I lunged to the door and kicked the control switch as hard as I could. (God, that felt amazing. If only the equipment back in my world was built this tough.) The heavy steel door screeched and groaned as it rose again, opening up.
Just as I expected, there weren't actually that many cultists outside. And now they'd all backed off, retreating far from the building we were hiding in, like they were making room for some kind of procession.
On the circular balcony of the second floor of that three-story building across the way, the flamboyant-robed charlatan was still standing there, holding up that "staff" that looked like it had been ripped off a park fence. The crystal at the top reflected an unstable, flickering light.
His face, painted three parts human and seven parts nightmare, was locked in pure disbelief. He was staring down at us too, eyes full of anger and confusion, like we'd just casually stepped out of hellfire without a care, or completely ignored the tearing claws and blades of a whole swarm of daemons.
It was him.
In that instant, everything clicked.
No daemons. No sorcery. This bastard was the one pulling strings from up there.
He had to be using some tech I didn't understand, something like an infrasound weapon, or a device that messed with brainwaves, triggering mass hysteria in those soldiers.
"That's him!" I shouted on instinct, trying to point, only to realize my arms still wouldn't move. So I jerked my chin at the bastard and roared at the big brute of a captain beside me, who was still in a system crash. "Stop standing there like an idiot! There are no ghosts! That freak up there is the one doing it! Shoot him first!"
My voice was packed with the purest irritation possible, the kind you get when you realize you've been played and humiliated. Not a shred of awe toward anything "supernatural."
That shout was like a thunderclap. It woke everyone.
Captain Kairen flinched hard, and the confusion and shock in his eyes got replaced instantly by a cold, murderous intent.
He finally had a target. Something he could pour all his rage, pain, and humiliation into.
No further orders were needed.
He didn't even look at me again.
This veteran, who'd just been drowning in a collapsed worldview, moved with terrifying smoothness. He shoved a long shell into the chamber, then snapped up that massive shotgun.
Aim.
"Boom!"
A heavy, brutal blast.
A streak of tracer fire tore through the air like an arrow of vengeance and struck the "wizard" square in the chest.
The gaudy-robed charlatan didn't even have time for his confusion to turn into fear.
His entire upper body went off with a wet, explosive whump, like a watermelon bursting under a high-pressure pump, spraying a red-and-white cloud of blood and pulp.
The remaining half of his body swayed. The staff clanged to the floor. The crystal at the top popped loose, tumbled off the balcony, and shattered into powder on the street below.
Then the corpse sagged, dropped to its knees, and slumped forward over the railing, hanging there, motionless.
"For the Emperor!"
Captain Kairen bellowed it like he was forcing every last knot in his chest out through his throat.
That war cry lit the room on fire.
"Kill them!"
"These blasphemous bastards!"
"Wipe them out!"
The surviving soldiers moved like lions waking from a nightmare. Whatever madness had been left in their eyes turned into a tidal wave of hatred. They understood now, at least in their own way, that their disgrace, their hideous behavior, and their comrades' deaths were all because of these cultist scum.
They surged out of cover, roaring, swinging their guns toward the streets, and opened fire on the cultists, who were now just as shaken by their sorcerer's sudden death.
"Bang!" "Boom!" "Scree!" "Whine!" "Clang!"…
Whatever weapons they had unleashed a storm of slaughter that swallowed the intersection in seconds.
Without the sorcerer's "blessing," those cultists dropped right back into being a mob of worthless amateurs. They screamed in panic, tried to fight back, but against trained soldiers burning with fury, their resistance was pitiful.
Las-fire and bullets punched clean through chests, blew heads apart, and seared bodies into blackened husks. Blades, hammers, and saw-toothed weapons tore into flesh, ripping and smashing men into red ruin. Our squad looked like it had finally snapped back into its earlier rhythm, only now it was louder, faster, and far more vicious.
Blood and meat flew.
Screams flared everywhere, then died out one by one.
The entire battle, or rather… the slaughter, lasted less than a minute.
When the last cultist got punched through by Captain Kairen's shot and tumbled off the second-floor railing, slamming into the street below, the intersection fell quiet again.
