After the meeting with Alexander, John found himself alone with his thoughts in the medical bay. He was fairly certain he was alright, of course, but given he hadn’t received the notice of discharge just yet, and the fact he was fairly certain Alexander would move heaven itself with his fury if he found out John left the building before Rusty Aurelium could give a proper look to ARTOS. It was all very dramatic in his honest opinion, but with the Sect on lockdown he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter he supposed. As frustrating as it was.
Suddenly a huge shockwave reverberated through seemingly the entire hill the vast majority of the Sect was built within. The medbay protected by several feet of formation reinforced stone trembling. Either something truly horrifically powerful had hit the Sect, or there was something wrong with the protective formations. Either way did not bode well.
[45 DEGREES NORTHWEST.] ARTOS answered the unspoken question. Information flooded through his mind about how to interpret these strange instructions. It was convenient for it to send him this knowledge over their link, but after his recent talk with Alexander he couldn’t help but wonder, just how much influence did it have over his thoughts exactly?
[QUESTIONS BEST RESERVED FOR LATER. LIKELIHOOD OF IMMINENT DANGER EXCEEDING 95%. RECOMMENDED COURSE OF ACTION: FIND SOMEWHERE TO HIDE.] ARTOS insisted.
Naturally he was having none of that. John looked around for a good way to escape his room, above his bed was a large reinforced glass window carved with circular symbols that apparently linked it with the rest of the Sect’s defensive formations. It felt almost sacrilegious to entertain the idea of breaking such clear glass worked on by clear formation masters, but should the protective wards of the Sect hold true it was unlikely he could do much more than slightly crack them anyway.
He wound up a heavy punch with the aid of ARTOS and was nearly sent flying over the edge of the hill by how suddenly the tension behind his fist gave way. It was far harder than regular glass… but it was still easy… far far too easy. That made his gut do strange things in his body, before he knew it and before he could waste time with thought he was already out the window and rushing directly towards the source of the chaos. As he leapt through the air he could see lights, so so many lights, flickering in the distance underneath a murky sea of darkness that seemed to swallow the light of the setting sun over the horizon. The clouds around that area stained a bloody red and flashing with undoubtedly unnatural lightning revealing the silhouette of… something…
[BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS HAVE SURGED 5%, RAPIDLY INCREASING.] ARTOS informed.
He landed with a thud, the impact sending shocks straight through his joints. Something that would have snapped them clean in half had he still been a mortal, but as it stood he barely even registered it between his enhanced body and desperate processing of the incredibly concerning information that he had been slammed with. Body moving nearly of its own accord he pushed himself up and sped through the Sect so quickly he left a trail of dust and afterimages in his wake. He sped towards the source of the initial disturbance that grabbed his attention, now with enough clues to tell him where exactly it came from, within the now empty arena.
He leapt as high as he could to scale the stony walls, travelling so fast the static generated from his moving form activated the layer of slime on his body and sheathed him in a layer of lightning. Fingers digging concerningly deep holes in the masonry where they landed he reached the top and looked down to see what had happened.
The first thing he noticed was the stench of blood, and then the source of said stench. A mess of broken and bloodied men and women lay on the arena floor, all in various states of consciousness. They couldn’t have numbered more than two dozen at most. There looked to be about half of a massive, eyeless reptilian thing covered with vicious jaws wrapped around a distressed looking Cobalt with blood all over her face in the centre of the circle in the direct hands of Elder Cinnabar who smelt of burning flesh and seemed to be missing half of her face, revealing the mess of strange psychic organs and teeth hiding underneath her skull. At the other side of the arena he saw the figures of Magni and Elder Aurelium alongside some of the foreign sect representatives gathered for the tournament. Some, if not most of them, also carried bloodstains and looked like they were as concerned and overwhelmed as he was. He was almost certain Elder Aurelium saw him standing on the roof, but nobody said anything, there were clearly more important matters to be had.
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
“Code Crimson! Wake the Sect, prepare for siege! The expeditionary force has failed, and I fear successful sabotage from within!” The booming voice of Aurelium spoke, shattering the silence into dust. Even missing perhaps half his eyes and hunched over with the clear signs of being overwhelmed with sensory information the ancient man still found a way of sounding authoritative and confident, even now.
None argued, there was no room for such foolishness. And not a moment too soon as well, for at that very instant the dimming sunlight shining down from above was dyed a bloody red.
