Whatever was making the smoke was clearly not visible from where we were. It must have been on a lower elevation than where we were, because there were only the empty flat plains of grass around us. Why would there be smoke here?

  Clearly a person. Was it Irene? I doubt it. What are the chances that we randomly stumbled into her? Probably close to none. So it would most likely be an enemy. As we got closer, I could make out the outlines of a canyon. The right side led into a forest. Meanwhile, the river we were following started to head left.

  I could make out voices coming from down below. Several. It was hard to hear what they were saying though. The roar of a car engine was drowning out their voices. This did confirm it wasn’t Irene, though. I lowered Aisling and Nara to the ground gently and released them from my hair tentacles.

  “You two should stay here,” I said, looking down at them.

  “Why?” Aisling asked, her smile turning into a frown. She really did enjoy that free Kaiju ride. I made a mental note to charge her 1 worship per Kaiju ride.

  “Don’t you hear the other voices down there or the engine?” I asked. “They clearly aren’t Irene. And we don’t know if they are a threat.”

  “No, I’m not hearing anything,” Aisling shook her head. “Did you hear anything, Nara?”

  “Nope,” Nara said.

  “They can’t hear the muffled voices?” Samsara asked. “Do we just have better hearing because we’re Kaijus?”

  “Or maybe because we’re Demiurges,” I said.

  “Why can’t we come with you though?” Aisling asked. “You taught us [Blood Spike] and [Blood Spike Launch]. Also, what’s an engine?” I wanted to shake my head so badly. Instead, I just let out a sigh. This confirmed that Aisling’s village was from the Stone Age.

  “That’s exactly the problem with you coming with us,” I said. “There is some kind of machine being operated here. And that means it will most likely be too dangerous for you.” I left out that I was getting addicted to their worship of me, and it would be a pain to replace them. Although I could scare the rest of the villagers into worshiping us.

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Samsara said.

  “Don’t you like the feeling of being worshiped?” I asked her. I thought about the feeling of warmth spreading throughout our bodies.

  “I don’t know if we need to scare them into worship, though,” Samsara said. “Plus, if you’re just willing to let Aisling and Nara die, then what about the other worshipers? We would eventually run out of them.”

  She did bring up a good point. To be fair, keeping them alive was my original plan before my mind went off on a tangent.

  “What machine?” Aisling asked.

  “We don’t know,” I said. But even though I compared it to a car engine, it makes no sense for it to be a car. Why the fuck would a car be out here in the Wild Lands? There are no roads here for it to drive on. Therefore, it had to be something else. And that something else might be very good at killing monster girls.

  Thankfully, it didn’t sound like a colossal mech. They didn’t make the same noises as a car. But just to make sure, we did have [Color Camouflage II].

  “We are going to turn invisible and investigate,” I said.

  “Invisible?” She asked as I activated [Color Camouflage II]. “Huh?”

  “Stay here,” I giggled, patting them with my tentacles. I began walking towards the edge of the cliff. The voices became clearer as I approached.

  “Fuck, is that Kaiju moving again?” a female voice said. “Hurry up and get these monsters in there!” Huh?

  We stopped before the edge of the canyon. Samsara slithered to the right of me. The canyon was about 5 times as deep as we were tall. A very tiny river flowed at the bottom.

  My eyes focused on a large vehicle standing on the opposite side of the river from us. The smoke rose from a pipe near the front. It was way bigger and longer than a car. I could spot a turret on both the front and the back of the vehicle. Each turret had two barrels. If the vehicle was symmetrical, then there would also be two turrets on the other side as well. There were no windows except near the front of the vehicle. I could make out the side view mirrors as well. Instead of mirrors, there were those turrets as well as neon blue lights. The vehicle had three massive wheels that were twice as tall as the humans below. Presumably, there were also three wheels on the other side, so this vehicle had six giant wheels in total.

  The neon lights formed a cross made of four triangles pointing inwards. The cross of triangles was surrounded by a neon blue ring. This was the insignia of the Monster Purifiers. And it was three times as large as the humans.

  Still, the vehicle looked pretty small compared to us. It was only big compared to the humans. Of which I counted three. Two were women, and one was a man.

  “And it stopped again,” The man said. He wore a kind of latex suit with neon blue lights. He was lean and clean-shaven, with blond hair. I would have found him handsome if I were straight. That was until I saw the two robotic prosthetic arms emerging from his back, each carrying a comatose monster girl, in addition to the monster girl he was dragging by the hair. Each of them looked like a cat girl, with pointed black ears and a long, curvy black tail.

