Lord Joyde The Madman: Hey, everyone! How have you all been?

Sure has been a long, long time.

A lot has happened. Too much to say in but a few short sentences, really.

At the very least, my life has finally become... stable, for now.

A few moments afterwards... - Lucius' Point Of View...

Without another wasted moment or breath, I felt myself charge forward, the ripstag I just devoured already completely forgotten. My newest target however, appeared to be a large, robust and very much armed man.

Though, not exactly dressed in the same colors as our glorious governments army, but a shackled-together combination of black road leathers and combat belts."HOLY FUCKING SHI- SHOOT! Shoot! Damn you!" His body was quite robust indeed, not exactly completely muscled, nor something you'd call fat.

His head was clean shaven, which made his panicked expression all the more comical as the aforementioned head was blasted off of his body with a single strike of my right arm, the blood splattering the ground much like an artist's brush dances across the canvas."GRHROOAAR!" A loud, unfamiliar sound ruptured through my throat and unto the world, waking the other twelve soldiers out of their stupor.

Eight of them started shooting, most with poor accuracy, while the other four were all the way in the back, one standing perfectly still, frozen in fear. The other three? They started to run.

...

I can feel my blood boiling.

Rushing.

Urging me..

TO CHASE AFTER THEM!

The bladed grass rustled and the leaves gave whimpers of horror as I rushed through the hail of bullets, not stopping even as something heavy tore through my right shoulder and left knee. With another surge of adrenaline, I felt myself leaping into the air towards one of the fleeing trio, completely passing by the frozen guy as I landed on top of my fleeing target, crushing his entire lower half into the dirt, my tongue immediately flying out of my mouth, intending on severing the next guy in two. To my surprise, the man seemed to sense this and, in one truly epic motion, shot the guy next to him with a pistol before throwing the body at my tongue, which was then promptly torn apart.

A moment of silence passes as the splendid coward and traitor continues to run, causing even the soldiers behind me stop shooting in shock.

Then my foot crushed the remainder of the one below me, eliciting a wondrous scream to echo through the forest. I turned around just in time to get shot in the eye, causing a surge of pain unlike any other to ravage my brain. It was then that I finally realized what exactly I was fighting. Every single one of these motherfuckers had a meter and a half long, blue rifle.

Anti-AI guns.

A brief flash of memory strikes my vision as I remember that this HZ was close to an android construction facility. In other words, these guys are anti-government saboteurs. The sound of another shot rang through my ears, thankfully it was also one that missed, which served to wake me from my stupor. A deep fear rose up from within me, the terror of a potential death.

My clawed hands trembled for a brief moment and I hesitated, part of me considered running away. However, running away now, getting some ground between myself and them.. would be a bad idea. Those rifles are incredibly inaccurate at short range, which is likely why I've even lived this long. And so, one eyed and bleeding from wounds I've yet to discover, I focused myself, sent my bladed tongue in an arc forwards and aimed in between two people, who artistically dodged the assault and allowed me to impale a third man through the chest.

Wasting no time, I charged forward, slicing off another soldier's legs by the knees with a return of the tongue as I sent a full-body kick into the most armored man in the group, took his rifle and turned to throw it. Just as I launched the rifle at the soldier behind me, he also took his shot, his eyes filled with cruel intent and I watched in disbelief as the heavy bullet tore through the same form of weapon meant to fire it, eventually raking through one side of my throat."AARUUUUUUUGH!" Another howl echoed through the forest as I grit my teeth, panic taking over as I didn't even bother checking out the damage he dealt to me. Instead, just as he leaped backwards in order to reload, I charged forward, extending my own mouth much like I did when consuming the ripstag.

"SHIT! SHIT SHIT! SH-*snap*" He wasn't fast enough. And who can blame him? Those osmium bullets are likely heavier than six or even ten kilograms. As I devoured the man, I felt a surge of energy coursing through me which caused a forced chuckle to escape me. This one, was a worthy kill, but somehow, I also know, that the one who ran, would be worth so much more.

On the notion of people fleeing me, the rest of the soldiers dropped their weapons and ran away as quickly as they could."RETREAT! SITE DELTA-1299! RETREAT!" For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to give chase.

In fact, I promptly fell over as I finished my feast, surprisingly leaving only my enemies head and left leg intact. Suddenly, the grey and red world around me stopped blaring and had its colors slowly returning as I seemed to grow smaller and smaller. Ah, actually, I'm just transforming back into human form, ain't I?

Immeasurable torment raked across my body, as my bones broke and flesh sundered itself, constricting the very muscle and organs within. I was left twitching and squealing in horror after the ordeal.

