The elite hunter blasted off, leaving them as he went back to work on the Murk line. Ozzy watched him go, his focus not on Colber as it perhaps should have been but on the memory of the man’s smirk. There would be hell to pay for this, he already knew it.

  Gasping and wheezing Colber was looking around in a panic, flopping around like a fish out of water. Everyone just kind of let him, and until Ozzy got down to calm him down no one had even bothered to lift their jaws up off of the ground.

  “What’s going on?” Colber spluttered out, grabbing Ozzy by the front of his jacket and shaking him.

  “Relax man, you were just out of it, you got healed.” Ozzy said, keeping the details light as he tried to calm the man.

  “Out of it? He was dead! The saint pulled him out of the hydra’s gut!” Someone said, and Ozzy looked up to see who it was and glare at them. Tino, one of the newbies. Was standing staring wide eyed down at Colber.

  Emil slapped Tino upside the head, giving him a look that said be quiet or else.

  “Dead?!” Colber shouted, “I was dead?!”

  “You’re fine now that’s all that matters, but right now we need to get you below deck and somewhere safe.” Ozzy said, talking over Colber as he slowly pulled the man to his feet.

  “What the hell happened to me? I’m skinny now?” He said, looking over himself with more and more concern.

  “Tino take him into one of the interior rooms.” Liza said, her authoritative tone a far cry from the nervous mess Ozzy had dealt with earlier.

  “Yes mam.” Tino said instantly, probably more than happy to get away from the fighting.

  Ozzy turned back to the men and women on the top deck with him, of them there were only a few he didn’t know well. Patrick was there, though Ozzy felt he was a decent sort and wouldn’t spread all too much of what had happened. The two he wasn’t sure of were standing off to the side near where Tino had been. One was big hulking beast of a man Ozzy wasn’t sure was entirely human or not, and the other was an elvish woman with silver hair.

  “What are your guy’s names?” Ozzy asked.

  “Lars Pijeon, but you can just call me Lars.” The big man said in a somewhat Swedish accent.

  “Myla.” The woman said, not elaborating further.

  “A pleasure, truly. I would be deeply moved if you both didn’t talk about this to anyone until we’ve talked to Lucy first. Would that be alright?” Ozzy asked, praying the two wouldn’t be difficult.

  Lars shrugged, seemingly totally okay with the idea. Myla took a little longer to respond however, giving Ozzy a long thoughtful look before slowly nodding her acquiescence.”

  “Fantastic, let’s get back to it then.” Ozzy said and was just about to return to the enhancement circle when he felt a connection establish between himself and a higher power.

  “OZZZZY!!!!” The Lord of Powder boomed so loudly in Ozzy’s mind that he immediately got a headache.

  Resisting the urge to not just shout at the god out loud he responded mentally, in an equally explosive mental voice, “WHAT?!?!”

  “That whore of the light has been blocking me from reaching you!” He growled, an anger seeping into the gods voice that Ozzy had never before heard.

  “The goddess of light?” Ozzy asked, as he stepped back into the enhancement emplacements circle.

  “She used her influence and that of her saint to keep me from speaking to and warning you. Conniving ******!” Fauga boomed, shouting something Ozzy was sure was a very rude word in another language.

  Groaning out loud Ozzy looked out at the now calm by earlier’s fight taking place on the segment in front of him. Monsters made their way up the sides and into the walkways but there weren’t nearly enough of them to be an actual problem for the defenders who were rallying and making it slowly but steadily back to their original fighting positions. Helping here and there Ozzy shot into the bigger clumps of monsters with his revolver as the defenders advanced. The violence only helped to slightly quench his anger.

  “They tricked me didn’t they?” Ozzy asked, lining up a shot on one of the piranha looking guys and doming them.

  “Yes.” The god said simply. “The saint kept companions back from defeating hydra to gain sway over you. It was luck the hydra took Colber, but luck the Goddess capitalized on. She belongs to the above, and by their practices could not allow her saint to just to watch the innocent perish. She would have had to resurrect him if you had made a deal with her or not.” Fauga explained, grinding his teeth through every word.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “Then let’s ignore it. She cheated us, lied, and so we do the same.” Ozzy responded, firing on a group of the dog caiman things as he spoke.

  “If only it were so simple. If you did so they could mark you as a traitor, and we would be marked as enemies by the above.” The god said with a sigh.

  “You can’t talk to the other gods in the above about this? The saint guy said she was able to talk to you.” Ozzy asked.

  “They do not listen to me. We are small Ozzy, the goddess of light has thousands of followers in Myreluck alone. She has grown fat with power while all we have is each other, and while there is strength in that it marks me as weak among my peers.” The god explained.

  “So how do we fight back?” Ozzy asked, desperate for an action plan.

  “We do not. I have kept her from poaching you, she cannot pass that line though she may try and that is as much as I can do. You must go to her temple when you return to Myreluck. Or we may both be hunted.” Fauga said, his voice lowering to just above a whisper.

