On Alistair’s side were most of the targets he deemed suspicious.
Marzhan, because he considered it possible that Chameleon had already succeeded in his assassination attempt. Brigid, because while she was very strong, he didn’t know her as well. William, since he was weaker. Same for Blaise. And finally, Lucius, for the odd manner of his return.
While he knew that Chameleon could steal people’s memories, and therefore imitate their personality. But he found it hard to believe he wouldn’t have noticed the changes in those that he knew well and so often.
By pressing the buttons in a certain configuration, they created a temporary reversal of gravity. The upward tunnel sucked them up until they were solidly within its confines, at which point the direction of gravity went inverse. They were pulled along the surface of the tunnel, so they could stand and walk in any orientation.
Alistair was about to mention the time they were stuck in a Herax Turtle’s insides, but he then realized that no one on his side was there at the time. Not even Dev’rox. That ragtag team of himself, his sister, Anthony, and the two Wood brothers left like a lifetime ago.
“Use the telepathy,” Alistair instructed. “I assume these tunnels connect the prison. We don’t want to alert the guards.”
Before they left, they stuffed the guards in the cells, including the statue of metal that was once poor Eiyo. If all the guards were installed with those bombs, they were going to have to be careful.
They moved through the tunnel as stealthily as they could. William tried to communicate the impressions he retrieved from [Hypercalculative Induction], but as always, there was a certain… difficulty in translating.
“The shiftiness in his eyes when I pointed him in a certain direction… 5% tilt upward and then a slight tremor in his leg, he was hiding something for sure, up or down, I don’t know, 65% upward, probably, and then from there, it was hard to discern anything more.”
Marzhan patted William on the back. “We definitely understood all of that.”
“Perhaps if we combine my Skill of manipulating Fate with William’s deductions,” Lucius butted in.
“Couldn’t we have done that before we split up?” Blaise asked.
Lucius pursed his lips. “I don’t trust everyone here.”
But he was the one to suggest we settle it now or functionally act like nothing has happened, Alistair thought. Does he have a read on who it is?
“You don’t trust us?” Brigid raised an eyebrow. “We shouldn’t trust you, considering the way you showed up last minute.”
“As Lucius said before, fighting does us no good.” Alistair broke up the argument before it could begin. “Lucius, will the combination work?”
“I believe so. But I’m afraid I’m running a bit low on funds.”
Alistair wasn’t sure if he fully believed him, but he could afford to be a little generous. “You’re in luck. I cashed out all my money from the Moneylender before coming. I’ve got 5.9 million drachma on hand.”
Alistair transferred a million drachma to Lucius. Right away, everyone around him could see thousands of Gold drachma melting and burning, creating a molten gold aura around the man. He went over to William and clasped his hand, the aura transferring over as well.
William’s eyes darted from left to right, observing the living steel of the tunnels. There was a rhythmic thumping to the slithering metal, which formed braids that crested and troughed. Then, he ran, laughing like a madman.
“Follow him!” Alistair ordered.
William wasn’t running very fast, so it was easy for them to keep up. They eventually came to a part of the tunnel where the braids constricted and thinned out. Alistair’s keen sense of smell revealed people below. William came to a halt and pointed down. “We’re close.”
The group of six were already cloaking their auras, so they shouldn’t have been detectable. The voices of guards beneath penetrated upward.
“They don’t pay us nearly enough for this shit,” a gruff voice said.
“You’re fucking right,” the other one said. “What’s our fucking luck that some distant ancestor of ours chose to stay on one of these shithole worlds?”
“Bro, fuck off,” the first one replied. “At least your parents can pay the release fee to the elders. Sucks that they don’t.”
“Oh, don’t you tease me like that, you fuckwad. You sure as shit know why they don’t. You just wanna hear me say my sister has more potential. Well, fuck you too.”
Alistair motioned to his crew, telling them to stay put telepathically. He took on the Ghost Node’s energies once more, passing through the cabled steel.
