Lars drove an axe made of pure ice into the sting crabs swinging pincer, piercing the heavy chitin exoskeleton with a resounding crack and disabling the monster’s main weapon. With a roar of pure fury Lars drove the axe further into the crack he’d made, twisting and wrenching until with a resounding snap the whole top claw of the crab’s pincer broke off, falling down into the water.

  The crab tried to retaliate with its scorpion tail largely by swinging Ozzy around like a club as he continued shooting into its face. Not having any of it Lars swung upwards, much too close to Ozzy’s face for his liking, and severed the tail by striking one of the joints.

  Falling with the severed scorpion tail Ozzy was donkey kicked backwards into the walkway by Lars who brought his motion full circle with a devastating axe strike downwards into the monsters ruined face. As the axe landed it exploded, sending shards of ice deep into the monster’s face. Lars finished it with another massive icicle, jumping back into the walkway like he’d just gone out for a casual stroll.

  Ozzy pulled himself off of the massive stinger and instantly slipped into his rat form. The effect on his injuries were instantly apparent, he felt a poison that had apparently been slowing and starting to paralyze him fade, the hole in his chest began to close, and he knew momentarily he’d be back in tip top fighting shape.

  There was a little problem with that however, in combat scenarios like the one he was currently a part of every moment was a new world. There were new variables, threats, and allies you had to concern yourself with. Or in Ozzy’s case, one of the caiman dogs.

  While still not entirely sure what the caiman dogs were he was very sure it wanted to eat him. With Lars facing away from him there was little Ozzy had in the way of defenses, he started to try and use different powers, his firearms were completely unavailable to him, but there were two abilities he could use.

  Unwilling to cast a curtain of darkness over Lars Ozzy used the only other power open to him with slightly more force than he’d meant to. Flying upwards towards the ceiling, Ozzy regretted his decision to blindly use the power mid leap.

  Watching him fly upwards, the caiman dog tilted its head in a look of confusion, and animalistic surprise as its prey flew nearly instantly upwards and into the ceiling with a small blast of power. The confusion did not last however, as what goes up must come down and Ozzy was definitely going down, the caiman dog waiting eagerly for his return to earth.

  Readying another blast of powder strike, Ozzy cut the ability short as he watched an axe blade made of ice, fly by once again. It came for the second time much too close for comfort, nearly grazing his little body, and thudding into the floor, directly under where the caiman dogs head had been.

  The caiman dog found the floor a moment later as its head, split in two, came to rest grimly on the floor its contents spilling over the axe head. They gave it a gory coating, the hot insides sticking to the frozen blade and mixing and mingling with the next of Lars’ victims as he put his axe through a fish man and followed through to one of the weird tentacle bundles.

  Despite the rapid and chaotic flow. Of combat around them, Lars seemed right at home. Every other kill or so a brilliant flash of blue power would pulse around him, and he would move even faster. It was like he fed off of the lives of the monsters he slew, each one buffing him and giving him more and more mana and power to throw around.

  He wasn’t limited to just his axe either, he had a number of spells at his disposal. With an outstretched hand, he cast the same icicles he had used to finish the massive sting crab. A swung fist would see him growing a massive, clawed arm which rent and tore through monsters as easily as any blade might have. Not only that, but he could roar, his voice itself becoming a weapon as he stunned the monsters to inaction before tearing them to pieces.

  Watching Lars fight was like watching a master at work. He moved under strikes, dodged wayward attacks, and smote his enemies with all of the precision of surgeon all while wielding an axe that was just as tall and probably just as heavy as Ozzy.

  Without Lars there, chances were that he wouldn't have had a chance to stay in his rat form and heal. But with the big man fighting next to him, he had a chance to not just get back into fighting shape, but to get into peak condition before he rejoined the fight. He was able to regain all of his mana and completely heal, jumping back into human form right as a fish man leapt for Lars' back.

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  Considerate of overpenetration, Ozzy summoned rounds that were similar to the ones he had initially used in his rifle back in the city. They were designed to explode upon impacting something, getting just a few inches beneath the surface of his targets skin before detonating in devastating fashion.

