killed the drifters. They’d all dropped their cards, and that meant something. Something that Daniel didn’t quite want to admit to himself.

‘But their heads were mangled beyond repair,’ Daniel thought passively, watching the approaching noble with calm eyes. ‘They couldn’t be fixed, and if they could then the person with the required card would be far too busy to deal with a bunch of lost causes, given the state of the city at least.’

Daniel found himself shifting one unit of reaction speed over to his muscles, just to move a bit even if it still felt slow. He reached into his coat and pulled out his father’s knife. It was chipped along the blade. Not majorly, but enough to noticeably throw off a cut if he decided to use it. He’d chipped it while fighting the drifter leader and it’d nearly cost him his hand.

Sentimentality had kept him from replacing the knife, and it’d nearly killed him. There were so many options in the city. Weapons made my carded men and women from monsters far more durable than steel.

‘I should have never picked up my card back in that cave,’ Daniel internally thought, unsure why he felt so strongly about this before rearranging Foundation of One and stepping ahead as time seemed to flash forwards and Douglass rushed in.

===

Anton flew above the giant serpent, his body completely formed from lightning as he rapidly flickered from location to location as the monster teleported about.

It was a troublesome opponent, but not one he couldn’t handle. He’d done it before relatively safely, but now he needed to do it quickly and with little collateral damage. It was wrecking the city, likely doing more damage than any other creature that had ever made its way inside the wall before.

So he shot towards the serpent, intent to end this now even if he needed to kill it in order to get it done. The city at this point was likely ruined and would need to be rebuilt elsewhere. Too many creatures and people would be revived during the following Blood Moon for it to be sustainable. Perhaps the ruins to the south could work, they should have mostly cleared out by now, but there would always be stragglers no matter what he did.

Anton shook his head, disregarding the thought. He needed to focus on the here and now, plans for a new city could wait, as well as plans to replace the serpent.

Anton raised his arm once he deemed he was close enough and began to charge a great plume of lightning, enough to end the creature in one strike. The air vibrated from the sheer power held in Anton’s hands, fragmenting bits of electricity flickering off the charging attack and nipping at the air around him.

Anton raised the attack over his head, poised to send it hurtling downward towards the serpent right as a card’s activation drew his attention.

“Steps of Giants.”

And then Anton found himself half buried in the rubble of a nearby tower, his charged attack going off where he’d left it and lighting up the night with the brightness of a sun.

“So the Red Menace is here, huh,” Alexander said aloud, though with no venom in his tone. Rubble fell all around him, and despite it all, the destruction of his city, the rampaging monsters, the direct attacks of a legendary wielding traveler far older than he was, his expression remained unchanged. Perpetually etched into a picturesque depiction of boredom.

“Just another monster to kill, I suppose,” Anton said, pushing out from the rubble and shooting towards Alexander, cutting across the sky accompanied by the sound of thunder.