His presence was utterly imperceptible to those who didn’t have a fine-tuned aura sense or the ability to perceive souls. Alistair took in his surroundings. Unlike the interrogation room, the guards were walking in a larger chamber.
The hallway was dimply lit by infrared lamps attached to the doors on either side. There were dozens of doors, going down as far as the eye could see in both directions. Each metal door was spaced around two meters apart from the next, with a number carved in a maze-like script that Alistair could somehow understand. Those characters were familiar, apart from his understanding, reminding him of River’s bindings.
The ones closest to him read #1109, #1110, and #1111.
Bingo, Alistair thought. The braided tunnel ran along the ceiling of the hallway, so he had them follow him as he tiptoed like a poltergeist.
What Alistair presumed were the cell doors blocked out all energy. There wasn’t a peep of activity that they could detect. When he tried to penetrate one of them, the metal rebuffed him.
“Looks like it’s going to have to be explosive,” Alistair communicated to his team. The two guards went in the opposite direction, and the group of six went by undetected.
Once they reached the cell numbered #1209, after he gave the all clear for guards, Lucius pressed a combination of the squishy buttons, and a tear opened in the braided ceiling. They quietly descended from the ceiling, making sure to make as little noise as possible.
Cell #1209 was at the end of a compound, the only one where the door was orthogonal to the hallway. Alistair stared at the geometric etching that formed the meaning of the number. “Thoughts? No one here has a supreme lockpicking Skill?” he asked.
“No, sir,” William said.
“Nope,” Marzhan replied.
Brigid and Blaise shook their heads.
“Then I stand by my earlier statement. Stay back.”
With his team a safe distance away, Alistair took on the first form of the Zebra Stance. The most robust base undergirded the most devastating attack. With reaching level 60, all of his Skills had their Mana costs reduced by 15%, while simultaneously improving in the quantity of Mana by around 20%. With activation times down and his stats no longer capped, Alistair’s simple [Force Fist] was a terrifying force of nature.
Alistair used his martial forms to deliver one hundred percent of his body’s capabilities. A [Force Fist] as large an exercise ball crashed into the cell door.
To his surprise, the cell didn’t collapse. There was an imprint of a huge fist on the door, but only a few centimeters thick. Almost the moment his [Force Fist] touched the metal, all the lights atop the doors began flashing. A droning siren started, one so loud even Alistair’s ears hurt.
Alistair fired a continuous volley of [Force Fist] haymakers. The dent grew bigger and bigger until finally the chunk of metal flew backward. While it only took two seconds to break down, he already smelt guards in the far distance.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” a soft voice called.
Alistair glimpsed a dainty pair of hands clasping the broken door. The figure tossed it aside, making eye contact with him.
Prisoner #1209 was a woman with dark skin verging on black, softly glowing white veins visible over her body. A Trexian, Alistair remembered from his time on Faxor. Her accent was similar to Lang Aius’s, though not identical, sounding vaguely Eastern European, though that was all the artifice of his soulcore translation.
“You’re Prisoner 1209?” Alistair asked.
“In the flesh. Tarnz Auola Kristina, otherwise known as Prisoner 1209. You’re with the Resistance, I presume?”
“Let’s go with that,” Alistair said. “Do you know the way out of here?”
“Hells no,” Kristina said. “I thought you’d know. Weren’t you the ones to break in?”
“We’ll have to improvise.”
> Armageddon Mission #1 (Free Prisoner #1209 from maximum security lockup) complete.
>
> Armageddon Mission #2 (Team Northeast Order):
>
> Escape Eden Subterranean Prison with Tarnz Auola Kristina.
>
> This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
The second mission flashed in front of Alistair and the rest of his team. He checked in with Caren on the other side.
“I’ve found the prisoner,” Alistair thought. “Try to find an exit on your side. Whoever finds one first, we’ll pivot to their side, unless enough guards block our pathway.”
“Roger that.”
Alistair was starting to understand the scenario better. It was like a role-playing game. The people of the demiplane thought that they were members of “the Resistance” that were freeing one of their members from prison.
