Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

---Far North of Delta---

The heavy steel door slammed open, letting a ravaging icy wind, blow snow inside the concrete corridor. A massive man bent down to step through the door and escape the blizzard outside. His heavy boots made loud noises as he stepped on the steel grate floor, announcing his return.

He stomped down the corridor and entered a small room to the left, where he took off the heavy coat, fashioned from the rough hide of a monster with dense black fur. Putting away the coat revealed a man who looked like a human but with unnatural proportions.

His upper body was unnaturally thick and wide, like a wine barrel. Sitting on his wide shoulders, his head looked like a pin head. While his upper body was very wide, it slimmed down to an incredibly small waist, when compared to the barrel-like chest. His legs were comparatively small, but very muscular, stretching the crude trousers he wore. he looked like a normal human, with cartoonishly over-exaggerated proportions.

After putting away the coat he walked down the corridor and passed another steel door. Warm air welcomed him, as he entered the central room. Concrete floor, Concrete walls, Concrete ceiling, but someone had filled the room with run-down carpets and furniture to make it a home.

“You are back!” he was greeted by a high voice. Sitting on the bleached red sofa was a woman just like him. She too, had cartoonishly distorted proportions. The woman that called out to him, looked way too slim, without being anorexic, while her hips were the only thing that looked normal, so they were way too big for her.

“Yeah, the blizzard got stronger. I just barely found the way back. I can't wait to get out of this place...” the huge man complained a little as he passed by her, walking into a sad excuse of a kitchen.

“Did you find something?” she asked surprised.

“Yeah, I found some cans that are still good and managed to catch a pigeon monster that wasn't infected,” he called out from the kitchen. After storing away his finds, he came back out and plopped down on the sofa beside her.

“Is Cromwel still watching the security footage?” he asked, sitting beside her. The salvaged TV in front of them was displaying the movie from some of the discs they found in Omega. After escaping from Gamma they had wandered around the mountains for some time until Cromwel found them.

Although they still looked weird, even in human form, the scientist had managed to stabilize their condition to the point that they could try to return to human civilization. Yet, they were stuck up here on the edges of the northern mountains.

Instead of returning to Delta, the scientist had brought them to the edges of Omega, the origin of the virus that was the foundation of the serum that kind of saved and ruined their lives at the same time. Cromwel told them, that he had noticed a change in the infected, possibly a mutation of the virus and he needed to observe it.

As they were technically immortal and could be further infected, they didn't refuse the responsibility to help him as some of the few people unaffected by the disease. They had connected the technology in this old bunker with many of the security systems remaining in Omega, to allow Cromwel to monitor part of the city close to here.

“Did you see the black knight again?” she asked, causing his hair to stand on end just at the thought of that creature.

They had made several trips to Omega, to get food and furniture, and scavenge the city to make their base more habitable. The city was filled with mindless undead but not necessarily dangerous. Most zombies were motionless, like meat statues as long as nothing uninfected caught their attention. Not even the infected beast from the portals acted unless there was someone uninfected.

As people who took the immortal serum, or a variant of it, they had nothing to fear from those inert ones. However, there was also the change Cromwel spoke of. They were mutants among the infected. Maybe one in 10,000 zombies would suddenly start cannibalizing on the normal ones.

The disturbing thing was that their victim would actually cease to exist. Similar to how they were able to gain strength by killing other creatures and absorbing their souls, these zombies did the same to their compatriots. In the process, they were not just gaining strength but showed signs of regaining a basic intellect. At least, according to Cromwell. These mutants were the scary ones they had to be careful of, especially the monster mutants.

However, above them all was the Black Knight, a creature wearing a pitch-black armor, shining like obsidian and exuding a black fog wherever he went. They had only ever seen him from a distance and never dared to approach or observe for long unless through the cameras. The Black Knight exuded an aura that struck instinctual fear into them and not just them.

Even the mindless shufflers would back away from him. Truly terrifying was the footage of times when the mutants dared to attack the knight. They were helpless. Whether it was strength or intelligence, they were far below the knight. Not even the monstrous

But what really disturbed them, was what the knight actually did to them. The difference in power was like a 3-year-old attacking an adult. In the footage, they had the knight simply grasped the mutant by the throat and lifted it in the air.

He would just stand there and watch the creature helplessly struggle in his hands, as the black fog that rose from his body, started eating away at their flesh, like a supernatural acid. They would have believed it, if they didn't have the recording but before their very eyes, the technically immortal undead simply turned into a puddle of black sludge over the course of a minute.

This was what they felt deep down, whenever they saw the being. The black knight was literal death. Uncaring, uncompromising, unstoppable, not even “immortals” were able to escape the fate he allotted. After discovering him, he was added to the subject Cromwel surveilled, but the two of them did their best to avoid it.

“Luckily, I didn't see it today. I would have shit my pants if I met it in this blizzard...” he said, shuddering at the thought.

“Oh my, then i have some good and some bad news for you,” Cromwel said, as he entered the living room. An amused smile played around his lips. had he listened to their conversation?

“We will be leaving for Delta very soon,” he announced.

“Nice!” the hunk exclaimed. however, the woman looked at him questioning.

“Why the sudden change, are you done with your observations? Wouldn't you start experimenting now, or something like that?” she asked suspicious of the sudden change. They had talked quite often, about wanting to return, but he had always denied the request bringing up the importance of this research.

“If it was my decision, we wouldn't leave, but it seems there is a situation,” he said and moments later, there was a heavy knocking that could be heard in the corridor outside. Someone was knocking on the door of their bunker?

Cromwel didn't say anymore and leisurely opened the inner door, passing through the corridor, to open the outer door. Curious and careful, the other two follow, reading their weapons. The bloke held a rapier and dagger, while the woman weighed a meaty mace with thorns in her hand.

“This brings me to the bad news for you, greet Haa'Skon.”

Cromwel opened the door and outside, in the raging blizzard, stood the black knight exuding black mist, his fist still raised to knock again.

The bloke was barely able to clench his cheeks, to hinder his bowels from evacuating explosively.

“Cromwel, follow me. We need to return.”