Only the hiss of cooling barrels, the thick drip of blood sliding down weapon housings, and the soldiers' harsh breathing remained.
The fighting… was over.
I leaned against the wall and slowly slid down to sit on the floor. It felt like all the strength had been sucked out of my body. As the adrenaline faded, a crushing wave of exhaustion and delayed terror slammed in. Looking at the corpses everywhere, breathing in that thick cocktail of blood stink, gun smoke, and ozone, my stomach twisted violently.
The surviving soldiers didn't celebrate.
They stood there, silent, staring at the wreckage, staring at their dead comrades. Every face was wrapped in a layer of darkness and grief.
Then, one, two, three…
They turned.
All of them.
Their eyes settled on me again.
This time, it was even worse.
Before, it had been shock and confusion. Now it was something I couldn't even name, a mix of reverence, gratitude, zeal, and even… fear.
That was not the look you gave a suspect. Not even close.
The stare made my skin crawl. My heart started pounding. What now? What the hell is wrong with you people now?
Captain Kairen slung his oversized gun back across his body and walked toward me with heavy, deliberate steps.
With every step he took, the drumbeat in my chest got louder.
He stopped in front of me, towering over me, his shadow swallowing me whole.
I swallowed hard and looked up at him.
He opened his mouth, like he wanted to say something. His lips moved for a few seconds, but no words came out.
Then he suddenly moved, almost jogging, and dropped into a crouch in front of me. His huge hands, totally mismatched with how precise the motion was, went to work fast, clattering and clicking as he unlocked the manacles on my wrists.
Oh, right. I'd almost forgotten I'd been cuffed this whole time.
And then, in front of me, and in front of every surviving soldier, this cold, brutal, battle-hardened black-armored giant lowered his head.
Slowly.
Deeply.
Then he dropped to one knee.
Clang.
Behind him, the surviving soldiers moved as if they'd received a silent command. Perfectly synchronized, every single one of them dropped to one knee and lowered their heads.
The sound of metal knee-plates striking the ground rang out in the dead air, sharp and heavy.
I went completely blank.
What… what is this?
I had no idea what this sudden kneeling ceremony meant. The atmosphere was so wrong it made my teeth itch. I was just some ordinary modern-day shut-in nerd. How could I possibly deserve a bunch of future SWAT-looking super-soldiers kneeling in front of me?
"Uh… what are you doing?" I stammered.
They stayed kneeling, heads bowed, like they were waiting for my verdict.
Captain Kairen finally spoke again. His voice wasn't shaking anymore. It carried a steadiness that could only be described as… devout.
"My lord."
What?
He called me "my lord."
Not "kid," not "civilian," but "my lord." A title with deference baked into it.
"We… thank you for saving us," he said in a deep, controlled voice. "You dispelled the shadow lodged in our minds, and allowed us to… see what is real."
I could barely follow.
I saved you? I yelled twice and pointed out the asshole on the balcony.
What do you mean "see what is real"? Were you all walking around with cataracts and astigmatism before this?
All I could do was force a dry smile.
"Uh… you're welcome, I guess. Just doing what anyone would do. Really, you were the ones who did it. You wiped out the bad guys in like two seconds."
Captain Kairen raised his head and looked straight at me.
That look said, as clearly as words: You do not need to pretend to be ordinary anymore. We understand.
Understand?
You don't understand a damn thing. I'm the one who understands the least, okay?
My head was throbbing. Talking to a group of guys whose brains had been marinated in feudal superstition felt harder than fighting daemons.
No, wait. In their minds, I just did fight daemons, and I won.
That absurd mismatch between reality and their interpretation made everything feel unreal.
I stared at Captain Kairen kneeling in front of me, the rows of soldiers behind him with bowed heads, and then the blood-soaked mess on the floor.
I realized that even if I didn't understand what had actually happened, something had irreversibly changed after this brutal, senseless fight.
The relationship between me and them would never go back.
I wasn't the suspicious vagrant they'd arrested anymore. Not a babbling nobody. Not a helpless civilian.
In their eyes, I had become something else.
Something I couldn't even define, but definitely something powerful, something you didn't defy.
A chill ran through me.
This… is more terrifying than any daemon.
(End of Chapter)
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