Rey put some distance between himself and the others, as he didn't want them to steal his experience, but he stopped midway. Slowly, he turned around and looked at the others. He remembered that at least three of them didn't make it through this first assault.

  Maria, the angel lover; Gloria, the Spanish bombshell; and Phil, the loveable dad. They were all supposed to die, or they had died, in this first assault. There was no way in Hell that he would let Gloria die so soon. Even as a demon, he would have done everything to save her and her sizeable assets.

  The other two were acceptable losses. Phil was cool, but what he did last time ruined any lingering affection. But if Maria was burning in Hellfire and he had the only Holy water, he would pocket the Holy water and roast Bloodfang meat on her burning corpse.

  Maybe only his demon self would be so cruel, but now his dumbass humanity was back, and it wanted to save everyone.

  With a big sigh, he motioned everyone back. "This one's for you, Gloria!"

  Damn it. He cringed. I'm not supposed to know her name yet.

  Well, the damage was done. He would figure out how to salvage the situation later. The lion-headed demon burst out of the treeline. He looked like a grotesque lion standing on its hind legs. Its fur was matted with a greenish-black tar, which Rey knew to be corrosive liquid was its shit. These low-tier demons loved to bathe in their own shit as if their faces weren't ugly enough.

  [Vorclaw - ??]

  Rey knew his Tier and Rank. The loveable chaos demon sent this thing as a test to see if this group was worthy or if he should start looking for more test subjects. After all, the apocalypse had just started. Lots of people lay dying that could be saved and thrust into Hell, but right now, Zalathar was probably busy watching some fantastic action films.

  The Vorclaw rushed towards Rey. He didn't move or stir from his spot. He tapped the butt of the scythe on the ground while the others screamed at him to watch out. He finally found a solid enough spot in the loose dirt. The Vorclaw roared, but its roar was more like a shrill shriek than a lion's roar.

  The idiotic monster leaped for Rey, and he turned his scythe around until the pointy end of the curved blade was pointing up. The blade went in through the monster's lower jaw and came out the top of its head. It was dead before its body even hit the ground.

  +1 Dexterity

  Ah, sweet stat points.

  One of the good things about Zalathar's upgraded system was that it functioned differently when it came to distributing experience. Zarius's system gave an arbitrary amount of experience, which led to you ranking up and giving you stat points that you could plug into whatever stat you wanted.

  Zalathar's system also did that but took it one step further. It awarded stat points after performing a certain task. Since he had just killed the Vorclaw with a dexterous weapon, hence he got a Dexterity point. He had paid a hefty sum of Forever Shards for this upgrade. Of course, it wasn't just limited to kills.

  "H-How did you do that?" Kassandra asked, eyes fixed on the dead demon at Rey's feet.

  "I've got mad skills," replied Rey coolly.

  Then, to act even cooler, he tried yanking out the blade with one hand and failed. He pulled harder, but the scythe wouldn't budge. Then he tried with both hands, and the spear started coming out very slowly.

  Curse this weakass body.

  He slammed one foot on the demon's head and pulled with everything he had. Finally, the scythe came free, but Rey's foot slipped on the greasy shit, and he tumbled to the ground in a very uncool manner. So much for looking cool in front of Gloria.

  +1 Strength

  He quickly jumped to his feet and noticed something gooey in his fingers. It was blood and brains. "Yeesh, does anyone have any Kleenex?" He called, but they just gave him shocked or disgusted looks. "Last time, I save your ungrateful asses."

  He noticed that a portion of the demon's tail was clean, so he wiped the scythe's rustic blade as best as possible. He looked at the tree line, and the trees stood still, but soon they wouldn't be, for this lion demon's pride was soon coming to the feast.

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  Vorclaws functioned somewhat like real lions. But unlike the lions from back on Earth, these sent out the pack leader to hunt first, and then the rest of the pride followed. This Vorclaw's pride would soon be here, and then the real killing would start.

  "We need to get out of here," Rey said. It chaffed him they would be leaving all this lovely meat behind. Vorclaws tasted exceptional, with a little bit of bat soup.

  "Why?" Jerry asked, coming up beside Rey and poking the dead demon with his spear.

  "What if there are more on the way?" Rey posed it as a question.

  "What makes you say that?" Jerry asked, turning towards him.

  Rey shrugged. "He's a lion, isn't he? And lions hunt in packs. What if his pride is on the way and just sent him to soften us up."

  Jerry scoffed. "It's not a lion. This thing is a monstrosity. This whole place is a monstrosity. Look at that sky, if it is the sky."

