Bullet Supremacy

With the mound of snow out of the way, Cain instructed the members of his cohort to change into their winter garbs. 

Attached to the lining of all of their backpacks, a thick fur-lined coat could be constructed by clipping a few various backpack pieces together. Alongside thermal undergarments, insulated boots, and a fur cap, the cohort equipped their thermal scopes and mentally prepared themselves for the cold ahead. 

Meanwhile, Cain stood within the Gate up to his ankles in snow. He allowed himself to experience the frost and, unsurprisingly, it didn't bother him. The black portions especially did not react to the change in temperature — as if Cain were basking in seventy degree weather (and that's fahrenheit). 

The rest of his body, his contrasting pale skin, felt the nip of the cold, but still prevailed over its sharpness. Put simply, Cain could tell it was cold, he could feel the icy bite nibble his skin, but his body remained absolute in its defense towards the frost. 

So while waiting for the others, Cain welcomed the unreal view laid out before him. 

Stood atop a hill overlooking a ravenous valley, obscenely large alpine-like trees swathed the hills leading down into the valley. The valley itself followed alongside a frozen stream of water and, further downstream, a waterfall frozen in place poured through a hole gaping from the side of a mountain. 

The mountains encased the scenery. Everywhere Cain looked, mountains pervaded the horizon. Some tore into the clouds and emerged above the snowfall while others were buried beneath it. All around, mountains of ridiculous proportions caged the valley and its hills within. 

Cain heard heavy footsteps flop in the snow behind him. 

"So —" Cain turned towards his cohort, "what exactly does Sutty have us looking for?" 

Jun pulled a smartpad from his thigh pocket. He switched it on and navigated to a projection of a map that hovered above the smartpad. The hologram showed the elevation of their surroundings, but not much of it, and it also depicted each of the cohort members in a distinct color. 

Immediately, Cain's eyes sparkled at the technological feat. Holograms eternally existed as nothing more than pure science-fiction, but now one existed before his very eyes. 

Cain ran his fingers through the projection. 

The hologram momentarily fluttered like the static seen in a television then instantly reformed back to normal. 

"Why is the radius so small?" Church asked. 

"The data collected for the map comes from the drone." Jun pointed to the mini-carrier hovering a few feet away. 

"So it only records places we've gone through." Cain said. 

"Correct." Jun nodded. "And the Director would like us to explore the region's immediate surroundings. That includes the wildlife, flora, usable resources, potential threats, and points of interest across this area." 

"Alright." Cain nodded his head. 

Thus, the exploration of the Land of Frost began. 

It started in the forest. The robust alpines soared above the adventurers. Sharp winds rustled the trees and shook the dark green pine needles. From the wind, dollops of snow slid off the tree branches and plummeted down below. 

The cohort discovered owl-like beasts, foxes, squirrels, and gophers. The owls were red, their fur like fall leaves. The foxes were the size of wolves and two bushy tails mingled behind them. 

The squirrels were flying squirrels, and white, as opposed to their Earthly brown counter-parts. And while the white squirrels fluttered through the air, wisps of frost naturally escaped from their coats and danced in the wind. 

After the forest, they descended into the valley and walked along the frozen water. They traveled upstream, towards the still waterfall, and collected samples along the way. Water samples, algae, nuts, roots, and bulbs — Mei had a place for all of it in her bag. 

Amidst their journey, while scouting the base of one of the mountains, the drone began to act awry. 

The mini-carrier piece of equipment emitted a red blinking light. It flew through the air towards a ravine formed between two mountains. There, in the ravine masked by the frozen topography, heat signatures ran rampant. 

The drone scanned a wall of ice barring its flight path. It could see through the ice, the heat from the other side prevailed through it and the movement of multiple figures reflected off the drone's lens. 

Jun pulled the smartpad from its sheath. 

Enlarging another holographic projection, Jun highlighted multiple figures depicted in red through the ice wall before them. The figures were small and scrawny. 