  “Hopefully it’s getting tired,” the other woman said. She was wearing some kind of black metallic armor that covered her whole body. It gave off the same neon glow that the man’s latex suit had. In her hands was a single monster cat girl. The girl made no movements.

  “We can’t rely on hope,” another woman said. She must have been the one I heard originally. She had a similar latex suit as the man that curved around her hourglass figure. Her blue hair was tied up in a ponytail. In her arms was some kind of gun. It wasn’t a normal gun since it looked more like something out of a sci-fi show with its huge straight barrel and neon lights. What was with everyone and neon lights? Even the vehicle had neon lights. “Get a move on.”

  “They’re kidnapping monster girls?!” Samsara mentally gasped. “We have to stop them.”

  “They look feral to me,” I said. I wasn’t really sure why Samsara was saying we needed to stop them. Although I wouldn’t mind eating them.

  “They might also be kidnapping non-feral monster girls, too!” Samsara said. I felt her facing towards me, but her eyes only saw the ground in front of us since we were invisible. “Irene could be in there.” I could tell from her thoughts that ‘there’ meant the large vehicle.

  I wasn’t sure that was true, but I didn’t want to argue with Samsara about the odds. So I just focused on the fact that we would at least get a good meal out of this.

  None of them was looking up at us. This was an excellent opportunity to use [Blood Spike]. If we slid down the canyon, they would clearly see the rocks breaking below us, even if we remained invisible. I leaned my upper body over the edge and [Focused] to make a [Blood Spike] on the tip of three of my hair tentacles. [Blood Launch] sent the one-meter-long spikes towards the heads of each of the humans.

  “What the fuck?” Latex Suit Woman said, turning her head upwards. The other two humans looked up, and I saw fear in their faces. They each dodged out of the way. Seriously? Was the whirring sound the [Blood Spike] really that noticeable? I’d have to talk to Devotio later about getting better magic, because it seemed [Blood Spike] was only effective in the water where noise was dampened.

  Latex Suit Woman aimed her gun upwards and began firing. A blue beam hit me nearly instantaneously in the chest, leaving me no room to dodge. Blue sparks appeared where she hit me. Suddenly, my entire body felt in pain. Samsara yelped out as the pain echoed throughout her too. I lost my concentration and dropped [Color Camouflage II].

  “It’s the Kaiju!” Latex Suit Woman shouted. “Load the monsters onto the juggernaut and get out of here. I’ll provide cover.”

  Rage coursed throughout my body, and I jumped downwards. Samsara’s tail became taut, and she was pulled along with me as I fell into the canyon.

  “Get out of the way!” Latex Suit Woman yelled. Each of them leaped away from my spot as I landed on their side of the river. A huge crater formed in the ground where I landed. Water quickly flowed in from the river, filling it. The juggernaut and the two women were facing me, while Samsara was facing Latex Suit Man.

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  “You’re all going to pay for harming me and Samsara,” I growled, activating [Serrated Tentacles]. My tentacles went dashing towards my prey. I sent one tentacle for each human, while the other six went to grab the juggernaut.

  A barrage of beams and laser bolts hit me in the chest, but I simply grunted. My tentacles latched onto the juggernaut, slashing its tires and lifting it in the air. It seemed to be about the size of one of my arms. The humans jumped out of the way of my tentacles. They moved too fast to be normal humans. I knew the Monster Purifiers upgraded humans to fight monster girls, but this was ridiculous how fast they were moving.

  Samsara was also struggling to catch the tiny human. Her clawed hands kept missing as Latex Suit Man jumped in and out between her fingers. It did cause him to drop the unconscious monster girls though.

  “There are two Kaijus?” He muttered. “Wait, no, it’s a chimera.”

  The juggernaut’s turrets turned upwards, pointing directly at my eyes. No way am I getting blinded again. I quickly flipped the juggernaut backwards, aiming it to send a couple of blue laser bolts forward to the humans in front of me. They quickly leaped out of the way. The turrets furthest away from me stopped firing as they realized it was no longer shooting at me. I had two of my [Serrated Tentacles] slice through the gun turrets on each side before it could target my eyes again.

