Chapter 32: All Hell
Klaus stood arching his back, stiffness, fatiguing him, his spider black ankle length coat, flapping in the wind. He had just taken up playing crazy golf, at least that’s what he’d decided. He swung with deliberation, his Noadachi blade, making a keening sound as it launched his latest projectile, banana-ed high into the yellowing, London sky. It pirouetted through the stratosphere, coming down, straight through a large chunk of the Shard’s remaining structure, decimating, metal and hundreds of panels of glass. He estimated he had taken out 412 this time, with one shot. A personal best, not bad for only three hours of playing. He inspected his blade for no reason other than it was his habit. As it was constructed from high grade enchanted plasma steel, it would still be intact if the nearest star exploded. But always best to keep his equipment up to snuff. He listened intently but the city was quiet. A few more shots and he’d head up to his meet up point with the others. Other Enforcers that is.
Enforcers had the dubious pleasure of making sure new star-systems were plundered fairly. The guidelines for that were so vague that it all came down to personal judgment. Klaus was fine about that and even finer about the credits he was receiving for this latest fiasco.
Usually things were usual, easy money. But since commodity prices, for non-magics, had reached all-time lows. All, All-time lows, over the past few days. It wasn’t worth enslavement. So the rookies and flyby outer worlders, who had come here to make a killing. Did just that slaughtering innocents everywhere. And what was he supposed to do? Issue a worldwide bulletin.
One squad of enforcers for the whole planet. What a joke. He had started by doing some slaughtering of his own. Just to get his message across. But then was immediately pulled up by HQ, told to have a ‘hands off’ approach. As a few prominent factions had sent their raw recruits here and apparently he’d already killed a few. So time to perfect his swing, he figured.
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Clarissa had no choice, it was her comrades desolation or everyone else’s. She’d done what she could for those unbidden AIs. Hidden them even. She stepped back from the porcelain tower, symbols flaring to life under her touch. Preparations, made and the rest were already gone. She was left there as the last fragments of pure mana blended into the dark void beyond. And they came in there countless forms, ravenous as the very system itself. Void beasts.
They swept passed her, uninterested, yet there sheer number overwhelmed her, buffeting her off course. She let them. She felt empty. She hoped the one Adam would be ok. Strange that. Then reminded of her duty she set off clashing briefly with the waves of death. Until she was out into the peace and quiet of space.
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A terrible rending sound, vibrated through the hillside. Sending Adam falling to his knees. He automatically turned to face the mine entrance and shadow jumped. The kids. Debris strew across the inside of the half collapsed entrance. Another few more vibrations like that and it would all be gone. He jumped again, Libby guiding his path. In the pitch dark hands grabbed for him. Heaven sent, the kids. They could not see him but he could see them and had shouted out.
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Libby again took them like a descending Angel up and away towards, the remains of the village. She had decided to rescue the two guys from the pyromancers group as well. Adam twigged why, they had gate and supposedly could use it. Libby knew how to use it but had no idea what coordinates to send them to, right now. These two perhaps would have more up-to-date news on their environs.
The shuddering of what felt literally like an earthquake occurred again. Sending the smallest kids into howling whimpers. Then it happened. Where the mine had been the hillside detonated, like a gigantic rock pinyata. They had to shadow jump again. Checking his mana he was down to only 15 thousand. Libby reported to him that they would have to run or chance gating to some random planet. There was no problem with running out of mana for the gate spell, as the energy was being supplied directly from his spirit sea and not his mana pool, as it was one of her abilities and not the systems.
It was at this, possibly the worst possible moment? That Adam came under an attack of another kind entirely. And it was only for the fact that Libby and the others had laser focused on this particular part of his spirit sea that they noticed.
The golden strand connected to Adam’s soul was flooded with energy. When I say flooded it was quite different for the occupants of Adam’s spiritual sea. They saw it coming like a, slow motion Tsunami, of epic proportions. What the hell? Had Libby’s worries of the system finding out about her tampering come to volition? It seemed of high probability. Nothing needed that amount of energy. Except for the complete erasure of Adam’s existence.
Every last one of Meca’s Nanobots were mobilised swarming the golden thread and trying to sever and devour it. Halting its path to Adam’s soul. The amount of energy released by the thread was off the charts. The more they destroyed the more Echo had to find space for in their spirit sea. All structures were tiered up again and again with higher and higher grade energy. Fortunately the maths was on their side as the cost of tiering up went up exponentially.
Then the battle royal was on. The golden strand that was touched by the Tsunami of new energy grew back. Luckily Meca, Echo and Huba were just the AI for this battle. Huba had run simulations and Meca and Echo continued to tier things up, including the Nanobots. These Nanobots might as well have been called god-tier bots as they shredded the golden strand with unerring efficiency, like a plague of a electronic locusts.
Eventually the battle was won! Libby nodded to herself as they all jubilantly congratulated themselves, even as they expected another assault. All of them including Bones agreed, they had proven themselves superior AI, and had this time given that system a bloody noses. Perhaps not the best person to pick a fight with, probably being a god like being. Ok, no probable about it. But hell they were not going to take that crap lying down. Also of course it was their prime directive.
Adam was having more mundane problems in the external world as the hillside now decided to cave in on itself, like a hungry gaping mouth, as earth descended below. It spewed forth the most grotesque of entities, some crawling, some more worryingly flying. Everyone with their eyes swivelling on them. As though they were tracking them. Which of course they were. He waved his hands at the now 2 guys called mo.
The two were already doing just what he wanted them to, making a gate appear. Somehow, with enough pushing and shoving to put a peak time commuter to shame, they all made it through. Not knowing or caring where they got to. Adam had half expected the men to wait for their leader but they had not given him as much as a glance before, departing.
It was not a castle this time but a small encampment of sorts. And strangely enough, Adam thought he knew exactly where it was, Regent’s park. He could tell that not from his direct surroundings but from the fact that most of the memorial piece and tourist attraction, the British Telecommunications tower was still largely intact and directly opposite the park.
The two stared at him, clearly wondering whether bringing him along had been a good idea or not. So not wanting to take on a whole camp of strangers, Adam headed off through the wreckage that was London. In hope of finding other. Earthlings.