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Chapter 120 - Shattered Predictions
🕑 Added 2019-05-12 20:29:47 +0000 UTC
Apparently, 'release mechanism' doesn't mean releasing whoever is inside the restraints. I can't for the life of me think of any other possible meaning those two words could have in this context, but it seems to involve torturing the subject instead. Was it mislabeled?
"You have killed her!" Near points at me in accusation.
"Excuse me, but she sounds very alive to me." I reply, but it's drowned out by Luna's screams.
"Release means that all the power of the station rushes back into her!" Explaining during the moment when the half-elf draws breath to continue her wailing, the pilot displays knowledge that I feel she shouldn't know.
"That's such a misleading label!" I don't comment on where she learned about the inner workings of the battle station's primary weapon, which should be kept top-secret from the rank and file like her. "So she's being electrocuted, huh?"
Without waiting for an answer, I grab the metal restraints with my bare hands and tear them off as if they were made of paper mâché. Whatever power was flowing through them shoots into me, but it doesn't even register; Tahiri's lightning strikes were far more powerful, and I got used to those in no time. Luna falls unconscious and drops into Rolan's arm, but I still feel her life force with my Chaos senses.
The bard immediately jumps to her side and places his hands on her chest and forehead. A white glow emerges from his palms, and the half-elf's breathing visibly calms down. Not only did he never say he knew light magic, but he didn't even speak an incantation. He did say that he's related to the Old Humans, so he could be connected to Sintress, the Lady of Brilliance - the only god played by an Old Human whom I haven't met yet.
"Why?!" Near suddenly screams while holding her head and staggering back. "How do you always exceed my calculations?!"
Her form flickers, and I glimpse several faces overlaying themselves over hers in quick succession. The same happens to her pilot uniform and even her physique, as she takes on various forms including non-human ones. When I see this, it dawns on me.
"Shelnir!!!" I roar and burst out into my true form without giving anybody a warning. She looks up in terror, and her appearance settles on that of a girl around my age with distinctly Japanese features, wearing a shrine maiden's outfit with a cherry blossom pattern. That must be what she really looks like, and I'm stunned by it even though I knew that this is my world in the far future. I just never thought a fellow Japanese would be among the Old Humans.
"S-stay away from me! Monster!" Stumbling back, she shuts her eyes and shields herself with her arms, but I overcome my initial shock and rush forward. An invisible wall blocks my advance, most likely a barrier cast by her.
"Nothing will keep me from tearing you apart, you hear?" I maximize my mass and punch the barrier, but it doesn't break even from an impact that creates an explosive shockwave which staggers everybody behind me.
"Let me do it." Kamii suddenly comes forward and slams her crab pincer against the invisible wall behind which Shelnir is cowering in fear with her head held between her hands. My face seems to have affected her mind to a degree, but it wasn't enough to break it completely.
"What do you-?" I start but remember that she has a strange power in that cursed arm. We haven't seen each other in such a long time that I almost forgot about it. And I didn't get the opportunity to test what it's capable of before we were separated.
We didn't have the time to do many things together before we were separated.
The little dark elf shows unexpected strength in her slender limbs, as she punches the barrier in quick succession without tiring. Eventually, an impact sends out a shockwave similar in magnitude to the one from my previous punch.
And the impact right after sounds like a massive explosion which causes the entire station to shake. Shelnir looks up in shock, and her eyes widen when Kamii's crab arm comes down on the barrier once again. The entire battle station splits open as if it has been cleanly cut with a gigantic knife, and the part of the spiral tower she's standing on slides down and falls.
Now I see how the barrier works; the invisible wall was secured in place by sliding it into the structure of the flying fortress as if placing a glass pane on a bowl. It's near indestructible but not immovable.
"Stop!" Shelnir floats in midair and lifts her hands to stop Kamii before she can bring her arm down one more time. The battle station has essentially been cut in half by the properties of that barrier, and it's going to slide out of the branches holding it up and fall onto the city if it breaks apart. She continues in a low tone. "I know now."
