On the walk toward the heretic encampment, the kid didn't say a single word. He marched ahead of us with mechanical discipline, never glancing back even once. We wanted answers, about the planet, but it was clear we'd get nothing out of him until we reached the main camp.
"Why did they make us land so far away?" Tommy muttered as we followed T-3 across the cracked earth.
"Most likely because their camp is in an active warzone," I said. "The other option would've been to stuff us into drop pods and launch us directly into the battlefield. But we're new arrivals, so that probably wasn't deemed acceptable."
Tommy chuckled bitterly. "If we can keep our anger toward that General contained and not kill him on sight… I believe we could handle a drop pod landing just fine."
I said nothing.
Because the truth was obvious, this wasn't the worst horror out here. Not even close. And deep down, I knew... this kind of atrocity wasn't limited to this world. It was happening all across the universe… everywhere except the sheltered Training Planets.
When we approached the heretic encampment, we saw the same grotesque sight as we had seen on Earth.
Skeletons, actual human skeletons, hung from crude wooden poles surrounding the perimeter. But the real horror was within the camp itself. Unlike the heretics back on Earth, these ones bore grotesque mutations. Some barely resembled humans at all.
They looked like beasts wearing human skin, thorn-like protrusions pierced through their flesh, bone and muscle stretched unnaturally, their frames elongated until they appeared tall, limp, and disturbingly flexible, like flesh puppets, halfway melted.
"How do you even kill mutants like that with such a weak body?" I asked quietly, glancing at T-3.
He simply lifted his shovel. As if that was enough of an answer.
"Alright, kid," Tom muttered, rolling his shoulders. "Let me handle them. I haven't made a killer move since I reached B-Rank." He stepped forward, arm stretching casually as if preparing for warm-up drills. "Raymond, protect the kid."
"But—" the kid tried to protest, but Moriarty knocked him unconscious with a precise strike to the back of his neck.
"Just go," Moriarty said flatly, eyes fixed on Tommy.
In a single, swift motion, Tom vanished from sight, reappearing behind one of the grotesque heretics who had wandered too close to the perimeter of the encampment.
Even though these creatures were C-Rank, they were nothing compared to him. His body could now move faster than the speed of sound… and in the very next instant, he snapped the creature's neck with one effortless twist.
But another heretic noticed.
This one lunged at him with a rusted crowbar, leaping high before bringing it down onto the back of Tom's skull.
CLANK
The impact rang out... but it wasn't the sound the heretic expected. It wasn't wet bone. It wasn't flesh splitting.
It was something metallic. Something dense. A chime with no echo, like striking a dead piece of tempered steel.
The heretic swung again with all his strength, driven by panic.
That blow would have destroyed a normal human skull. It would have split bone like rotten wood. Anyone else would have died instantly.
Unfortunately for him… Tom was not a human anymore.
The crowbar had already struck the back of his skull at least ten times before the heretic realized — Tom's head wasn't even budging.
Tom slowly lifted his gaze, dark eyes locking onto the creature.
That's when the second, more horrifying realization hit the heretic.
He wasn't standing anymore.
Tom had caught him mid-leap — and was still holding him suspended in the air by his throat with one hand.
The moment Tom began to tighten his grip, the heretic's airway collapsed. He couldn't even scream. The pain was instantaneous and absolute — then immediately silenced by suffocation.
The crowbar slipped from his weakening fingers — but Tom snatched it out of the air before it hit the ground. He looked at it thoughtfully, almost… disappointed.
"You know," Tom said calmly, "every time I look at things like you… I wonder one thing." His voice was eerily casual. "Why choose to become this? Why become something so grotesque, when you were always going to die anyway?"
He tilted his head slightly.
"But then I remember… the moment you lot abandoned your faith, you stopped being human."
And with that, Tom slammed the crowbar down into the heretic's skull.
Once.
Twice.
Again and again.
The head was reduced to pulp by the fourth strike, but Tom continued until the crowbar sank deep into a mixture of mud, blood, and bone.
"Yeah… now you look like a good heretic," Tom said with a small satisfied smile as he let the mangled corpse drop. "Because the only good heretic… is a dead heretic."
Before the body even hit the dirt, gunfire exploded across the battlefield.
A storm of bullets screamed toward Tom as dozens of heretics armed with machine guns and improvised artillery began firing without hesitation, without formation, without even fear. Just raw madness.
Dust erupted in a massive wave around Tom's body, swallowing him out of sight entirely.
The heretics began laughing, shrill, broken, unhinged laughter, thinking they had killed a B-Rank monster with sheer numbers.
But while they were celebrating… their camp had begun to grow wet.
At first, it was subtle. A slick shine over the ground. A trickle between boots. Then a warmth that didn't belong to rain or water.
By the time one of them finally looked down and felt something viscous crawling up his ankles... it was already far too late.
With a deafening roar, the earth beneath them burst open as a tsunami of blood erupted upward, churning violently before twisting into a massive whirlpool. The entire encampment was dragged screaming into the rotating tide, limbs snapping and bodies shredding as they were pulled under and crushed.
One after another, every heretic in its reach was devoured, until nothing remained but swirling crimson.
"I was expecting something a bit grander, honestly. He just reached B-Rank. I thought he'd go full spectacle," Ryuk commented as he sat on our shoulder, watching the massacre from afar.
"I agree. He lacks innovation," Moriarty said, contemplating. "But as far as stealth openings go… this is not bad. If he learned to add more complex properties to that technique of his, he could probably wipe entire battalions with one action."
Down below, Tom screamed like a man possessed.
"Come back here!"
Heretics attempted to flee, but the blood vortex kept pulling them back, dragging limbs and torsos into its spiraling core. The whirlpool had grown tall enough now that it was beginning to twist upward, condensing into a tornado of raw, violent crimson. Bone fragments spun inside like shrapnel.
"…At least he's enjoying himself," Ryuk giggled.