If we’re the Resistance, does that make the Devil Kings the Empire?
If they were freedom fighters, this woman that they found was no grunt. Kristina’s aura was incredibly condensed in a way quite familiar to Alistair. Whatever Class she had, he knew that she had to have the Dao of the Fist. Seeing his knowing look, she gave him a smile. “It will be a joy to see your fists in battle, comrade.”
As his teammates ascended back into the tunnel above the ceiling, Alistair activated [Frozen Claw], making a barrier blocking off the hallway. Marzhan added on top of the ice with a layer of bone. While someone at their level could deal with it easily, the guards would be hard-pressed to break through.
Alistair was the last one up into the tunnel, releasing the living metal. By the time he climbed up, an omnipresent voice spoke.
“ATTENTION EDEN! ATTENTION EDEN! THERE HAS BEEN A BREACH OF EDEN SUBTERRANEAN PRISON BY MEMBERS OF THE TERRORIST GROUP KNOWN AS THE RESISTANCE. ALL MEMBERS OF THE EDEN POLICE FORCE ARE REQUESTED TO INTERCEPT THE TERRORISTS, WHO HAVE FREED HIGH-PRIORITY RESISTANCE TERRORIST KNOWN AS TARNZ AUOLA KRISTINA. ALL MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC WITH ADEQUATE QUALIFICATIONS ENCOURAGED TO MAKE CITIZEN’S ARREST.”
The voice repeated multiple times as the sirens blazed. Since they knew they were subterranean, going up was their ticket out, though because of the orientation of the tunnel, it was difficult to figure out which was was which. William used [Hypercalculative Induction] to figure out clues, but even he took time. Time which they didn’t have.
They climbed up to a small enclave which presented two further upward tunnels. The room appeared to be a guard post, but it was empty, with one terminal showing a holographic projection of Kristina’s face.
Gravity pointed down instead of outward like before, letting all of them stand up together on the same plane.
“Shit,” Blaise swore as he toyed with the buttons. “Because of the lockdown, the buttons don’t work anymore. We can’t escape the tunnel like that.”
“They’ll be sending the androids soon,” Kristina warned. “They’re way tougher than the guards, except for the military ones.”
“William?” Alistair asked. “We need you, buddy.”
“My brain’s going to explode, okay?” William shot back. “There’s so little information to go off here.”
Marzhan’s dominion Skill allowed her to see from any bone that she left within a reasonable distance. She looked up at Alistair, grimacing. “They’ve sent something stronger. My bones got cut with lasers. And there’s some buff looking guys in like metal raincoats? It’s a bit fuzzy.”
“And that’s going to be the military police and the androids,” Kristina said.
“Fuck it, we’re choosing the left one,” Alistair ordered. “They’re only a few hundred feet behind.”
As they jumped up to the left tunnel, which reverted to the outward gravity, he got a message from Caren.
“We’ve made it back to where we started and are climbing up. Encountering powerful hostiles on the way.”
“If you think you’ve got the firepower, clear ‘em out,” Alistair shot back.
Alistair’s danger sense fluttered from above. He instinctively shot out a [Lightning of Justice], illuminating the dimly lit tunnel with a bolt of golden lightning.
Up above, dozens of robotic spiders shortcircuited, with many others losing limbs from the searing bolt. But wherever one fell, there were two more to take its place in a swarm of giant spiders. They were silver like the rest of the tunnel, with glowing red eyes that gave off artificial killing intent.
Kristina cracked her knuckles. “Leave it to me.”
In a burst movement similar to Alistair’s [Dash], she charged straight for the horde. A jet of air appeared behind her elbow as she winded up a punch. The telegraphed blow boomed in the air. It was the single fastest strike he had ever seen, surpassing his visual acuity.
She destroyed hundreds of spider robots in a single blow, but more importantly, the leftover effects of her Skill created a wind tunnel that blocked the remaining arachnids out. They took the opportunity to pass by, reaching a thin layer of the navy blue glass.
Alistair could smell the panicking people above. They had to be close to the base layer of the prison.
