Book 8 – Chapter 41 – An asskicking

To’Iridia raced through the hexagonal pillars, using every bit of her senses to detect where to hide.

This was insane. Had been insane. Who were those monsters?

She could tell four of her team had been permanently killed. Eradicated too fast for them to eject. The rest had managed to safely escape in time.

She was the last one standing.

Fortunately, this biome offered a possible way out. It had been built into a valley, with the gateway being the very top, before the terrain started to gradually sink downwards. And all through all of this were hexagonal pillars, all different sizes and heights, with what looked to be a river of water weaving through the entire zone like a snake would. Each time the water hit a fork in the path, it would crash against the hexagon pillar and move on in one direction.

To’Iridia had counted as many as twenty of these massive rivers of water unnaturally traveling between the lake here. And she knew if that water passed through her position, it would pick her off her feet and then constantly slam her against the pillars it moved around in between, eventually causing catastrophic damage if she didn’t escape.

She was now weaving between this dangerous terrain as it was the only possible means to escape. The earlier bridge had led over this lake of pillars, out in the clear open, but that terrain was currently occupied by monsters.

She found a small pocket off the side, slid to a stop and pressed herself deep within it. Escaping directly out of this biome was impossible, all exits were sealed off, and the only path left was the gateway at the foot of the biome, now far above her.

What she could do was wait out the enemy. They would claim the mite containment cube, and then spend hours trying to open it up before finding out those things didn’t open by default. After which, they’d grow bored and leave.

There was a voice calling out in the air, a man’s voice.

“Come back, we just want to talk!”

She didn’t need any software to tell her that was a lie. She swore to herself, after this she’d hunt this Deathless down to the ends of the earth. She’d rip his spine from his back. And then hunt down everyone he’s ever known.

She just needed to figure out a way to beat these monsters.

Additional sounds registered to her senses beyond just water rushing between pillars. The footfalls of heavy armor landing onto pillars above. They were chasing after her, as if she were prey.

Worse, they’d catch her eventually if she stayed here. She was too close to the original fight location. She calculated a potential way out, and sprinted. She’d survived protofeathers before, she could survive this. All she needed to do was get deep enough within the biome that the pillars no longer were a flat map but became more three dimensional, leading into caves and branching pathways. There, they would have no hope of catching her from the air.

Unfortunately, she miscalculated. The river of water diverted and flowed right after her, as if it had a sixth sense of where she was going and aimed to consume her for it.

She was forced to jump for higher ground or be swept away. Her hand hit a pillar, and she leapt up with a heavy push of her feet. And just as she passed the sight range of a pillar, she saw him.

One of those knights. Crouched down and aiming a rifle right in her way.

They’d spotted her, and had cordoned the zone out already. There had been no escape from the start.

The earlier footfalls behind her had been to spook her out of hiding.

To’Iridia didn’t wait for the finger to press on the trigger. She had no shields, and no means of dodging that kind of damage this close. So she abandoned her shell immediately, knowing defeat was now no longer avoidable.

It was a good move too. Not even an instant later, with her abandoned shell still mid-leap, it was shot straight through the throat by one single occult bullet.

“Target eliminated.” The knight said, standing back up, looking down at the shell of the Feather. It slammed limply against a hexagon pillar, then collapsed straight down and lay sprawled there, unmoving.

The water chasing after her seemed to realize the target was no longer alive, given it forked off to the left, passing only a few feet nearby but leaving her shell in the open.

“Recovering shell now.”

And over the private comms, the soul-knights with Captain Sagrius’s armor had already begun playing rock paper scissors to see who got to commandeered this one.

---

Two minutes ago

Machine lessers were all over the board in terms of danger. But Feathers? They were on another scale given their occult abilities and general power.

And I had planned ahead to shove that scale down with lead weights, and then throw the entire scale out the airlock. Whichever metaphor was more applicable to the absolute destruction we had cooked up so far.

“All knights, deploy experimental weapons.”

Sure, To’Avalis will have a heads up about what’s coming if we used our experimental weapons right now. But given the insanity happening right this moment, we did not have time to hold a pitched battle against nine Feathers. I needed them gone and out of the way.

At the center of a massive forest of hexagonal white pillars ahead was a single flat island, above the lake of pillars surrounding it. And, standing on the only bridge leading over all this chaos, were eight Feathers. All looking vastly different from one another besides the white, black, and glowing violet color theme.