  An idea came to my mind. I brought the juggernaut directly in front of my chest, where the stupid Latex Suit Woman was firing on me with her gun. She hissed as one of her shots hit the vehicles, and she instead aimed upwards toward my head. So annoying. How the fuck was I going to eat her if she kept dodging my tentacles? I had to hope she ran out of energy soon. I still had 5000 mana left.

  An idea popped into my mind. I grabbed the immobile and defenseless juggernaut with my hands. I activated [Color Camouflage II] again, but only for my hair tentacles. I ran up to where the humans were and tried stomping on them. As expected, they easily dodged my feet. My stomps left cracks in the stony ground. The Armored Lady took out a device from her back. It transformed into a black lance with blue sparks coming off the tip. She jumped and stabbed my leg in mid-air. I hissed from the pain but made sure to keep up [Color Camouflage II].

  I grabbed Armored Lady and pulled her with one of my tentacles. I gave her a good squeeze, hearing her cough and choke as her lance broke. But I made sure not to completely crush her. Latex Suit Lady and Latex Suit Man were still being a pain to deal with. Latex Suit Man was dodging out of the way of Samsara’s claws. His prosthetic arms had transformed into blades. Thankfully, Samsara’s scales protected her from his weak attacks.

  I sent two of my hair tentacles to go around and behind Latex Suit Lady. She continued shooting me in the face with that stupid beam gun. But I had gotten used to the pain now. I went over to stomp on her, but she dodged and rolled out of the way. My invisible tentacles raced to grab her. She yelped as I dragged her up to the air and gave her a squeeze. Her beam gun broke as she began coughing up blood in my tentacles.

  Now time to deal with the last human left, Latex Suit Man. To be fair, I had no idea what these humans’ names were, and I didn’t particularly care, so I just gave them nicknames based on their clothes. Latex Suit man was now trying to cut at Samsara’s face. She kept blocking his attacks by bringing up her clawed hands to her face. He easily parried Samsara’s hair snake that was trying to bite him. Using [Color Camouflage II], I also made Samsara’s hair snake invisible.

  “Turn around,” I told Samsara.

  “Huh?” She questioned as she turned to face me, her hands still covering her face. Latex Suit Man’s blades hit the scaly part of Samsara’s hair. His blades failed to pierce the scales. His hands hung onto her hair. Was he giving up? Too bad for him.

  Samsara’s invisible hair snake opened her jaws. It pounced on Latex Suit Man. He struggled inside the snake's mouth as the fangs pierced his skin. I could feel the taste of the latex suit on the snake’s tongue. Sadly, it wasn’t particularly tasty. But Latex Suit Man started convulsing, and the hair snake closed its jaws around him and began to swallow.

  “Finally,” I said. “You three were so annoying.” I dangled the two humans in my tentacles upside down in front of me.

  “Why are you kidnapping monster girls?” Samsara cried out, slithering right next to me.

  “Kidnap?” Latex Suit Lady asked. “We are doing the world a service by getting rid of these monsters.”

  “Did you kidnap any non-feral monster girls?” I asked.

  “Non-feral?” She seemed generally puzzled by my question.

  “A monster girl wearing clothes,” I clarified. I dangled her closer to me. “Brown shirt and skirt. With brown wings.”

  “I’m not telling you anything,” Latex Suit Lady said before she spat at me. Her spit missed my face and landed on my chest. Thankfully, my black ink repelled the nasty substance. I squeezed her with my tentacle again and watched her cough out more blood.

  “How about you?” I asked Armored Lady. “Did you kidnap a falcon girl wearing a brown shirt and skirt?”

  “I don’t know!” Armored Lady panicked. “We picked up a couple of monster girls with clothes. But that was a couple of days ago. We thought they were trying to pretend to be a human and didn’t make much of it. I didn’t pay attention to what they looked like.”

  A couple of days ago? Then that lined up when Irene disappeared.

  “Where’s Fortis?” Armored Lady asked. “We’ll give you the monster girls, just please let us go!” The fuck? Who the heck is Fortis?

  “Adga!” Latex Suit Lady called out. “We can’t surrender-.” I gave Latex Suit Lady another squeeze, cutting her off.

  “Fortis, that must be the man in your group, right?” I asked.

  “Yes!” Armored Lady said. Her name must be Adga, but she pissed me off by stabbing me with a lance, so she will be forever referred to as Armored Lady. “Do you have him? Is he alright?”

