Alistair stared at the team lists as the world faded into a white void.
> Wave 6: Armageddon
>
> Welcome the last part of the last Quest. During the initiation, you have grown together and fought together, now you will either evolve together or die together.
>
> Two teams of thirteen vie for the position of Global Mayor, the planetary lord of FX-14752. As the 5% condition was reached between the two highest individuals, the Contribution Score is voided and the Global Mayor shall be determined by the outcome of this wave.
>
> The twenty-six initiates shall be transported to a physical demiplane called “Eden,” the representation of a city not dissimilar from many in the Final Frontier Empire. They shall not leave until one team walks out victorious by killing every member of the enemy team or by completing the missions that will be delineated within Eden.
>
> For everyone else, be prepared to deal with a thousand-member elite squad of the Final Frontier Empire’s military. They will suppress themselves to your below your power and attempt to take over the world. Besides the massive cost of life if they are successful, losing will draw the ire of your own elites, who will be penalized for the weakness of their subordinates with heavy taxes.
>
> Let Armageddon begin!
His compartmentalized mind groked over the text for the sixth wave, but he couldn’t stop looking at the finalized list.
“Stop,” Alistair said. They all listened.
Alexandra furrowed her brow. “What’s wrong?”
“Look at the enemy team.” He pointed up. “Where’s Chameleon? They have five flesh golems, but no Chameleon.”
“Maybe he got left behind,” Blaise said. “They think they will win. Taxes are never fun.”
“Caren, explain Chameleon’s powers once more for me.”
Caren used one of the specialized glass wands that allowed him to show pre-downloaded imagery.
“Chameleon, the Fifth Devil King. Our only intel on what he looks like, if he is indeed a he, comes from Oracle’s memories within Alistair’s memories. Annalist’s Aid had trouble picking up the detail, but he should look like a half-metamorphosed chameleon-man if that is his true form.”
Caren showed a blurry yet grotesque image of Chameleon as Oracle remembered him.
“His shapeshifting abilities are second-to-none in the entire world. Sorry, Alistair, that’s about as much as we know for sure. Your memories didn’t have much about him, and all we know is that he infiltrated the United Polities undetected.”
“It’s a question of do we think it’s possible that he could bypass the Karmic Gel? And fool the Pathfinder AI.”
Oliver’s eyes widened in sudden realization of what Alistair was implying. “You think Chameleon is here, right now. Taking the place of someone on the team like in The Thing.”
Alistair shook his head. “It’s a suspicion.”
With that, the group of thirteen erupted. Their surroundings changed from the white void to what appeared to be a police interrogation room, but that could wait for now. The idea that there was a shapeshifted infiltrator among them was top priority.
Alistair felt uneasy as he came to the understanding that he did not know what to do. That simple fact was uncomfortable. There was nothing in the manual to prepare him for dealing with an undetectable traitor. Thankfully, Lucius stepped up.
Lucius was also the most suspect of everyone.
Alistair didn’t want to think of that possibility. Alfred and Bartholomew just got their father back. It would be a tragedy to lose him again. But the idea seeped into his mind and didn’t let go.
“I’ve just returned and I don’t know much about this Chameleon,” Lucius said. “However, we cannot sit still and discuss this forever. Look at the mission.”
> Armageddon Mission #1 of 5 (Team Northeast Order):
>
> Free Prisoner #1209 from maximum security lockup.
Lucius continued, “If they finish all the missions first, we could lose without even a fight. We’re either going to settle this Chameleon business now, and quickly, or put it to the side.”
“He’s right,” Alistair said. “William, what do you think?”
Alistair of course referred to his [Hypercalculative Induction], which allowed him to reach conclusions with the scantest of evidence. The slight man adjusted cosmetic sunglasses that, as far as Alistair knew, didn’t even have an enchantment.
“I don’t see it.” William pursed his lips. “Fuck, everything’s so cloudy. So many people and factors.”
Other than William sniffing things out, Alistair believed his own [Eyes of Truth] were the best detection mechanism. However, if Chameleon was truly able to bypass the Karmic Gel with his mimicry, then he doubted that [Eyes of Truth] would be enough. But he tried anyway.
As he expected, [Eyes of Truth] detected nothing. Lucius glowed brightly in the Karmic vision, but he always did that. No one looked wrong or off-putting.
The most annoying part was that standard infiltration measures were useless against a near-perfect mimic like Chameleon. Based on the report, he could take people’s memories and replicate abilities.
Marzhan knew better than most. “If he ever shows his face, I’ll sense it right away. I’ll never forget that bastard,” she said.
Alistair was fairly certain he couldn’t manage to copy something of greater power than him. There was balance in all things—if you wanted greater power than your station allocated, you had to take out an advance on something important to you.
From his estimation of the Devil Kings’ power levels, the safe targets were Pharaoh, Alexandra, Bartholomew, and possibly Lucius. Everyone else, he expected was weak enough the Fifth Devil King could copy them.
The sad part was, what could he do? He would have to observe them closely, but with no way to find Chameleon, hurting their progress on the missions wouldn’t do any good.