From the moment I saw what we were up against and what was in this biome, I also knew we hadn’t reached Relinquished herself. Whatever this place was, it wasn’t defended enough to be her palace. Not opulent enough either – because it only had a single mite containment cube. Massive, much larger than the ones I’d seen during my fight at the bridge against To’Avalis, but still just a containment cube.

Which Wrath had told me were made by mites to store things that had no means of disposal or were too dangerous to dispose of.

Outright loomed in the background, making the eight Feathers waiting look like tiny white silhouettes.

The ninth Feather was much closer, having already walked halfway down the bridge to come deal with the pesky humans. He had a full on black blindfold, violet geometric tattoos on a shirtless body, and one circular blade held by a highly unsafe looking hilt. A second circular blade was waiting on his belt, right by his kilt. Which was decorated with glowing violet emblems and background silver emblems on the night-like fabric.

I could almost sense Wrath getting envious just staring at him sauntering down the bridge.

He certainly looked dangerous, and I didn’t plan to find out what he could actually do. That’d be giving them a chance, something I’ve gone to great lengths to make illegal.

The line of Winterscar knights ahead of me all drew out their rifles, loaded various bullet types, and organized according to the drills we’d run. That was it. That had been the enemy’s only window of time to win. The moment the bullets were loaded into their chambers, and the knights shifted into position, pinging each other different targets they’d handle – it was over and the enemy hadn’t even realized they’d blown it.

The eight in the back didn’t move a finger, while the lead Feather ahead just came to a stop, more curious why the humans even bothered to use ranged weapons. This far deep, only occult blades were useful. “Did you just call us mooks? You? Hilarious irony.”

Well, he’d find out in the worst way possible humanity was still dangerous.

The Winterscar knights ahead of me charged forward, rifles out. Aiming for the eight Feathers in the back, while a single knight at the front took on the lead Feather on the bridge.

We would have wiped them out in seconds if it hadn’t been for that bridge Feather.

Not for any particular skill or ability, but because he was closer: The eight in the back were out of range of the microwaves. By the time the team got both a clean shot and were in range, they’d need to run past the lead Feather.

And he’d probably go and do something stupid to annoy us. Because as it stood, we were basically ignoring him, and that was a cardinal sin to Feathers. He’d absolutely get upset about us passing by.

So we were forced to delete this guy before he got a chance to mess something up.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author’s consent. Report any sightings.

“Fine. Stay silent to your graves then, Deathless-” His speech was interrupted midway.

Bullets splattered onto his bare chest, breaking into splotches of gel that splattered over and stuck to his skin. He frowned, more confused at why the enemy was trying to use gas and chemical attacks on a being that didn’t need to breathe or could be poisoned in any way that mattered.

“Plan Possession.” I called out, getting my mite cape ready and occult ghosts already moving under the land, zipping through the hexagon sea ahead. “Lethal shots only.”

The rest would be hard to pin down and kill, so we’d go weapons free, but while we had the edge of surprise here, best to take full advantage.

The bridge Feather crouched, about to spring forward. He’d just about had enough of this and was now officially a problem.

We triggered the microwaves.

A wave of energy hit the glittering gel that had coated his skin, sending energy through the near microscopic metallic caltrops within. The ones that all carried the etched fractal of division and only needed a power source to start glowing with an occult edge.

It made the gel look like a glowing glitter bomb.

He tried to wipe the gel off his chest. “What is this sorcer-”

Wiping his hands through a gel suspension carrying a few thousand sands of occult edges was not a great idea for the hand.

Realization instantly flashed through his mind, as he understood just what was on his body. He flared his shield outwards, possibly in panic.

And that caused the gel to be shoved off his skin, sure, but also fried his shields in moments.

The Winterscar knight at the center of our formation fired a single occult bullet right after, having already been aiming and waiting for this moment. Well within lethal range that no Feather could properly react to.

The occult bullet cut through his throat, and went out the other way, leaving his soul fractal with a large hole cut into it.

He died instantly. The fractal winking out of existence, and with it the unity fractal that connected to it, leaving the machine soul no home and no escape. Reality ate him alive before his shell landed facefirst down into the bridge.

Whatever this Feather’s kit was, his probably seven hundred years of history or how dangerous he could have been – he was out of the fight before he could even make a single move or action. Exactly how I liked it.