A scarlet column of light appeared behind them, out coming the other seven members of the team. Jesse was last, giving Alistair a wink.
They must have used Caren’s spatial mapping via [Paper Mind] to let Jesse teleport forward. But that’s at the cost of quite a bit of Mana… No one could deny how useful Jesse Waterfall was. He saved their asses multiple times in Capture the Beacon against the Devil Kings. Mass teleportation was one of the most broken abilities.
“Dangerous things below. Explain later,” Caren thought, pointing at the layer.
Say no more. Alistair and Kristina rose at the same time. She used her previous air jet behind the elbow move, while he delivered a [Force Fist].
peekThe glass shattered violently. Azure plasma beams rained down from every direction the moment they dared peak their heads above the ground. Time seemed to move in slow motion as Alistair perceived the incoming danger with [Monk Motionless].
Compared to his new partner’s sonic punch, they were in slow motion. Alistair felt like he had all the time in the world to react.
He scanned the setting. They appeared to on the base floor of a spacious lobby. There were two floors that he could see, with one spiral staircase in the middle of a crystal pond leading straight into the second floor. The second floor only occupied around half the first, with an open edge overlooking the first.
Dozens of men in black armor wielded futuristic assault rifles, each attached with a luminescent blue canister instead of a magazine. They lined the edge on the second floor and the first floor. Three-meter-tall automatons in the form of wooden puppets supported the riflemen, wielding laser swords of varying colors almost as tall as they were.
A red and gold automaton that looked more like an astronaut suit built like a brick shithouse stood near the entrance. Alistair could see daylight streaming through the glass only a few dozen meters away. That was all that stood between them and completing the second mission.
Fractals upon fractals flashed over the automaton’s face, where its mouth would have been had it been organic. These fractals formed similar patterns to what Alistair was confident in saying was the language of the Sublimed Machine, repeating pure information via fractal patterns that were reminiscent of the Mandelbrot set.
Alistair heard the voice concomitantly, with the visuals providing the same information.
“Give up Prisoner #1209 or die.”
Alistair preferred a third option.
On his word, the battlefield became chaos incarnate as his allies used their Skills.
Alexandra leaped forward for an [Armageddon Slash], trusting her Constitution to defend against the incoming plasma beams. Marzhan fired her arching arrows that dropped the seeds of a bone forest. Brigid used her cleaver to send hundreds of tomatoes, melting man and machine alike with the acidic juices.
Alistair [Dashed] forward, dodging everything with ease. His purpose was singular—take out the leader. [Eyes of Truth] revealed the name of the red and gold automaton.
> Name: SHD-1325
>
> Species: D-1000 Series Automaton Sublimed Machine Manufacturing 5.32e9
>
> Profession: Leadership Combatives [Primary Attribute(s): Strength and Constitution]
>
> Level: 70
Title: Warden of Eden Subterranean Prison
Most of that information was superfluous. Alistair was only expecting to get anything useful out of the Class line, which for this android was interestingly “Profession” instead. Whatever the case, even by seeing that he could glean the primary Attributes of SHD-1325 meant that he had a reasonably lower Intelligence than him.
For a slow and sturdy creature like the D-1000 Series Automaton, Alistair chose Infinite Arsenal as his state of choice. With his silver aura, he almost looked part-machine himself.
In his mind’s eye, he perceived the warden as a thick brick wall, unmoving but full of earth-shattering strength. Of all the innumerable weapons with his purview, he imagined himself as a sledgehammer. It didn’t matter how tough a wall was. A sledgehammer would always bring it down. It was only a matter of time.
But who needed time when you had speed?
0.83 seconds for victory, give or take 0.05, Alistair calculated. The possibilities lined up before him as he peered in to myriad threads of Fate with [Eyes of Karma]. He only spent the cursory 1 point of positive Karma, all that was required for such an opponent.
Space warped as two curved swords appeared in the warden’s thick hands. By the time they fulled formed, a plasma katana in the left and a nearly invisible wakazashi in the right, Alistair was almost within striking range.