"What do you know?" I growl, and she flinches. Even now, she has her head turned, and eyes shut tightly to avoid seeing me, but my voice still reaches her.
"That I underestimated you all!" She jumps to her feet and points in our general direction while making an angry face with her eyes closed. "Next time, I won't make the same mistake!"
"What makes you think there is a next time?" Aurelia comments by my side. I motion to turn around but see movement and stop myself, to witness two golden swords come out of nowhere and impale Shelnir through the chest from behind. The golden girl must have transmuted the debris from the tower and formed those weapons with it. "That is for Vanadia."
The Japanese Old Human coughs up blood and looks down at herself in surprise. Her expression seems genuine, and it tells me that she's fatally wounded. She no longer has the concentration to keep flying and begins to fall. I guess Zenlith is really the only special one among them for being able to reassemble himself even when his body is turned into mist. Either the others never considered the possibility of being hurt like this or lack the imagination to become as indestructible as he is.
Suddenly, darkness rushes in from the opening of the battle station created by Kamii's pounding of the barrier and gathers into a slender form clad in a black cloak that wields a scythe made of shadows. Catching Shelnir with a skeletal hand, he breaks her fall and floats back up to us.
"Serent, the Liberator of the Dead." I hear Rolan's whisper through the ensuing silence. A skull with two red dots for eyes look at me, its eerie empty grin contradicting the cold anger I feel emanating from the intent glare.
"Today is a festival of gods, it seems." I remark sarcastically and fly toward him.
"Wait, his scythe is-" The bard calls out to me from behind, but it's already too late.
Even though my body is at its maximum density, and I created a shield of light magic overlaying my skin, the black blade slices through my right forearm, enters the waist, and exits the other side at the hip completely unhindered. I feel my lower half separating from my upper half, and all sensations leave the wounded area as if the nerve endings died off.
"Wha..." I look down and see the dismembered lower body and forearm as they're caught by gravity and fall. But long before they hit the ground, they turn grey and flake before scattering into dust. It's just like what happened to my mother, so that means it was Serent's doing rather than Rolan's. "YOU!"
My missing right arm and lower body grow back out, and I swipe at the reaper with a clawed hand expanded to gigantic proportions. I have more than enough mass to reform into my original shape a hundred times, but I just lost half of my overall matter. Before he can cut away more of me, I'll just have to crush his body into bone dust.
But he covers Shelnir in his cloak and turns into a storm of inky darkness, which slips through my giant fingers. It flies past me and reforms in front of Rolan and the bard, who stare up at him in fear.
"She was meant to die today." Serent's deep but ethereal voice echoes through everybody's minds as if an icicle was driven into their heads. He's pointing at the still unconscious Luna.
Ireyo gathers herself before anybody else does and leaps up to attack him, only to be swatted out of the air by a skeletal hand. A volley of Aurelia's flying golden weapons shoot toward him, but spinning his scythe around, he deflects them all effortlessly.
I shoot a plasma beam at Serent's head, and he turns around to catch it with his palm. It doesn't even leave a scorch mark on his bones. Kamii runs past Aurelia and tries to crush his legs under the flowing black cloak with her pincer, but all she grabs is black smoke as if he doesn't even have legs.
Finally, I try again with an array of light spears, which I release at him like a shotgun blast. For the first time, the reaper feels the need to dodge, as his form sways sideways to avoid them all. They punch holes into his smoke-like cloak, which doesn't mend itself. I expected it would, but it seems that he may be weak to light magic, even though he's an Old Human who's above such things.
"There are too many interferences to conduct the proper reaping ceremony." He says with a sideways glance to the unconscious Luna, but Rolan quickly shields her with his body. "But that is a debt I intend to collect."
"Oh no, you don't!" Knowing that he intends to leave, I fly forward at Mach speeds with no regard for those around me and spread out my form to swallow him whole. But before I reach him, he explodes into a storm of darkness once again and scatters.
