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“Mom!”

Through my hazy vision I saw Susan rushing to embrace her daughter.

“Why is she in here?” Susan shouted towards the cell door where several of the soldiers were gathered. “Answer me, Jim!”

In my Dark Frenzy-induced stupor, I struggled to focus on the man Susan was now shouting at. It was the same one who had spoken earlier judging by his well-polished boots.

He was average height with a thin build, but the looseness of his combat fatigues said he was quite the muscular fellow in the past. Now he looked gaunt with sunken cheeks and short, thinning white hair. His face was clean shaven save for a push broom mustache that matched his hair, which now twitched from side to side as he stared back at Susan. His gray eyes held a stare of assertiveness, and I could sense Susan melting under his glare.

“Your daughter has breached protocol for the last time, Susan,” Jim said. “She nearly compromised this entire facility to let this man inside.” His eyes then shifted to me a second. “Whoever the hell he is.”

“He’s the one we told you about!” Kelsey blurted. “He’s on our side. He’s powerful like a god! He can kill all those demons. And that sword he left was protecting us!”

“That’s horseshit, Kelsey!” Sergeant Richards shouted, cutting in. “When he left with that gift of his, the demon attacks only got worse. That’s why we got rid of the thing. He’s a damn Trojan horse, colonel, and now that girl has brought him back inside with us!”

“That’s not true!” Susan shouted. “It was protecting us just like Kelsey said! Ask the others, Jim. This is total––”

“Alright, enough!” Jim shouted.

His voice reverberated within the tiny cell and everyone fell silent.

“Look, I don’t know what the hell is going on here yet,” he continued. “But I don’t have time to deal with it now. The demons have breached the tunnel again and we have our hands full staving them off. I’ve been back here less than 9 hours and while it’s quite apparent that this place has gone to hell in my absence, I can’t afford to sort out any of it. Not unless we want a literal hell on our hands with those damn demons overrunning us. And trust me, you don’t want to go through the four weeks of hell that me and my team just went through trying to get back here.”

He paused then to make sure his words sank in perhaps.

I sensed fear and anger within him, stewing at a constant simmer.

I wasn’t getting the full picture yet, but one thing was clear.

These people needed my help.

My Flame was still burning an ugly red, choked by the black tar of the Bloodmoon’s Dark Frenzy. I wasn’t sure if I could even generate Frenzy from it to perform any techniques, but I could still fight.

“Let me help you,” I said.

Jim’s grey eyes shifted towards me again. “You’ll stay right there. You’re a wild card I don’t even know how to make sense of yet. Got more mixed signals on you than a malfunctioning traffic light.”

I raised my brow at the odd analogy.

He then turned to one of the soldiers. “Private Darrell, assume watch over these three and lock away that axe of his.”

“Yes sir!” one of the soldiers responded with a salute.

“Richards, bring the rest of your squad and the emergency ammo to level 7. We’re going to be in for one hell for a firefight.”

“Yes, Colonel!”

The soldiers took off then, exiting the brig, save for Private Darrell who was in the process of giving himself a hernia trying to lift my axe from the floor.

“Hole-lee,” he said taking a break. “What the heck is this thing made of?”

“If you need a hand, just ask,” I said with a chuckle.

Darrell, a wiry guy with glasses merely frowned at me and resumed trying to lift the thing. Eventually, he leveraged it off the floor and began dragging it slowly out of the brig. I waited until he had gotten out of earshot and into the hallway before turning back to Kelsey and Susan

“That looks like it might keep him busy for a while,” I said, stooping down to them. “Are you guys okay? What the hell happened here?”

“First are you okay, Max?” Kelsey said, genuine concern in her eyes. “You were going full berserk out there.”

I chuckled at the irony of it. “Yeah, I do that from time to time.”

“What happened?” Susan asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “Kelsey just risked her life to save me, that’s all.”

“She what?”

I gave Kelsey a wink and she grinned back at me.

“Relax, Susan. Your daughter is a lot tougher than you think.”

Especially now, I wanted to add.

I marveled again at the candle of Frenzy flickering within her soul.

