The demon had barely put his head around the tree, when a beam of pure concentrated light hit it, melting a hole into its brain.

Celebrating the shot, but staying focused on the battle Max quickly spun around to kill another demon coming out of the trees. Two shots, two clean kills.

The demons looked like bad cartoonish drawings of satan, they had the characteristic horns and crimson red skin, the way a child would paint the devil. But their proportions were off. While they were almost six feet tall, with pretty long arms, their legs only compromised about a quarter of their body. Giving them very long and strong torsos, but making them more than a little immobile.

What’s more, the demons seemed to have pretty weak defenses. Their skin wasn’t thick and they had no natural armor, that combined with their slightly slow movement speed, made them the ideal opponent Max had waited for.

Another red head popped out of the forest, but it also was found by a quick laser, directly between the eyes.

Even though there was no smoke coming out of his gun, Max blew on the top of the rifle, like a cartoon character might. Three out of three. It felt appropriate.

Max and his friends had quickly dealt with the main onslaught of the demon attack. Even though the monsters had weak defenses, they had quite a few strengths too. They were dangerous in melee, having sharp claws and strong upper bodies. More dangerous though, was the fact that a few of the demons even had skills, making them unpredictable opponents.

Still the wave attacking the camp had been weaker than usual, between the demon's weakness to ranged attacks and Max and Sarah’s skills, they had made short work of them.

The beasts were smarter than usual waves and stealthy though, so a few of them were still wandering around the camp.

Since they still had time to kill, Max had wandered a few meters away from the group, luring a few of the devils away from them. Not so far that he would put himself in unnecessary danger, but enough that he couldn’t afford mistakes. He had always thrived under pressure.

Another devilish creature jumped out from the treeline, rushing towards Max. With its short legs it wasn’t fast enough though, before it was even halfway towards Max, he had put a bullet through the creature.

Max had gotten way better with his new weapon over the past month, better and more deadly. Not because of new Skills and such, but only because of his hard training.

He was still a bit salty that the one of the Skills he had gotten only applied to newly bought weapons. That it gave weapons a random, but supposedly positive, bonus effect, it sounded pretty good, unfortunately Max didn’t have the budget to spend on buying new weapons. Not with their escape seemingly coming into reach.

He had around 700 Mana Shards accumulated since they had build on this clearing. Max wasn’t sure how long ago they had come here, three months ago? Certainly not four, but close. It felt like a lifetime ago.

With the good work the mines were doing, he expected another hundred or maybe two hundred Mana Shards before they rushed the spawner. Bixby was still unsure about an exact date, but Max felt his friends growing a bit restless.

Especially Sarah seemed to be getting more and more worried after every passing wave. Her fear wasn’t unfounded, since every new monster wave carried the possibility of being too much for them to handle.

The fights had become rougher and harder. Sometimes even close, but luckily without any serious injury on their side so far.

The key for their survival had definitely been Dave latey. Even though they all had become immensely stronger since the appearance of the spawned monster waves, Dave still managed to keep pulling ahead. Sometimes it felt like for every step one of them took, Dave would take two.

He had carried the lion's share of some of the recent waves. A few days ago he had beaten a harpy invasion almost by himself, dealing with some sort of boss harpy that was immune to every other attack.

Dave had also been important to breaking the devils as quickly as they had. He had killed them by the scores, dancing through them with his Hidden Blades, opening cuts and throats. A truly sinister sight.

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Sometimes Max was almost scared by Dave, but only during his violent moments. Between those, Dave was still his good old friend, he had certainly changed, but so did they all. Most of all he was a little worried about Dave, he had shouldered most of their burden from the beginning, and it seemed as if it only grew heavier and heavier on him.

Max had to admit, he was also glad though. Glad not just to have his best friend to stand by his side in these times, but also glad to have such a force of nature, like Dave, on their side.

He wasn’t worried about the next few monster waves, since he knew that if things turned south, Dave would be there. In another two months or so, things would look different, as much confidence as he had in Dave, the strength increase of their opposition would just become too much. Or would it?

Another two devils had tried sneaking up on Max, but he had already noticed. Max spun around quickly, firing two shots from his hip, killing one demon instantly, and wounding the other one.