They carried a hunchback and their fingernails scraped across the floor as they walked. Their arms were disproportionately long and their fingernails were uncut and rabid. 

Cain approached the wall of ice that had formed between the two mountains. He brushed off the snow that muddied it. Through the few feet of ice, warped into elongated shapes, Cain saw the makings of a tribal society. 

Blue figures walked around nests made of stick and bone. Carcasses lined the walls, where groupies of Blue Devils mingled and consumed flesh as it rotted. The carcasses were of various sorts, though Cain recognized the winter colored sheen of the foxes. Their gray and brown coats littered the Blue Devils nest. 

Behind the pools of gore, however, a sheen of light caught Cain's eye. A reflection of the distant sun, it radiated off of one specific pile of junk within the Blue Devils nest. 

"Sutton presumably wants one of those guys, right?" Cain asked. 

"One of everything." Jun said. 

Cain sighed. 

He took a step back from the wall of ice and spread his feet. Cain pulled his shoulder back and tightened his core. Then, his arm turned into a blur. 

Cain's fist slammed into the wall of ice. A loud bang echoed within the arctic canyon causing many white squirrels to burst into the air and soar through the alpines. After the initial bang came the horrible screech of shattering glass. 

A crack exploded up the wall of ice from Cain's fist and rattled the snow off the rest of the obelisk. 

"Damn." Cain said. 

He pulled his fist from the cracked ice. 

"It's thick." 

Meanwhile, Jun's holographic map depicted the chaotic movement of the Blue Devils beyond the ice. Their heat signatures ran rampant. They scurried throughout the ravine, trampling over one another, but through the unorganized insanity all of the Blue Devils stormed towards a single direction. 

A tunnel in the ravine. The tunnel traveled into the mountain, Jun didn't know where, but presumably the tunnel led to the outside. 

"Was that supposed to shatter the whole thing?" Church asked. 

Before Cain could answer, from behind the frozen waterfall further down the way, the Blue Devils appeared. They tore through the snow using their abnormally long arms to catapult themselves above and towards the cohort. 

Within seconds of them appearing, however, hellfire rained. 

Jun and Mei obliterated the incoming horde with a wave of bullets. The rounds tore through the Blue Devils, piercing through their bones and extremities like paper. Each bullet snuffed the life of one beast and tore into the muscle of another. 

After only two clips, sixty-four bullets to be exact, the Blue Devils were no more. 

Purple blood soaked into the snow and ran down the ledge of ice near them. 

"Bullets confirmed effective." Jun spoke into his smartwatch. 

In the meantime, the Awakened stood to the side, gawking. 

'Has it always been that easy?' They each thought to themselves. 

Meanwhile, Jun opened another application on his smartpad. The red light on the side of the drone flickered blue, and suddenly the drone flew out of its ten-foot restriction towards the tunnel hidden behind the waterfall. 

The drone swooped around the ice and entered the tunnel. Through its infrared vision, the pathing within the mountain was all but revealed for the cohort's eyes. In the meantime, Cain and the rest butchered the corpses of the Blue Devils in search of Magic Crystals. 

Approximately thirty minutes later, Jun finished exploring the tunnel system while the cohort de-ribbed the last Blue Devil. Of the fifty-one Blue Devils, nine were blessed with Magic Crystals. 

The drone returned and Jun set it to auto-pilot. He unveiled a 3D map of the tunnels found within the mountain, an ant-like maze that primarily looped in on itself with most of its directions leading back towards the Blue Devils nest. 

There was one shaft, however, that further penetrated the depths of the mountain. This tunnel, or hole rather, plummeted straight down into the earth according to 

Jun's projection — but besides this hole, all paths led to the ravine. 

A few moments later, once Mei finished extracting various organs from the Blue Devils and carefully placed them in coolers, they entered the tunnels. Traversing through the tunnels, as intimidating as it may have appeared, was as simple as a stroll in the dark. 

