Chapter 45: Chapter 45
Michael moved through the abyss and several things became clear relatively quickly. The first was that he was being hunted, the second was that there was a disturbing number of corpses littering the buildings, each one unique and strange.
Although one thing was consistent amongst them all. Not a single one out of the hundreds he came across had any flesh left on their bodies.
The presence currently following him was grew closer with each passing second, but apparently it wasn't going to be much of an issue, because when he finally arrived at the source of light its presence retreated back into the darkness.
Michael looked back into the inky darkness of the abyss, "Huh, alrighty then."
With that he turned back towards the building, which seemed to be an old double story building of some sort. Each window had been barricaded, leaving the front door the only immediately noticeable entrance. A concrete overhang was attached above the door which worked as a front step and held a small campfire that illuminated the darkness.
He could sense people inside the building. Two to be precise, both sitting along the far wall opposite the door.
Normally he'd send in one of the bolts to scout ahead, but the place was locked up rather well, and any attempts at making a hole for the bolt to go inside was likely to be heard by them thanks to the silence of the abyss.
Which left one good option.
Well, relatively good anyways. With a swift kick the heavily reinforced door swung open and Michael rushed into the room.
It was bright inside the room, and off in the corner sat two men playing cards. They didn't look well. Their clothes were in rags and their skin was sickly. Runic symbols were drawn over their bodies using a material he didn't recognize. But their appearance wasn't a reason to be sloppy, so as soon as the door opened he teleported before the men and held his weapons threateningly.
"Stay the fuck at the table and put your hands out where I can see them!"
Neither of them moved and Michael narrowed his eyes.
"Alright, normally I wouldn't be associating with you lot on account of how you both look insane, but today I'm making an exception."
The two men eyed each other, but for the most part they didn't seem all that concerned about him barging into the room. Their eyes looked weirdly dilated and he could smell something weird about their bodies.
One of them lazily turned towards Michael, "Who are you?"
"I'm asking the questions right now. Firstly, I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this, but do you know a way out of here?"
The man gave a halfhearted chuckle, "There ain't no way out of here. If there was then Henry and his crew would've found it by now."
"Who's Henry?"
"You don't need to know, but he should be getting back here soon since you just broke into the place."
"I didn't see a way for anybody to traverse between the buildings on the way over here."
"Well you clearly managed fine."
"Alright smartass, what's with the fire?"
"That? Oh, um, I don't really remember. We just keep it going. Henry gets upset if we don't."
"Uh huh."
They weren't being much help, and the implication that somebody besides himself was able to rapidly traverse through this place wasn't exactly great news.
With a slight mental probe several of the bolts floated up beside their heads.
"Stay sitting where you are. If you try to get up you're going to have significantly less of a forehead."
If they recognized the threat, they didn't show it, instead opting to continue playing their card game.
Michael moved away from the duo and began to walk towards the stairs, which somebody had taken the effort to rebuild and make face the right way up.
He only made it a couple steps up before he felt them. Dozens, no this was probably a hundred creatures approaching the building.
Michael sighed and went down the stairs where he quickly stepped out the front door and onto the overhang.
There he could see them jumping from building to building. They held onto torches and their bodies were worryingly skinny. If he wasn't watching them perform these physical feats himself, he'd assume they'd have trouble even standing on their own.
Each one was wearing a deer skull over their face, some of them even appearing to have caved in parts of their face so it would fit more snugly.
After a moment Keith spoke up, "Michael, those are Wendigo. You might want to get out of here."
He scoffed, "It doesn't matter what they are. I need to ask them some questions."
"Alright, your funeral."
They stopped approaching once they reached the neighboring buildings, and one quickly pushed his way to the front of the group. He was larger than the others, with his body being somewhat muscular instead of the starved state the rest were in.
"What manner of creature are you? Has the demon child finally eaten something new?"
While the monster talked, many of his men began to jump to neighboring buildings in an obvious attempt at surrounding him.
"A creature who avoids the fall into the abyss on his own is rather unique. A threat of an unknown degree, and a rather appealing opportunity."
"I'm going to ignore the ominous speech. Just tell me if you know a way out of here."
Michael's heart began to beat louder.
"There is none, but we'd never leave even if we could. On the outside, our hunger is a lingering threat, a constant danger to our lives, but here, here it is simply a pain that we endure."