  The connection between them severed and Ozzy resisted the urge to scream. Instead channeling his anger into the revolver as he fanned the hammer into the water. It wasn’t good enough. Summoning his rifle back he shoved a shotgun shell into the breech and took aim at one of the coils of tentacles that was working its way up the side.

  BANG

  A spray of double ought buckshot turned the monster into pink mist and dropped chunks into the water. The shell was nearly three times the size of a normal 12 gauge and had the kind of punch you might expect. It drove back into Ozzy’s shoulder, making him clench his teeth in pain as he dropped the breech and shoved a second shell in. The pain felt grounding, and in that moment all he cared about was dishing out a helping of well-deserved destruction to anything that came aboard the train.

  ***

  As Ozzy’s segment reached the murk the monsters that began trying to board found themselves in for a world of hurt. Ozzy was not interested in using his revolver and any monster unlucky enough to be caught in the shotguns blast were either killed outright or doomed to slow painful existences until they were cleaned up by the rest of the defenders.

  Now that they were fighting close range Ozzy found the length of his firearm to be something of a problem. With normal buckshot he was getting incredibly tight groupings, he solved this problem by using an ammo type he’d only ever heard used and bought once, an S.O.B. slug.

  S.O.B. slugs were what happened when someone started making a frag grenade only to remember they were supposed to be making a slug. The slugs were created with maximum spread in mind, designed on earth solely as a personal defense tool within ranges under 25 meters. Each slug was designed to burst into a bunch of tiny little sharp metal fragments upon exiting the barrel and spread to cover about a man-sized target.

  Despite not being super familiar with the round he did alright the first time he summoned it, managing to get a spread of about a foot and a half which with the amount of fragments a slug of the caliber he was using was outright devastating. He felt like he could do more however. Two ammunition generations later he was spitting out some fragmenting S.O.B. slugs that not only turned the monsters into mincemeat but achieved a spread of nearly three feet at about twenty meters. How that was ballistically possible he wasn’t exactly sure, he was just happy it was working.

  The pace of at the fight began to change as the elite hunters moved further away from the swamp train, killing less of trash mobs and taking less of the attention of the actual problem monsters. This was made very evident as sever tier one and two monsters approached the train nearly simultaneously.

  They were all sting crabs and nearly double the size of the one he’d fought nearly a week ago in the swamp with Emil. Two of the monsters latched onto Ozzy’s side, he heard someone shouting about one on Katie’s side, and another that went for the third platform.

  “Remember about their screams. If they start anyone below tier one is gonna drop.” Emil said, slinging a ball of fire at a leaping monster.

  “Can I shoot them somewhere to keep them from screaming?” Ozzy asked, swapping his shotgun load for the tighter more destructive spread of common buckshot.

  “The mouths, or if you can break the legs and drop them under the water their screams won’t be as bad for us up here!” He shouted and blasted another monster before they could make it up the side.

  Leaning over the edge of the emplacement with his weapon he took aim at the one further from him and fired. Nearly forty pieces of buckshot slammed into the face of the crab. It staggered, began to screech, and let out a wheezing rush of air as chunks of its face were pushed out of position by the high-pressure failure.

  The creature shook with anger, and it lashed out at one of the defenders on a walkway with its tail, Ozzy couldn’t see the result of the attack and could only hope whoever was down there was alright.

  Firing again at the monster he aimed at the exact same spot, drilling into its face and taking out one of the monster’s eyes in a glorious spray of chitin and black blood. It wheezed out again, its single eye locking onto Ozzy as he loaded another shell and fired into its face for a third time.

  Water sprayed up in a geyser as the sting crab fell from the side of the wagon. Its fall was announced by the scream of the crab it had been next to, and piercing gripping pain lanced through Ozzy’s mind as the sound sought to practically boil the insides of his head. It took every bit of will power he had to pull the trigger of the shotgun, giving the screeching beast the same treatment as he had its brother.

  The scream cut off instantly, whatever the monster had used for the attack irreparably damaged by good ol’ American lead. Reloading the shotgun, he leaned back over, ready to end the monster’s story only to come face to face with the crab’s namesake.

  A stinger the size of his arm found its way over the emplacements wall and drove itself into Ozzy’s sternum as he himself lost the ability to scream. He found himself dangling out of the circle, one shotgun short, and unable to notify Emil who was busy with his own stuff as the stinger lifted him over the ledge and into range of the monster’s other weapons.

  Summoning his revolver Ozzy fanned the hammer at the monster’s face. He had no faith in being able to disable one of its claws disabled as he was and simply hoped he’d be able to finish the monster before it pulled him apart. His hopes were unfortunately dashed as the sting crab only looked mildly annoyed and reached a pincer out to end his miserable existence.

  Reloading and continuing to spray despite his weapons seeming ineffectiveness one of the claws was stopped as a shard of ice nearly teen feet long drove itself through the crab’s appendage. It let out another wheezing scream, raising its other to finish the job the first claw couldn’t only for Lars the massive man Ozzy had met on the top deck to leap off of the wagon and land feet first on the crabs ruined face.