Their SMG's had flashlights, of course, but beyond the darkness that consumed the tunnels the cohort discovered little of anything between the waterfalls entrance and the nest itself. 

The ravine, a sliver of space cut between two sloping mountain ridges, was where the real treasure hid. Interestingly, after invading the Blue Devils nest, the cohort didn't find any eggs or younglings, no women at all for that matter. 

Beside the mess of dried blood, torn hide, and day old carcasses, the nest didn't have much. Then, Cain remembered the glistening light he saw prior. He rummaged through the pile of fur and twigs and felt his finger press against something hard within the pile of mush. 

Crain grabbed the solid object and pulled it from the clump. 

Covered in blood and fungus, Cain dunked the object in the snow and scrubbed its exterior. After a couple of minutes of elbow grease, Cain pulled a shiny metal from the snow. 

The metal was glossy and smooth. Its exterior perfectly captured Cain's reflection and when he squeezed it, the metal refused to budge, able to resist the inhuman strength that Cain wielded. The unfamiliar metal was also silveresque, but carried a subtle blue sheen that molded its color into something unique. 

Cain pocketed the metal along with a few new species of flower that grew inside of the ravine. Then, the cohort continued their exploration. They left the ravine, returned through the tunnels, and studied their newly updated holographic map. 

They explored the forest and the valley. They discovered a ravine between the two mountains and eliminated a nest that sprawled between it. Now, all they needed to do was map the perimeter of the canyon — walk along the edge of the mountain range that surrounded them — and they could call it a job complete. 

Unfortunately, this walk would be a far cry from the leisure stroll they experienced in the tunnels. At three points around the canyon, three tribes fought for supremacy over the Land of Frost. 

The first was eliminated moments ago, their nest housed in the ravine, the gunfire used to eradicate them though, traveled far across the hills in the canyon and ricocheted off the mountains around. 

While preparing to leave, Church noticed the apline's rustle in the distance. White squirrels burst from their branches, crazed movement scattering them through the trees. 

Through the thicket of brush that inhabited the winter forest, an army of blue skinned creatures erupted into the clearing and toppled down the snow packed hills. 

The Blue Devils charged out of the forest wielding spears and clubs. They paraded their weapons above their heads, screeched in war-induced hysteria, and as their drool seeped down their chins — the devilish fiends broke into a sprint and barreled towards the cohort. 

At the same time, at the opposite end of the canyon, from the mountains came another army of Blue Devils. Numbering in the hundreds, the wretched and malnourished form of the Blue Devils surrounded the cohort. 

An army of beasts on both fronts, the five members of the cohort looked from one end to the other. Calmness, however, pervaded them. 

Jun kneeled in the snow. He placed his knee against the ice and secured his arm around his guns' stock. 

Mei did the same, although with her back to Jun's, she prepared to engage the second army of Blue Devils. 

And to be quite frank, since they've confirmed that the creatures found within the Gates are susceptible to bullets — the monsters appeared far less deadly. 

The Chinese duo simultaneously held their triggers and an onslaught of bullets ripped the Blue Devils apart. Chunks of flesh tore off their being, limbs dismembered, bones cracked and skulls shattered. 

For five minutes straight, the sound of slaughter consumed the Land of Frost. The wretched Blue Devils didn't stand a chance. The army that emerged from the forest died before even making it down the hill. 

On the other end of the canyon, the monsters that swarmed the mountains all but nearly died to gravity as once Mei lit up the front of the pack — the rest crashed and tumbled over them — falling off the mountain's ledge and slamming against the spires of ice that plagued the base of the mountains. 

As a result, stacks of corpses piled together atop spires of ice — like shish kebabs — the ice obelisks pierced the Blue Devil's chests and ran through multiples of them before the first split and the cycle restarts, allowing for even more carcases to gather. 

///LostNoteFound///

Thank YOU WalkingBush and DevilGod_of_Chaos for the power stones!!! Very cash money of you ;*