We had won against an unbelievable foe. Why was something bothering me? Was it something they had said earlier?

Chaos corrupts...

That had to be a daemon, right? A servant of the "Ruinous Powers".

"Raynor! Status!" I yelled to him, half because my hearing was screwed up. The other half was to make sure he could hear me all the way to where he was already checking to see if anyone was poking their noses into our business. At least Night City had some good points, people here didn't usually run towards the sounds of massed gunfire."

I cast a quick Regrowth on myself to bring my hearing back up to normal.

"Ryan, Huskler and Keighvus are KIA, bodies missing. The rest of the troops are good to go, no other casualties. The area is clear, no lookie-loos."

That had me thinking about, how the daemon had just torn Huskler apart. His armor did jack all to stop its power. Then when it absorbed him...

Oh Shit!

I called, through the Psifield, all nearby Probes, we needed to hurry.

"Raynor! Start the boys looking for all the scraps of the creature's flesh. Gather it all into a pile. Don't let it touch bare skin. Same for anything covered in its blood. This may not be over."

"Hell. Let's get to it boys!" He hurried up to start the job.

"John, you alright?" I saw him just staring at the largest chuck of rubbery flesh remaining.

"Yeah." He sounded odd. Offended.

"What's wrong?" I cast a Regrowth on him just to make sure he was okay.

"Too many bullets."

Oh. He was pissed it took so many rounds to bring the damned thing down.

Despite everything, I chuckled.

He gave me a look, if it was anyone else I would have said it was a wounded look. Nah, John Wick ain't other people, it must mean something else.

"Don't worry. There was probably only the one. Even if there were more, I have a few ideas percolating in my head to help counter them." A higher purity of Psicrystal in the alloy of our ammo for a start. Infusing mana and/or faith into the rounds on top of that might be a long overdue experiment...

An image of the disgusting beast flashed into my head.

It had been hidden in the flesh of it's human host, I guessed that the Company missed it. At least, I hoped they missed it and it wasn't intentional.

I doubted the others were tainted, but I'd check them before we leave. Best to be sure, this was too much of a threat to ignore.

The first Probes arrived, and I told them to scan for every bit of the daemon's flesh and stack it in the pile, Raynor and the troops had already started on.

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At first I had a concern that maybe the daemon's remains could corrupt the Probes, but I remembered the violent interaction of crysbronze and the daemon's chaos energies. Not quite as good as faith energy but it gave me confidence that the Probes would be able to resist any taint.

That reminded me, I gather everyone up and cast Blessing of Mankind on them again to increase the amount of faith energy left surrounding them. My faith was running low, but there should be enough to ignite the pile once we were sure we had gather everything up. I also cast Cleanse to get rid of the filth splattered across everyone, I still had plenty of mana.

After a couple of hours we were certain all the foul meat was ready to be burned.

Divine Wrath called down golden light, and set the mass ablaze.

With that messy issue out of the way, we went back underground to restock our ammo, and check all our equipment.

I rounded up the Kriegsmen and the Magos before casting Nature's Blessing on them. My breath hitched as the mana hard a hard time latching on to them, especially the Magos, but after a larger pull on my reserves than normal the blessing finally took. They didn't flinch or seem bothered, quite the opposite, actually. They were vibrating with vitality. A good start.

Then just to double check I granted them the Blessing of Mankind, that one went far more smoothly. The golden light wrapping around them like a comforting blanket. Excellent. One less concern.

I let out a sign of relief as I explained what happened.

Their reaction was simple acceptance. No anger, no doubt, no questions, no horror or fear.

It was okay that I had killed Grais because it was me doing it. If I said he was tainted by Chaos, then to them it was absolute fact. The grimness was such an ingrained part of their lives that even the reality that they were that close to a tainted beast didn't rattle them in the slightest.

I shook my head and let them get back to their jobs.

Insanity.

Finally shed of our burden, and loaded up for another few rounds of fighting, Raynor, John, the Boys and I finally got underway to Watson. We had lost half the night already and despite everything were eager to hunt some Maelstrom.

The ability of the Troops to keep going was amazing. Was it because they were summons, or the harshness of Raynor's training? I was impressed yet saddened that I was leading them once more to a fight. And so soon after that cluster fuck with the daemon. Maybe we should swing by Lizzie's to let them unwind. It's not like the Maelstrom was going to vanish overnight. Even if they did, there were other Gangs. There was always another Gang.

Part of it was that I was still shaking on the inside. That had been terrifying. That such things existed anywhere in all of reality freaked me the fuck out. I was also fairly certain that hadn't been anywhere near one the the worst of those daemons. Who knows where another of those abominations was lurking.

It didn't help that I was back in this monument of corporate greed. To once again immerse myself and the people I was responsible for into the underbelly of the most depraved place I could have imagined.

Well, before today, anyway. Night City was nothing next to the most common Hive Cities of the Imperium, if the tales of the newcomers could be believed. How could humans survive such bullshit?

That thought had me spiraling in my head for most of the drive. I was driving shitty, almost hitting a few folks, before recovering. It was so bad that the onboard AI took over managing the wheel. That stung a bit.

John seemed to understand.

"Stop thinking."

"It not easy to just turn it off." I scoffed.

"No. But can you do anything about it, now?"

"Not that I know of." I responded after a moment to examine the question.

"Then push it to the back of your mind. Let your subconscious work on it. Here, I'll show you some techniques to manage your reactions."

I focused on his lessons and honestly managed to fixate on the present more clearly. The techniques took decades to master but even the first steps were helpful. Damn, I should have asked him for some training before now.

This let me take in more of the city and not be so centered on myself. I noticed things I had missed before. A gang of kids helping a lady to carry her things. A cop actually just chatting with a citizen while keeping an eye on the area. Some Gangers cleaning up a park, who would have thought.

Even in this broken city, people were people. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. I had mostly seen the bad and it had dug it's way deep into my heart, coloring how I perceived everything else.

And it was, John Wick, of all people who opened my eyes.