It was small, but it was there.

But how could I guide her to make it stronger? Or should I even do so? Threja taught me that the Path of the Frenzied Flame was a solitary one. A personal journey of self-discovery more than anything else. And it had certainly been so for me thus far. I needed to give Kelsey the same instructions Threja had given to me.

The orb.

But how?

Could I write the manual out on paper again like I did the cultivation manual?

That triggered a new thought.

“Kelsey, where’s the cultivation manual? Did Richards destroy it?”

Kelsey grinned. “He tried to. Once I saw him get rid of the sword, I knew he was coming for that next. So I hid it down on level 7.”

“You mean the place where Jim just said he’s going to go fight demons?”

Kelsey nodded. “Yeah.”

Guess that would have to do for now. At least it was still in existence. So long as the demons down there didn’t tear the whole place to shreds.

“How did he move the sword?” I asked. “And how did you get locked up, Susan?”

Susan huffed out a sigh. “I probably should have listened to you. It happened about a week after you left. That damn idiot Richards dug it up with his cronies and dumped it somewhere. Then he gave the whole community an ultimatum. Go back inside the safety of the bunker under his command or stay outside with me. You can imagine what everyone chose.”

Ire burned in my gut, causing soot to billow from my choked Flame. “That guy was more dangerous than I thought. Smarter too. Or cunning maybe.”

“Yeah cunning,” Kelsey said. “Like a damn rat. Or a snake.”

“So, then he locked you up afterwards?” I asked.

“Both of us,” Kelsey said. “For treason.”

I blinked. “What?”

“I was only let out when Jim came back yesterday,” Kelsey said. “Mom convinced him it was inhumane to keep a child in prison and he agreed.”

“Holy crap,” I said, counting the time I was away in my head. “That piece of shit kept you both locked up in here for two weeks?”

Susan nodded. “It’s been awful. Thank God Jim came back. And you too.”

“Well, it’s a good thing Jim let you out, Kelsey,” I said. “Because that bastard Richards was ready to leave me out there to die just now.”

I sensed a flicker of Kelsey’s Flame. “Yeah…that guy really needs to go. He’s been feeding Jim pure nonsense ever since he came back too. Convinced Jim my mom was still a threat. That’s why she’s still in here.”

“Seriously?” I said, looking to Susan. “He’s buying this crap?”

Susan shrugged. “Jim’s a good man, but he’s got his hands full right now. Richards is taking advantage of that.”

“So where are the demons coming from below?” I asked.

“Through the access tunnel they went through to get to the sister base,” Kelsey said. “Jim and the platoon came back with some fuel for the generator but the demons followed them back, I guess. Now they’re here.”

It was then that I noticed the lights in the jail were actually working. No more candles. It also reminded me of the working comm system when I was outside too. “Holy crap… you guys have electricity again?”

“For a short while,” Kelsey said. “They only managed to bring a few barrels back, but Jim said we need the lights on to fight those things down there. Jim took out a few demons that got through the tunnel this morning and then sealed it up afterwards, but now they’ve broken through again, I guess.”

I sensed a sudden spike of fear inside Susan. “I don’t think we’re going to make it, Max. We’ve never experienced anything like this before. From the top side, this place is impenetrable, but from below?” She shook her head. “Please, you need to do something.”

She didn’t have to tell me twice.

“Hey yo! Private Darrell!” I shouted as I rose to my feet.

A second later the soldier poked his head around the edge of the corridor, where I assumed he was still lugging my axe someplace. His face contorted into a scowl of annoyance.

“What the hell you want?”

“Unlock this cell,” I said with [Struggler’s Resolve].

He flinched, jerking backwards, reacting to my technique, but to his credit he pushed down the fear of uncertainty building within him and stood his ground. “Like hell. You stay in there until Jim deals with you. I’m under orders.”

“Okay,” I said. “I was just trying to save you all the grief of having to repair a busted lock.”

“What are y––”

Before he could even finish, I grabbed hold of the cell door and pushed it open effortlessly with a ringing snap of broken steel. I didn’t have much usable Frenzy to burn, but at Stage VI Body Refinement I didn’t need it.