“Let’s table this for now,” Alistair ordered. “Don’t be paranoid, but be alert. If anyone does anything out of the ordinary, report it to me right away. With that in mind, because of potential for a spy, if you find anything important about the Devil Kings or the missions, please inform me before anyone else, and then I’ll determine what to do from there.”
“Keep it down in there, scum!” a voice called from behind the glass. “Prisoners aren’t allowed to fraternize.”
The sudden interruption called Alistair’s attention to his surroundings. The room they were in was small, barely fitting all thirteen people inside. There were no doors, no decorations, only a translucent navy blue glass that had a strange depth to it, like it went on forever. The only indication that they weren’t in some infinite chamber was a glass window that took up the majority of one of the walls.
The window showed a pitch black void, but when the voice spoke, the outer hinges of the window glowed white and Alistair could just make out the heavily shaded silhouette of a person.
Alistair put a hand to his lips and motioned for Caren to do his thing. The Chronicler installed his [Paper Tongue] slips, allowing them to communicate telepathically. The Skill had improved to work in a two mile radius from Caren, meaning that two people on the outer edges of his range could communicate through him over a four mile distance.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“Testing, testing,” Caren thought. Everyone gave a thumbs up. “We’re good.”
“What is this game the Pathfinder AI is making us do?” Brigid asked. “Freeing a prisoner is such a random ask.”
Alistair went over to the glass, feeling its integrity.
“Get the fuck away from the glass, prisoner!” the voice shouted. Alistair could make through some of the features of the man behind the glass. He had deep wrinkles and wore a huge ring around his neck.
Alistair felt right away upon touching the glass that it did not have enough spirituality to resist his ethereal body. If he used the Ghost Node to etheralize himself, he could slip through without issue.
Alistair issued a telepathic order. “Let me do my thing.”
Drinking of the Ghost Node, Alistair imbued Dao energy throughout his entire body, flooding every open meridian. He became detached from the causality of the world like all ghosts, fulfilling his preordained purpose.
Alistair’s ghost flew through the glass and through the man, turning back into the normal Alistair right away. The poor guard didn’t have a chance. Alistair applied a rear naked choke, and the guard was out within two seconds, though the golden ring made it a bit harder than usual.
Before his two buddies could even react, Alistair grabbed the two of them and slammed their heads into each other. The three guards formed a pile on the floor of what he considered to be a very strange-looking room.
To Alistair, it looked like a living machine. There was more of the strange glass that looked deeper than it was, on top of silver metal that slithered and contracted like it was alive. From the outside perspective, he could see everything inside of the cell perfectly. Dozens of sticky, organic-looking buttons lined the room.
Thankfully, the translation service within his soulcore covered the script underneath the buttons. He braved his fears and pressed the buttons, which squished with an uncomfortable juicy noise. One of the walls of the room trapping his allies disappeared soon after. Alistair breathed a sigh of relief when he could finally stop holding the buttons and wiped off the goo on the outfit of one of the guards.
“What is this place?” Alexandra said aloud, and he didn’t blame her.
Dozens of tunnels connected to the outside room in every direction. On the ceiling, below the floor. It was hard to say it was even a room, more like a node in an expansive network of branching tendrils. The one below the floor was blocked by the same kind of translucent glass, opened by one of the button combinations.
“Wake one of them up,” William said, pointing to the unconscious guards. “I can probe for information on the Prisoner #1209.”
Alistair pressed a new button combination, which caused a chair of the living metal to spike out of the ground. Alexandra, with more roughness than was necessary, hoisted the guard who yelled at them onto the chair, using her [Healing Current] to heal any damage to his brain and therefore wake him up.
The man sputtered around in his seat, eyes rolling to the back of his head before he finally woke up. He was a portly, middle-aged man with balding black hair in a comb over. If he was a real person, he was most likely at the level 60 bottleneck as a non-combat Class, and also in the last third of his life. Cultivators aged differently, experiencing the decline in a compressed period near the end, which was more or less compressed depending on one’s strength.
“Don’t look at them, look at me.” William stared into the man’s eyes. An [Eyes of Truth] revealed that his name was Eiyo Morozuki. “If you want to speak to them, you can do so in the afterlife.”
In that moment, William felt less like the carefree jokester that Alistair had come to know, and more like the frightening psychopath he had seen in [The Game of Life]. Alistair had always wondered if he was purposefully trying to reference Blood Meridian with that diatribe about war.
“I’m not afraid of death,” Eiyo managed bravely, trying to escape the chair. Bone restraints tightened around him, courtesy of Marzhan. “My eternal soul is under the protection of the Prime Thinker. If you want to claim me for a Hell, you will have to take it up with higher management.”
“Where is #Prisoner 1209?” William asked.
“Why should I tell you that?” The guard, initially having been taken off guard, seemed to calm down once William threatened to kill him. That wasn’t normally how things worked, but the guy put a lot of faith in the “Prime Thinker,” whoever that was.
“Is he up?” William asked. “Is he down, is he there, is he there, or is he there?”
With each direction, he pointed, and then used his hands to turn the guard’s head to where he was pointing. The guard resisted, but his neck muscles were no match for William’s Strength.
