T’balt was hunting. He breathed in the spirit of the woods and the demons haunting it, rubbing the chain link around his neck and reminding himself that he was a feral beast.

  He was possessed to kill them. And so he did. He catapulted himself with a flurry of wind right past the trees. He used the brute force of wind to change his angle despite the speed, never having to touch the ground.

  In his mind, he was training, learning, testing his limits. Wind loot could give him a similar speed to the speed loot, but it also gave him the benefit of upward mobility. A whole new axis to control the battlefield. It made the landscape his playground.

  His tail was catching up to him, swift in its movements and keeping up with his artificial speed. It trampled the ground on all fours.

  T’balt swooshed around a tree, shaking the leaves at its foundation. Then he was in front of the beast, and with a fist cloaked in a tornado, he annihilated it.

  It was a bear with speed loot. It didn’t seem like a great combination. What was the point of all the speed if you were still a huge target?

  He sat on the still corpse of the grizzly bear and opened his flask, taking a huge swig of spiced rum. He hadn’t shaved. He hadn’t really bathed. His only focus was the hunt.

  He needed to become strong. Strong enough to defeat Monan. Nothing else mattered to him.

  The people didn’t matter. The politics, the relationships. None of it would mean a damn thing while Monan was still around. One moment someone could be a friend and the next trying to kill him. It didn’t matter.

  Monan was hellbent on making a monster out of him. If he wanted one, he would get it. And T’balt had seemingly felt the mountaintop. How powerful he could be.

  His trip to Nrv’s hideout exposed him to how many different types of loot there were.

  Neon, hardening, forcefields. He had only seen what he now considered basic loot. It seemed loot coins’ power was far more complex than even he had known. From their looks to the abilities and the forms they allowed the human body to take.

  Somewhere out there was the perfect combination. The combination that would allow him to be the strongest. He just had to find it.

  He didn’t bother with the church. He thought of them as just another group of backstabbers. He didn’t need them, and they didn’t want him. He didn’t bother with Chosa. Whenever she would’ve come home, T’balt would’ve simply been gone. His phone was left on his bed.

  He made himself unreachable. The only person who knew him was Chosa. So this time, he was really alone, fulfilling the prophecy that Chosa gave him. It had been two weeks since Zero Day.

  This was around the time Nrv would be attacking the church.

  He took another drink, pushing himself past the legal limit. His hands were stained and calloused. His clothes were ripped from the constant battling.

  He took his new collection of loot back to his temporary home. A twenty-story tower in the city. He was staying in one of what they called the emperor suites. It took up the entire floor.

  There were luxury couches, TVs, and a king-size bed. Though there was no power in the room. So whenever T’balt came in at night, it was pitch black. But it was a good spot, far enough away from all the people.

  Most of the city's inhabitants were either dead, escaped, or hiding somewhere underground. As T’balt explored, he found that there were countless groups like the church or Nrv. But most of them weren’t adept. Many were just trying to survive until they were snuffed out by some demon they were ill-equipped to deal with.

  The smell of death was always freshest in the city. But being at the top of the tower saved him from that, even though he had broken the balcony window to sneak in. That was the only way T’balt could’ve gotten access: with the power of flight from his wind loot.

  He threw his sack of loot on the kitchen counter and sought to organize them. He had found a lot of new ones in this life and based his knowledge on the things he killed to obtain them.

  He was able to define categories. Augmentors—speed, strength, skin hardening, reflex, etc. Beast summons—the living armor and weapon summons—the holy bow. Elementals—fire, ice, water, earth, lightning, wind, shadow. Supports—healing went here, as well as the forcefield. There was a fifth category that he couldn’t quite define yet. He thought of neon and the spider. Whatever loot their loot was seemed to give them the qualities of something inhuman. It was almost like their bodies mutated in accordance with the loot they had.

  The spider grew extra limbs and could stick to walls. Neon could turn his body to pure light for a short time. “Hmm..” For now, he put them in the “other” category.

  Satisfied, he looked off the balcony watching the moon. It was still full and had been for the whole two weeks. He wanted to question if it meant anything, but he couldn’t muster the energy to care.

  So instead, he would take another drink and launch himself to a nearby rooftop where his view of it would be unobstructed. He made a throne of an air vent, refilling his flask with a bottle he kept up there for nights like this, which was every night.

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  He lit an incense on the sill of the rooftop. A reminder of home and all the things he never got to redeem. “What a strange power?” he thought.

  He wished he could have gotten it a long time ago. It would’ve been a chance to redo everything. He could write a book full of the things he would’ve done differently. He never would’ve looked at Chosa. He never would’ve taken that house. He would’ve gone to college. Maybe tried for a baseball scholarship.

  He tried to sense the greater purpose behind it all. Why had he been given this power? Why did this have to happen to the world? Where was the Redeemer God? Was all that that happened a part of his plan? Was it truly a god? Could it determine that kind of thing? Could it take it all away?

  The blood in his eyes. The fires. The screams. They gave him nightmares. He could still see them—every death since he had become a Redeemer. Ellie’s, Acelin’s, Arthur’s, Chosa’s, and his own.

  It was like he could always feel them, always see them happening, always remember. At every moment of every day. That was the truth of the Redeemer's power—the curse of remembering the pain of what never happened.

