The Hammer of War, Chapter 40

Name: Amir Azad
Title: War-Summoner
War Points: 10,000

STR – 38
DEX – 30
VIT – 148

My stats were stagnating. I was gonna have to find a way to get them back up. I could purchase a few stats for War Points, but that was the least-efficient way to get them up. Definitely not worth it.

I passed through a town without a name I remembered. The signs had long since faded. One of them hung by a single bolt, swaying in the cold wind like it was trying to forget where it came from. I stopped at a homeless shelter near the edge of it. A low building with frost on the roof and the stink of sweat and canned food leaking from the cracks in the walls.

Inside, no one asked questions. I took a seat near the back, by a broken vending machine that still hummed like it had a purpose. I kept to myself. Ate a meal that tasted like metal and salt. The man beside me slept sitting up, mouth slack, arms crossed tight across his chest like someone might try to take something from him in the night.

I stayed an hour. Maybe two.

Then I walked on.

The plan was simple. Crude. But simple.

Walk north.

Keep walking until I crossed into Canada. I had my passport. I had supplies. Food sealed in my inventory, clean water, bandages, spare clothes. Enough to last if I moved smart.

Serafall said America wasn’t safe. She didn’t mean the streets. She meant the shadows between them. Too many teeth in this country. Too many things that watched from cracks and doorways and waited for silence to fall.

They’d expect me to run. Expect a plane ticket. A bus. A train. Something fast. Something crowded.

They’d expect a crowd.

They’d expect New York.

But I didn’t want a crowd. I didn’t want a hundred strangers between me and whatever came next. Devils of House Stolas–Helena’s angry relatives–would surely come for me. The Vampires too. And I had something of an inkling as to the possibility that the Hunters, whose warehouse I blew up on account of Sebastian’s trickery, were coming after me too. 

If they came for me, and they would, I wanted space.

I wanted trees.

I wanted a fight on a long road with no lights and no traffic. Just the sound of boots on gravel and blood in the snow. No collateral damage. No innocents dying because some asshole entity didn’t think they were important enough to spare. 

That was safer. For me. For everyone else.

So I walked.

The road stretched ahead, cracked and split in places, the paint lines gone. On either side the woods rose up thick and bare, branches clawing at the gray sky. The wind moved through them in low howls, like a dog pacing a fence line. Mum and I once hiked through here, many years ago. Only now did I wish I’d spent more time with my parents, knowing it’d be a very long time before I’d ever see them again.

I didn’t mind the cold. The coat I wore was lined, but I didn’t need it; I just thought it looked good on me. My blood ran hotter now. Whatever the System had done to me, it had changed more than just the skin and muscles and bones. The 148 Vit points pushed me into a realm that was beyond humanity. Serafall showed me just how high the ladder really was. And how much I’d still have to climb to really get anywhere. But, as of now, I was pretty sure I could survive in the North Pole, buck-ass nude, and live comfortably. 

Snow began to fall sometime past noon. Light at first. Then thicker. It softened the world. Took the sharp edges off the trees and buried the rot on the forest floor.

I passed broken fences, old cars rusted out and stripped. Probably busted down and left behind when no help came. No people. Not this far out. Just birds that scattered when I came too close and deer tracks half-filled with ice.

I kept walking.

Behind me, the city slept. And ahead, the border waited.

Not a gate. Not a wall. Just a place where one country ended and another began. A line scratched across the world by men who had long since died. The road narrowed there. A checkpoint stood silent under the weight of the clouds, glass windows dark, cameras pointed in every direction. Fences stretched out on either side, tall and barbed and rust-flecked, like the bones of something too old to bury.

My plan was not to stop.

I wasn’t going to show papers. Not even for a second. It stood to reason that anything as old and rooted as the supernatural had already wormed its way into the systems of men. Governments. Databases. Machines. Too many cameras. Too many questions. Too many eyes I couldn’t see. If I handed over a passport, it would ping somewhere. And somewhere wasn’t far enough anymore.

They’d know. They’d come.

I wasn’t afraid of them.

But I wasn’t chasing them either.

That was a lesson learned the hard way. Blood and fire and screaming. Faces I didn’t know twisting in the dark. A hotel floor slick with things better left undescribed.

I’d always considered myself deliberate. Measured. Think first, act second. That was how I saw myself.

But looking back, I hadn’t done much thinking at all.

I’d charged in. Half-blind. Half-mad. Riding rage like it was enough to carry the day. And maybe it had been. Maybe the [Blank] aura had done all the real work. Stripped magic from their hands and turned monsters into meat. Without it, I’d be a body cooling in the dirt. Forgotten. Lost.

So, I wasn’t going to reveal myself to anyone this time. The checkpoint would never find me. I’d go around. Over. Through the woods, maybe. Find a break in the fence and slip past like a shadow between headlights. Or I could just jump over the damn wall; it wouldn’t even be hard, honestly. 

Something moved in the woods.

Quick. Heavy. Off to my right.

I stopped walking. Let the wind speak. My ears caught the sound again—snow displaced, branches shifted, not the whisper of deer or the flap of birds but the stomp of boots. Steady. Measured. Weight behind them.

Four sources. Spread out. A meter or so between each.

I stepped off the road.

The forest met me with quiet. The snow crunched beneath my boots. I slid the [Tau Rail Rifle] from [Inventory] and kept it low. My thumb brushed the side panel. The weapon thrummed once. Warmth bled into my shoulder. I activated the [Blank] aura at the lowest setting—enough to strip away spells if it came to it, not enough to kill anything breathing too fast to think.

I stepped past the tree line. The road behind me disappeared in a slow fade of white and gray. Pines stretched tall above, their limbs sagging with snow, the smell of sap and cold bark sharp in the air. I moved quiet. Slow. One hand on the rifle. One foot forward.

Twenty feet ahead, the trees shifted again.

Four shapes emerged from the underbrush. They didn’t try to hide. Didn’t need to. They stopped just short of a dried bed of leaves matted with frost. The snow crunched under their boots. They stood still. Watching.

They looked human.

Couldn’t have been vampires. The sun was out and bright and clear. No cloaks. No smoke curling off their skin. Their eyes weren’t red, and their teeth didn’t gleam.

But they weren’t regular either. I sensed a spark within them, similar to the sparks within the vampires and devils I’d met and fought. Magic, perhaps? Whatever it was, it told me that they were, at the very least, above baseline humanity. 

They wore leather—brown coats, padded armor beneath. They looked professional–or, at least, they looked as though they’d been this way their whole lives. Their hands were gloved. Faces marked. Eyes sharp. Soldiers, or something like it. Their weapons caught the light. Rifles on their backs, handguns strapped low to their thighs, blades tucked into boots and belts. One of them, the tallest, carried a repeating crossbow slung over his shoulder. The bolts were tipped with something pale. Shiny.

Silver.

My grip on the rifle tightened.

They didn’t speak. Neither did I.

The wind moved between us. Carried the scent of metal and pine and old blood. A squirrel darted through the limbs above, stopped, turned, and vanished again.

Devils wouldn’t come like this. They wouldn’t lower themselves with the usage of firearms.

Who the hell were these guys?

Trained. Equipped. Intentional.

Not amateurs.

One of them stepped forward.

His coat moved like oilcloth. Heavy, treated, made for long marches through bitter places. He stood a head taller than me, maybe more. Clean-shaven, with a jaw like old brick. The kind of face that had been carved by bad nights and worse mornings. A silver chain hung at his neck, gleaming faint under the patchy light. It wasn’t for show. None of it was.

He didn’t draw.

Didn’t shift weight. Didn’t twitch.

Just stood there and watched.

The others kept their places. One near a dead stump, another crouched behind a split log, the last in the open, arms crossed, one hand resting on the grip of a sidearm. Spread wide. A net with teeth. If I made a move, they’d close in from all sides.

None of them crossed into the reach of the [Blank] aura.

Could’ve been caution. Could’ve been luck. Either way, they kept out.

The leader spoke first.

“You’re the one who blew up our warehouse.”

His voice was calm. Even. The kind of tone that didn’t leave much room for lying.

I didn’t lower the rifle. But I didn’t raise it any higher, either.

I sighed.

“Yeah,” I said. “I did.”

Another stepped forward. Younger. Shorter. Brown hair, sunburnt neck. His coat didn’t hang as heavy. Looked new. Still carried a stiffness in the shoulders like he hadn’t earned it yet.

“Why?” he asked. “You’re human. Same as us. Why’d you attack us?”

I glanced between them. The tall one didn’t flinch. Neither did the others. No one moved.

“I didn’t mean to,” I said. “Didn’t want to.”

They said nothing.

“I was hunting a Devil. One that took my mother. Threatened to kill her. To get close, I made a deal with a vampire. Sebastian LaCroix. He said if I helped him, he’d help me. His price was your warehouse.”

The tall one blinked once.

“I didn’t know it was yours,” I said. “Didn’t know you were hunters. I wasn’t aiming to hit your people.”

Silence. The wind moved through the trees. It kicked up a curl of old leaves between us. No one reached for a weapon.

“Were you successful?” the leader asked.

I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean?”

He didn’t blink. “Did you find the devil you were hunting?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“And?”

I smiled.

“I beat the shit out of her. Crushed her skull like a melon. Made sure she didn’t get up again.”

The man at the stump shifted. Just slightly.

The one with the crossbow leaned in. “Name?”

“Helena Stolas.”

Something passed between them. A glance. A breath. The weight of a name hitting where it hurt.

The leader stepped forward another pace. Not threatening. Just closer.

“I hope you’re not lying.”

“I’m not.”

Their leader took out a cellphone, dialled something, and then called someone. “Helena Stolas. Yes. No. Mhm. I see. Thank you.” 

He put the phone back in his pocket and turned to me. “You did kill her. The devils are out looking for you–the vampires too. Is that why you’re running?”

The other hunters suddenly seemed at ease by the revelation. Their stances shifted, rigid to less rigid, but far from unguarded. 

I nodded. “Off to Canada, yes.” 

“And from there?” 

“Greenland, and then Iceland, and then maybe hide out in the Faroe Islands.” I said. “I’ll probably just swim the distance. Shouldn’t be too hard.” 

With my infinite stamina, granted by my 138 VIT, it would probably even be easy. 

One of them laughed, but not in a mocking manner. Their leader smiled too. He walked up to me, holding out his hand, and I… decided to deactivate my [Blank] aura. We shook hands. He took off his hat. “Amir Azad, instead of that crazy plan of yours, how about you join us?”