“You don’t fear death, but you are afraid of something,” William said. “If I torture you so much that your mind collapses, can this Prime Thinker still save you?”
“The Prime Thinker is more powerful than you can even imagine,” Eiyo spat, though Alistair thought he looked afraid. He smelt afraid.
[Monk Motionless] made Alistair move without thinking, grabbing William and throwing him back. Faster the the blink of an eye, Eiyo Morozuki imploded into metal, his organs erupting from the inside and then freezing in the air as a metal statue. A grotesque display of anatomy, a younger Alistair would have lost his lunch, but he had seen a lot by now.
“Thanks,” William said. “He hid that well.”
Alistair offered a hand, helping the Farsighter up. “Did you glean anything?”
“Sadly, he died before I could gain too much. My calculations indicate that the prisoner is either up or down. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Splitting up never worked in the movies, but this wasn’t a movie. There was no way for the infiltrator to act, with everyone keeping a close eye on each other. With their telepathy, as long as they didn’t drift too far apart, they could communicate perfectly.
“I’ll lead the up team,” Alistair said. “Pharaoh, you lead the down team. We’ll split up like this…”
----------------------------------------
Chameleon had worn this skin for far too long.
[Skinsteal Camouflage] wasn’t meant for long-term periods. He killed the poor human months ago at this point, stepping into their skin as George directed.
He had done so much for the Devil Kings. Stolen from the Hall of Math. Sabotaging any useful cultivation resources he found when he could. Most of all, he didn’t let his chosen identity fall behind.
Alistair was correct in assuming something was awry when Chameleon didn’t appear on the Devil Kings’ team list, but there was absolutely no way for him to figure out which of his compatriots was secretly a Devil King.
The months of wearing another human’s skin were not without their difficulties. For a complete infiltration, he needed to sacrifice his cultivation in order to take on every aspect of his target, from the Karmic history, to the memories, to the Skills.
After his failure in assassinating Sally Ryder and Marzhan Suleimenova, he would not let down his master again.
If it were a perfect world, he could have latched onto the pharaoh’s team. While Alistair couldn’t figure out who was the infiltrator, he still made Chameleon walk lightly whenever he looked into his eyes.
That man was almost as scary as the master. He looked like he knew things he shouldn’t. He had an aura of solidity and unending strength that made the Devil King think his schemes were hopeless.
But he had a greater faith in the master. Everything was going according to plan.
And as the only eligible bachelor among the Devil Kings, he hoped that once he proved his worth on his current mission, Morgana might look his way.
After all, who didn’t love a man with a tongue that could snatch flies out of the air?
----------------------------------------
> Armageddon Mission #1 (Team Cursed Lands):
>
> Find the terrorist within Broky Corp HQ before he blows up the city block.
George Moulin looked at those words and then at his crazy outfit.
He had a golden ring around his neck that didn’t seem to serve any useful purpose. Over his robes was a thin layer of metal shaped into a hanfu.
This was the case for all the Devil Kings. The two demonized beasts were given energized collars connected psychically to a baton he was carrying, while the system didn’t even bother with the five flesh golems.
Given their lack of other soldiers, Morgana had convinced him the best use of their slots were for the flesh golems. She absorbed them immediately by drawing sacrificial magical arrays underneath them, ascending to a level of power that could rival his own, to a certain extent.
“Those bodies are disgusting,” George noted. With the souls absorbed, the heaps of flesh were an inert mishmash of corpses.
“The officers don’t seem to mind,” Morgana said. “I’d say it’s a bargain that I could fit one hundred thousand souls per golem. Half a million ain’t bad, is it not?”
George looked at their “commanding officer.” Despite the flesh golems being right in front of him, he didn’t so much as lift a finger. When George asked him for information, all the man said was “find the terrorist, recruit,” and handed him a glowing disc (that was really a reskinned jade slip) displaying the terrorists hologram.
From their vantage point at the top of a skyscraper, George could view almost the entirety of the so-called Eden.
The cyberpunk city extended three miles in every direction, with their current location at the center. That wasn’t his arrogance speaking, but literally the threads of space broke down at after that distance, mixing silver strands of spacetime against a true void.
Thirty-six square miles made was larger than Manhattan, but it was a small space for the cultivators involved. The two teams could encounter each other at any time.
George took out the Legendary rarity item he won from being the first to complete the Grand Dungeon. The Divine Mirror.
The Divine Mirror appeared as a circular pane of glass. There was no frame or ornamentation, simply the piece of glass.
George stared at himself in the mirror. The spiky hair really was a ridiculous touch. No matter what he did, he couldn’t put down his hair’s volume, so it stuck straight up like he was a 90s playboy.
Then, his reflection shifted. It moved without him moving. The original and the reflection became more separated with every second, until they were twinned creations.
A hand breached the unknown world behind the mirror. Out came… another George.
Having served its ultimate purpose, the mirror shattered into a million pieces. That was to be expected. Despite the awesome power of the Divine Mirror, it still could not capture George’s true extent. However, the reflection was good enough.
“I live to serve, other me,” his reflection said, once he had fully escaped the confines of the mirror.
“Find them,” George ordered. “Kill as many as possible before you die.”
The other George smiled. “It is done.”