  "We're in Hell," Rey replied flatly. "Of course, the sky would be red. Maybe it's not a sky at all. Maybe we're underground, or maybe… we're inside the belly of the demon that's killed us, and this is all just a nightmare?"

  Jerry nodded as understanding dawned, and he ignored his demon belly comment altogether. The rest of the group showed up, and Gloria was staring at him intently. He passed her a smile.

  "How did you know my name?" She asked in a Spanish accent.

  "Oh, I overheard it when you were talking with someone else." His eyes trembled to stay on her face when her low-cut top was screaming for attention. "Hi, I am Rey."

  "Hello, Rey." She passed him an awkward smile and looked at the demon.

  "Rey thinks we should move on," Jerry stated to the group. "Thinks there'll be more of these things coming."

  All eyes turned on him, and so he shrugged. "It is Hell."

  "I agree with him," Kassandra said. "If Earth was so bad that we barely lasted the first half-hour, then logically, this place should be worse."

  Ah, Kassi, how did I ever survive without you?

  The answer was—barely. He stumbled from one problem into the next until he was somehow strong enough that the weaker demons ran from him. Speaking of the current problem, if it ended up anything like last time, there would be a massacre. But the survivors ended up wiser and more alert to the troubles coming for them.

  He didn't even know how to tell them the worst trouble was that they were humans.

  "How is this so normal for you all?" Maria cried. "We've lost everything. Everyone. And I've just been told that all my faith was wrong. That all the good that I did was for nothing, and I've been banished to Hell with all the demons and the wrongdoers." She broke down into tears. "I just—I don't…" She put her head into her palm and wept.

  Kassandra went to her and put an arm around her as she spoke softly. "I'm sorry, Maria. I don't know what to say. If we had stayed on Earth, I'm sure we would've been dead by now. I don't know what else to do. We can grieve once we can get somewhere safe if such a place exists in this infernal place."

  This is nothing. Wait till we get to the Kingdom of Night. Then we'll be in a dinosaur-sized pile of hot steaming shit.

  "I'm sure it does," Rey said, sounding upbeat. "There must be some demons that live in houses or castles. Let's go knock down their door and snatch it from them after we curb-stomp their babies to death." He coughed. "Uh, I mean, let's go find some solid walls."

  Miss I'm-too-good-for-hell finally stopped crying after some more encouraging words from Kassandra. Rey had been among demons for so long that he had forgotten what it was like to be amongst kind-hearted folks.

  While the rest composed themselves, he brought up his stats and allocated his two free stat points to Dexterity as well. He still had the five Talent points remaining, and he just wished he had the time to sit and properly think through how he wanted to spend them.

  Unlike last time, he would not invest them in storm magic. Though he had been powerful, it had taken him a long time to get there, and he had to waste a lot of stat points in bringing up his weaknesses. He had to figure out how to become powerful without wasting unnecessary stat points.

  There was another problem that lay in front of him. He needed to figure out an element or theme for his magical skills that would efficiently take on Zalathar. The chaos demon had such a broad skill set that it was almost next to impossible to pin him down, just like his teleporting brother.

  "Rey," Kassandra called, ripping him out of his thoughts. "We're ready to head out. Which direction do you think would be best?"

  "W-Why are you asking me?" Even after all he had been through with her, he still found it hard not to be nervous around her, especially now that she was back.

  She shrugged. "Just wondering. No one else can agree on a direction. Logically, we should head in the opposite direction from where this demon had come from."

  "Unless the demons are lying in wait, hoping we do the same," Rey retorted. "Of course, I could be wrong, but I have a very strong suspicion I'm not."

  She squinted her eyes at him, and she wasn't the only one staring at him. The blonde girl whose name still eluded him. There was something about her that unnerved him. Something that said, he better watch himself if he didn't want a knife in his back as he slept.

  "I say, we go this way," Jerry boomed, pointing to the left where the trees weren't as thick.

  "Who made you boss?" shouted Filomena. She was a short Italian girl in her mid-twenties, but she was twice as ferocious as her size and almost lasted the entire year.

  "Listen, Lady, I don't need to listen to you," Jerry said. "You're free to go whichever way you want, but the rest of you, if you want to live, then you best come with me."

  Filomena barked a laugh. "You're such a…"

  Rey sighed, walked past the bickering couple, and moved toward the woods in the direction Jerry was pointing towards.

  "See, even he agrees. At least someone has—"

  Creatures shrieked from the woods. All the arguments quieted all at once. Rey swung his scythe around as the first of the Vorclaws burst out of the woods. Time to get to work.