The aftershock of my acceleration sends Kamii and Ireyo flying off the tower, and I quickly extend a pair of tentacles to catch them. After returning them to my side, I look around but see no traces of the inky black cloud Serent turned into.
He has escaped, but it didn't feel like he really had to; his overwhelming power dominated us, and we completely lost.
"Dammit!" I stomp my foot and create a dent in the floor before returning to my human appearance. My mass is still considerable, but it hurts to have lost half of it due to my overconfidence. I should have considered the possibility of abilities that go beyond physical attacks, especially when facing one of the Old Humans. Taking hits just to show I can isn't very smart.
"Why does he want to come after Runa?" Rolan asks in disbelief. "She served Lord Alverost well."
"Because she was part of Shelnir's plan to make you fight against me." I spit in his direction. At this point, I've figured out what she wanted to achieve here.
Her plan was for Rolan to gather his old party and bring Kamii to this city, then for me to witness the little dark elf and maybe even Hestia's deaths. I would go on to kill Alverost and learn from the humans that Luna must be in this sphere. It would give the former leader a reason to live when he sees her again so that he no longer feels like letting me kill him. But my haphazard attempt to release her from these restraints would kill his beloved, which in turn would have given him a reason to fight me to the death.
An alternative would have been for my companions and me to be killed by Oinos, but Areteniha finding out about her son's actions anyway. She would then destroy the flying fortress, which in turn would have allowed Rolan to find Luna here. He would then accidentally kill her with his own hands when trying to release her.
But none of those things came to pass. She vastly underestimated me, and I saved everybody, including the half-elf I should want to kill. That's why she broke down, seeing her predictions repeatedly fail like that. She may have used incomplete data of me in that Akashic Records machine of hers, so the results were a little off each time.
If everything had gone according to any of her scenarios, all the outcomes would have been horrible. Shelnir is an evil sadistic monster that needs to be stopped. And somebody like Serent, who seems to pride himself in being in control over life and death, will most likely keep her alive and return her to full health in no time.
This is far from over.
"Your judgment is postponed." I turn to Rolan and the bard, who look up at me in surprise. Kamii and Ireyo do the same, with the latter motioning to protest my decision. I continue before she can speak and point at the former leader. "Serent clearly didn't want to kill you. He could have easily cleaved right through you to kill her."
"What do you mean?" The former leader asks with a skeptical look. "I've served my purpose before the gods, and they've thrown me away."
"Listen here, you shit." I grab his shirt and lift him close to my face effortlessly. "You can wallow in your self-loathing and regret for all I care. But those aren't gods, and you're done when I say you are."
Staring at me with his mouth hanging open in speechlessness, Rolan can't find a response to that. When I let him go, he falls back onto his bottom and looks up at me dumbfounded.
"We're going back." I turn around and state.
"Where to?" Kamii asks, and I give her a warm smile.
"Home."
I was trying to act cool by saying that we're going home right away, but when we reunite with the others, I remember that Alverost, Oinos, and Areteniha are just a Korenga stone toss away from here. I still have unfinished business with the former two, and if the latter stands in my way, I'll have to fight her too.
Alverost seems to be quite weak, so he's not a problem. But I lost a lot of mass, and Oinos didn't even budge until I used all I had. And how do you fight somebody with the power of the sun? Areteniha could most likely evaporate me with a flick of her finger.
"Maybe you should come back here and regroup first." Senka says in my mind while I ferry everybody back down from inside the cracked sphere in a smaller version of the Chaos carrier. "Don't forget that you have Exla here. Right now, she's only a glorified watchdog, but I'm sure she can be of great help in a proper fight."
"More like a watchtower." I add but don't comment on using the cloud girl to fight her brethren. Maybe it's false pride or just stupidity, but I don't want anybody else taking away my revenge. If she kills them all in my stead, I would never get over the death of my mother.
