Chapter: 604 – Oblivion?

Tala stood beside her husband, facing a pitch-black automaton.

Behind her, Master Clevnis was retreating back toward his wife and Lea, who both seemed unwilling to leave the field of conflict. Still, the fear and uncertainty on Lea’s face was obvious, even at a distance.

Rage burned in Tala’s chest at that realization.

The automaton stared at Tala in her fully armored glory in clear confusion.

Tala suppressed her throughspike, coating it in Reality Iron to allow her true appearance to be shown for the first time in what felt like ages.

Reality itself warped around her, manifestations of her power shimmered as etheric tracings and symbols that moved and flowed around her in ever changing patterns.

They were, one and all, blood red to match her fury.

They cast no light, and somehow didn’t disrupt the view of her armored form, that of a white steel humanoid with no discernable features. There were, however, traces of Reality Iron visible, meshed through the white steel, and any who could see through the manifestations of power and the white armor would have found her entire body coated in a second skin of Reality Iron as an underlayer to her armor.

Flow was in her hand in the form of a void-glaive, and a Reality-iron-reinforced, white steel tower shield was held casually in her other hand.

Yet, all of that was simply an afterthought to the true power of her magics, ready and waiting.

This wasn’t going to be a battle. If the goal was destroying the automaton, it would already be gone.

Rane would have cut it in half in their first exchange.

No. They wanted it intact so they could get answers.

The automaton’s voice suddenly filled the momentary silence. “Reality, tainted by Magic and Void. Impossible.” The voice wasn’t metallic or mechanical as Rob’s often was. Instead it was soft, smooth, almost comforting. “Surrender her to me. I must…” The creature’s inhuman eyes widened. “She is of you. You are the aberration.” Its eyes flicked to Rane before returning to Tala. “Both are, but you are primary.”

Tala tilted her head to the side, feeling no urgency. “She is mine, yes. She is of me. We would say she is my daughter. Why are you here? Are you alone?”

“The Legion is never alone, no other is here.”

Hive mind?

-Maybe. Some of the old records hint at that. The Archive can’t be the only time beings have figured out how to utilize the dimensions of magic for information storage and exchange.-

Tala grimaced behind her faceplate before projecting her voice once more, using the pause to slowly reinforce and draw her aura and authority closer to the suddenly hesitant automaton. “Why are you suddenly willing to talk?”

“I cannot win, and I cannot get her without your agreement. Words might reach my goal, so I will use words.”

She grunted at that. It made a certain sort of sense. “Why are you here?”

“To recover one of my own. The one belongs with the many, not alone to be attacked on sight.”

“Like you attack humans on sight?”

“Iron reflects magic by its nature, not out of malice, and the world is better for that nature. Each gate that is destroyed is an infectious boil lanced, contamination stripped from the world.”

Tala grunted. “Are the Black Legion free of their prison?”

“The Black Legion were never imprisoned.” The automaton actually shook his head once in negation.

Well, that’s not true. It can’t be, but its vestige has nothing to do with its words, so soulsight can’t see to ensure it actually is a lie.

-Well, what if they were banished instead? Or otherwise kept away. It might be a technically correct type of thing?-

True…

Lea decided, at that moment, that she wanted to participate in the conversation from afar. “I am not in danger. Will you leave me be, knowing that?”

The dark automaton shook its head. “No. Reality beckons.”

-Lea is reaching out to me. She says that her body is sending up signals that this being is to be trusted, and she should go with him. She felt like we should know.-

So, somehow it’s baked into the automaton construction to follow the Black Legion?

-Seems so. Might explain why it looks so confused that she isn’t coming with it.-

“She won’t go with you, but that is irrelevant, because you won’t be going. You will answer my questions, then the enslaved soul you have imprisoned as a power source will be freed.”

“Shame.” It moved with lightning quickness, its weapon turning into a javelin that it hurled straight at Tala faster than an inscribed ballista bolt.

It was an obvious distraction, but it still might have worked against Tala if she’d been Refined. Rust, it might have even worked against her as a Paragon if she hadn’t felt and recognized the nature of the weapon as soon as it left the automaton’s hand and entered her aura.

White steel mixed and melded with Reality Iron in utter harmony and balance… because the steel is in complete subservience to the iron.

-Fascinating. It looks like it’s going to change into a net, to give it time to flee.-

Yeah, that seems to have been the plan.

It was trivial for her to claim the iron from within the weapon, her own Reality Iron resonating with its material kin. Her efforts were aided by the fact that the automaton had clearly been trying to give the weapon to her.

Mine. And it was. Her mental utterance was barely more than a bored statement, the result a simple righting of the world.

The weapon blew apart with a thunderous boom, the iron instantly being drawn stoneward, leaving a cloud of white steel dust that Tala’s will and authority claimed and drew down and to the side, forming a set of ingots that she willed into her sanctum.

The automaton had turned to run but hesitated at the loud sound, freezing in obvious horror at what she’d done. “Now, as I was saying. We have some questions and things to discuss.”

“No. I will depart.”

“No. You will not.” She floated up off of the ground, her raging magics pulsing with her will. She hadn’t decided how she’d bring the thing to heel, but it had no hope of escape.

“Abomination. My existence for yours.” It set its feet before power flickered and roiled through it.

It took a precious instant for Tala to understand what it was doing, but even if she’d known in advance, she didn’t think she could have stopped it entirely. There were only passing references to this happening in the past, as it did seem to be something they loathed doing, even on the edge of death, and no wonder. Reality would not like the results.

The being was somehow turning its vestige in on itself, creating a reaction that would tear a hole into the next world.

It was a baffling choice for a supposedly Reality aligned being, but Tala didn’t think it would be open to a philosophical argument at the moment.

In truth, it was a surprisingly human choice, one of self-sacrifice in the hope of taking down a perceived threat that was outside of the normal capacities of the sacrificed.

Rane was already shooting backward, magics reaching for Lea, Master Clevnis, and Mistress Cerna as he strove with all he had to get them to safety, if there even was an achievable, minimum safe distance from this.

Even so, Tala felt him through her soul as he put his complete faith in her and his free power and will at her disposal.

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She felt a surge of love and pride at his trust and support, but things were going to be ugly regardless.

Yeah, rust that. Tala contracted her authority inward on the self-obliterating automaton.

She couldn’t stop it, but she could limit the damage… She hoped.

As she worked, analyzing what was happening in tiny fractions of a heartbeat, she determined the true nature of the attack.

It was somehow propagating outward along reality threads, starting a cascade of disconnection, somehow centered on—and maintained by—the automaton.

It was both creating reality threads and destroying them, sending out connections seemingly just to infect the surrounding area, reaching further and further with every instant.

The cascade might just take out Alefast, depending on how long the automaton could maintain cohesion, and how far these odd effects could reach.

The body was already starting to break apart. The very bonds that kept it together were fizzling and falling into nonexistence.

It was worse than a standard explosion or corrosive effect because it was guided, controlled, and driven by a conscious mind, somehow guiding its every step of progression.

No.

Tala moved, propelled more by her will and authority than by mere magic or muscle.

Just as in the cave, deep beside Arconaven, she forged reality iron, void magic, and raw power into Flow, basing her working on the duality of endingberries, and empowering it with Void Channels.