"OH COME ON! I will do so much worse to you if you don't quit that ceaseless, infernal shrieking!" Lu's voice intruded rudely, but I can't say it wasn't expected by now."E-easy for y-y-you to s-say, assh-hole!" With that said, I forced myself to stand up, checking myself for any wounds and thankfully finding none.

How could I check everything out so quickly, you might be asking? Well... it was pretty easy, honestly. Not much in the way of blockage when one is completely naked, after all."A-and no magical i-inventory to j-j-just pull my g-gear out of..." I groaned as I surveyed my surroundings, eventually settling on looting the corpses around me for some of the aforementioned gear.

One of which was my "worthy kill"'s Anti-AI Rifle."Sweet~. Bet this thing could poke a hole even in your tentacled ass eh, Lu?" The elder monster merely chuckles."Perhaps, but if you fired it at me, you would be lucky to live long enough to see the bullet reaching my flesh."

Well, there's that too."U.. ugghh..." A soft voice caused me to blink as I quickly scanned around. Left, right, above, below, no directed offered any-"Uuuhmnn..." Ah.

The frozen-in-fear guy was still here. I felt myself sigh heavily as I pointed the rifle at his head."Welp, tough luck kid."

"You call him "kid", but as far as I understand, you are barely older than him." Lu's laughter echoed through my skull as I grimaced."Shut the fuck up. You're making it harder to aim."

With another sigh, I took the shot, splattering the kid's brains out with a loud bang. Thing is, just as the kids brains went flying, so did my entire body, as the perhaps-obvious-recoil on this bloody thing was powerful enough to both rip off my right pointer finger and shatter my shoulder as the gun dug deep into it my flesh.

"U-rugh... god fucking dammit." Surprisingly, this didn't hurt me at all. In fact, I could barely feel a twinge of pain, likely due to having every single pain receptor fried mere moments ago when I de-transformed. Ripping the weapon out of myself, I watched in wonder as my bones seemingly punched themselves back into place, my flesh having apparently gained the ability to regenerate."Interesting. You did not possess this power in your true form!"

Which explains why I was bleeding all over the damn place. Still, is this an evolution of some kind?"... or something you gained from the soldier you just are?" Lu's thundering tone was equally amused as it was curious.

I guess that means he actually does not know.

Anyways, I quickly got back up and dressed myself with the cleanest bits of clothing from several of the men. Most of it was the same as they were wearing, armored road leathers, retro-biker style, but I gotta say that these combat boots were a damn fine fit. Might even keep them, once I clean them.

... or get my sister/wife to clean them for me~.

A blink.

Then another."Fuck."

I looked around myself and noticed how the place was already getting dark. In disbelief, I looked behind myself, where I had fallen after shooting that rifle only to confirm my suspicions: I hit my head on a rock."Bloody Hell... that felt like seconds!?"

"It was four hours. You've certainly gained regenerative properties, but there is a reason why you couldn't really move while you watched your bones pop back into proper place." Well, at least I found out the easy way.

As I ran back towards the truck where I slaughtered and ate the Faust family, I noticed the broken-in-half Anti-AI Rifle which my monstrous form threw. The gun's barrel was melted, likely by being shot and the entire thing was split in two across the chamber from falling onto a rock. Rifles this powerful, but also poorly made...

Yeah, I definitely just killed a bunch of rebels. Ughhh... all this makes me shiver when I think of getting shot by the modern, "real deal" versions of these guns. Either way, I picked up both pieces of the rifle and stored them in a black, military grade duffel bag I looted from one of the fallen. Why? Well, I'm a hunter.

I have this ... thing, for trophies, you see.

It kinda comes along with the profession, really.

... just like naming your weapons does, apparently.

One last look behind myself as I observed the scene of carnage made me laugh loudly as I found my way towards the Faust's truck to find it still turned on, with the keys inside. Looking around, I quickly found the remainder of my own, pre-transformation clothing, alongside the rest of my gear, identification cards and other.. cards, as well.

Feeling like I've got nothing to lose, I also took the credit cards of the two parents I devoured, as well as their identification cards. Running it through the vehicle, I deleted all previous record of ownership on its built-in computer, turned on auto-drive and set the destination to back home.

Today's been a very busy day, indeed~.

"Hey, Lucius... there's this strange new emotion bubbling up from the inside of your skull. Its bright and blinding. Very annoying, too. What the hell is it?!" Well Lu, I'm not completely sure.

I felt myself smirk."That said, it just might be..."

My smirk turned into what could only be described as a savage grin."... Joy."

That's it for this chapter! Hope you all enjoyed it!

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