Everything hurt. Despite his HP barely dropping, Normann took hit after hit killing the scaldren. The ones who fought back had these clubs with black rocks embedded in them, and each hit sliced deep into him. He wasn’t fast enough to avoid the attacks and simply took the damage head on. His HP recovered much faster than he expected it ever could. One attack took out his entire bare, a massive cut along his back, and by the time Normann killed the scaldren and turned on the next, his HP had gotten up to 25% again.

  He stood around a pile of courses, smashed and broken mostly by his empowered fists. His AE bar emptied completely and he was forced to release the channeled anima with an exhaustive sigh. One task left before he could enter the Rift. One job to do.

  He approached the single scaldren left, the caster behind the barricades, and it stepped back until it was pressed against the Rift as though it were a wall. It held its hand out and frantically waved it, a violent and vibrant pink and deep people glowed around its three fingers. It opened its mouth to shout something, but Normann rushed into its space and grabbed hold of its neck. He lifted it up, barely off the ground. He pushed the extended arm out of the way, and the bolt went flying off into the air.

  “I get it,” Normann said softly to it. Everything had grown silent around the. It felt off, seeing the bodies of the scaldren and knowing there an equal if not more amount of human corpses scattered around him. “You’re afraid.”

  The scaldren struggled in his grip. It tried to claw at his face but couldn’t reach him so settled for tearing up his forearm. Each slice dug a small amount of his HP. He squeezed until it stopped, grabbing at his arm and holding it. His [Read the Bones] boon provided information now that he could focus on one monster, revealing a percentage of its HP bar and its name: “Ulmic, Squad Leader.”

  Unlike the others, Ulmic wore

  It chittered at him, the sounds garbled through an inability to breath properly and a language that Normann didn’t know. He could guess the meaning though.

  “You came here,” he said, “looking for something, didn’t you? Whether it was a long term plan or something spawned when you were created in that pocket dimension of yours, it doesn’t matter. Not really, I guess. You came to this world filled with hopes and desires, and you found it was already inhabited. So you attacked and slaughtered everything around you. The primitive weapons were nothing compared to your own might.”

  Ulmic chittered again, its eyes darting from Normann and its dead companions. It had rotten teeth, some on the verge of falling out, and it smelled horrible. Normann held it tighter, and Ulmic’s grip relaxed even more. “You should have won,” he continued. “You had victory in your hands.” Ulmic gasped and slapped at his arm, digging in with its claw. It tried to pull its arm free of his other hand, but he yanked on it and nearly tore it out of its socket. “Claws. You had the power until this…” he closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “Monster appeared.”

  Normann opened his eyes and met the terrified and panicked stare of Ulmic. “You just watched as an enemy tore through your entire squad,” he said. “And everything you did, their attacks and your magic, everything was as effective as draining the ocean with a thimble. That monster just kept coming, no matter what you did. And all you could-”

  A shot tore through the block and Normann grunted as it crashed into his shoulder. He clenched his jaw and locked his arm in place despite the horrible burning sensation as his magic and blood poured out from the small wound. He turned slowly, holding Ulmic out in front of him, to face the group of men who had first fought to protect their neighborhood.

  “The fuck, LT?” D said and slapped the guy with the pistol still pointing at him. He wore a puffy winter jacket and his dark skin took a pale tint as he opened and closed his mouth.

  Normann frowned at him. “I suppose violence is just our way, huh?” he said only to Ulmic. He stared at the four men, pistols in their hand, and couldn’t help but think of the life choices that led them to holding those weapons. “Both of us I mean.”

  Ulmic whimpered, and he squeezed harder. “The only thing we can understand, in the end. But there is a distinction between protecting your home and invading to find a new one, or whatever reason you have to be here. The simple truth is that you lost the gamble you made when you entered that gate. And I truly am sorry.” There was fear and sorrow in its eyes. Normann hated fighting the intelligent monsters. It understood exactly what was going on. What was going to happen.

  He twisted and slammed the ground with Ulmic’s skull again and again until all tension in its arm went limp and he heard a crunch. He could have focused on the decreasing health bar, but it seemed less real if he did, and he needed all the reminders he could get. To know that this was real and the pain he inflicted was just as real. He remained kneeling next to the scaldren as the four men approached slowly.

  “The fuck is up with your teach, D,” one of the young men said with a smile and laugh. “He one of alien fighters or something?

