Book 8 – Chapter 65 (Part A and Part B) – The final war

AN: This chapter is almost three entire chapters long, but there wasn’t any good spot to split it, so instead I’ll post today’s chapter and monday’s chapter early. Next chapter post after this comes thursday again!

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Knight Geralt Fullstorm held onto the staff of the goddess, carefully cradling it. The airspeeder hummed under his boots, the pilot executing perfect maneuvers. There would be no mistakes allowed. It was more accurate to state the pilot had trained his entire life for this one day.

And so had he.

“Entering attack range in two minutes.” He heard the chime from the cockpit. “All scavengers, prepare for payload drop.”

It was time. He stood from his seat, then walked to the cargo bay where the doors had already been opened, scavengers preparing to drop him mid-way.

The white wastes greeted him on the other side. Snow passing by him at full speed. He handed over the staff of the goddess to the nearest Scavenger, who held it reverently, while the others nearby prepared the cargo drop pod that would protect the delicate instrument.

The staff had been built following the instructions of the Icon. An archangel of Tsuya, speaking with the authority of Urs. The clan heard her voice through their armors, and followed her orders without hesitation.

Among those orders, was the creation of this staff. One of hundreds built around the world.

A simple pole, with a plate attached at the very front, the face upwards. He would use it like a spear.

Her voice came through on his comms, patched through by the airspeeders more accurate equipment. “This cannon will be recharged in thirty two seconds. Enemy is emerging at three point four four five degrees down angle. Marking firing solution on your HUD now. Mister Fullstorm, please prepare for disembarkment and setup.”

The last clasps were sealed over the staff, and the Savangers held it off the side of the cargo bay, holding it ready to drop.

“Execute launch now.” The Icon commanded.

Geralt leaped off the airspeeder into the void without a trace of hesitation, relic armor already preparing for impact.

He tumbled in the air, landed onto the snow and rolled into a sprint. Ahead the staff pod was dropped, clattering for a moment before it started sliding across the snow in the same direction and speed he was going.

He caught up to it in a few strides. The pod opened up, still sliding on the ice, staff being pushed up where he could grab it on the move.

In moments he was racing at full speed to the marked firing location, the pod itself completely forgotten about, it’s role served.

He skidded to a stop at the designated spot, planted the spear base into the ground, and held it like a pike, the plate at the very tip pointing at nothing ahead.

There were a rumored twenty variations of this spear, all linked to the goddesses’s power. The armors had all been unlocked by the great God Urs himself. And through their spirits, forged these plates themselves, autonomously, following the exact diagrams of the Archangel Icon.

Somewhere else in the world, another knight was using a spear with the same newly crafted plate welded at the tip of a spear like his.

Likely two minutes ago, that knight’s spear had been used.

It would soon be his turn.

The feeling made him feel connected to the whole. A long line of knights, all sharing the same resources, working together across the world to protect humanity. He didn’t know who they were. And he didn’t know which knights ahead of him were already preparing themselves to be dropped and fight in two minutes from now.

But he had seen already firsthand the power of these spears. And he knew, deep down, each strike was worth everything.

His blood raced.

This was his purpose.

“Ten seconds.” The Icon spoke in his armor. “Warfrigate Nattridos is circling around for pickup after your attack. The gods guide your aim and safe return Mister. Fullstorm.”

His armor equally lit up with images and video feeds of what prior scouts had spotted emerging through the underground. And more importantly, the weak point predicted.

Ahead, the world began to break apart. A claw sliced through the ground, and began to crawl upwards.

The Clan knight waited as the monstrosity larger than an airspeeder broke free from the world.

Not just larger than an airspeeder. That was merely a single hand. One of ten hands for this ancient demon woken from the core of the earth, crawling up layer by layer. All to be met by himself and no other forces. Alone.

He felt no fear. The Gods were with him. And the Icon had full confidence in his skill and ability. He could not fail. He would not fail.

More arms crushed through the ice and metal, and then slammed into the ground, now pushing downwards, as the main body began to rise up.

“Five seconds.” The Icon spoke, watching through his camera feed. He felt her there with him, right by his shoulder, a finger pointing forward at where he needed to fire.

Targeting solutions from his House’s ancient armor gave him a general prediction, and he angled the spear at where he believed the head would appear soon.

He was rewarded with perfection. The head finally ripped free of the ground, pulling itself up.

Geralt saw it. Further past the monster. Flying directly down at the monster.

A missile. One launched by another clan frigate further away. Guided with expert precision by the pilot. It had been fired seven minutes ago, and was still on course.

The clan knight watched as it homed in on the head, final adjustments coming from the pilot in quick bursts of fire off the sides.

“Impact.”

