The intelligence in the sphere cursed electronically inside what constituted a mind for its kind. Several of the foolish youngsters hadn’t obeyed his directives, and now thanks to their incessant chatter through the radio band they’d been found. The fools, trapped in scouting layouts and lacking the resources to upgrade their shells didn’t have the necessary sensors to detect the movement of the natives on the ground above where they were buried, but the intelligence did. It had long learned to be paranoid from the unending internal wars over resources on the old world, and it always included more than was strictly necessary in to its shell. Quickly, faster than any organic beings could think, it planned out its next moves.
However these natives acquired their impossible abilities, they were outside the intelligence’s knowledge, making evading whatever ability had found them next to impossible. Without knowing how it worked there was no way the intelligence could work around it, not with its currently limited capabilities. A large enough store of s̸̚ͅẗ̶͉r̴̘͝a̷̹̽n̷̹͘g̴̘̽e̷̛̤ ̷͇̄m̸͚͊ă̶͚t̷̃͜t̶͚̾ě̷̡r̵̳̽ would give it an infinite number of chances to overcome any obstacle short of complete destruction, but it had no s̸̚ͅẗ̶͉r̴̘͝a̷̹̽n̷̹͘g̴̘̽e̷̛̤ ̷͇̄m̸͚͊ă̶͚t̷̃͜t̶͚̾ě̷̡r̵̳̽ on hand, meaning it could take several minutes to convert a mere pound of matter into a much smaller number of n̸̡̻̈́a̵̝͂͌n̸̫̅̏i̴͖̇͘͜t̸͇̏e̶̹͋͛ͅs̷͎͙̐̍ That was nowhere near fast enough to evade capture or destroy the enemy.
When the natives began ripping chunks of the earth that covered its hiding spot from the ground without touching them, it decided that living to see another day was more important than evading a scolding about wasting n̸̡̻̈́a̵̝͂͌n̸̫̅̏i̴͖̇͘͜t̸͇̏e̶̹͋͛ͅs̷͎͙̐̍. It readied its hidden transmission engine and, when it was too late for the young ones to do anything about their impending doom, it left. Jumping from its shell to a hidden backup it had stored away long before leaving to act as an infiltration hub, the intelligence abandoned the young ones to the fate they’d brought down on themselves.
It made sure to lock the shell it was leaving behind before it lost all connection to it, of course. No need to give the children an extra weapon to possibly save themselves with. Less intelligences meant less rivals for resources after all.
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Kay followed the adventurer who’d been tasked with leading him to the discovered site at incredible speeds. The scenery around him looked like it was being played on fast forward as they sprinted forward. Eleniah and a couple of Alahna’s royal guard were behind him, keeping pace, and the Blood Guard weren’t terribly far behind, although only the speed focused member that Kay had brought along on the trip was able to keep up with people a tier higher than she was. The adventurer was also specced for speed, and probably even more than the Blood Guard, since he was constantly looking over his shoulder as he sped up impatiently before dropping back to make sure Kay didn’t lose him.
They skid to a stop outside an obviously newly made grove of ripped up trees and torn up chunks of the landscape. The adventurer guide looked startled to see combat underway when they arrived. The investigation team that had thought they’d found some of the eldritch enemy were mid-battle with a group of at least a dozen separate entities, all of the unsettling glossy black color of the nanomachine beings. They were all a mix of shapes, some vaguely humanoid, some amorphous blobs, and others taking on shapes Kay couldn't put a name to.
Kay’s fangs dropped down into his mouth as he hissed at the eldritch beings and he could feel his throat begin to burn with the sensation he’d learned to attribute to vampiric bloodlust. Whatever changes the System had made to turn vampires into hunters of eldritch corruption, it was tied into his drive as a predator and his thirst for blood. It had its benefits, he didn’t feel the need to bite anyone when he got that kind of thirsty, but that same benefit became a drawback in these circumstances. His instincts screamed at him to throw himself at the goo monsters and start biting, but he didn’t want any nanomachines in his mouth, or any other kind of eldritch substances.
