Chapter forty-two - I hear you are looking for me!

Tia flew ahead all the way home and when they arrived Hanna said she needed to have a personal chat with her, when Locke tried to ask why she simply said it was about women's issues.

Locke was left alone in the kitchen and decided this was the time to fulfil one of his promises, he took some pieces of meat from his inventory and start to season it, he started with some normal pieces but also prepared some of Raijū's meat, in addition to a piece of the Rudra meat.

Locke cut Rudra's meat into strips, it was softer than he expected, it resembled fish meat.

Locke went to the backyard and turned on the grill, one of the many assets in the house, he started to slowly roast the meats, Locke ended up preparing a lot of different barbecue dishes, he kept the roasted meat in the inventory to keep them hot and continued cooking side dishs.

The girl's talk lasted a little longer than he'd expected, but when Hanna and Tia walked downstairs, Tia had a smile that went from ear to ear.

"Is everything OK?" Locke asked truly interested.

The girls looked at each other and started laughing, Locke stood there without understanding, anyways he decided it was better to just serve the lunch.

Locke put the roasted meat dishes, the barbecue and the sides diches on the table and was surprised when Tia started to eat calmly and demurely, the fairy's attitude seemed to have given a one hundred and eighty degree turn.

Locke decided that the only important thing to him was for the fairy was happy, so he didn't bring it up, he was slightly worried to serve the Raijūs or Rudra meat to Hanna, but Tia had already warned him that there were no contraindications, it was actually quite good, ordinary humans could awaken magic power eating magical creatures and humans like Hanna would have even more benefit.

Hanna seemed to like the lean Raijūs meat very much, she realized that it was not something common as soon as she saw the dish, but she trusted Locke, to her surprise the meat was delicious and juicy, Locke focused on Rudra's meat, he felt that he had already acquired everything he could from the Raijūs and so he wanted to know if Rudra's meat would have any effect on him.

Rudra's flesh wasn't lean like the Raij's, but it was just as tender, the appearance reminded him of something like redder salmon, but the taste was different, strong and somehow delicious. The flesh had a big effect on Locke, he could feel his body absorbing the energy and with a pleasant surprise he received a notification from the system.

[Spirit increased by 2 points, endurance increased by 1 point]

Lunch lasted for a while and everyone ate until they were satisfied. When they finished Locke kept the leftover food in his inventory, he was going to prepare to wash the dishes when Hanna took the lead, Tia also went to help her.

Locke took advantage of his break and left the house, he looked again at the card with the Bureal agent's phone number and wondered if contacting her was the best choice, he shouted to the girls that he was going to buy ice cream and took off.

With Locke's evolution a lot of things in him and in Tia had changed, he could now stay miles away from Tia if necessary, their link was unbreakable, and the fairy could teleport to him in less than a second, they could also send mental messages to each other instantly, if necessary he could come back full speed to face any problem.

Locke flew at high speed, camouflaged of course, into the city.

***

On the other side of town, on the docks, inside the cargo of a huge truck, agent Alexis Durand and her partner Bomani Garrard were waiting with a group of at least twenty fully equipped soldiers, they were all dressed in assault squad attack gear, a completely gray and highly technological combat armor that totally covered their bodies, only a few luminous blue lines clashed with the metallic gray color, their helmets totally covered the heads and necks, not even a point of the skin of these agents was visible, the helmet it had a structure in the shape of an sole inverted triangle in the middle where the eyes would be, this triangle emitted the same bluish light as the armor, each of them carried an assault rifle different from any standard police or army weapon, as well as a kind of Metallic backpack on they backs.

In addition to Durand and Garrard and the armored soldiers, two other 'people' were in the room, one was a pretty, short woman with big thick glasses as a bottle bottom, she had a blond hair divided into two pigtails braids, she wore a huge white lab coat and had several medical equipment visible in her pockets.