And soon, he’d be back up. After all, we had plenty of spare knights waiting within Sagrius’s armor. Father had done it, so could they. And we had nine Feathers right here volunteering. Very kind of them.

Unfortunately, we still needed to catch our meal before we could eat it.

Now the rest of the eight Feathers got real nervous watching the execution of their compatriot here, overclocks triggering over each. But at that point the rest of the knights had lined up close enough to engage in combat.

Starting with knightbreaker rounds for easy quick kills.

Eight fired out, eight zipped right at each Feather, and each Feather in turn felt obligated to handle the incoming grenades differently from one another. I’d almost say having more Feathers in the same room was actually working against them, since not only did they have to block the knightbreaker rounds, they had a deep obligation to do it in a way that was more impressive than the others.

Which meant some got lucky they’d picked the right way to protect, while others got less lucky doing something stupid. One did the To’Naviris special, hand extended out to grab and squeeze the knightbreaker directly out of the air without any attempt to dodge.

I’ll put it this way, he should have dodged.

Actually, as I thought about the fight, I realized not a single one of them had tried to dodge the knightbreaker rounds. I suppose that would be the least impressive method of avoiding damage, which meant they couldn’t pick that path.

None of them were completely killed by the knightbreaker rounds unfortunately. But almost all of them had lost their entire shields right out of the hangar, which meant they were effectively dead at that point: An occult rift opened up behind them and rifles shooting occult bullets lanced out through each soul fractal just about the exact same time. Winterscars worked like a well oiled machine, so when I made the occult rifts, the other knights were already aiming their guns right at the rift for instant shots.

Four of them gone by the time they were finally moving.

Which left the other final four.

The one that survived the best had been a male Feather with a floating vertical circle of metal glowing orbs rotating behind him. He’d simply lifted a finger and one of those orbs had launched straight forward and collided against his knightbreaker round, nullifying the damage completely.

The other ones that had succeeded had similarly used their weapons to prevent the hit, with the next best Feather drawing a rapier in one hand and a fan of knives in the other, and then simply stabbed the knightbreaker round using some kind of occult spearlike lunge out of her blade.

It sliced a hole inside the round and triggered it early. Although she was close enough she had to duck and weave out of the chains that followed.

At least she had the chance. And she clearly saw the writing on the wall, because instead of meeting the charge, she lept backwards into the air, launching a fan of occult daggers right after the knights. All of which began to shift trajectories in the air, barreling down for their targets like seeking missiles.

Sagrius raced ahead and swatted those out of the air, throwing an occult orb ahead of him that detonated and sucked in the occult from anything nearby – catching all those daggers before they flew further off.

In the meantime, the knights came into range where their targets couldn’t dodge in time, aimed rifles and opened fire.

Occult gel bullets splattered all over the enemy Feather’s skins. And they’d already seen what happened to the bridge Feather, so none dared to trigger their shields, lest we fry those.

That wouldn’t really save them anyhow. The knights all continued their sprint forward, toggled both the microwave to power the occult caltrops now stuck on the Feather, and the fractal of magnetic push.

It did affect the Feathers, slightly staggering them for a moment.

And it also pushed the metal caltrops within the gel. Which were filled to the brim with division fractals all over.

And those were shoved right into the Feather shells here.

Above the group, another set of occult rifts opened, and my mirrors stretched a hand out through each, fire flashing through, catching the gel on fire.

They all fought back in different ways. One charged forward into the knights, assuming his massive dual greatswords could swing through the defence and clobber the knights out of the way. Occult pulsed out of the Feather as he prepared some kind of attack that needed him in the center of the knights.

That failed when Father raced through, ducked the first horizontal swipe of those oversized swords, then stabbed forward with his dagger, catching the Feather midswing in the throat. Pulling him up and off his feet, then back down into the ground, dead.

The move had been so quick, only another Feather could have done that, and only one using time-distortion tricks.

Of which Father was both.

Another Feather had outright teleported, flickering into place behind the first Winterscar knight.

Which was Captain Sagrius. The worst target to pick.

Thirty floating occult edges materialized into place, floating, then sliced into Sagrius like a bear hug. While the enemy Feather remained behind, arms folded across his chest while his floating weapons handled the rest of the work for him. “Nothing perso-” He was caught mid-sentence as Sagrius simply powered thirty occult dome shields that tanked all of the thirty weapon slices from that Feather.