The creature fell to the ground, the wound in its abdomen was bleeding profusely and its face was contorted in pain. Old Max would have had mercy. Old Max would’ve felt remorse. But even though old Max was less than half a year away, he was utterly gone.

Max knew these demons would love nothing more than to tear his throat out and eat the intestines of the people he cared about. He also knew that they were only manifestations of Mana, and no real creatures, although he avoided thinking about that too much, since it opened up a cascade of ethical and philosophical questions.

Instead of ending its suffering, Max waited for almost a whole minute until the devil stilled. The little stream of Mana that entered his body confirmed his prey was dead.

It was cold and ruthless, but Max had good reason to act the way he did.

*Quest: Use a store bought or mana charged weapon to kill ten foes with exactly ten attacks. 7/10 *

*Reward based on performance*

He needed to be callused to complete his quest. Not just because the Mana Shards he could get were important and could decide between life and death for him and his friends, but also because he needed every power up he could get just to keep his friends safe in the short run.

Max now knew how Dave must feel. It was surprisingly easy to jump down from the moral high ground and get your hands dirty if you had a real solid reason for it. Something driving you that rectified your actions. Max still wasn’t sure it was a healthy way of thinking, and probably not one that would’ve ever worked the way the world was before, but now it was life or death. And Max wanted to live.

Two more burn holes appeared respectively in the heads of the next demons that tried ganging up on Max. The last one actually made it a little too close for comfort. He had a Skill that teleported him almost right next to Max, only through his training with Sarah was Max able to react quickly enough to his sudden appearance. He had become used to adjusting to sudden spatial changes during the long hours he and Sarah had worked together on honing their Skills.

While her teleportation Skill had grown quicker to use and her shield more difficult to break, Max’s reactions and tactical positioning were sharper than ever. That’s why he had taken two steps to his left as soon as the demon had suddenly vanished. The demon’s attack had only hit air, while Max’s laser blasts had hit their target square on. Pure instinct had saved him.

Max stood waiting for multiple minutes, but no new demons appeared. Maybe they were scared or intimidated, or maybe he had already killed them all, Max wasn’t sure. Unfortunately he still needed to kill the tenth and last demon to complete his quest, and the timer until Grace Period was able to trigger again was slowly ticking down.

Since he didn’t know if he needed to complete all the kills for his quest in a certain time window, and since he didn’t want to squander the change, Max stalked off farther into the forest. Hunting for prey.

It didn’t take long for him to find what he was looking for, unfortunately he wasn’t sure if what he found was biting off more than he could chew.

A group of five demons were standing in the space between two rather large trees, seemingly lost in conversation. Max wasn’t sure what was being said, but it seemed like on of the bigger ones was arguing with the others. He was talking himself into a rage, spit flying from his mouth, and one of the smaller demons shrunk further and further in front of its superior.

The sight was so strange and alien to Max, that it almost threw him completely off. He caught himself just right before he stepped onto a twig. A fatal error barely avoided. Instead he moved into cover behind a nearby tree.

This was it, his chance to finish his quest. Taking out one of the devilish creatures with a well placed shot was no more difficult for Max than throwing a stone at them. However, he wasn’t sure he wanted to deal with the backlash. A group of four demons rushing him at once would be difficult to handle. If one of them had a Skill similar to the last demon, it would only get more dangerous, and Max wasn’t sure he could handle it.

Since Max couldn’t possibly know what Skills these things were equipped with, he wanted to err on the side of caution. Attacking them blindly would be foolhardy. At the same time, he wanted, no he needed to complete his quest.

If he was being honest part of it was his ego. Sure there could be another wave soon, one that with monsters of similar attributes, that would allow him to complete his quest then. But he was tired of letting Dave be the only one that increased in leaps and bounds. He had gotten so far, so he might as well finish it.

Max took a deep breath and held the rifle to his shoulders. He carefully took aim at the big arguing demon, since it seemed to be their leader, and the most dangerous of the group. His heart was pounding and his legs were tense, ready to spring into action. Max had a plan, but it could go wrong any moment.