Joshua has decided that he hadn't hated Parasites enough.

  Joshua has also decided that he hadn't LOVED va moats enough.

  Looking at the damage to the wall surrounding the moat, the scratching on the cobblestone, Joshua can paint a picture of just how CLOSE it got to their house.

  Mentally, Joshua does the math of his base.

  The perimeter/Ward, the wall, and the moat.

  First, there's the “perimeter”, which is a chain-link fence that has wooden crosses mounted on every post. Around that, more crosses are pnted into the ground.

  He isn't quite sure of the exact range that the crosses set their “anti-demon” radius to, but he does know that it is spherical.

  Maybe the size of the radius… corretes to the size of the cross? Or the material? Maybe both. He's only made wooden crosses at simir sizes.

  The strength of the “divine punishment” seems to be generally ft and unscaling, which is fine because you can't exactly powerscale God's Judgement.

  He's not sure how you can make damn near instant obliteration even stronger.

  Somewhere, he knows a DragonBall fan is frothing at the mouth at that conclusion.

  So. Anyways. The “Ward” he's made is less of a wall and… more of a shitload of overpping spherical barriers that come together to form a conjoined area.

  …do Parasites not count as demons?

  No, he saw them get damaged by the Ward, of course they count.

  So maybe it makes more sense that the crosses are more “anti-evil” in general.

  Whatever the case, this parasite managed to dig under the radius, into his base. And…

  There's another hole a few feet inside the fenced perimeter. Right beside the scratched cobblestone of the wall.

  The va moat stopped it from digging, and when it came up, it was stopped by the wall.

  If he didn't have the moat…

  Joshua takes this all in, standing in the rain, sword gripped tightly in his hand.

  He feels… relief? Could you even call this relief? Should he even be relieved?

  It's the same as coming home from work and checking the cameras, only to find out someone's been fiddling with your front door while you were away. But luckily whatever they were doing didn't work, and they left.

  The relief that comes with that is not NEAR the sheer pants-shitting stress that follows.

  “...fuck”

  Joshua slumps, pressing his head against the front door after walking inside.

  “How do I even deal with that?...”

  Uriel is in bed, while Gabriel is off doing… whatever she does.

  Jophiel is at his desk, her horn ignited and slowly cleaning her revolver with a loose piece of cloth. An apple floats beside her, which she's been snacking on.

  Her ears perk up at his gaze, she shoots a quick smile over her withers.

  Joshua smirks and taps his chest.

  Tilting her head in confusion, she looks down, now noticing the rather messy gathering of crumbs on her chest fluff.

  Eyes wide, she instantly brushes it all away with her hooves and snaps her head back to the desk, ears tinged red.

  “...dirty”

  “PONY!” She barks out in embarrassment.

  …

  10:30AM

  Still raining.

  Still dark.

  Joshua sits at his window, overlooking the front yard.

  [Berrypicker29: Have you tried building a bigger cross, maybe the effect scales with size?]

  …why did he read out the name?

  He must be really stressed if he actually starts reading chat names.

  “I thought that too, I'll have to try it ter… but for now, I just have to wait for the storm to pass”

  Joshua has ZERO wards set in his house. Which in hindsight seems like a pretty dumb idea, but how do you predict the Parasites learning how to fucking DIG?

  The thought that really gets him is that it… might still be under there.

  “Yeah, no. Fuck that”

  God, he feels like such a pushover. There's a chance of that… thing, still being under his house. And the only thing stopping him from protecting him and the others is some RAIN?

  Whatever, he'll survive getting wet.

  Joshua suddenly pushes himself up. Going to his chest and quickly moving something to his inventory.

  A bucket of va.

  But as his eyes scroll through the grids, his focus nds on a pair of small objects he doesn't remember picking up.

  Maybe he found them in the mountains?

  [PUMPKIN SEEDS (×2)]

  What is he supposed to do with pu-...

  Oh.

  Now that's an idea.

  He grabs them.

  “Pony?”

  “I'll be right back”

  Joshua, with a purpose in his steps, walks out into the rain once more.

  It instantly pours over him, a violent gale of water soaking his frame, but it doesn't stop him.

  The first thing he does is head over to his farms. He doesn't come here that much unless he needs something, a decent sized wheat field beside a rather basic animal pen (fences and wooden sb ceiling) for cows and sheep.

  Still no pigs or chicken, unfortunately.

  But he's not here for them. Crouching down, feeling the rain down his back, he pulls out a wooden hoe and makes two more tilled plots of soil next to the water.

  Pulling out the seeds, he unceremoniously pnts them and dumps eight or so batches of bone meal into them, making pale orange stalks grow out of the ground at a staggering speed.

  Waiting for a moment, Joshua huffs at the unmoving stalks.

  Now, he just has to wait.

  Not here though, he's not a maniac.

  “Now how do I prevent Parasites from digging into my base… or… fuck, I guess go over it too”

  He could just make more crosses and scatter them across the base, and honestly that's not a bad idea, but he feels like he could do something… better?

  Joshua thinks on this, idly tilling the soil and running his fingers along the wooden handle of his hoe.

  “Ah, right. Berries”

  [ORAN BERRY SEED (×3)]

  [LEPPA BERRY SEED (×3)]

  He pnts two each and bone meals it, keeping a seed of each to himself just in case.

  “I need a bigger ward…”

  Alright.

  How do you get a bigger ward?

  …is it really as simple as making a bigger cross?

  “Fuck it… I have enough wood”

  Joshua heads to his “backyard”, more of a beach than a backyard but whatever, and he starts with a 2×2 base of wooden logs.

  In Minecraft, a 2×2 isn't that rge. But in real life when it's transted into meters, it's HUGE.

  Now, Joshua knows that he could probably build straight up, and that even if he gets injured he could bounce back rather quickly.

  So he could probably build this thing from the bottom up and not have to worry about falling.

  But FUCK THAT.

  Absolutely not.

  Joshua employs a forbidden technique for Minecraft pyers.

  Ladders.

  The rain still pours down on him, his hair sticks to his face, making his already poor visibility even worse.

  Eight blocks tall, with two block arms sticking out on each side. Its earthy brown oak stands imposing, like an old giant sleeping in the dirt.

  For some reason, Joshua is excited. It reminds him of that one statue in Brazil, but he's the one making it.

  Shouldn't that make it more special?

  He thinks so.

  Pcing the st block, nothing changes, but it feels like it all snapped into pce, like a puzzle coming together.

  It's missing something.

  It comes to Joshua's lips with practiced ease, running his fingers along the rough texture of wood.

  Psalm 91:10-14, he's very familiar with this verse at this point.

  “There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any pgue come nigh thy dwelling…

  For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways…

  They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone…

  Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet…”

  Joshua lets a deep exhale escape his mouth.

  “Amen”

  Then a smirk rises.

  “Now get out of my house”

  The cross statue seems to hum an agreement to him.

  Somewhere, deeply muffled by the soil and raging storm, a high-pitched screech barely cuts through before being quickly snuffed out.

  Joshua huffs.

  Though relieved, he looks down at his soaked clothes.

  “Jophiel's gonna be pissed…”

  (A/N: Less exciting chapter today but it'll pick up.)