The missile slammed into the monster’s head not even two seconds after it had emerged from the ground. Shields flickered hard and crumbled as inner technology within the missile expanded out and fried the monster’s shields away. He’d seen it done before. Glowing blue jelly of some kind would sap away everything.

But that hardly mattered to the clan knight. His work was here and now.

Most of these machines had segmented shields, independent from one another. And right now, the head no longer had a shield.

The world narrowed until only Geralt, his target and the space between existed.

He pressed the trigger.

The plate at the tip glowed occult blue, and a portal opened up right on the surface.

Behind it, the might of the gods was called upon one more time.

The beam lanced forward with terrible might. Even his armors shields were triggered, despite him being far behind the beam’s origin point.

Snow evaporated. The very ground ahead immediately melted down. The thin fog and snowdrift of the white wastes was speared directly through, spreading outwards as the beam ripped a hole up and directly into where the monster’s head had popped up.

It was vaporized. The entire monster shuddering to a frozen halt, before toppling downwards into the white wastes, motionless.

Somewhere else in the world, in about two minutes from now, another knight would be launching a beam like so themselves.

He turned, and began a full sprint forwards. Trying to increase his speed as quickly as he could.

Behind him his warfrigate was rapidly approaching, the bay doors opened up, scavengers all across the outside, holding hooks out to grab and haul him back inside, a power cell prepared to swap out, along with water and a quick moment of rest.

“Thirty two minutes until arrival at the next expected incursion point.” The Icon spoke. “Excellent work thus far. Please take your time to prepare and rest for further combat, Mister. Fullstorm.”

“As the Archangel commands.” He spoke. He needed no rest, but if the archangel of humanity asked it of him, he would.

The other scavengers gave him a quick salute, which he returned as he sat down on his seat, and closed his eyes to wait for the next moment he was needed. He held onto the staff to protect it, in case of a catastrophic event. It was more important than the entire airspeeder.

The rest of this work was now on the pilot and the crew here, which he had full faith would complete their mission.

They all would.

The gods had come. Their clan would answer.

 

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Tiberius stepped slowly through the biome, instincts guiding him forward. It had been six hours since the call had come through. Six hours since he had heard the voice of mankind once more speaking out of the walls.

It had asked him to return to the surface. To fight. But Tiberius knew where he needed to be. Long dormant instincts honed after thousands of deaths whispered to him where to go.

Over the mountains he moved. Under the seas he swam. He’d found himself this cycle without armor or blade, frayed cloth was the only thing he had to his name. But his search for a mite forge to print out a new set had to be delayed.

There was something more calling him now. Calling him back.

And, without realizing how or when, he eventually stood before the massive citadel. Spotlights tracked his pathway. Soldiers in gold ahead patrolled out. One team of five came up to him, “Emperor be with you stranger, state your name and who you are to the war effort.”

A madman, walking out of the darkness. Hair and beard matted up, eyes alternating between sharp and unfocused.

He opened his mouth to speak but only dust came out. It had been so long that he’d traveled around here, he had forgotten how.

He focused once more. Trying to move his tongue in the old ways he remembered from a lifetime ago. “Ti…. ber… i…. us.” He tried. It hardly made sense even to him. But he knew the next word would: “Death… less.”

They looked at one another.

Had he spoken wrong? No, he recognized their words, the language must be the same. Some part of his mind relaxed. Things would work out. He had done what was needed. The real work was still ahead.

“Hold for a moment.” The man turned to his fellows, gave a few nods, then turned back to him. “No other Deathless among the Citadel knows of anyone named Tiberius. We’re running the archives.”

Tiberius held his hands still, looking at the strange beings ahead of him. The first humans he’d seen in so much time.

One snapped a helmet up, then the squad gave a salute of some kind. “Confirmed identification. Come with us, Honorable Deathless. The war effort would welcome your presence among our ranks once more.”

Slowly, he followed behind the humans. His people. They were his people. Or had been once. Seven hundred years ago.

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Relinquished ripped apart the fortifications with barely a second of pause. The Feathers guarding the location were crushed under her fury. She didn’t care if they were involved in the errors that happened here or if they were culprits.

She had no use for weaklings.

She had no use for failures.

And they had all failed her. ALL OF THEM.

She stared at the hallways that had been so effortlessly breached. At the half-dying rat that had dared come back from the dead long after, to try and spite her one last time at the hour of her triumph.

A01.

Of course his stench was all over this area. “Misbegotten PEST!” She screeched, ripping apart the very ground ahead of her.

The archive footage of the Feathers she’d sent to guard this area was clear. It was him. And worse – he looked whole again. Unblemished. Stalking through her lair, striking down her servants with only half-hearted might. Walking with some unknown program at his heels.

Who was that digital avatar? Who else was left in this world? Did it matter?