The things of the mortal realm were like toys to me now.

“Hey, get back in there!” Darrell shouted, drawing his side arm as I stepped out of the cell towards him. “Get back or I’ll shoot!”

“Guess you weren’t with the guys who saw my initial display,” I said as I approached. “You can save your bullets. They won’t work on me either.”

The fear inside him reached a peak and I cultivated it to further heal my body and fight against the poison choking my Flame. Brushing past him I saw my axe leaning against the wall a few feet away. Lifting it casually in front of him with one hand was all it took for him to lower his gun.

“Smart move,” I said, resting the axe on my shoulder. “Now take me down to Level 7.”

* * *

The popcorn sound of sporadic gunfire filled the air as we clambered down the last flight of metal stairs leading to the lowest level of the bunker complex. The ‘we’ now consisted of myself with Private Darrell leading the way and Kelsey and Susan trailing behind. Susan had come under duress, forced to do so only because she couldn’t get Kelsey to stay put on the upper levels where it was safe.

The girl had no fear now, and even my encouragement to stay behind had fallen on deaf ears. I couldn’t help but feel a bit of Berserker pride as I looked at the iron-willed stare of the Struggler in her eyes, but something like that would be hard for any mother to comprehend.

So I made Kelsey promise to hang back and keep her mother safe while I took care of business. What the business actually entailed I had no idea. But I didn’t really care either. Be it one demon or ten thousand.

All of them were dying tonight.

My conviction stirred my Flame as we went through a set of heavy hatchways and finally emerged on an upper gangway overlooking a large storage area. It was reminiscent of the basement in the Fire Birds’ headquarters, only about ten times the size. The screeching of demons mixed with the chaotic bursts of automatic gunfire, creating a horrendous din.

A trio of soldiers kept the gangway clear of demons trying to run up to it from a set of stairs, mowing them down in droves. The rest of about thirty or so soldiers had their rifles trained over the safety railing and pointing down into what I could only describe as an entire demon horde filling the basement area.

There had to be well over two hundred of them, red bodies covered in crude blackened armor. There were male and female both, oversized humans with horns, fangs, and bat wings. A couple of soldiers with more high-powered rifles kept their eyes out for those ones, firing periodically to take one of the flying demons out of the sky. The entire place was lit with flood lighting from the ceiling, and that appeared to be the main target of the creatures.

It was a good move.

In total darkness, these guys would be screwed.

“Concentrate fire on the tunnel!” Jim shouted above the tumult. “The suckers are trying to make the exit wider!”

I followed his line of sight to a set of man-sized double doors that was choked full of writhing demon bodies, all of them trying to push through the thing at once. Several more from the outside were hammering away at the reinforced concrete around the doorframe, trying to make it bigger.

It was then that Jim caught sight of me and did a wide-eyed double take. “What in doggone hell––? Private Darrell!” he shouted, and the young soldier braced at attention.

“Yes sir!”

“Have you lost your damn mind and released my prisoner?”

He shook his head profusely. “No sir!”

“Then why is he standing here?”

“I let myself out,” I said with [Struggler’s Resolve]. “He had no choice in the matter.”

Jim looked up at me with a combination of fascination, skepticism, and plain old confusion. “I told you to stay put.”

“Jim, he can help us!” Susan called out from behind me.

His eyes then grew even wider. “You brought civilians down here too?”

The scream of the demons was hellish and the fear inside of Susan jumped with every wince she made. It was a shame I couldn’t draw on it, but the Flame didn’t work that way. I couldn’t just tap into any old fear. The cause had to me be.

But I could certainly do something about quelling the fear within Susan’s soul.

“Tell your men to stop shooting,” I said. “I don’t need them peppering me in the back while I deal with these things.”

“What?”

I hopped over the ledge without another word, releasing a bellowing war cry.

I’d never fought these things while being sane before.

But if normal bullets could put them down, they couldn’t be that tough.

Still, there were lots of them.

From the numbers alone the [Odds had to be Against Me].