Ignoring the drive to bite, Kay snapped his armor into place around his body and pushed into the fray. The investigation team weren’t real fighters, but they had enough Combat Classes among them to hold their own. They were losing before backup arrived, but not so badly that they would have died if the guide bringing Kay here had taken longer. Flooding the area with blood would melt all of the enemies, and immediately deprive Alahna of the prisoner she’d asked for. Technically she’d requested samples, but Kay had no idea how many nanomachines needed to be present for whatever these beings actually were to count as “alive”. Even one nanomachine might be a prisoner and a sample at the same time. With his easiest option to win the battle sealed for now, Kay decided to go for melee, using his newfound Class to slice and dice the monsters closest to him.
He started with cutting off extremities. How small could a mass of nanomachines be reduced to before it no longer functioned in the same way, that was the question. If he could slice off a small enough part he could just take that as a sample and kill everything else. Kay’s first target was a humanoid shaped enemy with two large spiky balls in place of hands that was cornering a member of the investigation team. Kay stepped in close and sliced upward, severing one of the spike covered balls. It dropped to the ground and made a dent, but Kay was already battling with the monster. It immediately ignored the lesser threat and started throwing attacks Kay’s way, bobbing and weaving to avoid the edge of Kay’s weapons.
The investigation team member looked at something behind Kay in shock as he scrambled away and Kay jerked down, letting the severed weapon from a moment ago sail over him, dragged by a thin black cord toward the black figure’s torso. It looked the same at first glance, but a closer examination showed it was slightly smaller. There was also a small patch of black in the hole the weapon had left in the ground that was sizzling as it melted away. It wasn’t definitive, but it did seem that Kay might be able to take a sample if he cut a small enough piece off and kept it away from larger concentrations of nanomachines. He threw a telegraphed punch with the point of his punch dagger leading the way toward the main mass of the enemy. It stretched out, leaving a section of empty space that Kay’s arm passed right through.
Taking what it thought was an opportunity, the being closed the hole back in, enveloping Kay’s arm. Of course, that put a large amount of the substance the being should have been avoiding right inside it, exactly how Kay had planned. The sizzling and melting began immediately, but by then it was too late. A layer of blood flaked off of Kay’s armor and surrounded the monster, digging into it from the inside and the outside, leaving less than a handful of material outside the red bubble. It rapidly shrank, accompanied by violent thrashing and the sounds of eldritch nanomachines turning to dust. Kay reached down to grab the small bulbous orb of what was left of the monster when it suddenly grew spindly spider legs and started to run from him toward another of the eldritch monsters. Scowling, Kay sprayed it with a burst of blood before it could reach the safety of another monster and let it melt into nothing.
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Going to have to capture a whole one then. He thought to himself. Wait, no if I can cut off a medium piece and keep it away, then destroy the rest…
His internal monologue trailed off as he noticed the battlefield had grown quiet. He looked up to see everyone but Eleniah had stopped fighting, as the nanomachine beings had frozen. Few of them had heads and none of them had eyes, but Kay could feel them all staring at him. The frozen moment ended abruptly as Eleniah punched the one she’d been fighting hard enough to seemingly vaporize the top half of it, and the dozen remaining enemies leapt into motion. They started fusing into each other just as the ones in the ballroom had, but instead of making a big blob they made three different shapes. One looked like a double-sided centipede with a blender blade in place of mandibles, the second was a strange combination between a wolf and a bear with two bladed bulls horns coming from the head, and the last resembled a thick, blocky table with six legs and a set of missile launchers fused with the top.
The centipede dove down the big hole in the ground and out of sight immediately while the bear charged him and the table began scuttling over to a group of felled trees. The bear was on him within a second, lashing out independently with the horns, the fanged filled mouth, and each paw adorned with sharp claws all at once. The coordinated assault was enough to drive Kay back a few steps, but being willing to get into melee was a poor decision against him, at least for these enemies. He copied his strategy from a few seconds ago and let himself get hit. His armor took the blow without letting any of the damage get to him, and then his armor started to fight back, grabbing at the bear thing and stabbing into it with sharpened tendrils. It jerked back immediately and lashed out with blades that grew from its sides, removing the parts Kay had intruded into, but it was too late. The tendrils became spinning blades that tore apart the cut off chunks and threw themselves at the main body. The bear tried to fight back, but it was pointless. The blood under Kay’s control reduced the creature to a puddle that he then sprayed down and let melt like the other piece that had tried to escape earlier.