At least now I know who to be careful of the most. Zenlith, Oinos, Serent, the three most powerful opponents, each represent a different kind of challenge. And then there's still Areteniha, the one I fear even Exla can't overcome.
"Ask her how she would go about fighting Areteniha." Just in case she does know her weakness, I have Senka inquire for me. A few seconds later, the response already comes, from the girl in person.
"Are you insane? Don't even think about fighting her! While I may have the most imagination of them all and could single-handedly take all of those on Earth down, she's in a league of her own!" Exla's voice is transmitted through the Senka phone. "If she wanted to, she could make the sun erase this planet with a thought!"
"Thank you. That tells me enough." I respond and sigh.
"What is wrong?" Hestia asks my avatar. She only saw me heave a sigh and may be thinking that something is bothering me. In a sense, it's true, but she could never imagine what Exla and I were just talking about.
"Just found out once again how small I am." I reply with a wry smile. No matter how much mass I gather on any number of planets, I could never hope to challenge a sun. My existence may be called a Cosmic Horror, but that's nothing before the power of those celestial bodies.
"Now that you know, you can work on improving." As expected of Aurelia, she comments this. It's her way of encouraging me, and I do appreciate that she doesn't present me a shoulder to cry on. Nothing good ever comes out of that, except for one's feelings for a fleeting moment.
"You're right." Nodding in assent, I land the Chaos carrier on the platform and make everybody disembark before pulling all the matter back into my human avatar. The lizardfolk remained in their positions while we were inside the battle station, most likely waiting for either something to happen or their leaders to tell them that they may leave. They're now staring at me like I'm some sort of god. Well, in a way, I do have godlike powers.
"I am Prime Minissster Itssscoatl, at your ssservissse. Ssspeaking for Queen Teoyohticacoatl and all of Tonatiultepetl, I ekssspresss my gratitude." An old lizardman with black scales comes forward and declares with a deep bow of his head, which sits on a snake-like neck. He even talks like I always imagined a snake would, but he does have arms and legs. "You have sssaved usss all from the ssstar of ekssstinction."
"It wasn't really me." I reply truthfully. "These two were the real heroes."
With these words, I push Aurelia and Tokomaha to the forefront. The former takes the attention with the dignity of a queen while the latter is surprised to be in the limelight. Both look around as the lizardfolk bow to them in reverence.
"Who are you?" Itssscoatl asks, and I glance at my followers. I've heard that even though this city-state is located on the demon continent, they aren't part of the Dominion. Maybe we can forge an alliance with them based on this.
"I am the crown princess of the Dominion, Chaos." I announce for all to hear so that they know that they owe the Dominion their existence. "And before we continue, I'd like to ask if something happened while we were up there."
"Tonatihuatl left in a pillar of radianssse and returned to her sssrone in the sssun." The prime minister explains, and I suppress the urge to sigh in relief. That must be the name of Areteniha in their language. She must have found Alverost still alive and went to the Rhodos Station on the sun to heal his wounds. It does mean that one of the main targets for my revenge is out of my reach, but I doubt it'll take long, and he'll be back soon enough.
"What about Oinos?" I hope he left as well, but Areteniha doesn't seem to like him, so she may have refused to take him along.
"He hasss not returned." Once again, the reply makes me want to show relief. It may feel a little anticlimactic to leave our battle unfinished, but I don't think I could defeat him as I am right now. Until we meet again, I'll need to find a surefire way to defeat him.
"Thank you. I'd love to stay and talk, but we should get going." I express my gratitude for the information and turn away to leave. But as expected, he stops me.
"Pleassse, will you not ssstay a few daysss. I believe thisss wasss a sssign." Using his staff to point at the crashed battle station above the city, Itssscoatl implores. "The Sssuncaller Ritual hasss given usss guidance. It sssent you here to tell usss that we ssshould no longer isssolate thisss sssity and align ourssselvesss with the Dominion."
