Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night
Chapter 182: Go To Tartarus!

While the Missionaries from the Cult of Elysium were busy arguing with the City Council of New Reno. Zane and the girls were busy exchanging the gear they manufactured from the grim forge with the Ranchers from Winnemucca.

The deal was simple, the Ranchers would drive the cattle, hogs, and chickens back to gravestone, and in exchange they would receive all the gear they needed to properly defend their homes from the increasing number of undead which had begun to encircle the area with a relatively large amount of living human beings.

The ranchers were prepared to follow Zane and the girls back to Gravestone after certain negotiations were had, and assurances were made for their safety. After all, one could not fully trust a stranger in this cruel new world.

But before the lot of them could head out, something spectacular occurred. A body was tossed through the walls of the City Hall, which was currently occupied by the representatives of the five families.

It was none other than Rita, and when she landed on the ground outside of the city hall, her body was smashed into meat paste. The sight of their city council being so quickly dispatched to the afterlife, and by an unknown assailant, caused the citizens of New Reno to panic and flee from the ongoing chaos.

But Zane did not do so. He knew that something serious was happening, and that this violence would need to be quelled by force. Because of this, he and the girls instantly equipped their gear with the inventory feature of their system, before sprinting off towards the violence, leaving a simple command for the ranchers as they did so.

"Get yourselves to safety. We'll take care of this!"

Naturally, Zane did not need to say this twice, and the ranchers abandoned their trucks which carried the livestock within, as they ran off for a more secure area. One which could protect them from the violence that was occurring at this moment.

Zane was fast, faster than just about any other living human being on the planet. So much so that he arrived at the scene while at least two of the City Councilmen were still breathing. They were heavily injured. Sure, limbs were removed, and blood was spilling across the floor, but they were still alive.

And if they were still alive, Angelica could heal them. But that was not Zane's priority. Instead, he gazed upon the Missionaries from Elysium, with the leader of the two holding the representative of the Hearts Family by the throat. There was a very clear tone of irritation in his voice as he constricted his grip around his victim's neck.

"Defiant until the very end, huh? Well, then… Go to Tartarus!"

The Missionary was about to crush the city councilmen's throat, but before he could do so, something peculiar occurred. It happened so fast that the Missionary didn't even have the time to register the pain in his brain.

But he did so the blood spill from where he had used to be, as well as the hand itself dropping by the wayside. Almost as if it were in slow motion. That was the last thing which the missionary saw, as his head rolled from his shoulders along with his severed hand.

By the time the other missionary saw what had happened to his boss, he already had a sickle held to his throat. The wielder of the blade was a shadowy figure, one whose face was obscured by a ragged black cloak, and half mask go along with it.

It was as if Death himself was staring the Missionary in the eyes. His voice was as cold as ice as the mysterious man interrogated the missionary about why he and his boss had attacked the city council.

"Answer me this before you die…. Why? Why attack the City Council? What could you and your Cult possibly gain from making an enemy of New Reno?"

The man's pupil's restricted as he felt he was but an inch away from meeting his maker. He, however, had no desire to answer Zane's question. Not until he saw Angelica rapidly healing the more injured of the two city councilmen. When he saw this, his eyes opened wide in disbelief as he spoke his objective aloud without even really meaning to.

"Blasphemer!"

Zane quickly looked over to see Angelica doing her job and instantly understood what was happening.

Perhaps it was because his intelligence attribute was now borderline on the superhuman, and because of this he was able to process a long list of variables in the span of a second, but he knew that these men were after Angelica and because of that he did not hesitate to decapitate the Missionary in front of him.

Severing the man's head in a single second, before approaching Angelica to see if she could save the two remaining City Councilmen.

"Are they going to be alright?"

As Zane said this, the Representative of the Hearts Family was recovering. His limbs that had been torn from his body were rapidly regrowing at a rate that was nearly unfathomable. Angelica had a strained expression on her face, not because her powers were taxing on the body, but rather because she was emotionally distraught at the sight of such gruesome violence between human beings.

Her words were filled with compassion as she assured both her patient and Zane that the two surviving city councilmen would be alright.

"They're going to be fine, but I can't treat the other one until my cooldown is finished. Luckily for him, his wounds aren't severe enough for this to matter. Unlike this man here, sir, don't worry about payment for my services, just focus on getting better!"

The wounded representative of the Hearts family felt a wave of comfort overwhelm him as his wounds rapidly disappeared, and the parts of his body that had been removed quickly regrew as if they had not been torn off to begin with.

With an irreverent expression on his face, he said the words that confirmed Zane's assumptions regarding this particularly violent and gruesome incident.

"We made the right choice… Those fucking lunatics, they wanted us to hand you over. Called you a Blasphemer… Because your powers are similar to their so called Goddess's. We told them to eat shit… And well… The rest if obvious!"

Angelica was stunned by this news, but Zane had other ideas. So long as Angelica existed, this cult of Elysium would come searching for her. And since their missionaries had died here in New Reno, it would not be long before others took their place.

Zane was just lucky that his level was still quite a bit higher than the missionaries, or else things could have ended up ugly. Angelica would finish healing the two City Councilmen, and when they were prepared to answer Zane's questions, he would discuss the business he originally had in mind with them, even if their numbers had been reduced by half.