An azure shield instantaneously formed once he breached a certain distance. But once you let Alistair get that close, you were in trouble.
A slice of the invisible short sword whizzed by Alistair’s head, and he grabbed the weapon with his teeth. Kind of. That was a slight exaggeration—he bit into the thick metal hand of the automaton and the hilt, not the actual blade. He wasn’t that crazy.
The one place that the forcefield didn’t protect was the warden’s weapons, which made sense. You didn’t want to blunt your blade. That left a tiny opening along the wrist for Alistair to bite into.
Alistair channeled his best Mad Brutus the Biter, chomping on that steel like it was his [Carmela’s Happy Pies]. SHD-1325 did its best to shake him off, but it must have realized through its AI combat system that if it tried to slice him off with the plasma katana, Alistair would let go and take its back.
It tried to throw him with its artificial might, but Dev’rox used his space affinity Mana to off-balance it, compressing the space in front of the machine. SHD-1325 fell forward, a rocket propulsion system opened from its chest and halted the descent.
Alistair used the opportunity to let go of his chomping and slide under the automaton and climb up its back.
SHD-1325 flipped the orientation of its hands with ease. Two perfectly form-fitting holes appeared within its chest cavity, where it stabbed its swords through. In a miraculous feat of engineering, the automaton was unharmed, though the swords missed their mark on the other side as Alistair contorted his body out of the way.
The forcefield bent as Alistair squeezed using all of his Strength. He hadn’t employed the ultimate technique of the Steel Body since his fight against Brutus. All his muscles became corded steel. The tensing of the Steel Body became an offensive strangle, an inescapable boa constrictor hold.
It didn’t matter that SHD-1325’s Strength exceeded Alistair’s own position once he got on the entity’s back. The forcefield shattered under the pressure. He squeezed and squeezed, deforming the automaton’s metal as unhealthy creaks could be heard by all those in the nearby vicinity, if they weren’t focused on their own fights.
Alistair finished the warden off with a series of [Force Fists] that looked like a blur of coral energy. He pounded the automaton into a hole in the ground, leaving the machine’s head looking like a car crash.
.89 seconds. Unacceptable and not within calculated par—Alistair left Infinite Arsenal. Thankfully, he didn’t dive so deep that exiting as fast he did caused any mental backlash.
Level up! You are now level 65. +4 Agility, +4 Intelligence, +4 Charisma, +4 free Attribute points, +31 Upgrade Points.
Alistair looked up as a streak of light crashed through the glass wall.
Wait, a second. he thought. Is that?
The blur of speed showed herself on the outside, the shards of glass littering the ground.
Kristina was out.
> Armageddon Mission #2 (Escape Eden Subterranean Prison with Tarnz Auola Kristina) complete.
>
> Armageddon Mission #3 (Team Northeast Order):
>
> Find the Utopic Bomb.
----------------------------------------
“There are three in one and one in three. Why should we help you kill the leader of the Resistance? We have no quarrel with either side. The ancient ones have lived through it all.”
George found the dank air of the catacombs distasteful, but he didn’t mention it. He was a guest within the abode of the target for his second mission. It was not wise to mention those sort of things when recruiting.
“It will be a great challenge,” George promised. “The leader of the Resistance will be aided by strong cultivators from distant lands. You might not be strong enough, in your current forms.”
The swamp throne emptied, its king rising to view George eye to eye. One of his incarnations stepped out, coalescing into a gray man with a crown of roses.
“You dare question us?” the gray man asked. Without a gap in perception, George went from at the center of the throne room to the very entrance, with the gray man at his throat.
A second incarnation of the underground king broke off, hiding in plain view. Even George couldn’t perceive him without knowing that he was there. “We are the greatest assassins in the history of Eden. There is no target we cannot kill.”
What remained was third “brother,” who held the Book of History in his palm. “We have never failed and never will fail.”
“I believe you,” George said, bowing to the tripartite being. “This will be your best quarry yet.”