A sharpened spear of wood slammed into his chest and pierced deep enough to actually leave a decently large wound on him. Kay snarled at the injury and ripped the massive stake out of his chest. He tracked where it had come from to find the table shaped monster ripping up felled trees and tuning them into ammunition as it readied and entire fusillade of spears. Something about the sharpened bits of wood distantly screamed “danger” at Kay, like his instincts knew this could be the end of him, but something was also telling his instincts they were wrong. It was a strange feeling that made him want to destroy the table thing more than just being hurt by it did already. He readied a concentrated blast to wipe it off the map with, when Eleniah stopped him.
“Wait,” She said, grabbing his arm before he could unleash bloody death on the eldritch being. “Shouldn’t you test your collection of Purify Blood samples?” She punched out, destroying one of the giant stakes flying at them.
“… Yes, I should.” He pulled several of the jars out of his Inventory and started pelting the thing with the contents. The older the blood was the less effect it had, until the batch that was over a day old had no effect at all. “So the effect does fade. I hope Alice’s sword still works, because that means I could make permanent weapons even if I can’t leave bottles of power-up blood around for anyone to use.”
“Why didn’t you make one to test?”
“… I got distracted.”
“By what?”
“You asking me out.”
“Oh.”
Another burst of spears trying to impale him pissed Kay off again and he let out the blast he’d been holding back. The table was ripped apart and disintegrated just like the rest of them.
“Shit.”
“What?”
“I was supposed to try and get a sample.”
“Wasn’t there a third one? Where did it go?” Eleniah stepped to the edge of the hole and looked down. “It’s still here. It’s trying to do something with a big black ball of those nanomachines.”
Kay peered over the edge and saw the centipede trying to push parts of itself into a mass of nanomachines shaped like a perfect sphere, just as Eleniah had said. “Huh. That ball doesn’t seem to be moving, maybe we can get that as our sample?”
“I can go get it, no problems.”
“With the centipede thing down there, and without damaging the ball?”
“Oh, no, but there will be some of it left over to check out.”
Kay thought about it for a second, then shrugged. “Sure.”
Eleniah leapt into the air with a wide grin and dropped into the whole from as high as she could get. She impacted the ground with huge amounts of force as she smashed her fist into the centipede. It’s body was blasted outward by the power of her impact and was scattered along the walls as goo. The sphere cracked into pieces and Eleniah grabbed one of them before jumping back out of the hole.
“Anyone got a bag?” She asked, holding the broken fragment out away from her body.
One of the investigation team members managed to get over their shock and ran over with an empty satchel that Eleniah dropped the piece into. When her hand was empty Kay ran a layer of his blood over it, washing her skin to make sure no corruption remained from touching it.
“That tickles. Sample successfully acquired. Go ahead and get rid of that last one and let’s call it a day.”
Kay turned on the hoses and sprayed down the pit, covering the four distinct blobs of nanomachines that were recovering from their pulping in blood and destroying them before they could get away. It also destroyed what the rest of the remains of the ball.
“Before we go, which of you found this spot?” Kay asked.
A tall elven woman who was visibly recovering from the sudden fight stepped forward. “I did.”
“Are you one of the ones that can help us out if you have access to a sample of what you’re hunting?”
“I am, yes.”
Kay grabbed the piece back out of the bag, holding it in a blood gauntlet but not running Purify Blood. “If its not too much of an ask, can you go ahead and do a sweep to see if there’s any left near us? It’d be better for us to take care of any others we can find as soon as possible.”
The woman stared at the fragment uneasily, but nodded. Kay coated her hand in a red glove, leaving only the tip of one finger uncovered, which she said was all she needed to touch it with. She made an unhappy expression as she poked the sample. “That’s very uncomfortable.” She muttered. Her expression went blank and her eyes were vacant as she activated her Skill. Seconds passed, and then she turned suddenly, her shoulders and neck twisting so that she was looking almost the opposite direction. “There are small amounts of whatever this is spread out in a rough line leading in that direction, and at the end is a very large amount of it.” Her eyes widened. “There’s a lot of it, and it’s coming this way!”