  “Maybe this is why Monan was always drinking?”

  But the devil heard his name. “I’ve been looking for you. Look… I got a haircut. Wanted to see what you thought.” T’balt didn’t bother to look. But Monan’s hair was cut short, and combed over like he was heading to a 9-to-5. His beard was a bit more trim, and his natural dark eyes looked a bit lighter. “Gotta change it up every now and then, you know.”

  Monan noticed the view then and walked up next to T’balt like it was a casual Saturday.

  “So you finally decided to check out this spot. You gotta sit here during the explosion. I’m telling you it's a view you’ll never forget.”

  T’balt handed him the flask. Monan looked almost surprised. That didn’t stop him from taking it. He took a swig of the alcohol, turning the flask completely upside down.

  It was empty.

  Monan moved quick to get out of the way of T’balt’s fist. It had the weight of a storm behind it. The flask and the incense took the long tumble to the ground, being tossed away by the wind.

  Monan leapt back. “Whoa there. I didn’t exactly come for a fight, but glad to see you haven’t lost your spirit.”

  T’balt attacked again, feeding the wind into his strikes, increasing the force and the speed. Monan avoided T’balt’s flurry at him, but the wind proved troubling. He had to jump to the rooftop next door to get some distance.

  But the guy was in hot pursuit, refusing to give him the space to have a conversation. He supposed he could squeeze some words through a little exercise. “Listen, kid. I don’t think you’re getting the point of the game,” he said in between dodging attacks that would likely kill a normal person if they landed.

  “You’re treating it like a bar fight. You’re so tunnel visioned on taking my head off that you’re forgetting about the rest of the pieces on the board. That’s why it's so easy to use them against you.”

  T’balt said nothing, focusing on the fight as they leapt rooftop to rooftop. Right kick, wind attack, then he summoned and threw a spear of radiating shadow. The spear skinned Monan’s neck, putting a line through the number 11670.

  Still, he kept speaking. “It's more like chess. The Redeemers are the kings. You got all these pieces that you can move around you. Pawns, bishops, and shit. If you only attack with the king, the other guy is gonna see it coming a mile away. So mix it up. It's called strategy.”

  He dodged two more punches. But he messed up his footing, and the wind sent him careening off a 12-story building. He considered a moment during his fall. “I bet he’s not even listening.”

  He felt the ground coming, and that’s when his great wings emerged. They were giant like those of a dragon. He flew back to the rooftop. T’balt didn’t take the time to make sense of Monan’s winged loot. He attacked again, using his wind to maneuver himself in the air.

  “Every time you lose a piece, I see the fight get sucked out of you.” Monan had to raise his voice to compensate for the distance. He flew straight, watching T’balt follow him by repeatedly using the air to launch himself. “Then you get roided out or depressed when you drop a game. But if you refuse to play, you’ll never win, right?”

  Monan landed ground level, getting noticed by a couple of passing demons. He watched as T’balt torpedoed through them, mixing in the demon blood with the wind. But Monan caught the punch by the time it made it to him, locking T’balt in his grip. But it only seemed to make him angrier, that black smoke pulsing out of his body with every breath.

  “The believers are already dead,” he said, which got T’balt to take a pause and clinch his teeth. “Nrv killed them… it happens every time. That kid you’re so hellbent on saving will kill every single one of them, including your little church girl.”

  “Acelin kills Ellie?” Those were his first words to him. Monan thought he was getting somewhere now.

  “That’s what we call the pure line. What's supposed to happen. See, you think I’m responsible for all the shitty things you see happening, but they’ll happen anyway. No need for Redeemer interference.”

  “You’re lying.” The tenseness in his arm let up, and Monan released his grip. T’balt stared at him.

  “This iteration, I’ve only been looking for you. I haven’t messed with either group. And they’re dead right now. Even Acelin.”

  “Stop it… I don’t wanna hear a thing you say.”

  “Let me tell you what I know about this part of the pure line. Arthur turns the church into a group of useless humanists. No loot allowed. That wrestler and his band get turned away. They get taken in by Nrv and let them know what they saw. Nrv attacks, kills them all, and takes their loot. Eventually, his own thugs turn against him. They try to crush him in his sleep. He puts up a good fight. But… in the end, he’s just a kid. That bodyguard of yours does it himself.”

  “Cannon kills Acelin?”

  “He already has. You don’t believe me, you can go check out the scenes for yourself. They all kill themselves at the end of the day. Listen. I’ll give you a couple more days. Sort yourself out. I want a real game next time.”

  Monan plucked some loot from his pocket. And tossed one of the coins to T’balt’s feet. T’balt couldn’t tell what it was by the design on it. A pair of eyes surrounded by fire. “You can find that one at the Fourth Tree golf course. The first Thursday.”

  “What is this?”

  “A handicap.”

  “I don’t want your pity.”

  “Use it how you want. Just another piece on the board. Later T.” His wings spread to their fullest. With a giant flap and a gust of wind, he disappeared into the light of the moon.

  T’balt looked at the loot on the ground. He didn’t trust it. Anything that Monan had or said was snake venom. He was ashamed of himself for letting Monan trick him again and allowing him to leave. But the words he said were almost too much to bear.

  He had to find out if it was true.