The other 'person' was clearly not human, she appeared to be a panther, that is if a panther walked on two legs and had a human female body, she was tall and muscular, but her form was also feminine and curvy, she was dressed in a black leather jumpsuit and her body was completely covered in gray feline fur, her eyes were a beautiful emerald green color, she was slowly dressing in custom armor, heavily different from the other soldiers.

Durand and Garrard were also in the process of wearing matching armor, the only person in the room who wasn't in gear was the girl in the lab coat, she had a strange transparent tablet on which she analyzed the status of all the soldiers.

"Doctor Ragdear, what is the status of the Church's unity?" Durand questioned.

"Their unit, the St. George Spear, is already prepared, we are going to carry out a simultaneous attack on the second location, this will prevent the cultists from knowing that we already have the location of their main supply line!" The girl in the pigtails, Sarah Ragdear, answered.

Durand finished dressing, as soon as she put on the helmet the lines of light on the armor lit up, she helped Garrard finish dressing and then each one grabbed a rifle.

"Tamar, the leadership of the team is yours! What is the state of the unit?" Durand asked

"We are ready for the main onslaught" The panther woman commented. "Δ-3 Squadron on standby! It's time to hunt heretics!"

All soldiers saluted, the light from their armor increased for a second and then created a reflective membrane across their bodies, the effect was very similar to Locke's cloaking magic but its performance was much lower, although Locke's own cloaking itself were it not perfect he was just an unidentifiable smudge when he used it, while the soldiers still had their shapes visible if watched closely.

The truck doors opened and the squadron descended, charging violently against a warehouse, a soldier stuck a steel rectangle device on the warehouse door and everyone moved away, on they internal helm displays they can see a timer and, when it reached zero, the door exploded.

The soldiers stormed the warehouse with they weapons ready, their visors identifying all the targets, gunfire began to ring out across the room.

The warehouse was packed with workers dressed in coveralls, the kind common to any warehouse, some carrying wooden crates and others packing strange objects in protective paper, their services had everything to be considered just ordinary things, but as soon as the attack started they started running around looking roof and responding to shots with their own weapons.

One of the workers managed to crawl to a wall and punch an emergency button, at the same time an absurdly loud siren blared throughout the warehouse and an inhuman scream was heard, a thin crack appeared in midair and a humanoid figure of a huge mutated man, with his face solely composed of a gaping mouth full of shark-like teeths and bands that covered his nose and eyes came out.

"High-level apparition! Switch to spectral ammo!" Tamar screamed.

Her soldiers stopped firing and removed the gun magazines, switching to a magazine that emitted a strange blue-green glow, the new bullets leaving a strange blue-green light trail in the air.

The new bullets seemed to have some effect on the creature, which had to shield its face with its hands as it advanced, it roared and lunged at the soldiers.

The soldiers jumped out of the way as they continued to focus fire on the creature, which screamed and writhed trying to grab the soldiers. some workers took the opportunity to try to escape, unsuccessfully, while others grabbed heavier weapons and began offering fire support for the abomination.

The Worker's bullets, than before ricocheted off the soldiers' armor, now it did as much damage as the soldier's weapons did in they, and the soldier's had to protect themselves from the gunfire while keeping the creature in check.

One of the workers ran to a box and threw it on the floor, breaking it in the process, he picked up a strange red dagger that was inside the box, he shouted a series of incoherent words and stabbed himself in the chest.

The man fell on his own body, dead, but shortly afterwards his body began to shake violently.

The dagger began to dissolve and invade his chest, the man got up from the ground looking crazy, he yelled and ran up to the soldiers on all fours, jumping over a soldier in the process, he proceeded to crush the soldier's chest with a inhuman power.

"Caution! He used an artifact!" Durand screamed, many soldiers were busy dealing with the high-level apparition while others exchanged fire with the workers, she and two more soldiers focused their attention on the dagger man, firing at him without pity.

The man laughed wildly, the bullets seemed to have no effect on his body, which was getting redder and redder and more bigger.

"Leave it to me!" Tamara screamed, she roared like a beast and leapt at the man, she hit him hard in the chest throwing him a considerable distance, they both engaged in a fierce hand-to-hand struggle.