  “Yep, I have him,” I said with a grin on my face. “I’m currently eating him though.”

  “You’re… what?” Armored Lady stammered, color draining from her face. I had my tentacles grab Samsara’s hair snake, both of which were no longer invisible since I turned off [Color Camouflage II]. I dangled the two humans further away so I could show them the hair snake.

  I pointed to a small bulge in the hair snake past its head. That’s where Latex Suit Man was. He was still convulsing. Sadly, Samsara never got a venomous mutation. That would have helped in knocking him out. “He’s right here.”

  “But… but…” Armored Lady stammered incoherently. “We promised to give you the monster girls if you let us go.”

  “Oh, you don’t need to give us the monster girls,” I said. “We’ll just take them from you after we eat you.”

  “You monster!” Latex Suit Lady cried out. I was surprised she could still speak after I squeezed her a few times.

  “Why?” Armored Lady seemed to sob. I couldn’t see her actual face though because she was wearing a black helmet.

  “Why are we going to eat you?” I asked rhetorically. “It’s because you hurt us.”

  “And you kidnapped non-feral monster girls,” Samsara added on. “We can’t let you kidnap anyone else.”

  “This is the real reason,” Samsara said. “If we let them go, they’ll just capture more monster girls.”

  “I’m just doing this to avenge us,” I told Samsara. She frowned. “But you do make a good point.”

  I dropped Armored Lady in Samsara’s hand and quickly cut her up with [Serrated Tentacles]. Samsara plopped the armored meat chunks into her mouth. They tasted way better than Latex Suit Man. Mainly because Samsara got to actually taste the delicious meat and metallic blood.

  And all that was left was Latex Suit Lady. I brought her up to my mouth. I placed her right arm right on the edge of my teeth. She screamed as I bit down. That’s what you get for shooting me a hundred times. I did the same with her left arm. Normally, I would have expected blood to be leaking out of them since I just ate her two arms. But instead, her wounds quickly clotted. She must be rich in mana then. I tossed her into my mouth and chewed her up.

  As I swallowed my food, my mind focused on the fact that she had mana. That probably explained why these humans were so quick to dodge us then. How did the Monster Purifiers get so much mana though?

  “Did you really have to bite her arms off?” Samsara asked, putting her hands on her hips.

  “No, but we did learn something useful from it,” I said. “These humans were using mana to strengthen themselves. We wouldn’t have known that if I didn’t bite her arms off.”

  “I’m not sure we really needed to learn that,” Samsara said, shaking her head.

  “Nope, but I enjoyed hearing her screams, so honestly, that makes it worth it,” I said, smiling at her.

  “That’s… fucked up,” Samsara said.

  “Hey, language,” I playfully scolded her.

  “Okay, mom,” she jokingly said, rolling her eyes. I poked her cheek with a hair tentacle. “Then let me say it this way. That’s messed up.”

  “Sure, but they deserve it for hurting us,” I said. “Besides, I felt your hatred of them for kidnapping non-feral monster girls.”

  “Yes,” Samsara looked downwards, shame rising up inside of her.

  “Don’t feel guilty about it,” I said. “We’re doing the right thing by eating them.”

  “The right thing,” Samsara repeated. Yep. “Can we check to see if Irene is inside?”

  “Sure,” I said, nearly forgetting about her. My hands still held the juggernaut. [Serrated Tentacles] sliced through the roof of the vehicle and tossed it away.

  I saw a plethora of monster girls strapped to seats across the main body of the juggernaut. Tubes feeding a transparent liquid were connected to their necks. Most of the monster girls lacked clothing, except for two. One of them looked like a chimera girl. She had three heads, two of which each had a neck to her collarbone. The left head of the chimera’s body was a lion girl’s head with yellow-golden fur. The right head was a goat girl’s head with black curved antlers. Finally, she was hunched over, revealing that there was a snake girl that was tethered to her back like Samsara was to me. Unlike Samsara, her scales were green instead of pink. The chimera was wearing a white coat and black pants. I could see her arms ended in lion paws, while her legs ended in hooves.

  The other non-feral monster girl wore a brown shirt and a brown skirt. She also had brown feathered wings tucked behind her back. That must be Irene. Wow, what a coincidence. Who knew we would actually find her here?

  The sound of gunshots distracted me. Two humans were shooting at me from the cockpit.