That's exactly what I wanted to achieve, but not right now. I've left Arkaim unattended for too long; the likelihood of an attack occurring there is quite high, even with Exla holding the fort. Now that I took Alverost and Shelnir out for at least a while, the other Old Humans won't watch quietly. When I'm alone, I can easily fly at hypersonic speeds to return here at a later time for signing a treaty.
"I have to return to my capital. But I promise that I will be here tomorrow." Scratching the back of my head with a troubled expression, I give him my reply.
Itssscoatl stares at me like I'm insane, as he's aware of the distance between our two cities. He should have seen what I'm capable of, but maybe he's too old and can't see too well, or didn't understand what he witnessed. In either case, he'll just have to take my word for it.
"Don't worry. I keep my promises." I glance at Kamii, who looks up at me with a neutral expression. It changes into a warm smile under my gaze, and I put my arm around her to squeeze her to me. It took a while to fulfill it, but I reunited with her. "Await my return at noon tomorrow."
"I... I ssshall take your word for it." Bowing his head, he steps back and glances at the stands, among which the white-scaled female lizardfolk I saw earlier sits. So that's Queen Teoyohticacoatl. It explains why the bulky warriors surrounded her when I crashed near her in my fight with Oinos.
"Now, all aboard." I expand into the Chaos jet and have my avatar stand at the open door to call them in. Kamii, Hestia, Aurelia, Tokomaha, and Vitalis do so without hesitation, finding seats for themselves right away. The little dark elf never experienced this, but she follows the example of the others who have.
"This is most curious." The bard comments as he climbs the stairs to the door while eyeing my new form with unabashed interest. Even though I'm a jet, why does it feel like he's ogling my naked body instead?
"What is this?" Luna, who has woken up sometime after we landed on the pyramid, asks with a suspicious gaze while being helped by Rolan. He did explain the situation to her, and while she most definitely hasn't agreed to deliver herself to my judgment, she's going to follow his decisions for the time being.
"Not a torture chamber." I mutter to her while she passes my avatar, and she stares at me with round eyes. Laughing about her response, I slap her ass and cause her to jump in surprise. "Get inside already."
When I first came here, I was with only my girls and Vitalis. Now the members of our group have grown by Kamii and her party, and Rolan and his party, bringing their numbers up to fourteen. Rather than a jet, it's almost like a passenger plane. And Sazi asked the lizardfolk warriors to bring everybody their equipment during my conversation with Itssscoatl, so they even have luggage. I'm glad I can fly using my mind alone, and that weight is not an issue.
After all, Zancrax's armor seems to be made of granite, Ireyo's giant broken sword is heavier than it should be at that size, and Gram still has his oversized shield. I don't know if I would have been able to carry them all in the Chaos carrier, back when I didn't know about the Imagination Engine and flight that doesn't require magic and ignores physics.
"Please take your seat quickly so we can depart." I announce over the speaker system - which is just extra mouths hidden behind mesh covers. When they do, I grow seatbelts that secure them in place. Some of them struggle in surprise, but my girls are telling them that everything is fine.
"How many days will it take to Arkaim?" Gram asks while looking out one of the oval windows covered with eye-lenses in place of glass.
"Days?" My avatar sitting in the cockpit turns around and asks in feigned innocence. The big man looks over and blinks his eyes, then turns his head to look at the other me at the closing door. He does a double take for both avatars but watches in horror as the latter walks toward the nearest wall and disappears into it. Snickering to myself, I make another announcement. "Hold tight. We're taking off."
The Chaos jet jumps into the air and quickly leaves the tree line beneath it. Then, I start a gradual but fast acceleration in the direction of Arkaim, under the guidance of the global positioning Senka.
Almost for the entire journey, somebody would be screaming in fear of flying.
Comments
Very nice chapter! I'm curious to see how things are going to play out with Areteniha now. She is sounding like she is going to be quite a challenge for Chaos if things continue as is.
