Two days later.
The Carlos brothers came out of the workshop looking like they had wrestled the devil and won.
Dark circles under their eyes. Clothes covered in burn marks. Hair a disaster.
But they were smiling.
"Done." Carlos the elder said.
He held out three weapons.
Arthur walked over without a word.
The first was a massive two-handed sword. The blade was carved from windigo bone, dense and slightly translucent at the edges, the hilt wrapped in cured hide. It was three feet long and had the weight of something that could cleave a tree in half.
Jack reached out and took it.
"....heavy." He said.
"That's the point." Arthur replied.
The second was a pair of short blades for Leon. Lighter, faster. The edges had been filed to a razor point. They looked deceptively simple.
Leon weighed one in each hand.
"Not bad." He admitted.
Then came Arthur's.
Carlos the younger held it out almost reverently.
It was a rod. About two and a half feet. Hollow in the center as instructed, thick enough to hold its shape under force. At the head, the bone had been shaped into a wide, flat disk.
"You wanted something at the base too." Carlos the elder pointed to the foot of the rod.
There, a pointed spike had been added. Sharp as anything they had ever made.
Arthur picked it up.
He turned it over in his hands.
(Perfect.) He thought in his mind.
"What is it?" Leon asked.
"A breaker." Arthur said simply.
In his previous life, he had seen a weapon like this once, used by a heaven race warrior. It was designed for fighting armored opponents. The disk head could be used to lock an enemy's blade. The spike at the base could be driven into joints. The hollow center would later serve another purpose.
Something he wasn't ready to reveal yet.
"You two did well." Arthur looked at both Carlos brothers.
They straightened up a little.
"Don't get used to the compliments." He turned away. "I need you to start on the next batch. There should be enough bones left from the frogs."
"What are we making this time?" Carlos the younger asked.
"Arrowheads. As many as you can."
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Meanwhile,
In what remained of a Delta city police station, a man sat behind a desk that was two sizes too small for his frame.
He was a mountain of a person, broad shoulders, a scar running down from his left temple to his jaw. He had cropped grey hair and the kind of eyes that had seen too much.
His name was General Raymond Hoske. Retired.
Before Orlong appeared, Hoske had spent thirty years in the military. When the chaos started, the government pulled him out of retirement and handed him a badge and the words, "sort it out."
He had been sorting it out ever since.
"Sir." A young officer stepped in through the door. "We've finished counting last night's casualties."
Hoske didn't look up from the map.
"How many."
"Eleven dead, six critical."
He let out a slow breath.
"And the team that repelled the attack?"
"...we haven't been able to identify them sir." The officer shuffled uncomfortably. "But the world leaderboard still lists Heaven Destroyer Party as number one."
Hoske finally looked up.
"Find them."
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
A week passed.
Arthur's routine became iron.
Morning: training with Leon and Jack. Afternoon: a hunt. Night: review, plan, sleep.
He was moving fast. Deliberately.
[Name: Arthur Naldir
Physical Strength: 22
Stamina: 145
Speed: 27
Will Power: 200
Class: (not selected)
Level: 7
Exp: 320/3000]
Level 7.
Not bad for a week. Not as fast as some, but Arthur wasn't chasing raw levels. He was chasing the right kills.
Every beast he hunted was chosen for a reason.
The grin frogs gave him field discipline and venom.
The Crater Wolves gave Jack his first solo kill and pushed Arthur's speed to a new high.
The Shadow Crawlers that came three days ago were the worst. They were invisible in darkness and hunted by heat. Two of them had cornered Leon against the farmhouse wall.
He nearly died.
Arthur had gotten there in time.
Just.
"You're getting careless." Arthur had told him after.
Leon had said nothing. He didn't argue. He trained twice as hard the next morning.
That was why Arthur kept him close.
Leon understood.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
"Arthur."
Carlos the elder stepped out from the workshop with a look on his face that Arthur had learned to recognize. The one that meant a discovery.
"You need to see this."
Inside the workshop, the second Carlos brother stood over the workbench with a small vial in his hand. Inside it was a liquid with a faint greenish shimmer.
"We distilled the venom sac like you said." He explained. "But when we were processing it, we noticed something. If you combine the extract with the bone ash from the smaller frogs..."
He set the vial in a holder and held a small strip of windigo bone over it.
"Watch."
He dipped the bone strip into the compound.
For a moment nothing happened.
Then the surface of the strip began to harden. A dark layer forming over the surface like a second skin.
"It bonds to bone material." Carlos the elder said quietly. "If we apply this to the weapons—"
"Do it." Arthur said before he could finish.
Carlos the elder blinked. "We haven't tested how durable—"
"Start with my breaker. Then the others." Arthur said.
(If what I think is right, this compound will do more than just bond.) He thought in his mind. (The venom stays active even after curing. The weapons will carry the paralyzing effect on impact.)
He kept that part to himself.
"We'll need more of those venom sacs." Carlos the younger said.
"I'll get them." Arthur turned and walked out.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
That night,
The world leaderboard updated.
[World Team Leaderboard
1. Heaven Destroyer Party — 47 kills
2. Iron Vanguard — 31 kills
3. Eclipse Squad — 28 kills
4. ...
5. ...]
Arthur looked at the number two spot.
Iron Vanguard.
He remembered that name.
In his past life, Iron Vanguard had been a powerful faction. Militarized, well-funded, government-backed. They rose fast and burned out faster. Their leader was a man named Callum Drake. Ruthless to his core.
He would eventually betray Arthur in this timeline too, if history repeated itself.
'I won't let it reach that point.' Arthur thought in his mind.
He closed the leaderboard.
There was still a long way to go.
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