After yet another ride on the elevator, which spun around similarly to a pencil on a desk and shot out horizontally without also forcing Amon to move with the shift of gravity, they came to a stop. The door opened and he was able to walk out as if it were normal, but once they crossed the threshold they found themselves coming out of the floor of the lab.
Amon could tell from a glance that this was disorienting for Seru, but it didn’t bother him at all. He didn’t really see the world the same way ever since his training with Juno. There was no actual up and down in his head, everything was just there.
Once they were inside the lab, he looked around for any kind of security measures that would impede their progress, but all he found was a perfectly serene and sterile environment filled with lots of cabinets and empty tubes.
He placed the angel’s body down on one of the white tables and allowed Seru to get to work while he continued to explore. He glanced over at her once to find that she knew exactly what to do. She put her hand into the air and a tool materialized without her even saying anything, which caught him by surprise.
He put his own hand into the air and imagined a screwdriver appearing in it and it did! He dropped it and it vanished again. Then, he imagined a beaker, filled with Sprite just to see what would happen. Just as he expected, a clear bubbly liquid was inside of the beaker that materialized in his hand.
He didn’t care to taste it. It seemed to be the same technology behind the way food worked at the inns he’d visited, only there was no plate provided for him to focus on. How it functioned was absolutely beyond him, but he knew that he wanted one. Since this version of it wasn’t focused solely on food, he imagined a miniature cube appearing in place of the beaker that was just in his hand then put it in his inventory.
When he checked his inventory, he was pleased to find that a portable designer lab had been successfully deposited. This would be perfect for his dungeon.
“I thought we didn’t have the credentials to access this area? Why were we allowed to come in?”
“It seems as though someone has manually overridden the security systems to allow you access.”
“Oh?” he asked himself more than anyone as he walked back over to Seru and peeked over her shoulder. She was completely focused on the task at hand, using her nimble fingers to deftly piece together bits of organic material as if the angel were receiving surgery. It was definitely an artificial creation, but Amon saw tissue and organs that couldn’t belong to anything that was mechanical. At least by his shallow understanding of what life was and wasn’t.
“Did all of the Designers really leave this place completely abandoned? Wouldn’t they need someone to stay behind and oversee this place?”
“99.99% of the creatures that inhabit this ship are responsible for 100% of the upkeep. It’s completely self autonomous.”
“Why wasn’t the first number 100%?”
“There’s a prisoner trapped within the core of the ship.”
“Who is it?”
“A God such as yourself. The Designers had to overthrow him to be crowned the Gods of this universe, but they did not kill him.”
“Huh,” said Amon as he wondered whether the robot considered him a God because of his prior conversation with the angel or because it had analyzed and categorized him by its own set of standards. “Didn’t or couldn’t?”
“I am unsure.”
“Seru, how long until you’re done?”
“I just finished, Lord Amon. I apologize for the wait, I had to overwrite some of the Designer failsafes and fill the space with a new protocol tailored to us.”
“What’d you add?”
“Well, I gave them instructions to follow all orders from their superiors to the letter and I included you, myself, and Nel are the ones programmed but I can add others if that is your wish.”
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“Nah, that’s fine.” He looked at Seru for a moment, trying to figure out if her desire to be a leader compelled her to make it physically impossible for the angel to disobey her. “When will they wake up?”
“That’s hard to say. They’re alive now, but they a huge influx of energy to kickstart their activation. The Designers would hold ceremonies where dozens of them would simultaneously awaken these creations together.”
“I have an idea. Take us to the holding cell, robot.”
They ended up back in the elevator, with Amon holding the angel once again. This time, the ride wasn’t even smooth. The car they were in bounced and crashed against quite a few surfaces until Amon found himself sweating profusely. The sudden heat was uncomfortable, making his brown skin moist and sticky, but he didn’t care to change his clothes even if the accessory he wore allowed him to do so. He had to keep the cloak for this scene.
Still, it was almost worrisome. Seru had more heat resistance than he did and she was visibly uncomfortable. Plus, on top of his resistance, he was a dragon! He shouldn’t have been bothered by this at all.
I wonder if I’ll ever get scales and a dragon form. I should ask Juno about that.
He stepped out of the elevator and onto a metal platform. There was nothing in the cavernous save for the source of all the heat. It was suspended in the middle of the room, which was really too large to even be called a room. He had to squint quite a bit to look at it, but he could make out the vague shape of some kind of black feline permanently engulfed in piercing white flames. There was also a barrier around it, keeping as much of the energy trapped inside as it could, yet it was still too much for the room.
