Under the cover of darkness, he left the house in a new set of armor. Making his way through midtown, slaughtering his way to greatness. Saving civilians and purging monsters from the city. Hundreds died as he crossed the midtown streets. His airhorn blared, drawing attention as he made his way north toward downtown, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.

While Jenny spent the night crafting another set of armor, Michele handed him a list of supplies they needed before heading back to bed. Linda, true to her promise, served him a large breakfast before the household awoke, even packing him lunch.

Despite Jenny’s efforts, the armor didn’t last an hour before it was beaten and misshapen. Derek would spend another day soaked in blood. His weapons flashed as he tore through a minotaur’s chest. His body was on autopilot as he tore his way through hundreds of monsters that dared to stand before him. He was so far above what the monsters could handle and this wasn’t even a challenge anymore and the experience wasn’t that good, especially since he was fighting small groups at a time. Whatever the system used to determine his levels provided minimal gains in these minor skirmishes.

An orc’s sword slashed across his face as he was distracted. Without a helmet, the sword skirted off his cheekbone, barely managing to break Derek’s reinforced skin. He was getting to the point where his skin was almost as strong as the armor he wore. Still, an orc stabbing a sword through his back was a distinct possibility, hence the armor. Neither was sufficient to protect him, as both his skin and armor were becoming beaten.

A hushed shout from a nearby hotel caught his attention, drawing him away from the street. Someone was waving at him to approach. He turned, looking away from the horde of monsters roaming the downtown streets. His sword vanished into his bracelet with a thought, and he entered the door that someone was holding open for him.

He stepped into the hotel lobby, finding hundreds of armed, ragged people. Their eyes reflected desperation and hunger. These people hadn’t been fighting, they had been hiding. Their clothes were mostly whole and the lack of blood and wounds were a testament to the battles they never fought. If there was anything that could be said, the people who hid were falling behind as the monster grew more coordinated and stronger. Those that fought might struggle, but they would come out on top.

They eyed him cautiously as he was covered in red blood from head to toe.

“Are you injured? With the power of the Lord, I can heal your wounds.” A priestly looking man said.

“No, I’m fine. Just a bit dirty. So, what’s going on?” Derek asked, looking around at the surrounding people.

“We’re out of food, almost out of water, and if we stay here any longer, we’re going to starve. We would rather stand up and fight those monsters.” Someone said, as they looked at his blood covered form.

“I don’t think that’s a good ide…” Derek began, only to be interrupted.

“The Lord will protect us!” the priest yelled, holding his cross. “He will guide us to salvation!”

Derek eyed the priest suspiciously, but only shook his head. The fervent, desperate gaze in the eyes of the survivors told him all he needed to know. They wouldn’t listen to reason, especially not to what looked like a blood-covered demon.

“Well, good luck. I hope you’re right.” Derek said doubtfully, then turned toward the door, knowing a pointless cause when he saw one.

“Wait! Can you help us?” One of them asked.

“Ignore the demon. We shall prevail without being tempted by evil!” The priest said loudly, holding his cross up, which glowed.

Derek ignored the priest’s words and stepped out the door.

“See brothers! We are strong without the temptations of the wicked one! Let’s go! Toward salvation!”

From a nearby alley, Derek watched the survivors pour out of the hotel, attracting nearby monsters. Gunshots rang out as people shot the monsters in both directions. The sound and the roars of goblins, orcs, and trolls echoed down the city street. Several hundred people poured out of the building, all with that fervent, desperate look in their eyes. Derek could feel their desperation and it practically cut into him, as he could feel their pain.

He leapt into action, his sword appearing in his hand. With the blade flashing in a brutal dance, the oncoming monsters were carved apart. The gunfire was useless. Derek completely ignored it as he fought, even when a bullet ricocheted off his armor. The slaughter intensified as monsters arrived from back alleys, intersecting streets, all of them like zombies falling over each other, fighting to get to the tasty humans. Even with the gunman, they were losing ground as monsters surrounded them and tore into them. A troll picked up a gunman, biting off his head. The brutality of crunching bones and chewing caused the human’s defensive line to fall apart like dominoes.

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Derek fought against the surging horde holding off one street by himself, but he couldn’t stop them all. They came down alleys and side streets as the clamor attracted more. For every monster he slayed, another three appeared in its place. He activated Elemental Rage and Aura: Bloodlust. Flames engulfed him, turning him into a fiery tornado, incinerating everything nearby. However, his bloodlust aura had an unintended effect; monsters started avoiding him, as they rolled around him like he was a rock in a river seeking easier prey. Despite this, his kill rate tripled, amplifying the destruction around him.