  “They aren’t aliens,” a second one added, “they’re called operators and they have super powers.” He was rougher, a deeper

  “He just wasted all these mother fuckers like it was nothing,” LT said. “Took that bullet and didn’t even blink.”

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

  “Don’t know,” D replied and said in a louder voice. “Mr. H? You good?”

  “Bullets don’t really work,” Normann said as he stared at Ulmic. “They do, but you need a lot of them so it’s more of a waste. Explosions do better, but the collateral damage isn’t worth it, and by the time they reach E-rank, it won’t matter. Monsters, even F-rank ones like these guys, have a toughness that far outstrips the damage that a conventional weapon could do. You saw how little those bullets were doing. You’re better off using what they brought through the Rift than those things.” He nodded at them. “Especially since I doubt they're legal.”

  It felt so odd to know he killed these monsters with his bare hands. Sure in the future, he was responsible for killing hundreds of them, but he never had to fight hand to hand. Lucas prepared him, trained him to the point where he wasn’t an embarrassment, but that was with a proficiency mod installed. Coming back, all Normann had was a core and a passive that really didn’t do too much to empower him. All it did was give him bits of information, supposedly more than what his previous passive did, but that remained to be seen.

  It didn’t matter though, he thought as he glanced around at the dead around him. He killed thirteen monsters with only his bare hands and stubbornness. No armor, no real weapons, no abilities. Just him.

  Normann chuckled as he pushed himself up, brushing the dirt on his knees. His shirt hung open, revealing a body that wasn’t his but felt like it belong there. He wasn’t the fat slob he had been before, but more barrel-chested like a strongman. Blood, his and the scaldren’s, had caked onto him and matted his hair flat, almost blocking his vision. He pushed it back and flicked the remnants of blood to the ground.

  “The fuck that matter?” LT said. “You gonna snitch?”

  “Huh?” Normann turned to stare at the small man. LT refused to meet his gaze, glaring at his chest for a moment before looking away down the street then back again. The kid shifted back and forth, squeezing the gun in hand tightly.

  A tall light-skinned boy pushed LT, nearly knocking him over. “This fucker just took down all of them by himself, and he’s still standing despite you being a dumbass and shooting him.”

  D nodded. “He ain’t gonna snitch.”

  “Honestly?” Normann replied “Had it been before this madness, I probably would have. Now? I couldn’t give a fuck.”

  The fourth guy, dark-skinned and a winter jacket on, snorted, shaking long dreads capped with beads. “Cops probably on the way, anyway. Between the gunfire and explosion that thing made, they definitely heading here.“

  “They will say something about you and all that,” Normann waved at the guns, “so get going. You don’t want to deal with what's coming any more than I do.”

  “And you, Mr. H?” Darius asked. “What are you going to do?”

  A good question. He couldn’t step out of range of the Rift, or more monsters would start spawning. But going inside without being a full F-rank operator who had all his components and abilities would be extremely dumb. Most of the stories told about the F-rank Gates were tall tales and legends that drifted around on the rumor mill; someone knew someone who knew someone that soloed a Rift in the early days. They were just stories.

  Rarely did an operator actually solo anything, let alone a whole Rift. The United States only had maybe twenty operators above D-rank across the entire country, only half a dozen at C, and most were in squads of four to six. No one went into a Rift on their own. In video games, dungeons weren’t soloed unless a person grossly overpowered it, whether by level or ability or skill. Rifts were similar in that vein; no operator should enter one without a group.

  Normann glanced at the Rift and a screen popped up on his HUD:

  Claiming a Rift, specifically the right of first entrance and attempt to closing it, was a simple enough affair. After clearing out the vanguard, that first push of monsters, just outside the Rift, an operator could make a claim, gaining access to it for them and their squad. If a few operators cleared the entrance, then they were immediately placed into a squad and given the option to claim it as a group. As Normann had been the only operator in the area, he alone had the right.

  There were things to do before he entered it though.

  With a shout from D – Darius was his name right? Why did Norman remember that out now – that felt more commanding then it should, everyone quickly scattered away, though LT and the tall kid who spoke to him grabbed a few of the primitive weapons the scaldren used. They stayed away from the bodies nearest the Rift and him, leaving Normann standing among a pile of the dead scaldren. Ulmic’s crushed skull stared up at him and the sky.

  “That was awesome,” a breathy light voice said. Normann to look at the teenage girl standing in front of him. Above her head, a nameplate formed reading, [Lyn Hills, Striker].