Two soldiers rescued their injured friend, dragging him out of the warehouse.

"Garrard, time to show your talents!" Durand yelled.

During the entire battle Garrard refrained himself, he was behind some soldiers who kept the fire with their special ammunition on the creature that, although if wounded, the abomination healed at an absurd speed, Garrard spent all the time making a strange chanting prayer, he finally took a featureless rag doll from his backpack, concluding the chant, he lifted the doll in the air, the doll began to float emitting bluish flames and the apparition began to scream as it was sucked into the doll. Agent Bomani Garrard continued to chant the prayer in that language as the puppet swallowed the monstrosity little by little, his legs wobbled but he forced himself to continue.

Finally, the apparition was completely swallowed, the doll fell to the ground being consumed by the blue flames and Garrard took off his own helmet, having difficulty to breathing.

"Are you okay?" Durand asked worriedly, Garrard nodded to say he would be fine soon, Alexis led the team without Tarea, who was busy fighting the transformed worker, towards the back of the shed, they fired and slaughtered all the workers along the way.

At the end of the shed were a series of closed rooms, a soldier had the door down when a bullet hit him in the face.

The bullet began to corrode the helmet with incredible speed, the soldier are desperately trying to remove the helmet without success as the corrosion got closer and closer to his face.

Durand cursed and took off his own glove, she thrust her bare hand into the soldier's face, the corroded part began to emit black smoke, but the corrosion stopped. "It's a cursed weapon! Be careful!"

Soldiers stood on either side of the door.

"Surrender or you will be slaughtered!" One of the soldiers screamed.

"Go fuck yourself, government puppets!" A voice shouted from inside the room. "You are only going to get me out of here in a coffin!"

The soldiers won't wait any longer, one of them tossed a smoke grenade into the room, which caused the man to start a round of fire, but Alexis Durand went ahead, the black bullets are hitting her and dissolving into smoke.

She didn't try to take down the man in the room however, she ran towards him and hit him with violence, the tecno armor had increased her strength and speed many times and her attack was similar to a professional wrestler's punch, she stepped on the body of the man and handcuffed him, she took off her helmet, revealing her face.

The cultist glared at her. "Damn Nefilim! Why are you on the human side? Do you like living hidden so much? You should be on our side!"

"Shut up!" Durand kicked the man in the face, knocking him out. "Soldier, go offer support to Tamar!"

"No need, I'm done here!" Tamar spoke, appearing behind everyone. "The b*stard was a tough cookie, but he died on his own after a while! These imbeciles are always doing these crazy things..."

"Squad, start apprehending and cataloging all the artifacts here, don't forget that cultists are often involved with cursed itnes, so be extra careful! The injured should go to Dr. Ragdear for proper treatment!" Durand ordered, the soldiers separated and began carrying out the orders.

Tamar picked the knocked out man up without difficulty and put it on my shoulders like a potatoes bag, Durand went to Garrard who was now standing but still looked affected, she supported him without even asking, holding his arm and helping him out of the warehouse.

"You're getting too old for this!" Durand joked. "You used to finish up with three of these at once!" She helped him to the truck and supported him until he sat on one of the benches that were attached to the truck's internal walls.

"They are… getting stronger…" Garrard replied with some difficulty.

Alexis Durand opened her eyes in surprise, she had also unconsciously realized that, they used to treat the apocalypse cult as a joke, but their threats were getting more and more dangerous. She sighed, she helped durand take off his armor and then took off her own.

Durand got out of the truck and walked a distance, she took out a cigarette and lit it. 'I'll stop tomorrow...' She took a deep drag and then blew out a puff of smoke, at that exact moment her phone rang, Durand was surprised, this was her personal cell phone and very few people knew this number, the number on the screen was unknown, she considered not answering for a moment, but curiosity won out.

"Hello?"

"Agent Alexis Durand?"

Hear someone refer to her by name and rank made Alexis startled.

"Who hell are you?" She screamed out in alarm and rage.

"I hear you're looking for me!"