章 8: Otherworldly Beings

Gunpowder, burning lead roars and stubborn fury; the bullets were ceaselessly fired one after another like a blur, all while Oren kept her distance away from Stehno deadly grasp.

"Freakish zombie." Stehno grabbed one of the metal bars that acted as the house's tall fence.

And ripped it out from the ground like a glorified metal stake, chucking it at the zombified Oren.

The spinning amalgamation of terror nearly grazed Oren's forehead, cutting a couple of hair strands in the process.

But then the high velocity motion suddenly stopped afloat.

It was only a brief moment, but Oren managed to discern a thick strand of fiber already tied in knots onto the flying fence, and it could be trailed back onto the firm grasp of Stehno's right hand.

"Freakish gorilla!!" Oren shouted with whatever vigor was left to spare, her grasp on her own weapon crumbling by the second.

Stehno pulled the rope connected to the fence and yanked the makeshift flail down to the earth, Oren's clothes grazed by the sharp edge as she moved out of the way, the pavement cracked upon impact.

An unorthodox fancy move that managed to tear through Oren's sweat suit, but it left the 'gorilla' open for hot lead.

She forcefully lifted her frail limb to fire her gun––

Only for the conclusive click of an empty magazine to pop out.

In the middle of reloading, it was then she realized how her waist felt lighter. Some of her spare magazines had disappeared somewhere in the middle of this fight.

She still possessed enough ammunition to take down multiple people, but would this amount be enough to take down an unnatural powerhouse such as Stehno?

Just as she flicked her attention forward again, she immediately found what was missing. One hand crushing multiple entire magazines filled with active rounds within her grip. Small sparks of explosive force could only give her a mere third degree burn.

On the other hand, Stehno had a single cartridge placed on her index and thumb, a knowing expression on her face.

"You want this?"

In quick successive motion, the cartridge was suspended in the air before the primer was hit like a hammer by a mere flick.

"It's all yours."

Unlike Stehno, Oren doesn't have the superhuman speed to read a bullet trajectory, let alone be able to avoid them. The brash lead struck Oren's chest like a spear.

It wasn't really anything to be concerned about normally, considering that Oren had an anti ballistic vest underneath her sweat suit. But the impact from the bullet still sharply spread through her torso like a sledgehammer but three times worse.

That was enough of a window for Stehno to advance.

Oren didn't let Stehno take advantage of it however, and began to fire more of her rounds as she hoped that one of them would land on her target, readying her knife impromptu.

The messy firefight and close quarters combat hybrid had made this part of the neighborhood a living 'death hand' for anyone in the vicinity. Concretes were crushed, and walls were riddled with holes.

It was only after the sound of a shattering glass that both of them stopped in their tracks.

The shattering of Occam's window.

Shivers and distraught began to envelope their senses of reality. With Stehno who made the first move, she bulldozed the concrete and metal fence with her inhumane tackle.

The sounds of the battlefield were replaced by panicking taps of soles and the ground. Quickly after, the front door of the house was breached, which prompted an alarm to echo throughout the room, a panicking cacophony.

Oren who worriedly followed suit noticed a couple of men in suits who were put in a deep-sleep laying on the floor, possibly before she arrived here.

It didn't take a minute for them to find the lifeless body of Occam on the floor of his room.

"But, I've reinforced it…" Stehno muttered. She was on the verge of breaking down, but her last reserve of willpower was able to keep her mind straight.

She swore to herself that she had already replaced every window in this house with bullet proof glass throughout her periodic visit unknown to Occam himself.

So, for a mere stray bullet to shatter the glass to this extent, something sinister lies amidst this vicinity.

Stehno approached the lifeless body of her childhood treasure.

There within the hole on Occam's forehead, faint strokes of golden string arose from the miniscule pool of blood.

They resembled a rising bough, something that wasn't supposed to exist within this world.

"Aaaaah… aaa… I… This… These sinful hands…"

On the corner leaning to the wall with heavy, battered breathing, was Oren, who thought that she had killed her one and only guiding light with her very own hand.

As tears ran down from both of her denying eyes, a miserable, forced manic smile appeared on her face as she shakily pressed the barrel of her gun onto her chin.

"Please…! Cease this wretched life of mine!"

"YOU DARE!!???"