The captain didn’t even seem to notice or care, turning on himself, while reaching out with a hand. Which grabbed the Feather by the throat mid-sentence. The rest was history.

The enemy did try teleporting away again, only to drag the captain with him, far up in the air where they both tumbled back down into the bridge. By that point, the Feather was limp and lifeless, having been stabbed straight through the throat. The Captain still had a vicegrip over the throat, like a weasel that would never let go of his kill. Those occult dome shields were not just for show. Sagrius had used them expertly to cut into the Feather and break some mobility so that he’d get an easier time stabbing into the throat.

Another Feather found out that just having caltrops shoved inside his shell wasn’t the worst thing. What was actually worse was having those caltrops pushed left and right, forward and back, as if blending his insides up. His metal orbs were being fired back, and getting blocked or dodged by knights that surrounded him, taking turns throwing magnetic pulses through his body, forcing the caltrops within to move with the flow.

Eventually, his motor abilities seized up, and a knight finished him off with a quick mercy kill.

The last duo left were currently fighting a seriously lopsided fight. Not only had they lost their shields due to the occult gel, but that gel was equally on fire preventing their overclocks, and they were getting penned in by knights throwing occult sucking orbs courtesy of Drakonis’s Deathless hit squad. And also trying to get a perfect kill shot off on their throats, of which the Feathers were desperately ducking and weaving.

That lasted all of a few seconds until Father and Wrath sprinted right for them.

It was over in an eyeblink.

The enemy duo were up against two similar Feathers who could not only overclock their system without fire being an issue, they also had the time fractal, allowing them to slow down the speeds of the enemy Feather further downwards. And both were unmatched in melee combat, as if the stacked advantages weren’t enough.

It was a slaughter. Both had enough presence to try and parry or attack a single time, and completely missed their singular attempt.

Wrath and Father flew right between, precise hits cutting directly through their soul fractals.

Both shells folded over, dead.

The final Feather, still far up mid-leap backwards, watched with wide eyes. Then finally landed on the bridge, turned and dove off of it.

Outright running for it.

“Uh, I hadn’t thought that was possible.” I said. Walking up to the side of the bridge and watched as the final feather landed far under, rolling to a stop before sprinting away out of sight into the hexagonal forest of pillars. “Weren’t Feathers were too proud to run?”

“They should be.” Wrath said, landing next to me, flicking oil off her blade before sheathing it. “My database registered all nine of these Feathers as second generation. They were well known to be among the most prideful of all generations. Seeing the rest of her compatriots be dispatched in mere seconds likely caused deep instability in her frame.”

“To’Aacar’s brothers and sisters then.” I hummed. “Still, can’t have a runner out there. Who knows what she’ll plot if she’s left to her own devices.”

Scanners didn’t catch sight of her anywhere, but I had a feeling that was exactly why she’d tried to run this direction.

“Come back, we just want to talk!” I called out.

No answer.

“Well, we tried the peaceful way, right? Knights, finish the job.”

Seven of them flashed me a salute, and took off on their jump jets, spreading out to plan a net.

Wrath and I on the other hand made our way to the now unguarded mite containment cube. I could see on the video feed as the Winterscars searched for signs of the runaway.

By the time we reached the very base of the metal, she’d been found.

She tried to do something with the occult, her hand glowing bright blue, a finger pointing at the first knight.

But an occult bullet was faster, and sliced right through her soul fractal. Excellent speed and accuracy.

Which meant her shell was now up for grabs given it wasn’t completely broken down.

“Target eliminated. Recovering shell now.” The knight said, and the others pinged green and three pinged to be overwatch.

I doubt any of the Feathers actually failed to escape, although Occult bullets were real fast so maybe we’d managed to permanently kill a few.

But all nine? Unlikely. So I expected To’Avalis to have some kind of counter to this or worse – see him try to reengineer our own weapons against us. If we could build it, so can he. That would be a problem we’d deal with when we got there. No choice, because once Relinquished discovered her set of nine Feathers had been eliminated, she’d probably be upset.

The next problem we had was how to open this giant black cube that towered over me. Whatever this was, it was important enough to guard with nine second generation Feathers. So whatever was inside it, I wanted it.

Of course, I had an expert locksmith when it came to mites.

Superior, want to give this a crack?