My Flame sputtered and coughed with the technique, belching black smoke and producing a mere fraction of the Frenzy it normally would. But right now, I wasn’t complaining. I was going to need whatever I could get.

Lunging into the fray, I relied on my axe techniques and the speed and strength of my body alone to lay waste to a bunch of demons clawing to get up the stairs. My axe hacked and flew, cleaving through muscle, bone and horn alike.

I had caught them from behind off guard and within less than a minute had killed them all, their savage death cries triggering my [Bloodlust] to give me another small jolt of Frenzy. Covered in their blood, I glanced up the stairway and at the three soldiers who had been holding them back, their faces blank with shock and fear.

“Rest easy,” I said with [Struggler’s Resolve]. “I’m on your side.”

Instantly their fear shifted to awe, lemons becoming lemonade and I drank it in deeply to further bolster my Flame. I charged into another pack of demons, cleaving through them with a series of linked techniques. Suddenly they all figured out what the hell was going on and a screeching howl filled the air as one of them pointed at me.

~The Cursed Flame! The Cursed Flame is here!~

“Yeah, yeah!” I goaded them. “Come on and get burned, you ugly pricks!”

They screeched in response, their anger hitting me like a tidal wave––a collective hate that seemed to come from someplace else. I struggled to cultivate it with my jacked-up Flame, eking out meager amounts of Frenzy, but I was thankful I was deep enough now, to not be influenced by the Bloodmoon.

My Flame was in bad shape, but at least it wasn’t getting any worse.

And that left me in control.

I channeled my Frenzy into my reflexes, keeping one step ahead of the demons as they turned their weapons on me. Sparks and blood flew as I parried and cleaved, taking as many hits as I dished out.

But mine were stronger.

For every glancing blow they landed I took a limb, for every cut, a kill.

A horrific battle of attrition took hold as my mind went into almost a trance, my techniques chaining so fluidly it felt almost choreographed. I used the Frenzy triggered from my [Bloodlust] to keep it up, fueling both my attacks and healing my body with [Pain Soothes the Frenzied Flame].

Eventually the tide of anger and hate from the demons changed, turning sour.

Becoming fear.

~Flee! Flee the Cursed Flame!~

I drew it in all the same, hacking them to death from behind, snarling with a rage of my own.

“Yeah, you’d better run, you shits!” I screamed.

As the remaining demons disappeared down the tunnel, I took stock of my surrounds.

The place was a stinking mess. A corpse factory full of demons.

There was a lot to clean up.

But I had to ensure that this didn’t happen again.

I had managed to net a small amount of Frenzy throughout the battle, a sliver of gain from the meager amount I was taking in minus the amount I was pushing out just to stay alive.

Not much, I thought. But there’s at least enough to do this.

Digging deep, I leapt into the air and brought my axe down on the top of the door frame of the tunnel exit.

“[Three Log Chop]!”

My axe hit the concrete with a resounding boom, sending a huge cloud of dust into the air like an explosion. The entire basement shook with the force of the hit as a huge chunk of concrete fell away from the wall and collapsed over the tunnel entrance, causing the room to shake a second time.

As the dust cleared, I inspected my handiwork and was satisfied with the job.

I turned about to an audience staring at me in dead silence––all thirty soldiers plus Susan and Kelsey gawking at me. Their lemonade flowed like a win in the arena, and I had to curb my enthusiasm to not throw my axe in the air in a victory pose.

“That ought to keep ‘em for a while,” I said and hit them with a dose of [Struggler’s Resolve] instead. “We good now, Jim?”

Their mouths hung open as all eyes turned to Jim.

There was awe burning inside him as well, but it was tempered by something else.

Something increasing by the second.

Anger.

“Sergeant Richards!” he barked, and the man stumbled out of the ranks to stand before him.

“Yes, colonel!”

“Did you say that you disposed of this man’s sword?”

A contemplative pause. “Y-yes, colonel. It was causing the demons—”

“Shut up!” Jim shouted, his mustache twitching. “Gather a small team of your men tomorrow morning,” he said and then looked down to me. “At first light, you’re going to take us to go find it.”