Just as Oren was about to press the trigger, Stehno yanked her wrist away, a stray bullet firing into the ceiling instead.

Following that, Stehno shoved her burnt hand onto Oren's mouth, preventing her from biting her tongue.

The two formerly dissonant gazes were never this close to meet with one and another.

"You just got here, so you don't know that every window here can stop at least more than five Russian 7.62mm lead core, full metal jacket loads!!

"The breaking of the glass is precisely done by a single projectile, look at those cracks!! A mere shot from your gun won't be able to do this!!!" Stehno's voice shouted like a figurative slap, trying to reason the supposed tenacious woman away from killing herself at first sight.

If she was ever going to hope finding what monster was responsible for the death of her beloved, of Occam Chariot, then she needs as much help as she possibly could—

The world went dark.

There was not a scent of blood, not a faint sunlight veiled by curtains, nor the shrill whistle of wind through the cracked window. It was dark, it was silent, and it was sudden.

As if something had scooped them out, reality blipped as they stood and sat in a never ending abyss. It took the even sharp Stehno a few seconds to register what happened.

"Make a circle~ make a circle~"

Childish voice of a little girl sent shivers down the spine.

"Just so that you can't escape~"

There were ripples. Without knowing it, both of them were lightly drenched from the shallow water that appeared out of nowhere, encompassing the lonely world.

"Make a circle~ make a circle~"

Oren's mind soon also caught up in all of her stupor, incoherent and panicked mumbling for Stehno to let her go, the freezing puddle now stained red from her wounds. Yet, they did not stung.

There was a wet breath; a foreign voice, pressed right behind their ears and neck.

"What game shall we play~?"

Above them, appeared a giant face of a girl with a black blind covering her eyes. That was what they thought at first, until they traced the rest of her red-kimono-covered squirming shadows of a body.

"Let's not decapitate them, Nobuko."

An enchanting voice broke the tension. It was like a distant bell during a clear sunny day, ringing through an illustrious forest, yet lingered an overwhelming unknown emotion. Clarity returned to Stehno and Oren, washing off any sense of adrenaline and raw anxiety.

A gust of wind came from the giant's mouth as words sanctioned themselves to them. The blinded gargantuan named 'Nobuko' smirked..

"Pay your respect to Yujin-no-Mitama, mortals."

In the distance—it was a torch, a flickering torch that shifted its hue and gradient color from gold, to black, and to gray periodically. Holding the torch, was a monstrous dorsal arm attached to a beautiful petite woman, or at least how it was appeared to be, with smooth porcelain skin, covered by an ancient dress of white kimono with red maple leaves patterns, converging with lines of golden unknown-symbol inscription all over the silky smooth surface of the dress.

That was the appearance of the upper body. What lies beyond the human-like figure was but a monstrous half bowl-shaped cauldron coated in throbbing veins, filled with a meaty warmth that enshrouded the connecting of the two contrasting parts. Sharp and crustacean-like quadratic legs supported this walking cauldron, with a frontal giant mouth that showed rows of sharp triangular teeth.

"Fufufu, the person you're looking for has already left the vicinity of this world to the next. I daresay."

With sharp eyelashes, this divine being had a peculiar but charming set of perpetually-elated yet sadistically half-lidded eyes, with the opened gap of the sclera and its dark iris shaped similarly to a set of a mirrored yin that was separated from the yang. Gazing from those eye sockets were the pitch black pupils with two glowing-gold concentric circles at the center.

"Not to mention, he might have already been reborn at this very moment as we speak. Although, unlike any normal reincarnation, he seems to possess the memory of when he lives in your world."

Trailing and fluttering as her monstrous half traveled forward and closing distance, was her long and straight hair with the same color as the concentric circles of her eyes—beautiful, and majestic gold.

"It also happens that 'we' need some 'Meisters' from this world to be there on the other side, for a reason that's beyond the comprehension of any mortals.

Having thin dot-like eyebrows on her showcased forehead as her last prominent face feature, she wore a sinisterly enigmatic yet calm and elegant smile.

Maybe it was a smile of reassurance to everything that was facing her, or maybe it was a smile of godly amusement. All details of her appearance exuded grandiose divinity and mystery, along with the possible eternal hope and eternal despair.

With an innocence yet devilish smile, she reached out her hand. "Would the two of you be willing to become these special 'Meisters'?"