The battle raged on until Derek, lost in a haze of combat, until there was suddenly a lack of monsters and he found himself standing amidst the aftermath. Looking across the battlefield, Derek’s grip on his sword tightened, the blade slick with blood and viscera of the fallen monsters. The oiled and shining blade, now stained with blood.

The downtown street, once a busy urban center of commerce now a gory battlefield, a macabre scene of death and hope lost. Monstrous forms of goblins, orcs, and trolls lay strewn down the street, mixed with the bodies of the slain that failed to stand up to the might of the horde. Their bodies torn and mutilated, the results of a futile resistance that ended in the eternal silence of death.

Their valiant but foolish stand doomed from the start. Despite his warnings, they had chosen to fight, their defiance leading them only to this grim end. They were all fools, now dead fools. Their deaths only added to the countless others he had witnessed in recent weeks. The weight of their failure left him with a bitter taste of apathy and a deep-seated disappointment in the futility of human defiance. Ignorant fools. But who would listen to a man whose visage was akin to a demon?

He wished he had been surprised by his own apathy toward the dead lying in the streets, but he never really cared about people in the first place and after nearly two weeks of fighting monsters, the number of dead people he had witnessed lying in the streets counted in the thousands. He paid no more attention to the bodies than to collect the Collective provided bracelets from the fallen.

As Derek walked through the sea of corpses, the squelch of blood-soaked asphalt beneath his boots echoed the gruesome law that now governed this world. The mingling of alien and human blood formed rivulets that meandered into the storm drains. His boots soaked with the smell of death, following him everywhere.

Upon finding a minotaur’s axe, he frowned down at it as he lifted the heavy monstrosity. The number of human lives the weapon had ended surely counted in the hundreds. With a thought, it vanished into the void of his own storage bracelet. He couldn’t judge it too harshly. After all, his own blade had taken countless lives. Even though he had obtained it from an orc, it was his own hand that had ended those lives.

The remains of the city, once vibrant with life and culture, lay in ruins around him. Buildings that once housed a unique downtown, the mix of native crafts and modern clothing stores, now a wrecked ruin. The charred skeletons of buildings, shattered windows, and the remains of cars painted a picture of the apocalypse. Fires still burned in some places. The pervasive stench of smoke and metallic blood hung heavily in the air, causing his nose to curl. The devastation was immense and showcased the changes to the world.

In the distance, the mountains stood untouched, their snow-capped peaks a stark contrast to the devastation that lay at their base. Their only struggle was with the termination dust that signaled the end of fall. They were a serene backdrop amongst the remnants of the Alaskan city. The city, once teeming with life, had been reduced to a mere shadow of itself, its population decimated. Yet, amidst this desolation, the sporadic sound of gunfire hinted at the resilience of those few who remained, clinging to survival in a world that had forsaken them.

Amidst his grim task, Derek’s attention was drawn to the dying pleas of a man, his voice barely a whisper.

“Ravager, save my daughter.” He wheezed.

Derek’s gaze shifted to the dead girl beside the man, still clutching his hand. Her innocence cruelly ripped away. Her pretty face permanently locked in terror, sharply contrasting with her floral dress now covered in her blood. Derek looked back at the dying man.

“I will.” Derek lied.

The man smiled in appreciation as the life left his eyes. Derek frowned with the hints of sadness as he collected their bracelets. The sight of them reminding him of his wife and their unborn child, whose life hung balanced on a thread.

Standing, he scanned his surroundings, the ruins of a world he once despised, now wishing for it to return. Derek looked at the familiar buildings reading the blood spattered signs reading the names of the establishments. The places he had visited before were now just memories. They used to be thriving societies, but now they were replaced by a world of blood, death, and unavoidable violence. His eyes fell onto a building. A building that held lots of memories where his traumas were once unfolded, like the others now a forgotten relic.

He could only shake his head in disappointment as he finished the macabre task. He moved into the lobby of the hotel to check for any survivors, but the lobby was empty. Finding a place to sit, he grabbed one of the storage bracelets from the bag and emptied its contents. Clothes, bottled water, a wallet, and pictures of the owner’s family fell out onto the floor.

Derek picked up the picture, showing a photo of a warm family. He dropped it to the floor in pity and merged the bracelet into his own, adding to his own storage space. The task was just as grim as pulling the devices from the dead, maybe more so. As the records left behind of happy families were lost in a pile of personal effects, sorrow filled him. The apocalypse had brought so much death, so much pain. He couldn’t stop it, but he could fight back.

After finishing the task, he looked down at the pile and sighed as he walked back out into the corpse strewn street. The stink of blood and violence thick in the air, clinging to him like sludge. Naught to be done about it now, as a troop of goblins came down the street following the corpse trail.