  The fisherman showered Lars and Gore and the beast of a man turn to regard him with a ferocious smile. It was the kind Ozzy might have imagined the berserkers of a long-gone age of earthly warriors might have smiled. The whites of Lars's eyes were bloodshot, and his teeth were bloody, presumably not with any of his own ichor, but that of countless slaughtered monsters.

  A lesser man might have flinched back from oppressive evil grin but Ozzy saw it for what it was. Here was a man who'd been suckered on the tit of violence his entire life, and someone who'd grown to love the carnage for what it was, freedom. As an earthly warrior, Ozzy had once or twice entered a state of flow when his life and the lives of all of his squad mates depended so fully on his abilities that he knew he could not have failed. It was a state of perpetual violence, bloodlust and freeing calm. He knew in those moments that if he'd so much as doubted himself for a singular moment, that everything would have come crashing down. He'd have stumbled and perished for it.

  Lars was in that same state, completely absorbed with protecting Ozzy in his vulnerable rat form. He'd let loose expending more mana than Ozzy could comfortably spend in half an hour. Fighting beside him, Ozzy knew more than anything, this was someone he wanted watching his back.

  As they continued fighting, monsters began to pour up the sides in greater volume as the second and third segments began to move slowly out of the Murk’s kill zone. Leaving all of the monsters that had followed the swamp train with one last shot to get their party on.

  Ozzy found the hammer like the gunslingers of bygone eras, he never so much as lifted the sight to his eyes, relying on instinct and muscle memory as he slapped the hammer back over and over again. Monsters fell by the dozen, turning their walkway into a gory slip inside. It was so hard to get around in fact that they ended up having to abandon their position, moving up a deck just to get the space they needed to fight.

  Thankfully by the time that was necessary they were almost completely out of the kill zone themselves. With only the occasional monster coming up that were quickly cut down by their ranged fighters. It was another ten minutes before they stopped entirely.

  With peace once more restored to the train, they were left with nothing to do but count the dead. It was a dark job and save for a few who were left to guard the lower platforms on each segment everyone gathered to see the damage that had been done to the first segment.

  Ozzy would have been more convinced that a meteor had hit the first segment. The metal beams and platforms had not only been crushed, sheared, and torn through, but in some places, they'd even been worn down and turned to rust. It seemed an impossibility that an animal, even one as terrible as the Hydra could be capable of something of this magnitude. Technology, after all, was one of humanity's greatest strengths. It was how humans had conquered the Earth, back home, if you told someone that anything short of one of the greatest whales, where most ferocious predators have been able to tear into a boat or make it into someone's home, chances were that they wouldn't have believed you.

  Sure, a bear could bring it to someone's house, and there were accounts of great sea animals like orcas and other marine predators sinking small boats. The Swamp Train wasn't a small boat though. It was closer in size to a small cruise ship with more armor than a modern destroyer. Even still, a Hydra had worked its way through each layer of armor to one of the most well-defended positions on the entire train in less than half a minute. It was a testimony to the savageness of this place.

  The bodies, or what remained of the bodies that had once been on this stack, were bones. The only way to tell how many victims there actually had been to count the skulls, of which there were only eight. Yet they knew after a headcount, the actual number of victims was closer to thirteen. Of them, Ozzy was only familiar with one. Lorelai, who'd been in charge of the first segment's range defenses with Dugan had never made it across to the second segment.

  Then there were the supplemental hunters who had been tasked with helping defenses across the different wagons and vessels on the Murk. Five of their number had perished. Dugan had explained that when they'd seen that the Elite Hunters were no longer able to keep back the tide of monsters and the second segment had begun to be overrun. They'd opted to stay on the first segment, knowing that it would be a safer place in a matter of minutes. They hadn't expected the Hydra, however, and had been badly positioned towards the front of the segment and had taken the brunt of the gas attack.

  Then there were the deckhands and crew members. Not true members of the Firelight District, but victims all the same. Colber had lost 5 of them. Finally, two other core users from the ranks of the firelight district had fallen. Both had been tier one, and old friends to a number of the core users here.

  They sat in silence for the fallen, allowing time to pass as they grew ever further from the battle. Sailing off into the swamp.