The gate before her crumpled inwards, imploding with a force beyond its ability to hold off. She stalked through the ruins, waving an angry hand to rip the leftovers out of her way.

Even the architecture itself had failed her. Unlocked as if the enemy already had their hands on all her keys.

She must have had a rat on the inside. Those firewalls and security measures were unbreakable. Noone in the world had the processing power to do so, and certainly not at the speed A01 had walked past.

Something she would need to search through in detail, find, and squash. She would never suffer another traitor to live within her empire.

Beyond the ruined gates she saw the true damage.

It was gone. Off into the digital ocean, appearing and reappearing, impossible to track. Tsuya’s domain. A chaotic untrackable chunk of digital sea. Exactly as she feared.

A01 was now commanding the entire human race from that piece of inanimate ground. Tapping into all Tsuya’s network in full. Organizing. Commanding.

She should have won the moment Tsuya had been handled. How were all of these insects coming out of the woodworks to bar her path forward?

In the real world, Urs was merrily alive again, once more being a thorn in her heel. Speaking out, riling up the humans before they could be slaughtered properly.

But at least she knew where he was hiding. Oh she knew all right.

The entire world knew.

The Citadel. Of course he would crawl away to the only refuge humanity had ever stood a chance within.

Those mites should have ripped that biome apart centuries ago. How convenient of them to constantly pass it over.

She had a choice on which target to hunt.

In the digital Ocean, A01’s signal needed to be silenced. She could tell all the instructions to organize and mobilize were coming from that source. Millions of them every second, perfectly coordinating all of humanity against her.

Every nook and cranny, all moving to the same marching orders. To the scale only a machine like A01 could coordinate.

Humanity was active and rising up. Acting independently, or acting according to a larger plan, Relinquished couldn’t pin it down.

She reviewed the footage again of the breach.

A glower on his face as A01 stalked forward through her halls. No cracks anywhere on his features, no sign of soul damage. It seemed like a wilder version of him. More raw, more unfiltered, more somber.

He must have uncovered some kind of processing increase for his broken down shell and consumed it. Temporarily restoring himself despite knowing it would eventually alter his soul and identity. The dead protofeather was burning himself alive then.

Despite that, the signal he was broadcasting was a larger threat than even Urs.

He had to be silenced.

And she was the only one that could deal with her wayward son. None of her empire even had a hope of capturing and holding down Tsuya’s domain in one place. Her Feathers were useless for that task.

But the human citadel? At least her instruments could handle that with minimal oversight.

She quickly raced through the full logs, putting the story together on how Urs had managed to make it there.

The answer was evident. That blasted human male had abused his narrative importance for long enough, she should have killed him at that chess game. To’Wrathh had been all that was really needed in beheading Tsuya without allowing her an escape.

This human was never supposed to be a true contender to deal with. It was getting out of hand.

Worse: Now that he had embedded himself so deeply into the new narrative, she could no longer simply get rid of him like an unknown pawn piece, to be shot off screen.

He had to be killed properly.

She looked through possible loopholes to eliminate him from the board with justifiable narrative reasons, and came upon one option.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Yes. That would do.

With a flick of a hand, she dragged out a Feather before her. And squeezed.

She didn’t bother with theatrics. No playing around with her subject.

“You wish for my forgiveness?” She hissed to the terrified program, squeezing harder. “You will earn it. Take every army there is in range of this Citadel, every Feather under my banner, every program you can command – And Hunt. Him. Down. Destroy the Citadel. Burn the humans to the ground. Do not allow a single soul to survive.

Do so, and I will let you live.”

She dismissed him without so much as a side thought. She didn’t need to explain the details, that one was clever enough to figure it out. He was the only Feather to have survived multiple engagements against that human after all, that had to count for something.

She needed a commander anyhow, it didn’t matter who was at the helm of the army, all he had to do was swarm the entire zone with bodies upon bodies until the humans were purged.

She had an infinite amounts of ground forces to throw at the problem. The humans did not.

Urs was weak. Incapable of fighting back. Without him, the humans would eventually fall. She’d force him back into the digital sea, and rip the secrets out of his mind here where she couldn’t be stopped.

Her eyes turned upwards to the sea above her. “You think you’ve won? You think this will be what saves humanity?” She muttered darkly, already beginning to spool up the full might she had under her command.

The machine network itself may be down in the real world. But here? She would create a new one directly. She had a planet’s worth of processing power to command. She was the Death of all things.

She would track down the signal that led humanity, the last lights they had lit, and snuff it out. She would pin her old nemesis’s failing domain back into the seabed where it belonged, and then crack it open until she could scoop A01 and crush him for good.

She stalked out into the ocean, ripping apart anything that was too stupid to get in her way.

Humanity would die.