The creature's eyes narrowed behind the skull.
"Do you know of hunger? Because I don't think you do."
Michael glanced towards the starved men crawling over the neighboring buildings, "I see where this is going and I'm gonna go ahead and let you know that this isn't a fight you can win."
The monster ignored him.
"Hunger is a pain that leads to madness. An ailment with no cure, but…"
Michael's heart beat rapidly.
"There is a temporary remedy, and no matter how short a time it sates you, it's enough. You do anything to make the hunger go away, not that you would understand. I can tell, you've never been truly hungry. Which is why this hunt is a mercy. Now you'll never have to experience true hunger."
Raw emotion continued being siphoned from the monsters as the heart slowly woke up and seemed to be in a rather bad mood.
"Boy, this isn't something you should be feeding me. Have some standards for god's sake, this is barely an emotion. You can't go and feed me with a sense of starvation! It's just not proper; it's a contradiction!"
"Well maybe I'd take your input more seriously if you didn't spend all your time sleeping."
The heart scoffed, "I can only tolerate you for so many hours a week."
Michael huffed "Yeah sure."
Suddenly a lone wendigo grew impatient and jumped from a neighboring building towards him. Its jaw opened revealing canine-like teeth behind the deer skull, and its arms stretched out towards Michael who simply sidestepped out of the way and swung his mace into the monster's head, turning it into red pulp that fell down into the abyss alongside the body.
Although it didn't make it ten feet before being pierced by a barbed spike attached to a chain.
Michael's eyes followed the rope and saw several other wendigos pulling the corpse back up towards their building.
He could also feel the leader wendigo staring daggers at him behind the deer skull.
"You would waste food?"
Michael watched as several of the wendigos began to rip pieces of flesh from their dead kins body and shove it into their mouths.
"Well, I wouldn't really consider that food, but yeah sure, what not?"
The wendigo narrowed his eyes.
"Kill him."
With that the swarm leapt from their buildings, and Michael waited for the fastest among them to reach him before disappearing with a flash of light and teleporting behind the leader wendigo who'd simply been standing there observing.
The mace came down like a rocket, impacting the top of the wendigo's head and sending him into the ground.
Cracks spread throughout the concrete where he landed, and he didn't seem to be moving to get up. His body quickly began to sag weirdly as if its structural integrity had been completely removed.
The heart beat loudly, "Ah, that was delicious. Do that again."
Michael poked the wendigo with his boot, "What'd you do to him?"
"What? Oh him? I consumed his bones. Now get back to it; I'm still hungry."
Michael watched as the body continued to cave into itself, and how the other wendigos seemed more hesitant now that their leader had died.
Their hesitation was a mistake. He sheathed his mace, quickly pulled out his crossbow and began to fire into the crowd.
Holes erupted in the Wendigo's bodies as they scurried across the buildings. Some fell into the void as they began to lose limbs, and others decided the only way out of this was to kill him.
Many of them died in the initial rush to jump to his building, but more made it over than fell, and they quickly began to swipe at him with superhuman strength and razor-sharp claws.
Not a single one hit.
Michael moved amongst the attacks, and either filled the monsters with bolts or killed them with a swift kick to the side. Either one was fatal.
His strength had long since transcended humanity, and he'd even beat the Demon prince of Pride in a fight twice. This was like fighting children in comparison.
Every Wendigo he touched fell into a puddle of flesh and skin as his heart's ability took effect, and not long later their grand army had become nothing more than a small group of monsters.
And then the few remaining became nothing but bodies on the floor.
Michael stood amongst them, blood had covered his body and after a short moment he began to curse to himself. They could've been such a great source of information.
Keith scoffed, "Hey idiot, you should've left at least one alive. That would've been the intelligent play to make, but I know you struggle in that department so I can't fault you too much."
"God you're such a prick, but... you're right this time. I guess I'm still pissed that the foundation trapped me here and it's been affecting my judgment.
He took a deep breath to calm himself and swiped some of the gore from his body. Getting out of here was going to be a chore, but at least he could still try to question the men inside the building.
He began to walk towards the window when suddenly the last lit torch laying upon the ground finally went out, and something tackled him through the concrete wall.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone