David had watched Henderson and Theo for a few hours from the stream until after the severely unfortunate encounter with the ogre. They hadn’t convulsed, or showed any signs of imminent internal collapse. Seems stable enough. He took a long drink from his own bottle. The water carried a distinct, unpleasant flavor of wet earth and something vaguely chemical. Simeon’s signature cleaning technique at work. That’s another mark on his ledger. He knew scouring whatever demonic element in the can was a miserable task, but a little more elbow grease wouldn't have cost the man his life. He finished the bottle, tucked a full one into his pack for later, and picked up another.

  David approached the two women. Rhea looked up, her gaze as analytical as ever. Mara sat beside her, her posture as composed as it had been for hours. That composure was the problem.

  “For you,” he said, offering the water to Rhea. His attention was fixed on Mara.

  Rhea took the bottle. “Any interesting aftertastes?”

  “Just the classic notes of rust and regret.”

  He looked directly at Mara, sat beside Rhea. You have a skill you’ve never used. People have died. Not the ogre—that was a force of nature. But before. When Levi died. You just watched. The thought was a cold, hard knot in his mind that had little to do with saving lives. It was about an asset being withheld, a tool left to rust in the shed while the house burned down. Her secrecy was either profound cowardice or a long-term play for power. Both were unacceptable liabilities.

  He felt his anger surge, a rare occurrence. The impulse to confront her was a sharp, physical tension in his jaw. One question. 'What can you raise from the dead, and why is it still a secret?' It would be so simple. The fallout would be immediate and manageable. Eliminate the variable.

  Mara met his stare, her own expression neutral. “Is there enough for everyone?”

  He held her gaze for a second longer, the calculation complete. Not here. But soon. His thoughts were already on the specifics of a future reckoning.

  “Evans is managing it,” David said, his tone flat and final. He turned and walked away. The confrontation was shelved, a stay of execution for later in the day. If she wouldn’t use her skill against the ogre, he would kill her himself.

  He arrived at a wave of anxious mumbling and pointed complaints rose from the main huddle of survivors. David saw Evans wading into it, hands raised in a placating gesture. Let him be the shock absorber. David moved to the periphery, leaning against a bent strut from the outer metal. The noise became a distant, white-noise hum of fear. His purpose is to manage the chorus. Mine is to ignore it.

  His eyes landed on the younger girl with the cat, the almost but not quite-child. She had separated herself from the adults, running into the forest when the ogre appeared, which suggested a decent knack for survival despite her age, now she was sitting with her back to a tree. How had she made it back? A maybe-11 year stuck in a forest. Was everyone in Gen Alpha born with a compass? David wondered, before thinking, Oh, in realization. In her lap was the grey Scottish Fold, a creature of pure feline domestication. That thing is a decorative pillow with a heartbeat. Its entire evolutionary strategy was finding a comfortable lap and meowing until food appeared. The cat was now patting a piece of raw warg meat with its paw, a trophy it had clearly been gifted. They ran into the woods. The girl had likely found her way back to the wrecks by following the one creature hardwired to seek out a human servant. Useful, lucky for her.

  A handful of people, driven by hunger outweighing fear, finally tried some of the cooked warg meat. The new waiting period began. If they’re still vertical in a few hours, I’m claiming a share. He couldn’t wait too long; even cooked, the meat could go sour—though he had no idea how long it would take for magical demon meat to rot—perhaps it never did? Cooking the meat solved that issue in the short term, made it safer, killed bacteria and other dangerous elements. Only time would tell. He could already picture the fresh cycle of moaning and the long queue for the only lavatory it would generate, and decided to invest even more points into constitution after his next gains. Fortunately, we have a full-time complaint department manager.

  He would eat, save some, and then do his best impression of part of the wreckage. Rhea, as the one who’d actually killed the thing, deserved her larger cut. The rest was for Evans and Corbin to manage. It wasn't like they had refrigeration; wasting food was a special kind of stupidity.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  He took another drink. The cat immediately looked up, detached itself from the girl, and streaked over to him. Its young owner watched from her tree, having wisely distanced herself from the drama. The cat sniffed, let out a purposeful mew, and started rubbing its head firmly against his leg. Its tail did a twitchy little ritual, and its folded ears swiveled independently. It’s performing a resource audit. I’ve been categorized as a utilities station.

  He exhaled softly. He cupped his hand, poured a small pool of water into it, and held it out. The cat drank efficiently, then scoured his palm with its rough tongue. It stopped, looked directly at him, and delivered a crisp, interrogative “Mrrp?” Concluding the tap was off, it pivoted and trotted back to the girl, meowing what sounded like a detailed service review. The water supply is now a pressing logistical issue.

  The idea of going back to the stream and maybe meeting that Ogre again was deeply unappealing. Then again, dehydration has a certain straightforward finality to it.

  Some time later, with the meat-eaters still functional, he ate a large portion of the tasteless, chewy meat. It was caloric intake, nothing else. Rhea took her share and gave some to her friend, Mara, and then a large amount to the kids, which, predictably, triggered another round of background grumbling.

  As David sat near the torn fuselage finishing his last scraps, the Scottish Fold launched into a repeat performance. It sprinted over and bonked its head against his knee with zero hesitation.

  The sheer, unvarnished gall.

  He sighed, tore off a few slivers of meat, and offered them. The cat consumed them, decided the buffet was closed, and bolted back to its owner, announcing its successful mission. The precision of the repetition was so exact he briefly considered the possibility of the cat memorizing his actions and timings. At least the routine is reliable.

  David shifted under the shadow of the plane's belly, putting the bulk of the wreckage between himself and the others. The space was his alone. Most of the group had retreated back into the fuselage above after getting their share of the cooked warg, and the few who remained in the clearing stood close to the torn entrance, preoccupied with their own quiet anxieties. He had been the first to leave the metal shell; the rest had needed two full hours of hunger to overcome their fear of the ogre's return.

  He glanced up. Rhea was a silhouette on the roof, a stationary sentry. Good. That's a practical use of her time. He felt the distinct pulses of mana emanating from her position, a concentrated energy centered around her eyes and the immediate area around her body. This close, he could even perceive it as a faint shimmer through the plane's metal skin. His own demonic energy responded more readily now, making the pulses clearer. She's drilling her Distant Gaze skill. And probably that Telekinetic Tug.

  He recalled the fight with the werebeast warlock, the way heat energy had supercharged his sword, making it vibrate and cut through magical defenses. Now, with his heat reserves empty, he relied on Rhea's watch for a fraction of his security. He focused on practicing his demonic energy manipulation, his mastery skill flaring to life.

  He concentrated on the crystal dagger in his hand, pushing demonic energy toward it. The effort was significantly harder than channeling power into his own limbs. Is it the material? Or is it just farther from the central mass of energy in my chest? He had to expend more demonic energy to bridge the gap, a constant, deliberate push. His goal was to reinforce the weapon, to see if demonic energy could produce a similar enhancement to heat. Maybe it would improve its cutting power or alter its physicality. He had no clear expectation.

  The process was frustrating. I have no idea what I'm doing. It's like being a dog told to pilot a submarine. The analogy felt apt. He was working with forces he didn't understand, pushing buttons in a cockpit written in a foreign language. The ignorance was annoying. But with each small, hard-won sensation of control, a thread of genuine engagement surfaced. It was a puzzle. It was his puzzle.

  He pushed a sustained flow of demonic energy into the blade.

  The black crystal seemed to drink the light around it, becoming a deeper shade of void. A faint, purple-black shimmer, like heat haze from a tar road, bled from the edge. The surface of the dagger felt suddenly colder. Then, thin, jagged lines of crimson light etched themselves across the flat of the blade, writhing slowly as if alive.

  A low hum started to emanate from the weapon, a sound that felt like it was vibrating in his bones rather than in the air. The air around the dagger grew heavy and thick. A foul, sulphuric smell, like ozone and burnt hair, pricked his nostrils.

  From the point of the dagger, a tiny patch of air tore open with a sound like ripping silk. It was a hole the size of his thumb, revealing a swirling, chaotic darkness within. A creature clawed its way out, dropping onto the scorched earth with a wet plop.

  It was small, no larger than his hand. Its skin was slick and grey, stretched taut over a spindly frame. Two pinpricks of malevolent red light burned where its eyes should be. A whip-like tail, tipped with a venomous-looking barb, lashed the air. It opened a needle-filled maw and let out a high-pitched, chittering hiss, fixing its gaze on David.

  “What the fu—” David’s sentence died in his throat as he drove the still-humming dagger down, pinning the small, hissing thing to the dirt. He didn’t wait to see if it was dead. He ripped the blade free and stabbed it again. And again. On the third strike, the creature burst into a wisp of acrid, purple-black smoke that vanished into the air. He stared at the empty spot, the dagger’s crimson sigils slowly fading from view.

  [Demonic Energy Mastery Lvl 2 > Demonic Energy Mastery Lvl 3]

  [Portal Magic Lvl 1]