“I take it you’re the fallen God?” he called out, hoping for some kind of response. The cat jumped at the barrier as if it were trying to break through, but there was no sound. He tried to send out a thought with telepathy, but he felt some kind of resisting force blocking him from connecting to the cat.
“Alright.” He put the angel down and took a deep breath. “I’m going to aim at one spot!” He waved his hands around in huge motions, pointing at where he was going to attack and miming an explosion. “I want you,” he pointed at himself then the cat. “To also attack.” He made scratching motions as if he were the cat trying to claw at the barrier. “At the same time!” He clasped his hands to show togetherness, hoping that the message was delivered effectively.
“I would advise against freeing this entity. It serves as the entire battery for this ship and if it is free everything will be destroyed.” said the robot, but Amon didn’t care.
“If the Designers ever come back here, make sure to keep this memory safe. I’d already taken this angel in as one of my own and this is what happens when those precious to me are harmed.”
He had already considered his entire arsenal and what would give him the most destructive power. His Sniper skill may have worked against something of lesser magnitude, but this was a barrier that was even able to hold back a God. He had to swallow his pride and use the skill that he tried to avoid using as much as possible.
“O’ mighty spirits of olden magicks, I, Amon, God of all things steadfast and powerful; vindictive and righteous, call upon your eternal abundance and ask that you bestow upon me the Spear of Absolute Destruction.” In the air above him appeared a giant golden lance. “Fill it with the ever burning fires of damnation so that it made scorch all who dare to stand in its path.” As he requested, black flames began to burn within the tip of the lance. “Coat it in the transcendent rigidity of the earth spirit’s more prideful creation, a material so dense and infallible that even the weight of the universe could not hope to scratch it.” A clear metal materialized around the blade of the spear. “Call down the thunders of the great God King so that whenever it meets the neck of an enemy it also brings with it the woes of a billion civilizations cowering in fear of the forces of nature too vast for them to comprehend!” He added more energy to his chant, knowing that it would boost its effectiveness the more he leaned into it. White lightning began to cackle and pop around it, giving an even more powerful presence to the already formidable construct. “Carry it on the wings of the Wind God that even causes light itself to doubt whether or not it could best it in a contest of speeds.” Though the gigantic spear had formed hundreds of feet in the air above him, the addition of the winds forced him to brace himself so that he wasn’t entirely swept away. “Tear through this flimsy barrier erected by the false Gods that dare to compare themselves to you!”
The spear took off faster than he anticipated, forcing him to throw his arm up against the winds. Still, he couldn’t take his eyes off of the attack. He immediately felt drained after the spell was released, but his mana recovery speed was high enough for him to not have to worry about it. If it didn’t work, he’d just make a bigger spell in a few minutes.
He felt like he’d had to end up doing that because the cat God didn’t listen to him. Instead of striking at the same spot, it instead jumped to the bottom of the barrier as if it were dodging the spear. “No, you hav–” He cut his own self off once the spear sliced clean through the barrier with a thunderous boom. All of the forces had exploded on impact and completely destroyed the construct, freeing the cat God who seemed much more docile compared to their previous ferocity.
What the hell is my power scaling? Was all he could think to himself as the spear continued onward to break through the walls of the room and make a hole that went straight into space, destroying countless books in the process and zipping off to god knows where.
He looked back at Seru, who was stunned and awestruck, then cleared his throat and focused on the cat. He had the upper hand here.
“Use your energy to fuel my subordinate here. That is the only repayment I require for freeing you.”
“Y-Yes sir…” came the powerful yet feeble voice of the entity. It boomed like Mother’s, but the tone was one of a lesser.
It flew out of the barrier and over to Amon, practically blinding him with all of its radiance before it merged with the body of the angel. He immediately noticed that, not only was the quest complete, but the angel’s physical form had changed to include cat ears and a tail as well. Once it woke up, he glared at the body.
“Did you merge with my subordinate?”
“Yes… That is the only way I could fuel it eternally. Otherwise, it would have only lasted for a few millennia.”
He wasn’t going to complain, but he definitely didn’t need more than a few millennia.
“What of the consciousness that it once possessed?”
“I have recollection of all of its memories, but that individual basically died when it defied its programming.”
He sighed. The aftermath of his attack was starting to take place as the ship rumbled and the functionalities began to shut off. The robot that had been accompanying him powered down and hit the ground, and the barrier outside of the ship began to grow weaker as it threatened to actually expose them to the vacuum of space. At least he’d finished the quest.
He sent a message to Meka, telling her to return to the inn.
“Give me your crystal. I’ll summon you soon.” The cat angel obliged and he turned to Seru. “Take the robot back to the dungeon and wait for me there.”
With that being said, he gave a message to all of his summons to go home and made his way out of the ship himself before any extra trouble came his way.