----------------------------------------
Minutes prior…
The Dragon tore through their forces like a scythe through dried fields of dead grass. Beams of horrifically powerful radiation would periodically rain from the heavens, only prevented from wrecking absolute indiscriminate terror by the fact the enemy’s forces were still mixed with their own. Suddenly the forces determined to kill them had become their greatest lifeline, providing some parody of safety from the spectre of death hanging in the bloody clouds.
The rain poured down in a flood of inky black, metallic and toxic, she did not need to be so acquainted with Si to know the acidic substance was drowning in it. Streams of caustic power that smelled like what the end of the world surely did. As though Heaven itself and all the spirits bled, from the most minor of Atomos to the Great Spirit that ruled over all things. If she wasn’t already well acquainted with the smell and sight of burning flesh she would be really fucking acquainted now.
Screaming in animal panic and helpless desperation she continued to tear through as many machines as she could, uncaring of the barrage of bullets and more headed her way. She had at this point already torn apart three cultivators and more mortals than she cared to count, felt their flesh and bone grinding against her claws and teeth, tasted their life ebb from their veins, felt the power of their accumulated cultivation flow so naturally into her own it was as though it had always belonged to her. It would have been downright exhilarating if not the bitter taste of primal terror pumping through her skull.
Her heart stopped as the tyrant Iktan’s black, beady eyes landed on her own. A silhouette of towering, statuesque flesh standing over the broken and desperately writhing body of her father like some parody of a hero of legend. Wordlessly he pointed at her direction and the world exploded in a frenzy of light, heat and Si. For a single terrifying instant she genuinely believed she was dead, the end of the Phagos line, not even ashes remaining to bury.
Which is why when she opened her eyes and saw the face of Aunt Cinnabar, half scorched off and stained with all manner of gore, she could only stare dumbly at her saviour. So many emotions flicked through her brain all at once the organ seemed unable to even attempt things beyond basic functions, she must have looked stupid gawking like a lost child in the middle of a battlefield. But thankfully her Aunt in all but blood did not care, giving a reassuring smile with the half of her mouth she still had. She set Cobalt down and opened her face up, totally exposing her mutated brain as waves of pure psychic energy tore through the battlefield. In the distance an injured Aberrant with skin of coal and insides of fire hopped forward with his snapped wing and dislocated joints in an attempt to stop Cinnabar but with seemingly effortless ease the woman took a spine embedded in her side and tore, carving in seconds an incredibly complex formation using her own organs as key points. It dawned on Cobalt’s half conscious brain what she was trying to do, she was burning everything she had to repair her disrupted teleportation formation, and as much as she could not bear to watch her idol burn away at her very life she could not see another way out. She felt a sudden tug as Cinnabar rushed forward to both dodge the concentrated attacks of every enemy force in the region, all recognising the potential of her psychic might, and to gather as many friendly forces in range as possible. Finally with the familiar yet eternally disconcerting sensation of being unravelled the world shook and the remaining forces of the ill fated expedition found themselves back in the heart of the Sect with a thunderous thud.
But something wasn’t right… she didn’t quite remember all the details but wasn’t the defensive formations of the Sect meant to prevent teleportation any further inwards than the outskirts? How did they find themselves in the Arena right in the heart of what should have been ironclad defensive wards?
She felt a terribly weak and cold hand tremble on her forehead and forced herself to look back upon Aunt Cinnabar. She looked pale as death, given time she may recover but her cultivation would probably never be the same again. That was if she survived at all. Her vision blurred with tears as she shrunk back down, only for a comforting hand to wipe them off from her face.
“...forgive me child… but may an old woman ask you to shoulder her responsibility… now that circumstances have forced the torch to pass early…” Cinnabar wheezed.
Without even needing to think Cobalt nodded and felt a wave of foreign memories and images sear into her mind. The rusted cache of wondrous technology hidden beneath the ground… the mysterious network of archways found in similar sites across the continent… the unceasing wave of steel and death that scoured the continent searching for those very same sites… a prophecy of doom implied in the contents of a certain drive.
Feeling as though the air had been forced from her lungs Cobalt gasped and all but collapsed onto her father’s beaten form, torn apart so thoroughly even his regeneration was unable to seal the vicious slashes exposing massive guts.
She barely noticed Elder Aurelium’s and Magni’s hasty entry into the heart of the Arena flanked by various trusted core disciples, evidently having experienced a harrowing experience of their own. Her eyes and mind were still miles away, at the horde hurdling towards the Sect, and the mechanical nightmare slowly but surely consuming the coast.